Review: O-Face | Mint

There can be an auspicious power inherent in bands comprised of longtime friends (not to mention siblings, although there are the obvious, constantly warring exceptions). When two or more band members have known each other for years, the energies from that bond can trickle through the sound in singular ways. Which certainly seems to be the case with Annandale-On-Hudson, New York’s O-FACE, an act whose guitarist/vocalists Seth Sobottka and Preston Ossman grew up together in Washington before heading to Bard College and expanding their extant bedroom pop project into a full-on rock band. The pair became a quintet, and its new five-song EP Mint is so chock full of ideas, personality and idiosyncratic humor that it really is deserving of its own stylistic descriptor; the group humbly offer the not-quite-big-enough-sounding "G-folk." Presenting with a live, house-show feel, thoughtful guitar histrionics of the sort propounded by erstwhile Philadelphia greats Algernon Cadwallader (notably, Algernon's Joe Reinhart produces this short set), quirky lo-fi synth flourishes, unapologetic and unabashed pop harmonies and rave-ups, O-FACE manage to cram an album's worth of ideas into this short, sweet set.

Opener and highlight "740 Turbo" is bookended with delicate and mesmerizing guitar passages; at the fore are urgent vocals asserting that the singer's car is "a luxury station wagon," inciting listeners to "take the wheel!" The desperate, dual vocals -- which play against the somewhat comical lines of the chorus -- bring into focus the humor and unique logic of O-FACE (the tune, incidentally, is sonically quite similar to the work of Portland, Maine greats Endless Jags -- Ed.), and drives the tune to a electrifying crescendo and hard stop. Despite their tongue-in-cheek nature, the ruminations on the adventurous potential of a Volvo scan as critically important in the context of the youthful moment being memorialized. "When You Assume..." flips the script, beginning as a breezy, straightforward waltz set against quick, dramatic synth-string breakdowns and "doot doot" backing vocals -- it's reminiscent of the too-often-overlooked The Ocean Blue, and with different production it could have been released on Sire in 1988. The bright, wiry guitars of lead single "Yolanda" makes perhaps the strongest case for the band's Algernon fandom -- the song effectively cycles between busy, post-hardcore hammer-ons and a palm-muted, Police-style verse and touts a flowing, nearly tropical melody. A sturdy, shouted outro and lovely guitar architecture (guitarchitecture?) in the bridge recall the opening of "740 Turbo." Closer "Torres" surprises by dropping vocals entirely and instead pursuing a neat, tidy post-rock instrumental. Here props must be given to secret-weapon Dash Flach (what a name!) on synth, who manages to create standout chording and figures that never have to fight for space with the dual guitars.

Mint is being released just as the band is graduating from Bard (the name references the color of their university squat and practice space). But more importantly it evinces a dynamic friend unit with a hyperactive wealth of ideas in which to explore and inhabit moving forward. Like the most academically prepared adults, the five never lose focus or themselves during this experimentation, and that's what makes the EP such a promising and exciting collection. Mint was issued last week as co-release of Father/Daughter Records and Miscreant Records, and it can be procured via either enterprises' Bandcamp on cassette or as a digital download here or here. O-FACE previously released an LP, Taste, in September 2014, and another EP, Shrug Life, in late 2012. Both of those older sets are available via O-FACE's Bandcamp right here. O-FACE head out on a long summer tour Saturday with labelmates Pupppy, and all of the dates are posted below the embed. The band plays O'Brien's in Allston Rock City July 24, and that will surely be a hot rock and roll show. -- Edward Charlton

O-Face: Bandcamp | Facebook



06.13 -- Brooklyn, NY -- Palisades (Miscreant Records Northside Showcase)
06.14 -- Philadelphia, PA -- TBA
06.15 -- Washington, DC -- Above The Bayou
06.16 -- Richmond, VA -- Gallery 5
06.17 -- Columbia, SC -- Foxfield Bar and Grille
06.18 -- Atlanta, GA -- The Mammal Gallery
06.20 -- Nashville, TN -- Exponent Manor
06.21 -- Birmingham, AL -- The Hive
06.22 -- New Orleans, LA -- House Show
06.23 -- Houston, TX -- TBA
06.24 -- Austin, TX -- Beerland
06.25 -- Austin, TX -- Trailer Space
06.28 -- Phoenix, AZ -- The Trunk Space
06.29 -- San Diego, CA -- Soda Bar
07.01 -- San Francisco, CA -- The Knockout
07.03 -- Portland, OR -- Analog Cafe & Theater
07.04 -- Seattle, WA -- Werewolf Vacation
07.05 -- Bellingham, WA -- MAKE.SHIFT
07.06 -- Whidbey Island, WA -- Whidbey Children's Theater
07.08 -- Olympia, WA -- Deadbeat Olympia
07.09 -- Spokane, WA -- Checkerboard Bar
07.10 -- Missoula, MT -- The Real Lounge
07.11 -- Salt Lake City, UT -- Dawg Pound Tavern
07.12 -- Denver, CO -- TBA
07.13 -- Omaha, NE -- Lookout Lounge
07.14 -- Des Moines, IA -- Des Moines Social Club
07.15 -- Minneapolis, MN -- Kitty Kat Club
07.17 -- Chicago, IL -- TBA
07.18 -- Lansing, MI -- The Avenue/The Green House
07.19 -- Athens, OH -- The Creampuff
07.20 -- Oberlin, OH -- Seed House
07.21 -- Pittsburgh, PA -- Bates Hardcore Gym
07.22 -- Philadelphia, PA -- TBA
07.23 -- West Haven, CT -- Crunch House
07.24 -- Boston, MA -- O'Brien's Pub
07.26 -- Brooklyn, NY -- Silent Barn

Today's Hotness: Endless Jags, Foam Castles, Broken Shoulder

>> Portland, Maine sextet Endless Jags are back with a new full-length release titled Sell The Banquet, which is notable for big melodies, soulful vocals and a desperate energy. Mid-tempo opener "Boxcutter" smoulders, with DJ Moore's organ tempering a pumping groove and lifting up intensely plied vocal harmonies from Oscar Romero and Tyler Jackson. With so many moving parts (guitar, bass, organ, multiple singers) the act is able to conjure and inject into its compositions compelling atmospheres and textures, as it does with heavily reverbed vocals in the final half-minute of "Surfer," or the patient groove that leads up to the second verse of the brilliant and brilliantly arranged cut "Next Summer On The Ice." The perfectly realized song is punctuated by punches of fuzz bass and layers a simple but potent 3/4 piano figure over the 4/4 chorus at the end (we're a big fan of such polyrhythmic musical voodoo). Another album highlight, "Ready To Die," reveals itself via myriad nifty production touches, from the slap-back on the vocal at the opening, to the rich reverb on the lead in the chorus, to the piano and hand percussion at the three-minute mark. Sell The Banquet was recorded by Shaun Curran at Napoleon Complex, who Clicky Clicky fans will recall was the engineer for Soccer Mom's recent self-titled triumph. Sell The Banquet was self-released June 17 and is available for free download via Bandcamp; stream it via the embed below, and click through to get at the digital files.

We previously wrote about Endless Jags right here in late 2012, upon the release of its eponymous EP. It is worth noting that just as that EP was followed fairly quickly by a release from a related act (in that case, Brenda), Sell The Banquet was available for but a week when a very good related collection, Foam Castles' Through That Door, was issued. Foam Castles features a number of the same players as Endless Jags, but we're given to understand that Foam Castles is primarily the vehicle for the songwriting of the aforementioned Mr. Jackson, and Endless Jags revolves for the most part around the songs of the aforementioned Mr. Romero. Whatever the provenance of its songs may be, Through That Door is gentler, sunnier and perhaps a bit more influenced by classic Southern California folk-rock than Sell The Banquet, but it is no less worthy of your attention. Definitely stick around for the transcendent ballad "Punk Leg," which shows up deep in the collection. The set can be streamed via the second Bandcamp embed below; it is available as a digital download now, but there are plans for vinyl and CD versions, all available here from Teenarena Records.





>> We suppose it is weird to have a favorite thinker of thoughts about electronic music, but nonetheless we do, and it's Joe Patitucci of the Philly-based collective Data Garden and musical project Tadoma. And while this item is not about Mr. Patitucci, it is somewhat inspired by his referring to making music as creating "zones." Which we take to mean something on the order creating atmospheres of consciousness through the transporting power of music. Which makes us think of Japan's Broken Shoulder. When we first turned onto the act a few years ago, it was while being literally transported: we repeatedly consumed Broken Shoulder's somnolent yet stirring debut during regular air travel to and from a long-term work assignment in the first half of 2011. There have been notable Broken Shoulder releases in the interim, and now the act -- the brainchild of Tokyo-based British ex-pat Neil Debenham, formerly of UK post-rockers Fighting Kites -- returns with a new collection on its very own new imprint. The set is called 300 Bicycle Seats and was released in late May on Debenham's label Kirigirisu Recordings, and it contains five compelling instrumentals. The tunes exhibit Broken Shoulder's continued and admirable balance of melody and texture. There is little obvious pop structure, of course, but the modulations and arrangements Mr. Debenham employs imbues even the extended compositions ("Aquiline" eclipses the 10-minute mark, while the transcendent "Rotary Planes/Thirteen More" surpasses 13 minutes) with an oceanic kineticism that makes 300 Bicycle Seats a very engaging listen. The set is available in a limited-edition of 50 CD-Rs and as a digital download from the Kirigirisu Recordings Bandcamp outpost right here. The label already has issued two other releases from a France-based act called France and the rising Fukuoka duo Sonotanotanpenz, and there are plans for a fourth release from American experimental violist/sound artist Jorge Boehringer, who records under the weighty moniker Core Of The Coalman. If you are not certain that experimental viola is your thing, we think you will find this video quite compelling. Stream Broken Shoulder's 300 Bicycle Seats below.

Today's Hotness: Brenda, Lubec, Johnny Foreigner

>> While its counterpart in Oregon continues to be a hotbed of indie rock (more on that below), Portland, Maine has also been producing a steady stream of quality acts and recordings. In just the past year that city's Coke Weed and Endless Jags have released a tremendous record and EP respectively, and this Tuesday veteran indie quartet Brenda returns with a long-awaited sophomore record titled Fix Your Eyes. The 10-song collection echoes somewhat the aforementioned Endless Jags EP, as the two bands share some members and, likely as a result, distinctive Farfisa organ playing. But whereas the relatively new Jags' material is largely driven by guitarists Oscar Romero and Tyler Jackson, DJ Moore and Josh Loring write the bulk of Brenda's tunes. So there is a bright line distinguishing Brenda's music from that of Endless Jags, as the former band takes inspiration from vintage rock 'n' roll such as Buddy Holly as well as contemporaries The Walkmen (one only need hear the title track to Fix Your Eyes to appreciate the latter influence), while the latter band touts a more emotional immediacy reminiscent of Broken Social Scene. Brenda's approach can be more temperate, but Fix Your Eyes doesn't skimp on rockers: the best evidence for this is the undeniable, galloping hip-shaker "Hard Pleaser," which touts caffeinated strumming, spiraling Farfisa melodies and fizzing tambourine that together drive the song inevitably toward dance-floor nirvana. The similarly uptempo hand-clapper "Not My Friends" takes a more soulful approach but incorporates more finely articulated guitar leads that wind around the dizzying Farfisa like coiling snakes. As the image above somewhat attests, Brenda plays a free show at Zuzu in Cambridge, MA tomorrow night, at which it will no doubt delight with some of the tunes mentioned above on a bill that also features upstart dreamers Winter, who we wrote about here in January, as well as Australia's Olde Growth Cola. And then of course, Fix Your Eyes is released the following day with Teenarena Records out of Rochester, NH doing the honors. Pre-orders for the set are already being take right here; the LP is available on red vinyl, and a limited number of fans who pre-order will receive a t-shirt as well as a pin and patch. Brenda's debut full-length Silver Tower, which caught the ear of some guy named Jeff Tweedy and resulted in the band playing the Solid Sound Festival, was released in June 2010 and is available via Bandcamp right here. Stream "Fix Your Eyes" from the new collection via the Bandcamp embed below.



>> And now back to the other Portland. Earlier this week Oregon-based guitar pop heroes Lubec unveiled a new song from its planned sophomore LP, which now has a title: The Thrall. The new tune, "Local Celebrity," boasts some huge moments, such as when it hits a crushing bridge in the third minute and then winds itself up into a hotly paced closing section touting a burly guitar solo soaring above a neatly ascending keyboard line. The paired vocals of guitarist Eddie Charlton and keyboard player Caroline Jackson soar in the song's huge choruses. "Local Celebrity" was engineered and produced by Robert Comitz at The Frawg Pound and mastered at Stereophonic, all in Portland. The Thrall is expected to be released before the end of the year, or at least we expect it will be, because we want it that way. In January, Lubec shared for a limited time two demos of other songs that will likely feature on The Thrall, namely "Adam" and "Many Worlds." Lubec's full-length debut Wilderness Days was released at the beginning of the year and compiled a dozen early tracks from the band's oeuvre; we reviewed it here. Stream "Local Celebrity" via the Soundcloud embed below.



>> Birmingham, England-based noise-pop titans Johnny Foreigner let slide a tantalizing tidbit earlier today when it disclosed that six recipients of its recent limited-edition photo sets were going to receive among their spoils "weblinks to some exclusive new art and lyrics from our next record." The sets, photographs from the quartet's epic tour of North America last fall augmented with exclusive art created by guitarist and notable artist Lewes Herriot, were released (so to speak) in March alongside digital-only offering Manhattan Projects and sold out almost immediately, such that Clicky Clicky HQ missed its chance merely in the space of time it took our Executive Editor to shovel a jar of baby food into Clicky Clicky Baby Unit 2. We wrote about all of this here and here. People who know say that Johnny Foreigner aim to release two more things this year, one a single in early summer and presumably the other will be the full length mentioned between the quotation marks supra. Because its triumphant last album Johnny Foreigner Vs. Everything [review] was released twice (the second go-round being a wonderful 2x12" reissue), it is easy to forget that it came out in 2011, and given the band's usual break-neck pace at creating music, it is almost surprising it has been that long. We are, needless to say, stoked for the new one, and will keep you apprised of all the minute details regarding same. While we wait, how about taking a listen to that practice room recording of the band covering American Football's beautiful and tragic "Never Meant" via the embed below?

Today's Hotness: Endless Jags, Parakeet, Dot Dash, Soccer Mom

>> It's taken for granted at this point, to the extent that anyone really talks about it anymore. But the best part about music blogging is the band that randomly emails you, that says "check us out," and that is totally awesome. It might happen two or three times a year. The last one that blew us away was our beloved Infinity Girl (who, of course, next week will open Clicky Clicky Music Blog's Community Servings benefit show at Great Scott in Boston). But last month brought another, Portland, Maine-based indie rock upstarts Endless Jags. The sextet self-released a self-titled EP Oct. 16, and it is packed with dynamic, emo-tinged guitar pop driven by fronter Oscar Romero's impassioned vocals and overdriven by big melodies. The short set was recorded in part and mixed by Shaun Curran at Napoleon Complex in Somerville, Mass. Trivia hounds will recognize that studio as the same that produced Clicky Clicky favorites Soccer Mom's brilliant debut single and towering 2011 EP You Are Not Going To Heaven. Pegging Endless Jags' sound causes one to grasp in a lot of different directions: there's the care-free energy and care-full emotion of the music echoes that of Mock Orange's stellar First EP; the Farfisa that colors large portions of Endless Jags has not been so brilliantly deployed in indie rock since Rocketship's mind-erasingly good A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness; Mr. Romero's voice is not unlike that of The Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser. But it is the combination of these elements that makes the EP so potent, from the big crescendoes in opener "Seen Men" to the careening eponymous tune "Endless Jags." We can't wait to hear more from these guys: Endless Jags is a hit!



>> Parakeet, the side project of Yuck bassist Mariko Doi, last week quietly unleashed to the wilds of the Internet a stream of a new EP titled Shonen Hearts. If our minimal understanding of Japanese remains intact, we think "shonen" means "boy," so make of the title what you will. The music on the collection is delightfully smeared and grungy guitar pop. The lead track "Tuomono" layers rich, gritty guitar and bass over a simple rhythm and creates giddy forward movement by overlaying punchy melodies. The title track is a blissful confection that recalls The Primitives. The rest of the collection similarly pits noise against pop; it's not overtly Yuck-y, but there is an element of obviousness and inevitability that makes Shonen Hearts a rewarding listen. The London-based trio's short set is due Nov. 19 as a limited edition gold (we assume gold-colored, not, like actual gold) cassette available exclusively from Rough Trade in the UK. Pre-order Shonen Hearts right here, right now. Parakeet over the weekend played two UK shows with The Walkmen (there's that band name again...); the trio embarks on a short strand of tour dates Nov. 11 with the hotly tipped Diiv, which tour includes stops in Berlin and Cologne in Germany, Kortrijk, Belgium and two dates in London. Parakeet debuted with a single in April, "Tomorrow" b/w "Paper, Scissors, Stone," that we wrote about right here.



>> We've slept on it for weeks ands weeks, but the forever-solid Terry Banks and his band of merry indie veterans in Dot Dash returned last month with a cracking sophomore set, Winter Garden Light, that we've been spending a good deal of time enjoying. Yeah, the title sounds like an installment in the Dragonlance fantasy franchise, but we assure you: this is a very fine collection of indie pop tunes from a coterie of top-shelf scene veterans of bands including Julie Ocean, The Saturday People, Tree Fort Angst, Modest Proposal and legit hardcore legends Youth Brigade. Mr. Banks, et al., craft quality guitar-pop tunes that plant one foot in the future whilst dangling the other in the band's collective college rock past. And like Wire, from whose song Dot Dash takes their name, the D.C.-based act's approach is simple: each tune is an astutely realized nugget of punky songwriting relying on a few chords, aggressive bass work, and swoon-inducing backing vocals. "Writing On The Wall," a stand-out cut from Winter Garden Light, commences with an arresting bass descent paired with Banks' pleasant power-pop patter. Trebly, slapping rhythm guitar follows the vocal, as Banks peels off anthemic lines that penetrate your head like "a penny for your thoughts, my kingdom for a horse." The song closes with perfect snare rolls and a great guitar breakdown evidencing the band's tasteful deployment of delay and minor keys. Winter Garden Light is available now from The Beautiful Music label. -- Edward Charlton



>> Avid readers will recall that a month ago we wrote about the crushing forthcoming single from Clicky Clicky faves Soccer Mom. At the time we could tell you about "Brides" b/w "Canoe," but we weren't able to share any music with you. That's just no way to leave things. So fortunately we're now able to share with you a stream of "A Canoe Shy" (that's the full title of the tune, yeah) below. The song highlights the Boston quartet's dense, punishing guitar attack, features one of founder Dan Parlin's most affecting vocal melodies, and is also notable for being the first official 'Mom release featuring Mr. Justin Kehoe pounding the skins and hardware. As we said last month, Soccer Mom plays a very hot bill Monday at Great Scott in Boston, an evening that features the hotly tipped Tamaryn and west coast shoegaze luminaries Young Prisms. "Brides" b/w "Canoe" will be released by 100m Records the following day, and you can pre-order your copy right here if you aren't able to get to the show to buy one straight from the band.