Eaten by Monsters has been at it’s new self-hosted home for a while now, so shame on you if you haven’t updated your feed reader yet. But being as Google Reader (the RSS reader for the connoisseurs) has finally shut down for good, this is probably as good a time as any to point you stragglers in the direction of the new feed.
there ya’ go; nice and simple. But all this talk of RSS and ‘feeds’ is leaving you with a tech-induced headache, there’s hope for you yet. On the eatenbymonsters.com homepage you can subscribe via email too! Then you’ll get an email (maximum one-per-day) whenever new content goes live. Now you’ve no excuse for missing even a single article or review.
The biggest bit of news to drop in casa EbM in last few months was that old favourites Frightened Rabbit would be releasing a new LP in 2013. That was good news because as creators of one of the best albums of the last half-decade, FR LPs are always worth paying attention to, but also because there would inevitably be a host of EPs and singles released to build up anticipation. And as a FR fanboy-completist, I’m willing to gobble all of these up with gusto.
We last had a FR EP back in November ’11, and whether any of the tracks from there will be on the new LP we can only speculate. What is known, however, is that the title track from State Hospital will make it on to the final album. Being the first song to emerge from the album’s writing session, frontman Scott has said it “set the tone” for the rest of the record. If that’s the case then fans of FR’s old stuff (which definitely includes me) are in for a treat. But it’s not a continuation of the upward trend in production values that we’ve seen through their last three albums; as I said when the last EP came out, the band’s longtime producer Peter Katis (a man with one of the most impressive resumes of recent times) is no longer on the scene and the band are handling production duties themselves. Whatever the reason for this (it may be a ‘creative’ decision or a side-effect of the band’s switch from indie FatCat to major Atlantic) I think ultimately it’s a step in the right direction. The songs on this EP carry a rawness and edge that is recognizable from their early work but which had been all but ironed out following 2008’s Midnight Organ Fight.
Of the other songs on this release, Boxing Night is the standout, reminiscent of Cheap Gold and It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop, and is by all accounts an old song given a final polish before being laid to rest. The collaboration with Aiden Moffat (late of Arab Strap), Wedding Gloves, is a leftfield ‘weird’ one, but what binds all five tracks together is an uncommon quality and a spirit that so many bands with promising beginnings lose as their career progresses. Frightened Rabbit are evidently still going strong, and still ones to watch.
Moving on from all the 7″s that have been covered on these pages lately, here’s a 10″ EP from EbM favourites Withered Hand. While the last WH release – the Heart Heart 7″ that came out in Feb. – represented a new direction for Dan Wilson’s project, Inbetweens is more representative of Withered Hand’s general sound. What I’ve always loved about WH, and which was perhaps slightly lacking in Heart Heart, is his ability to take the generic setup of acoustic guitar and crackly voice and turn it into something ultimately rather esoteric. Aside from his distinctive voice, there’s nothing overtly groundbreaking in the aesthetics of WH’s recorded output, but it does serve as a fine canvas to perfectly showcase the quality of the songwriting; to the point where his 2009 LP has been slowly creeping to the top of my all-time favourite albums list.
The title track on Inbetweens might not be WH’s best work, but it is nevertheless very good indeed, and it’s been my experience that WH songs tend to be ‘growers’, so come back in six months and this track may be a firm favorite. Where this EP gets interesting for me as a WH fan is the B-side, where some old songs are revisited. If you include Meursault’s cover, this is the fifth recorded version of Oldsmobile Car (which I know better as Red Candle Bulb) that I’ve heard, and up until now every version has had some flaw or quirk in it that renders it slightly less than a finished product. That might have been a dodgy drum machine or some ever dodgier backing vocals (“shooby-shooby”?!), but I’m pleased to report that this version gives the song the treatment it has so long deserved.
More controversial, in my eyes, is the final track, (it’s a) Wonderful Lie. Originally released as a Christmas song in 2007, the song was so good that Dan changed a verse to make it less season-specific and incorporated it into his live shows. This is a recording of that version complete with fleshed-out instrumentation, and it is very, very good. What makes it sit uneasily with me is that it’s not quite as good as the original festive version. I’m willing to accept that this might be because I have a strong emotional attachment to the old version – I’ve listened to it countless hundreds of times in the fortnightly period in which it’s acceptable to listen to Christmas songs – but secretly I’m sure it’s because the older version actually is better.
All in all, this 10″ has much to recommend it, both to Withered Hand fanboy completists and casual admirers of really great music. Go buy it!
Withered Hand – Inbetweens
Withered Hand – (it’s a) Wonderful Lie (new version)
Based on the first few bars of organ you’d be forgiven for confusing this track with Metronomy’s The Look, but once the guitar slides into the beat it becomes clear that this is a rather fine single all by itself. The title From Nowhere is aptly chosen as Dan Croll, the mastermind behind this sterling piece of work, appears to have sprung up ‘from nowhere’ fully formed. Armed only with a 7″, an infectiously jolly video, and a great eye for visual design, he’s beating a strong and steady path toward not inconsiderable success. There is another weapon in his arsenal, of course, and that’s a corker of a debut single.
From Nowhere had me hooked as soon as the guitar line kicked in, and didn’t let up until it was finished. The spring reverb and jaunty backbeat might mark the track out as a potential summer favourite, but it still doesn’t feel out of place now the nights are drawing in.
Aside from this 7″, there’s not much known about Mr Croll. He’s from Liverpool and popped up on the Communion Records compilation, New Faces, back in April with a track called Marion; it’s a nice enough tune, but it’s definitely From Nowhere that’s his masterpiece. If this song isn’t a hit on the scale of Grizzly Bear’s Two Weeks then the world is a deeply unfair place: go and buy it straight away.
Another corker of a track from a band I’d never heard of until they landed in my inbox. This is the sort of song I always wanted to be able to write when I was in school. I was never this good, and I’m too old now to get away with this kind of thing, but I can still enjoy the energy and delivery that The 1975 inject into the whirling dervish of a single that is Sex.
The track stands up well enough on its own, but there’s something to be gained from watching the video – the singer has given himself the most ridiculous rock-star haircut. Now, I know this doesn’t have anything to do with the music, and I’m guessing you don’t visit these pages for my Grazia-esque fashion insights, but is pertinent to the music, I assure you. If nothing else, it shows that this guy is committed to being a rock star; to have the nerve to do that to himself proves that the band is front-and-centre in his ambitions. And that’s an essential part of this music; utter commitment, manic youthful energy.
Anyway, haircuts aside, this song is fantastic, and an exploration of their soundcloud page won’t go unrewarded either. The record is released by Vagrant on the 20th November, and is available for pre-order through iTunes (although there’s no sign of any physical release yet, which is a shame).
This is one of my favourite singles of the year so far:
Simple, evocative, powerful; trading under the nom de guerre Monument Valley, Mancunian Ned Younger certainly knows how to turn a phrase that’s sure to draw me in. The sparse guitars and delicate atmospherics set a mood that’s at once malevolent yet somehow tender, and the booming, ghostly piano thumps in the chorus – so simple they’re hardly there – ground the lyrics so thoroughly that the track instantly feels like something important. Like all the best pop songs, the lyrics to Your Cover Blown sound both disarmingly specific and impossibly ambiguous all at the same time. In the months since this track was released I’ve listened to it countless times, and I’ve still no idea what it’s actually about, but every listen paints a picture that stays with me long after the song’s finished.
When it comes to the B-side, in contrast, there’s no mistaking what it’s about. Younger’s oblique, occasionally witty lyrical approach manages to breathe fresh life into the classic breakup song trope, and the end result is a track that’s almost as bewitching as the A-side. The single came out on Everybody’s Stalking back in May, and although I came late to the party and didn’t order my copy until mid summer, Your Cover Blown is easily my most-played 7″ of 2012 (so far, at least).
Allow me, if you will, to be a little self indulgent for a while (or more so than usual, at least). I don’t often get gooey over guitarists, and my days as a John Butler Trio fan are well behind me (I’ve grown up in a town built on surfing, so I had to like him at some point), but Ocean – JB’s instrumental magnum opus – is so lodged in my psyche that I just had to post about this new studio version. It was the first song I learnt that was built solely for performance on a 12-string – or 11-string, as JB has his set up – and I made sure I knew the Max Sessions version note for note; I must have watched that part of his DVD (which came as part of his Live at St. Gallen box set) more than any other music video.
Having learnt to play it myself, I now know that the tuning is doing most of the work, and he’s really just cycling through a couple of simple chord changes, but even knowing all that I still can’t help but be entranced by the track. I lost interest in the John Butler Trio after the Grand National album was so overwhelmingly dull, and even Sunrise Over Sea – the only record of his I really liked – lays on the cheese rather heavily. Like most virtuoso guitarists JB can’t write lyrics worth a damn, and if you’ve heard one of his plus-ten-minute slide solos you’ve heard them all; I’d only recommend you seek out more John Butler Trio stuff if you’re into surfing and think Jack Johnson’s great, but if you think that, then what on earth are you doing reading this blog?! Ocean, however, will stay with me forever.
There’s about a million different versions of this track out there – all of varying quality – and almost every one of them has a slightly different arrangement; he must play this track all the time, so who can blame him for trying to keep things interesting? This new version is one of the better ones, and you download it from his site or through the Soundcloud player embedded bellow, but I recommend you hear it with the visuals for the full effect.
And here’s my favorite arrangement from the Max Sessions DVD mentioned above (at six minutes, it’s much shorter than most of the other versions). Whichever version you choose, however, it will still be worth your time; I guarantee it.
A bit of a blast from the past, this one. I saw the latest Batman film the other day and it was, after all the hype, a film about a man who dresses up as a bat, but nonetheless very good for all that. It also reminded me that I’d not listened to this gem from The Mae Shi in ages. Written, recorded, and released in the twenty-four hours after the audio from Christian Bale’s well-publicized wig-out was made available, R U Professional is half piss-take, half tribute. It certainly sounds like it was written in a rush, but maybe that’s half the fun of it – and ‘fun’ is the operative word here. This song’s not big, not clever, and in all honesty not particularly good, but it is fun. It could be argued that I spend too much time being very serious about the music I listen to, so it’s nice to throw caution to the wind from time to time and simply bask in the unadulterated joy of something really, really silly.
The band seem to have fizzled out since 2009, but this is a sample of what they did when they weren’t being meme-friendly satirists:
The Mae Shi – Lamb and the Lion
And, of course, for those of you who haven’t heard it (a.k.a. for those of you who didn’t have the internet in ’09) here’s Mr Bale’s little tantrum. Be warned, strong language ahead…
(and just in case you were inclined to sympathize with Mr Bale in a oh-he’s-in-the-creative-zone-making-art kind of way, remember that this was on the set of the most recent Terminator; the one with, you know, all the robots.)
Back in February I posted about the Withered Hand record Heart Heart, which was the first release in a three-single subscription series run by Fence Records, called Chart Ruse. Each of the 7″ EPs included in the deal come in a fantastically well designed sleeve, with each one subtly altered for each band, and each consists of four tracks, one of which is a remix (*shudder*) and one of which is a vinyl only cut. The subscription has now run its course, and having already written about the WH record, I figure it’s only fair to give the other two bands a place on these illustrious pages as well. The bands in question are Delifinger and Barbarossa, and I should confess that before signing up for this deal I’d never heard of either band before (well, I’d seen Delifinger open for WH and King Creosote at the start of the year, but was decidedly underwhelmed).
The Delifinger record, much like his live performance, was not quite as good as I’d hoped it would be. All the ingredients seemed to suggest an interesting sonic palette and more than a little creativity, but Matthew Lacey – who’s project this is – comes across as far too earnest, and the songs themselves are just too slow. That sounds like a dreadfully obtuse bit of criticism, but there just wasn’t enough going on to maintain my interest; if the songs had been faster it might have worked, or if they’d had more, well, hooks they might have been able to sustain the slow pace. As a result, this single might appeal to those of a more morose aspect than myself, but as it stands the Escapes EP is a sincere and laudable effort, but not really my cup of tea.
The Barbarossa contribution covers much the same ground in terms of texture and approach, but where Delifinger doesn’t quite deliver, Barbarossa (again, it’s all the work of one man; this time it’s James Mathé) injects enough variety to keep things interesting. In fact, I think the real difference lies in the confidence of the performers; Butterfly Plague feels much more assured, much more decisive, much more confident. The record is, overall, perhaps a little too delicate for me to find myself really loving it, but it’s still good enough for me to pop it on the turntable on a fairly regular basis.
All in all, despite my disparaging remarks, this has been a rewarding series, and while I may have been rather dismissive of some of the music, the fact that it’s a unified collection of 7″s that sit nicely together on my shelf – and because it came from Fence – means that I’ll most likely find myself returning to it before too long. In the meantime, the next Fence series – this time called Buff Tracks – kicks of imminently, so now I’m waiting eagerly for that to arrive.
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