Misterwives Concert Review

Sometimes, when you go to a concert, you want to be blown away by ultra-talented, no-mistakes-made, steady performers. Even though they have performed countless shows, these  bands almost always give some variation of the obligatory thank you speech (“We are so grateful,” “we are humbled by our fans,” “This never gets old for us”).  Somehow, the authenticity of these statements fades for me, realizing that this unexciting Michigan lull in the tour is just one of many, many shows they have done. However, when I saw Misterwives at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit, only 3 days into their very first ever headlining tour, there was no denying their raw excitement, gratitude, and humility.

Misterwives, fronted by the beautiful Mandy Lee, is a indie pop group from New York City that just released their first full-length album on February 24th of this year. They took the stage in Detroit with a synchronized set of dance moves accompanying their album title track, “Our Own House”. Now, normally I would have thought this was incredibly cheesy and forced, but take my word for it--it worked. Throughout the rest of the concert, Mandy provided many more scripted jokes, including my personal favorite: leading into “No Need for Dreaming” with a corny quip asking her bandmate to be pinch her to awaken her from her dream come true. Honestly,though Mandy is just so damn cute that everything she does works, and when you watch her, you can’t help but share in her happiness and excitement.

The band members visibly thrived off of the crowd’s energy, and the song that received the best response was the most popular single from their original EP, “Reflections.” Then, midway through the show, Mandy impressed the crowd by showing off her impressive pipes in a call and response performance with the trumpet. The second half of their concert changed the pace with a more serious tone. Mandy got emotional sharing the song “Queens,” a track very close to her heart that she wrote about growing up in her hometown in New York with the same name. The band also made a statement about gender equality with their song “Not Your Way,” urging the crowd to speak up for what we believe. Mandy pumped out push ups and her lyrics promised that she wasn't “growing up to be a trophy wife.” Lastly, the band closed by satisfying our requests for an encore with a crowd pleasing cover of Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” and my personal favorite up-tempo song on their album--”Imagination Infatuation.”

By their second tour, many veteran vocalists have figured out how to hold back on the belting just enough to preserve their voices for the whole tour. Mandy, on the other hand, gave it all she had at the Detroit show. It seemed as if she was pouring all her excitement and passion into every note she hit--and the woman can hit quite an impressive range. So much so in fact, that they had to cancel their subsequent shows in Minneapolis and Kansas City due to a voiceless front-woman!

I hope that, amid the pressures they’re sure to face from managers and record labels, they can find a way to stay true to themselves and keep this fresh passion they have for performing. I highly encourage you to check out their new album, and if they come through your town, check out their live show for yourself.

~Erin Koren

Objectively the Best of 2014

This is something that I really just have to do. If I'm not contributing to the massive ensemble of year-end lists, then I've failed as a supposed music blogger. It's been a pretty interesting year in the music world: several Twitter beefs, Mark Kozelek's endlessly hilarious antics, the end of Death Grips, a Neutral Milk Hotel reunion tour, etc. But beyond the drama, a lot of really talented artists took huge steps forward, and that's really what this is about.

These are the albums that I really loved this year, and I think they're in order, the last album being my absolute favorite of 2014.

Prepare for some serious adjective spewage.

Cymbals Eat Guitars - LOSE

It's a little derivative, but solid nonetheless. If you want something new and mind-blowing, you may want to take a pass on LOSE (at the risk of missing out on some gems). If you want to hear a band that wears their indie rock influences on their sleeves, then this is the album for you. 

tUnE-yArDs - Nikki Nack

Merrill attacks Nikki Nack with the same degree of quirkiness, this time with more elaborate harmonies and more provocative songwriting. 

The Wytches - Annabel Dream Reader

"Surf doom," not "psychedelic." One of the few good contributions to the surf revival of 2014. 

Grouper - Ruins

"Ruins" is ambient and folksy, a meandering instrumental album. The sonic manifestation of the word "delicate" or the words "meandering instrumental album." 

Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness

Stripped down and heartfelt. Angel Olsen keeps it honest, and her lovely, gravelly voice complements her guitar strumming wonderfully. 

The Hotelier - Home, Like No Place is There

As far as sheer emotional force goes, The Hotelier stood unmatched in 2014. Housebroken will most likely be the best song about a dog that you've ever heard. Thanks to Peter for turning me on to this one. 

Iceage - Plowing Into the Field of Love

Man, it's so good... What do I even say? I don't know how Iceage went from 2013's "You're Nothing" to later come out with this jangly behemoth, but I'm glad that it happened.

Open Mike Eagle - Dark Comedy

This album is hilarious and thought-provoking. My introduction to art rap. I listened to this on repeat for most of the summer. Hellfyre Club!

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2

RTJ returns for the most in-your-face hip-hop album of 2014. Explosive, politically charged, unapologetic. Killer Mike will make you laugh, blush, and do that thing where you frown a little bit and nod your head, all in the span of one verse.

D'angelo and The Vanguard - Black Messiah

"Black Messiah" barely made it out in time for music critics to even listen to, but it somehow still made it onto every other "best of 2014" list. Rightfully so, I'd say. Soul and R&B, beautifully produced and executed. 

Perfume Genius - Too Bright

No family is safe when Mike Hadreas sashays. Per usual, Perfume Genius brings gentle piano to accompany intimate vocal melodies. But this time, Hadreas shifts the focus and meets hate with honesty and defiance.

Flying Lotus - You're Dead!

A fantastically holistic approach to hip-hop instrumental productions. I've seen some people call this a jazz album, and I won't try to say that they are wrong. Improvisation meets ethereal production for a hugely progressive step forward in FlyLo's discography.

Milo - A Toothpaste Suburb

Easily the most quotable album of 2014. Milo is unashamedly well read, a representative for the Tumblr generation in hip-hop, an outright champion of lyricism and humor, and so much more. Hellfyre Club strikes again!

Busdriver - Perfect Hair

Another Hellfyre Club kingpin. Busdriver hits hard and fast, bringing the same lyrical mastery as Milo and Open Mike Eagle with twice the intensity. Plain and simple, Busdriver is a genius on Perfect Hair. He asks the good questions, too, like "what does hip-hop check in the gender box?"

Thar she blows! As always, I would love to know what you were listening to this year. Did I miss anything good? If you disagree with anything, let's fight about it! Have a good 2015. I love you!

- Kane

Sam Hunt - Montevallo

Hello, friends. I'm doing something a little different today. I got contacted to do a review for this one yesterday, and I thought it sounded like fun. I'm super grateful for the opportunity to mix it up a little bit, especially because this is about as far as it gets from what I'm normally listening to. So here is Montevallo, Sam Hunt's debut album with MCA Nashville. 

First of all, I'm clearly not the target audience for this album, and it's painfully clear that this album has a "target audience." Sam Hunt is pretty much the pop-country darling of 2014 -- He has millions of views on YouTube already (Vevo, specifically), he's a former college football player, and his first single off Montevallo hit platinum last week and is still hanging out at the top of the Country Billboard chart. So, no, I would never listen to this album on my own. Truthfully, I probably would not have even known about it had I not been given the CD yesterday, but I'm going to give genuine feedback, because no one wants me to rip apart pop music just for being pop music. I don't even want to do that. I don't really even have a problem with pop music.

What I do have a problem with is the sheer volume of contrived lyrics that span the entire length of this release. There's nothing on this album that hasn't been done before, and nothing really stands out lyrically at any point. Every song is about girls, having a good time, or having a good time with a girl. You know, heterosexual guy stuff. Musical talent isn't an issue here -- there's no doubt he can sing and he's a solid guitarist, and although Montevallo is thoroughly produced, seeing one of Mr. Hunt's acoustic performances is pretty impressive. That said, it's disappointing that someone can pick up a guitar, play it well, and then want to write a song like "House Party." Surprise, it's about throwing a house party. "Ex to See" tries to offer a tiny bit of clever wordplay with a quirky double entendre, but the rest of the lyrics are so cringeworthy ("I ain't no fool, you rascal, you!), that it dilutes most of the excitement. "Take Your Time" is a pretty standard hook-up song, but I think Carly Rae Jepsen did it better with "Call Me Maybe" back in 2012. It would be nice to see the musicality that Hunt clearly has showcased a little more creatively.

Fortunately, average lyrics don't completely spoil Montevallo, and it all works pretty well when Hunt isn't trying to take things too seriously. "Raised On It" offers a pretty fun take on the American nostalgia that shows up in numerous releases every year, reminiscing about "Snapbacks and Levi Jeans, PBR and burnt CD's." It's not deep or contemplative, but it's not really trying to be, and that makes the lyrical content a lot more forgivable. The same thing applies in "Leave The Night On," the big hit of the album. It's just a track about staying up late and having fun, so there's no point in trying to make it seem like anything more than that.

The production is pretty airtight and there are some interesting arrangements going on every once in awhile. The guitar hook on "Raised On It" is super catchy, backed by a quick snare roll and polished off with gang vocals. Sometimes, Hunt employs a little spoken work to mix up the singing, which can be endearing when it doesn't sound like a cop-out for fitting a bunch of words into one song (See, "Break Up In A Small Town"). Unfortunately, that's about as wild as it gets, and every single song starts off with either a slow piano melody or some acoustic guitar strumming. Maybe I'm just crazy for wanting to see a little more innovation from an album like this.

All in all, I appreciate Montevallo for what it is. It's a total summer feel-good album, released in late October for whatever reason, and it's pretty much what I would expect to hear on the radio. Some of these tracks are undeniably catchy, sure (even as I wrap this up, I have the pseudo-drop from "Break Up In A Small Town" stuck in my head), but it's never provocative enough. Hunt literally censors himself in a couple songs, and in situations where a nice blunt curse word would make him seem like a real human being. There's not a hint of ill-will at any point, which might be good for a country star, but it's not enough if he ever wants to break out of the boundaries that separate country from the rest of the pop music atmosphere. If there's no Twitter beef or ridiculous publicity stunt to supplement the well-behaved vibe that comes from the lyrics on Montevallo, people like me most likely won't see much of an artist like Sam Hunt.  So for now, Sam Hunt will probably sit comfortably at the top of the country charts, and who am I to say that there's something wrong with that? In fact, I have the utmost respect for any artist that handles fame with grace, and hopefully, when I hear about Sam in the future, it's because of good music and not because of bad press. Here's to you, Sam Hunt: May your country-tinged reign be just and dignified.

Delta Spirit - Into the Wide

Earlier this week I felt the urge to give this another shot and contribute a new review to the good ole’ Sub-Mariner, I knew I wanted to write about Delta Spirit’s new album Into The Wide, but I had no idea where to start. So as I rode the bus back and forth from campus this week I contemplated how to tackle this ever so scary task. Did I want to attempt a Peter style thought provoking, Goshen college-esque, review? Or did I want to try the Kane White poetic and professional review of an album? Why not both?

The question I pondered this week, while squeezed in my seat on an overly full bus of college kids, was what do I want from a new album? Am I looking for something bigger and better? Something completely different than their previous albums? Or just more of the same? Eventually I decided that I just don’t have a good answer. The logical side of my brain wants to see improvement from album to album. After all it just makes sense, the band was had more time to play together, write music together, and generally improve on their musical sound. It should show growth as a band, show growth as musicians. But to me, just an average joe schmo music listener, this didn't feel like the right answer to me. I don’t have any technical musical training, I can’t tell you what chords a guitarist is playing or what notes a vocalist is hitting, I just know what sounds good to me and what doesn't.

So that left me with, in my mind, two possible extremes of what I wanted from a new album. Either more of the same, or something completely different. So I went through the album collection of Delta Spirit, one of my favorite bands, in an attempt to see what makes them so likable to me album after album. I quickly realized I was being far too drastic by thinking of something different and more of the same as polar opposites. What I want is both, is that too much to ask? I don’t want another repeat of the same old sound that was in a previous, but at the same time I don’t want my favorite indie rock band to turn into a death metal band. I want a band to hold on to that “thing” that makes them who they are, while creating a new, fresh sound. To me Delta Spirit does just that. They stay true to their roots, but every new album comes with a unique sound and feeling.

Into The Wide is Delta Spirits fourth album and was just released in September of this year. This time they are back with a new feel, a more moody, “dark” (for lack of a better word) sound. With a mix of stadium rock anthems, slow ballads, and everything in between. This is who Delta Spirit is. They create music that makes you feel, and Into The Wide is no exception. Yet despite the moody sound of the music, Matt Vasquez's ever so strong voice raises through with the positivity in the lyrics that is all so familiar. The songs speak of love “The Wreck”, friendship “From Now On”, never giving up hope “Take Shelter”, and of course the token anti-war song “War Machine”. To me this is the “thing” that makes Delta Spirit so good. Each album has a distinct sound; the folksy feel in Ode to Sunshine, the loud and proud self-titled album Delta Spirit, and now the darker sound in Into The Wide. But through all the different sounds, they remain true to their hearts and consistently deliver; keeping that “thing” in their sound that makes them Delta Spirit.  

Cheer Me Up, Thank You: Happy (a few days late) Anniversary, Sub-Mariner!

                This post is going to be some review not only of the album Somewhere, Anywhere which is one of my all-time favorite albums ever, but also a review of this wonderful, music filled year that we’ve had. On September 27^th 2013, Kane made the first post on the Sub-Mariner and I’ve been hooked ever since. Being invited to join in and contribute to the Sub-Mariner was a huge honor and I am ridiculously flattered by the invitation as well as the support I’ve gotten from everyone here. I may not be the best writer among us, I’m not even close to being the most thought provoking, but I’ve genuinely enjoyed every single thing I’ve read and written for this blog and I genuinely appreciate all of you welcoming me into the fold and the taking time to read what I write.

Let’s talk about Somewhere, Anywhere by New Buffalo. Sally Seltmann, or New Buffalo, is an Australian musician whose sound is my current obsession. Somewhere, Anywhere is New Buffalo’s second album, and has a cheerfully mellow sound. Seltmann, who plays all of the instruments and sings all of the vocals, uses piano most heavily in this album, though clarinet, percussion, synthesizer, and guitar are all featured. There are multiple layers to every song, and picking out the different lines is as satisfying and awe-inspiring as listening to the songs in whole. Seltmann writes her lyrics with passion and rawness that is tangible and relevant to the listener. It is difficult to listen to the words she writes without being drawn in on some level or another. Her voice is high and lilting, but always soft; she’s very much a crooner. Her lyrics, fantastic piano playing and sweet vocals combine to make music that is often times dreamlike and dizzyingly intoxicating. 

The namesake of this post is a track entitled “Cheer Me Up Thank You” and is a good song for today’s post. It’s a gentle, quieter song about friendships that has a strange bouncy feel to it, despite its sleepy tempo and vocals. Most of the songs on this album have a similar mood; a strangely upbeat sensation despite a relatively slow tempo. The thing I admire most about Seltmann, besides her ridiculously impressive musicianship, is her lyricism. They may seem slightly ambiguous, but ambiguity is not always a bad thing; Twilight was intentionally written with Bella’s looks/personality ambiguously described so that more readers could relate to the character, and I think the same can be said for Seltmann’s songs. Lyrics filled more with emotion than with specifics can reach out to a larger audience; a larger audience means more connections and, after all, isn’t that what music is all about? Take a listen not only to “Cheer Me Up Thank You” but also to the rest of the album. The feels are real.

From Miley Cyrus, to Cloud Cult; Andrew Jackson Jihad to Mutual Benefit, we’ve covered a huge range of music. There were posts that made me laugh, posts that made me think (I’m looking at you, Peter), and posts that were just really nice to read after a long day of work/school. I am always excited to read new posts and reviews. Every single post on this blog has made me all the more glad to have friends like y’all, people who are thoughtful, caring, musical, and, most of all, fun. I have so many fond memories associated with this blog and the music I’ve found on it. The first time I listened to Melt Banana and could do nothing but laugh. I remember when Josh wrote the review for Bangerz; a group of us were hanging out at IU and Kane read it aloud, to the delight of everyone present. Feeling like everything Cloud Cult has ever written speaks to me on another level. The first time I listened to Kansas Bible Company and got chills. Going to see Why? live and being completely overwhelmed by Yoni Wolf’s passion/stare. These are a seemingly unrelated string of emotions and events, but the thing that ties them all together is The Sub-Mariner. And I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t have to explain any of these feelings/reactions to any of you and that is the true beauty both of this blog and of music; these connections through music are important and strong. Thanks for a fun, smart, musical year, guys. Long live the Sub-Mariner, a musical harbor and home for those who wander.

Happy Listening,

Hanae

“You're cheering me up
And I'm thanking you
Guess what, you're cheering me up
And I'm thanking you.”

-New Buffalo, Cheer Me Up Thank You

Cheer Me Up Thank You

This is how you build something. Probably not a planet. But something pretty swell. (KBC)

It wasn’t always apparent to everyone that Kansas Bible Company would become a big thing.  This band got together at Goshen College, and then things started going so well that they all (all greater-than-or-equal-to 11 members) dropped out to move to Nashville and focus on their music.  Since then, a few have returned to grab their degrees and go, but the band keeps going, and they all tour together on breaks, weekends, and summers.  KBC is not some provincial band.  Since the release of their second full album, Hotel Chicamauga, they have played everywhere worth playing across the Midwest, including Bonnaroo.  Yes that Bonnaroo. KBC is a big deal. 

It took me a while to get up the courage to really write a proper review for KBC, and here I’m really going to focus just on their first album, “Ad Astra Per Aspera” (a latin cliché:  To the stars through rugged ways).  This is for a number of reasons.  They came from Goshen, and as a Goshenite myself, I was afeared that no one would take me seriously.  I have a certain lack of disinterest—I’ve taken classes and hung out with members of the band at college (and they’re swell folks).  Their lead singer was actually a substitute teacher for our high school for a while before they really got into their music.  He timed the final oral presentation I had for IB English.  Beyond this, I don’t know what genre to square them away in.  And I care about people liking their music. 

KBC has a unique sound in the indie scene (I’ve settled on labeling them as such for lack of anything more specific).  They have a few guitarists/vocalists, a few bassists, a few percussionists, a keyboard player.  And an up-to four-person horn line.  To clarify, KBC is definitely not a ska band.  Their horns give them, instead, a rich sound unachievable with any other wall-of-sound.  And that’s just it.  With so many talented musicians in one place, you’d expect Ad Astra Per Aspera to be one big wall of sound, in the style of “Yuck” or “Los Campesinos!.”  But KBC doesn’t come off like that.  Their opening (and, in my opinion, most classic) track “How To Build A Planet” has a 45 seconds of minimalist intro before bringing most of the instruments in, and KBC shows their musicianship over and over again by easing up and letting just a few voices be heard.  I’m a huge fan of this.  That said, don’t think that KBC doesn’t know how to use their size to their advantage.  If Ad Astra Per Aspera is anything, it is solidly a jam album.  From the almost vocal-less “Young Professional” to the lyrically nonsensical “Gondor Primulon,” you get the sweetest riffs you could hope for, a chill wind-and-string jam for the ages.  The fact that they stopped “Young Professional” before the 20 minute mark made me sad—that is a testament to how well they work together, and how musical they manage to be.  To be honest, if KBC has a weakness, it’s in their lyric writing, in this album (they’ve improved by album number 2, but that’s for another day).  None of their tracks, with the possible exception of “Black Books” (and maybe "Tension with Kansas") have terribly inspired lyrics—not much to keep you engaged in the content of the vocals, which tend towards the weakly-veiled metaphor, whether that be the repetition of “Cigarette Mountain” or “Moderation”, or simply the shallow themes of sex and drugs in “How To Build A Planet” and, well, really most of their tracks.  I hate to say it, but if you want to be forced to think, gifted some new philosophy, this is not the album for you (Though, for you ethnic Mennos out there, you’ll catch some more nuance tin a few of these tracks).  Go listen to some punk.  But if you want collaborative music at its finest, not only art but also fundamentally pleasurable, an ideal summer album (to bring back that feeling at any time of the year) or just to feel good, this is THE album.  It’s chill.  It’s dope.  It’s the best jam music you’ll ever hear.  If you don’t do anything else, LISTEN TO “HOW TO BUILD A PLANET.” If you aren’t a convert after that, I’ll give up.  But that track… That track is genius.  Even if KBC doesn’t really find their thematic direction until Hotel Chicamauga, this track is still hands down the cream of their crop.  This is what KBC is about.  I want you to imagine this track live.  It’s better than that.  Listen to it loud.  Listen to it with the bass cranked up.  Listen to it in your car, windows down, as the Midwestern summer rolls by, if you can.  Just…  Just listen to it. 

tl;dr: Listen to “How To Build A Planet” by Kansas Bible Company.  Do it.  Now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJjdcytsX40

-Peter

milo - A Toothpaste Suburb

Scrolling through Tumblr for the first time after a week in the Minnesota Boundary Waters, it was obvious that I had missed a lot. Robin Williams hung himself with a belt, Ferguson was becoming some kind of surreal war zone in "post-racial America," violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict was making national news. In between vaporwave-aesthetic gifs and One Piece manga caps, I watched it all unfold bit-by-bit (the only way to learn anything on a social network) with a vague disinterest mostly related to having just taken my first shower in a week and the time being 4am. I'll care about this in the morning, I remember thinking. The artwork for an album cover caught my eye, and I followed a Soundcloud link to this milo guy's track and listened to a sleepy, leaky faucet sounding beat unfurl into some verses with way too many cultural references to catch in one take. It was a welcoming sound. The production was smart, like something taken from a Baths track, and I remember feeling pretty tingly over the lines "I've been out of place like transitional lenses, comma splices in a suspended sentence, kiss the nose of the vulture, destroy the bro culture," etc. The song finished and my hard drive died promptly thereafter. At that point, feeling sufficiently attuned to the media overload once again, I fell asleep on Thomas's couch. I didn't listen to milo for a few days while my laptop was being repaired, but at that point I was already pretty hyped to get to hear the entire thing.

Thankfully, A Toothpaste Suburb arrived today, and I don't want to waste any time spreading the word. At the risk of sounding like myself, I'll say this is easily my favorite album from 2014 thus far. Open Mike Eagle's Dark Comedy was my previous contender, which is no surprise - milo makes it clear from the first track that he and his fellow label artist are good friends, and Mike makes an appearance on "Objectifying Rabbits" for a short verse. But milo takes things a little further, and it gets a little weirder on A Toothpaste Suburb.

Gary Paulsen, Instagram, Yoni Wolf (YES!), Guy Fieri, the Nightosphere -- Nothing is too obscure for milo's lexicon. I debated making a graph to map out these references, but that would ruin the fun of listening to every song again and again, trying to decipher every sentence. It's like a game of Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit. Kool AD even references himself and talks about it on "In Gaol," in a pretty hilarious verse about not really anything. It may seem like milo is making fun of anything and everything, but it becomes clear pretty quickly that he's really just making fun of himself for being so involved in the whole mess.

Knowing a lot about the internet isn't where milo's most important skills lie, though. He's talented. milo plays with metaphors like they're Lego blocks and some lyrics hit way harder than you could imagine a line about a dead bird ever could. He mumbles a bit less than he used to on his previous releases, but he still doesn't sound like a guy that realizes how witty he is.

When milo drops his barriers on "Just Us (A Reprise for Robert Who Will Never be Forgotten)," a revisited track about losing his brother, the effect is brutal and stomach turning. "Now kids write me about being their favorite rapper, and I'm the asshole who gets to live forever after," he spits with a level of clarity hardly visited on the album before, and a simple flat-line "I miss you" punctuates the song with so much earnest that I feel undeserved to type those same words in this review. It's a complicated song, and possibly the most real song about death that I've heard in a long time.

Beneath the plethora of name checks and chuckles on A Toothpaste Suburb, milo shows his reverence for life and some pretty complex feelings about death. The perspective is bizarre, but showing it any other way would be selling all of 2014 short. What a bizarre year it has been.

Happy fall

- Kane

Listen to A Toothpaste Suburb on Soundcloud or Bandcamp