I picked up a ton of new promos to review the other day. This time, my contact at the local record store really went above and beyond, providing me with free, complete copies of some of the most highly anticipated albums of the season, so I have been feeling extra-motivated to listen to them all, start to finish, as much as possible so that I can repay him by writing up some promo summaries to help him sell copies from the store's website, and giving him some very well thought-out personal recommendations on how to place his orders. He trusts my market instincts, so I want to be as objective as possible about which releases I think will be big sellers.
Check out a few of the notables below. I've been spinning them from front to back, over and over, giving each release plenty of attention, and taking a shit ton of comprehensive notes as I go. It's work, and I'm being paid for it, but I still feel lucky to be given sneak peaks of these titles.
Pharmakon - Bestial Burden (Sacred Bones, 2014)
Pharmakon's latest is a serious noise record that feels like it's from another time. I respect Sacred Bones for getting behind such a commercially leprous record. Not even the most ear-bleeding XM radio station would give this album play. We all know by now that Margaret Chardiet is fucking crazy, but somehow that does nothing to mitigate the shock of hearing this harsh, vitriolic, venemous record in all its skull pummeling glory; nor does it lessen the bruising impact of these songs.
Bestial Burden is really a specialty product... it's the kind of album that will bring joy to only a sliver of the record-buying, and that only the most warped and masochistic music fans will genuinely appreciate... Sonic Youth fans, particularly the older & more cynical ones
(yo!) who while away their days listening to “Soul Discharge” and wishing the Internet hadn't killed punk, should find a
LOT to like here.
But otherwise, this brilliant album, which brings Pharmakon into the ranks of today's most prolific noise artists like Fuck Buttons, Ben Frost and the like, will probably find critical favor with the P4K & Stereogum crowds, and a lot of people will probably buy it for street cred's sake, but that's OK because the money is just as real, even if the sentiments are fallacious. Anyway, you'll all love this album I'm sure.
Mono - The Last Dawn (Temporary Residence, 2014)
FUCKING INCREDIBLE. MONO IS MY NEW OBSESSION; can't wait to get my hands on the second half.
Foxygen - “... And Star Power” (Jagjaguwar, 2014)
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT? Foxygen's last album was one of the catchiest throwback garae pop records in recent memory. Jonathan Rado has dropped some excellent psych pop on his own since then, and he's even handled production for my pick for Best New Band/#1 Band to Watch for 2014, DUB THOMPSON (who are twice the band Foxygen was at their best, and still can't generate hype to save their hides despite their explosive tape-hissing post-punk debut “9 Songs” (Dead Oceans), one of the year's TOP records.
I thought Foxygen were going places, but this -- I need to listen more, but it has to be heard to be believed. It's a drag of an album, taking ques from he worst of the early days of prog Rock. Gone are the Kinks-like melodies and eccentric lyrical twists... This is like hearing a completely different band try to re-write The Wall for their first official album. It's a giant WTF fest, and either I'm missing he brilliance, and need to spend more time with it, or it sucks in the most unforeseeable ways possible.
The Field Report - Marigolden (Partisan, 2014) Bon Iver's old band... (Not an album I'd listen to of part of that Midwest explosion of really mediocre bands that have decided to emulate Dire Dtraits & '80s Springsteen. Admittedly they are less guilty of this really tacky musical approach than, say, The War on Drugs. The sound is closer to that of Hiss Golden Messenger... it's tolerable countrified rock with some spacey atmospherics that add texture and color to a really fucking boring trend in indie rock that needs to be taken out back and shot. Kurt Vile is the only one who came out of that with anything approaching an interesting sound, so let's SCRAP the idea of re-working the riff from “Walk of Life” in an appropriately “aughties” way.
Anyway, Field Report have two things going for them: 1) They're down one Justin Vernon 2) They sound way less like Dire Straits than many of the terribly misguided bands that make up their "scene." At least the record doesn't put me to sleep like TWOD, or make Coldplay seem like a refreshing and invigorating listening experience like Bon Iver.