Torche - Songs for Singles

An uneasy, uncertain, and unnerved man pops a newly purchased DVD into his player and pushes the play button.  He sits down on his couch facing his TV.  The Ripple Effect logo is emblazoned on the screen for a few seconds, and then fades away to black.  Moments later a familiar cartoon face appears, and some schmaltzy background music begins to play.

“Hello there friend.  My name is Penfold.  You might remember me from such films as…wait…I haven’t been in any.  Well, you might remember me from such sparkling write ups as…okay, you’ve probably not seen any of those either.  You know what?  That’s okay!  This isn’t about me.  We’re going to be focusing on you right now.  I’m here to help you through whatever relationship problem you’re experiencing at the present time by providing you with my expert advice and guidance.  You see, I’ve recently discovered the solution to all relationship problems.  That’s right!  And I’m going to share that secret with you my friend.  So get ready, because here it comes!”

“Over the next few minutes I’m going to demonstrate four relationship-related scenarios with the help of a few of my friends.  There will be a common thread running through each of them.  Let’s see if you can spot what that thread is.”

Scenario One:  The Lead Up

“Hey Penfold, where are we going?”
“We’re going to the most popular night club in the city.  It’s always packed, so it should definitely be a target rich environment.”
“Awesome!  Hey man, I need to get psyched up for this.  I need something that will boost my confidence and energize me at the same time.  Put on some tunes!”
“I know just the thing.  This is the new Torche album, Songs For Singles.”
“Sweet!”

Scenario Two:  After the Crushing Blow

“Penfold, why are you crying?”
“It’s over man!  She left me.”
“Oh jeez, I’m sorry to hear that.  That’s terrible.”
“I know.  This is the worst day of my life!”
“Hey listen; I’ve got something here that will cheer you right up.”
“I sincerely doubt it.”
“No seriously, I know how much you like your music.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Soooo…this is the new Torche album, Songs For Singles, and with one listen it’s going to turn your whole day around!”

Scenario Three:  The Decider

“Hey babe, welcome home.  How was your day?”
“Hey Penfold.  Eh, my day was fine.  Same as all the others I suppose.  So what have you been up to?”
“Oh, not much.  I’ve been hunkered down writing for most of the day.”
“Ah, I should have known.  Say babe, what are you listening to over there?”
“This?  This is Songs For Singles, the new album from Torche.  Good, huh?”
“Babe, I have to tell you.  You have the worst taste in music of anyone I’ve ever known.”

“You know…this really isn’t working out.  I’m out of here.  Have a nice life.”

Scenario Four:  Fireworks

“Yep, here we are Mr. Penfold.  This is the last available copy of Torche’s new album Songs For Singles in the entire city.”
“Thanks.”  The sales clerk leaves and another party approaches.  They happen to be very attractive.
“Oh shoot, is that the last one?”
“I’m afraid so ma’am.”
“Dangit!  I love that band and I’ve looked everywhere for this album!”
“You like Torche?”
“Of course!?  They rock!  Don’t you think so?”
“I do indeed!  Tell you what.  If I can have your phone number, I’ll gladly let you have this album.”
“You drive a hard bargain, but I like your style…done.  What’s your name?”  Ding-ding-ding!  We have a winner!

All right waveriders.  It’s time to get serious.  If you could not have guessed, I like Torche.  I like Torche…a lot.  I’ve been following this band for quite a few years now.  They made a gigantic initial impression on me when I witnessed their ferocious live show.  Needless to say I left that show with their first album in tow, and my appreciation for the band’s music has grown by leaps and bounds ever since.  To put it succinctly, Torche serves as my brain’s musical reset button.  Whenever I have befuddled my musical consciousness under a mountainous heap of undesirables, all I have to do is put on a Torche album and the world is right once again.  So what type of music holds this kind of sway over my mind?  Let me to try to explain.

You see, it is a bit difficult to adequately describe this group thanks to their musical approach.  I’m sure there are many people out there who can tell you that Torche sounds like one band or another, but try as I might I simply don’t have that ability.  Torche sounds like Torche, plain and simple.  These gentlemen play an invigorating combination of stoner rock, sludge metal, and pop that in my experience is entirely their own.  For further clarification I’m going to lift a couple of choice quotes I’ve run across that I think will be helpful.  Revolver magazine states, “At long last, we know what life would be like in a parallel universe where The Melvins became a pop sensation”.   And a sticker on the front of Songs For Singles finds the bass player, Jonathan Nunez, reflecting, “It’s a bunch of radio rock bullshit”.  Yeah right, if only!  I might actually listen to commercial radio if that was the case.

Songs For Singles is Torche’s third full length album.  It comes at the listener fast, furious, and melodious.  While it is the band’s most ear-pleasingly poppy release to date, make no mistake waveriders, this band is as heavy as a pallet of gold bricks and as solid as a blacksmith’s anvil.  To their credit, the immense amount of rock goes down extremely easily behind the clean singing and hummable riffs.  Discerning shoppers may look at the length of this album, just under twenty two minutes, and question whether or not it offers enough substance to justify its cost.  Rest assured.  The answer is a resounding YES!  All eight songs run rampant from the speakers, leveling all that dare to stand before them in defiance of their rock.  My personal favorites are pulsating album opener “UFO”, rheumatologist friendly “Hideaway”, and sonically uplifting “Cast Into Unkown”.  Oops, looks like we’ve reached the conclusion of the tape.

“So there you have it my friend.  This album, Songs For Singles by Torche, is the answer you have been waiting for!  We’ve demonstrated exactly how you can use this music to begin, end, or recover from a relationship.  Now it’s up to you to put what you’ve learned to good use.  I wish you luck!  But seriously; with this album and my patented techniques, who needs luck?”

--Penfold

buy here: Songs For Singles

Cattle Drums- The Boy Kisser Sessions +3

The thing that works with pop rock is the mix of catchy pop and heavy rock sounds. This EP by Cattle Drum brings that together, but in an unexpected way. Usually in pop/rock albums, the music is rock and the vocals provide the sing along pop but not with this EP. The music almost reaches the point of pop, the vocals definitely rock. It is possible to even go as far as saying the only thing that makes it pop is the guitar riffs that make you want to play along.

The entire The Boy Kisser Sessions +3 EP is full of cryptic lyrics and is wildly unpredictable making it really fun to listen to.

The first surprise is delivered with the first song. "New Furniture and Wigs" is a great opening to the album with an awesome riff that makes your reach for your guitar to try and play. The surprise is really the vocals. After hearing the riff you are expecting something a little  Fall Out Boy in flavour, but you don't. You get hit with impact making, tuneful shouting. The same sort of taste follows with "Who Punched Pat Moore's Face"- really great riff.

Just when you are thinking, “Okay... I think I can get what they are doing here...” they pop in "Sluts and Coconuts" which brings the two fast paced impact hitting songs to a slower more relaxed point. With a smoother, higher pitched riff and lyrics you can almost follow. "Bovrg the Nag" keeps you on the same wave as "Sluts and Coconuts", which is something you can appreciate in the roller coaster that is this EP.

 "Two Pigeons" has a sweet little opening, with acoustic guitar and soft drums, transitions into the faster paced, and backs off again later in the song.

"Just the Right Height" has an electronic start opening up to the tuneful shout that, at this point in the EP, you are beginning to really like. The lyrics still baffle you with things like-

“Doc scaled the walls of the typhoon front line, but I don’t mind the drive underground. Put em’ up high. A left handed pitcher who only throws curves, throws a fit”

"All the Electric Secrets of Hell" begins with my favourite riff of the album because it is soft and engaging. The obscure lyrics have also grown on you and you can almost find yourself wanting to sing along to the chorus of-

“Uh oh I’ve been waiting up all night, for something sweet, to crawl in my mouth.

You’re cutting out 'land ho' I’m wasting away out of bounds, scraping off my nails, and chewing off my tongue, but I’m at it again wearing in the wrong shoes.”

"I Know Who Killed Me" tops off the unpredictability of The Boy Kisser Sessions +3 by opening with lyrics, which none of the other songs have done. This is my favourite song because it provides me with a mental picture in my head of some crazy imaginary world thanks to the opening lines-

“I want to be more than a dramatic silhouette spilling gasoline on my paper shoes, to waste away playing kicking the can in an uphill landscape full of loose connections, a landscape prone to open flame.”

It can be also noticed, that in this song the shouting has almost dissolved into talking and the final half with just the tapping throws me out of my imaginary land into a jungle waiting for a cannibalistic tribe to eat me.

It is as if the Cattle Drums just went insane during this EP, and that is why I like it. You have no idea what is going on, where it is heading and you can't even sing along because you are never quite sure if you are going left or right. It appeals to me, and hopefully to others, because it is unlike most other productions. If anyone works out the meaning of it all, let me know.

-Koala

Buy here:  The Boy Kisser Sessions + 3

Right The Stars - S/T

Be on the lookout for this alternative pop jazz rock monster of a release by music producer Rich Jacques under the name Right The Stars.  It is FM radio ear candy.  Mainstream alternative - a contradiction in terms but totally understandable.

Think of a combination of these influences -  banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck, Jason Mraz,  almost a decade of knowledge as a music teacher to the stars and almost an equal amount of time as a music producer - and you start to get an idea about what Jacques is trying to do.  Or, should I say, has succeeded in doing. Waves of sound, soothing and soaring vocals - a memorable chorus or line.  Tight instruments.  These songs do not display instruments as lead vehicles. The instruments are used as intricate parts in a tightly constructed framework of sound solely intended to support each song.  Voices are used as instruments but instruments are rarely used as voices.  The writing and orchestration are finely tuned.  There is agony and grief in the lyrics, but, there is also hope.

Where does it come from? Jacques spent a year working with the We Can Pediatric Brain Tumor Network, a support group for families of children with cancer.  He even helped write a song about survival to help children cope with their diagnosis.  The pain shows in the lyrics. Empathy and passion can be overwhelming and you can hear it in the writing - it is extraordinary. From the hesitant hopefulness of the song "Making Deals With Gods" to the outright bursts of joy in "We Got It All" (which is being used by Honda in its Australian CR-V advertising) Jacques, with the help of a panoply of other writers, makes these emotions palpable and you can empathize. The African influences in "Life In A Northern Town" made me wonder whether Jacques went with Bela Fleck to Africa on Bela's recent tour,

Yes, the music is "commercial." Right The Stars' music will appear in the Brooke Shields and Brendan Frasier movie Furry Vengeance which is scheduled for release on April 1, 2010. However, just because it is "commercial" that doesn't mean it is bad.  In fact, in this case, it is wonderful.  Let the music seduce you.  Releases like this don't come along that often 

These are huge hits waiting to happen. 

 - Old School

Buy here: Right the Stars

An Electrifying Edifice of Ebullient EP's Featuring Breakers Broken, Braxton Parker, and Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst

Breakers Broken - Reset

Absolutely golden, shimmering pop.  That’s what Breakers Broken bring to their new E.P. Reset.  Harkening back to the glory days of true, gorgeously produced pop, Breaker’s Broken somehow manage to remind me of some of the best 80’s pop bands like Curiosity Killed the Cat mixed with, of all things, Michael Jackson.  Sounds bizarre but it’s a massively refreshing mix of pure unadulterated hooks and melodies, blended with dancefloor energy, and, dare I say it, fun.  Yes, music still can be fun.

“Last Man on the Planet,” is the standout here, blending some of the best, most Michael Jackson like vocals I’ve heard in ages.  Not derivative or Xeroxed, but clearly Jackson-esque in tone and phrasing.  Imagine if Jackson had one day fronted Level 42 at their poppiest, or Wet  Wet Wet and you’ll get the feeling.  Big synths, circular drums, dancing strobe lights and swirling lasers.  The short instrumental “How Novel,” keeps the energy rolling high with it’s big synth intro, undulating bass groove, scattering guitar, and intricate drum line, merging seamlessly into “When She Needs Me,” another blast of delicate, R&B infused, synth pop.  Boppy, bouncy, bountiful, complete with undeniable vocal hook and hum-along melody.  “Falling System,” brings on the white boy soul a la Vitamin Z and their addictive single “Burning Flame.” It doesn’t take more than a moment for the bass to find it’s groove, then the perfect tenor bursts in like sunlight streaming through a breakfast nook window.  The dubbed in rap of  "Girl Behind the Bar,” doesn’t work for me, sounding a bit producer forced, but there’s no denying the talent here. In truth, it’s been a while since anyone wrote pure pop like this, and Breakers Broken deserve to find an audience.

Buy here: Breakers Broken - Reset





Braxton Parker - CD Preview EP


A while back, my esteemed partner, The Pope, wrote of Loomis and the Lust, as a band nearly indescribable in style, poppy yet rocking, rough yet polished. In the end, The Pope gave up on trying to find a label and just settled for rock and roll.  Now, just a few weeks later, Braxton Parker comes charging down that same multi-intersecting rock and roll highway.  Blessed with an ear for a melody that would make the writers in most pop punk bands drool with envy, Braxton Parker bursts out with a punchy, crunchy, but definitively poppy brand of rock and roll.

Debuting here on his 3-song EP, Braxton effortless unleashes his rock savvy and definite charms.  “City Lights,” is a full-on, charging rock rave-up, with chiming, circular guitar lines.  Punky in style, this isn’t punk, and God, it isn’t pop emo.  In fact, listening to the glory of the bridge and the catchy-as-catchy-can-be chorus, it’s clear this is a pop song.  Just one infused with more power and passion and energy than we’re used to from most watered-down bands.  In fact, somehow, Braxton manages to defy all decade generalizations in one song.  In some aspects it sounds as clean and AM friendly as some of the jauntier tracks from the seventies, yet some of the guitar lines seem to echo so much of the eighties early Athens scene.  Still the energy is clearly post-Green Day of the nineties, and the tone is pure now.  I’m not sure exactly what to call it, so I’ll just steal my partner’s line, and call in rock and roll.  Pure, fun, hooky, rock and roll.  “Not Yet,” brings a little more crunch and muscle to the guitars, driving the song like the best of the early 80’s powerpop bands.  Braxton’s vocals are a great blend of snotty and full of sneer, while still being incredibly harmonious and sweet.   And once again, he proves he knows his way around a hook.   And somehow he manages to write a chorus is sweet and nasty all at once.  It certainly is powerpop, but more expanded, less condensed and tight than that genre implies. 

Buy here: Braxton Parker



Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst - Topanga Ranch Motel

Roots music, at its finest, has the ability to conjure up images of dusty places, wooden-floored bars, beer swilling patrons, and endless, empty horizons.  On this, his third release, Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst manage to bring all those images to life, and more, mixing in the plaintive yearning of a broken heart, and the motoring muscle of some southern-fried boogie rock.  Steven's voice is distinctly weathered and whiskey soaked to bring this songs to vivid and weary life, while the band cooks along behind him, a southern band in full flight.  Effortlessly, these guys spice up their dusty country with the chops of southern rock, or mix their rocking with heaps of rootsy flavor.  Guess it depends upon your perspective.

What doesn't depend upon perspective, however, is the quality of the songwriting and the performances here.  "Through with You," graced by some excellent, near haunting violin, truly elevates off the disc.  Steven's voice is perfectly worn, and soars as he tells the tale of this broken love.   The band churns around behind him, tossing in some tasty licks and beautiful dual guitar and lead runs.  "Takes me Back," does just that, taking me back to the hot and dry summer days of my youth.  Beginning with a gorgeous acoustic passage, the longing in Steven's voice is infectious as he reminisces on days long lost.  "I Want to Know," ups the boogie in true beer-swilling roadside bar fashion, while  "Down Home Girl," motors on down the highway riding a chugging southern riff, some stellar guitar work, and a violin frenzy.  Beautiful, ageless stuff.

--Racer

Buy here: Topanga Ranch Motel

Breakers Broken




Braxton Parker



Steven Casper