The Mooney Suzuki "Alive and Amplified" (Red/Ink Columbia)
Sounds Like: The New York Dolls had a rough night, and aren't really up to trying at tonight's show. C+
The Mooney Suzuki sound exactly like all the '60s garage rock bands that many try to imitate, acknowledging minor traits that many gloss over with more modern musicianship. Therein lies the problem: All the songs in the band's third album "Alive and Amplified" feel extremely familiar. This comes off similar to a convoluted "Best of" compilation for a truly great band, done by a lesser, more confused cover band.
That's not to say there aren't any good tracks or the band doesn't have potential. There's a good musicianship here, especially in the Van Halen-like riffs of guitarist Graham Tyler "Messin' in the Dressin' Room" and "New York Girls." But stylistically, this album is a mess. The good parts seem out of place and a fraction of the full potential LP that Mooney Suzuki passed on making. Instead, they can sound more like the garage bands from their own backyard of New York City. Sammy James Jr.'s vocals seem to be at the center of a lot of the mediocrity with a liberal amount of self-indulgence and shallow swagger that are on display on tracks like warped selection "Shake that Bush Again."
If "Alive and Amplified" will teach The Mooney Suzuki any lessons hopefully it's to stay as far away from garage rock as possible and work on cultivating a different style entirely. Suzuki has the range and the tools to be a competent, if not very good band, but none of it seems to shine to brightly here.
-NEAL FERSKO
The Sahara Hotnights "Kiss and Tell" (RCA Records)
Sounds Like: The Runaways and The Bengals ganging up to mug Cyndi Lauper B
"Kiss and Tell" is a lot more poppy than many Sahara Hotnights fans may be used to. The all girl Swedish foursome has been known in the past to incorporate a harder style of garage and punk rock-based music into their past songs. That being said, "Kiss and Tell" is still a good album, albeit not as spectacularly unique as the work, which first propelled them on the scene with on their first two albums. The hard edge the Hotnights are known for is still there, but somewhat dulled.
"Hot Night Crash" is one of the highlights of this album, with Maria Anderssons's pleading voice conjuring up memories of The Bangles with some obvious '80s overtones that a scattered throughout the albums. Their garage sensibilities in contrast are on full display on "Nerves" with Jennie Asplund's guitar going into harder and faster music plunges that the band excels at. Conversely, the songs "Stay/Stay" and "The Difference Between Love and Hell" feel like a guilt pleasures; using an effective fusion of glam rock and '80s pop. In the end the lighter material the girls try is pretty good but a little raw and repetitive; wearing its influences a little too prominently at times.
"Kiss and Tell" brings to center the malleability of the Sahara Hotnights. It's not the album you would use to introduce people to the band, but if you can hook them with their past work, this should come as a welcome addition.
-N.F.
All Else Failed "This Never Happened" (Abacus Records)
Sounds Like: All Else Failed went a little schizophrenic B-
In 2001, All Else Failed charged onto the hardcore scene with unrivaled intensity on "Archetype," their debut. The five-member band from Philadelphia blew audiences away with chaotic and fevered live performances, as front-man Luke Muir spewed insanity and anguish. "Archetype" showcased heavy guitars, forceful riffs, eerie samples, and deeply emotional lyrics. On one song, Muir screams to a friend who committed suicide "Did you think of me?"
After a hiatus, the band reunited and released their sophomore album "This Never Happened" in 2004. This album is a bit of a departure for All Else Failed. It features melodic tracks along with the heavy classics, creating a mix that goes together just about as well as ketchup and applesauce. Although the band experimented with singing and softer parts on "Archetype," they were woven into heavy songs, forming an interesting dynamic. On "This Never Happened," the melodic side of All Else Failed has taken on a life of its own and contaminated about half the album. Muir's singing just doesn't fit the band's overall sound and energy.
In the end, All Else Failed should save their softer side for their girlfriends, and keep it off their albums. They need to stick to what they're best at: musical annihilation.
-LAURA KAPLAN
Saturday Looks Good to Me "Every Night" (Polyvinyl)
Sounds like: With the Supremes as Svengali, Belle & Sebastian are forced to dance away their homoerotic tendencies and Scottish-ness. Partners? The New Pornographers. B
Saturday Looks Good to Me was formed in 1999 in Detroit, Motown capital of the world, and is the vehicle (get it?) of frontman Fred Thomas's brand of white kid doo wop.
"Every Night" is influenced by everything from old classics like the Four Tops, the Temptations and the Supremes, to the current wave of orchestral indie pop. Thomas's lispy voice generally doesn't match up to the quality of the aforementioned (though the girl voices aren't bad), but the melodies are fun and classic. Thomas finds a way to take the essence of '50s R&B and make it work in the context of a modern day rock record without being ironic about it. Everything sounds really sincere and, to the producer's credit, intimate.
This is interesting seeing as though Saturday Looks Good to Me isn't really a band as much as a rotating cast of un-rock 'n' roll-instrument wielding indie rock fashionistas with tight pants and sweeping bangs. You look at the credits and there are two dozen people listed, playing everything from guitar to baritone sax. It's reminiscent of, on the one hand, the chamber-pop mainstays Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura, and, on the other hand, the old R&B bands who actually played with an orchestra.
The arrangements are at times spare (a couple of songs are mostly vocals and guitar) and at times completely full and lush, padded to capacity with strings, organs, accordions, saxophone and horns, not to mention well-placed vocal harmonies. And sometimes the effect is a Belle and Sebastian-esque orchestral sweep, sometimes a rollicking soul revival, and sometimes a little distracting. But for the most part, the record is fun and well made.
-CHRIS DeWITT
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum "Of Natural History" (Mimicry)
Sounds like: The convergence of heaven and hell, if executed in some sort of back-alley gallery of medical oddities. Really weird, basically.
B+
Who are we? Where do we come from? From what mystical land of white face makeup and affected growl noises does Sleepytime Gorilla Museum originate? And is that land really the epic empire this pseudo-goth rollercoaster of rock would lead you to believe? Is it totally awesome? "Of Natural History," the latest album in the productive string of mayhem from this California-based industrial band sets out to answer all of these questions and so many more.
Listeners should blast "Of Natural History" over their sound systems to fully submerge in the murky depths of this post-ironic noise-punk. You can only wonder what your roommates will be thinking when singer Nils Frykdahl essentially barfs up lyrics like "And let us never forget that the human race with technology is like an alcoholic with a barrel of wine."
His voice ranges from operatic to nauseating, seemingly over the course of one bar. A new word should be invented to describe Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, like "gothpra," the fusion of goth and opera. Say it together now, "gothpra." It rolls right off the tounge, much like the absurd screaming noises right at the end of the album.
For those who spent most of high school indulging in the likes of Insane Clown Posse or Slipknot or whatever it is that those kids in giant black nylon cargo pants listen to with gusto, it is time to recognize that you are in college now. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum invites you to experience the more avant-garde, intellectually stimulating side of epic gothpra.
-JEN TURNER