Songs Of The Week #10: MinneSarah & TCDroogsma

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White Arrows, Night Moves, Freelance Whales, Taken By Trees, & Bora York...

Hello again, MP3 junkies, and welcome to Songs Of The Week #10!

If you're unfamiliar with what we're doing here, each week we ask two of our contributors to download The Current Song Of The Day podcast and then give us their thoughts on the songs. If you feel like playing along at home, follow this link to download the tracks for yourself. We highly recommend subscribing to the podcast yourself as it's free music. On occasion, it's very good music too. Free music + good music = yay!

This week we asked regular contributors MinneSarah & TCDroogsma to give us their thoughts on the new singles from White Arrows, Night Moves, Freelance Whales, Taken By Trees, & Bora York. As always, they have not seen each other's commentary prior to posting.

Kids, take it away...

White Arrows – Get Gone (from the album Dry Land Is Not A Myth)

MinneSarah:

     Baby talk...it's got to stop!  The singer's vocals are so cutesy and exaggerated.  It makes sense that the singer is singing about his family kicking him out of the house.  Get, get, gone indeed.  The rest of the song is pretty pedestrian upbeat song with an awful lot of novelty percussion elements.  White Arrows may blow your mind in the advances to the handclap system. 

TCDroogsma:

     This songs sounds like Yeasayer forgot to pull out while it was banging Alt-J in my iPod. At least the kid came out speaking English, but Christ, it has some Mommy Issues. It has the same type of annoying, fake singing voice that plagues so many hipster bands these days. The hooks are solid, but unspectacular. I could definitely see this track in the middle of a Now! That's What I Call Forgettable Indie Music albums. Wait, do those exist or am I just thinking of my Broken Social Scene albums? Either way, nothing special.

Final Score: MinneSarah -1.5/5

                  TCDroogsma - 2/5

Night Moves – Country Queen (from the album Colored Emotions)

MinneSarah:

     This song is the best of the bunch this week.  Who would have thought that psychedelic alt-country could sound so good?  Not this gal, but hey, I can't hate all of the time.  The alt-twang is pretty solid for that genre, and then they add in psychedelic guitar.  It's like Wilco's best day where they happened to guest star on Dragnet.  There is a weird telephone ringing in the background, but the rest of the song moves along nicely, with breaks as needed and plenty of underwater-guitar-Vaseline transitions.  The penultimate tempo change is downright epic. I'd be surprised if many of their other songs can pull this Frankenstein genre off, but I'd be willing to listen.

TCDroogsma:

     It's actually really difficult to write any sort of review of Night Moves without taking into account the massive amount of local-publication-cocksucking that comes along with this band (though I'm sure it's nice.  Word is Vita.MN swallows). At this point, the story behind the band's name and the album's re-release threatens to overshadow the songs themselves.

     Now, accounting for those factors, Night Moves is one of the more genuinely exciting bands to come out of MPLS in a minute. “Country Queens” is certainly an engaging song, though I get the impression that they're trying to throw all their influences into a blender. A Belle & Sebastian bit here, a Gram Parsons bit there, one of The Rapture's keyboard bits to tie the whole thing together... Still, all those pieces do come together to form an interesting and engaging single. It definitely rewards repeat listens.

     (Quick Note: I saw these guys perform outdoors on Record Store Day in cold & rainy weather and they nailed this song note-for-note. That's gotta count for something.)

Final Score: MinneSarah -3.5/5

                  TCDroogsma – 3.5/5

Freelance Whales – Spitting Image (from the album Diluvia)

MinneSarah:

     I'm often surprised how bad bands from New York try and sound like they are from the West Coast.  This is an instance.  I suppose I should just stop being surprised, Freelance Whales are the kind of whales off the coast of Brooklyn, and I just need to step off.  While the vocals are fairly enjoyable (girl singing, I know!), the lyrics to this song are horrible, "Our limbs are hinges crashed into the sea."  The entirety of the song is characterized by synthy guitars, which apparently can be overkill. The song's chorus involves the woman singing "We all seem to have big plans."  The end just sort of tapers out - big plans acknowledged, not fulfilled. 

TCDroogsma:

     On first listen I didn't really dig this track. It seemed pretty forgettable. After a few spins, though, it grew on me. The whole things has a kind of Diet Arcade Fire feel too it. The lead vocals and grandiose and the backing vocals definitely lend a, “we're all in this together” type of vibe to the song. Not entirely memorable, but not completely disposable either.

Final Score: MinneSarah -2/5

                  TCDroogsma - 2/5

Taken By Trees – Dreams (from the album Other Worlds)

MinneSarah:

     The title delivers - this song is very dreamlike.  However, it is a dream you wouldn't remember.  There background is punctuated by pop up video sounds, which is the best thing it has going for it.  Otherwise, the percussion sounds like the hum of train tracks, and the vocals are just about whispered.  What a nice lullaby, but unless you have severe insomnia, I wouldn't recommend wasting your time. 

TCDroogsma:

     Are you familiar with The Durutti Column? Unless you're over 40 and live in the greater Manchester area, probably not. They are essentially just Vini Reilly (of Viva Hate fame) and a few random other people. They play kind of jazzy, mostly acoustic guitar instrumental music.

     I bring them up because, as someone whose tastes skew toward the “40 year old, greater Manchester area” demographic, I couldn't help but fall for this song when the guitar came on. I realize that's a very specific market, but I really dug this song thanks to the guitar work. It's so similar that I'm not totally sure it isn't just an elongated sample of The Durutti Column. Still, if I'm only judging this based on how much I like, I gotta say that those guitars turned a below-average song into an above-average one.

Final Score: MinneSarah -2/5

                  TCDroogsma – 3.5/5

Bora York – Close Your Eyes (from the album Dreaming Free)

 
MinneSarah:

     This song got worse the more times I listened to it.  At first I appreciated the eighties adult contemporary background, but when I realized that the movies Beaches, Top Gun, or Big weren't involved, I sort of lost interest.  I really like the passionate female chorus as a contrast to the mellow male verse vocals.  However. there are several annoying accents in the song.  "Cloooooseee youuu-rrr-rrr eee-eee-eeee-yeees" - Girl, you think a syllable's a window pane. 

TCDroogsma:

     Land Of 10,000 Lakes? More like Land Of 10,000 Synth-Pop Bands! Am I right, people?

     Fortunately, nearly all of the synth-pop bands that saturate the Twin Cities are above average. This is the kind of song that bands like Stars would kill to write. (That's right, shots at two different Canadian bands in one column! Come get me, you inherently-peaceful Canucks! Come get me!)

Final Score: MinneSarah -1.5/5

                  TCDroogsma - 4/5

Boom! There you have it, everybody. Another week of songs listened to, judged, and filed away.

As always, please give the songs a listen and vote for your favorite in our poll to the right.

We'd like to take a moment to remind everybody that this blog is in no way affiliated with The Current, Minnesota Public Radio, or the artists. We're just people with keyboards, ears, and dated cultural references.

For more of the ever-charming MinneSarah be sure to give her a follow on Twitter and/or Instagram (@MinneSarah). If you meet MinneSarah in person be sure to bring up your cat. Or Brit-Pop. Or how much your cat loves Brit-Pop. Solid gold icebreaker, right there.

For more of the seldom-charming TCDroogsma you could give him a follow on Twitter and/or Instagram (@TCDroogsma). Or you could check out his blog Flatbasset. He's still counting down Morrissey songs. If you meet TCDroogsma in person it's probably not a good idea to bring up any subjects that aren't Morrissey related. He's prone to wild mood swings. And he's likely been drinking.

Of course this blog still lives on Twitter (@NewestIndustry1) and you should give us a follow to stay up to date on new posts. More importantly we also have a Facebook page. You'd be doing us a real solid if you stopped by and gave us a 'like.' Be cool, bro. Be cool.