It's the end of the last full week before Thanksgiving break, and I for one am really excited! This time next week we'll all hopefully be eating leftovers and avoiding the Black Friday madness, but for now let's limp across the finish line with five new songs I heard and loved this week.
Pixies - What Goes Boom
OK, so the new Pixies EP, rather obviously titled EP1, has actually been out for a couple months now, but they just released this video for its final track, "What Goes Boom." You could be forgiven for thinking of Sergio Leone movies when you watch it--the long establishing shots and slow scenes in which Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago staggers forlornly across a lengthy desert expanse feel a bit like Once Upon A Time In The West outtakes. Then suddenly, towards the end of the video, something really bloody happens, and that's basically it. If they were really going for a Leone effect, the music would have stopped right before the explosion, but none of this really makes much sense to me, honestly, so I'm just rolling with it. I'm also rolling with the Pixies randomly starting to release new music after all this time--I'm still not entirely sure it's a good idea, but "What Goes Boom" is a pretty great song that could fit right in on Bossanova, so for now, I'm cool with it. The vinyl edition of EP1 is sold out, sadly, but you can get the mp3s from the Pixies website for only 4 bucks by clicking HERE. You can also order tickets to their show at The National on January 29 HERE--and we know you don't wanna miss that!
Eating Out - Come Around
Get your mind out of the gutter! This trio, a side project featuring members of Vancouver indie/punk bands Nu Sensae, White Lung, and Peace, and they play charming, catchy indie rock with no oral sex references whatsoever. "Come Around" is one of three songs on their new EP, Burn, due for release next month, and we think its no-frills production and toe-tapping sound is pretty refreshing in this day and age. Sounds like a single that would have come out on Slumberland in the early 90s, and therefore I am, er, eating it up. Not out. Argh! Sorry. This writeup was never intended to be gross. ANYWAY! Burn is coming out on Suicide Squeeze Records in December, and we highly recommend you pre-order it, which you can do by clicking HERE.
Noothgrush - Humandemic
Noothgrush is a name I never thought I'd hear again in conjunction with new music. In the mid to late 90s, they were part of the same West Coast scene that was producing tons of fastcore bands like Despise You and Spazz. For some reason, that scene always had a few doom metal bands hanging around it. Noothgrush was one of those bands--but they released their last record in 1998, and everyone thought they'd broken up. Well, if they did, they're back together, and they've got a split LP with Japanese doom metallers Coffins coming out next week on Southern Lord. "Humandemic" is one of the tracks from that split, and it spotlights the fierce, angry vocals from new singer Dino Somesse--another veteran of the late 90s doom/fastcore scene, who used to sing for Dystopia. His vocals help emphasize the connections Noothgrush have to the more hardcore-influenced side of the doom metal genre--their sound is much closer to the Black Flag-influenced sludge of Cavity or Eyehategod than the melodic stoner doom of Candlemass or Saint Vitus. And that's why it's awesome. Get yourself a vinyl copy of the Noothgrush/Coffins split LP from Southern Lord's website by clicking HERE.
Franz Ferdinand - Bullet
Hey, listen, I'm as tired of "Take Me Out" as anyone, but there comes a point where you've just gotta let a band move on from their one-hit wonder and try to redeem themselves. "Bullet," from Franz Ferdinand's fourth album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, is a valiant attempt, and one I at least would call successful. This no-frills rock n' roll tune is sort of a combination between 60s British Invasion rockers like The Kinks or The Who and 70s UK punks like The Damned and Stiff Little Fingers. And sure, a ton of bands have done that before, but Franz Ferdinand just do it so well here. The production is clear but completely unadorned--you can hear every strummed chord and every hi-hat hit--and, when forced to stand on its own by said production, "Bullet" rises to the occasion, delivering not one but two singalong choruses and giving us a perfectly appropriate video in which the band simply stands in a room and plays the song. With such a simple presentation, they've given themselves plenty of rope from which to hang if "Bullet" didn't hold up. But instead, this song becomes solid proof that Franz Ferdinand can be a really great band when they want to be. Now they just need to promise never to use a disco beat again. Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action is available on LP or CD from Domino USA HERE and digitally from iTunes HERE.
Ovlov - The Well
This incredible band from Newtown, CT (whose name is "Volvo" spelled backwards) just snuck up on me this week--their album Am came out this summer, but I just read about it in one of the many articles floating around lately about the "emo revival." Honestly, that's probably not an accurate term for this trio of brothers--I'd say "The Well" sounds more like Dinosaur Jr circa You're Living All Over Me, only buried more deeply in a wall of guitar distortion (if that's even possible). But singer/guitarist Steve Hartlett trades J Mascis's blazing guitar chops for a stronger grasp of vocal melody and writing a memorable chorus, so if anything this song might be even poppier than anything on the early Dinosaur Jr albums, even if it is buried under a wall of noise. The entire album is this good, too, making Am a sleeper pick for the best of 2013 lists we'll be getting inundated with starting in a week or two. You can get your own copy on vinyl and/or mp3 from Ovlov's Bandcamp page by clicking HERE.
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Email me your songs, and I'll write about them! andrew@rvamag.com Have a great weekend, everyone!