Undead Review: Annie

I'm gonna be away for a much-needed break this weekend (yes, this music reviewer is secretly an anime nerd). Which means that instead of the usual live reviews, on the 31st you can look forward to a CD review column including new releases by Deb Hornblow, End-Time Illusion, Omega Vague, and others. In the meantime, here's my last living-dead CD review (i.e. one that fell on the cutting room floor somewhere along the way!). Hope you enjoy it -- have a good weekend.

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Annie
Anniemal
Big Beat/Atlantic, 2005
http://www.anniemusic.co.uk/

What, Lassie? Pop’s been kidnapped?

Let’s be straightforward: Annie’s not going to save it, but she occasionally succeeds at transforming it into something enjoyable once again. Her debut, Anniemal, makes blissfully few concessions to the media, and the hype surrounding her release is largely grassroots. For starters, unlike Kylie (to whose voice Annie’s bears more than a passing resemblance), Annie puts on no airs about being one of the “beautiful people.” There’s no glitz or self-absorption; her persona on Anniemal seems the type you could meet in a bar or a class. And while her lyrics are hardly deep, they’re not vacuous, either. They actually tell stories rather than seduce that same old faceless, hypersexualized “you.” Like The Cardigans and Vanessa Carlton, there’s some substance mixed in with all the sweet.

Song-wise, Anniemal is hit-and-miss. The single “My Heartbeat” is catchy, understated retro, and “No Easy Love” rides an infectious bumpty-bump groove. Then again, “Come Together” takes seven minutes to go all of nowhere, and if the premise of a pop song called “Chewing Gum” doesn’t piss you off right from the title, the chew-boys-up-and-spit-‘em-out lyrics will. Please, ignore the reviewers who would make such songs into witty feminist reversals of male sexual privilege. They’re not. Anniemal is not dissertation material. Unlike M.I.A., whose (more danceable) 2005 release Arular also snuck its way into the hipster cachet, Annie is expressly apolitical. She wants to party, have sex, and sell records, and these themes carry the album.

Dance music is working its way back into the subcultures that expelled it as corporate tripe. Hey, if you’re too skinny to mosh, and too uncomfortable standing with your arms crossed for twenty-minute Explosions in the Sky songs, you gotta move to something, right? And between 2005’s surge in dance-punk and the cash cow known as The Postal Service, radical, indie-minded people are finally starting to feel less guilty about shaking their brilliant asses. Annie won’t herd pop skeptics off to the dance floor—but she might just inspire them to sing her songs into a broomhandle while sweeping. And that’s a step toward getting those “guilty pleasure” types to believe that there’s good pop out there—which there is, in spite of mass media messages to the contrary.

Undead Review: The Deadly

The Deadly
The Wolves Are Here Again
Pluto Records, 2005
http://www.plutorecords.com/

There’s enough bad metalcore these days to send the staunchest scene stalwart screaming towards Emoville. And with labels flourishing from the influx of “new jack” capital, it seems like new, hot bands are coming out every week. How’s a hardcore kid supposed to stay on top?

Maybe, to some extent, we’re not. The over-saturation of heavy music right now might not be a bad thing—because as much as it reeks of being the new fad, it also places that much more responsibility on the bands to turn listeners’ heads.

The Deadly turned my head. There’s an instant similarity to the Blood Brothers: both bands place screamy vocals and plucky bass riffs in the forefront of their sound. But where the latter are raucous and spastic to a degree that alienates most listeners who, uh, don’t have rabies, The Deadly have enough heft and chunk to their riffs for the sane to glom onto. What’s more, they’re fucking catchy. Right from the opening riff of the CD, it’s clear that bouncy, catchy rhythms á la Coheed and Cambria dominate The Wolves Are Here Again.

The lyrics may be a bit hashed-over by this point. I mean, is the sexual sarcasm of “Make Me Rich”—“so you want to make out again well we’re stealing every heart we can”—really going to send any ex-lovers to the emergency room? But then, who really listens to hardcore for the lyrics anyway? The nitpicky downsides are a disappointing read-along and a lyric booklet full of typos; but these are balanced out by the unconventional, beautifully executed design work. Every hardcore band, including your mom’s, seems to have a logo with blood drips and splatter marks. The Deadly opt for disturbingly clean design, and photographs of high-rises and chandeliers that reek of too much order. Sometimes spitting in the face of the trend can be good for one’s dignity.

Undead Review: Żegota

Żegota
Sinnerman/The Anarchist Cheerleader Song 7”
Crimethinc, Inc., 2005
http://www.crimethinc.com/

Doesn’t good album packaging just turn you on? I mean, let’s be real: it’s like opening a sexy letter from someone who handmade an envelope just for you. The textures and images in Żegota’s latest 7” will remind you that music isn’t just about hearing; it’s about touch, it’s about work, it’s about physical sensation and spectacle as well. Sinnerman’s lyrics are printed on beautiful ridged brown paper; the vinyl itself finds a home in a photo of mannequin-like figures spreading their arms and taking flight. One can’t help but think of the hands that packaged these records; indeed, the back of the record sleeve meticulously describes and thanks the people involved in the countless phases of assembly.

Such gorgeous packaging makes me wish from the bottom of my heart that the songs lived up to their sensuous introduction. Sadly, they were an anticlimax. “Sinnerman,” the traditional that comes down via Nina Simone, doesn’t translate well into hardcore punk. Well, let’s be honest: it doesn’t translate well into rock. The problem is less Żegota’s execution and more their idealistic notion that a gospelly spiritual could be rocked with panache. The song describes a sinner frantically seeking refuge on the day of judgment, not realizing it’s too late to repent. The levity of the lyrics seem betrayed by the standard bass-drums-guitars rock setup; whereas a jazz band or choir could really scare the shit out of you with this material, Żegota merely scaremongers.

Of course, a title like “The Anarchist Cheerleader Song” makes one hope for rousing choruses, circle pit brotherhood, and pithy, street-punk chants. Nope. Not to be found. Żegota’s idea of a fists-in-the-air lyric? “A, give me an A.” What a bummer! The endeavor may have been punk in attitude and communal in execution, but even the revolution’s most strident cheerleaders will have a tough time adding these tunes to their songbook.

The Terrifying Haunted Graveyard of Wandering Dead Record Reviews

AAAAAHHHH!
Ahem.

Well, as you may or may not know, being a freelancer, I occasionally generate stuff that for one reason or another never gets printed. Sometimes it falls through the cracks; sometimes there's not enough room in the publication; sometimes the tone or content just doesn't jive with the rest of the publication's material. For whatever reason, I end up sitting on pieces -- usually record reviews.

What I'm going to do is toss them up here for your reading pleasure. The releases they cover are a little old, but they're still worth checking out. Let's start with one from The Kills.

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The Kills

No Wow

(RCA/Rough Trade)

If you took away PJ Harvey’s antidepressants, she might make an album like No Wow. It’s the darkest, evilest non-metal album I’ve heard in a long time. Thing is, it’s sexy. Doubly so when you count the fact that it’s made by a boy-girl duo that’s more Jolie-and-Pitt than Jack and Meg White. Chalk it up to VV’s feline vocals (which may be too Harvey-esque for some, but hey, it’s not like she has much of a choice). Underneath, Hotel’s gritty guitar sounds like an overdriven bluesman. They use a drum machine for their rhythms, but they know how to make it sound driving and organic. Head-nodding, raunchy, slanky electro-pop.