Today's Hotness: Spectres, Soft Fangs, Wet Trident

>> As a publication we try not to let ourselves get blown away by much, so our sensibilities can stay finely attuned and able to identify the truly special stuff when it comes along. With that said, we are blown away each and every time we listen to the new, debut full-length from Spectres, a gloriously noisy and astonishingly ambitious set of hard psych and noise-'gaze called Dying. Spectres is a Bristol, England-based quartet and their record is among the strongest debut sets we have ever heard. Dying is populated with tunes that echo the West coast-styled blues undertones of The Warlocks as well as the ecstatic noise of Sister-era Sonic Youth and JAMC. So often we talk about texture as an aspect of a thing, but it is exceedingly rare when a record is so dominated by texture in such an enjoyable fashion: herein feedback and discord regularly stretch across minutes and up against the stereo field as a steady rhythm section reliably propels the compositions. Dying situates the listener neck deep in a cacaphonous, bluesy doom so attractive and entrancing that you won't want it to end. The foursome is at its best when it stretches out into the LP's longer songs, including the ominous "This Purgatory" and "Blood In The Cups," where Spectres establish persistent grooves and adorn them with beautifully, provocatively splayed noise. Closer "Sea Of Trees," which clocks in at more than nine minutes, is epic in every sense of the word. The tune touts a relatively placid, meditative opening, layers in lead guitars and panned noise and dreamy, buried vocals, and then unfurls stunning curtains of blissful blammo beginning at the three-and-a-half-minute mark. A few minutes into that assault one just might start seeing the fabric of the universe, the meaning of everything, dolphins. It's complete madness. It's a joy to behold. Hide your children and your pets. London-based Sonic Cathedral issued Dying earlier this week on 12" gatefold vinyl, CD and as a digital download, and it is worth pointing out that a deluxe edition of the LP comes with a ouija board. Or it did -- according to the Sonic Cathedral digital storefront the LP, which was pressed to translucent gray vinyl, is already sold out, after only being officially on offer for two days. It looks like one can still acquire it on black vinyl (probably without the ouija board) at the moment via the Rough Trade shoppe, but you had better act fast. Spectres are presently engaged in a tour of the UK that persists through the weekend, takes few days off, and then runs until 7 March; take a look at all the tour dates right here. Buy Dying from Sonic Cathedral on LP or CD here; the digital download can be snatched via the Bandcamp embed below. We give this set, which was mastered by Spacemen 3's Sonic Boom, doncha know, our very highest recommendation.



>> Mid-fi bedroom pop is having a moment... although we suppose it is always having a moment. But what with the popularity of pensive millennial balladry from operators like Alex G, RL Kelly and Cloud's Tyler Taormina, it feels like there is a new and contemporary shape to things. Brooklyn, of course, is well-represented in what we'll haphazardly call a movement, and notably so by Massachusetts native John Lutkevich, who operates under the nomme de guerre Soft Fangs. It's more accurate to term Mr. Lutkevich's work attic pop, as he recorded the bulk of his self-titled, five-song debut EP -- which recently sold out of its initial run on cassettes issued by Seagreen Records -- under the eaves of his parents' residence. Subdued guitars, pensive lyrics and persistent ride cymbal rule the collection, which thrives on strong melodies and a palpable late-night vibe. "Dog Park" is led through a light bounce by acoustic guitar chords; the arrangement is appointed with quirky analog-sounding synth and nostalgia-inducing twelve-string (or emulated twelve-string) leads. The highlight of the collection is the 'gazey strummer "You're The Best," which boasts the EPs most sturdy rhythm tracks and explodes into thundering choruses splashed with buzzing and vibratoed guitar chords. "You're The Best" is perhaps the loudest and most dynamic tune because it is the only one from the collection not recorded in the aforementioned attic. Instead, the song was tracked at Norwood, Mass.'s Hanging Horse Studios. Attentive readers may recall that this is the same studio where rising Boston indie-punk threesome Julius Earthling recorded its debut EP For. Additionally, Soft Fangs was mastered by Bradford Krieger, who also mixed, mastered and took a production credit on For, for those of you keeping score at home. Soft Fangs' debut EP was reissued by Disposable America Feb. 21 as a limited edition 7" vinyl record, limited edition cassette, and digital download. The 7" is pressed to black media in an edition of 200 pieces, and 100 cassettes are on offer, with those miraculous little reels of magnetic tape encased in red plastic. Buyer beware: the 7" does not contain the very solid track "Believers," so completists may want to opt for the cassette or, we suppose, both the cassette and vinyl. Lutkevich recently recorded a shoe-brand sponsored session, so we suppose those recordings may see the light of day sometime; here is a video of him performing "Point Of View" during the session. Stream all of Soft Fangs via the Bandcamp embed below, and click through to purchase the set from Disposable America.



>> Depending on which publications you read in certain early days of the '90s, the prevailing wisdom was that the primary front in the indie rock revolution was strung out along the I-40 in North Carolina. There labels like Mammoth and Jettison turned out big-guitar sounds from luminaries and shoulda-been luminaries like The Ashley Stove and Finger and Pipe. A new act out of Portland, OR called Wet Trident sounds as if it were put in cold storage in '92 down North Carolina-way and is only now emerging to learn what hell the Internet and reality television has wrought. Wet Trident is fronted by Matt Dressen, who Clicky Clicky readers likely know better as the drummer for Portland dream-pop goliaths Lubec; indeed, Mr. Dressen is ably abetted by certain of his Lubec cohort here. But the slacker anthem sound Wet Trident nails on its new tune "Stove Prairie Road" is scruffier, more direct and dare we say more Bachmann-esque, driving the rising riff from Los Campesinos!' "Romance Is Boring" straight down to the bottom of the bottle for that last warm sip of beer. For whatever it is worth, Google tells us that "Stove Prairie Road" is apparently a popular biking route in Colorado, which is not terribly near either Portland or North Carolina. But more importantly for our purposes, "Stove Prairie Road" is a very promising preview track from a planned EP from Wet Trident called Power Fails And Other Foreign Delights. There's no word on when the full EP will be available, but if you keep pressing play on "Stove Prairie Road" via the embed below, we are fairly certain it will turn up eventually. Power Fails And Other Foreign Delights was recorded with Portland's go-to engineer and producer Robert Komitz at the Frawg Pound.

Today's Hotness: Benjamin Shaw, The Sun Parade

>> Our natural inclination is to slag off Audio Antihero for releasing a single for the best song from its recent Benjamin Shaw release some six months after said release, but of course the little London label that could has beaten us to the punch, pre-emptively dubbing the single -- actually an EP -- a "cash-in." Despite the weird timing, the You & Me EP is neither a crass money grab nor a strategic misstep, as Mr. Shaw's stand-out tune -- which we spotlighted in our review of the charming full-length Goodbye, Cagoule World in April -- is supported by three exceptionally good cover versions from others unfortunate enough to be tagged with the descriptor "Audio Antihero artist." Indeed, Shaw's marvelous, wry and jaunty original is complemented by terrific and distinctly different versions from Jack Hayter, erstwhile Bostonian Cloud and Broken Shoulder. One of our favorite musical elements of the original is the burbling synth line, which recalls Hypo's amazing "Nice Day." Cloud has taken that piece of the tune and layered delicate layers of icy guitar and angelic, edgeless vocals over top. Mr. Hayter toys with the meter of the lyrics and renders the tune as a Joe Cocker-esque sea shanty, his papery tenor speeding up and slowing down over alternately syrupy and sticky pedal steel. Experimental droner Broken Shoulder plays to its formidable strengths, rounding out the EP with a strong, other-worldly and five-minute-plus rendering that sounds like the scattering remnants of a dream about the original song. Audio Antihero released the You & Me EP Oct. 6 as a digital download, and we unreservedly recommend it to your attention. Stream the short set via the Bandcamp embed below, and click through to purchase for the ridiculously reasonable price of £1, which you should do, before Jamie Antihero starts talking about shutting down the label again.



>> Oh, how we have forsaken The Sun Parade. The Northampton, Mass.-based quartet's terrifically catchy Heart's Out EP was released a month ago, and the set's immediate and revved-up folk-rock tunes have been in steady rotation at the Clicky Clicky dojo ever since drummer Noam Schatz dropped the record on us a few weeks back. Mr. Schatz, long-time readers will recall, previously detonated the cans for the late, great Mobius Band. Schatz has spent time with a bit of musical this-and-that since the end of Mobius Band, but The Sun Parade is the first touring act he's joined up with since the mid-ish oughts. The Sun Parade was out last month with the popular-with-many-people-and-now-Boston-Calling-veterans Lake Street Dive, and we can't imagine its snappy numbers didn't find favor with the headliner's audience. The foursome's Beatles-fed Americana foregrounds sturdy vocal harmonies in its big choruses, punctuates its point with scads of scritchy rhythm guitar, and applies some pretty ripping lead guitar now and again, too, while all the while Mr. Schatz's physical playing spurs the compositions ever onward. EP highlight "I'm Still Here" works itself toward a frenzy in its final quarter, as does the groovier cut "A Plane To New Zealand," but the former tune's crafty chord changes and fluid harmonies in the chorus make for ready hooks that will be hard for listeners to shake. While out on tour The Sun Parade recorded the obligatory Daytrotter session, so if you chew through Heart's Out and need more music, keep your ears open for that. The act has scattered live engagements during the remainder of this fall, including a show in Providence next weekend, and you can check out all show dates right here. Stream the title track to Heart's Out via the Bandcamp embed below, and click through to stream the whole magilla and to purchase the short set on CD or as a digital download. It's worth reminding you that Schatz isn't the only Mobius Band alum with new music out there: last month we reviewed Cookies' excellent LP Music For Touching right here. That act is led by former Mobius Band fronter Ben Sterling.

Today's Hotness: Winter, The Snowy Owls, Krill

>> We've been looking forward to the opportunity to put this blog post together because of the obvious parallels between the first two items. So here we have it: two Clicky Clicky faves, bearing wintry names, heading into transitions, while putting out killer summer jams for the discerning indie rock aficionado. Let's start local with the new digital single from Boston dream-pop lumnaries Winter. "Alligator" was unveiled last week and the bittersweet ballad may very well be the charming quartet's strongest to date. It comes, however, in the wake of fronter and namesake Samira Winter's disclosure that she will soon relocate to the west coast. The band -- which includes Infinity Girl's Nolan Eley and Kyle Oppenheimer as well as 28 Degrees Taurus's Ana Karina DaCosta -- played its final Boston shows (for now, anyway) this past week. The good news is Ms. Winter and Mr. Eley intend to continue their collaboration despite the long distance, and based partcularly on the strength of the "Alligator" single (although the rest of their catalog is quite good, as well), we're relieved: theirs is a fertile musical partnership that we'd hate to see scrapped. Interestingly, while the song bears Mr. Eley's increasingly cognizable, atmospheric production, the composition is actually co-written with Cloud's Tyler Taormina and a fellow named David Broyles (with whom we are not familiar), and the song addresses Ms. Winter's feelings about the move west. Attentive readers will recall that Cloud and Winter are both part of the Practice Room Records collective, and Ms. Winter and Mr. Taormina attended university together in Boston. "Alligator" is a lush, melodic ballad featuring Ms. Winter's most confident vocal, and, between the song's pulsing bass line and her voice, we're reminded of Joan Jett's 1981 cover of "Crimson And Clover." It's not a perfect comparison, by any stretch: where Ms. Jett brought her tough edge to the Tommy James and The Shondells classic, it is hard for us to imagine the laid-back Ms. Winter being interested in being any tougher than, say, Oz's Glinda The Good Witch of the South. Anyway, with "Alligator"'s cascading vocal hook in the chorus, easy girl-group bounce and a frenetic guitar solo from Mr. Oppenheimer, the song is one that won't be quick to leave your head. It is the group's second digital single of the summer; we wrote about "The View" right here in early July. Stream "Alligator" via the Bandcamp embed below, and see the band (in trio formation) perform the song during the recent Boston Fuzzstival here. Tangentially, let us also note Cloud's coup this week of having the "Mother Sea" single reviewed in Pantsfork; we wrote about the song here in early July as well.



>> Our second summer offering from a wintry act is The Snowy Owls' terrific new Summer EP. The Richmond shoegaze foursome's short collection was released to the wilds of the Interpants Aug. 13 and features the songs "Feels Like Summer," "What Summer Is for," "All Summer Long," and "Next Summer." We're confident you'll identify the theme here. The music is languidly paced and relatively loose compared to the darker, more formalized and restrained compositions found on the band's 2012 Within Your Reach EP, which we reviewed here. The lazy, estival vibe of Summer does not, however, result in more spare and less urgent music. In fact, the surprise here is that -- despite the sense we get that the new EP came together quickly due to the recent departure of drummer Brandon Martin (formerly of another Clicky Clicky fave, Lubec) -- Summer is bigger, denser, prettier and more anthemic. It gives us the sense that The Snowy Owls are just at the cusp of something very exciting indeed. While all of the EP is delightful and makes us think at times that it is not unlike a Jesus And Mary Chain record slowed down, Summer goes supernova at the close of the second minute of "Next Summer." There the song begins to endlessly reach out in every direction into a reverb that becomes increasingly saturated with technicolor guitar feedback and ringing cymbals. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing, and certainly the high point to date of The Snowy Owls' repertoire. With the EP completed and released, the act is now focused on finishing a full-length record, according to this Facebook status update. In the meantime, the quartet -- now featuring James O'Neill behind the drum kit -- will play Richmond's Fall Line Festival Sept. 6 and then make an appearance the following day at the annual Hopscotch music festival in Raleigh, NC. Listen to Summer via the Bandcamp embed below; you'll be glad you did.



>> While Mr. Riley touched on it briefly in his review of the Bent Shapes album release show, we wanted to expand upon what is up with Jamaica Plain-based bugcore champions Krill. The trio disclosed earlier this month that 1) it recorded a number of new songs at Silent Barn in Brooklyn and 2) founding drummer/gourmet Luke Pyenson is leaving the band to study in London for a year. Mr. Pyenson is playing two final gigs with Krill, the first at Great Scott Friday with Diarrhea Planet and So So Glos, and the second a beach-stravaganza with Speedy Ortiz at The Beachcomber in Wellfleet, Mass. the following night. While Pyenson's departure is no small change for the tight-knit trio, Krill will not be sidelined for even a moment. The band hits the road for an extensive tour throughout September with new drummer Ian Becker, an old friend of Krill guitarist Aaron Ratoff and bassist Jonah Furman who grew up with those gentlemen in the same Chicago suburb; Mssrs. Ratoff and Becker have played together in a band previously. The first date of the vaguely square-shaped Krill tour is Sept. 4 in Philadelphia, and the itinerary includes stops down the east coast, a westerly wandering across the south, determined meandering northward up the midwest, and some spry maneuvering back east. As for the new songs, they are said to be inspired by characters in certain songs of Boston indie rockers Pile (who will play on an awesome bill with Obits this fall). There is a new Krill video you should attend to with your eyes and ears; it features the song "Theme From Krill" from the band's recent tour de force Lucky Leaves and can be experienced by clicking this hypertextual "link." We reviewed Lucky Leaves right here in June.

Today's Hotness: Cloud, Polvo

>> The catalog of imaginatively inept London-based indie label Audio Antihero has held many wonders over the years, but never before has it included an American act, let alone one with significant Boston roots. That all changed with the label's recent signing of the now-LA-based noise-pop act Cloud. We first stumbled upon Cloud about a year ago due to his contributions to a lo-fi release from Boston slowcore concern Marblemouth. Both Cloud and Marblemouth are satellites orbiting the Practice Room Records collective, a nebulous entity that also counts among its number Clicky Clicky faves Winter; indeed, Winter's namesake Samira Winter contributes vocals to two tunes on Cloud's new record and also appeared on Cloud's 2011 set, Rocket. Right, Cloud's new record, that's what we were talking about... the project is the brainchild of Tyler Taormina, and Audio Antihero will re-issue on Aug. 5 Comfort Songs, Cloud's third release originally issued in Sept. 2012 as a download. The 11-track collection is available from Audio Antihero in a limited edition of 140 compact discs as well as, of course, digital download, and the lead single for the Audio Antihero edition is the stormy and densely layered strummer "Mother Sea." There's something of Conor Oberst's general agitation and gift for description in Taormina's delivery and songwriting respectively, but Mr. Oberst has to our knowledge never arranged as noisy a bed to lie in as the churning instrumental to "Mother Sea." A conventional rhythm guitar track is buried amid rich reverb, spiraling and droning piano chords, slowly arcing feedback, and sundry unidentified aural embellishments, all of which conspire in the song's final two-and-a-half minutes to create a hypnotic ebb and flow, not unlike the cycling of crashing waves. Which, given the title of the song, either makes Mr. Taormina brilliant or extremely lucky. Readers who took a closer look at the recent Audio Antihero charity compilation Regal Vs. Steamboat that we wrote about last month likely saw that there is also a song from Cloud among the comp's 31 tracks, the tune "A Song Of What Stays" (originally released on Cloud's Elephant Era full-length from 2010) which you can stream right here. Stream "Mother Sea" via the Bandcamp embed below, and then click through to pre-order all of Comfort Songs from Audio Antihero. It's something you'll be glad you did.



>> Maybe our social networks were just skewed weirdly today, or maybe the lack of any preview music didn't elicit the typical Pavlovian "!OMG Firsties!" response from the blogosphere, but whatever the reason, we were surprised by the lack of widespread enthusiasm at today's news that post-rock legends Polvo will release their sixth LP Oct. 1. The set is called Siberia and it will be released by the highly esteemed Merge label, who among other things also did the honors for Polvo's 2009 comeback record In Prism and the 2011 single "Heavy Detour," which, curiously, was described as being "taken from Polvo's upcoming album." We say curious because the eight-song track list for Siberia does not contain a song called "Heavy Detour." Was the title changed for the record, or did the band have a change of heart? We suppose we'll find out Oct. 1 when Siberia hits the new release bins (or, we suppose, a week ahead of time when the record is inevitably streaming at Pantsfork Advance or NPR First Listen or whatever is The Thing two months from now). We're not sure how well this opinion will be received, but despite releasing some very great music in the intervening years, we still don't know that any new Polvo record will ever hold our affections as strongly as the band's epic double 10" from 1996, Exploded Drawing. The album has too many highlights to mention, but do yourself a favor and click the YouTube embed below to listen to the 11-minute-plus masterwork "When Will You Die For The Last Time In My Dreams," the song that closed out Exploded Drawing. Siberia can be pre-ordered now from Merge on CD and LP right here, and those who pre-order will also receive a poster along with their order, which will arrive on or around the Oct. 1 release date, Merge promises. For a related and somewhat weirder thrill, check out this video we just stumbled upon of an ice skater named Emily Hughes performing her routine to "When Will You Die For The Last Time In My Dreams," intercut with footage of a Roomba vacuum cleaner doing it's thing. INTERNET FUCK YEAH!