Band Profile - TITAN

Titan - A Raining Sun of Light and Love and Sweet Dreams
I read about the band Yes long before I ever actually heard their music. They were built up in print as musical geniuses. I read about mindbending progressive rock, with experimental soundscapes and touches of classical music influence. I was intrigued, and imagined the sound was like the rock bands I had already heard, visceral and exciting, only smarter somehow. But when I actually heard a Yes album, disappointment set in. It was not like the rock bands I knew. The excitement had been bled out of the sound to allow room for noodling that bordered on the dainty. At the time, it sounded to me like they were the kind of "rock" musicians who owned tight leggings and puffy shirts, and though I would eventually appreciate their efforts more, that image has always stuck with me.

The point is that Brooklyn stoner/prog band Titan is what I always wanted Yes to sound like. They craft fifteen minute long slabs of driving, exciting prog rock, and never does it sound like they might be wearing capes of any kind. True, the beginning of their 2007 album A Raining Sun of Light and Love does begin with a brief fingerpicked guitar passage and some odd vocals, which represents their nearest approach to the Renaissance Faire style of prog material. But even that bit is quickly taken over by echo and delay effects until the sound completely decays and, in an introduction to Titan's take on prog rock, you are launched full force into space by muscular guitar and Hammond organ over a driving beat. With A Raining Sun of Light and Love, Titan manages to make sprawling prog epics sound energized and vital, like you are traveling at extremely high speeds over bizarre and unfamiliar terrains, which is no small accomplishment considering that their albums are largely instrumental.

Titan's follow up effort was 2010's Sweet Dreams, which is a more manic affair overall. The virtuosity is ramped up on this release, with the guitars, bass, and organ moving in and out of sync above the jazzier, though no less propulsive drumming. The difference between the two is that while A Raining Sun of Light and Love pushes you along, Sweet Dreams tends to pull you apart. You find your attention racing in so many different directions that the effect can be dizzying. The mostly instrumental quality again does Titan many favors, though to their credit, when they do bring in some vocals (as they briefly do on "A Wooded Altar Beyond the Wander"), they manage to eschew the high-register singing and frankly embarrassing lyrical content that prog bands tend to utilize with baffling regularity. Titan lets their music tell the story, which of course will be different for each listener.

Listening to Titan, I find myself wishing that I could take their entire sound and airbrush it onto the side of a 1975 Econoline van. In the end, I imagine that's the greatest seal of approval I could give them.

Waiting For Kingdom Come With The Radio On

The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten
The Gaslight Anthem have recorded a new album, Handwritten, and the world is a better place for it. There will, of course, be the inevitable presence of joyless haters who complain that it's all stuff we've heard before, but as usual, those critics miss the point completely. If you're looking for sonic exploration and progressive tendencies, look elsewhere. The Gaslight Anthem are unabashed rock classicists, and each song they write is a love letter to rock and roll history with the chord structures firmly in the I-IV-V territory. They build albums out of the elements that have been proven to be effective and then reconfigure them, adding new emphasis and charm to tell their own stories. They're obviously good at what they do, because they can evoke a sense of wistful nostalgia with a song you've never heard before.

On Handwritten, the small changes to their sound add up. There is some great lead guitar work to be found, especially the solos on songs like "Mulholland Drive" and "Biloxi Parish," which also contains some of the sweetest romantic lines that Brian Fallon has written yet. The vocal harmonies are more intricate as well, and no longer comprised solely of punk rock "whoa's." The Springsteen adoration has been scaled back, so while you can still hear The Boss in their sound, there's more room now for other influences and the band's own voice to come through. Fallon appears to have brought a few things back from his work on The Horrible Crowes debut, namely a bolstered sense of melody and a vocal style that keeps getting more and more expressive. He first broke out of his older vocal style with "Diamond St. Church Choir" on American Slang, and he's just kept improving since then.

If you already know The Gaslight Anthem, you mostly know what to expect as far as lyrical content. The writing gets more nuanced with each album, but Fallon is telling his usual stories of loves both gained and lost, lives spent working in dismal jobs, and waiting for the radio to deliver that rock and roll salvation into the wild American night. Since Gaslight spends so much time looking at the past, it's fitting that the lyrics are carefully kept just vague enough that they could have been written in any decade in the past sixty years. There is a certain timeless quality that their albums possess, and Handwritten is a perfect example of that. Exploring the possibilities of sound is great, but sometimes you need a band to reliably deliver some straightforward, memorable rock and roll songs, and for that, The Gaslight Anthem should be at the top of your list.

Handwritten will be out July 24th, but you can stream a preview listen HERE.

Propagandhi Streaming New Song

Canadian hardcore heroes Propagandhi have begun streaming the first single from their upcoming album, Failed States. It's a short burst of the progressive, melodic hardcore we've come to expect from them, and if this is just the first taste, then it sounds like the whole album is going to be pretty satisfying. Failed States is due out September 4th, so keep an eye out here for a review.

One Shall Pass

Aesop Rock - Skelethon
It's been five years since Aesop Rock last released an album, but in the time since 2007's amazing None Shall Pass, Aesop has been busy. Unfortunately, he's been busy dealing with everything life could throw at him: a friends' passing, the dissolution of his marriage, and the indefinite suspension of activity by Def Jux Records. Like any artist, Aesop put all of that into his work, and with his newest release, Skelethon, he has spun life's dross into gold.

The thing about Aesop Rock albums is that you either get it or you don't. There are no tales of guns, drugs, or ghetto violence on his records. Aesop's rhymes come more from the encyclopedia than from inner city streets, though the topics he broaches are universal. His lyrics are more abstract and verbose than most hip-hop artists, and he fills in his stories with sensory information, comparisons, and references far beyond the norm for the genre. It's virtually cut-up rap, and William Burroughs would be proud. Skelethon is no exception to these tendencies, and it's an album that is information dense, with phrases and lines that reveal multiple meanings on their own, and still more when considered in context.

Any listeners to Aesop's older albums will notice that his relationship to his beats is still evolving. He was never one to trot out an old tired breakbeat, but on Skelethon, not only are the beats and accompanying music a cut above, but the way he sets up his vocal flow on top of those beats seems more advanced. Album opener "Leisureforce" has a groove to it, but with the skittery beat and Aes's off-kilter wordsmithing, it's hard to know where that groove comes from. The album's first single "Zero Dark Thirty," with its crisp drums and murky electronics, brings the dark urgency that Aesop has become known for, and "Fryerstarter" drills into your head with its downtempo science-fiction bleep-and-grind.

There are odd surprises around every corner on this release, like the tale of a faithful beagle rescuing a drowning toddler from the family swimming pool in "Ruby '81," or the wry humor of "Racing Stripes," with lyrics that start at crazy hairstyles and get stranger from there. Rob Sonic makes an appearance and Kimya Dawson offers a childlike vocal melody on "Crows 1," but overall, Skelethon feels solitary, like it was made during late nights spent in rooms with just the man himself working the knobs. Considering the past five years, he may indeed have wanted to be alone to create this release, but if nothing else, at least he can be satisfied in knowing that he's made something great. Skelethon is a rewarding listen that will cause words and images to drift back into your head long after the last track ends.

Honey Lungs and Falling Blackbirds

Black Moth - The Killing Jar
Black Moth, a stoner rock outfit from Leeds, England, sound like a lot of things. You could fill a review with comparisons: they sound like Black Sabbath with Grace Slick singing for them, they sound like Acid King with a punk rock impatience, they sound like Alice in Chains imagined by Donita Sparks. The list could be much longer, and all of it would be fairly accurate, but all of them would miss the mark a bit. Black Moth reach throughout rock history for their influences, but in the end, the brew they concoct is their own.

The Killing Jar is built on a stoner rock template, but you only have to listen to the opening track, "The Articulate Dead," to hear just how much punk rock has made its way into Black Moth's sound. In fact, the ratio of Black Sabbath sludge to Misfits punk makes this album somewhat reminiscent of the Melvins and the heavier grunge acts of the past. The sound is low and filthy, a perfectly distorted bass-heavy grind for Harriet Bevan's bold vocals to soar over.

A clear highlight of the album is "Blackbirds Fall," a midtempo display of all of Black Moth's best tendencies. A full-on stoner outfit would take riffs as good as these and build an eight minute opus out of them, getting as much mileage out of the elements as they could, but "Blackbirds Fall" is a testament to Black Moth's punk brevity, as it only clocks in at four minutes. It tells you exactly what it needs to and departs without overstaying its welcome. This is true of the whole album really, with ten songs at under forty minutes, the album is surprisingly tight for a stoner/sludge effort. There is plenty of memorable lead guitar work, but very few flashy solos (another example of their punk/grunge influence). The production by Bad Seeds drummer Jim Sclavunos is spot on, the combination of the thick, dirty guitars with Bevan's clear, powerful voice is practically addictive.

The Killing Jar is an album refreshingly free of attempted superlatives. It's not trying to be the heaviest, fastest, slowest, or trippiest. It's a release that simply contains ten heavy, catchy, fun songs, which is a lesson that more heavy bands could take to heart. Other heavy albums will no doubt receive more attention this year, but I'm betting I won't play many of them as often as this one.

Murder By Death Announce New Single and Kickstarter

The consistently impressive Murder By Death have released the first single from their forthcoming album Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, which comes out on September 25th. This release will mark the MBD debut of mutli-instrumentalist Scott Brackett of Okkervil River.

The band has also announced the Kickstarter campaign for the new LP. Stop by and give their project profile a look, because the band has put some interesting treats up for backers.

Alive in the Superunknown - Thoughts on Soundgarden's Masterpiece

RFF is currently stuck in a 90's grunge state of mind, and with Soundgarden recently reformed and preparing an album of new material, it's worth taking a look back at their high water mark and remembering what made them the band they became.

As the original grunge bands began to cede to rock and roll attrition, the imitators began to cash in. Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and especially Pearl Jam all had bands crawling out of the woodwork to try to bleed off fans looking for more of the grunge sound. But for all the interest in drawing out the fame that the Seattle music explosion created, there were very few who attempted to ape Soundgarden's style, largely because Soundgarden is the most difficult of Seattle's big four to imitate. Their specific brand of music pulled deeply from metal. There is a definite Sabbath feel, as there was with most of the original grunge bands, but Chris Cornell's wailing vocals seemed to come more from the Robert Plant school of singing, and Cornell seems to be one of the last (unironic) singers to be pressed from that particular mold.

Soundgarden's peculiar take on metal would add to the inimitable nature of their style as well. Their masterpiece, Superunknown, is perhaps the best example of this. Bizarre tunings and off-kilter time signatures abound on the record. Guitar magazine interviews from the time tell us that rather than the standard EADGBe guitar tuning, they used alternate tunings like CGDGBE ("Mailman" and "Limo Wreck"), EEBBBB ("My Wave" and "The Day I Tried To Live"), CGCGGC ("Head Down"), and CBGDGD ("Like Suicide"). Time signatures that were previously only the territory of the proggiest of prog bands were used: "My Wave" uses 5/4, "Fell On Black Days" uses 6/4 time, "Limo Wreck" uses 15/8, "The Day I Tried To Live" and "Spoonman" alternate between 7/4 and 4/4 sections, and "Black Hole Sun" makes use of both 4/4 and 9/8. The fact that these odd parameters were used for songs that were radio hits is nothing short of astounding, but Soundgarden's talent was such that they could form songs so natural and catchy from such twisted musical architecture. Not to mention that they did it all largely by accident, as the band maintains was the case. No wonder then that there were very few acts that ever wanted to try to imitate them. Sure, anyone could have tried to phone it in, but the result would never have anything near the same feel as the originals, and the effort of any serious attempt would have outweighed the profit.

Superunknown is an album that's easy to love, but hard to understand. Easy to remember, but hard to copy. The lyrics are either oblique or deceptively straightforward. There is anger and frustration in there, but there is a sense of confusion throughout. There is misery, but the lyrics come at it at strange angels compared to the upfront sort that Alice in Chains traded in to great success. Surreality is the norm on Superunknown, from the dream imagery of "Black Hole Sun" to "4th of July," supposedly a transcript of an LSD trip. The themes on the album are hard won, brought back from areas not normally accessed by the mind. Give Superunknown a spin and let it pull you back to 1994. It's worth the trip.