BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition January 2019

Altameda - Time Hasn’t Changed You Beirut - Gallipoli Bob Sumner - Wasted Love Songs Cherry Glazerr - Stuffed & Ready
ALTAMEDA
Time Hasn’t Changed You
Pheromone Recordings
Poised for a breakout year, Altameda’s sophomore
full-length sees the band dialing in a sound that
has a lot of appeal. There’s a certain objective
taste that hears rock n’ roll as good songs with a
standard instrumental lineup of guitar, keys, bass,
and drums, and Time Hasn’t Changed You churns
with elements of all the bands that made that
the default setting for rock music, whether The
Heartbreakers, The Band or The Rolling Stones.
Kicking off with the greasy guitar and keys
on “Bowling Green,” Altameda presents a more
driving vibe than their 2016 debut, Dirty Rain.
“Losing Sleep” punches in with punk rock energy, a
blast of rave-up giddiness with a whoohoo refrain
that’s hooky as hell, along with tuneful gang vocals
running throughout the cut. It’s a likely shaker,
the kind of number that kicks your heels up for
you. “Rolling Back To You” lives in some wild space
near Springsteen’s Born To Run, and you get the
feeling the band’s well-aware of the vibe they’re
laying down with the line “And I wanna tell you,
just how I feel, I ain’t tryin’ to reinvent the wheel.”
The title track comes in near the end of the record,
with a ’70s AM radio feel, while “Waiting On The
Weather” goes back to spazzy rock n’ roll energy
before closing out the record.
Altameda’s put the work in to get the sound of
classic rock n’ roll just right, and there’s a lot to like
about Time Hasn’t Changed You.
• Mike Dunn
BEIRUT
Gallipoli
4AD
Beirut frontman, Zach Condon comes out
cymbals crashing with Beirut’s fifth studio album.
Gallipoli was recorded in Southern Italy and
receives its name from an Italian town Condon
and his bandmates visited during recording.
Often times mesmerizing, Gallipoli more
closely resembles Beirut’s first two albums,
Gulag Orkestar and The Flying Cup rather than
Condon’s more recent work. This resemblance is
in part due to the large presence of the organ on
which Condon wrote all three albums but also
the return to the often-incomprehensible lyrical
style heard in his earlier work. An effective return
to Beirut’s Balkan folk-inspired, breakthrough
sound, Gallipoli distinguishes itself with eccentric,
screeching organ on the instrumental “On Mainau
Island” and the wonderfully wordless melodies
in “Varieties of Exile.” True to Beirut fashion, the
quirky instrumental and intricate Gallipoli has
the ability to transport the listener to a different
period in time. Gallipoli features a marvelous
medley of brass instruments, organ and Condon’s
hypnotizing melancholy vocals.
Along with the release of the single, “Gallipoli,”
Condon offers this fairy-tale-like reflection of how
the album’s first single came to be,
“We stumbled into a medieval-fortressed island
town of Gallipoli one night and followed a brass
band procession fronted by priests carrying a
statue of the town’s saint through the winding
narrow streets behind what seemed like the entire
town. The next day I wrote the song I ended up
calling ‘Gallipoli’ entirely in one sitting, pausing
only to eat.”
• Sheena Antonios
BOB SUMNER
Wasted Love Songs
Independent
Along with his brother Brian in The Sumner
Brothers, singer-songwriter Bob Sumner built his
reputation as one of Canada’s best underground
songwriters the old-fashioned way, logging
thousands of miles across Canada, playing bars,
coffee shops and living rooms. Sumner’s songs
have always been a bit dark, and his debut solo
effort, Wasted Love Songs, balances the heavier
themes with sunny, finger-picked acoustic guitar
and subtle production notes that allow his
conversational timbre to shine through the mix.
“Riverbed” is beautiful opener, feeling
somewhere between Willie Nelson and The War
On Drugs, with a chorus that begs to be sung
along with and beautiful instrumental harmony
between the pedal steel and electric guitar. “A
Thousand Horses” picks up the pace to an easy
mosey while Sumner’s ability to hang a beautiful
chorus in a tune becomes more apparent. He
lulls you in during the verses, before he drops an
achingly lovely melody line when the song picks
up. That ability would be for naught if it weren’t
for Sumner’s masterstroke, laying words into
those melodies with a painter’s precision; “All the
running of a thousand horses, tearing the prairies
apart, is but a murmur and a whisper compared to
the beating of my heart.” Not a single word goes
to waste while Sumner’s poetic minimalism tips
its cowboy hat to Hemingway. “My Old Friend”
waltzes to a gentle opening, before cranking the
volume like Crazy Horse, with a gritty guitar line
mildly reminiscent of Son Volt’s Straightaways.
Wasted Love Songs is an early contender for
2019. It has an easy, laid back feel that fits on the
highway or in any room in the house. Sumner’s
ability to channel the likes of Townes Van Zandt
and Willie Nelson while adding flourishes of
more contemporary alt-country ought to make
him a part of some serious conversations when
discussing standout Canadian roots artists.
• Mike Dunn
CHERRY GLAZERR
Stuffed & Ready
Secretly Canadian
Upon first listen it sounded like Cherry Glazerr
had a more mature sound on Stuffed & Ready.
Having gone on as a three piece after losing synth
player Sasami Ashworth (due to her working on
her solo career), it seemed like the extra space
in the mix was met kindly by the remaining
musicians. However, on following visits the album
becomes less courageous and more so a typical
festival-tailored indie rock piece aiming to please
an angsty teenage audience. Songs often being
too reminiscent of too many other poppy “punk”
rockers from the last five years.
Formulated rhythms and predictable
pauses and drops keep the listener from being
engaged or shocked. On top of the characterless
instrumentation, the lyrics lack depth. Although
they are sung melodically by Clementine Creevy’s
undeniably beautiful voice, they struggle to
engage the listener into the story being told.
Although there are songs like album opener,
“Ohio,” where Cherry Glazerr are undeniably on
point, or “Daddi,” where the lyrics do have some
backbone and subtle aggressiveness, overall, even
though Creevy has said an incredible amount of
time was spent creating it, Stuffed & Ready comes
across rushed & uninspired.
• Cole Young
THE DANDY WARHOLS
Why You So Crazy
Dine Alone
Something happens to people, and families, as
they age that pushes them to evolve or get left
behind. For a band entering their 25th year in the
biz, we should expect nothing less. They’ve done,
seen, and survived things. With Pete Holmström
and Brent DeBoer exploring solo projects (Pete
Intl Airport & Immigrant Union, respectively), one
might expect the family to drift apart, and lose
the fire of their early years. And yet the band still
shows up when dinner is ready. They hit familiar
territory with “Terraform”, a bass driven dance
number. Zia McCabe gets her time to rock out
with “Highlife”, a stompy ol’ country tune. Single
“Be Alright” boom-clacks its way into your ear just
fine, if just missing that certain something. “Thee
Elegant Bum” again hits that familiar groove,
almost. By the time they hit “Motor City Steel”
they’ve gone full 16 Tons and what do you get.
The Dandys likely won’t gain any new fans with
this effort but Why You So Crazy is not without its
charm. After all, crazy is better than boring.
• Chad Martin
FIDLAR
Almost Free
Dine Alone
For the most die-hard fans, FIDLAR – which stands
for “Fuck it dog life’s a risk” – is a band, a motto
and an ethos. Rather than become pigeonholed
in skate punk for fear of disappointing fans, the
Los Angeles four-piece has diversified their sound
since their eponymous LP and hit single “Cheap
Beer.”
That’s what their latest album Almost Free is
about. Frontman Zac Carper has said the album
was influenced by the aesthetics of Soundcloud
hip-hop, but opening track “Get Off My Rock” is
more Beastie Boys than Lil Pump.
“Can’t You See” is a departure from FIDLAR’s
usual sound with a piano solo and walking bass
line, while the satire on materialism is in keeping
with Carper’s lyrical style. “By Myself” also revisits
a familiar subject – drinking that teeters toward
self-destruction – with fresh percussive range.
“Too Real” is FIDLAR’s most explicitly political
song. Carper howls, “Well, of course the
government is going to fucking lie.” While much
of Too (2015) focused on Carper’s struggle with
addiction and sobriety, tracks like “Too Real” and
the Clash-esque “Scam Likely” prove he can write
as passionately about the political as he can the
personal.
Parts of Almost Free retread familiar territory.
“Alcohol” could fit on any FIDLAR album in sound
and subject. Blistering forty second track “Nuke”
has the intensity of underrated Too track, “Punks.”
“Called You Twice” is a surprise standout.
Carper’s vocals meet their match in a duet with
K.Flay about both sides of a messy breakup. It’s
warm, vulnerable – the album’s emotional core.
While Almost Free is less consistent than its
predecessors, the range it displays proves that
FIDLAR is far from finished.
• Courtney Heffernan
GIRLPOOL
What Chaos Is Imaginary
ANTI-
Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad have been
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