Joseph's Picks Of The Week 3/30/12 - The Decemberists and Lambchop

After returning to relatively humble ambitions with their last studio album, The Decemberists have went triple-live gonzo with We All Raise Our Voices to the Air (Live Songs 04.11–08.11), and the results should easily meet their fans expectations. And while its contents may not convert the dubious, it might at least provide them with a clue to what the fuss is about.

A great many live records have been issued over the years by a diversity of pop and rock artists, and with a few notable exceptions, these documents generally serve two purposes. One, they stand as a commentary on the success of an act and a gift to those consumers who made that success possible. Second, they can provide proof that a performer or band can indeed put their thing across on the performance platform.

If pop and rock after the Beatles has largely been a phenomenon of greatness judged through studio albums, there has also been a persnickety attitude that those deemed great must also be able to exhibit their talent on the stage, the nude environment that doesn’t lie. This contrasts rather strongly with jazz, where it’s essentially considered a given that the players on a studio LP have made it there by already displaying their skill on the bandstand.

In rock in particular, those aforementioned exceptions to the standard of live albums as templates of success and proof have risen to some of the form’s most vital moments. For example, James Brown’s Live at the Apollo made it plain that the essence of soul music wasn’t located in the mind of a record label entrepreneur seeking chart success but in the mastery of one man and his crack band captured making history in front of a few hundred people in a jam-packed auditorium.

And if Jerry Lee Lewis’ Live at the Star Club was recorded with the intention of proving its leader could still bowl over a crowd and incinerate a club with reckless abandon, it was also a statement of defiance delivered to a public that had kicked him to the curb as unseemly and unworthy of their attention and respect.

Likewise, 1969: The Velvet Underground Live amplifies the achievement of a group very few people cared about while they actually existed, an apathy that doubtlessly shaped their status as rock’s greatest outsiders. And The Grateful Dead’s Live/Dead captures a single-minded and expansive band on a grand night making music that the confines of a studio simply couldn’t inspire or contain.

It should come as no great surprise that The Decemberists’ We All Raise Our Voices to the Air (Live Songs 04.11–08.11) doesn’t endeavor to the heights of the previous four examples. If its two plus hours spread over two compact discs or three vinyl LPs seems like a grandiose collection by a band that’s never been afraid of engaging with the maximal, the release is appealingly modest in its aims, the most immediate one being a condensed account of the band’s well-earned and somewhat unlikely success.

I say unlikely because their non-confessional, highly literary sensibility is frankly the stuff that cult status is made of. And I say well-earned because The Decemberists’ claimed their success through the traditional modes of high quality (and in their case, often thematically elaborate) albums and extensive touring, graduating from small clubs to larger halls and then to amphitheatres and multi-day outdoor festivals. So as an unabashed album band that can do it on the road, We All Raise Our Voices to the Air’s sheer length lacks arrogance or self-indulgence and instead testifies to the nature of a fan base where favorite songs are numerous and no one release has emerged as the consensus best.

We All Raise Our Voices to the Air also stands as a gesture of goodwill to the group’s devoted fans. But on closer inspection, it might have something more than just a statement on success and a thank you in mind, for its track listing, taken from a tour supporting their last studio album The King is Dead, insinuates that The Decemberists might have a little something to prove.

In this age of camera phones and copious YouTube clips, proving it as a live band is nowhere near as difficult as it used to be. And bands of their ilk don’t pull off shows playing in-sequence renderings of high-concept albums like ‘09’s The Hazards of Love via smoke and mirrors. But The King is Dead, while garnering its share of praise also seemed to divide critics and listeners over the perception of playing it safe and staking out the middle of a road paved with mere folk and Americana. ‘Tis true that King may have won back some folks put off by Hazards’ hints of prog-rock and metal, but for many listeners their last effort felt like The Decemberists minus the creative chutzpah.

Seven of We All Raise Our Voices to the Air’s songs originate from The King is Dead, and if that doesn’t seem surprising considering the shows partially included here were in support of that record, it also seems possible that The Decemberists are looking to integrate its less ambitious goals into the larger weave of their discography and maybe soften the expectation (a band instigated one, true) that in terms of scope every new release must equal or top the last one.

If the choice of seven songs from The King is Dead does contain a potential element of attempted validation regarding their most recent direction, their inclusion also simultaneously possesses an atmosphere of preaching to the choir. And this is okay. Actually it’s much more than okay, since We All Raise Our Voices to the Air’s surface unwieldiness is actually quite thoughtfully sequenced to deliver a pair of sets that build to very impressive climaxes.

If The Hazards of Love’s lofty concept is given an almost token acknowledgement via “The Rake’s Song”, that slight is softened (and immediately followed in the track order) by the inclusion of “The Crane Wife 1, 2 and 3”. While Colin Meloy partakes in a fair share of banter, crowd interaction and many humorous asides, it’s the sixteen minutes of “The Crane Wife” (which closes disc one, or side three of the vinyl) and the appropriately escalated grandeur of the already debonair “I Was Meant For the Stage” replete with an extended culminating orchestral skronk-fest (which ends disc two or side six) that provides ample evidence of the band’s ability to get right down to the business of playing live music.

And the band’s performances vary enough from their studio origins to make them worth the investment, but they also don’t lose the qualities that made them so appealing in the first place. This is particularly relevant to “The Soldiering Song” and obviously to “The Mariner’s Revenge Song”, which retains much of its splendor even after becoming a by now inevitable audience participation melee.

“Calamity Song” is also given a fine reading, and the concise pop of “O Valencia!” really shines in this atmosphere. Of course certain tunes are absent. I especially miss “Odalisque”, a track that would doubtlessly shine in the concert setting (and one I’ve unfortunately never heard them play), but if frustrated expectations are a part of the nature of seeing a band play live, this circumstance is certainly extended to live records.

We All Raise Our Voices to the Air is a very impressive document of some quite seamlessly selected (and sequenced) performances, but in the end it’s really no game-changer, which is to say The Decemberists are still largely the same band they were before its release. But if they keep on trucking, this 3LP set might end up becoming their Europe ’72. Its contents already provide a fine alternative to the underwhelming obviousness of a standard Greatest Hits collection.



After a wait of over three years, Kurt Wagner and his band of astute conspirators have delivered yet another highly distinguished album. Lambchop’s Mr. M unwinds as just one more example of Wagner and Co’s unfussy brilliance, and it adds to the oeuvre of one of the finest acts American music has produced in the last quarter century.   

Due to the nature of their early musical inclination, a rustic sound that held uneasy relationships with the comforts of both contemporaneousness and tradition, Lambchop has been frequently identified as one of the more eclectic examples of the alt-country genre, a circumstance that’s only been amplified by the group’s residence in Nashville, TN.  It’s a tag that Kurt Wagner and Co has never really bristled against, even after moving considerably beyond the template established by their first few albums, mainly because there really isn’t another genre that can comfortably house them.

However, Wagner can be grouped with Will Oldham, David Berman and Bill Callahan, all artists that charted paths out of the early ‘90s US indie boom to their own uniquely expressive ends. But of this foursome, Berman is no longer musically active, riding out on a high note, Oldham is a heavily collaborative and highly prolific operator continually shifting between on-again off-again bands and projects, and Callahan is most accurately sized-up as a solo artist. In this group it’s in Wagner alone that we find an artist so inclined to explore the possibilities of a gradually shifting (in membership as well as sound) long term collective.

Mr. M opens with “If Not I’ll Just Die”, four and a half minutes of lush, symphonic lounge, a song that if used as an introduction to Lambchop would surely bypass any alt-country connections and instead inspire an association with neo-easy listening. But for longtime listeners this development is par for the course, the use of strings being a longstanding component of the band’s arsenal asserting itself as far back as their second album How I Quit Smoking. If on “If Not I’ll Just Die” Lambchop are shooting for a Tormé /Sinatra vibe instead of the chamber-country of Smoking’s “We Never Argue” or the deep soul excavation of What Another Man Spills’ Curtis Mayfield cover “Give Me Your Love” (Love Song)”, well, that’s just gravy. And the song does feature the sterling piano of Tony Crow, traces of gentle noise adding brief and familiar commentary, and of course the immediately recognizable properties of Wagner’s voice and lyrics, all three casually establishing the group’s aural signature.

“If Not I’ll Just Die” is a study in contrast, another example of how Lambchop’s gorgeous arrangements and impeccable instrumentation sugar the pill of Wagner’s examinations of loss, dysfunction, alienation and despair. With the notable exception of some of their country-soul inflected stuff that sprung up on Thriller and What Another Man Spills (see the covers of Mayfield, Frederick Knight’s Stax nugget “I’ve Been Lonely For So Long” and even their vamping up of East River Pipe’s “Hey, Where’s Your Girl?”), this has largely been the band’s default mode. And while this mixture of beauty and darkness wisely avoids the maudlin, it’s also not exactly a barrel of laughs, which is one probable explanation for Lambchop’s small yet devoted core following stateside.

And Mr. M is an even darker album than usual for the band. For starters, it’s dedicated to the memory of Vic Chesnutt, a gifted musician stricken with long-term health problems who took his own life on Xmas day in 2009. Listening to the album with this tribute to a departed friend in mind (Lambchop backed Chesnutt on the outstanding 1998 LP The Salesman and Bernadette) only deepens this record’s moods of frustration, particularly those of emotional and physical separation examined on “2B2”. The song’s stripped down yet sturdy musical bed slowly grows into a sweet melancholy ache while Wagner’s loose yet resonant imagery and a muffled, troubled answering machine recording intensify the aura of isolation and the accumulation of otherwise insubstantial activity (taking down Xmas lights, watching TV, cooking a meal) that accompany it.

But there are moments on Mr. M that if not necessarily upbeat, at least provide a crucial sense of moderate uplift that helps shape the record into another smartly delivered tapestry of expressiveness. “Gone Tomorrow” and particularly both of the disc’s exceptional instrumentals “Gar” and “Betty’s Overture” prove that while not a band of astounding sonic diversity, Lambchop do possess impressive range within the confines of their well-established sound. And while a wealth of diversity can be admirable (if focused, natch), the sort of disciplined range this band has made a habit of displaying is perhaps a greater achievement.

Like most of Lambchop’s albums, the quality of the tracks and their relationship to each other makes it difficult to locate a high point. It certainly could be found in the expert tonal shifts of “Mr. Met”, a song where the Tosca String Quartet’s tough chamber feel contrasts with the lush contributions of the London String Ensemble on tracks like “If Not I’ll Just Die” or “Gone Tomorrow”. And like “2B2”, “Nice Without Mercy” foregoes strings, adapting a spare forcefulness that accents some of the album’s more liner storytelling. However, Wagner’s most straightforward lyrics come on “The Good Life (is wasted)”, the tune flaunting some of the C&W feel that he’s largely sidestepped on recent Lambchop releases in favor of a sort of Southern Leonard Cohen-ist vibe. If in the past he could come off like moodier Tom T. Hall, on “The Good Life” he sounds like a mixture of Don Williams and Lee Hazelwood.

That C&W feel was given a much more thorough examination on KORT: Invariable Heartache, Wagner’s collaboration with singer Courtney Tidwell that came out last year. It featured members of Lambchop in the band and found the vocalists paying tribute to obscure Nashville label Chart Records by indulging in some sly duets that recalled the prime discourse of George and Tammy. While Mr. M eschews this sensibility, Tidwell does appear in a backup role, and her turn on the instrumental “Gar” brings a subtle exotica flavor to what’s already a pleasant, airy tune. She’s also briefly on “Betty’s Overture”, lending a noirish feel to what sounds like a Shorty Rogers or Johnny Mandel composed theme for a TV show about a kickass yet emotionally troubled lady secret agent.

But everybody on the record contributes in top form, and in a way that resists singling out individuals for specific praise. Lambchop’s is an ensemble sound after all, low on flash and high on interaction. The group’s masterful maturity elevates Mr. M’s 11 songs into a simply superb document, the record denoting the third installment in a loose triumvirate of late-works with ‘06’s Damaged and ‘08’s OH (Ohio). For fans of the band it’s an indispensable purchase, but I can’t imagine there are many Lambchop partisans that haven’t already picked it up.

Please note that the 2LP edition includes four bonus tracks, three of them remixes, one a top-notch cover of Glen Campbell’s (Brian Wilson-penned) “Guess I’m Dumb”. All the extra stuff is located on side four, which smartly allows the album’s thematic integrity to remain intact. And along with the download coupon, the whole package clearly shows why Merge continues to thrive creatively after growing into one of the music scene’s bigger true indies. As does the fact that they’ve stuck with Lambchop’s stately accomplishments for nearly twenty years.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 3/23/12 - feedtime and The Magnetic Fields

It’s a harsh fact of the ongoing musical discourse that vastly important and terribly underappreciated bands are constantly in danger of slipping through the cracks of time. In the spirit of spreading the word and clarifying the historical record, Sub Pop has done the world a great service by collecting in box-set form the first four LPs from one of the truly singular acts of the ‘80s underground, Sydney Australia’s feedtime.

As a listener whose life was forever changed by the steady avalanche of small bands that sprung up in the post-hardcore 1980s, it can be a little bit of a drag to see the retrospective mainstream validation of this movement focus so heavily on the same handful of names. Nearly all of these entities either found wider success in the ‘90s (Sonic Youth, J Mascis, Butthole Surfers) or held some direct influence or involvement with the decade’s crossroads of Alternative and indie culture (Steve Albini, Beat Happening).

Any witness to the defiant march of the subterranean ’80s can attest to the landscape holding far more than just a dozen or so groundbreaking groups. In fact, so many records were available through a network of grassroots channels (mail-order, independently owned shops, at shows) that a dysfunctional industry existed, one that was largely undisturbed by the snouts of Big Label snoopers until the rumblings and eventual explosion of what’s sometimes called The Year Punk Broke tore the lid off of everything.

And this outbreak of small, organic bands and scenes was very much a global one; it’s a very US-centric notion to posit that the music which helped to shape Grunge and indie-rock originated, with one or two bones tossed to the rest of the planet, inside the borders of the Continental United States. For just one instance, the continent of Australia fostered a thriving rock underground that rivaled the output of any other region on the map, and one of their greatest exports was feedtime.

The music of feedtime can be described as a very heavy extension of post-punk minimalism, and it can be counted as one of the earliest examples of noise-rock, a sub-genre that didn’t really gain a toe-hold until the latter part of the decade. But tagging them as post-punk misses explicating how feedtime was such an astonishing example of primitive, pummeling invention, the trio being one of the first punk-informed outfits to grapple with the blues as a launching pad for formal extremity. What’s more, their barbed assault registered as fundamentally different to the bluesy absorption of The Gun Club’s Fire of Love, feeling much closer to the back-to-basics gestalt of hardcore.

feedtime released four full-length albums between 1985 and 1989, all on their home country’s Aberrant label.  Through distribution deals via Rough Trade and Holland’s Megadisc their music reached far beyond the shores of Australia and developed a small yet devoted following, particularly stateside in the Pacific Northwest and in its noise-rocking mid-section.

It’s those four LPs that Sub Pop have collected in what can be best termed as a long gestating labor of love. Their self-titled debut finds the rudiments of the band’s potent, no-frills attack firmly in place. Rick (guitar, vocals), Al (bass) and Tom (drums) first began playing together in 1979, so the album’s startlingly well-formed structural basis shouldn’t be surprising. As a recording entity feedtime was always a tight unit, though so heavy and unrefined that to the casual ear their assault could be perceived as a barrage of low-end murk.

But feedtime simply weren’t a band for casual ears. Instead, they were about the abandonment of finesse and polish in favor of a throttling simplicity located not only in the logistics of the power-trio but also in the less urbane, more primal end of their aforementioned blues fixation. feedtime’s cover of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “I Wonder What’s the Matter with Papa’s Little Angel Child” illustrates the link between the Delta and Down Under rather nicely.

And the music of McDowell provides even further illumination on the congruence between two seemingly disparate sensibilities. While the early country blues was acoustic by necessity, McDowell was a post-WWII discovery who had no problem plugging into an amplifier to boost the oomph of his already huge style, and cuing up his I Do Not Play No Rock ‘n’ Roll LP alongside feedtime really emphasizes the common ground between the bluesman and the Aussie trio.

But if Fred McDowell didn’t play rock ‘n’ roll, feedtime most assuredly did. And if their debut displayed an unusual level of confidence in conception, its follow-up Shovel still managed to impart a startling level of progress. Rick’s blade-sharp slide guitar was even more potent, as was the way he alternated its cutting aura with waves of engine-like grind. Tom’s drumming was tangibly heavier in its shrewd simplicity, and Al’s bass was the crucial not-secret weapon; while surely a key factor in the music’s rhythmic propulsion, the reality is that Al approached the bass like a lead instrument, allowing the bottom-end to move with a fleet density. While never playing all that fast, feedtime was a unit of such single-minded cohesion their songs felt like a well-kept vintage car being pushed into fifth gear by an expert (and slightly crazy) driver.

If not their best record, 1988’s Cooper-S is certainly the boldest. An all covers affair, it featured songs originally from The Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Slade, Nancy Sinatra, Ramones, Stooges, Lee Hazelwood and even a poem by e. e. cummings (!), amongst others. What’s refreshing is how feedtime didn’t just steamroll over their sources; that would be far too predictable a maneuver. Instead, they simply choose to adapt them into their formidable sonic attack. With this said some songs are more recognizable than others; the point isn’t tribute but rather an expression of common ground. So it makes total sense considering feedtime’s non-purist blues bent that the Stones get tackled three times. Okay, maybe a little bit of tribute does slip in via home-country covers of The Easybeats’ “Sad, Lonely and Blue” and (the Aussie band) X’s anti-social anthem “I Don’t Wanna Go Out”. While Cooper-S is a fine LP that’s vital to understanding what made feedtime tick, it’s also not the best place for the uninitiated to start.

Suction however, might be. Arriving in 1989 and marking the end of their first phase, its mix courtesy of Butch Vig is a major component of what is probably feedtime’s friendliest record. So those unaccustomed to ‘80s u-ground noise-rock that are looking to dabble into feedtime’s fuel-injected waters might want to start here and perhaps work backward. In addition to the evolution of their blues influence, the band integrating acoustic moments that sit in agreeable contrast to their standard mode of operation, what’s maybe most impressive about Suction overall is how it shows with clarity that feedtime didn’t decline, they just chose to stop. That’s a nice balm for consumers curious over this group who are potentially weary of plunking down ducats for a box-set due to the format’s rep for including later and much lesser material.

While Suction is the last LP in this set, that’s by no means the end of feedtime’s story; the trio subsequently reconvened for 1996’s Billy, released through the Amphetamine Reptile. And while that record remains a particularly strong showing, its contents are sensibly not included here. Billy was an excellent release by the same smart unit, but it was frankly the product of another time.

Instead, The Aberrant Years generously fills out its CD and digital editions with hard to find singles and comp tracks from ’85-‘89. The result is a grand portrait of the massive movements of an outstanding band, and for anyone seeking a thorough understanding of the ‘80s underground rock scene, it’s absolutely essential.

On Love at the Bottom of the Sea The Magnetic Fields reengage with the synth-pop that made them one of the ‘90s most artistically fruitful acts. But something’s missing, or more accurately two things; the peaks of Stephin Merritt’s once exemplary songwriting and the music that made his tunes such a unique listening experience.

It was pretty much inevitable that 69 Love Songs, The Magnetic Fields’ massive 3-volume set of thematic yet emotionally diverse pop gems, while providing an embarrassment of riches that more than capped-off their distinguished ‘90’s work, would also prove to be an impossible act to follow. In fact Merritt seemed to sense this very fact by delving into three albums that have come to be called the “no-synth trilogy”; the first two, 2004’s i and 2008’s Distortion, were generally well received efforts that largely succeeded in their aims of stylistic divergence. However 2010’s Realism, by no means a failure, seemed to locate a certain weariness in the group and provoked restlessness from longtime fans of the band desirous for them to get back to what they did best.

Love at the Bottom of the Sea is intended as that record. After a three album departure to Nonesuch it finds The Magnetic Fields returning to Merge, the label that issued their most highly regarded work, and it features the synth-pop instrumentation that proved so crucial to the group’s sticking out in a clamorous sea of ‘90s indie guitar bands. But ultimately this new record sounds less like The Magnetic Fields of old and more like an inferior version of a once near-unimpeachable act.

A nagging part of the problem lies in a gradual change in Merritt’s songwriting. One interesting indulgence found on 69 Love Songs was its occasional flare-ups of wordplay that might inspire a laugh, a shake of the head, or an eye roll at the premeditative nature of their lack of subtlety. This tactic generally worked exceptionally well, mainly because Merritt’s style has never been about sincerity. Instead, it revels in an old, pre-rock artificiality; it’s not about the purging of the soul but the exaltation of the song. The infrequently blunt, sometimes even corny lines found on 69 Love Songs found him closer to Cole Porter than ever.

But on Love at the Bottom of the Sea, these head-shakers and eye-rollers have codified into a strategy of near or outright groaners. This causes “Your Girlfriend’s Face” (for just one example) to plummet from a song of broken-relationship revenge into an unappealing parody of one (in the evenings I devised your death/being buried alive on crystal meth). For every song that successfully navigates this sensibility, like the pre-release single “Andrew in Drag”, there is one that doesn’t, such as the abstinence mocking “God Wants Us to Wait”. It used to be that Merritt’s lyrics felt instantly classic. Now they too often feel calculatedly cheesy.

And it’s not that every song Merritt wrote in the ‘90s was brilliant and every release an impeccable masterwork. His batting average was impressively high, but 1995’s Get Lost was a less significant album than its predecessor from the previous year, The Charm of the Highway Strip. But if Get Lost was minor, it was still totally consistent with Merritt’s disciplined excavation of early pop tradition and even included one of his finest ever songs, “All the Umbrellas in London”. And Strip could engage with the tricky allure of country music while never once getting within spitting distance of shallowness or parody.

Love at the Bottom of the Sea holds a number of very good songs (“Andrew in Drag”, “The Only Boy in Town”, “I Don’t Like Your Tone” “All She Cares About is Mariachi”) but I’m hesitant to call any of them great, at least against the standard Merritt once set for his work. And the less than good ones (“God Wants Us to Wait” “Your Girlfriend’s Face” “Goin’ Back to the Country”, “The Horrible Party”) make the album unpalatable as a start to finish listen. Realism shouldered a similar problem, but that felt like an aberration. For a record touted as The Magnetic Fields’ return to synth-pop form to register as so hit-and-miss, and with its highs so earthbound, is distressing.

But this LP actually doesn’t sound very much like their synth-pop of old. Frankly, it’s much too slick. One of the finest qualities of the group’s music up to and including Get Lost is how they elevated cheap tech into a clinical prettiness that didn’t really recall any prior synth-pop models. Additionally, their attention to detail was magnificent, allowing a compilation track like “Take Ecstasy with Me” to be as strong as anything in the first half of their discography.

While it’s true that many of 69 Love Songs’ more techno informed tracks did radiate with a slicker quality, they also very often featured an appealing sparseness (and again, top-flight songwriting) that’s simply nowhere to be found on Love at the Bottom of the Sea. Minus the vocals of Merritt, Claudia Gonson and Shirley Simms it’s doubtful I’d recognize much of the music here as being The Magnetic Fields.

I want to be clear that I’m not penalizing the group for sounding different than they did in 1995. Bigger production and less inventive instrumentation wouldn’t be at all a problem if the songs were stronger. And regarding those songs, I’d welcome their change in direction if it was successful more often, but sadly that isn’t the case. And if I am unconsciously pining for a sound that’s over fifteen years old it’s in large part because Love at the Bottom of the Sea has been so heavily identified as a reengagement with the synth-pop that made them such a lauded band.

But The Magnetic Fields have delivered a record that amplifies a double meaning in “return to form”. Yes, in the strict sense they have reacquainted themselves with the formal aspects of synth-pop. But in terms of sheer quality, the band hasn’t returned to anything. Instead, they’ve made the least successful record in their long existence, a circumstance that finds them squarely in uncharted territory.



Joseph's Picks Of The Week 3/16/12 - Disappears and Mount Carmel

When Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley joined the lineup of Disappears on drums it seemed to indicate the band was primed to undergo another big surge in growth. Instead, their latest Pre Language is far more concerned with refinement.

On their 2010 debut album Lux, Chicago’s Disappears spat out ten songs of melodic rock that referenced post-punk, shoegaze and Krautrock. While not straining to reinvent any wheels, it was a solid debut record, hinting at untapped potential that boded well for the band’s future, in particular the album’s closer “No Other”, a short, slowed-down “Sister Ray” rip filtered through the attitude of late-‘80s Creation Records.

2011’s Guider delivered on that promise, but not in the expected way. Where Lux’s appealing blend of influences never strayed far from the succinct in delivery, with no song topping the four minute mark, Guider entertained the possibilities of extendedness, ending with the mightily impressive nearly sixteen minute “Revisting”, the excursion drawing equally upon Can in “Yoo Doo Right” mode and the fried sensibility of Spacemen 3. If surprising, it was also quite welcome. While the five tracks leading up to it were in the same terse framework as the debut, they were detectably rougher in presentation, with Brian Case’s vocal manner suggesting the prime post-Pistols work of John Lydon.

Pre Language denies the tranced-out expanse of “Revisting”, the band instead largely choosing to further explore the sonic terrain of Lux and the first side of Guider. Initially this is something of a disappointment, for Guider’s long denouement seemed to indicate Disappears were ready to jump wholeheartedly into a zone roughly comparable to San Francisco’s Wooden Shjips. But if the first impression is one of relative restraint, Pre Language does possess an energetic cohesion coupled with bigger production and sharper instrumental prowess certainly aided by the presence of Shelley, his unimpeachable chops having synched with the band through shows in the US and Europe (including support on former Neu! member Michael Rother’s Hallogallo tour).

Opener “Replicate” immediately recalls Joy Division, and the rather conventional feel of its chorus’ guitar bursts bring to mind a heavier, less vocally dominated version of Interpol. It’s a strong opener, but it quickly portends the direction that Pre Language, with a couple notable and much needed exceptions, follows with precision.

In some ways the switch of drummers has far less to do with sticks hitting skins than it does with a sharp contrast in production. Departing drummer Graeme Gibson had also served the band in the capacity of producer, and he gave both Lux and particularly Guider a bath in reverb that made the music feel a bit distant, even when turned up loud. Shelley’s arrival plops them down in Sonic Youth’s Echo Canyon West studio with John Congleton (The Polyphonic Spree, St. Vincent) at the knobs, and the difference is significant. Formerly fuzzy and occasionally muddy, the music now delivers more punch while also holding an increase in polish, even when it’s dishing out the distortion.

And this shift in production quality causes Disappears’ music to register in a somewhat different way. Where previously their song’s melodic tendencies were leavened with appealing waves of guitar drone and an interest in rock’s experimental traditions, on Pre Language they largely feel like the work of an edgy contemporary indie rock band. And again, this is initially a disappointing circumstance. But after a few listens it becomes clear that the songs are uniformly solid and the presentation, while streamlined, hasn’t been neutered. If disappointment nags, two standout tracks show this is still the same band that made such a favorable impression with “Revisiting”

The first is “Joa”, a sweet bout of rhythmic repetition that holds a chilly, incessant post-punk tension. At nearly six minutes long, it shows that one of Disappears best attributes continues to be their ability stretch out, a process that can turn a good idea into a great one.

This trait also plays a factor in Pre Language’s other highpoint “Love Drug”, and it’s no accident that it happens to be the second longest track on the album. It opens with a menacing riff, pulsing bass and Shelley slapping out a simple, incessant beat; when Case enters vocally, he does little more than moan/chant the song’s title. And that’s all that’s needed. It’s a sturdy exercise greatly enhanced through escalated intensity, the track’s second half being punctuated with a wicked ruckus of guitar pedals and crashing cymbals.

If different on the surface, Pre Language and Guider are similar tactically, their boldest moves back-loaded in the track order. While neither “Joa” nor “Love Drug” (even collectively) equal “Revisting” in terms of scope and sheer pleasurable impact, the goal still seems the same; to first establish Disappears’ dominant melodic paradigm and then embellish it with stylistic detours. On Pre Language these divergences are very impressive, but on the previous record they’d frankly proved capable of delivering the exceptional.

Also, that melodic paradigm has shifted here, being much more about the establishment of mood. If Lux and Guider announced the band was conversant with the Velvets, Can and Spacemen 3, it also flashed moments that recalled The Clean, Ride and yeah, Public Image Limited. That range has been whittled down, their Krautrock and shoegaze tendencies greatly reduced. The emphasis now feels firmly on the post-punk.

This style of moodiness is often expressed through lyrical stance and vocal mannerisms, and Case has a nice handle on the latter, but in regard to the former he seems far more inclined to let the band’s instrumental prowess set the tone. If his vocal model has shifted somewhat from Lydon to one Mark E. Smith (with a dollop of Ian Curtis added in for good measure), that’s okay, since it’s apparent he’s disinclined to dominate the tunes through playing the role of front-man. Also, it seems that Case, formerly of Chicago tunesmiths The Ponys (and 90 Day Men), has at least temporarily lost interest in indulging the poppier side of his personality. This would be fine if moments like “Joa” and “Love Drug” were more frequent, but that’s not the case.

Strangely, closer “Brother Joliene” sounds a bit like Spoon shooting for a beefed-up, distorted Stooges/Sonic Youth synthesis. Maybe not so strange, considering Shelley, and even less so when it’s recalled that Spoon’s name references a Can song. No matter; Pre Language is a solid, at times very good record, but it leaves a lingering impression that Disappears are holding back their best qualities.

A lot of bands have taken influence from the sound of early-‘70s bluesy hard rock. But one band manages to capture that era’s heavy, jamming spirit so closely that it can feel like an actual time warp back to ’73. That band is Columbus Ohio’s Mount Carmel.

It’s been often fashionable to knock the efforts of the blues-based non-purist bands that proliferated in the wake of Cream, the Jeff Beck Group and Ten Years After. It’s in some ways a punk-centric attitude, but it’s also reflective of a belief that the urge to rock should be accompanied by at least some level of taste, discernible intelligence or at least a motivation beyond the simple desire to wed big riffs, heavy rhythms and ripping solos. In short, the Nixon-era influx of bands like Free and Mountain is viewed by many as a debasement of the form propagated by a bunch of dummies trampling upon the sacred ground of the blues. A sense of respect and decorum regarding history is what separated Clapton and the Allman Brothers from say Humble Pie and Cactus.

Now a fair amount of blues-rock was bad and some of it was even plumb awful, but its success ratio is really no better or worse than any other genre. And many people tend to ignore that it was a legitimately new wrinkle in rock’s development; increased virtuosity (of a non-prog-rock stripe) heightened through extensive practice in turn lent an increased heaviness to the band dynamic. People just too often mistook a lack of subtlety for a lack of value. If Led Zep and Black Sabbath have slowly seen an increase in critical validation, then the vast majority of their brethren are still victims of often snide dismissals.

With all this said, many listeners will automatically consider the music of Mount Carmel to be an exercise in the retrograde. The band’s second LP Real Women is so boldly created in the image of its models that it’s damn near impossible to not immediately perceive it as a defiantly luddite gesture, the utter lack of contemporary (or even twenty year old) influences seemingly postulating that any musical developments to have occurred after the breakup of Beck, Bogert & Appice are unworthy of representation in their sound.

On their self-titled first record the band infused their bluesy ruminations with a hint of Blue Cheer-like grit. The drumming was loose and driving, the bass lively but not too busy, and the guitar spit out skuzzy chunks of riffs and flights of woozy soloing, all with vocals that thankfully lacked the need for emotional overreach. And just to make emphatically plain the tradition into which they were tapping, the trio covered Ten Years After’s “Hear Me Callin’” replete with an extended drum workout and closed the set with eleven minutes simply titled “Studio Jam”. It was a fine out-of-time debut, bringing to mind what I’ve always suspected Sabbath sounded like back when they were called Earth.

However, Real Women is tighter, more groove oriented, and less about the exalted properties of the jam. No track tops five minutes, and it’s obvious that considerable effort was spent building and then honing catchier songs. The singing has attained a more soulful edge while still denying any urge to succumb to the strained wailing that frankly damaged a lot of the genre back in the day. And that’s a general pleasantry of the power-trio; the person emoting is also responsible for handling an instrument instead of just standing in front of three really adept players trying to prove worthy of being in the same room or on the same stage.

And if the thrust has shifted from impolite, slightly dusted blues studies to concise melodic power-rocking, the music still feels derived from the same three guys. This is again partly due to guitarist Matthew Reed’s vocals, which while non-showoffy are also quite distinct. But it’s also true that the band’s jump from post-Alvin Lee/Cream form-stretching to a sort of Humble Pie/ZZ Top/James Gang merger isn’t really that large. It’s just notable as admirable progress.

Maybe the most interesting aspect in Real Women fresh approach comes through Kevin Skubak’s drumming. Where on the debut he was loose but never off his game, here he grapples with a thunderous heaviness that directly recalls the power of Ginger Baker. And the way he synchs up with Patrick Reed’s bass provides the songs with massive bottom end, allowing the trio to examine a sort of groove-strut that’s remindful of ZZ Top at their early best.

What’s obvious is how Mount Carmel dearly loves the music that serves as their inspiration, and in fact this love is the biggest reason for their success. It’s what instills the desire for repeated listens into their tunes, and makes clear that the band’s disinterest in any of the progress rock music has made since the early ‘70s is far more than just a gesture of audacity. They’re not sneering at the contemporary but instead enthusing over a style that’s undeniably been given short-shrift in the years following its collapse in the foul air of Arena Rock.

And that raises another point in Mount Carmel’s favor; specifically the opportunity to nix the less inspiring moments in hard-rock’s past (and there were many) and refine the far more productive aspects that make the genre perfectly valid for resuscitation in 2012. This process of selection through hindsight actually makes Real Women an experience of higher quality than some of its key influences. It’s lean, doesn’t overstay its welcome and the only questionable thing on display is an indulgence in what can be described as a non-progressive lyrical stance on the title track. But it’s not like I believe Mount Carmel actually buy the sentiments expressed; instead I just chalk it up to period flavor.

So Real Women is far more than just a replica or distillation of its influences, showing Mount Carmel to be a thriving band in excellent form. It does however lack the sheer depth of their New York blues-rocking cousins Endless Boogie. That band is equally divested of contemporary touches, but they also possess a startlingly creative moxie, with some of their lengthy jams managing to even flash undercurrents of sly experimentation. Mount Carmel in no way pale in comparison, but the band does hit a qualitative ceiling in toeing the hard rock line so closely.

The growth displayed on Real Women shows that Mount Carmel is capable of cracking that ceiling. If they don’t, it won’t be a terrible loss; ultimately it’ll just be the difference between a very fine band and a truly exceptional one.