New Music: A review of this week’s CD releases

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This article was published 14/05/2011 (5616 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OKKERVIL RIVER / I am Very Far (Jagjaguwar)

ONE of the great things about celebrated Austin, Texas group Okkervil River is they have never been easy to sum up. Over the course of five albums, main songwriter Will Sheff and his band have teetered from indie-rock to folk and back, throwing in some oddballs twist, turns and concept albums along the way.

On album No. 6, their first release since 2008’s The Stand Ins (not including last year’s collaboration with Roky Erickson, True Love Cast Out All Evil ), the band remains as unpredictable as ever as they channel Jonathan Richman’s quirky pop on Rider; get grandiose a la Arcade Fire on album highlight White Shadow Waltz (a tense number which builds from minimal keyboard chords to a climatic explosion as more and more instruments are slowly added); are mournful on the sparse Hanging from a Hit; and serve up an odd single-person call and response on the Floydian The Rise.

Sheff produced the album and occasionally goes for a wall-of-sound approach, doubling up instruments and including as many as seven guitar parts on some tracks. The songs don’t always match his epic vision, though, and there is a feeling some melodies were sacrificed in favour of mood. But what a sound. Each listen offers up some subtle new nuance — a previously unheard instrument here, a hushed acoustic guitar strum there — that makes hitting repeat mandatory. 3-1/2 stars

— Rob Williams

 

THE CARS / Move Like This (Universal)

IF you don’t count the Ric Ocasek-less Cars 2006 “reunion” album It’s Alive! this is the former new wave champions’ first album since 1987.

The 10 songs build on what the Cars were doing at their best in the late ’70s rather than trying to stake out any new musical territory. Soon channels the moody vocal charms of the late Ben Orr and Sad Song sounds like it was ripped from their first album, yet the band neatly avoids leaning on their platinum-selling past too heavily. Hits Me pays homage to Devo with its robotic pop sheen, although it’s debatable which band influenced the other.

Whether the Cars stick together past this set is anyone’s guess, but for now let’s call this a move in the right direction. 3-1/2 stars

— Jeff Monk

 

SLOAN / The Double Cross (Yep Roc/Outside)

THE title of Sloan’s latest is a bit of an inside joke. See, it’s the quartet’s 20th anniversary, which, if rendered in Roman numerals, would be XX… a double cross.

The quartet — Chris Murphy, Jay Ferguson, Patrick Pentland and Andrew Scott — may be relatively long in the tooth, but the Toronto-based band’s 10th album is pretty frisky. The sound is set squarely in the SSRq70s, rife with organ washes, vocal harmonies and guitar riffage out the wazoo, with nods to the Ramones, Squeeze and British popsters of the era.

The use of close multi-tracked vocals sometimes makes it a bit tough to tell which member is singing, but there’s little doubt that Ferguson is behind the more twee tracks, including the lilting piano-pop number Beverly Terrace. Shadow of Love (Murphy, most likely) packs more power into two minutes of pop than seems possible. Traces is a loose, bluesy soul number that sounds like a lost Chuck Prophet track.

It isn’t a big departure from previous albums, but even at 20, Sloan makes it sound fresh. The band plays the Pyramid May 28. 4 stars

— Jill Wilson

 

SAM ROBERTS BAND / Collider (Universal)

CANUCK rocker Sam Roberts and his steady band have virtually created a mini musical industry for themselves re-creating SSRq70s rock clichés for a whole new generation. With Collider, Sam and Band again smack up against their influences, yet with a little creativity make it sound pretty cool.

Teaming with Chicago-based producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Red Red Meat) the band literally worked outside of their Montreal comfort zone allowing Deck to manipulate their sound, which includes the addition of Antibalas Afro-funk woodwind wizard Stuart Bogie. Opening track The Last Crusade sets the table for a wild and wonderful mix of creative rock songs full of dynamic mood shifts and unique arrangements. Roberts’ pop intentions are equalled by the band’s estimable chops and this album sets a new high water mark for the group and others working this side of the Canadian indie-rock dike. 4 stars

— Monk

 

FLEET FOXES / Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop)

HELPLESSNESS Blues is no carbon copy of the (mostly) bearded Seattle sextet’s 2008 self-titled debut. The moments of Brian Wilson-inspired pop and touches of Americana have been eradicated as the group fully embrace the laid-back sounds of 1960s folk forefathers like Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills and Nash, most notably on some of the most immediate tracks: Sim Sala Bim, Battery Kinzie and The Shrine/An Argument, an eight minute CSN-esque workout that sounds pleasantly pastoral until some skronking woodwinds destroy the serenity at the song’s climax.

The overall feeling is soft, warm and timeless as lush harmonies float out of the speakers backed by exotic instruments like hammer dulcimer, harmonium, Moog, water harp, Marxophone and Tibetan singing bowls. (Did you just think, “hippies?” Me too.)

“So now I am older,” frontman Robin Pecknold sings to open the album. He doesn’t say “better,” but he and the band definitely are. 4-1/2 stars

— Williams

 

THE LONELY ISLAND / Turtleneck and Chain (Universal)

AS long as there are pop stars with an absurdist streak, Andy Samberg and his buddies won’t run out of collaborators for Saturday Night Live digital shorts — or for Lonely Island albums. The Rihanna-assisted stickup caper Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie and Clyde— which, like many of these tracks, originated from SNL — is kind of pointless unless you can watch Samberg playing the skittish gangsta (which you can on the accompanying DVD), but most of these rap/R&B parodies rely less on sight gags.

Plenty of them rely on Beavis-level snickers, but the casting of smooth operator Akon on I Just Had Sex, a tribute to nerds’ post-coital ecstasy, is puerile genius. Too bad this wasn’t released a week ago, considering the inclusion of Motherlover, the Mother’s Day anthem for courteous degenerates. 3-1/2 stars

— Jordan Zivitz, Postmedia News

ELECTRONIC

ART DEPARTMENT / The Drawing Board (Crosstown Rebels)

ART Department is a new electronic act from Toronto scene veteran Kenny Glasgow and rising-star producer Jonny White that carefully bridges the gap between after-hours house and future-forward techno.

Their breakthrough single, Without You, captivated dance floors around the world last year and anticipation has been running high for their first full-length album. Built on a foundation of deep, ominous bass lines, deadpan vocals from Glasgow or guest contributor Seth Troxler, concise 4/4 percussion and even understated contemporary disco house elements, The Drawing Board is a raw, analogue synth-driven excursion into the night making allusions to both house music’s past and techno’s future.

The Drawing Board establishes Art Department as one of the most exciting acts in electronic music and it’s easily one of the best albums from Canadian dance producers in the last five years. 4 stars

— Anthony Augustine

 

JAZZ

ORRIN EVANS / Captain Black Big Band (Posi-Tone)

PIANIST Orrin Evans is a delight in small-group settings, such as with his trio or Tarbaby, say, and this big band of Philadelphia and New York players is a rough-and-ready treat of punchy musicianship and taut writing that creates a desire to be in the audience when the music was recorded live.

Evans doubles as pianist and director (there are two other pianists on the recording) and composed four of the seven tunes, including Captain Black, the best of the bunch.

The band is filled with great players and the album features some fine solos, such as Jaleel Shaw’s blistering alto saxophone spot on Jena 6, but it is primarily a co-operative effort rather than a showcase for individual musicians. It is hard-hitting music that leans more to a pugnacious Charles Mingus (Evans’s Big Jimmy) than a Duke Ellington suite. 4 stars

— Chris Smith

 

CLASSICAL

DIANA DAMRAU, MUNICH PHILHARMONIC, CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN / Richard Strauss: Orchestral Songs (Virgin Classics)

RICHARD Strauss wrote songs throughout his life, taking a hiatus from time to time to concentrate on his operas. Strauss’ temperamental wife, Pauline, was a formidable singer and the two performed together around the year 1900. She also served as inspiration for many of the songs. About 40 were orchestrated and this collection of 22 contains the best known ones outside of Strauss’ valedictory Four Last Songs.

The six songs of Brentano-Lieder aren’t really a cycle but entrancing in a more individual sense. Soprano Diana Damrau splits them up over the set and they are wonderfully done. The coloratura in Amor is quite dazzling, with much insight and vocal aplomb in the others. Allerseelen, Morgen, Ständchen and Zueignung are here, too, and all are partnered with much care from Thielemann and his players.

These songs have fared well on disc and this set ranks among the best. 4-1/2 stars

— James Manishen