Review: New Dog | Classic Ballroom Dances

Poet Charles Simic's "Classic Ballroom Dances" is as much a series of chipped, fading tintypes as it is a collection of words. Each phrase captures, along with a steady whiff of nostalgia, glimpses into the times-gone-by of some anonymous urban setting, perhaps the Chicago of Simic's late adolescence. The images are rich and poignant, and readily scan for people of a certain Western upbringing. For that set of people, anyway, there is a universality to Simic's images, and this is perhaps how the new record by veteran songwriter (and Simic fan) Anar Badalov diverges most noticeably from the poem from which it takes its name. Mr. Badalov's Classic Ballroom Dances, his second record under his New Dog moniker, is marked by its adeptness at conveying the personal, whereas Simic's poem so ably translates the universal.

Somerville, Mass.-based New Dog bowed with the stirring 2014 debut set Lost Weekend [review], whose homespun reveries quietly billowed and softly clicked. The home-recorded Classic Ballroom Dances expands New Dog's sonic palette -- and in places, its dynamic range -- without diluting Badalov's keen minimalist approach or piercing the veil of sublime intimacy that permeates his (yes, poetic) songs. Across its beautiful ballads ("Love," "Out Of The Blue") and tense noir ("The Airport Lobby"), the decidedly nocturnal record sounds bigger without succumbing to the sometimes hollow dazzle of obligatory bigness; its carefully measured dynamics and gentle vocals still give the feeling that Badalov is sharing closely held confidences with his words and music.

Even so, in places Classic Ballroom Dances flexes its muscles in such a way as to burst the too-easy slowcore tag that has been hung around New Dog's neck. This manifests in ways small and great: there's the anachronistic war whoop during the tight guitar soloing in the first minute of the smoldering march "23" on the one hand, and the outsized fuzz of the noisy title track on the other. "Classic Ballroom Dances" launches with big distorted chords that are probably as close as New Dog might ever come to approximating the bile of The Walkmen's epochal "The Rat." However, Badalov's tune (which touts the brilliant, blurry lyric "there will always be people, and there will always be you") is a swinging, near-anthem interrupted by quiet passages of Badalov's typically brittle guitar chords and speckled with light piano flourishes. Later, the song "Dusklands" works itself into the same sort of lather, but not before staging a few quiet, glimmering verses that echo the android soul music of Pinback. The highlight of Classic Ballroom Dances is its haunted, dreamy center "Hospital Nights," whose introductory moments would not be out of place on one of Kompakt's amazing Pop Ambient comps. The songs alternates two spare notes on the electric piano, which find themselves surrounded by spectral voices (perhaps the television referenced in the lyrics?) and a cycling, ominous and, yes, amorous low guitar lick. It is that guitar line that propels the song toward a fade that does little to resolve the sense of restless between-ness the song conjures.

Kill Rock Stars released Classic Ballroom Dances yesterday as a limited edition LP and digital download; order the vinyl direct from KRS right here, and acquire the digital download via the New Dog Bandcamp right here. Badalov and touring drummer Justin Kehoe (he formerly of Boston noise-gaze goliaths Soccer Mom) kick off a European jaunt Saturday in Germany, and a full list of live dates -- including a homecoming show of sorts at BAR in New Haven, CT July 15 -- are below. We were very pleased to present the very first show performed by the newest iteration of New Dog earlier this month, and you can look at very nice pictures from the show right here courtesy of Bradley's Almanac. Stream all of Classic Ballroom Dances via the Bandcamp embed below.

New Dog: Bandcamp | Facebook | Internerds | label



06.06 -- Bielefeld, DE -- AJZ Club
06.07 -- Cologne, DE -- AZ Koln
06.08 -- Karlsruhe, DE -- House Show
06.09 -- Darmstadt, DE -- Oetinger Villa
06.10 -- Munich, DE -- Kafe Kult
06.11 -- LEIPZIG, DE -- Dr. Seltsam
06.12 -- Pilzen, CZ -- Papirna
06.13 -- Broumov, CZ -- Silver Rocket festival
06.14 -- Brno, CZ -- Kabinet Muz
06.15 -- Koprivnicem, CZ -- Mandala
06.16 -- Breclav, CZ -- Denni bar Dvur
06.17 -- Pardubice, CZ -- Divadlo 29
07.15 -- New Haven, CT -- BAR

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.

Today's Hotness: Ringo Deathstarr, New Radiant Storm King

>> Texas-based shoegaze quartet Ringo Deathstarr plans to spend at least part of its late spring and summer recording new music, according to a MySpace bulletin from the band. This is very good news, as the band's sadly small body of recorded work is excellent, but, well, sadly small. The Deathstarr also plans another East Coast tour at the end of the summer, which makes us happy, as we were sick when the band played Boston earlier this year. We'll try to take vitamins between now and the band's return to ensure our attendance. In the meantime Ringo Deathstarr heads west in the first week of April to convert the unwitting. No word yet on who will release the planned Ringo Deathstarr recordings.

>> Legendary Western Massachusetts rockers New Radiant Storm King have been working on a ninth record, which will be released by Darla in the fall. The band will showcase new songs during two performances in early April, including a show at PA's Lounge Sunday April 6. New Radiant Storm King plays The Brass Cat in Easthampton the previous evening. Both dates also feature sets from Dr. Powerful, a band that counts among its number former members of even more legendary angular North Carolina rockers Polvo. No title has been announced yet for the next New Radiant Storm King record, its first since the release of The Steady Hand two years ago. We reviewed that latter set for Junkmedia right here.

>> We're pretty sure we read a MySpace bulletin from exemplary Philadelphia-based rockers The Swimmers last week reporting that they would have a Daytrotter session posted at the venerable music site Friday. We just checked Daytrotter.com and found nothing. Maybe The Swimmers were simply recording the session that day -- this seems likely, as the band is on tour in that general area of the country. The band's recently issued Fighting Trees has been getting a lot of play around :: clicky clicky :: HQ and we reviewed it here.

>> Fans of London-based indie rock act Fields who missed last week's MySpace blog post about the goings-on of fronter Nick Peill, drummer Henry Spenner and plastic dinosaur Godzuki certainly missed alot. Amusing photos and travelogue here. Notable items include the fact that, among other equipment, the studio Fields is using for final tracking and mixing of its planned sophomore full-length contains a piano owned by Phillip Glass and drum gear of The Walkmen. Wild and wildly amusing.

>> We're still hoping that someone out there has ripped their copy of Retriever's "Q-tip" single, which was released in 1995 or so and which we first requested here. In the meantime, however, we finally thought to search for Retriever stuff on EMusic and lo and behold the site is selling one track by the band. The song "Evil K" is the lead track on Zum #10 A CD Compilation. It scorches. You should download it from EMusic here. It is also notable on that comp includes tracks from Boyracer, June Of 44, The Raymond Brake and Vehicle Flips, although only the Vehicle Flips and Retriever tracks rise to the level of remarkable. Not that you asked, but the best June Of 44 release is the 1997 Anatomy Of Sharks EP, and one of the band's best numbers is the harrowing lead track from said EP, "Sharks And Sailors." Here it is.

June Of 44 -- "Sharks And Sailors" -- The Anatomy Of Sharks
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[buy June Of 44 records from Newbury Comics right here]
[we just noticed the copy of The Anatomy Of Sharks we bought used is autographed by two members of the band; how cool are we?]

Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, Evangelicals, Video Nasties

>> Above is the bottom half of the cover art for the forthcoming Johnny Foreigner single for "Our Bipolar Friends" that we mentioned last week (see below). The release date is March 3, not March 5 as we wrote previously. The B-side will be the song "The Houseparty Scene Is Killing You," which you would have thought the band might have saved for the flip of a single for "This Band Is Killing Us." Through the miracle of technology and the kindness of cool people, we've already heard the single (as well as a radio session track that will blow up the hipper parts of the Internet when it gets out there; we'll hold our tongues for now) and it is huge. The single version of "Our Bipolar Friends" has fairly different vocals from bassist Kelly than the demo from last spring, and there are some cool new guitar parts and gang vocals to boot. The mix touts broader separation of the instruments, and none of the energy of the earlier version is lost. The real excitement, of course, is the b-side, which we hadn't heard before (unless they played it during the show in New York? Our memory is fuzzy). "The Houseparty Scene Is Killing You" is awesome, and not just because the band namechecks itself in the lyrics (we are a big fan of this; one day we need to do a post on things such as that which earn big points from us). It's got that characteristic drunk-but-still-standing-up feel, although the shuffling guitar and slightly tempered dynamics result in a mellower attack. Both "Houseparty" and the radio session highlight a gear that Johnny Foreigner hasn't displayed often beyond a handful of demos, and the fact that the trio has yet another trick up its sleeve will pleasantly surprise many. Now wait until March.

>> Have you heard the promo track for the new Evangelicals record The Evening Descends? Fans will recall that "Skeleton Man" was first made available last year as part of the Oklahoma psychers' Daytrotter session. The studio version is an unsurprisingly spiffed-up rendering of the kaleidoscopic anthem. You can hear it and the rest of the record at the band's MySpace teepee here, as Evangelicals just announced it is now streaming the new set there through its Jan. 22 release date. We reviewed the quartet's debut So Gone here, and reviewed their Nov. 2006 show at TT The Bear's Place here. Notably lacking right now is any information about Evangelicals touring plans. They totally killed when we saw them in 2006 and we are eager for another chance. We have to believe a third Evangelicals record can't be too far off, because we wrote here in late 2006 that the band had planned to finish The Evening Descends in Feb. 2007 and had expected to release it in Aug. of that year.

Evangelicals -- "Skeleton Man" -- The Evening Descends
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[pre-order The Evening Descends from Dead Oceans here]

>> Those of you awaiting news concerning London-based indie rock wunderkinds Video Nasties will be pleased to note that the quintet recorded four new tracks in late December. The desperate rocker "Gobi" has "big single" written all over it. "Stereo" and "Hearts And Bones" are a touch denser and the attitude a bit heavier than the older, fizzy material we harvested from various UK music blogs last year. The new songs have a lot of punch musically. We miss some of the innocence in the vocals of the earlier tunes (those on the new tracks are almost exclusively barked, but not in a bad way), although some of that remains in the Walkmen-esque "Conversation Dies." Video Nasties -- which released The Karl Blau EP in October, right after we first wrote about the band here -- tour the UK throughout February with the hotly tipped (but to our ears kind of flat) Nottingham electropop act Late Of The Pier. You can stream all four new Video Nasties tracks at the band's MySpace yert here. We're particularly fond of the older Video Nasties track "Little Flickers," so here it is.

Video Nasties -- "Little Flickers" -- Southern Demos
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[buy Video Nasties recordings from Rough Trade here]