Returning To The Colony Of Bees Like I’d Hoped
Craft Spells: Idle Labor– I’m noticing a lot of bands getting their influences from 80s new wave… maybe its just me. The good thing is, some bands are actually achieving a perfect balance between the past and the present. Another one of those bands is Craft Spells. With Idle Labor, Craft Spells spin tales of love, loss and all of the other romantic things you’d expect to a soundtrack of near-perfect dreamy synth pop. What makes them most unique from others in the genre(which is getting more crowded all the time) is their subtle style which isn’t as flashy as their peers. While they can have their moments of full-band dream pop, they can also minimize themselves to simple beats, keyboards and vocals while still keeping it interesting. Then, to contradict both of those, they even have a disco-driven song thrown in for good measure which oddly fits with the others. Overall, they’ve struck a great balance thats remarkably refreshing to hear from beginning to end…9.3/10
Cut Off Your Hands: Hollow– Wow, I didn’t see this coming. On their debut record, they made one of the most catchy and upbeat records I’d ever heard up to that point. Even now, You and I is still one of my favorites. I hyped this release like crazy because of it and then they give us this… and what IS this exactly? I have to tell you, I’ve heard bands go through dramatic transformations from album to album in my time(most notably The Promise Ring and The Get Up Kids), but this? Wow. While those aforementioned bands changed their styles to stay relevant in an ever-changing musical landscape, Cut Off Your Hands have instead gone from ultra-poppy, energetic indie rock to early 90s brit pop. I mean, this sounds like The Mighty Lemon Drops more than Cut Off Your Hands. I had to keep checking my iPod to make sure what I was listening to… even now listening to this as I write, I keep making sure I’m not making a mistake. But genre switching aside, how good is this? Well, if this came out in the early 90s like it sounds like it did, I’d give it tremendously high marks. Then again, its 2011 so I have mixed feelings… especially since I like the old COYH better. Don’t get me wrong, I like brit pop from the 90s. Shit, its what got me through high school, but I don’t know how relevant it is to music today. I think they were aiming for the late 80s-early-90s but I think the problem is that they did TOO good a job. Inspiration is one thing, this is pure emulation. So weighing my love for this type of music with my love of who they used to be versus relevance, this breaks even. I can’t help but like this even if it puzzles the hell out of me. So on that note, I’m making an uncharacteristic exception and giving this 2 grades: The first for its quality and how well its executed and the second for its relevance…9.5 and 6.2/10
Moonface: Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I’d Hoped– Anyone who know me knows that I love Spencer Krug. After all, how many musicians do you know who can pretty much alter their style and incorporate it into 4 different bands? Not many. Yet Krug has done precisely that… sometimes with mixed results, but still. To really differentiate this from every other project of his, you really need to recognize the fact that the more you dilute your style into multiple bands, the more everything original that you’ve done before is at risk of becoming an afterthought of a listener’s current opinion of you. And for Krug this is a risk he takes year after year. Until now, I didn’t really see any problems with him stretching his style so much. But then again, Moonface is probably his least-ambitious project yet. I’m not sure if this is him exclusively, but if it is, it shows. While Swan Lake, Sunset Rubdown and Wolf Parade were all brilliant collaborations, this is a minimalist project with organs, light drum beats and vocals. While the organs are interesting as always, the percussion is nothing to write home about and the vocals are basically the same as his other projects. So we’re left with a general outline of a band without the key components that would make this memorable. Ultimately this lives up to it’s lackluster name as being a boring record with little to no replay value…4.0/10
Collections Of Colonies Of Bees: GIVING– From the ruins of Polyvinyl‘s Pele comes Collections Of Colonies Of Bees. Though this is their 3rd release, not much has changed over the years since they began… or since Pele for that matter. GIVING is yet another offering from their notoriously confusing group of song names that only variate from Lawn and Vorm… whatever that is. All in all, you’re looking at 4 tracks that sound remarkably more like Pele than they ever have before, not that I’m complaining. But you do have to realize that when dealing with instrumental indie rock, there needs to be a hook or at least something that sets you apart that makes you want to keep coming back for more. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything new here. On top of that, its too short for its own good. I mean, 4 songs in 3 years? Really? I’m not going to slam the songs themselves, but they really could have done a few more than this. The songs are thoughtful, memorable and above all, somewhat lengthy. I think they could’ve used some of the ideas they had to lengthen some of these songs to create other songs and make this closer to an LP rather than an EP. Though, who knows how long that would have taken them. As a whole, this is a good, albeit short record that had its moments but ultimately missed an opportunity to be more ambitious…7.7/10
James and Evander: Constellating EP– Even though I review a lot of synth pop around here, sometimes room needs to be made for another… Especially when you’re considering who signed them. I mentioned before that Velvet Blue Music discovered James and Evander and if theres one label who you can trust to sign good synth pop, its them. They may not sign many, but they have a knack of finding some of the best up-and-comers. If Jeff Cloud(formerly of Joy Electric) still has a hand in running the label, hes a name you can trust. So with that in mind, this review becomes less about who they are now and more about who they may become. Looking at this at it’s surface, this is a 3-song EP with 2 remixes. While the songs themselves aren’t particularly groundbreaking, they are really catchy. The songs are somewhat minimalistic with only beats, synth, vocals and occasionally guitar but the way they’re executed is quite endearing. The vocals, for example, are reverbed in the way you’d expect, but when they harmonize with each other, they really shine. They kind of have a Deastro meets Small Black quality to them that will keep me waiting with bated breath for their next release. Overall, this is standard introduction fare with all the elements of promise ahead. Hopefully they’ll be able to execute a proper full-length as effectively…8.4/10