Record #916: Braids – Euphoric Recall (2023)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “Change is the only constant in life.” He probably wasn’t talking about the artistic trajectory of musicians, but it’s certainly applicable. Every artist’s career is destined to change—whether by the continued growth of experimentation or the stagnation from repeating once-fresh formulas until they decay. And as artists change, their fans also change, and often in different directions. It seems to me that many fans usually follow an artist for three albums before they each move beyond one another.

I say this because I’ve loved Braids since their 2011 full-length Native Speaker, a delightful piece of energetic yet thoughtful art rock. I even emailed the group to get a digital copy of their debut EP which has since been scrubbed from the internet. While I eagerly anticipated the more ambient Flourish // Perish, devouring the singles and preordering the disc (it remains my favorite of theirs), I somehow missed Deep In the Iris until months after their release. So when a promo for Euphoric Recall came across my inbox, I was surprised to find that it was actually their fifth record, having released Shadow Offering in 2020.

But listening to Euphoric Recall, I was instantly reminded why I fell for the band in the first place. And not because they’re still putting out carbon copies of Native Speaker (they aren’t), but because the careful balance of experimental sonic craft and hooky songwriting is still a fertile field for the harvest.

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Record #915: Joe Baughman + the Righteous Few – Antichrist Complex (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’ve spent much of my life trying to fight the idea that the “local” in “local bands” is a polite way of saying “bad.” After all, if they were any good, wouldn’t they have graduated from being local bands, right? We all know the universe unilaterally reward talent with notoriety to a proportional degree, right? Obviously, we know that’s absurd, but the idea persists.

One of my most frequent rebuttals to this prejudice is my friend Joe Baughman and his backing band, that is most recently called The Righteous Few. Their performances, whether in a theater or a basement, have been filled with the sort of ambitious, freewheeling quirkiness that brought acts like Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens to prominence. While there’s no real substitute for seeing this costume-clad beastly collective in person, Antichrist Complex is the closest they’ve ever put to tape, complete with horn and string sections, instrument changes, and lyrics just as manic as the unpredictable swirl of folk rock, funk, and gospel bursting out of the band.

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Record #914: Janis Joplin – Pearl (1970)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’m not sure what foolishness is responsible for my never intentionally listening to Janis Joplin before now. I think probably, her legacy is so firmly entrenched in the annals of music history that I must have subliminally felt like I was familiar with her myself.

In fact, it was only a few weeks ago when my wife returned from a discount store with a $1 sealed copy of this record that I realized that she had escaped my attention. And within seconds of putting it on, I realized just how much I was missing. Pearl, recorded shortly before (and released shortly after) her tragic death, finds Joplin demonstrating every ounce of her skill as an arranger and vocalist, with the Full Tilt Boogie Band offering a fittingly electric accompaniment to That Voice.

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Record #913: Mount Eerie – Wind’s Poem (2009)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

May be an image of record playerMount Eerie is one of those bands that I’ve mostly known just by reputation. For years, I’ve heard the name of Phil Elverum’s project thrown around alongside acts like Bon Iver, The Antlers, Sun Kil Moon, and other songwriters offering emotional devastation to hushed instrumentation.

So when I heard Wind’s Poem playing over the speakers at Ignition Music in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Mount Eerie was pretty near the bottom of the list of names I expected to hear attached to the bursts of black metal noise I was hearing.

I bought it on the spot, and find more to love about this record every time I hear it. Continue reading →

Record #912: LLNN – Unmaker (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Sometimes, you just need some music that will crush you. Times like when you’ve been fighting a weird illness and are sitting at home in a fog of post-blood-draw fatigue as you wait to hear the results of your bloodwork. That’s a highly specific mood, and it’s hardly the only feeling that calls for demolitions-grade heavy music.

But whatever causes that mood to strikes, LLNN is just what the doctor ordered. Unmaker, the third album from the Copenhagen quartet, is a gut-wrenching bit of dark, sludgy metal so hefty that it should come with a lift warning.

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Record #911: Fotoform – Horizons (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As a music reviewer, my inbox is constantly bombarded with press packs. The unfortunate truth is that most of this goes ignored, buried amid the insurmountable pile of album streams and press releases.

But every once in a while, something will leap from the murky stream of promos and glisten like an iridescent marlin in the sun, catching my attention and holding it. A couple years ago, one of those records was Horizons, the sophomore record of Seattle’s Fotoform, a shining bit of post-punky shoegaze that’s as emotionally stirring as it is urgent.

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Record #910: The Cure – The Cure (2004)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Here’s the big wrinkle in my personal journey as a Cure fan. I’ve spent several of the last posts talking about how I’d mostly ignored the legendary group until recently, barring a few attempts to familiarize myself with their more celebrated records.

Except that I’ve owned a CD copy of their self-titled record since the mid 2000s. At one point, I even owned the maxi CD single for “alt.end,” which includes the excellent B-side “Why Can’t I Be Me?”

As many people have pointed out, though, this album is maybe the least representative thing they’ve put out, sticking out like a raucous sore thumb in their decidedly less noisy catalog, which makes the decision to christen it with their own name curious. But buried beneath the aggressive performances and in-your-face production is a collection of songs that showcase everything that makes the Cure the Cure.

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Record #909: The Cure – Seventeen Seconds (1980)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Everyone has to start somewhere. For the Cure, that somewhere was Three Imaginary Boys, a charming if inauspicious collection of Buzzcocks-y songs that was more Pablo Honey than Are You Experienced, even if they did sneak the world’s weirdest Jimi Hendrix song onto it. The release was largely ignored until the later single “Boys Don’t Cry,” after which their debut was rereleased with a different track listing that included that hit.

But then two important things happened. First, the Cure toured with labelmates and goth pioneers Siouxsie and the Banshees, for whom Robert Smith even filled in on guitar after their guitarist quit midtour.

Second, they added bassist Simon Gallup to the band. While bassists are often overlooked, Gallup brought a brooding drive to the band’s rhythm section that would go on to be a major part of the group’s sound, and was a big part of why this is the first record in the group’s catalog where the Cure starts to feel like the Cure™.

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Record #908: Jack M. Senff – Low Spirit (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’ll admit that I’ve had a hard time with Americana for the last several years. After Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, and the like sent me deep into my own folksy singer-songwriter phase in college, the deluge of Stop&Holler copycats flushed my system. Especially after getting into Krautrock, post-punk, post rock, metal, and various other less middle-of-the-road scenes, it felt like the limited frameworks of traditional singer-songwriter music didn’t have much to offer my limited attention.

But every once in a while, I’ll come upon a really great songwriter that makes me remember what the appeal of stripped sonic palettes and subdued performances were in the first place. Case in point, Jack M. Senff, who spent years playing in various loud and exciting projects before settling into his most natural form.

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Record #907: Jack M. Senff – These Northwood Blues (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Cure binge to clear out my extensive backlog (seriously, there’s still a MONO record waiting to be reviewed that I bought two years ago). And today, we revisit my friend Jack Senff with a look at These Northwood Blues, his second release under his given name.

His transition from emocore frontman to folk singer already seemed pretty realized with Boy Rex, but Good To Know You went so much further towards stripped, intimate songwriting that Boy Rex felt like indie rock. These Northwood Blues however takes it even further, adding earnest country western flavors into the space once occupied by bouncing lead guitar lines—and with brilliant results.

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