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This Spring’s Album Rundown

April 12, 2013 by A.S. Van Dorston

Although I’d been busy this year digging deep into 80s post-punk/dark wave and 70s psych-prog and co-running the ILM 1970s album poll, and haven’t reviewed any new albums yet, I have been listening. It has been a slow start this year, lacking any exciting, highly-anticipated releases through March. That’s going to change as of April 16, when an avalanche of great albums is coming. I’ll briefly look at the best of what I’ve heard so far, and give a sneak preview of things to come.

The Crystal Caravan - With Them You Walk Alone (2013, Transubstan)The Crystal Caravan – With Them You Walk Alone (Transubstan)
This Swedish band came out of nowhere for me, or rather, was recommended by Bill Goodman of The Soda Shop. They’ve had two other albums, a 2009 self-titled debut and Against The Rising Tide (2010, Transubstans), and I don’t know how I slept on ’em. Just listening to them this morning, both are great retro psych and proto-metal influenced high energy heavy rock, a pancake stack of riffs and hooks. Their third album is a definite progression, exploring the creative and psychedelic  possibilities of analog synths, adding backing female vocals from Lina Högstrom and expanding on a more soulful, almost twangy side they initially touched on with “Apple Hotel,” territory also explored lately by the great Troubled Horse. It’s a little early to tell, but this could have staying power to make my top 20 by the end of the year.

Ed Harcourt - Back Into The Woods (2013, CCCLX)Ed Harcourt – Back Into The Woods (CCCLX)
Ed Harcourt has been the most consistently great singer-songwriter of the past 13 years, no contest, and it pisses me off that everyone doesn’t recognize it. The most press he got was probably after his 2001 debut Here Be Monsters, when the young 22 year-old musician already had hundreds of songs written. Influenced by Bowie, Waits and Buckley, he only got better since then. Rather than overwhelm his audience with a slew of releases, he kept the quality control standards high and stuck to a release schedule of an album every few years, each one as impressive as the last. Not counting EPs and limited self-releases, this is his sixth album, another must hear for anyone not completely satisfied by the output of Rufus Wainwright and Patrick Wolf.

Marnie Stern - The Chronicles Of Marnia (Kill Rock Stars)Marnie Stern – The Chronicles Of Marnia (Kill Rock Stars)
On her previous three albums on Kill Rock Stars, Marnie Stern has established herself as the premier indie rock guitar shredder along with Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females. And like Paternoster, her songwriting didn’t always measure up to her guitar chops. This is changing on her fourth album, which more consistently holds my interest than the others. Oneida drummer Kid Millions helps make the songs less busy but more powerful, and often transcendent.

Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (2013, What's Your Rupture)Parquet Courts – Light Up Gold (What’s Your Rupture)
Along with taking on influences like The Fall (also on their album cover art), Pere Ubu and Wire and synthesizing into a more shambolic American aesthetic, Parquet Courts followed Pavement’s playbook by releasing a low-key release to build up excitement. However, their self-released cassette, American Specialties (2011) was perhaps too low-key, and when they put out their official debut Light Up Gold on Dull Tools in summer 2012, hardly anyone noticed.  They released it again on another label this year, and that did the trick, especially with the great timing of a lack of competition in early 2013, critics had all the time in the world to froth at the mouth over this. I’m still unsure how this album will hold up for me in the long run, but I like their sound, and look forward to seeing them progress.

Devil - Gather The Sinners (2013, Soulseller)Devil – Gather The Sinners (Soulseller)
I’m surprised the sophomore release from this occult rock act from Nes, Akershus Norway hasn’t gotten more attention, seeing as how popular the likes of Ghost, Blood Ceremony, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats and the now defunct The Devil’s Blood have become this past year. Time To Repent (2011, Soulseller) perked some ears up, including mine, mixing NWOBHM sounds with 70s proto-metal. The new album stretches out the song lengths, adding more exploratory instrumental passages and relying less on vocal hooks, and bringing some Pentagram/St. Vitus style doom.

Sgt. Sunshine - Sgt. Sunshine III (2013, Elektrohasch)Sgt. Sunshine – Sgt. Sunshine III (Elektrohasch)
This release totally took me by surprise, as I thought this band had broken up. As I said in my stoner rock primer a few years back, Malmö, Sweden’s Sgt. Sunshine were lead by Cuban-born Eduardo Fernandez-Rodrigues on guitar and vocals, whose fluid guitar lines were the closest competition for Colour Haze’s Stefan Koglek at the time. Their psychedelia was distinctly influenced by early Can, both in use of repetition, and Fernandez-Rodrigues’ vocals, sung partically in Spanish. Their brilliant self-titled album (2003) quickly went out of print, making it one of the most sought after stoner rock cult artifacts. Two thirds of the trio split in 2005, leaving Eduardo to recuit Chilean bassist Michael Mino and Egyptian drummer Robin Rubio, certainly making Sgt. Sunshine Sweden’s most diverse stoner export, and possibly the greatest. Koglek’s Elektrohasch label reissued the debut album (which quickly sold out again), and their follow-up, Black Hole (2007, Elektrohasch), which dug even deeper into krautrock influences to a somewhat less swaggering but just as captivating effect.

I had hoped they would reissue the first album again and return with a new one, and I’ve at least got my second wish! Now with Christian Lundberg on drums, the long-awaited third album is more similar to their hard-rocking ten year-old debut, but baked into a dusty psychedelic haze. Their sound is much muddier than most will be used to nowadays, but it all makes sense when you turn it up loud enough to bathe in the fuzz. The Machine & Sungrazer (Elektrohasch) split album is a perfect companion.

Other good albums that came out the first quarter were Palma Violets – 180, Jess and the Ancient Ones – Astral Sabbat EP, Rhye – Woman, Esben and the Witch – Wash The Sins Not Only The Face and Pere Ubu – Lady From Shanghai. They all deserve write-ups but I’m now on vacation, set to get in touch with my inner-spirit animal and float in water all day like a sea otter. There’s plenty written about them out in cyberspace though.

There were plenty of disappointments already this year. While it was exciting and surprising to see the My Bloody Valentine album, m b v, finally come out, it might as well have been from one of the dozens of bands influenced by MBV. It certainly tries hard to be arty and adventurous, but simply isn’t that captivating, though it’s far from bad. No one apparently agrees with me about The Knife’s latest double album opus, Shaking The Habitual, so I may need to spend more time with it. I don’t mind drone experiments from Boris, but for some reason, I have no patience for The Knife album just yet. Speaking of Boris, their output is so prolific and diverse I can’t really be disappointed, but Präparat sounds like a minor release to my ears. More interesting is perhaps the triple-disc reissue of the previously limited vinyl-only release of The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked (2004) and the double-disc Vein (2006). I’ve got a ticket for the first night of a two-night stand in May where they’ll play a selection of old favorites.

Other albums I have mixed feelings about are Wire’s Change Becomes Us, which supposedly resurrected material written during their 70s heyday, but sound way too much like mid-80s Wire throughout for my taste; Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ Push The Sky Away which goes back to boring balladry that they’ve done much better in earlier years, and even Kvelertak’s Meir. I highly ranked that Norwegian band’s debut a couple years ago, but the new one is just too screamy for my mood right now. I’ll probably come around more on it. There’s plenty of solid releases that fans of these bands should definitely check out, but probably won’t top my lists, like Autre Ne Veut, Ex Cops, Cult Of Luna, The Meads Of Asphodel, OMD, Dean Allen Foyd, Endless Boogie, The Black Angels, Ancient VVisdom, Iceage, Bleached, Hookworms, Mudhoney, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Beach Fossils, Gozu, Section 25, Sally Shapiro, Manilla Road, Intronaut, Moss, Voivod, Foals, Psychic Ills, Atoms For Peace, Flight Of Sleipnir, The Strokes, Suede and Yo La Tengo.

But man, is there some great stuff coming out soon. Annoyingly, many are coming out only in Europe and the UK, to come out over a month later in May in the U.S. Seriously? This is 2013, once something is out, it’s fucking out. Why discourage the U.S. market to buy albums legally at a reasonable price? It’s annoying when an entire continent gets access to an album sometimes months ahead of time. It only tempts people to get them any way they can rather than pay, even when they want to pay for them. That said, I’m spending a little extra to pre-order imports of the Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats – Mind Control and Kadavar – Abra Kadavar albums, out early next week across the pond. Hopefully they’ll arrive just after I return from my break. Also available import-only is Motorpsycho’s Still Life With Eggplant, which I’ll wait to find at a better price. It consists of stand-alone songs they’d written while working on the amazing double concept album The Death Defying Unicorn (2012) and recorded last fall. From what I’ve heard it’s a must-have for fans, as Motorpsycho are totally at their peak.  What will be available domestically on April 16th, which critics and bloggers have already been hyping and trashing well ahead of time, are Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Mosquito,  Ghost B.C. – Infestissumam and The Flaming Lips – The TerrorHigh expectations result in some backlash, but I like what I’ve heard, even though Mosquito may be their least great albumGhost B.C. (for whatever reason they changed it, I support it in fairness to the Japanese band Ghost) promised something that would sound like an expensive-sounding recording from 1978, and they seemed to have achieved it. The Terror is the darkest, gnarliest album The Flaming Lips have done since, well, ever, and it’s more interesting to me than their last few albums. Coming out a little later is Orchid – The Mouths Of Madness (Apr 26 in UK, fucking later in U.S.), Purson – The Circle And The Blue Door (Apr 30, same B.S. with later U.S. date), Satan – Life Sentence and The Stooges – Ready To Die (both Apr 30), Primal Scream – More Light, Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires Of The City (May 14). A bit later are a promising debut from Swedish band Vidunder, Tricky – False Idols, Queens Of The Stone Age – Like Clockwork and Black Sabbath – 13. Whee!

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