Audio Journal : 17/07/2010

Back at the end of June, Bret Easton Ellis posted on Twitter thus: 'High Violet by The National is the best record I've heard in a year. It's the only thing I've listened to on the Imperial Bedrooms tour.' Consequently, since reading that I haven't been able to disassociate the album from the latest novel by the former literature enfant terrible with this, the fifth LP from Brooklyn five-piece The National.



The mood of High Violet has been likened to the grey, rain-soaked tones of Joy Division. While their music does have an undeniably dense, dark-hued atmosphere, High Violet's aspirations are far wider than Ian Curtis's (ultimately terminal) negativity; a wider sonic palette also broadens the mood. It's closest cousin, to these ears, appears to be the Interpol of third album Our Love To Admire. My favourite tracks are the appropriately-named 'Sorrow' and the motorik 'Afraid Of Everyone', but the whole affair is gloriously bleak.

I've listened to this album repeatedly over the past month; I know it's not healthy to do so, as I found to my detriment with the aforementioned Our Love To Admire. 'Introspection must be sampled in small doses' should be the health warning on such albums. But it does also seem to suit the trademarked air of paranoid detachment of Imperial Bedrooms.

Throughout our holiday in Cornwall, one album that we kept falling back on – especially when the sun came out – was the self-titled début by The Drums; its shimmery surf-pop seemed the logical soundtrack, but I've already waxed lyrical about that LP and don't plan to do so again. The other recent purchase that got heavily played while we were away was the self-titled album by San Diego's The Soft Pack. The Californian four-piece were previously known as The Muslims, and not unsurprisingly were encouraged to change their name.

I'm not sure where to place this LP. No single style seems to prevail, but there is more than a passing resemblance to some of the punky archness of Jonathan Richman and his Modern Lovers, especially in the trio of faster-paced tracks – 'Pull Out', 'Parasite' and 'Faithman'. Those tracks also have a whiff of lo-fi producer Steve 'Big Black' Albini circa his derided (and band-separating) work with Rosa Mota. So, art-punk-grunge anyone? Well worth checking out.

For the journey down to Cornwall we bought some audio books for the kids rather than have them sat in front of DVDs. One of these was the Theodore Geisel – Dr. Seuss – classic Green Eggs And Ham, ably read by Adrian Edmondson, which had us all in stitches thanks to his comic voices and Seuss's rhymes. There's a line in an old Lunachicks song about that book, so I'll be heading loftward to dig that album out in due course.

Others: Kid Savant 'Drawn And Quartered' (electro-infused shoegazer pop, not unlike The XX); The XX 'Islands' (electro-infused shoegazer pop, not unlike Kid Savant); The Foals 'Miami' (like an Avalanches remix of Robert Smith jamming with Happy Mondays); Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse featuring Julian Casablancas 'Little Girl' (in which The Strokes front-man sings over a jangly imaginary soundtrack to a kidnap chase through smoky Parisian pavement cafés); Male Bonding 'Weird Feelings' (shouty grunge pop with Sixties flashes on Sub Pop); Crystal Fighters 'In The Summer' (imagine PWEI soundtracking Manga classic Akira).

It's good to be back.

Audio Journal : 28.06.2010

This was going to be about the Kings Of Leon concert we just went to at Hyde Park, but all I can say is the following, and I apologise for the lack of descriptive adjectives. Oh, and everyone was wearing a tedious uniform of either Bench or A&F / Hollister t-shirts and Ray Ban's.

The Features were great, and that band should be far more successful than they've been.

The Whigs were also great and we'll definitely be investigating their back catalogue.

The Drums, whose album I wrote about last week, were also great. I especially liked the way singer Jonathan Pierce disdainfully left the stage, flinging his mic away as he did so.

The Black Keys were, you guessed it, great. Effortlessly cool, the anguished drummer in this heavy fuzzed-up blues duo looks like he's in pain every time he hits a drum. He also looks a little like Philip Glass.

And Kings Of Leon were great too. The new songs were great. The Pixies cover was great. The old songs were great. 'Sex On Fire' was horrible, but the A&F / Hollister t-shirts and Ray Ban's-wearing fourth-album fans loved it.

So, in summary, it was great.

Audio Journal : 21/06/2010

I didn't want to like The Drums, I really didn't. The band, residents of trendy Brooklyn and forming part of the rich, unending seam of bands emerging thence, sounded to me like a pick 'n mix blend of the Eighties bands I remember. On the first two songs I heard – 'I Felt Stupid' and 'Best Friend' – I thought I heard a vocalist, Jonathan Pierce, doing a sterling Marc Almond impression while duetting with New Order's backing tapes. The prevalence of high bass melodies just made the New Order comparisons even more obvious. Why, I thought to myself, would I want to listen to this, when I could just dust down my Soft Cell and New Order CDs instead?

Then I saw them performing a version of 'Best Friend' on the insipid Friday Night With Jonathan Ross show, and they were all big quiffs, turn-ups and irony, Pierce's vocal setting being notched up to 'camp', and I thought they were taking the piss. Even the line 'You're my best friend / But then you died' seemed to lose some of its Morrissey-esque drama. And the band name? Surely a joke given that drums are the one element hardly prominent in their sound.

But the 'idea', or the concept of The Drums as a great band remained, not least because I tend to be a sucker for most NY-area bands. And so, when I found out they'd be supporting Kings Of Leon when we see them at Hyde Park next week, and with their début album just released, I thought I'd give them a second chance. I'm glad I did.

The Drums is a polished début (but then again, these days, all débuts are pretty well polished) and the poppy New Wave style is carried well across the album's thirteen tracks. Ignoring 'Best Friend', which, although a good song, is a bit too instant, the album is uniformly perfect; a perfect, summery vibe which can only come from the States – our dour British electro and post-punk indie bands rarely sound this joyous – and the mood only drops with the curiously Killers-esque ballad 'Down By The Water' (by way of a reminder, I don't like The Killers; sorry). 'We Tried' has a bassline just a few notes short of Joy Division's motorik 'Digital'. There's a song about surfing (ahem, 'Let's Go Surfing') which appears to include the lines 'Obama / I wanna go surfing' complete with Beach Boys-style harmonies, natch. There's songs about walking round New York ('I Need Fun In My Life') which will always get a thumbs up from me, and a plaintive, poppy, piece about mismatched expectations ('Book Of Stories'). As débuts go, its remarkably self-assured, straddling a sonic rawness with confident yet subtly-deployed electronic embellishments. And it may sound it, but it's not throwaway; beneath a sheen of apparent optimism, most songs seem to contain disappointment, self-doubt and negativity in spades.

Comparisons are the lowest form of review, and I should know because I do it all the time, but if you contrast The Drums with say, The Bravery – who also purportedly wore the Brit / synth influence with pride until they were rumbled as pretenders – they do seem a whole lot more authentic and earnest than some of the other bands emerging today. I stand wholly corrected.