Category Archives: Free Download

The Minus 5: Killingsworth

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Minus5_KillingsworthScott McCaughey indulges his Ray Davies jones

After the Beatle-esque pop of 2007’s The Minus 5, this Scott McCaughey-led collective returns with a new lineup and a twangier country-rock sound. McCaughey and companion Peter Buck are back, alongside Colin Meloy, additional members of the Decemberists and other guests. As on all of the collective’s albums, McCaughey’s vocals and songs provide the binding component, the latter of which include a healthy dose of downbeat, troubled and troubling themes. Pedal steel, banjo and general melancholy make a straightforward match to the lyrical tenor, with McCaughey sounding remarkably like Ray Davies in his mid-period Kinks prime – in both nasal vocal tone and social content.

The album opens with the bitter remains of a failed courtship and closes with the despondent misery of a troubled and broke bar fly. In between McCaughey offers the sort of opaque lyrics he’s written regularly for both the Minus Five and the Young Fresh Fellows. His titles and lyrics intimate deeper personal meanings, but they’re not always easily revealed. He resurfaces for a portrait of the working musician’s nightmare, “The Lurking Barrister,” he eyes unsparing isolation and social decay in “Big Beat Up Moon” and excoriates fundamentalism with “I Would Rather Sacrifice You.” The Kinks vibe is strong on “Vintage Violet,” with the She Bee Gees singing along as a girl-group Greek chorus.

McCaughey’s used the ever-shifting membership of the Minus Five to give each of the “band’s” releases a distinct flavor. In contrast, the parallel release by the Young Fresh Fellows, I Think This Is, has to work to recapture the group’s vibe. McCaughey’s jokey, ironic and sometimes startlingly penetrating songs support both bands, but the free hand of perpetual reinvention gives an edge to the Minus Five. Without having to hit a specific musical or emotional tone, the Minus Five indulges whatever is currently running around McCaughey’s head. This year it seems to be (among other things) Muswell Hillbillies. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | The Long Hall
The Minus 5’s MySpace Page

Leslie and the Badgers: Roomful of Smoke

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LeslieAndTheBadgers_RoomfulOfSmokeVersatile mix of folk, country, country-rock, soul and hot-jazz

It’s hard to pinpoint this Los Angeles quintet, as they range through acoustic folk, country, horn-tinged soul, and hot jazz. If you had to pick one to represent the bulk of the group’s second album, it’d be country (or country-rock or Americana), but there are whole tracks that take you somewhere else before returning you to two-steps, waltzes, twanging guitars, bass and drums. Leslie Stevens’ singing brings to mind the high voices of folksinger Joan Baez, Americana vocalist Julie Miller and country star Deana Carter. But Stevens sings with more of a lilt than Baez, less girlishness than Miller, and when the group ventures to country-rock, it’s without Carter’s southern ‘70s overtones.

The finger-picked guitar and songbird vocal that open “Los Angeles” spell stool-perched, singer-songwriter folk, but harmonium and choral harmonies thicken the song into a hymnal. Stevens’ high notes fit equally well into Lucinda Williams-styled Americana, cutting through the twangy low strings and baritone guitar, and pushed along by driving bass and drums. The Badgers’ range is impressive, tumbling along to a “Gentle on My Mind” shuffle, hotting things up with tight jazz licks, adding soul with Stax-styled horns, and laying down waltzing fiddle ballads, country-rock and the spooky “If I Was Linen.” The latter’s off-kilter piano and musical saw spookily echo the main theme of The Elephant Man.

Stevens’ sings country songs spanning the relationship lifecycle of blossom, maturity, lethargy and dissolution. The first is powerfully drawn by the budding relationship of “Old Timers,” rooted in tangible images of childhood’s emotional urgency. The latter provides a grey coat to the loneliness of Ben Reddell’s “Winter Fugue.” In between are irresistible romantic smoothies, longed-for and abandoned lovers, and finally realized kiss-offs. The full cycle comes together in the physical and mental escape of “Salvation,” with Stevens realizing “when I pull off the road / to get a better view / now I can see the start of us / and the end to me and you.”

The classically-tinged “What Fall Promised” sounds like a good outtake from Sam Phillip’s Martinis and Bikinis, and the closing “It’s Okay to Trip” provides sing-along old-timey country-blues. One might complain that the Badgers can’t quite decide what kind of music they want to play, as they’re capable of a range of sounds rooted in country, rock and folk without staying shackled to any one. The variety’s laudable, but it leaves it to Stevens’ conviction and vulnerable warble to provide an emotional through-line to the album. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Los Angeles
Leslie and the Badgers MySpace Page

Los Straitjackets: The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets

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LosStraitjackets_FurtherAdventuresA straight shot of instrumental guitar rock

It’s been awhile since the masked men of guitar rock cut a straight-up album of instrumentals, and this one is a gem. You can hear links with many great instrumental guitar acts of the past, including the Shadows, Davie Allen & The Arrows, the Ventures, and Link Wray, but also Northwest grunge masters the Wailers, post-punk practitioners the Raybeats, and Americana greats the Sadies. Someone should pit Los Straitjackets against the Sadies in a cage match at a classic car show – everyone would win. The group’s new songs have memorable melodies, pulsating tribal rhythms, and plenty of awesome guitar (both lead and rhythm) to slice through your brain like a fuzzy reverb knife. Anyone who loves the ‘60s surf ‘n’ drag sound will dig these tunes, and if you squint just right you can imagine this as the soundtrack of a long lost AIP biker flick. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Sasquatch
Los Straitjackets’ Home Page
Los Straitjackets’ MySpace Page

Michael Dean Damron: Father’s Day

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MichaelDeanDamron_FathersDayEdgy singer-songwriter Americana

After three albums in front of I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, Portland’s Michael Dean Damron transitioned fully to a solo career. As Mike D. he sang heavy and rough blues-edged rock that was at once rootsy and in-your-face. As Michael Dean Damron he’s reconstituted as a singer-songwriter, backed by a lower-key combo called Thee Loyal Bastards. His voice still has plenty of edge, but his songs are built for strummed guitars and shuffling rhythms, and with the backing band’s volume turned down, there’s more room for nuance in his vocals. He sings with the sort of grit you’ve heard from Willie Nile, Steve Forbert, John Hiatt, James McMurtry and others whose rock ‘n’ roll hearts are tattooed with stripes of country and blues.

This third solo album offers first-person emotions through original songs of dysfunctional relationships, broken hearts, suicidal situations, plainspoken social discontent (“same old shit, different day”), and memorable imagery (“poverty is a pistol, pointed at our heads”). Damron’s song titles retain the pungency of his earlier group’s, with “I’m a Bastard” rendered as a raw guitar-and-harmonica blues and the modern-day break-up “I Hope Your New Boyfriend Gives You A.I.D.S.” thankfully not repeating its death wish in the lyrics.

Damron shows off fine taste in covers with a haunted version of Drag the River’s “Beautiful and Damned,” a crawl through Thin Lizzy’s “Dancing in the Moonlight” that’s more Tom Waits than Van Morrison, and a folky solo of “Waiting Around to Die” that’s less aggrieved than Townes Van Zandt’s original. Whatever he sings, he digs into it, often using stripped down solo guitar arrangements to free himself from band time. The results have a live dynamic, with gentle plucking giving way to hard strumming and introspective realizations turning into shouted confessions. It isn’t pretty, but it’s not meant to be. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Father’s Day
Michael Dean Damron’s Home Page

Brandon Rickman: Young Man, Old Soul

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BrandonRickman_YoungManOldSoulLonesome River Band lead vocalist’s superb solo debut

Brandon Rickman joined a reconstituted Lonesome River Band as guitarist and lead singer in time for their 2002 album Window of Time, and like many of the band’s members, he’s stepped out for a solo album. Rickman departs from the band’s multipart harmonies and full instrumental arrangements, singing solo or with a single harmony, and stripping many of the tracks down to guitar with fiddle or mandolin. He paces the songs more leisurely than the hot-picking tempos of festival-bound bluegrass, and shorn of the typically bluegrass instrumental interplay of guitar, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and bass, the arrangements have a looser country-folk feeling.

Rickman’s co-written several songs of pining lovers and broken hearts, but he connects most deeply with lyrics of approaching mid-life, including the wizened “What I Know Now” and the blink-of-an-eye youth in “So Long 20’s.” He memorializes vanishing small town geographies and digs into songs of faith, including The Stanley Brothers’ “Let Me Walk Lord” and a superb three-part harmony on “Rest for His Workers.” Rickman’s a compelling singer, and framing himself in stripped down arrangements not only differentiates these tracks from those of the Lonesome River Band, but truly highlights the qualities of his voice as an individual. Those who enjoy his singing and guitar playing with the band will love this disc; those who gravitate more to country than bluegrass should also check this out. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | I Bought Her a Dog
Brandon Rickman’s Profile Page
Brandon Rickman’s MySpace Page

Brian Olive: Brian Olive

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BrianOlive_BrianOliveTuneful mix of rock, glam, psych, soul, jazz and exotica

Brian Olive (as Oliver Henry) explored British Invasion and American garage rock as a member of the Cincinnati-based Greenhornes and Detroit-based Soledad Brothers, playing sax, flute, guitar, piano and organ, as well as singing and writing songs. On his solo debut he expands beyond the gritty hard-rock and reworked blues of Blind Faith and mid-period Stones to include healthy doses of psych, glam, and most surprisingly, soul and exotica. Influences of the New York Dolls, T. Rex and Meddle-era Pink Floyd are easy to spot, but they’re mixed with touches of Stax-style punch, South American rhythms, breezy jet-set vocals and jazz saxophones. It’s intoxicating to hear droning saxophones transform from big band to glammy psychedelia on “High Low,” and the acoustic guitar and drowsy vocals of “Echoing Light” bring to mind the continental air of Pink Floyd’s “St. Tropez.”

This is a rock album steeped in the heavy sounds of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, mixed with the sort of experimental pairings Bill Graham pioneered on bills at the Fillmore. But rather than segueing the jazz, blues, soul and international influences across an evening, Olive invents ways to weave them together within a song, repurposing non-rock sounds in support of guitar, bass and drums. Olive’s voice stretches over his words, ranging from introspective and spent to emotionally propulsive, but the lyrics are difficult to understand, so it’s anyone’s guess what he’s actually singing about. Still, even without a simple storyline or easy sing-a-long, this is musically rich. Perhaps a lyric sheet could accompany the next album? [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | There is Love
Brian Olive’s MySpace Page

Deena Shoshkes: Somewhere in Blue

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DeenaShoshkes_SomewhereInBluePlayful DIY pop, bubblegum, girl-group and country sounds

Deena Shoshkes steps out from her work with The Cucumbers to record a solo album that’s more singularly focused on her own singing. Shoshkes has a girlish voice that brings to mind Julie Miller or Rosie Flores, but with a delivery that’s folk-pop rather than country, and music that’s indie bubblegum and girl-group, even as it stretches to twangier melodies and adds harmonica and pedal steel. The album’s catchiest tunes, “Mr. Midnight” and “Gemini Guy,” are bouncy power-pop that bring to mind the DIY sounds of Oh-Ok and Wednesday Week. There are smoky ballads (“Mr. Midnight”), bass-lined funk (“What the Love”), country folk (“That Moon’s Got it Made” “Goodbye Dreamer”), rockabilly (“Best Kind of Something”), and Brazilian rhythm (“You Are the Sweetest Dream”), all given a playful edge from Shoshkes’ voice. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Gemini Guy
Deena Shoshkes Home Page
Deena Shoshkes MySpace Page

Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles: The Stars Are Out

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SarahBorges_TheStarsAreOutBewitching rock, girl-group and indie pop

Sarah Borges has always been one of Sugar Hill’s most surprising roster artists. Her 2007 label debut, Diamonds in the Dark, harbored some atmospheric steel moans, but the chewy pop center of Borges girl-group, and rockabilly was so citified as to be virtually unrelated to the typical Sugar Hill string band. Her covers of X (“Come Back to Me”) and Tom Waits (“Blind Love”) mated effortlessly with the exuberant Lesley Gore-styled vocals of Greg Cartwright’s “Stop and Think it Over,” a convincing take on Hank Ballard & The Midnighter’s bawdy “Open Up Your Back Door” and the country “False Eyelashes.” Perhaps it’s the latter, originally recorded by Dolly Parton in 1968, that gives Borges the imprimatur of a Sugar Hill artist, but it was also the album track that least fit her vocal gifts.

This follow-up album roars from the gate with even less intention to sound country; the opening “Do It For Free” pounds out Joan Jett-styled guitar, bass and drums as Borges lasciviously anticipates a post-show hook-up, and make-up sex fuels the wailing harmonica garage stomper “I’ll Show You How.” There’s Rockpile- and Stones-styled roots rock and even a couple of modern pop arrangements, but the album truly soars when Borges holds forth with updated twists on a girl-group that brings to mind Josie Cotton’s Convertible Music. The bouncy, Beatle-blue harmony of Any Trouble’s “Yesterday’s Love” brightens the original’s Elvis Costello-styled lament into chiming desire, and the double-tracked vocal and baritone guitar of the original “Me and Your Ghost” will have you turning up the volume on your iPod like it’s a push-button radio in a ’65 Falcon.

As on Diamonds in the Dark, the song list is split evenly between originals and covers. An earthy take on the Magnetic Fields’ “No One Will Ever Love You” translates the original’s anger and disappointment from pulsating keyboards to deeply twanging guitar. The Lemonheads’ “Ride With Me” and NRBQ’s “It Comes to Me Naturally” are good fits, though not revelations, and Smokey Robinson’s “Being With You” is uninspiring. Additional originals include the lightly psychedelicized Americana “Better at the End of the Day” and the moody closer, “Symphony,” mates a drum machine with warm strings. Borges voice holds the album’s variety together, but she and the band sound most vital when they take it up tempo and girlishly sweet. Don’t let the Sugar Hill tag mislead you; this is an excellent album of pop and rock with only a few undertones of country and Americana. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Better at the End of the Day
Listen to “Do It For Free”
Sarah Borges’ Home Page
Sarah Borges’ MySpace Page

Sarah Jarosz: Song Up in Her Head

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SarahJarosz_SongUpInHerHeadTalented bluegrass teenager transcends “prodigy”

Having traversed bluegrass circles for five years, this seventeen-year-old singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is ready to transcend the “prodigy” label. Yet the fluidity of her singing, the depth of her songwriting and the confidence in her picking are still preternaturally poised for a high school senior. Her debut features eleven solo compositions played with a band that features legends of the acoustic string scene such as Jerry Douglas and Darrell Scott, and up-and-coming peers Samson Grisman and Alex Hargreaves. Jarosz doesn’t trade on her youth, singing in a voice richer than a teenager’s and writing lyrics whose poetry is that of a songwriter, rather than a high school class. The unbridled yearning in her songs is the only real mark of her age, as she dreams of finding love and aches with the opportunities she encounters. She turns into a jazz chanteuse for covers of the Decemberists’ bloody “Shankill Butchers” and Tom Waits’ “Come on Up to the House,” and picks mandolin and clawhammer banjo on a pair of original instrumentals. Jarosz avoids the precociousness of youthful talent by guiding listeners to focus on her talent, rather than her youth. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Song Up in Her Head
Sarah Jarosz’s Home Page
Sarah Jarosz’s MySpace Page

The Perms: Keeps You Up When You’re Down

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Perms_KeepsYouUpCatchy power-pop from Winnipeg

This Canadian rock trio’s been kicking around in one form or another since 1997. Formed in Brandon, Manitoba, the original trio recorded their debut (1998’s Tight Perm) as teenagers. After relocating to Winnipeg, the band added a brass player, recorded 2002’s Clark Days, and eventually returned to a threesome of guitar, bass, drums. The band is led by bassist/vocalist Shane Smith, who writes and sings with his brother/guitarist Chad. Together with drummer John Huver the band rocks hard, but their hummable melodies, riffing guitars, head-bobbing rhythms, thick productions and harmony vocals make them more more power-pop than power-trio; more Rooney than Cream. You can still hear the DIY ethos of their earlier albums and traces angular post-punk flavors, but the bulk of this album’s productions are catchy throwbacks to the golden age (and multiple revivals) of power-pop. The Smith Brothers’ vocals are nicely polished this time, and though the rhythms still have plenty of punch, they aren’t punk-rock staccato and the guitar’s roar has more sustain and chime than before. Fans of Rooney, Sugar, Greenberry Woods, Shoes, Material Issue, Fountains of Wayne, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, Motors  and Velvet Crush should check this out, lest you smack yourself in the head ten years hence when some pimply college DJ pulls this from the library and makes you wonder how you missed it. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | World to Me
The Perms Home Page
The Perms MySpace Page