Today's Hotness: Darker My Love, Shannon McArdle

>> We give a resounding "yes" to the new Darker My Love video, despite the frustrating tempo. The song would be much more forceful with heads-down, four-on-the-floor drumming, but instead -- and somewhat surprising, in a good way -- DML's drummer lays down a loping mom-ma dad-dy with paired snare strikes on the twos and fours. That coupled with the echo on the vocal and a somewhat unsynchronized playback of the audio and video of the stream above makes the song somewhat disorienting. We just streamed "Two Ways Out" again with headphones on and realized that we must have had a bad stream before, because everything synchs up and makes a lot more sense. Weird. And we haven't even discussed the visual shtick, which takes that great Doors album cover, pulls it apart and reconstitutes it as a loose mobile of faces, hands and instruments. It's particularly neat-o when the band suddenly looks as if it is falling (reminds us of the great Cars video). As we reported here late last month, the L.A.-based quartet will issue its second set 2 Aug. 5 on Dangerbird. Between now and then the band has lined up a smattering of tour dates on the west coast. Darker My Love commences a tour supporting The Dandy Warhols Sept. 9. The acts play The Wilbur Theater in Boston Sept. 16. All tour dates are posted at the band's MySpace hacienda right here.

>> As we are still eagerly awaiting official word from Bar/None Records about the purported reissues of The Feelies catalog, we excitedly scanned an email from the venerable label this morning. Alas, there was no Feelies news. However, we were surprised to read therein about a forthcoming solo set from former Mendoza Line principal Shannon McArdle, whose debut long player Summer Of The Whore will be released Aug. 5. The set was realized last summer in the wake of Ms. McArdle's split from The Mendoza Line and ex-husband/bandmate Timothy Bracy. Bar/None characterizes the set as emotionally raw, which is really saying something, as the final Mendoza Line release 30 Year Low [our review here] was widely received as a "break-up record." Two tracks from Summer Of The Whore are posted here at McArdle's MySpace dojo and they sound terrific. Mendoza Line collaborator Adam Gold engineered the project and collaborated on arrangements, and so there's no big shift in tone or style -- the tracks sound, for lack of a better term, Mendoza-esque. The strident strummer "This Longing" is, however, relatively lush, and "Poison My Cup" hinges on some nice reverbs and murmured vocals. Brooklyn-based McArdle's set will be heralded as part of a triple record release party Aug. 19 at Mercury Lounge in Manhattan; Bar/None acts Starling Electric and Hotel Lights will also be celebrating new records.

>> You can get two things done today. You can buy the new Camper Van Beethoven set Popular Songs Of Great Enduring Strength And Beauty, which concatenates hits, near-hits and should-have-been hits including re-recorded versions of classic numbers from the band's Virgin Records releases. And then you can also write your congressman or Sir Richard Branson or EMI or whoever it is that won't return to the band the rights to said Virgin records. And when you write or call or email you can tell them to get their crap together and make it so that Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and the crucial (CRUCIAL) Key Lime Pie get reissued. Preferably expanded, too. Anyway, if you do those two things you'll have had a pretty full day. Anyhoo, one of the re-recorded jams was "When I Win The Lottery." Here's an MP3 of a great version of the number from the Live Music Archives at Archive.org.

Camper Van Beethoven -- "When I Win The Lottery (Live)" -- Live At Pipeline, Oct. 4, 1990
[right click and save as]
[buy Popular Songs Of Great Enduring Strength And Beauty here]

>> Wow.

Today's Hotness: Community Gun, The Orchid Highway

>> We've consumed some writing on the Internerdz that suggests that sounding like The Libertines is a bad thing. Or, more precisely, we think the beefing we've read is that there were too many British acts trying to sound like The Libertines for a while. Frankly, we hadn't noticed, and we think that if anyone should have a complaint along those lines, it should be about all the bands that seemed to spring up in the wake of Bloc Party's huge success with very Bloc Party-influenced tunes. Anyway, there is a band in some part of New York called Community Gun. And while the quartet has a few different things going on (including a "blues thing" and a "Tom Waits thing") the stuff of theirs we respond to the most is the upbeat, gritty rockers. And yes, that stuff sort of sounds like Pete Doherty's Libertines. Below we've posted the concise, mumbling Community Gun stomper "Wasted." The band is giving its entire EP away for free, so if you dig the track, grab the whole thing at the link provided.

Community Gun -- "Wasted" -- EP
[right click and save as]
[download the entire EP here]

>> We typically steer clear of the teeming throngs of powerpop acts because often we have trouble finding something more interesting than obvious Beatles influences in the music. That said, we've kept an ear on what the Rainbow Quartz label releases ever since they put out a Lilys record; the fact the label has released albums from hometown friends The Get Quick doesn't hurt, either. All that said, we're grooving to the forthcoming self-titled set from Vancouver's The Orchid Highway. The quintet, which features the three brothers MacDonald, releases its record June 10 (although elsewhere the release date is given as May 13). And curiously, despite the band apparently forming in 1994, this is its debut long-player. The lead single and blogosphere-approved promo track "Next World" presents a winning concoction of punchy bass work, 12-string and tremelo-wracked guitars and vocal harmonies. While we also like the rocker "The Medicine Tree" and the slower ballad "Let's Stay In Instead," The Orchid Highway isn't a bulletproof set -- we're not crazy about the lead track "Sofa Surfer Girl." Despite our wish that the band sequenced the set differently, there's still a bunch of good Revolver-referencing powerpop to be had here.

The Orchid Highway -- "Next World" -- The Orchid Highway
[right click and save as]
[pre-order The Orchid Highway here]

>> Just about a week after griping about the lack of a sophomore set from left coast nu-gazers Darker My Love, we are in receipt of news about said record. It is titled 2; it was produced by one of the cats in Silversun Pickups; it may or may not include contributions from recently acquired organist/clavietist Will Canzoneri; and it will be issued by Dangerbird Aug. 5. The first single from 2 is "Blue Day," and it is being made available in the extremely unhip Windows Media Audio format. So unhip is the format, in fact, that we aren't offering up the track. Just stream it at the band's MySpace dojo right here. "Blue Day" certainly grooves, and there is a screamy guitar solo that is awesome but mixed too low. Speaking of, the mix is patient and the song builds nicely at the end of the bridge. "Blue Day" kind of reminds us of the second Stone Roses record -- not bad, just not what we expected at first. We'll be interested to hear more.

Darker My Love -- "Blue Day[stream]" -- 2

Today's Hotness: Bridges And Powerlines, Darker My Love

>> [PHOTO: Ana Blohm] One record we've been enjoying no small amount recently was sent to us by the fellows in Bridges And Powerlines. The set is called Ghost Types and it is filled with big, melodic rockers. Point of interest: Keyboardist and singer Andrew Wood sounds inescapably like Robert Pollard in places, but that, of course, is a plus. Musically the three-year-old foursome leans heavier on synth in places than GBV ever has, but Bridges And Powerlines is no synth-rock act. Instead, the band crafts strident numbers with balanced arrangements that allow push and pull between guitar, bass and synth, with urgent vocal harmonies embellishing the entire proceedings. And there's still room for some quirk, like the stumbling, "Caterpillar"-esque piano in the verse of "Half A Cent" (or did we just hallucinate that?). Album closer "The Last Equation" simply smokes. Another favorite, "Middle Child," swoops in and out on fuzzy synth slithers and then drops nicely into a rocking gear with a descending vocal hook that sounds lifted from the old, good R.E.M. The band has graciously allowed us to post that track, so grab it below and have a listen. Ghost Types was issued April 22 on Citybird.

Bridges And Tunnels -- "Middle Child" -- Ghost Types
[right click and save as]
[buy Ghost Types from Insound right here]

>> We've been waiting so long -- so very long -- to hear the follow-up to Darker My Love's self-titled set that we'll take anything at this point. While it may not be true, we feel like we hear from a publicist every few months promising that the thing is coming out, yet still there is nothing. Given the precarious position the record business has found itself in this decade, perhaps it should be no surprise that we finally are hearing something from the L.A.-based nu-gaze rockers via a sneaker company promotion. PF Flyers has partnered with Dangerbird Records to promote "the archival release of the 1956 Bob Cousy All-American," and as part of the promotion four bands including Darker My Love have recorded a version of a song originally released in 1956. DML's tune is a slow, reverby take on Sanford Clark's rockabilly hit "The Fool," and it is totally righteous in a sorta Mogwai (i.e. stoned), sorta Spiritualized (i.e. reverent) kinda way. We're posting "The Fool" below; three additional tracks from other Dangerbird acts can be had right here. And for the record, we reviewed Darker My Love's self-titled set here in 2006.

Darker My Love -- "The Fool" -- PF Flyers Modern 56 Promotion
[right click and save as]
[more free rock and roll music right here]

>> Former Small Factory/Godrays fronter Alex Kemp has just posted a new track to his MySpace dojo right here. "From Someone Who Knows" has a jazzy piano lead and omniscient strings riding the mix, but at its core there's Mr. Kemp strumming a guitar and, if you want, you can sort of hear a Small Factory song hiding in there. But the thing is, this arrangement is really good. It feels nice and full like a plastic bag holding cool water. It's been a while since we checked in on Mr. Kemp's goings on, so there are a few other tunes posted at MySpace that were new to us. One we've heard before, "Misery Of Others," is available for download, so we're posting it below. The sum total of all this new music gives us hope that this guy will finally get a record out. As we reported here many moons ago when we wrote under someone else's shingle, Kemp had been playing with Chicago synth-poppers Assassins.

Alex Kemp -- "Misery Of Others" -- MySpace download
[right click and save as]