I’ve sat staring at the blinking cursor for about twelve minutes trying to decide how to start this post off. Because what can you say about Grace?
indie rock
Record #229: Built To Spill – Keep It Like A Secret (1998)
As a snot nosed fourteen year old, I had a discman with the Ataris’ End is Forever album set to “repeat all.”
On this album was the song “Mixtape,” which featured the lyric, “there was Jawbreaker and Armchair Martian / Built to Spill and the Descendants.” Amazing as it may seem, through my years of trolling through CDs thank you notes to find new bands, this litany somehow escaped me until recently.
Hipster music junkie that I am, I somehow didn’t listen to Built to Spill until just this summer (and I still haven’t spent much time with Jawbreaker).
And the loss was all mine.
Years I have wasted, unaware of some of the most blissful guitar rock ever churned out by three human beings with recording equipment. Decades spent deaf to the sweet melodies of “Carry the Zero,” the max-capacity riffs of “The Plan,” the gentle softness of “Else,” the classic rock homage that is “You Were Right.” Years of my life spent depriving myself of the biggest guitars and sing alongiest pop songs 90s indie rock had to offer.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to send a note saying “BUILT TO SPILL” back in time to 9th grade me.
Record #227: Foals – Holy Fires (2013)
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 #222: Islands – Return to the Sea (2006)
It might be important to know about the Unicorns to fully appreciate Islands (pretty much the same band). But then again, it might not. While the Unicorns’ Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? was a masterpiece of childish lo-fi indie pop rife with cheap keyboards and drum machines, Return to the Sea is much grander in scope.
Record #210: Interpol – Antics (2004)
Interpol made one of the truly greatest records of their era. Turn on the Bright Lights was a tour de force that brought post punk into the modern era–a breakthrough that is still going strong today (Neon Trees does nothing but put Interpol songs through a top 40 machine). Unfortunately, that sort of impact would cast a long shadow on the rest of their career.
Record #207: Hot Hot Heat – Make Up the Breakdown (2002)
If you don’t think this record is great, you’re wrong. It caught my ear upon its arrival when my family had cable and Fuse still played music. I was a tenth grader with Dashboard Confessional, Finch, and Thursday in my CD player when I first saw a crazy music video by a bunch of moptops called Hot Hot Heat playing a song called Bandages.
Record #199: Grizzly Bear – Shields (2012)
So how exactly do you follow up a record that should go down in history as one of the greatest of all time? If you’re Grizzly Bear, you double down. Shields digs deeper into the elements that made Veckatimest great, with stellar results.
Record #198: Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (2009)
If the future is kind to Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest will be remembered alongside Pet Sounds and Abbey Road as one of the most perfect records of all time.
Record #193: The Appleseed Cast – Low Level Owl: Vols 1& 2 (2001)
The Appleseed Cast can be a strange beast to pin down. When I first heard them on various Deep Elm Records samplers, they were obviously an emo band. Then in college, when a friend sent me “Fight Song” off of Two Conversations, I put it on my indie rock playlist in iTunes.
Then most recently, the drummer in my band referred to them as one of his favorite post rock bands. And now, as I’ve rediscovered their magnus opus, a sprawling two volume opus on three discs, I’ve found that none of those are that far off.
Record #190: Deerhunter – Monomania (2013)
As I have mentioned before, Cryptograms is my favorite Deerhunter record. Its more ambient passages are absolutely transcendent in a way that so many shoegaze/dreampop bands fail to emulate better.
But, as I have mourned, as Bradford Cox & Co. continue making music, they slip further and further away from the glistening haze they crafted so masterfully and more towards direct pop rock.