Reviews

Record #227: Foals – Holy Fires (2013)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

You would be forgiven for dismissing Foals if your only exposure to this album is the single My Number. It’s fun, catchy, and not too terribly distinct from any of the other dancy post-punk revival tracks to be released in the past ten years from Bloc Party, Two Door Cinema Club, Phoenix and the rest of their ilk. Palm muted guitar lines play against ragged start-stop chord hits over a tight snare beat and background “woo-oo-oo”s. Although there are some nice atsmopherics on the lead guitar in certain sections.

Nice single, but the rest of the album probably isn’t much to write home about.

“Not so!” says Bad Habit, the second single, which trades club-calling and dance beats for spiritual introspection and pleas for forgiveness. Continue reading →

Record #226: James Taylor – …and the Original Flying Machine (1966, 1971)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Before James Taylor found widespread success with 1970’s Sweet Baby James (one of my favorite singer-songwriter albums ever), he was in a struggling band called The Flying Machine. The Flying Machine recorded seven songs in 1967, which they felt was only demo quality. Night Owl and Brighten Your Night with My Day were released as a double-sided single, which failed to gain traction, and they decided not to pursue a full length album. However, when Taylor’s breakthrough created the demand for it, Euphoria Records released the sessions as a quick cash in on his sudden popularity (to the chagrin of the other band members, who saw it for the cashgrab it was).

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Record #224: James Blake – James Blake (2011)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It is my understanding that the term “dubstep” means different things depending on what side of the Atlantic you’re on. Stateside, it means the sort of bro-friendly, attention deficient, robot-sex music that’s made its way into car commercials and cheap summer movie soundtracks. In Britian, however, dubstep is a little more subtle–shifting textures over time, setting grooves and resting in them, forming a subset of electronic music much more suited for a late night drive than a trailer for the new Transformers movie.

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Record #223: Jackson 5 – ABC (1970)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It is not difficult to argue that the Jackson 5 were a novelty act. But it’s almost impossible to dismiss them as a such. Sure, the lead single’s target audience doesn’t seem to be much older than Michael’s own twelve years, and yeah, all of their originals (four of the twelve tracks) were written by a Motown Records production team dubbed The Corporation (not very punk rock) that was tailor made to write songs for the Jackson 5, but I defy anyone to tell me that they weren’t some of the best performers the world has ever seen.

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Record #220: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Deja Vu (1970)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Neil Young is not exactly the most neutral person in the world. His discography is filled with jagged guitar solos, caustic finger pointing, lawsuit-causing genre jumps, and a fierce artistic integrity. Even among his listeners, there is no middle ground. Those who love him love him fiercely and without apology. Everyone else can’t stand him.

So anyone who thought tossing him into Crosby, Stills & Nash would keep the boat from tipping doesn’t know who they’re dealing with.

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