Yam Haus - Stargazer (2018)

OFFICIAL: http://www.yamhaus.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/yamhaus

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/YAMHAUSBand

Written by Shannon Cowden, posted by blog admin

Yam Haus’ Stargazer begins with its powerful title track and it serves notice that the young Minneapolis based outfit means business. The pulsing synthesizer opening “Stargazer” soon transitions into sharply crafted verses driven by jagged bright guitar and straight ahead percussion. Lead singer Lars Pruitt makes the most from the band’s flair with a good chorus and helps “Stargazer” reach stratospheric heights. “West Coast” doesn’t have quite the same panache with a more diffuse chorus, but the vocal melody keeps things beguiling for listeners and the song has a trademark unity that makes it a deeply enjoyable listening experience, but the third song in Stargazer’s opening trio “Kingdom” brings audiences another indelible chorus and some particularly Eighties touches thanks to the song’s synthesizer adornments.

It’s impossible to get away from how well recorded and produced Yam Haus’ debut is. Stargazer highlights a band with a diverse sound, but the production expertly balances and separates the instruments in each respective song and renders the band’s musical vision in high gloss musical Technicolor. The album’s fourth song is well in keeping with the pop inclinations of the opening trio – “Get Somewhere” has some especially tasty verses, but the real pay off comes with the song’s chorus and it undeniably connects with listeners. Yam Haus introduces some piano into “Too Many People” and the gospel influences rife throughout the tune never strike a false note and Pruitt responds with a lot of soulfulness. The accompanying handclaps are another humanizing element of the song moving it away from the electronic flourishes running through the earlier songs and this more stripped down, traditional approach rings true.

“Right Now, Forever” flips the script for anyone listening to every track up to this point. Yam Haus completely backs away from the template of the previous five songs in favor of a delicately constructed acoustic performance and Pruitt adjusts his voice accordingly. It strikes a sharp contrast with its follow up, “You Need Love (Stargazer Reprise)”, but this reprise veers away from aping the title track and, instead, develops similar themes in a different musical fashion. “Bad News” returns them to the familiar ground of pop songwriting craftsmanship and they deliver again, but the vocal melody is especially memorable and Pruitt capitalizes on its potential.

They orchestrate an entertaining, compelling build for the track “Carry Me Home” and Pruitt delivers a singing performance exploring the full range of his voice’s dynamic possibilities. His seamless shifting through varying levels of his register undoubtedly benefits from the presence of recording technology, but there’s no indication in the recording that Pruitt would struggle reproducing this in a live setting.

The band’s two guitar punch comes to the forefront with the album’s one indisputable rocker “We Are the Storm”, but they quickly prove they don’t succumb to six string self indulgence even when they let that side of their musical character rise to the surface. Instead, it has a sinewy and confident texture that draws you in from the first. Yam Haus improbably ends Stargazer with the near-folky strands of “Something Better” and the minimal accompaniment playing alongside Pruitt’s voice and the band’s acoustic guitar fleshes out the song just enough to help it sink deeper into your consciousness. It’s a gentle, profoundly evocative closer for Stargazer, one of the most satisfying releases in recent memory, not just 2018.

Astronomique - Sharp Divide (2018)

OFFICIAL: http://www.astronomiquemusic.com

FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/astronomiqueband/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Astronomiques

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/astronomiques/

BANDCAMP: https://astronomique.bandcamp.com

Written by Larry Robertson, posted by blog admin

Astronomique’s journey to musical prominence takes another major leap into the future with the release of their first full length collection Sharp Divide. The ten song outing builds on the band’s previous EP efforts and illustrates the full breadth of their creative vision while still pointing the way towards a boundless future. Led by lead vocalist Logan Andra Fongemie and guitarist Sean Hogan, the four piece also benefits enormously from the contributions of drummer Mitch Billings and bass player Preston Saari. Their heft and swing as a rhythm section is produced for maximum effect and provides a muscular center for each performance without threatening to dominate the mix. This Minneapolis based band fuses a number of styles together on Sharp Divide and the ultimate effect of the release widens the gulf between their work and similarly themed bands working on the indie scene or elsewhere.

“Forefathers” begins Sharp Divide with an excellent example of the steady pulse provided by Saari and Billings. It has a speaker rattling touch without ever being too heavy handed and the production virtues round it into a warm, fat heartbeat for this song and others to come. Fongemie’s synthesizer playing blends well with Hogan’s guitar and they often work in concert akin to the manner we hear between progressive guitarists and their keyboard playing band mates. There’s an appealing Euro pop vibe to the track “Side of Your Mind” with a strong danceable beat and jangling Hogan guitar flashing throughout. Fongemie’s vocal is surrounded with considerable echo and seems slightly submerged in the mix, but the overall quality of her performance remains unaffected. It’s one of the album’s most evocative numbers and never overplays its ambitions.

“Losing Our Control” is built around its electronica sheen and has a steady stride once the full band kicks in. The consistent push of this song makes it one of the album’s more meaningful numbers while still relying on the same atmospheric calling cards we’ve heard with Sharp Divide’s first two songs. The album’s title song will impress many as the finest song on the release thanks to its fully conceived slant, both lyrically and musically, but Mitch Billings’ striding drums strike just the right pacing for the performance. Fongemie’s vocal is among her finest outings on the album and she wisely reserves an effort of this quality for the album’s title cut.

A recurrent swell of Fongemie’s synthesizers opens “Unspoken” and, when the song begins in full, Billings sets a definite tone with the brief gallop in his drumming. It’s impressive how the band maintains such a steady, nuanced pace throughout the track and Hogan’s lattice like guitar work hits an individual peak with his playing here. “Bleed Me” is a much darker tune, both lyrically and sonically, without ever deviating from Astronomique’s core sound and the album’s finale “Heading Nowhere” powerfully encapsulates the album’s primary themes in a parting tune every bit as compelling as its best predecessors. Sharp Divide is one of the year’s more creative musical efforts and opens the door to a boundless future for this Minneapolis band.

Josh Birdsong - Where the Light Bends (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://joshbirdsong.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/joshbirdsongguitar/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/JoshBirdsong

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/joshbirdsongmusic/

Written by Daniel Boyer, posted by blog admin

Where the Light Bends is the second release from Nashville based singer, songwriter, and guitarist Josh Birdsong. His debut Simple Geometry threw down the gauntlet by serving notice to the Nashville scene and the music world at large that a major new performer and writer is poised to make a deep impact. The promise of that initial release is fully realized with Where the Light Bends’ six songs and it has an impressive scope despite being an EP release. It isn’t surprising when you stop to consider the wave of accolades Birdsong has enjoyed since first emerging – numerous competitions, plum placement of his material on high profile television networks, and graduation from the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy with a singer/songwriter degree. Where the Light Bends should accelerate his upward trajectory and cement him as one of the more formidable talents to emerge in recent memory.

His artistry is apparent from the first song onward. “Complex Context” is definitely the most aggressive track on the release and, while it shares some of the ambient textures you hear fleshed out in greater detail on later songs, the authoritative drumming heard throughout much of the track and uptempo pace set it apart from later songs. Birdsong delivers an equally forceful vocal and his guitar parts are certainly worth listeners’ attention. His six string talents are simply impossible to ignore. Another of the strongest songs on Where the Light Bends is the second cut “The Sound Beneath the Static” and the well rounded creativity defining both the arrangement and lyric makes this one of Birdsong’s most fully realized moments on both this release and his debut. The chorus is particularly memorable and the one-two combination of this with the opener gets Where the Light Bends off to an impressive start. The ambient influences on Birdsong’s songwriting gain strength with the songs “Cloud 8” and the EP’s longest song “Too Much to Hold”, but neither track is so devoted to its soundscape design that it neglects to engage listeners. The former song, especially, features subtle guitar lines that get under the listener’s skin while Birdsong’s singing on “Too Much to Hold” raises already excellent lyrics to a much higher level.

The EP moves away from the atmospheric ambient tone of those songs and back to music more in touch with the potential of his guitar playing with the songs “Arctic Desert” and the title song. There’s a slightly unsettled, dissonant edginess coming from “Arctic Desert” Birdsong’s audience will undoubtedly admire and concluding the EP with its title track illustrates how thoroughly conceived this release is for Birdsong and balances the guitar textures with equally memorable keyboard playing. Where the Light Bends is a more than adequate follow up to Simple Geometry and embodies for current fans and newcomers alike Birdsong’s considerable talents. These six songs pack far more of a cumulative effect than many full length albums and it never resorts to heavy handed methods to achieve its desired results.

EZLA - Outcasts (2017)

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/ezlaofficial/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ezlaofficial/
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Written by David Shouse, posted by blog admin

Textbook and traditional are not words that will help in the description of the flagship release, Outcasts, by California to Tennessee transplant EZLA. The singer/songwriter/musician is neither wed to simply West Coast influences nor the rural trot of the country and western capital of the world where she now hangs her hat. She’s stumbled upon this musical no man’s land where electronic instrumentation is the featured component, in addition to her earthy rise/fall/stop/start vocal style that makes playful usage of word-crammed verses that amazingly roll off the tongue and glorious pop choruses that go straight for the pay-off.  

There is no filler to be found here and no bad tracks. The only mark against EZLA’s debut is that a few of the tracks come off a bit same-y when tempo is considered. Although this uniform approach to rhythm and backbeats is broken by sudden sea changes and shifts in volume, as well as choruses that musically go against some of the darkness by sounding pretty darn happy and carefree. The title track leads the EP off and is a pitch-perfect example of EZLA’s abstract musical blueprint. Listeners are the on the receiving end of a jagged, angular beat that seems to start-up and shutdown at random until the song goes for the harmonic paydirt as the keyboards become more prominent in their cascade of phased/flanged grooves and a chorus that is practically tailor-made for radio airplay. “Skeletons” works up a similar sweat but might be just a few extra BPM in the verses as the song swirls in fuzzy, distorted discordance that’s akin to the 90s pop/industrial movement’s abrasive catchiness. You’ll never mistake EZLA for Nine Inch Nails even if the general aesthetics (edgy singing, twisted lyrics and a sonic arrangement meant to be played LOUD) is a kindred spirit to Reznor and company.  

The romantic “Satellites” is less aggressive and pointed than its predecessors, trading the harsher, noisier textures and jarring pace changes for echoing, reverbed ambience, soft yet expressive vocals drenched in vibrato while deliberate beat placements (that are less cut up and mashed) yield a more tangible song structure.  This welcome restraint is shattered by “Hangman’s” innovative vocal mapping, meticulous synth stacking, alien and mentally affecting trip-hop choruses and EZLA’s organically warped lyrics.  The cinematic musical backdrops reckon of experimental artists from past and present.  One can hear bits and pieces of VAST, Placebo, Joydrop, Plumb, Portishead and Massive Attack while listening to this track or any of the EP’s 5 well-rounded tunes, for that matter.  Cryptic and bent by black humor, “Psycho Killers” is the darkwave pop song equivalent of 80s slasher flicks with lyrics and musical undertones that only further this emphasis.  

You can allude to points of reference all night long when describing EZLA’s debut Outcasts but the fact remains that this is a wholly interesting piece of work that only sounds like EZLA.  The brutally honest underpinnings of the lyrics and shapeshifting sonic deconstruction won’t be for everyone but those that can handle the turbulence will find plenty to enjoy here.  Some stronger variations in tempo will be welcome on her next release, although the slight sameness of the beat programming ensures that open listeners will latch on and gleefully stick around on EZLA’s wicked ride.          

YYY - A Tribute to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (2017)

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/therealyyy/

Written by Pamela Bellmore, posted by blog admin

This is an exhilarating release. Austin Carson, adopting the name YYY for his musical projects, is a Minneapolis based musician who can’t be accused of playing it safe. His tribute to the seminal Beach Boys masterpiece Pet Sounds, unsurprisingly titled A Tribute to The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, doesn’t aspire to merely recreating the album. Thankfully. Instead, YYY has recruited the cream of the local musical crop to help him flesh out nothing less than a full on re-invention of this pop classic that endeavors to underline all of the aspects that make it such a canonical work while still putting his personal stamp on the collection with imagination and verve. It results in one of the year’s most impressive releases, original material or not. His interpretative powers are so developed that it isn’t a stretch to say this album, in its own way, is every bit as original as a release filled with his own compositions. He has claimed Brian Wilson’s tunes as his own and the addendums and revisions he subjects them to means this isn’t your father’s copy of Pet Sounds – for sure.

The opening track “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” makes that last point clear. We are in familiar territory, to a certain extent – this wouldn’t be anything resembling a proper tribute to the album if it somehow forgot that vocal excellence is the lodestar of all things in Beach Boys music and the earnest, deeply felt qualities behind each of the album’s vocals more than respects the source material. He never neglects the melodic strengths behind these songs either, but he places them in a new context. The largely electronic arrangement has all the warmth that the song requires and more than adequately summons the needed atmospherics. When you go through this album, there is a small sense of YYY expending most of his creative energy on the album’s foundational songs – the aforementioned opener, “Sloop John B”, “God Only Knows”, and the closer “Good Vibrations”./ This is to be expected for a number of reasons, but it’s also a smart move – these are the pivot points upon which both the hardcore devotee and casual fan alike base their bulk of their knowledge regarding this album and he’d be a fool to not play those moments up.

Make no mistake, however, that his attentions do not extend to the comparatively little known secondary songs on Pet Sounds. He particularly excels bringing female voices into Wilson’s traditionally male dominated performances and Lydia Liza’s contributions to “Hang Onto Your Ego” and Devata Daun’s singing on “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” give these tracks a distinct character the originals do not have. Bringing in such a wide cast of guest stars from the Minneapolis scene to help him realize this tribute album could have made it a diffuse affair with a slightly schizophrenic character, but YYY shows the good instincts to utilize those performers in ways that accentuate their strengths and those of the respective song. It makes this tribute to Pet Sounds one of the most unique listening experiences in my recent memory and marks its creative mastermind, Austin Carson, as a talent to watch for years to come.