Týr - The Lay of Thrym: B+

"Hall of Freedom"

The Faroe Islands are an island group about halfway between Iceland and Norway. Settled by the Nords, the eighteen islands are about a third the size of Rhode Island and contain less than fifty thousand people. They speak Faroese, the closest spoken descendent of the original, now dead Nord language. The Faroe Islands have been owned by Denmark since the early 1800’s and much debate has been going on as to whether the islands should declare independence. Basically, the Faroe Islands are Denmark’s Puerto Rico, and they are the most metal nation on Earth.

The only reason I can think of that more metal bands don’t come from The Faroe Islands is that the nation is so far removed from the rest of their world that they have barely discovered the telephone, let alone recording equipment. Týr, the only metal band signed to the only record label of The Faroe Islands, interchange between the English and Faroese language in their songs. They have been known to play metal versions of Faroese folk songs during their live shows. Their sixth album, The Lay of Thrym, is prime, epic folk metal. The group has a knack for catchy melodies and guitarists Heri Joensen and Terji Skibenæs are fantastic, peppering their songs with versatile solos that often lean toward the progressive. The Lay of Thrym is a great representation of a genre, and is recommended if only for the excellent musicianship and great passion the group observes.

I want to live in The Faroe Islands for a year. I want to eat skerpikjøt from a Faroese hjallur, I want to dance the føroyskur dansur and I want to march in the Ólavsøka on the twenty-ninth of July. But most of all I want to scour those eighteen islands for the most brutal Viking metal bands that the nation has to offer. The Lay of Thrym is good, but I think The Faroe Islands have better. But wait, do they have airports? Do they even have electricity? My God, how metal can one nation be?!

Týr - The Lay of Thrym: B+

Catching Up With... Tim Cohen

Hey everyone, we’re starting yet another article for Check Your Mode, and this one’s called Catching Up With… where we review the past 2010’s albums that were missed by certain artists whose works were reviewed recently. For the first Catching Up With… we’re going to talk about the albums released in 2010 by San Francisco solo artist and frontman of The Fresh & Only’s, Tim Cohen. We’ll be reviewing his second solo album, Laugh Tracks, and The Fresh & Only’s 2010 album, Play It Strange. For the review of Tim Cohen’s excellent 2011 solo album, Tim Cohen’s Magic Trick, click here. Otherwise, let’s catch up!

Tim Cohen – Laugh Tracks

Released: June 8^th 2010:

If there’s anything I’ve learned about listening to Tim Cohen’s music before Magic Trick, it’ that the man’s wry sense of humor is a very new development. On Laugh Tracks, Cohen plays a shyer character, allowing reverb to envelop his voice like many other singers of the lo-fi genre. Never fear, though, because there is a boisterous personality on Laugh Tracks, and it’s a trumpet. Its inclusion is unexpected and enlivens songs like “Deep Blue Sea” and “A Mind of Their Own”. Other than that, though, Cohen gets around on modest hooks that mostly land. “Send No Sign” is a complex track for Cohen’s standards that incorporates an ominous organ line that lays dormant in the verses and seethes in the choruses. Cohen dons a schmaltzy tone for closer, “Small Things Matter”, but Laugh Tracks by that point has made its mark, and it’s unfortunate that it’s not more pronounced. My suggestion would be to get “Send No Sign”, “Deep Blue Sea” and “A Mind of Their Own”. They are affecting tracks that were indications of the personality Cohen would hone in on later releases. B+

The Fresh & Onlys – Play It Strange

Released: October 12^th 2010:

That is before Cohen’s personality regressed further into the background for the fifth Fresh & Onlys album. Now here, Cohen’s working with a group of other musicians, so his placement farther from the foreground makes sense. Regardless, Play It Strange is an improvement on Laugh Tracks, because the group focuses more on songwriting and makes more complete musical statements than even Magic Trick. Cohen’s records are always good for at least one impressive song and “Who Needs a Man” is it, featuring a rousing introduction into an Eastern guitar line that shows the group transcending their own style. The seven-minute “Tropical Island Suite” moves seamlessly through multiple musical movements, a welcome distance from the two-minute lo-fi crunch one would expect from a group like this. Although Cohen doesn’t come off with a single memorable line on Play It Strange, his diminished presence is somewhat regained through the songwriting talent of the rest of The Fresh & Onlys. With Cohen’s newfound wit, I can only imagine better things will come from the group in the future. B+

Catching Up With... Tim Cohen

Jamie Woon - Mirrorwriting: B / Katy B - On a Mission: B+

"Night Air"   "Broken Record"

If you want a near guarantee that a song will be terrible, all you need to do is look for this two word suffix: “dubstep remix”. It’s become a trend now to take any sound, whether it be Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” or Justin Bieber being shot on CSI, and turn it into a cacophony of skrees and wonky bass. And it’s become a pretty popular trend. Over the past year, it would appear that the harsh stylings of dubstep have finally found their calling in the mainstream through jokey caricatures of the genre’s worst qualities.

Which is why some people missed the mark when they said that Jamie Woon’s Mirrorwriting and Katy B’s On a Mission were harbingers of the streamlining of dubstep for public consumption. These two albums, both released on the same day, have been compared to James Blake’s self-titled album as releases that are signs of the emergence of dubstep from the underground to the mainstream. However, it seems that the dubstep that has become popular now is dubstep itself, albeit an obnoxiously derivative version of it. People enjoy the genre without needing to water it down as occurs on Mirrorwriting, On a Mission, and James Blake (although they are still enjoyable to varying degrees). Now, it seems such heated debates that took place in the beginning of the year have been rendered a little bit moot.

Also, I would argue that Mirrorwriting and On A Mission don’t borrow much from dubstep. Jamie Woon sings strictly R&B, and his style is more akin to New Jack Swing or Timbaland’s work with Justin Timberlake than anything else. He slinks along on tactile beats with a seductive English swagger, smoothly moving from track to track like a boogie down vagabond. The man shows himself to be a distinct and alluring personality on Mirrorwriting, so it’s a shame that he relies so much on it that the album runs out of steam by its second half. With minimally catchy hooks to grasp onto, Woon begins to stall, and, when the album ends, you may rightfully only remember the singles. Some dubstep-y bass would probably aid Mirrorwriting, as Woon only gets away with so much on character alone.

If Jamie Woon’s the guy swooning in the streets, then Katy B’s flirtations aren’t occurring anywhere but the club. On A Mission never once stops to take a breath as Katy B shimmies on pulsating beats with great aplomb. But even here, her dubstep influences are a bit of a stretch. The slow lurch of “Go Away” and single “Easy Please Me” opens both songs up for such comparisons, but they pretty much end there. Realistically, Katy B has a little bit of Rihanna in her and perhaps a lesser Beyonce. But playing influences becomes boring in comparison to just dancing your ass off, because On A Mission does a great job of throwing down. B may be a bit of an awkward lyricist at times, and her voice may be a tad too ordinary, but On A Mission is a well-made dance album that deserves to top the UK charts.

Although it would be nice to imagine Jamie Woon and Katy B being the Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi sitting on opposite sides of James Blake’s Barack Obama, these three artists are not so cut and dry as to be the Holy Trinity of the dilution of dubstep. If you want to talk about the cheapening of the genre, take it up with the people who are characterizing it as an orgy of mindless skonks. Although they do share some sounds to dubstep, I wouldn’t be ready to characterize the three artists as genre piggybackers. They have all made good albums, and they make for an excellent soundtrack to my trip from the bedroom (James Blake), to the streets (Jamie Woon), to the club (Katy B) and back.

Jamie Woon - Mirrorwriting: B / Katy B - On a Mission: B+

Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones: A+

"Glory Hallelujah"

Can an album be a classic if it only references the past? We like to think of the classics – the A+’s, the five stars, the two thumbs ups – as groundbreaking releases that change how we think about music and become highly influential for generations to come. But what if an artist stops trying to be ahead of the curve and instead enjoys the curve wash over them like a sonic wave? If an album takes the influences that have amassed over the past fifty years and turns them into songs that make you laugh and cry as hard those very same influences, does it still deserve to be called a “classic album”?

I wonder this, because the two greatest albums of the decade thus far, Titus Andronicus’s The Monitor and Frank Turner’s England Keep My Bones, do just that. They keep their influences so prominently on their sleeves that they could wear t-shirts and be warm all year round, referring to their heroes explicitly in songs about personal triumph and crippling defeat. In “I Am Disappeared”, Turner wrestles with dreams of “pioneers, pirate ships and Bob Dylan.” He contemplates running away from the responsibilities of his life, and, when he does, none other than Bob himself arrives to whisk him away. The heart wrenching guilt in abandoning a lover in “Redemption” is triggered by a Springsteen song coming on in Turner, the scorner’s, head phones. These influences are fused with the very roots of the stories told on England Keep My Bones. It’s hard to say whether the album would exist, let alone be as affecting, without them.

Many not so explicitly stated influences arise while listening to England Keep My Bones. In a higher register, Turner’s voice sounds like The Decemberists’ Colin Melloy. Coupled with England’s folk influences, valid comparisons can be drawn to the group’s most recent album, The King Is Dead. Turner’s tumbling cadence in “Redemption” immediately brings to mind the stream-of-consciousness poetry of The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. “Penny Sang the Blues”, at its poppiest moments, even sounds like standard Third Eye Blind. And yet none of these references have made A+ records. What occurs on England Keep My Bones is Turner takes these relatively generic sounds and distills them into the greatest product they can be. Turns out that product approaches perfection.

England Keep My Bones is divided thematically in pairs. You have the sadness of “I Am Disappeared” and “Redemption” and the uplift of “Penny Sang the Blues” and “I Still Believe”. You have loyal hometown pride (“Wessex Boy”, “Rivers”) and middle fingers of defiance (“Eulogy”, “One Foot Before The Other”). The album seems to be at odds with the transition from skuzz punk to respectable adult, and these pairs underscore the radical division within Turner’s current lifestyle. If it sounds like I’m describing a transitionary record, then England Keep My Bones may be the best of its kind, because it perfectly encapsulates the insecurity that can come with entering a new chapter of life, and the shifts in Turner’s lyrics and tone is indicative of this.

Thankfully, England Take My Bones flows despite this. From track to track, Turner assumes different personas, but his wry sense of humor and passion for performance shine through with no exceptions. The cathartic introduction of “Eulogy” (“I haven’t always been a perfect person / I hadn’t done what mom and dad had dreamed / But on the day I die I’ll say ‘At least I fuckin’ tried’/ That’s the only eulogy I need”) is followed by “Peggy Sang the Blues”, an ode to Turner’s late grandmother, whose ghost visits him at night to play poker and impart elderly wisdom. It’s a drastic transition, especially looked at through the lens of familial piety, but Turner’s personality remains a constant throughout, even as the music changes from jagged distortion to pop rock polish. Then come the raucous revivalism of “I Still Believe” (“I still believe/ In the saints / Yeah Jerry Lee and Johnny and all the greats”), the acoustic homeliness of “Rivers”, and so on and so forth. All these songs have vastly different mission statements, but Turner brings his all to each subject, making each track its own fluid dialogue.

“I Am Disappeared” and “Redemption” particularly distinguish England Take My Bones, though. The lyrical resonance of the former has already been noted, but its musical accompaniment is just as devastating. A snare is hit at the word “gone” in “She can get up shower in half an hour she’d be gone,” and more instrumentation comes in as Turner shifts narration from a distressed mother to himself. “I keep having dreams of needing things to do / And then waking up and not following through,” he sings, relaying a self-critique that makes Turner’s escape all the more futile as he finds that he cannot escape himself.

“Redemption” hits even harder, because we observe Turner’s self-loathing for abandoning a lover due to his fear of commitment. Solemnly, Turner admits, “The sad truth is that the grass it will always seem greener / So I left you alone in a restaurant in London in winter / You deserved better.” Later, as that Springsteen song triggers a shame spiral, Turner hollers on the bridge with an emotional intensity unmatched on the rest of the album. The sympathy becomes unbearable when we hear him rummage through his diary to find that the day he crumbled would have been the date of their anniversary. Then the track climaxes and Turner tries to redeem himself with another verse, but ultimately fails as he concludes, “I don’t think I can do this” before the song abruptly ends.

And so begins “Glory Hallelujah”, the last song on the album. The track will probably come to define England Keep My Bones for its lyrical content, of which I’ll let Turner explain: “Hey everybody have you heard the news? / The storm has lifted and there’s nothing to lose / So swap your confirmation for your dancing shoes / Because there never was no God.” The song turns an admission of Godlessness into a celebration of mortality. Even if you disagree with Turner’s message (you’re in the majority if you do), you have to hand it to the guy for pumping so much melody into such a controversial song, saving all his best hooks so he can best drive that point home. It’s the best song on England Take My Bones, so I’m content that it will be the most noticed. Its communal catharsis is brilliantly executed and fits perfectly as you turn the album back to “Eulogy” to listen to the album once again. However, considering England Keep My Bones perfectly encapsulates that daunting midpoint between adult and ruffian, it’s not like you needed another excuse.

Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones: A+

Liturgy - Aesthethica: B

"Veins of God"

Listening to Aesthethica, the second album from Brooklyn black metal group Liturgy, one wonders what the proverbial shit storm is all about. The album, like The Body’s All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood and Shining’s Blackjazz, attempts to stretch the boundaries of black metal by incorporating more streamlined influences and generally polishing their style. Aesthethica still very much sounds like a black metal album, but its vague optimism in both instrumentation and lyrics has garnered much criticism from people who believe that black metal should not be taken to such impure places. Call it the gentrification of black metal and suddenly the oft-used “hipster metal” epithet makes a lot more sense.

Honestly, though, fans of black metal won’t have anything to worry about in terms of Aesthethica encroaching upon their beloved subgenre, or even All the Waters or Deathjazz for that matter. Although these albums try their damndest to contort black metal into disfigured shapes, they are not particularly worth the time spent mulling over their genre implications, because they’re not particularly good albums. While it featured some of the greatest instrumental performances of 2010, Blackjazz was fractious and uncomfortable with itself, showing in songs that frequently felt incomplete. All the Waters was just tuneless buffoonery that’s refusal to tether to any remote song structure made it borderline unlistenable and its influence inert. Musically, Aesthethica sounds like an improvement on All the Waters, but it still lacks cohesion, the group’s distortionless power chords and singer Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s disemboweled shrieks providing a shaky base through which the group can test the rigid limits of their genre.

What is interesting about Aesthethica, though, is its use of repetition. Many of the album’s tracks boil down to the stubborn replication of a few guitar chords with bass and drums following in lock step. It’s a very interesting way of making music, but a full album of it gets tiresome quickly, and, eventually, it becomes so numbing, it straddles boredom. The repetition in “Generation” and “Sun of Light” is invigorating in doses and an excellent display of Liturgy’s musical skill, as the group maneuvers through sharp turns with great ease. However, it’s just too much. At a certain point in the album, you start to treasure the rare moments that flow instead of shove like the keyboard line in “Helix Skull”, the linear riffing in “Veins of God” and even the obnoxious, layered hums of “Glass Earth”.

All in all, the purpose of Aesthethica feels like stale provocation, and provocation without substance is pretty meaningless. While I do not dislike the sentiment of what Liturgy is trying to do, it is clear that, through their and other groups’ recent albums, the all-out expansion of black metal is still in the embryonic stage. Critics have been hailing this album particularly as a groundbreaking metal release, but I’m starting to think in this case innovation is being confused with aimlessness. This movement to confound the boundaries of metal, black and otherwise, will probably gain a better footing as more albums are released that improve upon Aesthethica, but, if this album is any indication, that movement will take a lot longer than expected.

Liturgy - Aesthethica: B

Cults - Cults: B+

"Abducted"

If you were paying attention to the “blogosphere” (demeaning term, hate using it) during 2010, you probably heard Cults’s “Go Outside” at some point. It was a pleasant, catchy song built upon reverbed drums and guitar with female vocals that immediately brought to mind 60’s girl group pop, an influence not unfamiliar to many emerging artists this decade. However, the track gained so much notoriety, that Cults were signed to a major label by the end of the year, and their debut has now been released under Columbia. You will find that track that has become so ubiquitous with the group nestled into the second slot on this release.

Bordering “Go Outside”, you will find the two lead singles for Cults. “Abducted” starts the album off nicely with some excellent, catchy vocal melodies from both singer Madeline Follin and guitarist Brian Oblivion. The track equates heartbreak to abduction, Follin playing the abducted with a vocal line that floats over the arrangements and Oblivion playing the abductor with a deep, slacker croon. It’s a great track and the highlight of Cults right off the bat. After “Go Outside” is “You Know What I Mean”, a standard ballad with vocals reminiscent of Tennis singer Alaine Moore but with more shrill menace. These three songs that begin Cults are fine singles that can be enjoyed for both their froth and artistic integrity.

However, as Cults moves farther and farther from those first three tracks, one gets the feeling that the group is stranding themselves into open waters. Unfortunately, it becomes exceedingly clear that the album is woefully frontloaded, as the tracks that follow “You Know What I Mean” are not particularly memorable; at best, they are concurrent pastiche of that girl group sound so well established in the album’s first third. “Never Saw the Point” has the bells and percussion of a minor Gnarls Barkley track and “Bumper” is refreshing for Oblivion again assuming vocal duties, but, as it goes on, Cults starts to sound less like a distinct group and more like a Best Coast with chimes. Once those singles end, Cults have trouble maintaining many memorable hooks, so their songs end up being enjoyable for their transient beauty, and little is remembered of them once the album ends.

Closer, “Rave On”, epitomizes this aesthetic. While still a modestly enjoyable, the track use the same chord progression as “Abducted”, and that lack of creativity is not lost on the listener. While Cults has some great songs on it, it shows that Cults need to refine their sound more in the mode of hooks rather than just slight variations on a sound. Follin likes to sing about running away and escape, and even that thematic repetition gets tiresome by the album’s end. My suggestion would be to get “Abducted” and the singles if you haven’t already heard them. Otherwise, I might skip Cults, as it is a flawed attempt for the group to form a solid sound.

Cults - Cults: B+

Black Country Communion - 2: B+

"Man in the Middle"

If you’re like me, you were probably surprised that the debut album from Black Country Communion, the supergroup of solo guitarist Joe Bonamassa, bassist/singer Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath fame, Foreigner drummer Jason Bonham, and former Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian, wasn’t a hulking piece of shit. Also, if you’re like me, you were probably surprised that this seeming one-off was actually going to come up with a follow-up to their debut less than a year after its release. And, also, if you’re like me, you’re going to be surprised that the appropriately titled 2 is just as robust and reliable as their debut.

Basically, if you enjoyed Black Country or if you are a big fan of the affiliates of these group members, you will enjoy 2. It has reliable riffs, excellent instrumentation and displays some solid hard rock songwriting. The group has a clear chemistry (otherwise this album wouldn’t exist), so it is great fun just to hear them play off each other, even if that doesn’t necessarily translate into the most memorable of songs.

2 is nearly identical to Black Country in virtually every way – musically, thematically, lyrically. What only distances 2 from its predecessor is that Joe Bonamassa does not feature as prominently with show stopping guitar solos like Black Country’s “Too Late for the Sun”, and that does work against the group, overall. Still, Black Country Communion has proven with 2 that they are a force to be reckoned with. Hard rock’s a bit of a dead art these days, so it seems apt that the people resurrecting it are the people who helped create it.

Black Country Communion - 2: B+

Little Scream - The Golden Record: B+

"Red Hunting Jacket"

Musically, you won’t find anything on Montreal singer/songwriter Little Scream’s debut album that you wouldn’t find on the work of other quiet acoustic folk artists that are quickly becoming a ‘10’s cliché. Instrumentally, The Golden Record falls somewhere below the lush darkness of Laura Marling and above the barely-there unobtrusiveness of Lia Ices. I would probably equate the arrangements of The Golden Record to something like The Mynabirds, the Oklahoma group that’s modest debut last year made hardly an indent on the indie folk scene, let alone the musical landscape as a whole. A cursory listen to The Golden Record’s acoustic guitars and frail voices may warrant an immediate dismissal to an uncaring musical purgatory.

While this is true throughout most of The Golden Record, the album has several redeemable moments that contradict the timidity of the arrangements. “The Heron and Fox”, musically, would not turn many heads, but, lyrically, Little Scream exhibits a knack for making unconventional subjects profound with clever wordplay. “I told the stripper at the bar that the shots we got were magic / Make a wish and it’ll come true / As she smiled her golden tooth / Glinted in the light / I wonder what she wished for / I just wished for you.” It ‘s a very roundabout way of making a point, but all that poetic talk of strippers and gold only increases the momentum as Little Scream gets to the punchline. Elsewhere, she exerts lyrical dominance over the titular character in “Guyegaros”, telling him to “put down your guitar and meet me in the choir” in the choruses. These moments hint at the strong character Little Scream can be, and, when she assumes that central roll, she sets herself apart from her peers.

This is why “Red Hunting Jacket” comes at such a surprise so late in The Golden Record and also why it’s the album’s most rewarding track. With joyous handclaps and distorted guitar, the track is active but also has a better pop sense than all the other tracks on The Golden Record. Little Scream’s breathy voice doesn’t completely fit the track’s changed mood, but it’s still a highlight because not only does it make Little Scream a prominent figure as opposed to the rest of The Golden Record, but it also shows that she sounds excellent when she is.

Little Scream - The Golden Record: B+

About Group - Start and Complete: B

"You're No Good"

Well it certainly sounds like it was improvised. About Group is an indie rock supergroup of Hot Chip lead singer Alex Taylor, This Heat drummer Charles Hayward and a couple studio musicians, and their debut album, Start and Complete, is essentially a recorded jam session that’s been cut up into individual songs. The album is certainly a meeting of excellent musical minds in terms of Hayward’s excellent percussion work on songs like single “You’re No Good” and the group’s general ability to make distinct movements sound like legitimately planned songs, but, like a regular jam session would entail, the album has a lot of lulls in which very little goes on, and one can tell in those moments that the group is struggling to find a direction. That’s the risk with albums like Start and Complete, and, for the most part, About Group overcomes it. Still, I would be more likely to suggest “You’re No Good” as a testament to the group’s talent as opposed to the album, itself.

About Group - Start and Complete: B

Julian Lynch - Terra: B+

"Fort Collins"

Oh, Julian Lynch, you are just a treasure. You make music that is so pleasant and nice with that lush bass and that modest everything else. You make me think of mornings, you know. Stretching out on the grass and smelling the air, the sky, the clouds, the flowers, the bugs and the ground. Is that why you called your new album Terra? It’s a pretty name. And the music on it is so very nice! I can put it on and do other things and those other things will feel better as a result! You should be proud of that. Yeah, Terra’s good stuff. You should make more of it before I start to miss you again.

Julian Lynch - Terra: B+