Album Review: Four Records That Have Gotten Me Through Spring

Despite my best efforts to the contrary, each and every one of my days on this earth remains finite in its capacity. That means that, despite my best efforts, I simply do not have time to tell people about all the great music that I'm lucky enough to find myself being exposed to these days. After watching the White Sox blow a tremendously winnable game this Sunday I decided that that, in an effort to cheer myself up, I should finally start working my way through  the backlog of great albums that have been figuratively been piling up on my iPod with nary a drop of digital ink expended on them.

With genuine spring finally starting to take hold here in Chicago, I hope that everyone will be spending a little extra time in the sunshine in the coming weeks. There's nothing that aids the euphoria of nice weather after a stubbornly long winter than aural accompaniment. With that in mind, I humbly submit the following four records to help you make the most of your only-slightly premature sunbathing.

Album Review: Yoni Gordon - The Hard Way

One of the things about running a music blog, even a small blog like mine, is that at some point you start getting unsolicited albums. Generally I take a look at the band bio, maybe play a track or two to decide if they're worth the investment of time. The hit-to-miss ratio isn't great, but I've not yet been able to totally ignore someone who took the time to reach out to me. So this spring when I got an email from some dude named Yoni Gordon sporting just a scrappy website and an intriguing email, I wasn't too sanguine on the chances that I'd end up liking the music. Still, I thought it deserved a chance so I grabbed the album, cued up the first track, pressed play and sighed.

Fuck. 

It was good. 

Album Review: Kelly Hogan - I Like To Keep Myself In Pain [PopMatters]

Hey y'all, I know it's been longer than I'd like between posts and I know what y'all are thinking - "oh, uh sure, I guess if you say so." Anyway, my intention is not to derive you of the self-obsessed ramblings you've come to love, but rather to clean them up slightly and force them onto others!

Among other things (switching apartments, working longer hours, taking up Tuvan throat singing, etc.) I've also been sending some of my words to the good folks at PopMatters who have agreed to post them on their site, provided that I return their families unharmed.


One of my records of the year so far has been Chicagoan and lovely human being, Kelly Hogan's record, I Like to Keep Myself in Pain, which you can sample a bit of my review here:

Kelly Hogan is not the kind of singer who has many casual fans, only devotees. Nor has her music career followed anything like a straight line. Indie guitarist, radio DJ, backup singer, bartender—she’s done it all.  Along the way, she’s worked with musical heavy hitters such as Neko Case, Andrew Bird, Vic Chesnutt and John Wesley Harding, but rarely in a way that grabbed the spotlight for herself. She had the misfortune to release her first solo album, Because It Feels Good, just after 9/11, where it, along with her subsequent tour, was lost in the midst of a national crisis. So perhaps it’s fitting that she has titled her second album I Like to Keep Myself in Pain.

Now that you've had your sweet taste, I know you'll be hopelessly addicted so head over here to read the full review.

Like the idea of my writing elsewhere but want more? I expect to have several other reviews as well as coverage of the Pitchfork Music Festival published there in the coming months.

Hate the idea of me writing elsewhere but love the blog? I'll still be throwing up covers, Six Song Six Packs, random musings and anything else too unfocused or unmarketable for mass consumption here.

Like the review but wish it contained more swearing, personal asides and esoteric youtube links? I wouldn't be a plugged nickel against this little album cruising its way back onto my radar come December.

Which brings me to my final point - this album is like REALLY good. Buy it for yourself. Then buy it for your parents, buy it for your pastor and buy it for your pet boa constrictor, Reggie. And if they don't like it strongly consider getting new parents, a new system of beliefs to organize existence and a less outlandish pet with a less anthropomorphic name.

Album Review: Screaming Females - Ugly

God bless New Jersey for not letting the world forget about the second word in the phrase when we talk about "indie rock". In recent years bands from the Garden State such as Titus Andronicus, Vivian Girls, The Gaslight Anthem (since lost to New York) and Screaming Females have started making noise (both figurative and literal) and reminding people that, while alternative music will always need it's weirdos, nerds and mopers, the modern indie scene was built on a foundation of loud, angry bands creating music both intelligent AND visceral. While perhaps garnering the least amount of critical and popular success of any of the bands mentioned, Screaming Females have quietly put out more top-quality music in the last five years than any of them and show no signs of slowing down.

Six Chicago Records To Soundtrack Your Spring

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit this but for a long time I never really did my homework when it came to the local Chicago music scene. When I first got into "cool" music in high school, I was living in the suburbs and focusing on the big musical guns - your Clashes, your Pixies, your OutKasts. As I went through college, I began to delve deeper but, living away from my hometown as I was, I didn't get much beyond Kanye, Wilco and a few other Chicago heavy-hitters. 


Since moving into the city after college I've worked my way way deeper and deeper into the city's pool of local artists like an old man slowly lowering himself into a steaming hot bath and it's been equally invigorating. Although I know I'm just scratching the surface, I've loved having the chance to start seeing groups multiple times around town, discover new artists and generally start to feel the sense of community that scenes build. It takes a certain kind of artist to choose to make it in Chicago. Working out of the coastal spotlight one has to have a bit of humility. The winters require fortitude and both the frenetic nature of local gigs and the difficulty to be noticed sure require a good work ethic. It's all these traits that help tie Chicago musicians of various stripes together. 

Album Review: Titus Andronicus LLC MIxtape Vol. 1

"Okay #FUCKTHEBULLSHIT it's almost time to do something to prove that I actually love you" - thus did Titus Andronicus' front man Patrick Stickles announce, via one of his trademark boldly hastagged tweets, that the band would be releasing their new single as part of a free mixtape at 12:19 am early Monday morning. It was a move totally in keeping with the group's idealist punk ethos and love of the all-access world of the 21st century (remember, this is a band that will occasionally remind its Twitter followers to #calltitus). Labeled Titus Andronicus LLC Mixtape Vol. 1, it's clear that there was care and effort put in assembling, arranging and labeling the mix as a thoughtful freebie when they could have just as easily culled the best tracks and slapped them on a new "deluxe version" release of their last album instead, how refreshing.

Album Review: bell hooks [mixtape] - BBU

Last Tuesday I had one of those rare and wonderful musical experiences that comes from hearing something great for the first time and feeling the excitement just course through your veins. I was basking in an obscenely sunny day off, about to head out for a walk when I ran a across a Reader review of a new mixtape from some Chicago rappers that seemed worth checking out. From the opening beat of the first song I was blown away at the audacious and righteous power of the music and I found myself reveling so deeply in the joy of discovery that I got a little giddy as each new song came on, anxious for each new song like a kid on Christmas Eve.

In terms of introductions, I think that the group themselves does it best on their Bandcamp - "Epic, Illekt, Jasson Perez, and DJ Esquire are the creative force behind BBU (short for Bin Laden Blowin! Up or Black, Brown, and Ugly, depending on the day), and they're committed to making socially conscious rap that doesn't sacrifice an ounce of fun." I didn't know it at the time, but I'd heard their local dance hit "Chi Don't Dance" before which certainly showcased their adeptness at creating unbearably catchy songs. What blew me away was how well they could marry that kind of off-the-wall danceability with lyrics containing more humor, pathos, anger and urgency than anything I'd heard in a while.

Album Review: Want More - JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound

Yesterday was one of those blustery March late-winter days whose oppressive grayness just makes you want to stay inside swathed in artificial heat and light. So it was with some reluctance that I dragged both myself and my girlfriend away from hearth and sunny, spring training baseball on TV to make a chilly walk down Fullerton. The only reason that I made that trek was that local record store Saki was hosting a free concert (which was recorded for download on Epitonic) by JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound whose new record I hadn't stopped listening to all weekend.

Album Review: The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy - Nada Surf

"If I'm waiting for nothing then what am I doing?" So wondered Nada Surf on its 1996 Karmic EP. Now, some sixteen years down the line, lead singer Matthew Caws is still complaining that "it always feels like I'm waiting for something". The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? Given that Nada Surf have been focused on aging, their place in the world and the passage of time since that first EP, it's no surprise that these themes hang heavily over their seventh studio album. Matthew Caws says that the title The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy was a saying pinched from his astronomer father but it's also an incredibly fitting description of the band's consistent focus on these universal themes that has shifted focus or matured but never really changed over their nearly two decade long career.

On Warmer Music's Favorite Albums of 2011 [15-8]

I sometimes can't help but wonder why one would make both a favorite albums and favorite songs list for a given year. There's obviously bound to be a great deal of overlap between the two, why not just combine them?


Without waxing too rhapsodic about the joys of a well-crafted, contextless single or an inseparably extended musical statement, I'd like to humbly submit that there are some artists who shine over three minutes but drag over forty while others might not make songs designed to be heard on shuffle but can use mood, placement and other tools to design brilliant musical collections that demand to be appreciated as whole units.


Therefore it is with great excitement but also extreme modesty that I present my favorite albums of the past year. Bon appetit!

Album Review: Ratsliveonnoevilstar [EP] - Annie Clark

Last night I saw St. Vincent. It was, let me be clear, a great show. It reminded me of seeing the National play Metro in 2007 while touring off of Boxer, in that it was clear that this is a band bound for bigger things and larger venues. The light show alone was epic enough to say "yeah, I'm not gonna be playing small clubs forever, so enjoy it while you can."*


Although Annie Clark looked as good as ever, she was sporting a whole new backing band who put an entirely different spin on her live act than the last two times I saw her touring off Actor. Gone was the sax, in were dual keyboards for both bass and texture. She played mostly new songs, but her takes on older material, especially "Your Lips Are Red" showed just how important her bands are in shaping her sonic vision. All her music is sewn together with darkly erotic undertones, but the frame changes album to album, from the sixties pop-inspired Marry Me to the technicolor soundscapes of Actor and on to Strange Mercy's electronic menace.


Clark's musical shapeshifting isn't a recent trend, in fact it can be first observed in a 2003 EP she released as a music student at Berklee College. She chose the palindromic title Ratesliveonnoevilstar for this modest recording of three songs that feature her on a guitar along with a jazz bassist and drummer. The session offers insight into Clark's musical background with a looser, pop-jazz sound that continues to pop up in various songs throughout her work as St. Vincent. Not only that, but you can hear her development as a songwriter, with songs just as dark and quirky as her later work but with less polish and more suggestion.

Album Review: An Argument With Myself [EP] - Jens Lekman

How did I miss Jens Lekman? I mean, I've had autumnal favorite "Maple Leaves" on my mp3 player for at least a couple of years and I'd been hearing his name even before then. I have a few friends who are big fans and every description I ever heard of him seemed promising. Yet until just a few weeks ago, I'd never heard more than one song by the man. It's not like I was slacking or wasting my time, there's just more good music out there in the world than even a dedicated enthusiast can possibly process.


In a world where almost any song or information is available at our fingertips and three bloggers and a webzine have already loved, gotten bored with and rediscovered every new band before you hear about them, it's easy to lose sight of the joy of discovery that makes loving music so rewarding. Between the scads of new groups who all sound so interesting when I hear about them and the seminal bands that I never knew I'd missed out on hearing, I have an ever-expanding pile of music that I know I should listen to that I never quite seem to have enough time to get around to. Occasionally I find it impossible to listen to something new without drifting away in thought about what else I need to remember to listen to.

Album Review: Self-Titled - Wild Flag

I love the new Wild Flag album. I love many things about it: its chops, its messiness, it sense of fun, its immediate timelessness. In fact, I even love this album for what it hasn't done, which is to say become an icon of ghettoized "girls rock".


I love the fact that a group comprised of former members of musically and intellectually uncompromising bands like Sleater-Kinney, Helium and the Minders has been routinely called a "supergroup" by the national media. I love that this hasn't prompted a series of navel-gazing articles about "girls in indie rock." I love that this record has come out the same year as albums by women like Leslie Feist, Annie Clark and Merril Gerbus who were weaned on the kind of punk that SK and Helium made but have now been able to expand that sensibility across genres and audiences to great acclaim. I love that I've been hearing about an album of great music made by women rather than a great girl rock album.

Album Review: Strange Mercy - St. Vincent

My first introduction to the new St. Vincent album (I hadn't yet memorized the name) came during this year's Pitchfork Music Festival in the form of a video that was repeated ad nauseum between sets on the festival's jumbotron. The ad featured a series of attractive women looking into the camera and earnestly spouting rote breakup cliches created to spare the male ego. After a series of these, Annie Clark finally appears and looks directly into the camera and without hesitance or dissembling says:

It was an incredibly effective spot. As every review of her by a male writer has attested, Clark is very attractive woman and her lure is drawn from more than just her looks. Annie Clark has a cold, clear-eyed strength that radiates out of her person and music which adds to her magnetic attractiveness just as much as her looks. Both her playing and her lyrics prove that she's the kind of girl who can kick your ass and make him like it. 

Album Review: The Whole Love - Wilco

"It's no fun getting old."

That pearl of wisdom was one that my Nana always loved to trot out when I was a kid. It seemed like a weighty statement then (certainly a complaint above my pay grade) but I always responded in the same way, "Yeah, but it beats the alternative."

Wilco is getting old and I don't say that as an insult, but as a statement of fact. The band members are all solidly in their forties and they've gone from upstarts to innovators to elder statesmen. I have no problem with stability, but it does raise some interesting questions for a band that was long-known for shape-shifting between every album and always staying one step ahead of its audience.

Album Review: Lemonade Stand - Illinois

**Edit**
I've been informed that Lemonade Stand is less an album than a group of remastered Demos. So take my mixtape analogy to heart and look out for a proper album later this year in 2012!


So here we are. Illinois (the band) has released what Billy Bragg called "the difficult third album" (or close enough to it, if you include What The Hell Do I Know?). If you didn't know about it, well don't blame yourself, neither did I and that's saying something considering the degree of my Illinois fandom combined with my propensity to scour the 'nets for music news. But sometime in late July, the boys from Bucks Country let loose another album upon the world and, never fear, On Warmer Music is here to review it!

Illinois frustrates me because they seem hell-bent on minimizing their impact and level of success and Lemonade Stand continues in that tradition. This is a band that can craft a hook or a bassline as well as anyone in indie rock yet they rarely tour, do press or, god forbid, promote their new album. Indeed, the latest full-length was streamed over a month ago on their soundcloud and released for download only very recently with no physical copies to be had. Even the description "full length" is pushing it, as the album stretches a mere 30 minutes. Yet despite all that, once you actually get to the music, it becomes hard to hold a grudge because you realize that you're one of the few people in on the delightful secret that is this band.

Album Review: Sky Full of Holes - Fountains of Wayne

Fountains of Wayne aren't cool. They're not sexy, they're not edgy, lord knows they're not hip. Their love of pop isn't drenched in enough feedback or ironic distance to appeal to the arty crowd and their love of pop isn't synthesized enough to get them onto Top 40. But for people who love classic pop songcraft in whatever form it takes this group is a treasure. They made their biggest splash aping the Cars but they're just as at home with Rick Nelson. Songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collinwood just need a hook and they're off.