Neil Young - On The Beach

Start with this: I am a complete sucker for Neil Young’s guitar work. Depending on what iteration of him you’re listening to, his guitar style migrates from folk- and country-tinged songs to stretched-out electric guitar workouts to distortion-laden noise-making. I eat up pretty much all of it, but I’m especially partial to his electric stuff, in particular the early-to-mid 70s Crazy Horse guitar jams. The best of them morph a melody, building a sense of momentum while pounding that melody into the ground in an absolutely relentless fashion. There’s a groove to the guitar work, and it’s often melodic. But it’s also rough; guitars bleat and wail, with piercing high notes held to glorious effect. For me, the combination can be euphoric, and Neil Young is one a few musicians that can hit that sweet spot.

In that sense, On the Beach is a somewhat strange album for me to choose.* Crazy Horse is nowhere to be seen, and there are no long electric guitar jams. The album followed the death of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten, who died of a heroin overdose the night Young kicked him out of the band (for the second time) because he couldn’t stay sober enough to perform. Young felt guilt over his death, and after recording Tonight’s the Night – a drunken, sloppy album that his record company initially rejected – he returned with On the Beach.

What it does do better than any other Neil Young album, for me, is blend all of the various stylistic touch-points that he pulls into his music. Over Neil’s catalog, he’ll grab a sound – country or dissonant rock or folk or blues or electronic music or Americana –and construct an album that bores into that sound. On the Beach is ostensibly a blues album, but more than any other release of his, it takes all of those genres and blends them, like how an egg white treats flavors in a cocktail, creating complexity by mixing the flavors while subduing the sharpness. Production is sparse, there’s more space in the music, the guitarwork is interesting but without most of the sharpness. The mellow delivery lets the music bloom.**

There are nice elements on the front half of the record. "Walk On" and "See the Sky About to Rain" could fit on a number of earlier Neil Young albums, and I really dig the subtle guitar work that closes out "Vampire Blues." But it’s the back half that makes the album for me. The guitar work in “On the Beach” sounds emotive in the best sort of bluesy way, and the quiet acoustic guitar work on the last two tracks is some of my favorite work he’s done. “Ambulance Blues” has been called Young’s “Desolation Row” and the meandering delivery and stellar guitar make the comparison understandable.  But Neil doesn’t have the lyrical chops of Dylan, and while his singing is emotive in a similar fashion to Dylan, his sneer is of different type.*** 

* Titus and Neil are not the tightest of pairings, but it works. Neil Young is a hippy, but he’s got enough ornery punk fuck-it-all attitude to fit the bill. Titus Andronicus stretch the shit out of their punk anthems. Whiskey goes well with both. And there’s this.

** Correlation is not causation, but this mellowness may be a byproduct of the creative process used while recording the album, which involved consumption of “a homemade concoction dubbed ‘Honey Slides’, a goop of sauteed marijuana and honey that ‘felt like heroin’.”

*** I haven’t mentioned the album’s lyrics? Telling. Typical Neil Young lyrics: a smattering of lines that cause a smile, either for good reasons and bad; enough imagery to work even when the snippets never get stitched together. There’s nothing quotable enough to fit in this song, but you do get this bit of wisdom: “Though my problems are meaningless / That don’t make them go away.”

-a.s.

Titus Andronicus - The Monitor

In the spring of 2010, I was living in my parent’s basement, scrounging around in my home town, substitute teaching to occupy my time, and clinging to remains of college life that had ended only months earlier.  Sometime early that spring, my brother sent me a leak of Titus Andronicus’s The Monitor.  As a recent graduate struggling to make my way through the graduate wasteland of 2009, the existential crisis at the forefront of the album immediately resonated with me.   With the financial collapse happening earlier that fall, Titus Andronicus captured the emotions of millions of twenty something’s entering the world of adulthood with no place to go.

These guys went for it all.   In rock and roll music in recent years, I can only think of a handful of records with so much ambition that worked this well,  (I’m thinking Green Day’s American Idiot, The Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday, Wilco’sYankee Hotel Foxtrot).  The Monitor rocks more aggressive, authentic, articulate, and righteous than any record released in my lifetime.  This is what rock and roll and punk music is all about: 

I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject,  I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. I am in earnest. I will not equivocate,  I will not excuse,  I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard. - William Llyod Garrison

Titus Andronicus have become one of my favorite bands.  Songwriter and lead singer Patrick Stickles decided to chase rock and roll instead of pursuing graduate school and becoming a teacher.  He was still living at his parent’s house after moving out of his girlfriend’s place in Greenpoint, Brooklyn before embarking to tour for the new record, Local Business.

Maybe this is simply a pretentious emo record for those in their twenties and thirties that came out losers on the other end and want to piss and moan about the rules that led them there.  Maybe that’s what great rock and roll has always stood for in some sense.

Some interesting facts:

-The first single, “Four Score and Seven” was released on Lincoln’s birthday.

-The album came out on the anniversary of the Battle of Hampton Roads. 

-The liner notes include a New Jersey Honor Roll of musicians and a Civil War recommended reading list. 

-w.u.

2012 in Review: Tom Church

12 Favorite Albums From 2012

The Taxpayers - God, Forgive These Bastards

This grabbed my ear at Hymie's and never let go. The songwriting is powerful and immediate. The narrator blurs distinctions between himself and his subject and his audience. The cacophonous horns kick you into the street and the closest you get to B-side redemption is I love you like an alcoholic...I love you like a pack of dogs. Dave makes many of these points in his excellent review. For me the surprise was recognizing a depth of empathy as complex as Van Morrison's "Madame George" breathing inside songs as raucous as Titus Andronicus and as melodic as The Mountain Goats. It is overwhelming and it is brilliant.

(I Love You Like An Alcoholic)

Chastity Brown - Back-Road Highways

A reverent celebration of life's elusive beauty. On the first track, "House Been Burnin'", Brown introduces us to a broken-voiced singer: Oh just listen to him now/As he's breakin all his chains! We celebrate with him, but beauty lies in the work still ahead: Don't be scared, love/Just do what you got 'cause/You gotta do what you gotta do. When Brown describes her own impossible errand, on "Solely", beauty lies in not rushing the work: Had a day to get there/So I took my sweet time. She stretches across a full album the kind of hopeful solemnity that Roberta Flack conjures in "Go Up Moses," and her arrangements are similarly patient. On "Leroy" or "Could've Been a Sunday" or "If You Let Me" there are moments when it sounds like the guitar riffs from Flack's song have been drawn over an Indigo Girls arrangement of Cat Power's "Good Woman." Punctuating this mood is "After You," a celebration that underscores every quieter celebration on Back-Road Highways. 

(After You)

Father John Misty - Fear Fun

J. Tillman's transformation from this to this produced the catchiest album I heard all year. We could do ayahuasca/Baby if I wasn't holding all these drinks! 

(I'm Writing a Novel)

Cold Specks - I Predict a Graceful Expulsion

Haunting and almost redemptive, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion made it to number 1 on emusic's 2012 list. I hope that means doom soul is here to stay. This is a fully-realized debut, and Cold Specks has as much promise as the Mavis Staples + The National comparisons suggest. I am, I am/a goddamned believer. 

(Blank Maps)

Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls

Tracks like "Going to the Party" and "On Your Way" give Boys & Girls dimension even beyond Alabama Shakes' rollicking, gut-bucket soul.

(Going to the Party)

Alt-J - An Awesome Wave

This album sounds like walking around October in the rain the same way that Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest sounds like walking around October when it's crisp and sunny. Intricate, pulsing, and gently textured with gloom.

(Something Good)

Lord Huron - Lonesome Dreams

Lonesome Dreams is full of lush guitars and big, un-ironic hearts. Listeners will recognize the former from The War on Drugs and the latter from Cloud Cult, with less tragedy. "Brother (Last Ride)" and "Time to Run" are the best kind of sing-along anthems. I wanted everybody else in the world to know it!

(Time to Run)

Shovels & Rope - O Be Joyful 

My favorite roots-country album of 2012. Any band you could imagine live on the West Bank is a strong candidate in any category, but this one especially. Shovels & Rope played the 400 Bar when they came through in November. Their album sounds like they might strike-up a conversation with you at any time. Whiskeyandawhiskeyandawhiskeyandawhiskey!

(O Be Joyful!)

The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth

This album opens with the directive: Do every stupid thing/that makes you feel alive! So not only is it one of John Darnielle's most accessible, pop-driven efforts, it also ranks among his most positive recordings. That is not to say that the album is devoid of sadness or melancholy. Both are present, but so are triumphant passages echoing those on All Hail West Texas, The Sunset Tree, We Shall All Be Healed and Heretic Pride. These earlier triumphs often came in service of adolescent rage or methamphetamine or dreams lost but defended, but on this album Darnielle seems willing to let them emerge more simply: Transcendental Youth, unsurprisingly, celebrates youthful transcendence. Play with matches/if you think you need to play with matches. 

(Amy a/k/a Spent Gladiator 1)

Leela James - Loving You More: In the Spirit of Etta James...

There were a lot of things that could have been terrible about this kind of tribute. I was expecting it to be too safe or too sacharine - closer to Beyonce's covers from Cadillac Records; nothing I would ever choose to listen to over Etta James herself. But Leela James transforms these songs without bruising them. "I'd Rather Go Blind" and "At Last" sound impressively fresh as duets, and she mixes-in two originals alongside Johnny Guitar Watson's "I Wanna Ta-Ta You Baby" without losing Etta's blues. "Something's Got a Hold on Me" was the song that hooked me.

(Something's Got a Hold on Me)

Matthew E. White - Big Inner

This one took some time to grow on me, but it is much more subtle and textured than it might seem after a first listen. White's whispery vocals are down in the mix, which leaves the impression that he is following his mellow-New Orleans style band more than leading. As long as we are moving at a steady pace, baby, we can take our time. 

(Steady Pace)

Schoolboy Q - Habits & Contradictions 

On Habits & Contradictions, Schoolboy Q voices characters you know you almost know. One of my first-graders last spring was especially mercurial, hilarious and defiant. I imagined "There He Go" playing continuously in his head. Metapho'/how I come up with it?/I don't fuckin' know!

(There He Go)

-tc