Songs Of The Week #36: TCDroogsma

(THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARS ON THE TWIN CITIES BLOG NEWEST INDUSTRY)

Kurt Vile, K.S. Rhoads, The Black Angels, Telekinesis!, & Chalet...

Well hello again, MP3 junkies! Welcome to Songs Of The Week #36!

For those of you who aren't quite sure what you're looking at, here's the story: Each week we ask two of our contributors to download the tracks given away via The Current's Song Of The Day podcast. After spending a few days with the songs (or, in this week's case, over a week), we ask them to give us their thoughts on the tracks and to give them a score of 1-5.

As always, we strongly suggest that you click here and subscribe to the podcast yourself. It's free & it's fun for the whole family!

Sadly, as has been the case for months now, we've still been unable to find a second contributor to review the songs. Fortunately, TCDroogsma is a big fan of the podcast and perpetually available.

So, Droogsy... thoughts?

01. Kurt Vile – Never Run Away (from the album Walkin' On A Pretty Daze)

TCDroogsma:

     There has been a lot of discussion on the old internet over the last couple of weeks about whether Kurt Vile's new album is brilliant or terrible.  Being pretty much unfamiliar with Vile's work (and a little too familiar with the world of online music criticism), I was pretty excited to see that I'd finally get to hear something off of Walkin' On A Pretty Daze.

     After spending a week with the song I'm left with a resounding, "Meh."  " Never Run Away" seems at times to be a love song, a fight, and an internal monologue.  Is this the product of songwriting that's over my head? Is Kurt Vile too stoned to bother differentiating between the three?  Is that the point?  I don't know.

     Lyrics aside, "Never Run Away" is a pleasant enough tune.  Vile tosses out lovely slacker-hooks throughout the song, which keeps it fresh from beginning to end.  Still, after a couple weeks of debate I was left thinking this song sounds a lot like something off of a Ben Kweller album.  This is what we're fighting about now, internet? 

Final Score: 3/5

02. K.S. Rhoads – Harvest (from the album Wilderness)

TCDroogsma:

      I'll admit, I'm skeptical of any song called "Harvest."  Maybe it's because Neil Young pretty much has the first & last say on the word or maybe it's just because I hate the outdoors.  To say I came into K.S. Rhoads skeptical is an understatement.  And then there was whistling...

     I've made no secret over the years of my disdain for whistling in music.  I actually told a girl once that I owned a gun and two bullets: one had the words "Andrew Bird" written on it, the other "Edward Sharpe."  In my defense, my blood alcohol content was about 0.28 at the time. I was laughing out loud the first time I heard K.S. Rhoads drop the line, "You got a bullet and that bullet's got a name," right before the whistling comes in for the first time.

     That said, you can imagine my surprise when, over the course of the week, the whistling in this song grew on me.  It took a few spins to really catch the mood of the song, but once it hits it's tough to shake.  As near as I can discern, "Harvest" is an anthem, but one that casts an awfully wide net.  It seems to take on the Bush/Cheney administration for the Iraq War ("They steal from the old woman to put the young man into war").  Or maybe it's an anthem for those who occupied Wall Street ("Right now they have a seat at the table but the table will be overturned").  Maybe it's just an anthem for Obama's vague promises of "Hope" and Change."  Really, it's tough to tell.

     I can tell you this, though: Rhoads puts together one hell of a backdrop.  The bass & drums curl up nicely against the low-end, with strings creating the air that something big is about to happen.  What is that thing?  I have no idea, and if I was a betting man, I'd bet Rhoads doesn't either.  The one things that brings all these parts together: That damned whistling.  On it's own it's pleasant, but against this crumbling-empire backdrop it's downright haunting. 

Final Score: 3/5

03. The Black Angels – Don't Play With Guns (from the album Indigo Meadow)

TCDroogsma:

     The Black Angels are an allegedly psychedelic band out of Austin, Texas.  If "Don't Play With Guns" is any indication, "psychedelic" doesn't mean what it used to mean.

     
     "Don't Play With Guns" comes on like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club if Black Rebel Motorcycle Club had been raised on The Kinks.  The Black Angels have just enough guitar-swirls & Nick Cave-vocals to call themselves "psychedelic" if they'd like, but at the heart "Don't Play With Guns" is a pop-song dressed up in leather jackets and sunglasses.

Final Score: 3/5

04. Telekinesis! - Ghosts And Creatures (from the album Dormarion)

TCDroogsma:

     Telekinesis! is the product of Michael Benjamin Lerner, a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist based out of Seattle with ties to Death Cab For Cutie.  Because god forbid I ever write one of these SOTW columns without being forced to mention Death Cab For Cutie.

    There are a lot of things going on in "Ghosts And Creatures."  Unfortunately, none of them are particularly memorable.  There's a bouncy piano bit, some fuzzy vocals, some percussion that sounds like an old laptop, and some strings that kind of dominate the song once you notice them.  All of these pillars would be fine if they were holding up something, "Ghosts And Creatures" leaves you dying for a hook that just never comes.

Final Score: 2.5/5

05. Chalet – All Our Friends (from the album Tuscon)

TCDroogsma:

     Another in a long, glorious line of indie-power-pop bands that are making up the new Minneapolis sound.  Chalet is the work of Joey Cantor, who's spent plenty of time in bands around town and it rests comfortably with artists like Gloss, BNLX, Jeremy Messersmith, & Cantor's other band Rogue Valley.

    
     "All Our Friends" is a meticulously crafted song.  Every guitar, piano, and drum bit sounds like it's been fussed over out of love rather than out of perfectionism.  Cantor clearly is no stranger to structuring a song for maximum effect either.  He manages to build up the verses brilliantly and then uses the open space of the bridge to give the chorus a little extra something.  A thoroughly enjoyable song and another argument for Minneapolis' redefined sound.

Final Score: 4/5

Well there you have it everybody! Another week's worth of songs downloaded, reviewed, and filed away!

As always, please remember that neither Newest Industry nor its contributors is in any way affiliated with the artists above, The Current, or MPR. We're merely music fans with laptops and little too much time on our hands.

For more TCDroogsma, be sure to give him a follow on Twitter (@TCDroogsma). He can also be found right here on Newest Industry hosting our free weekly podcast Flatbasset Radio.

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