The Besnard Lakes claim to be a dark horse. And while the cooing harmonies that open the album might seem to suggest otherwise, they quickly prove themselves to be a few shades more menacing than most of their indie rock counterparts.
Psychedelic
Record #462: Kraftwerk – Autobahn (1974)
Before there was Daft Punk, there was Kraftwerk. The storied German electronica pioneers were playing with vocoders and pretending to be robots decades before the French duo picked up their LED-infused helmets.
But Kraftwerk wasn’t always the inorganic collective they’re remembered for. And while Autobahn is the first album to feature their signature robotic sound, it doesn’t stay there forever.
Record #448: The Doors – Weird Scenes From Inside the Gold Mine (1972)
Generally, I’m not much of a fan of greatest hits compilations. I see little value in stripping songs from the context of their albums.
But when you’re dealing with a catalogue as varied and inconsistent as The Doors’, a bird’s eye view can be a valuable thing. Continue reading
Record #445: The Doors – The Soft Parade (1969)
Psych-rock pioneers though they may be, The Doors are largely maligned in music snob circles.
And none of their albums are more maligned than 1969’s The Soft Parade.
Even as a Doors fan, I have passed up every copy of this record I have ever seen. But Monday morning, a friend of mine handed me a stack of records, with this among them.
Record #444: The Kinks – Face to Face
Perhaps no one in pop music history has been treated as unkindly as the Kinks. But despite being blacklisted by American venues and losing the interest of record companies stateside, they continued to create absolutely beautiful music.
Record #434: King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)
Every band, from the Beatles to the Byrds to the Beach Boys, dabbled in making some of the weirdest music of their career. Every band had at least one psychedelic album—even perennial rock and roll heroes the Rolling Stones. But by 1969, most of them had moved on from the weirdness of psychedelia.
But nobody told King Crimson that.
But as it fades, the record never revisits that bombast again. Which it doesn’t need to. Most of the record is driven by subdued, exploring guitar lines and Mellotron. At times, it flirts pretty heavily with jazz fusion (high praise). “Epitaph” and “The Court of the Crimson King” are epic ballads that manage to capture a dramatic scope that most psychedelic acts were devoid of. And it does that through extended arrangements and experimental composition.
While many psychedelic bands would eventually evolve into progressive rock, In the Court of the Crimson King manages to ride the line between them. As a result, this record is an absolute gem.
Record #433: Bailey William and the Cherranes – Emerson (2015)
The first time we met, she was just 16. She was opening for a punk show, armed only with an acoustic guitar. She scraped the strings and wailed with the abandon that for a moment I felt like I took a trip to 1960s Greenwich Village.
But then, they dropped Emerson.
Any worries that Bailey’s edges would be dulled by introducing more instruments are completely assuaged. This album is a storm of Moogs, electric guitars, and keyboards. And in the eye of the storm is Bailey and her acoustic guitar, playing with just as much grit and fire as she ever did.
Which isn’t to mean that this is an angry album. By no means. This is an album filled with great pop tunes and love songs. But there is a chaos to those songs that creates a consistently engaging and powerful listening experience.
Record #432: Elder – Reflections of a Floating World (2017)
And while many metal bands focus narrowly in on their niche, Elder sprawls out in all directions.
But despite the scope of its massive sprawl, the record never seems unfocused. No moment feels out of place. Rather, Elder has created a sonic world that is wholly its own, exploring each unique region throughout the record. It’s a world I want to get lost in, and maybe even my favorite album from 2017.
Record #391: Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up (2017)
And while it’s true that Fleet Foxes themselves have never received much mainstream recognition, their acolytes certainly did. Their folk pop debut LP, with its particular palette of acoustic instruments, thick harmonies, and breakneck strumming patterns, opened wide the gates for all the Mumfords, Lumineers, Monsters, Men, and Magnetic Zeros that would follow the Foxes’ map right into top 40 radio stations and car commercials.
But Fleet Foxes were not satisfied to float on the rising deluge of their copycats. Instead, their sophomore outing found them turning inward. Anyone looking for anything as bouncing and immediate as “White Winter Hymnal” was sorely disappointed. Rather, the tracklist was filled with ominous baroque opuses. Songs took unexpected twists and turns, ending up in very different places than they started (see: the eleven minute “The Shrine/An Argument,” “Helplessness Blues”). If Fleet Foxes was the sound of vagrants playing guitar in the woods, Helplessness Blues was the chants of a group of prophets standing on the ocean’s edge forecasting the end of days.
And yet, Helplessness Blues seems almost poppy compared to Crack-Up.
In the six years since Helplessness Blues, the promised apocalypse came. And Fleet Foxes is right in the middle of it.
This album is less Helplessness Blues’ chameleon than a cuttlefish. Helplessness Blues’ colors shifted, but slowly. Crack-Up is a constant flash of transforming hues.
Keys change between lines of a verse. Choruses appear once and are contorted on their coda. Tracks fade between eachother without stopping to breathe. Which sometimes makes it confusing, as many of the tracks play like many songs played as a medley.
This is far and away the most ambitious thing Fleet Foxes or any of their contemporaries have done. This is the headier moments of their previous albums stretched into a full-length.
When their debut landed on us, I often described Fleet Foxes as “folksy Beach Boys.” If their self-titled was Pet Sounds, this is their Smile. An album that features all the same colors, but arranged in a massive baroque pop suite that is as inviting as it is impenetrable.
*(yes–Fleet Foxes’ first EP was released eleven years ago)