If The Trials of Van Occupanther was a snapshot look at the lives of 1800’s frontiermen, The Courage of Others has those same men sat around a fire on a cold night after retreating from a great disaster that’s completely destroyed their lives, with their only hope being a glimpse of dying quickly but full well knowing that painful and long starvation is ahead of them.

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Back down. Calm down. Change your expectations or, better yet, remove them completely. Fyfe Dangerfield might be the frontman of Guillemots who are experts on making life-affirming and gloriously grand pop songs. His debut solo album Fly Yellow Moon also piqued our interests with whopping three songs of similar kin: the radio preview “Faster Than the Setting Sun”, the download freebie “When You Walk in the Room” and lead single “She Needs Me”, each one showing Fyfe mastering his natural element. But if you were to go to Fly Yellow Moon expecting more of all that, the first listen will be hell of a confusing, and most likely somewhat disappointing ride. Outside the three tracks given as a preview, Fly Yellow Moon lacks giant choruses, huge orchestras and big melodies. Instead Fyfe sits down, picks up his acoustic guitar and starts strumming it gently and slowly.

As the album progresses the clearer it gets why he decided to push out a solo album. He may have a sizeable chunk of backing musicians helping him flesh out the songs, but Fly Yellow Moon is all about intimate Fyfe troubadouring in peace.

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One of the trends of the now-soon-ending decade has been The Electronic Sidestep. Throughout the decade guitar-based bands have been saying things such as “we got bored of guitars” or “we wanted to try something new” or even “we really dig that Aphex Twin dude so we just kinda got inspired”, and each year there’s been yet another notch in the wood for rock bands leaving their guitars behind and either started to focuse more on keyboards while decreasing the amount of their traditional instruments, or going as far as ditching the rock essence alltogether and beginning to twiddle the synthesizer knobs. It’s not a bad thing either. Sound expansion is always good and while there’s always going to be fans who can’t take it that their precious guitaring is now stripped away, it’s good to let the band reign free creatively. The result may sometimes be a miss – sure you got the electronic backing but did you do anything actually interesting with it? – but there’s always the chance of something great.

Kent released Tillbaka till samtiden in 2007. It seemed like their electronic sidestep moment. Synthesizers and keyboards were in full blast but you could still tell they were a rock band – the latter half of the album especially saw several moments where the band went back towards their more usual route. It was a fantastic album and stands as one of my favourites of the band, but I always knew in my heart that I shouldn’t get too used to the new sound. While the band had been hiding synthetic influences behind their guitar rock for years and years, now finally letting them come to full bloom, the nature of Electronic Sidesteps are that they are just that, sidesteps. Discography oddities that will become an awkward interview moment for the following years, becoming a cult love affair for the fans. Tillbaka was excellent, but it was still only a sidestep.

Well, that’s what we thought at the time.

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Alex James Church is a nutter.

When Stanislaus was released and I was all madly in love with it, I figured it would be an amazing taster from the new Sea Wolf album. Turns out it wasn’t, it was just a session bonus track that won’t be included on the album. Which brings us to today’s question, why on earth not?

That said, it’s not like White Water, White Bloom is without high points of its own, even if we’re not getting the brilliant sophomore breakthrough we were expecting.

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One of my favourite bands emerging from the past few years has been Grammatics. Watching them grow from some very promising early singles (”Shadow Committee” / “D.I.L.E.M.M.A“) to eventually releasing their stonkingly awesome self-titled debut early this year, gaining a ton of positive reviews and giving them their much deserved attention.

They’re doing rather well for themselves right now, currently touring with Bloc Party on their (awfully punned) Bloctober tour. There’s also been a little talk here and there of work on a second album, but no solid details have emerged from that.

Solid details have, however, emerged of a new single. It’s called “Double Negative” and doesn’t feature on the album. It’s more of their signature complex pop with a really beautiful, soaring chorus. Owen digs back to his punk roots a little, bursts of strong screaming contrasting with his almost angelic vocal-style. The single also features a great cover of “Notes in his Pockets” by The Good Life as its b-side.

You can grab the single right now from iTunes, but the physical single will released October 26th on 7″ by label Dance to The Radio. If you pre-order the 7″ from DTTR’s online store right now, you’ll get the mp3s to download right away before the release date, so jump on that deal NOW!!

MP3: D.I.L.E.M.M.A (from Grammatics, 2009)
Buy ‘Double Negative’ from iTunes
Pre-order ‘Double Negative’ 7” + free MP3s
Bloctober tour dates

You may remember the group Noah and the Whale from last year – the song “Five Years Time”, featuring the ever-gorgeous lady Laura Marling, was somewhat of an indie scene hit and their sparse twee poppery got to #5 in the UK charts in the full length form. I, like surprisingly many as I have observed lately, never really got into the album; twee pop of all sorts is a very hit and miss kind of thing and in this case it somewhat missed me, whilst being an alrighty nice album and all.

Between that album and the present day, things changed – while I can’t find any accurate info, several fingers seem to point to the direction of the end of frontman Charlie Fink’s romantic relationship. Almost out of nowhere Noah and the Whale return with a new full-length only a year after the last one, but this time it brings forth a sudden surprise change in sound. The self-assured winks and dry happy-go-lucky singalongs are nowhere to be seen. The sound is minimal and the atmosphere has changed into something sitting between the border of bittersweet and melancholy. Most importantly, the heart of the album turns out to be the heartbreakingly poignant lyrics about the dissolution of a romance that are always ready to stab like a knife to one’s heart.

The First Days of Spring has a misleading title; its release date is a far better indicator of its sound. This is rainy day music, suited perfectly to waltz in time with the falling multicolour leaves of autumn. Warm, intimate sounds, mainly consisting of contemplative guitar melodies and slow beats, beg for a headphone treatment. It’s created with sparse instrumentation but manages to sound almost lush at times due to excellent arrangements. The music however never falls to depressing: it’s everpresently sad, but never feels hopeless and carries more of a romantic melancholy to it. Things get moody but they never drown in the Swamps of Sadness, an upbeat note or tone is always ’round the corner to give a glimpse of hope. The centrepiece happiness suite of “Instrumental 1″ and “Love of an Orchestra” takes a full step away from the rest of the album by giving a joyous, choir-filled and thoroughly optimistic interlude, while “Blue Skies” gives an encouraging smile and a nod later on in the album.

The final touch are the lyrics. The First Days of Spring is a concept album, arching through the aftermath of departing from someone you madly loved. The title track starts the album with a declaration of getting better and hoping to win the heart of the former lover again, all the while the music plays out mournfully as if to almost mock the narrator. Soon the narrator begins to fall into hopeless desperation, quiet agony and pessimistic acceptance of being all alone again and how he’ll never be the same again. Halfway through the album you get the “Love of an Orchestra” suite mixed with two instrumentals, signaling a change in how the narrator sees the world, which the rest of the album builds on. Like “Stranger” puts it, “you know in a year it’s gonna be better/you know in a year I’m gonna be happy”.  “Blue Skies” waves goodbye to old feelings (”this is the last song that I write while I still love you”) and by the end of the album, the initial feeling of the narrator blaming himself and his flaws for everything has turned into the complete opposite; the final two tracks are almost scornful and cold in their dismissal of the past lover as the narrator finally begins to live life free of his sadness again. All this is told in touching, intimate lines that are instantly relatable and understandable in their directly human nature. As an additional flavouring you have the recurring theme of spring and its symbolism of rebirth and beginning of new life, the emergence of warmth after a season of cold, that is used to great extent to describe the situation throughout the album. The lyrics become the album’s center core, the emotionally poignant heart that gives it its special breath of life and turns it from a beautiful moodpiece into something enchanting and seizing.

Don’t let the title fool you or past hit songs deter you. The First Days of Spring is one of this autumn’s essential listens.

MP3: The First Days of Spring

I guess it had to be expected. The last time we bumped into Mew was 2005’s glorious And the Glass Handed Kites, a prog-influenced journey full of crooks, twists, wildly swinging song sections and all sorts of other weird tricks – an album that despite all those tricks was a tremendously instantly affecting masterpiece. Now the band’s back with an album that’s been touted as one of their most upbeat and directly poppy albums. It only serves right that this album would end up being a total grower.

But come on, did anyone expect anything normal from this band in the first place?

Too proggy to be pop, too poppy to be prog, it’s No More Stories/Are Told Today/I’m Sorry/They Washed Away//No More Stories/The World Is Grey/I’m Tired/Let’s Wash Away!

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It’s great when old friends come to visit. Times change, everyone evolves, but the same commonality that bound you in the first place holds firm, and your divergent paths feel intertwined.

Such is the case with bands too. Old friends, companions in your life, come back with different names, new faces, new hairstyles, but the good artists still know how to make your toes tap and your head bob.

The new Wonderlick album feels like a long overdue visit from an old friend.

Once upon a time, the ’90s microphenomenon Too Much Joy brought eponymous excesses of euphoria to the handfuls of They Might Be Giants, Barenaked Ladies, and Rancid fans who found them. While TMJ eventually ceased to exist except as a mandibular condition, two of its key minds continued in their spare time as WL. These guys don’t have a lot of spare time — during the day Tim Quirk is Rhapsody’s VP of Programming, and Jay Blumenfield is a TV producer and director.

“Topless at the Arco Arena” marks their first full-length release in eight years. It continues TMJ’s and WL’s flavor of ponderous pop, introspective and snarky, dripping with cynical optimism.

The liner notes are dominated by Quirk’s essay that gave the album its name, which reflects on the power an AC/DC concert had to incite young women to bare their chests for the entire crowd. The album, like the essay, riffs on that dynamic of empowerment versus exploitation, the uncomfortable mingling of individuality with commercialism that so saturates rock music as well as the Wikipedia-Twitter-Google-powered world that gives so many part-time musicians and fans their livelihood, and made so many would-be rockers trade their guitars for dayjobs.

But that sounds awfully heady for such a fun album.

“Topless” tells tales of arena concerts and board rooms, of crass wealth and amateur passions, and of the power and vulnerability that comes with both. From the stripped-down bubblegum pop of “A Different Kind of Love”, and the more sinister jauntiness of “This Song is a Commercial”, to the sweeping landscapes of “You First” and “Your Majesty”, Wonderlick celebrates the humble majesty of its diverse cast of characters — the ones you’d have a beer with, and the ones you’d likely never see outside their limos.

While the messages are sometimes subtle (“The Case Against Tattoos”), sometimes blatant (“This Song is a Commercial”, “The C.E.O. Considers His Holdings”), even their heavy moments keep a light-hearted touch.

“Devil Horns” brings the album to an anthemic close, poking fun at the idolatry of so many rock fans, but with a certain reverence. Like old friends who know you well enough to be aware of all your foibles, but who love you anyway.

Perhaps that’s the sort of perspective that comes from a couple of regular guys who just happen to have been intermittent rock stars for the last two decades.

Order the album and download free MP3s on the band’s site.

In recent interviews with Moby that I’ve been reading the exact same sentiments are repeated every single time. The success behind the infamously-licensed Play (whored in adverts and such simply because it was the only way to gain exposure to the tracks because radios wouldn’t play the songs until the album had become famous) and the subsequent popularity caught a confused Richard Hall completely by surprise and he was sucked into the world of being big and famous which eventually began affecting his music – 2005’s Hotel was Moby’s attempt to create a slick, big commercial radio album but the project turned out to succeed so well that he felt the album had lost its soul as he listened to the finished creation. Ever since the world tour after Hotel the ‘accidental professional musician’ has taken steps back and navel-gazing for what he wants rather than what he’s expected to do in his situation. The low-publicity DJ tours harkened back to the man’s early days as a club DJ and last year’s Last Night was an (slightly uneven) attempt to nutshell over two decades of living and clubbing in New York City as a loveletter to the town. The new album Wait for Me completes the process. It’s effectively self-released, the promotional push is mainly online through the man’s own website rather than everywhere in media, it was recorded in Moby’s own apartment and features his close friends in guest vocals, and it has been labeled by the artist himself as an album for himself with no care as to how it’ll be accepted by others.

Like a lot of deeply personal albums, Wait for Me is fragile. It contains only a few more energetic moments and even those are washed with sadness. Its 16 tracks are contemplative and calm, guided by melody and mood. Rather than crafting something big enough to sound like a hit or to fill a club with dancing people, Wait for Me is made for dark rooms, solitude and headphones. It’s the only way to enjoy it – in a more distractive environment its steadily low pace and delicate sounds tend to get lost.

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Being a big fan of Maps & Atlases, it was a pleasant surprise to receive a copy of Cast Spell’s upcoming EP, ‘Bright Works And Baton’ in my mailbox.

Cast Spells is Maps & Atlases frontman David Davison’s new project, teaming up with producer Jason Cupp (Nurses, The Elected) to record twenty-eight songs in the basement of Davison’s childhood home. They selected six of these songs to become Cast Spell’s debut EP release.

Upon first listen, any similarities I expected between Cast Spells and M&A ended once I got past Davidson’s unique vocals. It’s musically very different. There’s no spazzy guitar and math-rock elements here at all! They cite Brian Eno as one of their main influences, alongside Bill Callahan and Cat Stevens, but I  smell a little Bright Eyes influence in there, especially in ‘War Story Hellos’ with its overall folky style.

The songs are somewhat short, clocking in at around 2 minutes each, but what they lack in length they really make up in effort. There’s a lot of depth and layer crammed into each song that you become slightly enchanted. There’s a big mix of instrument work, from acoustic guitar to strings, all entwining to create a collection of genuinely delightful and captivating songs.

Overall the EP is a wonderful listen and has some charming songs. I do hope this isn’t the end for Maps & Atlases, since they’re one of my favourite bands, but I’m pretty excited to hear anything new from David Davidson, so I’m sure this will be on repeat a lot for me.

Cast Spells will be touring the US with So Many Dynamos through July after the remainder of Maps & Atlases June tour dates and festivals. Hit the jump for both Cast Spells and Maps & Atlases tour dates.

Mp3: “War Story Hellos”

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