If asked to pinpoint when Pig Boat Blues was made, a variety of dates could be entertained. Many would guess the 60’s. Some might say the 70’s, but probably because they see the 60’s and the 70’s as the same thing. A sophisticated guess would be the 80’s, with mention of Paisley Underground. The 90’s is a good choice, with the album being likened to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. And afterwards…possible, but not as probable. In this album, one can hear oil wheel projections, striped pants, and mod haircuts. What one does not hear- iphones, black 510’s, and “the Draper.” This is because the album belongs to an impression, to an evolved, nuanced aesthetic—not a specific time or place. It is evocative of all of the aforementioned times and scenes, but not birthed in any of them. In that sense, the album is kind of like a soundtrack that can be played again and again, scored to an endless movie that always has a similar, but different, cast of people who are always drawn to and create this setting, this mythos.

To which, one might say “no shit.” But my point here is this- Pig Boat Blues isn’t just a ripping off of one particular band, it’s a product of and a simultaneous example of psychedelic enthusiasm in a substantial way. It’s the fruit of a long family tree that is rooted deep in the 60’s. Christian Bland isn’t just regurgitating the past, as is the complaint with many like minded groups. He has a gifted way of expressing himself, a way that is timeless, familiar, and yet very fresh.

There are plenty of tasty parts to Pig Boat Blues: the riff in “Black Crayon”, the bluesy wanderings of “13 Cent Killer”, the primal scream in “Shark Attack.” The arrangements are composed in such a way that the different parts pinball off each other. But the real LSD on top of the sugar cube is the employment of an organ. Trudging through the opener “Say Hello”, playing counterpoint to the guitar in “Sounds Like 1969”; it’s a fine addition to the texture of the album, and a nice throwback to the likes of Nuggets-era B-listers.
Overall, Pig Boat Blues is not an indulgence, but a compelling piece of now and then that should garner a wide spectrum of listeners.

Words: Brad Krohe

Funnily enough, I hadn’t seen The Strange Boys live before their show at the Garage. In my mind they were sort of like Todd Haynes’ depiction of The Beatles in I’m Not There. I don’t know why, but I’d caricatured them; mentally, I’d turned them into funny little creatures. I guess that’s because I’ve listened to their albums countless times but never had the opportunity to put a living image to the sound. Not that that’s important in any way. It was sort of funny though. Anyway, when I saw the four of them on stage and in person it was quite a shock. Ryan Sambol, who had been cast as the mischievous ringleader in my cartoon interpretation, came across more like a Levon Helms than a Paul McCartney. In a down home sort of way he was very country. Not like Webb Pierce decked out in a nudie suit but more Dylan on the front of Nashville Skyline. There’s plenty of mischief in him though. This is a long shot, but at times I got the impression that The Strange Boys is a vehicle for the mischief inside of him; it seems like songs are spontaneously adapted on the night to fit the mood of his mischief, while phrases are slurred, words are barked out and yelps and hollers keep the audience on their toes. It takes a lot of energy and a great band to pull this off, two assets that The Strange Boys possess in bulk.

It’s clear by now that The Strange Boys aren’t a band that let themselves be bossed around. After two hell raising rock and roll albums, Live Music, their third album, found them departing to somewhat different territory. Tonight, while the band make sure that older songs aren’t simply repeated from their recordings, I was somewhat surprised that they revisited older territory. A shout for Should Have Shot Paul, however, was met with some sermonising from Ryan. “That’s a song of hatred” he retorted after playing a few bars of Wings’ Band on The Run. All good fun. All very mischievous.

The Strange Boys at the Garage wasn’t your typical rock and roll show. There was no bravado or mystery (the lights were kept on during the set and smoke? Forget about it). Maybe these things are just gimmicks in the eyes of the Strange Boys. Whatever. They didn’t need it anyway. There’s something much more inscrutable about this band, something that can’t be hit upon in a few phrases. All I can say is, if you have enjoyed The Strange Boys’ records you’ve only had half the fun. Go and see them live and a few more pieces will be added to the puzzle.

Words: Joe Stevens

The first listen through, Evans The Deaths’ self-titled debut album was a little bit hit n miss. I kind of veered in and out of attention dangerously easily. The vocals, which at first were super kind to me, started to get me down. The first stand out track was Catch Your Cold: thing is, it only being the second song meant that the mid-album tracks seemed slightly mushy and a little ‘un-defined’ in comparison.

‘Threads’ (track 7) through to ‘I’m So Unclean’ (track 9) were very welcome highlights when they eventually turned up. I think perhaps the short song lengths and consistent mid-tempo throughout this album have meant that the songs don’t really have much scope to evolve, and by the time they’ve become familiar they suddenly end. With an average song length of around two and a half minutes it doesn’t take a genius to work out why this album can’t seem to change gear.

Instrumentally I have few complaints, although I could’ve done with a bit of chucky end added on to the guitar. The kit’s mega tight and works like a nicely fitted bathroom, not leaking all over the floor like some shabby retro 80’s shambles that’s over-due a service. Thankfully front-woman Katherine Whitaker re-assures me that she’ll be there “under the kitchen sink” as You’re Joking rounds off the album in characteristic sober-latude. Once again, rambling on about microwaves and life lived surrounded by urban-suburbia in a pseudo-Smiths-esque fashion has it’s up-sides, although vocally lacking the comedy of a certain charming man.

The album doesn’t really seem to say, do or be about much and I suppose it doesn’t really need to be. A good come-down album, maybe too good, kind of depressing actually and probably best to avoid excessive listens if;

A. You’re in too good a mood
B. In too bad a mood
C. You want to get up
D. If you’re about to go out
E. If you’ve just found out you got miss-sold payment protection insurance
Or
F. You expected the album to be filled with an “infectious and frenetic brand of guitar pop” which according to the band is “certain to make a big impression.” Didn’t really happen to me I must say.

In some ways ‘Evans The Death’ seem to be an off the mark twee rendition of the XX and unfortunately don’t quite cut the Colman’s for me on this debut.

Words: Nathan Pounds

I approach this review with trepidation. Tackling work by an artist like Lee Ranaldo, who is such an integral part of Sonic Youth’s expansive legacy, is no mean feat; and less so because of his own extensive back catalogue as a solo artist (Between The Times and the Tides is Ranaldo’s 9th solo LP).
It is heartening, then, to learn that Ranaldo is not in the business of self-referencing or playing up to the past; Between The Times and the Tides is ostensibly a rock album, listenable as it is intriguing. At times it strays into “this-is-music-by-the-guy-from-Sonic-Youth” territory (i.e. Waiting On A Dream) but with Ranaldo’s distinctive style this is nigh-on unavoidable. Ranaldo doesn’t linger on covered ground, however: acoustic-led Off The Wall, with its boy/girl vocals lightly breezes into brooding Xtina As I Knew Her, with Lee’s wailing lead guitar competently supported by Steve Shelley’s dirgey tub thumping. More driving rock with Angles, albeit with the introduction of a funk organ which lends this otherwise structurally formulaic song an experimental air. You could say this sums up the essence of the album: Ranaldo’s rock sensibility being augmented with jazz and country (particularly prevalent on Hammer Blows), as well as his trademark experimental flourishes on the guitar.

Between The Times and the Tides is a far cry from Ranaldo’s early work; the set-up and structure is simple, but the execution is damn near perfect. According to Ranaldo, the album is down to his group of “amazing friends who stopped by to play and sing”, including old lags Steve Shelley and Bob Bert. “Songs can go a million different ways,” he writes in the liner notes, “I hope you like where they ended up.” We sure do, Lee.

Words: Joseph Coward

There are reports that The Mallard is the next big thing. I’d say that’s half right. The problem with a statement like that is that it marries their current quality to contingency; what this says is “You are good…but only in as much as that level of good is directly indentured to the future.” For them to be “the next big thing” means that at some unspecified relatively soonish date, they will receive an arbitrary amount of press, or have the right people listening to them, or make a splash with sales etc. thus qualifying them as the next big thing arrived. In a sense, this is kind of like a back handed compliment, although it was probably not intended that way. It glosses over the most important fact: now, today, in the present, The Mallard is simply awesome.
As one might expect from a Castle Face release, Yes on Blood is packed with feedback whirls, vocal shrieks, and inexplicable tempo shifts. Everything bleeds together very nicely; the album sounds less like a compilation of best studio takes and more like a total, singular effort. Minimal breaking between tracks and sounds produce a great sense of continuity, a rolling effect. Coupled with the lo-fi quality/mix of the record, it invokes the same feeling as a great live show. Instead of bludgeoning listeners with bouts of sonic fortitude, The Mallard opts to apply an intensive steady pressure. In an arena seemingly focused on the formation of singles, it’s nice to hear an album executed as a method/product.
I kept thinking Velvet Underground & Nico when listening to this, and couldn’t figure out where that intuition was coming from. They don’t actually sound similar at all, and too often bands that sound nothing like The Velvet Underground are hailed as The Velvet Underground. The Mallard is a pretty standard set up: guitar, bass, drums, female vocals…all the songs clock in less than four minutes. No heroin odes, death trudges, Teutonic groans, no droney strings. Really there are more dissimilarities than similarities. The only tangible connection seems to be the sound quality of the recordings. And then it hit me- there indeed was a connection, and it was intangible. In the same way that Mother Teresa saw God in every human face, so it is that I would say that Yes on Blood and VU & Nico are in fact unique expressions of a same greater power. Rooted at the core of all great rock’n’roll is rebellion. And there are all kinds of rebels and anti-rebels. This strain of rebel is based on chic, on targeted indifference, the freedom of youth, and blurring the line between taking yourself seriously and not taking yourself seriously all. The Mallard and VU are both fashioned in the image of this Sunglasses & Leather Jacket wearing being; an overarching force of timeless, universal cool that manifests itself distinctively, but also particularly to the zeitgeist of its individual guise.
Cut from this kind of sacrosanct cloth, The Mallard is not only of a caliber (in fundamentals & implementation) that demands your attention- it doesn’t have to work hard to earn it.

Words: Brad Krohe

The Men are a hardworking band. Since their inception in 2008 they have produced and sold out their slew of self-released singles, tapes and EPs and last year released their debut LP Leave Home with Sacred Bones. In short, they don’t muck about.

As you’d expect, follow-up LP Open Your Heart wastes no time in kicking in the aural doors right away with the raucous Turn Around, sounding like a cross between T-Rex’s Get It On and The Explosion’s Filthy Insane but with a driving motorik-style beat; the bawdiness continues with loose guitars and drunk Rollins-esque shouts in Animal. After a brief pause for breath in the form of instrumental “Country Song”, we are greeted by stand-out track Oscillation: the pace changes to a dreamy, almost shoegazing lilt interspersed with choppy Strokes guitars which gradually build into a wash of satisfying pop noise, brilliantly complimented laconic and lackadaisical vocals. It’s after this point that the album as a whole begins to falter slightly: the pop theme is renewed with Please Don’t Go Away but it feels rather more forced than its immediate predecessor, and very much like The Men are attempting to cram all their influences into the 10-track record.

The Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Dinosaur Junior and The Stooges all get a tip of the cap from what is essentially an album by a proficient, fun band who know how to make a rock album, and know how to do it well, but The Men have ultimately overstretched themselves stylistically and have produced a record without cohesion. Open Your Heart clearly displays their knack for writing punk hooks that will get under your skin by the first listen (as well as displaying their disinterest in fitting the hip mould), but it will be interesting to hear what they come up with when they’re able to concentrate on their own ideas, rather than excitedly thumbing through their record collections to see how many punk references they’re able to pack in.

Words: Joseph Coward

Cass McCombs is one hell of a noodler. He noodled here, he noodled there; he noodled on Don’t Vote and he noodled the shit out of County Line (nigh on twenty minutes worth). I wasn’t expecting such extensive noodling. Not from Cass. But then again, why didn’t I expect it? He noodles on his records too. A cursory look at the song lengths from his last two records reveals the shortest song to be 3:55. Maybe I’m struggling to crawl out of my punk cave of shadows where everything is 1:30 and leaves you with red cheeks and sweaty balls. But that’s what I like about Cass, he’s just as, if not more, intense than any punk rocker I can think of. Even his noodling is captivating.

The Union Chapel in Islington is the perfect setting for a  Cass McCombs show. If we were in a typical venue environment, Cass’ timidity would fall flat, but blended with the grandiose setting of Union Chapel, it becomes an asset, something he can noodle on: facing the mic sideways on with his back to a portion of the audience, slurring a half-muttered thank you, they’re both part of the show tonight. Something you come away thinking about as much as the drawling charm of the lap steel guitar or the tremolo of Cass’ voice. And what a tremolo! I’d noticed it on the records and wondered how much of it was manufactured through effects, but it’s natural. The man has the voice of a fallen angel. Like Gram Parsons or Webb Pierce, Cass possesses a voice that is celestial in its delicacy.

The band are tight too. Cass took lead duty on a number of songs, but his guitarist was more than capable, proving a dab hand on the lap steel (the greatest accompanying instrument of all time) and lead guitar. I got the feeling that the drummer tried to cut short the extended jam at the end of County Line a couple of times, to the resistance of Cass and the rest of the band. I would have liked them to bring the volume up a few times, they played at  a friendly volume most of the night, and it got to a point that I wanted things to get antisocial when it came to Love Thine Enemy and Memory’s Stain.

I can’t write much more about the night. It’s become something of a religious experience to me, not in a dumb cultish way, but something I keep hearkening back to and trying to learn from. There was obviously something special about the place, but there’s something different about the man, it’s something I can’t quite grasp and neither do I want to nor expect to.

Words: Apache Jones

The first thing I see when I walk into the Blue Star, a retro-fashioned diner/bar/venue plonked in the middle of an industrial warehouse district in downtown Los Angeles, is Pangea guitarist Cory Hanson arguing with the door girl. I can’t quite catch the issue, but it’s getting heated. Pangea lead singer/songwriter/auteur William Keegan comes over to investigate.

“She doesn’t believe I’m in Pangea!” says Cory indignantly. It’s hard to fault the door girl for her incredulousness: Dressed in his usual uniform of rolled up trousers and cardigan sweater, blonde, bespectacled Cory looks less like the lead guitarist of one of L.A.’s hottest punk bands and more like he just wandered off a yacht at Hyannis Port. William assures her that Cory is indeed a member of Pangea and, problem solved, we’re all stamped in for a night of first rate punk rock.

I’ve been going to see Pangea regularly since first catching them supporting TRMRS last year. I was blown away by the band’s high energy and catchy songs; and, though I sort of panned the band’s tape on first listen, the more I saw them play, the more I came to appreciate their particular brand of what can only be deemed drunk-punk. I mean that in the best possible way, for Pangea demonstrate a rare sense of self-parody that so many bands playing in their idiom lack. Come to think of it: Pangea possess a sense of self-parody that bands playing in ANY idiom lack, which may explain why their most popular song is the popish, dramatic, hilarious “Too Drunk To Cum”.

One thing that’s become apparent in the past few months is that a steady stream of touring has transformed Pangea from a good band to a great one. Erik Jimenez, in particular, has become one of the best punk drummers in L.A. His relentless energy and creative beats add variance to the standard breakneck punk pacing and make the music more interesting than it might be otherwise. (Thomas Alvarez of the Audacity asked Erik to fill in on drums while Alvarez was on tour with King Tuff; enough said.) Bassist Danny Bengston completes the rhythm section with a fresh, McCartney-influenced approach to melodic bass lines. And preppy Cory? It’s his 70′s style guitar heroics that add an undeniably hard edge to William’s occasionally sugary pop-punk and lend the band a scoop of defiantly un-punk technical mastery to go along with the snotty attitude. Not bad for a group that started life as a freaky art school folk band.

Pangea’s musical proficiency is certainly on display tonight, although the energy in the Blue Star isn’t the highest. No matter: I’ve seen this band turn an audience of hipsters and drunks at a shitty L.A. sports bar into instant Pangea fans, so the group of stoned punks at the Blue Star don’t stand a chance. The band turns on the charisma and the kids move up towards the stage as Pangea launch into familiar tracks off their excellent Living Dummy LP (Burger Records). A mosh pit erupts during the rollicking “Shitty”, an obvious fave among attendees. The band packs their setlist with similar crowd pleasers, but there’s plenty of new stuff mixed into the setlist, along with a cover of the Circle Jerks’ “I Was So Wasted” (apropos, no?)

The show wasn’t one of their best, but that has more to do with my own perception than any failing on the Pangea’s part. The problem is that Pangea have outgrown their material. When played alongside chunky new songs like “Snake Dog”, Pangea’s older tracks have begun to sound a little simplistic, a little sing-songy. They’re still undeniably catchy, but the depth apparent in the newer material (combined with their increasing musicianship) left this reviewer hungry for more substantial fare. Sugar is all well and good, but eventually you have to move onto greater things or turn into yet another fourth-generation Blink-182 clone playing unserious songs about getting wasted long after the joke has ceased to amuse.

It strikes me that Pangea is in a transitional period. They’ve always been a bit darker than their previous releases suggest. Killer Dreams, the band’s latest EP, is a better showcase for their moodier musical shadings, a direction which, if the new songs are any indication, the band plans to pursue. William’s lyrics are still primarily about drinking too much and doing stupid things, but read between the lines and you’ll find a finely tuned sense of pathos if not outright existentialism. It’s there in lyrics about goblins and ghouls, about meaningless things, about emptiness inside. It’s always exciting to see a band developing musically, but catching them in the middle of metamorphosis is kind of like catching someone with their clothes half off: a little embarrassing for both parties involved. Come to think of it, it’s the sort of the thing Pangea might have written a song about once. Well, as they say, tragedy is the root of comedy.

Words: Mariana Timony 

Having never been to Los Angeles- my conceptions of the city are based entirely on second hand accounts via friends or media. From Raymond Chandler novels, Chinatown, reality shows that I watched during an extended period of depression and am now too embarrassed to name, the X album, musings on the dynamics of Kobe & Shaq, that line from that Murder City Devils song, Boyz N The Hood, the hillside photo shoot from Dig!… etc. ad infinutum…If we are to believe the iconography/narrative, we are told Los Angeles is a place where nothing is as it seems; everyone is concealing something and pretending to be something else (in both product and meta). Sometimes there is a negative angle to the story line; sometimes it’s a land of fake boobs, fake friends, and fake success. Like Axl Rose stepping off the bus from Indiana and being welcomed to The Jungle. But this idea of superficial sheen isn’t a bad thing. It CAN be, but it’s not inherently. If everyone is in on it, what’s the crime?

L.A. by Fanzine is unabashedly Pop. It has those kinds of classic elements you think a pop song should have: high, meandering vocal backings, the perfect memorable tempo (not too fast not too slow), semi-sentimental lyrics. It’s bright. It’s peppy with a twist of nostalgia.It’s youthful and very now. And while that entire description maybe read as “generic”, well, it kind of is. But that is also what makes it so good. The song sounds familiar but does not directly rip anyone off. It’s original in content, if not in makeup. To be clear: I endorse this song.  Red flags for others, those aspects just named are selling points for me. That aside, the drums are great. The guitar is sharp, and the solo at the end is a nice touch. It’s a slick production that will get some so caught up on the gloss, they will miss out on the fun. But it is definitely fun. And not much more than that, but in this case, why should it be?

Words: Brad Krohe