Age Sixteen

It seems like everything I write on this page starts off this way, but once again: Bad name, awesome music. I was a little skeptical of Age Sixteen when I first found them; I discovered them because they added my band to their Myspace. I generally like to check out every band I add to that thing (even though its mostly to up my own play count) and the bands are usually just plain awful. Before the songs loaded up, this one looked the same, advertising former members of xMoshMetalSoundingBandNamex. Still, they listed Braid in their "sounds like" section, so I gave em a try.



Well, they don't sound like Braid. What they do sound like is a really screamy variation on the modern emo revival sound that's going on, and a good one at that. It kind of reminds me of a less creepy take on Stop It!! or a less technical Hot Cross. The vocals are anti-melodic screams, but have a nice tone and sound passionate enough to make them sound somewhat fresh. Age Sixteen writes catchy songs and if their three song demo is any indication, good things are bound to come of this band.

Album Review: Bridge and Tunnel - East / West

A lot of this review is going to sound negative, but that's just because I really LIKE Bridge and Tunnel. They're a great band, and I enjoy them quite a bit; in theory anyway. They're playing music along the lines of what I love and doing a pretty good job at it. They're solid players, and they have their own sound. I'm thankful for any band who isn't recycling bad screamo that people pretend to like to get girls, or making insanely pretentious indie nonsense that people pretend to like to feel smart. They're treading along the lines of great bands of the past like Braid; like great modern bands like Street Smart Cyclist and Algernon Cadwallader. But on their full length debut, East / West, something just isn't right. Something is missing, and I feel like they're capable of so much more than they present here. The songs on this release are all just really hit or miss for the most part, and that's a shame considering their potential.

I first became aware of Bridge and Tunnel when I saw them open for the last On the Might of Princes (one of my favorite bands) reunion show. Immediately, the band impressed me with their confidence, their stage presence, and how tight they were. It's also always good to see girls in a band in equal numbers to the boys, and not just stuck behind a keyboard, but out front rocking out. They were the surprise of the show for me, and I went home and downloaded their demo, which was a solid 4 song release that I still enjoy.

On East / West, the band finds themselves treading along similar grounds. And at first, it works. The start of this cd is really strong, with songs like the opener, Wartime Souvenirs, which has a nice jangly guitar line and displays singer Jeff's voice off nicely. The first five songs are all good, with a slight misstep at Night Owls - the Maps and Atlases style intro doesn't work for me, and it goes immediately into vocals by guitarist Rachel. She's a very talented girl, but I've been seeing her sing since her old band Regarding I played at this shitty little storage garage venue called the Local 7, and I've never been able to get into her voice. Still, this song doesn't ruin anything, and the buildup continues. The first five songs culminate with the song Rubrics, far and away the best song on this album. A very good guitar part is matched with seriously catchy vocals, and comes together exactly how the entirety of the album should have.



And that should've been it. This release should have ended right here, at the climax. All said and done this would've made a wonderful EP...unfortunately, there is more than half of the cd left to go, and it ventures into territory that teeters on the edge of boring and just plain mediocre. Nothing is terrible or insulting to listen to, but it just keeps going and by the time The World Series, the album's cliche and predictably placed instrumental, hits, I was ready to throw my headphones to the ground. I can almost appreciate what they were trying to do here, venturing into slightly dreamier territory, but it doesn't work and just ends up feeling exhausted and stubborn.

Bridge and Tunnel's problem is that they're good at making music that sounds interesting at first, but has very little to hook the listener with. They take a very stream-of-consciousness approach to songwriting, flowing from point A to point B and rarely venturing back. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but their songs all sound very similar and follow almost identical dynamics blueprints. Without hooks or variation to differentiate them, all the songs mush into one after a while, and the listener is often left wondering if the track has even changed yet. Vocally, I think Jeff's got the tone and the power to make things sound convincing, but his vocal lines suffer from the same meandering as the rest of the music. The girls' voices are fine as a backup, and they add good dynamics with their layering, but any time Rachel comes to the forefront I start frantically flailing my hands at the forward button. In addition to this, the lyrics kind of strike me as talking to a college kid who's trying to be poignant for poignancy's sake; there's some noble sounding ideas but it's all fluffed with a bunch of what just sounds like hot air.



The 2nd half of the cd isn't ENTIRELY boring, as the song "Down for My People Like Joe Carroll" is one of the best songs the band has ever written, but I stand by the fact that this should've replaced Night Owls in the first five songs and been released as an EP. As is, this album is a 5 at best from a band who could easily be putting out an 8. All that said, I still do really like Bridge and Tunnel, and doubt this is the last we'll hear from them. Hopefully next time they focus a bit more in diversifying the dynamics and less time running over the same ground. You can hear the whole thing for yourself thanks to the fine people at Punknews.org. It's at the very least worth a look.

Standout Tracks
Rubrics
Down for My People Like Joe Carroll

Worst tracks
Dear sir
The World Series
Grace for these wayward hearts

5 out of 10

Le Rug

I'm completely fascinated by the cycles that music takes. Ask me five months ago if there are any good bands currently playing in the underground music scene that all the kids with their shaggy hair seem to like, and I would tell you maybe two or three names off the top of my head and subsequently go off on a diatribe about how much I dislike modern indie and how full of shit everything is. I would then put down the bottle of whiskey I was sipping in between every odd word or so, in a forceful enough manner to smash it to pieces, and apologize profusely for wasting 20 minutes of your time. My, how times change! I now find myself knee deep in bands that are either completely awesome or at the very least interesting, and as a result have been able to switch back to malt liquor to quell my nightly demons.

One of those bands in the "Completely awesome" category is New York's Le Rug, yet another instance of a band with a name I hate making wonderful music. The brains behind this band is some 19 year old kid named Ray, who was in some band called the Medics (who weren't as nearly good from what I've heard). According to the always-credible internet, Ray has quite a story; In a very short period of time, he was approached by label execs who gave him a shitty deal that included selling out his band, rejected this, got dumped by some girl, tried to kill himself, landed in a mental institution for a few days, broke up his band, then wrote a whole album in a week that he only recently released. Phew. But I mean, seriously, who hasn't had a week like that?

Getting down to how the music sounds, the song Gaxinthaw was the first thing I heard, and it very immediately and completely gripped me. It has such a big, catchy intro and then immediately thrusts you into the oncoming traffic that is the rest of the song. It has a serious lo-fi indie feel to it (you can tell he's obsessed with The Fall; he named a whole album after a Fall song) and a great vocal line. Le Rug's music bounces back between loud, top-of-the-lungs style rock (Gaxinthaw) and a dark, moody shadow of hooky pop music (The Loveless Fuzz). It has something of a dancey feel, and with two drummers, it has a very big rhythm section to get people moving. Guitars are fuzzy and keyboards are sharp, and everything gets cobbled together into a muddy mess which actually ends up sounding pretty dern super cool. I've only been able to hear the songs on the Myspace and a few I've tracked down on various blogs, but most of what I've heard makes me want so much more. And is there more.



Even someone who hates this band would have to give them credit for being prolific; they just came out with their third or fourth release this YEAR. Considering I've been trying to put a second album together with my band for the last, oh...two fucking years now, well, that just blows my mind. I haven't been totally in love with every single song I've heard by them, but none have been necessarily bad per se, just not my thing. And when you're putting out the volume of music they are, that's impressive.

Miles Kurosky

The tale of my love affair with Miles Kurosky's former band, Beulah, had a heartbreaking and tragic climax in the year 2004. My sister and I, both fans of their music, were preparing to catch their NYC date on their tour for their new album, Yoko. We were all set to go when our plans were interrupted by a late breaking development - we were broke. So instead, we stayed home under the misguided notion that we would catch them "next time they're around."

This show turned out to be the band's last.

It isn't even that I missed seeing the band. It's that Beulah is based in CALIFORNIA. They're a San Francisco band. So not only did I miss seeing the band before they broke up; I missed the rarest of shows; A final show not for the home town fans of a band from across the country - nay, I missed a final show that inexplicably and wrongly fell right into my fucking lap. I had been given a gift from above, and spit it on the floor, biting and chomping at the hand that spoon fed it to me.

Let this be a lesson: Tell your family you love them. Appreciate your dear friends. And if a band comes out with an album named after the woman who broke up the Beatles, then go see them quick because they're dropping hints.

All bitterness aside, I still love Beulah to death. Their laid back, beach friendly sound, their contrasting, dark lyrics, their love of the Beatles and the Beach Boys; all elements combine into one of my favorite indie bands of all time, and by far my favorite Elephant 6 act. So of course, I've been hungry for more. In the immediate wake of their passing, people begun whispering rather loudly about the prospect of a Miles Kurosky solo act. Now, usually, I don't get excited over solo stuff. It just ends up being a whole lot of smugness and not a lot of substance. But Miles' reputation as something of a control freak is well known, and from what I understand, Beulah was basically all his baby. So I was definitely waiting for this. That wait ended up taking four years.

So, obviously, the project has been revealed (seeing as how the previous sentence would make no sense if it hadn't been). And after four long years, what do we get? Well, not a whole hell of a lot. Two of the tracks on Miles' Myspace are different versions of the same song. Even weirder, they're by Beulah. Even weirder than that, they're sung by Yoko Ono. Beyond those, we get one completely original track; An Apple for an Apple, which I could swear was named something else a month ago. So how is it? Good! Dreamier and less dark than Yoko, and less produced than either of the last two Beulah records. It's just the catchy pop song you'd expect from Miles, and if it's any indication of what's to come, then Beulah's tragic death might finally be redeemed.

The only thing that worries me is how questionable this future remains. This seems to me more like a pet project of Miles' rather than a serious act, and I have a bad feeling in my gut that we may never see more than one or two tracks manifest from this; a proper album almost feels out of the question, and the proposition of a serious tour schedule sounds downright fictional.

I hope, however, that I'm extremely wrong.

PS: He's looking quite the hipster lately, isn't he? And check out that pic on his Myspace with some hot SuicideGirl-type-hunny. Ouch!

Street Smart Cyclist is breaking up

RIP one of the bands that made me start liking modern music again. You can bet I'll be writing about any new projects they start the second I get a hold of them.

Myspace

The Brave Little Abacus

The Brave Little Abacus is one of the most annoying bands I've ever heard. The singers are nasally and strained, every song is filled with sound effects from Yoshi's Island or Ren and Stimpy, and in an era of crystal clarity, they have the most washy, peaked out recordings, making it almost painful to listen to at an appropriate volume. Hell, even the name kind of bugs me. These factors, then, are a great tribute to just how awesome this band is, because I can't stop listening to their music. The band is so catchy, smart, charming, and are obviously having so much fun doing what they're doing, that they manage to take all these irritating elements and craft amazingly intricate and memorable music with them. It's hard to describe; you should really just go to their Myspace page and take a listen for yourself.

I can't say for sure, but if I had to guess, I would go out on a limb and say this band is made up of 16-19 year old band geeks who just happen to have really good taste in indie rock and traditional rock and roll. There's a youthful energy and nary a hint of cynicism or irony to any of it. Instead, it's positive, upbeat, and makes you want to sing along. The lyrics, from what I've managed to catch, are twisting and introspective, but have a twang of nerd humor underneath everything. This also extends into their abundant use of sound clips, which are all from great sources and, unlike most bands using clips, fit rhythmically into the composition of the songs.



The musicianship and songwriting are both top notch, and their sound doesn't fit neatly into any clever sub-genre modern indie kids use to pigeonhole themselves with. I hear everything from On the Might of Princes to The Who to U2 in this music, but mainly it sounds to me like songs written by an unholy union of Cap'n Jazz and The Flaming Lips, as covered by HORSE the Band. And again, just even writing that horrible sounding description annoyed the crap out of me, but these guys make it work. The off-kilter nasally vocals manage to fit the sound perfectly, despite their roughness, since the vocal lines they come up with are so fun and sung with such conviction. Even the washiness of the recording works in the band's favor, lending a unique, distinguishable contour to the sound. There's a total lack of self-consciousness to it all. They just do what they do really well. After a few listens, I found myself completely buying it, 100%.

Out of all of their songs, my favorite is El Capitano. The 2 second flurry of shredding at 2:14 is what first sold me on this band. Don't ignore the rest though; they're all worth a listen. They just came out with a new split with Matt Aspinwall, and whoever is reading this would be wise to check it out. And if you're in New Hampshire, or hell, within hours of there, try to catch their live show and report back about it. I really want to hear how these guys sound live.