Album Review: Warpaint - Warpaint

Warpaint exist within a rarefied air within both the hip indie scene and the wider music community. This LA-based quartet made waves with their 2010 debut The Fool and have been leaving the people wanting more ever since. They have created an atmosphere of intrigue by withholding music like a petulant girlfriend withholds intimacy. They have contributed to a few tracks here and there to whet our appetites as a part of their prolonged aural striptease. With their hype left to simmer for the past four years it is now time to release their sophomore record. Can this new album possibly live up to the expectations they have been cultivating in their absence?

For those who are unfamiliar with them, Warpaint make ambient post-punk with a gorgeous crystalline sheen. This style was very popular a few years back when bands like The XX hit the scene. What Warpaint do differently from those throwback pioneers is detach their muse from the 1980s and drag it kicking and screaming into the 21^st century. Throw in a trip-hop groove and a hint of psychedelic fog for flavour and you have a recipe for something interesting. When you see that it is producers Flood (U2, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins) and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) behind the desk the sonic gumbo starts to make a little more sense.

Your enjoyment of Warpaint will hinge on your opinion of breathy female vocals, gurgling bass synths, and abstracted emotions. But luckily it is not all cool detachment and hipster bait. Beneath the layers of inhuman prosthesis beats a funky heart. In a different world ‘Hi’ could appear in a midnight dance club, just as all the punters are coming down in unison.

It is an excellent example of valuing mood over melody. From the outside it might seem chilly and remote. When you are wading knee-deep in their brooding tunes it is easy to be sucked in even if it is almost entirely devoid of hooks. Warpaint is an album designed to be taken in as a whole. You are meant to dive right in and get lost in the haze. This is both a band and an album that fly directly in the face of the modern music paradigm, where iTunes and Spotify do all the heavy lifting and real honest-to-goodness albums are seen as relics of a bygone era.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: Love is to Die, Hi

Album Review: The Reverend Horton Heat - REV

Rockabilly as a fad comes and goes every few years, falling in and out of favour with the fickle tide of trends, but there has only ever been one Reverend Horton Heat. In their early days they got lumped in with the MTV alternative crowd but time has proven that to be an ill fit. These bad boys come from a world where surf guitar licks and big dirty double basses reign supreme. It’s hard to believe that their debut album, Smoke Em If You Got Em, was released nearly 24 years ago. REV is their brand new eleventh record and it defies time and popular trends. The band hasn’t changed significantly in their 29 years and their agenda remains the same: arrive, rock out like Jerry Lee Lewis with a firecracker up his arse, leave, repeat.

The album begins with a track called ‘Victory Lap’ and that is precisely what it feels like. It sets the tone of the album early, frantic and intense, before bleeding out into ‘Smell of Gasoline’. Everything is unashamedly retro and, frankly, cool as hell. REV contains many of the band’s hallmark themes; horror-themed come ons (‘Spooky Boots’), working class sagas (‘Hardscrabble Woman’), and paeans to the rockabilly lifestyle (‘Never Gonna Stop It’).

What is impressive is just how good and fresh this music sounds, even now in the band’s fourth decade. Rev and the boys always find a way to turn back the clock, rocking harder than many bands half their age. Their last few albums have leaned a little too heavily on slower country styles but the fire has been re-lit under them and they are out to prove their quality. Just compare a track like ‘Schizoid’ to any flash-in-the-pan youth act nowadays and there will be a decisive victor.

Back in 1990 The Rev and his crew became famous for their minor hit, ‘Psychobilly Freakout’. Now that we are in 2014 and they have eleven albums under their belts unfortunately nothing has changed in that regard. REV may not be the sort of album that wins over legions of new fans but for the converted it is a welcome addition to the band’s already stellar career.

Rating: A-

Recommended tracks: Smell of Gasoline, Schizoid, Spooky Boots

A Double-Dip of Ipecac, featuring Mutation and Melvins

Mike Patton's Ipecac Recordings have a reputation for releasing some of best, most bizarre albums known to man. They are responsible for the proliferation of Beak, Hella, Messer Chups, The Locust and that's not even touching Patton's own work. Over the past month they have added two more freakish concoctions to the record books. First is the debut album from monstrous supergroup Mutation, Error 500. And then there is Tres Cabrones by the ever-entertaining Melvins, and their second of 2013. Ah, its good to be a freak!

Mutation – Error 500

Mutation is the insane, messy, and vile brainchild of some of music's most eccentric outsiders. The core of the band consists of Shane Emery (Napalm Death), Ginger Wildheart (The Wildhearts), and Jon Poole (Cardiacs). While none of these men may be household names their legacies are told of in hushed tones in dive bars and basements the world over. Error 500 is their official debut and it is a slap in the face to anybody who tries to affix the word “super-group” to their work. Aside from the central trio the album features appearances by punk icon Mark E Smith (The Fall) and Japanese electro-noise savant Merzbow. Each of these names carries with it a sense of expectation and the album on which they all come together sets about confounding each and every one of them.

Taking cues from punishing industrial, grindcore, krautrock, and the uglier end of the prog rock spectrum Mutation are a thing of nightmares. This is not one for the faint of heart. Every track is packed full of Molten piles of jackhammer riffs and self-sabotaging grooves – just when they get doing something come along to thrown them completely out the window.. This is the very embodiment of sonic chaos. This makes the perverse sense of pop orthodoxy on 'Utopia Syndrome' even more unnerving. At first you gravitate towards the coherency among the noise. “I'm so happy” sounds like a funny thing to scream over and over again alongside a vicious glaze of static. Naturally even that relative calm doesn't last and soon you are tossed back in the mire.

This album maintains an exhausting pace from start to finish. After the whole 36 minutes you might feel beaten into submission and a little more unhinged than you were before you pushed play. My one piece of advice for anybody listening to Error 500 is simply don't expect it to make much sense. Expect it to be loud, crass, aggressive, even frightening.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: Utopia Syndrome, Computer This is Not What I ...

Melvins - Tres Cabrones

With most band's who have a near-thirty year career you can pin-point that one moment where they have given up and, fuck it, just done what they feel like. In that regard Melvins have the unfair advantage: that's where they started their career from. Tres Cabrones sees the eternal pranksters going back to their roots and collaborating with their original drummer Mike Dillard for the first time since 1984. This shifts Dale Crover into the ever-rotating role of Melvins' bass player. Crover is a legend behind the drum kit for a reason but Dillard does an admirable job of playing like him so, what the hey! King Buzzo's beautifully ugly riff and voice combo are an ornery as ever. The man seriously sounds like a barbarian high on soda and porn.

For those of you keeping track, Tres Cabrones is the second Melvins record of 2013 and it plays as the strange cousin to Everybody Loves Sausages. Instead of covering other people, the Buzzo & Crover circus cover themselves. A number of these tracks have existed in varying forms, some dating way back to Mangled Demos from 1983. The bulk of these tracks are little-to-no-nonsense rockers. 'Dr Mule' is a dead-ringer for Tomahawk and the treacle-paced punk rock of 'American Cow' is designed to be experienced at bong-rattling volumes.

And what would a Melvins record be without the occasional explosion of goofiness? After three solid rocking tracks at the beginning the wheels start to fall off in the worst/best possible way. Tres Cabrones includes three joke tracks spread throughout the set-list such as unhinged renditions of '99 Bottles of Beer' and 'You're in the Army Now' (“you'll never get rich, you son of a bitch, you're in the army now!”). Yes, that sounds like a horrible idea but you forget that Melvins made a career out of making horrible ideas sound badass. I dare you to not smile when 'Tie My Pecker to a Tree' comes on.

Melvins' sense of humour is frequently misunderstood. Just because their last few albums have been moody, percussive overdoses doesn't mean their isn't a gag at the heart of it all. With Tres Cabrones they have taken the much easier route and are making it really obvious that they are having fun at your expense. We wouldn't want them any other way.

Rating: B+

Recommended tracks: Dr Mule, American Cow

Album Review: Midlake - Antiphon

This wistful band of Texans trade in the American gothic for a solid helping of psychedelics. Newly promoted singer Eric Pulido takes the reigns and leads Midlake down a new, twisting path on Antiphon. Hold on to your lava lamps!

If you had asked former Midlake vocalist/guitarist Tim Smith who the band's greatest influence was he would have said Jethro Tull. If you ask a fan the same question, especially a fan of their earlier work, they would probably say Radiohead. Despite the fact that the band hail from Texas it appears as though Midlake have a taste for eccentric British rock music, and who can blame them? Antiphon, a new album with a new line-up in tow, is an earnest attempt to create something that doesn't emulate the band's idols but rather make a true Midlake record.

Antiphon finds Midlake in a classicist prog mood. This is not like many other acts to shameless ape their forebears considering that nostalgia is a huge market nowadays. This is genuine worship, tribute, and synthesis that forges a new identity from the bones of those who came before. On tracks like 'Vale' and 'Provider' you can all but see the flowing sleeves and smell the pungent smoke. The album is packed with wistful, mid-tempo wanderers the type that were so popular in the mid 70s. That is certainly not to say that the album is bland but it certainly rides its own kind of strange momentum. Paul Alexander's loping basslines adds the right amount of shake and rattle to their natural roll whenever the pace threatens to dip too low.

'This Weight' sounds like a latter day Zeppelin, when they had traded their iconoclastic blues-rock for introspective jams. Even the guitar and keyboard effects are decidedly vintage. The gentle flutes that float through the arrangement of album closer 'Provider Reprise' are actually more akin to early King Crimson than Tull. As a part of that aforementioned line-up change around, guitarist Eric Pulido has taken the center stage from Smith and he does a fine job as the lead vocalist. His voice is not as fragile as Smith's was, and perhaps even more detached sounding, but it fits the tone of the album well.

This is certainly no good times record but it could well be a wellspring of good memories to an audiophiles ears. You might not spin it with some buddies and beers over a barbeque in the summer sun but it might just become your best friend at two in the morning with a half-emptied bottle of scotch at your side. It doesn't reach the brittle, dark majesty of 2010's The Courage of Others (the album that made many, myself included, fall in love with the band) but Antiphon is a fine collection of songs that ably points the way forward for this promising act.

Rating: B+

Recommended tracks: Vale, Provider Reprise

Album Review Wrap-Up: Featuring Cage the Elephant, Red Fang, Paul McCartney, and Sepultura

October has been a fine and dandy month for new releases. It almost pains me that I haven't been able to write a review for every single album that I have been enjoying lately but I'm just going to have to learn to live with it. On the upside here are four reviews from different corners of the musical universe. Kentucky's Cage the Elephant continue their scrappy climb to fame and fortune with Melophobia. Portland rockers Red Fang unleash their inner sasquatch on Whale and Leeches. Paul McCartney gives us a timely reminder that you can never count a Beatle out (as long as they aren't named Ringo) on his fantastic album New. And finally, metal pioneers Sepultura may finally have run out of steam on the tepid The Mediator Between the Head and Hands Must Be the Heart. What a mouthful!

1. Cage the Elephant - Melophobia

Kentucky's Cage the Elephant have spent the last few years proving their credentials as proponents of scrappy, acidic rock and roll. Their new album Melophobia sees the band sounding more focused than ever but still leaving plenty of room for their flights of fancy. Melophobia is the fear of music and you can hear strains of that panic, terror, and paranoia spun into convincing yarns. But by the end of the record you have to wonder if music shouldn't be afraid of Cage the Elephant.

Things start with the lead single 'Spiderhead'; chock full of goofy classicist swing, complete with with hammering piano riff. Cage the Elephant have never been afraid to play it a little on the abrasive side and it doesn't take long for the poison to sink in. There might not be anything as manical as say 'Sabretooth Tiger' but they sure try. 'It's Just Forever' featuring Allison Mosshart (The Kills, Dead Weather) is a strange little journey crammed into just three and a half lean minutes – from raucuous duet, to sneering blues howler, to abstract piano jazz. It really has to be heard to be believed. That lurking sense of paranoia raises its head again on the batshit crazy rambling of 'Teeth'. It's a song that makes your face ache; all scratchy chords, unhinged babbling, and a dubby outro that sounds like it was recorded inside the depths of Matthew Schultz's brain.

Razor-bladed indie pop is alive and well in 2013. The Nielson brothers (the family responsible for The Mint Chicks and Unknown mortal Orchestra) are leading the charge, and MGMT's recent effort reaffirms that their dalliances into electro-pop were a fluke. Cage the Elephant have always existed in the spectrum between “heart on your sleeve” and “blood on the frets” - it's just a matter of which one you get on any particular track and how long it is until they change the game out from under you. Music should be very, very afraid of Cage the Elephant.

Rating: B+

Recommended tracks: Teeth, It's Just Forever

2. Red Fang - Whales and Leeches

Red Fang have come for your beer and your daughters! This hard rocking quartet hail from Portland, Oregon although you would be forgiven for pegging them as Georgians. Yes, they hail from further north than their Relapse label mates Black Tusk and Baroness but their modus operandi is rather similar: rock out, kick ass, exit.

Whales and Leeches (album number three for those of you who are counting) is a rollicking good time for those who love their rock music thick, bass-y, and unrelenting. 'Blood Like Cream', a track that earns its place as the album's lead single, is what Foo Fighters would sound like if Dave Grohl was replaced by a feral Sasquatch. It rides a heavy groove while still being catchy and melodic and it boasts a shout along chorus to die for. While Red Fang are obviously on a quest to define their own legacy they know what their fans want from them. It is for this reason that on tracks like 'No Hope' and 'Crows in Swine' find Bryan Giles doing his best Troy Sanders impersonation. Hey, if the people like Mastodon is it such a crime to sound a bit like them?

On a different tangent, 'Dawn Rising' leans heavily on the band's stoner rock tendencies. The pace is slowed, the intensity is upped, and the guest appearance from Yob vocalist Mike Scheidt further solidifies their bong-rattling credentials. That seismic momentum flows right into the Sabbath-ian 'Failure' as it slow-burns its way through to the crescendo. Do you like your rock music brutish, brackish, and speaker-bustingly loud? If so I think Whales and Leeches might just be for you.

Rating: B

Recommended tracks: Blood Like Cream, Dawn Rising

3. Paul McCartney - New

When you get a new Paul McCartney album in your hands you are never 100% sure which Paul McCartney it is going to be. Will it be full of shmaltzy ballads, perhaps age-defying rockers, or even furtive electronic experiments. Nothing can properly prepare you for what you will find in New. It is a genuine modern pop record from the man who helped define the genre fifty years ago.In accordance to contemporary pop standards Macca has roped in a cadre of producers to help him construct the record. These include Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Adele), Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon), Paul Epworth (Florence and the Machine), and Giles Martin (son of George) and they each bring their A-game to the table.

Of course there will still be plenty of cheese to be hard. 'On My Way to Work' flirts with some ridiculous phrases (“On my way to work / I bought a magazine / Inside a pretty girl / Who liked to water-ski”) but it is delivered so earnestly that you just go along with it. And then on the flip-side you have 'Early Days' which further mythologizes the Beatles beginnings while at the same time refusing to be apologetic or nostalgic. It walks a difficult line between contemplation and rancor. Comparisons to Beatles records are inevitable but McCartney is hardly trying to avoid drawing the parallels. 'Queenie Eye' is so Sgt Peppers it will cause many a double take – all wit and pomp. The incredibly hooky 'Save Us' manages to out-Kaiser Chiefs the Kaiser Chiefs which is quite an achievement in itself.

The album is fifteen tracks long and it rides some incredible highs and lows throughout. Just when you thought you had a handle on New something comes out of left field to not only prove you wrong but leave you smiling about how foolish you were. Most importantly of all, it appears that the revered Sir Paul McCartney had a lot of fun making New. If that is indeed the case, and if this is the result of him enjoying himself, then long may it continue.

Rating: B

Recommended tracks: Save Us, Queenie Eye

4. Sepultura – The Mediator Between the Head and Hands Must Be the Heart

Chaos AD was a long time ago (twenty years to be exact) and Sepultura have done everything in their power to move on even if some of their fans refuse(/resist) to do so. The Mediator Between the Head and Hands Must Be the Heart is their seventh album with singer Derrick Green, which officially puts him at the wheel longer than Max Cavalera. This is an album about the dehumanizing nature of the modern world. Between metropolitan overcrowding and our over-reliance on technology we are less human and more robotic than ever. This disaffection is like fuel to the fire of the heavy metal genre and it burns at the heart of every song on the record.

Try as both bands might, Sepultura and Soulfly will forever be compared to one another as long as they both shall live. Naturally it is a coincidence that they have both released new albums so close together (Soulfly's Savages came out earlier this month) but you have to admit it is one hell of a coincidence. While Savages cast its gaze wide and worked hard to draw in its myriad of influences,The Mediator narrows its focus to a fault. If it isn't hardcore thrash then these guys don't want to know about it. This unfortunately makes for a very workaday metal record despite the concept and sky-high potential of all involved.

Special mention must be made of their new drummer Eloy Casagrande who more than holds his own. I admit that after a few spins of the album I found myself listening to his dextrous fills and tribal breakdowns more than anything else. Guitarist Andreas Kisser is one of the great unheralded riffers and he is generally a delight to listen to . But you know something isn't quite right when by the third or fourth track you are already getting bored of how straight-forward everything feels. There is little in the way of subtly and nuance to the performances. By now everyone knows about Sepultura's nihilistic agenda which makes songs like 'The Vatican' (complete with angelic choir before the sledgehammer assault strikes) a bit on the nose. Some might consider this criticism a little unfair given that this is a metal album but haven't most of us moved on from 1983 yet? For the genre to advance we need the respected elders (including Sepultura) to lead the way forward.

Rating: C

Recommended track: Manipulation of Tragedy