album reviews Banks, The Altar Crying, Beyond the Fleeting Gales Cymbals Eat Guitars, Pretty Years D.D Dumbo, Utopia Defeated À La Mode Perfection Salad Independent In keeping with the cuisine-centric image portrayed by À La Mode, Winnipeg’s self-described “heart-pop” band, Perfection Salad is a delicious recipe of synth-pop, slacker-rock, and millennial melancholy spread over 27 minutes and two languages. The band’s debut full-length features a sublime mix of sleepy, oneiric melodies and louder, more upbeat indie-rock jams all complemented by the skill of vocalist Dominique Lemoine’s occasionally-accented storytelling. Parallels can be drawn between À La Mode and Baltimore’s dream-popdarlings Beach House, especially on tracks like the ironically-titled “Never Sleep Again,” which features a hazy, almost nursery-rhyme atmosphere, complete with softly twinkling chimes, and a beautiful string section. “Ce sentiment,” the albums attention-grabbing third track, follows a quiet-loud-quiet format that showcases the power and maturity of Lemoine’s voice in a way that isn’t necessarily prevalent on many of the albums simpler pieces. Even a track like “Total Doom”, which is ‘cutesy’ almost to a fault, doesn’t detract from what is ultimately a strong release. Overall, Perfection Salad isn’t perfect, but it is a delectable slice of indiepop that is sure to leave you satisfied. Banks The Altar Harvest • Alec Warkentin A subdued but gorgeous voice, alone in a room with nothing but a piano and her frustrations of failed romances. This is how Banks’ sophomore release The Altar opens, and it is one of the album’s best moments. The singer thrives when her vulnerability is accentuated by the bevy of vocal effects, Wonkyinfluenced beats and the occasional stripped-back ballad that make up her music. “Fuck With Myself,” with its piercing string-pluck synths, hits this mark wonderfully, covering the topics of self-acceptance, self-love and self-destruction that the title suggests. Self-acceptance is a running theme of the The Altar. The title evokes Banks herself as a Goddess, the title of her debut, that she herself is praying to. Standouts “Gemini Feed” and “Mother Earth” also hit on this topic effectively. Unfortunately, The Altar faces the same general problems that her debut did with an overstuffed tracklist that hides its gems in between a lot of filler. “Trainwreck” is a suitably titled track, and dulls the listener’s impression of the entire album with its overly trendy, EDMfocused sing-rapping which doesn’t play to any of Banks’ strengths. “This is Not About Us,” “Weaker Girl” and “Judas,” while not as overtly bad, are dull and do nothing to either impress or interest the listener. As a soulful crooner writing confessionals about the trappings of relationships, Banks is an extremely talented lyricist with a knack for ear-catching melody. It’s just too bad she only shows up for half of The Altar. Crying Beyond the Fleeting Gales Run For Cover • Cole Parker Crying is a charming New York trio that got their start doing genre fusions of twee pop and chiptune, somehow managing to make the blend sound good. This was mostly thanks to an exceptional sense of melody and remarkably earnest lyrics from lead singer Elaiza Santos. That was only two years ago, when they released two EPs, Get Olde and Second Wind. Beyond the Fleeting Gales is their first full-length record. Despite that, the record already serves as a bit of a departure from the group’s stylistic roots, which might seem obvious from the admittedly awful album cover. Despite the album art’s gaelic typeface and plain images of blue skies and green fields, the album has more in common with Irish rockers Thin Lizzy than with the hypothetical Celtic gospel album it seems to hearken back to. Moving away from the 8-bit and sliding closer to the ‘70s and ‘80s, their debut is chock-full of hair metal shreds and Yes-like arpeggiated synth leads. Impressively, they never seem to fall into the corny clichés that plague the rock music of those decades. The Game Boys are gone, replaced almost entirely by boss-battle-adjacent synths. They provide atmosphere for the LP’s slower forays into progish power ballads, and harmonize with Santos’s voice in a way that still sounds unique. Beyond the Fleeting Gales is Crying ditching their gimmick, while still managing to carve out their own distinctive niche. Cymbals Eat Guitars Pretty Years Sinderlyn • Cole Parker Even in a year filled with stranger things and get downs, Cymbals Eat Guitars’ Pretty Years turns out to be the most impressive throwback to a wistful time period more invigorating than our own. Although Pretty Years is an album that is heavily influenced by the golden eras of Springsteen, Bowie, and the Cure, it is, against all odds, entirely unique; the band’s very own masterpiece. Pretty Years is heavy on warm, catchy synths and vibrant bass lines, contributing to the overall nostalgic sound of the album. As with all Cymbals Eat Guitars work, the guitar work is something to be admired, but the lyrics are what transcend the album into something iconic and unforgettable. “Goodbye to my dancing days/Goodbye to the friends who fell away/Goodbye to my pretty years,” wails Joseph D’Agostino, the band’s founder and frontman, on the chorus of standout track “Dancing Days.” It’s hard to imagine that D’Agostino only started writing choruses with 2014’s excellent LOSE. Even though the album was recorded and cut in under a week, you wouldn’t be able to tell. Lyrically and musically, Pretty Years is the product of passion. Each band member had a volcano of inspiration brewing inside of their souls—suddenly overflowing, ready to explode at any moment. So rather than letting the energy go to waste, they went to the studio. D.D Dumbo Utopia Defeated 4AD • Paul McAleer Twenty-seven-year-old Oliver Perry lives a relatively simple life in Castlemaine, Australia. He lives in a small shed attached to some horse stables, an idyllic rural lifestyle that Perry uses to make his auteurist pop music as D.D Dumbo. His self-recorded EP, 2013’s Tropical Oceans, is a looping, lo-fi adventure into the head of a musicallymeditative madman. Utopia Defeated, D.D Dumbo’s debut album for 4AD, continues that trend, but strips away the lo-fi and pushes it into a professional studio. The result is a wild, whimsical trip into the mind of one of indie music’s most underrated songwriters. Dumbo uses a 12-string guitar, and instruments from around the world, to create a rich textural background for each of his creations to chug along within. Album opener “Walrus,” is a head-bopping pop tune akin to a subdued Vampire Weekend. Dumbo’s voice is restlessly expressive, always searching for groove amongst the kinetic rhythm. The funky, imaginative “Satan” is further proof of this, showing off Dumbo’s confident tenor that can reach into falsetto with unpredictable ease. Overall, Utopia Defeated is a rhythmically dense debut that marks Dumbo as a major talent to follow both now, and hopefully well into the future. Gal Gracen The Hard Part Begins DISNY Records • Jamie McNamara The Hard Part Begins with a goodbye, the scent of cologne, leaving a humid crowded concert hall and stepping into the crisp night air, snow crunching beneath your feet. The nods to this experience in the first song’s beginning lines act as Scene One in a collection of musical anecdotes dedicated to the plight of a wallflower and his surreal take on what occurs around him. Patrick Geraghty describes his project, Gal Gracen, as “Devotional Voyeurism,” which even more than his initial release, Blue Hearts in Exile, it is. This follow-up EP of selfrecorded songs is the story and well-stewed over observations of someone looking from the outside in, desperately trying to make sense of what they see. All this is set to Geraghty’s signature dallying guitar riffs, some janky synths and the occasional wisp of flute. The anxiety, the poetry, the ’60s-gonewrong-sounds, all works together to create a new genre, a sort-of neurotic psychedelia. Like slacker rock’s jumpier and more apprehensive little brother, Gal Gracen’s The Hard Part Begins should play in the background of all your fever dreams • Maya-Roisin Slater 32 reviews <strong>October</strong> <strong>2016</strong>
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