 "Photo: Jenny Jimenez")
With the Austin City Limits Music Festival just around the corner, The Daily Texan examines the latest offerings from some of its performing artists.
Artist: What Made Milwaukee Famous
Album: Trying to Never Catch Up
Label: Barsuk
The reissue of What Made Milwaukee Famous' 2004 debut album offers four new songs, but the standout tracks are still the ones that propelled them to the top of the Austin A-list several years ago. Michael Kingcaid definitely shows a lot of growth in his songwriting on the new tunes, though musically the band seems to be trying out several different directions that haven't quite yet gelled.
Kingcaid handles the sways in vocals on "The Jeopardy of Contentment" excellently and the viola and cello give the song a dramatic feel to match. But at the same time, the song suspiciously echoes The Walkmen's "We've Been Had." Likewise, "Hopelist" seems overly indebted to Elliott Smith.
"Sweet Lady" may be the closest to the original tunes in its sound, and while it's a respectable burst of swinging summer pop, it is also the least interesting of the new material. The most surprising and rewarding song on the album is "Judas." Kingcaid's tone is darker and deeper, though still effortless, and the lightly fuzzed hum in the background of the plodding beat is all the more distressing when it finally drops away.
- Doug Freeman
Artist: Tom Petty
Album: Highway Companion
Label: American
Highway Companion is a welcome return to Petty's classic rock sound and restless ballads after 2002's disappointing corporate harangue The Last DJ. These songs are classic Petty, road-tunes with easy driving blues beats and classic riffs that have always played well to his dusted and nasal vocals.
Like Wildflowers, the album is able to express an almost adolescent recklessness and escape without seeming immature. Rather, Petty weaves those motifs of rebellion and open roads into a tapestry that seems purely American in its range.
Highway Companion could not be a more appropriate title for the album or for Petty himself. Songs such as "Night Driver" or the throbbing "Turn This Car Around" evoke the solitariness of the empty midnight road as Petty positions himself between escape and return. And the opening track, "Saving Grace," works a classic ZZ Top guitar into an anthem of endlessly "running down the dream" that continue to make Petty's works relatable to repeated generations of listeners.
3.5 out of 5 stars
--Doug Freeman
Artist: The Long Winters
Album: Putting the Days to Bed
Label: Barsuk
In The Long Winters' third full length, Putting the Days to Bed, it appears as if they do just that by giving up and regressing to the earlier stages of their Seattle roots. Gone is the unique hybrid sound born in the shadows of grunge and post-grunge, yet influenced heavily by main collaborators of the poppy Harvey Danger and Fountains of Wayne. The synth heavy tunes, quirky percussions and eloquent distortion are distant ghosts.
This is not to say that Days, is necessarily terrible. On the contrary, it is a solid effort at polished and redundant pop rock. Lyrically, frontman John Roderick still has a knack for cryptic lines that are heavy with imagery. On "Seven" he croons, "Did you see me the way I imagined / Every eyelash a picket or a wire?" Roderick's vocals though come off as forced and irritating rather than honest in their new foreign context. Obviously, it will have a wider market appeal, but those expecting the unique and bone chilling melodies that the Winters used to offer may have to wait a bit longer for spring.
2 out of 5 stars
--Amarah Ulghani
Artist: G. Love
Album: Lemonade
Label: Brushfire
Like the titular drink, G. Love's most recent album, Lemonade, is an entirely unobjectionable concoction, sweet and pleasantly refreshing on a hot summer afternoon, but eminently forgettable after consumption.
His seventh album finds G. Love and his regular bandmates in a collaborative mood, teaming the alternative hip-hop artist with an array of guest musicians running the gamut from Blackalicious to Jack Johnson to Tristan Pettyman. The result is a tightly-crafted and accessible piece of work that goes down smooth.
The soulful "Let the Music Play," with its layered and hypnotic texture, offers a tantalizing glimpse of the album that could have been, had G. Love strayed further from the pop aesthetic. When the overproduction is stripped away, as on "Still Hangin' Around," a straight blues song featuring solely vocals and a 12-string guitar, the results are impressive. But such jewels are few and far between on an album more concerned with approachability than authenticity.
For G. Love devotees and fans of the Jack Johnson set looking to expand their oeuvre beyond the anemic, Lemonade will hit the sweet spot.
2.5 out of 5 stars
--Patrick Caldwell
Artist: Stanton Moore
Album: 3
Label: Telarc
Stanton Moore is one of those few jazz-funk heads able to make a living. The all-world drummer who usually hits the skins for Galactic, the well-established acid jazz instrumental sextet, has once again taken the time to spearhead some jam sessions into a record.
3's songs are lengthy and, unless you share its acquired tastes, tiring. They generally settle on a groove early on and stick to it as a wide range of musicians (apparently some of the genre's most respected) take a ride on technically demanding solos. Moore lets his friends and colleagues shine on most of the record as his drumming firmly stays at the songs' center, driving tempos. Call it soulless funk for bad dancers, the man's technical skill will baffle and engulf you for a solid six to eight minutes.
3.5 out of 5 stars
-Ramon Ramirez
Artist: Sam Roberts
Album: Chemical City
Label: Universal International
Sam Roberts's fictional Chemical City is a land inhabited by layered, spacey vocals evoking The Byrd's "Turn, Turn, Turn," the blips and bleeps from OK Computer, and the occasional accordion.
Chemical City is a concept album about bearded thrift store rockers putting to wax their crooked ,yet grandiose ideas through throwback production and lots of drug intake. The sound is hypnotic and droning, yet the melodies are swirling, abundant and undeniable. Even when the instruments delve into ambient genres such as shoegaze, Robert's pitch-perfect classic rock howl knives through with puzzling lyrical hand grenades such as "I travel time and space in quick sand." His vocals explode all over this abstract canvas of Canadian rock.
4 out of 5 stars
Artist: Ben Kweller
Album: Ben Kweller
Label: Red Ink
Lyrically, Ben Kweller is a simplistic genius who can take sentences like "I just want to go for a morning walk" to jolting, cathartic levels. The young singer-songwriter has distinct, Texas twang vocals that are somber, optimistic, smart-mouthed and reflective at all times. He's a mini-Rivers Cuomo with indie rock credibility and a country-soaked sound full of introspective emo narratives and acoustic guitars. Kweller is the type of artist cool enough to improvise live songs about "Crocodile Mile" and pull them off.
Sadly, Ben Kweller, the album, fails to reach the bar Ben Kweller, the artist, set forth on his previous two releases. His piano now sounds like it belongs in a saloon (opposed to the pounding, Spoon-like chords that slopped all over his signature songs) and he almost never rocks out.
The record is consistent, well-written and features beautifully memorable moments like the elegant and lush "Nothing Happening." But rather than burst with emotion, listeners are treated to one of many out-of-place slide guitar solos. "Magic" likewise hints at big things, but Kweller's chorus softly dwells like a camera shy child. His album sounds nurtured and safe. It's perfectly digestible, but instead of the feast for the ears fans expected, it's merely an after-dinner mint.
2.5 out of 5 stars
-Ramon Ramirez
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