Album Of The Week: January 13-19, 2014

My Album Of The Week for the week of January 13th-19th, 2014:

The Rakes - Pass The Lies

I know what you're thinking: "Ay, Droogsy, aren't your AOTW albums always from Minnesota artists?"  First off, thank you for paying attention.  I do appreciate it.

Second, this isn't the same Rakes.  The more prominent version of The Rakes is a buzzy indie band out of England that I'm almost certain I would love because I have a real weakness for buzzy indie bands out of England.

These Rakes, however, are from Minnesota.  Pass The Lies came out back in 2002 (which, brace yourself, was makes this album 12 years old!) and, while "buzzy" and "indie," I'm fairly certain it's not at all similar to those Rakes.

(Quick Internet Sidenote:  This Minnesota version of The Rakes has no internet presences whatsoever.  The only record of their existence is a one paragraph review of this album and an interview with The City Pages.  If anybody knows more about these guys please let me know.  It would be nice to have a more complete picture.)

Pass The Lies, at its heart, is a throwback 90's albums.  It's a dog-eared album that could easily be passed off as a Replacements/Soul Asylum rip off.  While it's tough for me to argue that criticism, it should be noted that I love The Replacements and Soul Asylum.  As a 90's kid, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for ragged, loud guitar rock.

I don't actually recall when I picked this album up, but the "Eclipse Records $5.99 Used" sticker leads me to believe that I picked it up used at Eclipse Records (probably for about six bucks).  I must have grabbed it while Eclipse was still up on Grand because I don't think I've been to the relocated version(s).  I'm sure I was just flipping through the "Local" section to see what there was to see and picked it up on a whim.  Going over my Last.fm statistics it appears that I have not given the record a full play since my pre-Last.fm days (going back to December '07).

Oddly, I'm willing to bet the album sounds better now than I thought it did back then.  I'm sure it's part nostalgia (since I grew up on guitar rock), but part of it is the fact that I spend so much time listening to hip-hop, Song Of The Day songs, well-produced indie rock, etc...  that sometimes I forget just how fucking awesome the power of loud, shambolic guitars can be.  It's really one of life's underrated pleasures.  Should be a fun, snowy week.

Album Of The Week : November 25-December 1, 2013

My Album Of The Week for the week of November 25th-December 1st, 2013:

Frankie Teardrop - Tough Guy

A couple of things led to me spending the week with "Tough Guy."  First, I was reading Erik Thompsons's excellent Gimme Noise column 10 Twin Cities Music Acts Who Deserve To Be Famous and, continuing the Sisyphian struggle that is keeping up with the Twin Cities music scene, I downloaded whatever albums I could find from the artists in the column.

While all of those albums will likely find their way to Album Of The Week status, Frankie Teardrop jumped to the front of the line when his song "Chicago" was one of the Song Of The Day tracks (meaning I'd be spending the week with it anyway and reviewing it for Songs Of The Week).  Rather than spend two weeks with "Chicago" I decided to kill two birds with one stone and just make Tough Guy my album of the week.

After a couple of spins I can't totally tell if the songs of Tough Guy are garage rock songs polished up or pop songs stripped down.  More important than that, though, is that the record is fun.  Late November is the time of the year when the Twin Cities stops being fun and starts being a city of "serious artists."  Listening to an album that ends with a song called "Pizza Lyfestyle" is a nice way to combat that creeping pretension.

Tough Guy is available as a name-your-price download on Frankie Teardrop's Bandcamp page.