I’m a notorious needle-dropper. I skip through albums like some people click through the ‘recently added’ section on Netflix. But every now and then an album grabs me and I find myself listening all the way through, taking more from each song with every listen, or sometimes just transfixed by the order of the tunes themselves. When I run across material like that it’s time to repair to the listening room and give the albums in question some serious attention. Today’s listening room selections are new releases from Mike Pace and Child Actors and Aaron Lee Tasjan.
Forget what you’ve heard from this performer – get ready for something new. With sound like a distilled retro 1980s poprock playlist, the energy on Mike Pace and the Child Actors’ new release Smooth Sailing is seemingly irrepressible, akin to Bleachers’ great debut Strange Desire in its ability to take sonic elements from decades past and make them into something new. This is well illustrated on the opening track, “Everyone Out of the Car” which squeezes just about every ounce of 1983-era indie into one propulsive number, or “Senior Statesman” which injects a little melodic 1980s Springsteen into the mix. This album has highlights galore. “Blaster” kicks off with hit single written all over it and never lets up. “Disconnected Heart” captures the tender acoustic Big Star sound while “Troubleshooting” swings like Joni Mitchell at full volume. Back catalogue honourable mention – don’t miss out on Mike Pace’s previous band, Oxford Collapse, particularly the infectious “In Your Volcano.” Actually, you can’t far wrong with anything stamped ‘Mike Pace’ somewhere.
Aaron Lee Tasjan makes it look so easy. His songs lope along, seemingly straightforward, and then – bang – some ever so simple change up reels you in. Karma for Cheap has a classic easygoing rock and roll combo sound, a bit of Beatles’ Abbey Road guitar here, some classic early 1980s poprock background vocals there. But it all comes down the songwriting. As I listened to the record I kept saying, ‘damn, this is best song!’ Until the next one came along. “If Not Now When” kicks things off with a great stretched guitar sound and pumping piano, “The Truth is So Hard to Believe” sounds like a great lost outtake from The White Album, while “The Rest is Yet to Come” has a super poppy blues feel. But nothing really prepares you for the subtle brilliance of “Heart Slows Down,” the obvious single. Oh, it starts ordinarily enough. But at the 35 second mark something starts happening that leads right to the killer chorus and before you know it you’ve hit replay five times. Those great back up vocals! So simple, so seductive. Then “End of the Day” (which could easily be mistaken for a Tom Petty single) does it again with an innocuous start that hits the fast lane in the chorus as the background vocals and driving lead guitar line combine into radio-friendly, hit single bliss. But Tasjan’s not done with us yet. On “Strange Shadows” he is the spot on reincarnation of Roy Orbison while “Set You Free” lets loose some fine jangle guitar and solid stadium-size poprock hooks. There are other songs I haven’t mentioned but I don’t want to seem obsessed.
Mike Pace and the Child Actors and Aaron Lee Tasjan have produced two must-have albums for your collection. And you can have them. Cick on over to Bandcamp now.
There are songs that immediately bring a smile to your face, put a skip in your step, and have you hitting the replay button again and again. They channel a happy place that takes you out of wherever you are or makes the place you are just a bit more multi-chromatic. Los Angeles’ Sure Sure has this down pat with their goose-bump inducing single “Giants.” It starts sparse with some hooky acoustic guitar strumming and builds with what sound like toy piano keyboards, crystalline harmony vocals, and a great shuffling rhythm. It’s a wind blowing in your hair, strolling down the beach boardwalk, you’re starring in the video moment! And then there’s the fresh and cheeky breeziness of Liverpool’s Zuzu. From her breakout single “Get Off” the gal who lathers her singing with a healthy dollop of Scouse accent has exuded total fun. An EP of solid tunes – Made on Earth by Humans– emerged last summer, including two versions of the exquisite “Beauty Queen.” The song features a mother’s advice to her daughter to just ‘stay inside and you’ll be fine’ because ‘you’ve no chance, you can’t sing and you can’t dance.’ Zuzu sings ‘no way,’ not surprisingly and let’s loose a killer catchy chorus at the song’s 40 second mark. Personally, I prefer the acoustic version where the shift between verse and chorus is more dramatic and hooky.
Dave Rave is a Canadian musical institution. There at the beginning of the country’s own punk awakening in the late 1970s, leading man in Hamilton’s new wave Shakers, and key to the second round of success for Teenage Head in the mid-1980s. But unlike many other CanCon veterans of that era, he’s refuses to rest on his laurels just churning out nostalgia. Indeed, the past seven years have seen the release of five solid poprock albums and an EP, as well as other more jazzy and/or folkie single and albums.
All the essential elements are in evidence on the remarkable, chock full of should-be hits, 2011 release Live With What You Know. It’s got the tempo changes of a great McCartney album, switching from the melodic rocking of “Anne-Marie” and “Rain Song” to the more mellow acoustic-inflected “You’re Going to London” and “Rows and Rows.” Great songs are in abundance here but I have to single out exquisite low key hooks embedded in “One of Kind” and “All of the Love You Can Handle.”
From there it’s a poprock odyssey over the next few albums, as Rave continues demonstrate his impressive songwriting chops with some killer bands. 2014’s Ashtray Makeup takes the formula in a more straight-up rocking direction but still leaning strong on melody, as is clear from opening track “St Paul” and the Lou Reed-ish “Here She Comes.” 2015’s Sweet American Music is another winner, particularly the melodically discordant “Pullman, Washington” and the Nick Lowe-ish “You Take What’s Yours.” 2016’s Radio Rave channels a very Canadian Merseybeat vibe on the wonderful “Love” or mid-1960s Americana of “Slow.” I love shimmering guitar lines on “Satellite Treason” and the little bit country, little bit rock and roll sound of “Not Right Now” from the 2017 EP Indicator. Not letting up, Rave returned just months ago with All Night Raves. Here I would single out the jangly “Don’t Be Scared” and the early Joe Jackson sound of “Life of a Superstar.”
Stumbled across this just-released-today album from Santa Cruz’ Henry Chadwick on Apple’s new rock album feed and it is freakin’ fantastic! Marlin Fisher is the new full length follow up to Chadwick’s 2016 EP Guest at Home, which was also pretty special. Why is Henry Chadwick my new instant fave artist? Because the tunes on this album fall into this blog’s sweet spot: melodic, swinging, loaded with hooks, with just the right dash of rock and roll indie edge.
Summer’s nearly over and ‘back to school’ signs beckon but one thing that won’t be in this fall’s lesson plan: heartbreak. Yep, that’s right. Life’s hardest lessons won’t be on the midterm. Now, in the event you skipped class, it was all covered on 
With apologies to Mick Ronson, today’s post focuses on a dynamic new release from a guy who hit it out of the park with a long player that came out only last year. Michael Slawter’s 2017 release of An Assassination of Someone You Knew rightfully made a host of year-end ‘best of’ lists. Now he’s back with Last Call for Breaking Hearts and it is another tour de force. Previous comparisons mentioned Mitch Easter and the DBs, but this time around I hear a more straight up pop rock sound that sometimes sounds very crunchy-guitar, reverby vocals a la Matthew Sweet, or late period Marshall Crenshaw in terms of the guitar mix, or Michael Carpenter on the whole package.
Musical gods of summer, you have heard our pleas! We have need of sunshine melodies and cool hooks to accompany our unrealistic seasonal aspirations and you have answered our prayers with new albums from some reliable sources. Get the bottle opener and air pump ready!
American-French duo Freedom Fry are no one thing. Their range runs the gamut of neo-cabaret to low-key dance numbers, with a whole lot in between. They’ve mostly put out original singles and EPs along with some inspired covers since 2011. But now comes their first long player, Classic, and it’s aptly named. Gone are the syncopated beats of last year’s Strange Attraction in favour of a more stripped down, acoustic sound e.g. banjos, dreadnought 6 strings, with just a touch of spaghetti western a la Ennio Morricone. You can really hear the western lilt on tracks like “For You,” “Cold Blooded Heart” and especially on the sunny “Past Lives” with it’s haunting whistling. Freedom Fry channel a kind of happy-go-lucky, feel good disposition on a lot of their tunes, even when the subject matter is dark. Kinda like riding a bike by the ocean on a sunny day. Feel that breeze on tracks like “Awake” and “Ticking.” This is a predictably solid debut album from a band that’s been single-teasing us for years!
Just six months after the release of his stunning debut, T-T-T-Technicolour Melodies, Paul Ryan aka Super 8 is back with another solid 1960s-infused musical rumination on life, love and politics with his new record, Turn Around Or …There is a late 1960s Kinks and Stones-like quality to the recordings here, both in terms of social commentary and the easygoing acoustic-but-still-rocky vibe to the whole album. “Hey Mr. Policeman” and “Be Careful What You Say” update 1960s social criticism for the new millennium while “Smile” and “Turn Around Or” exude that 1960s endless summer. I love the harmonica blasts on “You Say You’re Leaving” and the rockier “Calling Out.” Ryan changes up the pacing with “Never Had a Love,” which reminds me of McCartney’s forays into older musical forms. But the highlights here for me are the subtle, building hooks on the Jayhawks-reminiscent “Mary Jane” and the obvious single, “Your Love is my Blanket.” Nice cover of fellow Scots BMX Bandits great tune, “Serious Drugs.” Turn Around Or …is a sixties-vibing, easygoing summer party album, and it has arrived just in time.
Every now and again a band comes along that writes great tunes and performs them in an ever so pleasing poprock way but also has something important to say. Really important, in fact. That is The Spook School. The Glaswegian foursome’s early recordings were favourably compared to the Buzzcocks with their general demeanor of punky urgency but quickly established that they were their own musically distinctive entity. The Spook School are all about gender identity and the many ways it shapes and is shaped by what people do. Their music and lyrics capture the confusion, heartbreak, loneliness and danger that accompanies anyone who is gender non-comforming. I challenge anyone to listen to the band’s recorded output and remain indifferent to the aching, tender, and angry insights they have to offer. And they are kick ass songwriters, with a quirky, delightful approach to re-inventing 1970s and 1980s rock and roll.
The debut album, 2013’s Dress Up, has all the band’s key themes on display: chugging rhythm guitars, searching lyrics, and hearts on sleeves, particularly on tracks like “Are You Who You Think You Are?” “I Don’t Know” and “History” with its great rock lead line. 2015’s Try to Be Hopeful takes this formula forward with “Burn Masculinity” and “Try to be Hopeful” but also offers up more single-ish material like “Speak When You’re Spoken To” and the wonderfully celebratory “I Want to Kiss You.” Continental Drift is a compilation from 2016 with two great contributions from The Spook School, the deliriously frantic “Sometimes I Hide From Everybody” and the hooky “Gone Home.”
But nothing could prepare fans for 2018’s Could It Be Different?, an album that roils with explosive intensity and a powerful sense of confidence. The Spook School kick out the gender jams on this release. The tone is set with the opening track, “Still Alive,” as the singer lets loose with “Fuck you, I’m still alive,” surely the most clear statement any oppressed group can make. From there the album is a tour de force, a major statement about being different and how hard that is. The killer tracks are just about everything: “Best of Intentions,” “Bad Year,” “Alright (Sometimes),” “I Hope She Loves You,” and “While You Were Sleeping” with its great lead guitar opener. This record is a top ten for the year, no doubt.
At a glance Hamburg’s The Catherines appear to be the bastard child of The Smiths and The Magnetic Fields with their jangly guitars, parade of gorgeous 1960s diva single covers, and outrageously long and involved song titles. But that is just scraping the surface – there really is so much more. Yes, track titles like “Is Your Bigmouth Girlfriend Really So Charming” obviously vibe Morrissey but this band takes things further. Much further. Into the hilarious and absurd. I love how over the top things get with “If You Come Back You’ll Know What’s in the Fridge” and “Yes You’re Beautiful to Look at but So Ugly Inside.” Still, things live or die on the quality of the tunes and they are excellent. 
Excuse me, I’m having a D.A. Stern moment here. Sometimes when you’re clicking through hundreds of new tunes by all manner of artists something just jumps out as strikingly original and different, just a bit off the poprock beaten track. That would be the new album from D.A. Stern, Aloha Hola. Oh, all the usual influences appear –the Beatles, Beach Boys, 1970s mannered radio pop, 1990s indie, etc. But you get a sense from the execution here that Stern’s endearingly oddball personality makes all those influences different, without necessarily becoming eccentric. The album opens with some nice trippy pop numbers – “Am I Ever On Your Mind?” and “Bluegenes” – with ever so shoegazey vocals. But then Stern shakes things up with tracks like “In Pain” and “When I Said That You Were Right” that draw on different song forms and add more weight to the vocals. For instance, “When I Said There You Were Right” has a great Rubber Soul-era Beatles acoustic shuffle, artfully laying a load of bitter lyrics over a bed of musical pleasantness. “Spirit of New York” changes things up again with sunshiny pop quality that says single to me. There are other moments where Stern really does channel a lovely Teenage Fanclub vibe, like on “Miami” and “Isn’t It Obvious?” the latter from a maxi-single released a month after (and not included on) the album.
Poprock Record 