Slipped Discs - July 2009
Discs you may have missed | by John Noyd
As America celebrates 233 years of a more perfect union, Slipped celebrates bands united by the all-powerful and. What is music if not the joining of one together? Summer hosts smashing musical hook-ups from Minnesota’s graphic mix-masters EYEDEA AND ABILITIES, the hickory-flavored posse of GREG KOONS AND THE MISBEGOTTEN plus heavy metalists MAYLENE AND THE SONS OF DISASTERS. Once and for all it’s all for one and one for all.
The Builders And The Butchers
Salvation is a Deep Dark WellRecord Label: Gigantic Music
Review published: July 2009
Seductively sinister, TBAB’s hangman’s requiems creep and crawl then pounce and preach for exhilarating alt-folk accusations. Sawing fiddles, flaming brass accents and brittle banjos expose twisted desert confessions of demonic dirges and eloquent exorcisms as, “Salvation,” indicts, smites and incites through ruthless acoustics and menacing melodies.
Reader Votes: 0
Elizabeth And The Catapult
Taller ChildrenRecord Label: Verve Forecast
Review published: July 2009
Anchored by cozy vocalist-songwriter Elizabeth Ziman, EATC navigates breezy jazz, ska and country hybrids - gliding past a catalogue of lilting pop concoctions. Snappy, savvy craft turns the beautifully boppy, “Taller,” into smart, sharp ear-candy coated in sultry cynicism, balancing edgy and amiable admirably; its kittenish bitterness sophisticated, charming and buoyant.
Reader Votes: 0
Fritz Helder And The Phantoms
Greatest Hits: Platinum EditionRecord Label: Last Gang Records
Review published: July 2009
Pimping PRINCE, PARLIMENT and PET SHOP BOYS, Fritz’s self-effacing Phantoms’s Euro-tooled glitteraria produces superior haute couture. Ripping shiny robo-disco, “Hits,” parties into mirror-ball mania par excellence, groovin’ to DJ voyeurism, synthetic sexuality complete with answering machine interludes; Fritz’s rapid-fire fun works the runway insidiously replicating a club-crazy night out.
Reader Votes: 0
Hoots And Hellmouth
The Holy Open SecretRecord Label: Mad Dragon Records
Review published: July 2009
Delivering rollicking honky-tonk, twisted mountain music jive and sweetly impassioned ballads, Hoots’ tight, bluegrass flashes and funky country-gospel revivalism weave traditional pickin’ through omnipresent social issues to produce relevant, toe-tapping Americana. “Holy,” rolls foot stompin’ razzamatazz around ironclad narratives shouting out injustices, suspended by suspicions and slathered in talented fretwork.
Reader Votes: 0
Peter Holsapple & Chris Stamey
hERE and nOWRecord Label: Bar/None
Review published: July 2009
Eighteen years since their debut and decades since they co-founded indie-icons THE DB’S, H & S gently jangle hearts and minds, churning chiming Everly Bros. shindigs laced with Marsalis sax. Wholesome and upbeat, the duo’s lifetime hindsight serves up soaring choruses and sighing sentiment, fortified memories seasoned with sympathetic regret.
Reader Votes: 0
Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros
Up From BelowRecord Label: Community Music/Fairfax Recordings
Review published: July 2009
IMA ROBOT’s Alex Ebert’s alter-ego gathered dozens of friends to help form a perfect storm of high brow hoedowns where solemn bursts into sunny and grand-standing kinderpop whose momentum turns monumental. A massive hippie happening, “Up,” offers effervescent testaments and smarmy camaraderie bundled together in a traveling rock-minstrel circus.
Reader Votes: 0
Final Thoughts
From bands united by ampersands to discs that stand apart from the crowd. JON BALKE’s moody and majestic, “Siwan,” projects haunting Moroccan holograms serenely feeding galactic jazz symphonies. Long hairs get a buzz cut in PORTLAND CELLO PROJECT’s, “The Thao and Justin Powers Sessions,” where strings cascade, tango and fume. In TRIBECASTAN’s “Strange Cousins,” wood, metal, bone, shells and skin come alive, inspiring enthno-exercises which conga down and gypsy up.
