Category: Reviews

Combining country twang, garage fuzz, and rockabilly squeak, Bloodshot Bill manages to make vintage sound new in Git High Tonite! Montreal’s answer to Hasil Adkins, the one-man band sensation returns with 12 greasy, rockin’ numbers guaranteed to get you moving. Combining crazy barely audible Trashmen-esque voicework, jingly-jangly guitars, and raw classic rockabilly instrumentation, Bloodshot has perfected a sound very few can match. Standout tracks include “Leave Me Alone,” “Outta the Rain” and a great Steve Alaimo cover “She’s My Baby.” The album closes out with a devastating rockabilly ballad “Oh Honey Doll Baby Doll” and a fantastic acoustic bonus track. (Transistor 66, www.bloodshotbill.com) Kent Davies

While I don’t believe any of their subsequent albums have rivaled their 2002 album Amore del Tropico (Tropics of Love), the Black Heart Procession have nonetheless made a valiant effort to reach for those heights. Returning to the counting scheme of their first three records, the San Diego band also retains the foreboding tone they’ve honed through all their prior recordings—atmospheric strings, ominous, impassioned vocals and rumbling bass, all supporting vocalist Paulo Zappoli’s dark tales. Love, death and the intersection between the two have long been lyrical tropes for the Black Heart Procession, and Six finds them digging fresh holes in the same graveyard. “When You Finish Me” speaks of being buried by a lover and “Wasteland” finds the protagonist hearing “ghosts calling me back to the grave.” Things don’t end in the ground though, as characters pursue their lovers through “Heaven and Hell” and burn in flames (“All My Steps”). Clearly this isn’t a voyage for the faint of heart and neither is an album by the Black Heart Procession—though you’d expect nothing less considering their moniker and their catalogue. This is a bleak and troubled listen, but there’s a dark beauty buried in its heart. (Temporary Residence, www.temporaryresidence.com) Michael Elves

My Old, Familiar Friend marks something of a liberation for Brendan Benson. Finally stepping out of the enormous shadow of Jack White, Benson has returned to his solo career, and it’s a return that is most certainly overdue. It’s a shame that it’s taken him four records to finally get any attention, and even more shameful that his rescue from obscurity is largely due to his stint with the forgettable Raconteurs. But considering just how excellent My Old, Familiar Friend is, these facts are easy to ignore. Benson’s talent for creating punchy, infectious pop music has always been obvious, but this album in particular takes it one step further. At once, the record demonstrates raw energy and unabashed joy, and enmeshes every track with a certain heartfelt quality. “I fell in love with you /and out of love with you /and back in love with you /all in the same day,” repeats Benson on album opener “A Whole Lot Better,” a handclap- and hook-driven number that sets up the honest desperation and earworm traits found throughout the rest of the album. “Garbage Day” sounds as if it had been pulled out of any 1970s discotheque, laced with energetic strings and pulsing analog synths, and “Feeling Like Taking You Home” is a cut of new wave-inspired bliss. Benson doesn’t shy away from incorporating a wide variety of musical genres into his sound, which he manages to pull off with a level of style and finesse that makes it seem effortless. It’s never over-the-top, and when it works it works well, casting the record to sound exactly like the ambitions of a talented artist being realized, and makes My Old, Familiar Friend every bit the success that Benson deserves. (ATO Records, www.atorecords.com) Kevan Hannah

The Warped 45’s debut full-length album is marred by several problems. From the opening title track, there seems to be an issue with the way the album was mixed. The band is loud, and their loudness renders Dave McEathron’s singing incomprehensible. After fiddling with my levels a bit, the problem was not related to the backing band being turned too loud, but with McEathron’s voice himself. He sings with a twang in his voice that segues mainly into his slurring of the lyrics. Instead of sounding like a boozed soaked troubadour singing about the trials of living on the lonely road, he sounds like a parody of a country singer. There are times on the album when his voice clears up, but for the most part, it stays as a slur. If he cleared things up, the band would be a band to look out for. Instead, this album falls flat. Just like Saskatchewan. (Pheromone Recordings, www.pheromonerecordings.com) Charles Lefebvre

This album from the legendary Canadian metal band Voivod is their final album ever. Deciding to call it quits after the 2005 death of guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour, the band uses this album as a final tribute to an underrated metal guitarist. Continuing the tradition started with 2006’s Katorz, the band takes D’Amour’s last recorded guitar tracks, with no re-amping or overdubs, and adds the rest of the instrument parts around it. What results is a great album, one that cements Voivod and D’Amour’s legacy as one of the best metal bands to ever come out of Canada. D’Amour’s guitar work on songs such as “Global Warming” and “Earthache” gives these songs a special quality, that would be lost if it was a lesser band playing. The rest of the band does their part as well. Denis Belanger’s growl is the best it has ever been, and the bass playing from Jason Newsted manages to complement the rest of the band, rather than getting lost in the noise. The album tends to lean more towards the “groove” subset of metal, with speed metal and a bit of thrash sprinkled in as well. There are no hints of the progressive work that was found in their most notable works, which may upset some fans, but I prefer their focus on groove rather than complexity. If this is indeed the last Voivod album, then the band has gone out with a bang. Any true metal fan should have this album in their collection. (Sonic Unyon, www.sonicunyon.com) Charles Lefebvre

In this reviewer’s opinion, the British metal scene is the best in the world. While everyone fawns over the Scandinavian scene, with their over reliance on orchestration, synthesizers, and dabbling in the occult, the Brits have been making metal music the way it should be made: with balls. Sylosis, out of Reading, make a very good impression with their first full-length album Conclusion of an Age. Sylosis have all the hallmarks of thrash metal, with fast shredding, double bass drumming, and aggressive vocals from Jamie Graham. There is even some influence from melodic death metal and metalcore, though thankfully they don’t overshadow the entire album. The only problem I have with the album is the intro track. Leave that atmospheric stuff to the Swedes! But, I’m grasping at straws here. Fans of in Flames or the early 1980s American thrash scene should give this solid debut a listen. (Nuclear Blast, www.nuclearblastusa.com) Charles Lefebvre

With no desire to tarnish the natural twang of a freshly-strung strat, Los Straitjackets wrote their twelfth album with the discernable goal of attempting to transport the listeners to a slightly-modernized and genre-delving sample of the ’60s. The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets is mostly a surf-rock album with many other early ’60s-era rhythm and blues, British invasion and garage rock influences. Though instrumentation remains constant, Los Straitjackets have done enough production work on their sound to provide enough variation to keep the listener in their little corner of the world. Tracks such as “Tubby”, a bottom-heavy throbber with a strong back-beat and a sly sax line, clearly show that though the band may specialize in mastering the calm-yet-cruising feel of surf-rock stylings, at any point in time they have the ability to manipulate both melodic form and supplemental instrumentation to reach the exact emotion they wish to convey. Though this album may not push the boundaries of human expression in any overt way, this album is certainly inventive and groovy enough for a drive to somewhere wet and hot. And that’s more vital to the healthy existence of music than most other revivalist clamour that seems to be garnering widespread critical acclaim. (Yep Roc Records, www.yeproc.com) Dustin Danyluk

An old friend and former bandmate of Sufjan Stevens (no relation), Shannon Stephens’ new album, The Breadwinner, is full of hymns to domestic life, where small is beautiful and love is learned the hard way. Stephens has been covered by Bonnie “Prince” Billy on his 2008 album Lie Down in the Light, and has been lauded by critics for her “gut-punch” lyricism. After nearly a decade in hiding, The Breadwinner is her attempt to give songwriting and recording another go. On top of the clucking of hens and short orchestral blasts, “Hard Times are Coming” is an instructive testimony to her daughter, on which she warns “all kingdoms go and flourish, then they decline, all that they’ve won unrighteously becomes their own undoing eventually.” The Breadwinner provides plenty of fertile ground to explore the meaning of love, home family with an apocalyptic eye to the future. Although some of these songs, like “In the Summer in the Heat,” remain unmemorable, the albums shortcomings are quickly made up for with the spiritually resonant “Come to My Table,” which finds Stephens at her most affective, crooning like Eva Cassidy, pondering work, rest and communion. The Breadwinner can be rather bland at times, but if soft-spoken, spiritually aware singer-songwriters are your thing, this one’s a winner. (Asthmatic Kitty, www.asthmatickitty.com) Jonathan Dyck

Since their appearance in the 2008 teen film Charlie Bartlett, Toronto dance rock band Spiral Beach have gained a number of fans that probably would not have discovered their music otherwise. Since the film was a box office bomb, we can be thankful that there are not a number of bandwagon jumpers who are “totally their number one fan!” On their third album, Spiral Beach tone down the use of electronics in their music, favoring a more organic sound that can only be achieved through the use of actual instruments. It is a good thing they did that, because I am getting sick of this electronic dance rock craze. The music is catchy, easy to dance to, and should definitely be played at night clubs in place of whatever is currently being played. If you ever get a chance, see this band live. Maddy Wilde, Airick Woodhead and the rest of the band put on an energetic live show that deserves to be seen by many. (Sparks Music, www.sparksmusic.com) Charles Lefebvre

Sights & Sounds are breaking into the music industry with their debut Monolith, which was produced under the knowledgeable guidance of Devin Townsend (of Strapping Young Lad fame), which is worth mentioning mostly for the subtlety and airiness of ambient passages and thunder of heavy sections that he has sculpted. The production is in the vein of many Devin Townsend recordings, the bass guitar and the drums locking into a thundering production which ensures that both drive themselves into one’s ears equally. Slower instrumental and ambient passages are reminiscent of similar pieces recorded in Townsend’s other work, yet in a more repetitive and less alluring way. Some songs have moments which find the band in a place where a heavy groove, ambient background guitar and impassioned vocal melodies combine to create a monstrous and grey atmosphere, but these moments are too often over-shadowed by typical metalcore trappings such as understated double-kick rhythms, relationship-centric lyrics and vestiges of that infamous screamo-esque nasal vocal delivery. The biggest annoyance of this album is the fact that at times it comes so close to transcend commonalities of the genre. If it were merely a blatant exercise in mimicry it could be easily discarded, but the band shows great ambition, and it is for this reason that this album is disappointing. (Smallman Records, www.smallmanrecords.com) Dustin Danyluk