Quick Hits, Vol. 182 (The Decemberists, The Fratellis, Starcrawler, Kacey Musgraves)

Single Discussion:

• the new track from Leon Bridges - "Bad Bad News" - is freaking tight and slinky and funky as shit.  Give me that sound all day long, man.  
• On the other hand, the new Chris Stapleton track - "I Want Love" - sounds like a string-soaked cheesy ballad that should feature Whitney Houston and show up in a bummer part of a romantic 80's film where the guy is walking around Central Park trying to figure out how to win the girl over.
• Pearl Jam - "Can't Deny Me."  Meh.  Was hoping for some new amazing tune, but this is pretty straight-forward basher/screamer.  Nothing special.
• Willie Nelson - "Me and You" is proof that the man can still sing.  I have got to go see him play live soon or I'll be mad at myself.
• The Vaccines - "Surfing in the Sky" rocks.  Dig it.  Gimme some more of that stuff.

The Decemberists - I'll Be Your Girl.  I came over to the Decemberists once they started making more pop-friendly albums like The King is Dead and What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World.  But I grew up with R.E.M. as my favorite band of all time, so it makes sense that I'd enjoy those.  Before those, I never could really immerse myself into the weirdness of the Crane Wife or the even more bookish and verbose albums from before, no matter how much NPR wanted me to dive in.

The opening track, "Once in My Life," starts out softly fading in, a plaintive cry for things to finally go right, and then kicks into an 80's Cure-fueled synth and bass jam.  Now, lyrically, you're pretty much getting the same phrases said 85 times and then a slight change before the end, but the pure feeling of the tune is magic.  "Cutting Stone" sounds like one of their old folkish stories of 1800's trial and tribulation, as does "Starwatcher," but then the most popular song, "Severed," kicks in with more 80's rock synths and driving backend.

Kind of a stressful interlude in an otherwise pretty pleasant album, but still a good song.  And if you couldn't guess from the lyrics, the video makes it pretty clear these guys are anti-Trump.  "I alone am the answer, I alone will make wrongs right, But in order to root out the cancer, It's got to be kept from the sunlight," mixed with a line about choking you before I kick you out, mixed with the unflattering drawings of Trump's giant orange head in the video, show you where they lie on the political spectrum (which is not entirely surprising for a band from Portland, OR).  Genius quotes Meloy expressly saying it is about Trump.

Oh, but "Your Ghost" is also not great - the lalalalalalalalalala's throughout are a little grating.  But then "Everything is Awful" brings a smile to my face each time.  So happy, and yet so current and true.  Funny thing is that I keep conflating it with "Everything is Awesome" from the Lego Movie so that I'm singing that everything is awesome, to the tune of everything is awful.  The mind is a strange place.  Anyway, good album!  I'd like to see these guys live sometime soon.

The Fratellis - In Your Own Sweet Time.  Can't recall where this one came from, but my recollection of this band is that it was named for the bad guys in the Goonies.  But my recollection of them was a lot more punk rock than what this album actually is - more like a dance-forward album from ex-Brit punk rockers.  If Arctic Monkeys listened to a bunch of disco?  If The Libertines stopped doing drugs and paired up with Blur?  OK Go moved to England?  Or maybe this is just a Franz Ferdinand album.  I liked it well enough my first few times through, but I literally just stopped what I was doing when it came on again so that I could bang this review out and quit listening to it.  Not the best endorsement.  The top song shows this flavor well, this is "Stand Up Tragedy" with just under 2 million streams.

Fun, bouncy, danceable, but also gets highly annoying after a short while.  I'm letting this album go.

Starcrawler - Starcrawler.  Ohhhh.  Hey.  Tap this rock and roll right up in my veins and lets freaking gooooo.  I saw something on Twitter saying that this band had won SXSW, so I figured I'd check it out.  This is raw as shit, grungy fuzz, by a bunch of recent high school kids from LA.  The lead singer comes off as Courtney Love at times - check the laconic give-a-damn singing on "I Love L.A." and other times she's like a dirty Joan Jett roaring along over a classic rock riff.  This shit is cool.  "I Love L.A." is the top track, with over 385k streams - but I think bands get lots of plays based just solely on naming a track something like that, so the cool kids of L.A. put it on their mixtapes so that they rep their city.  I'm gonna give you the second most popular track instead, "Let Her Be," which has 131k streams.

Basic rock and roll.  Fuzzy guitar riffage.  Pounding drums.  Basic bass underneath.  Half chant/half sung vocals, with a cute lead singer eyeballing you through the camera the whole time.  But it doesn't matter - basic or not, I'm digging it.  Wish I could have seen them live (although I think the lead singer needs to eat like 300 meals immediately, she is in that so-skinny-its-freaking-me-out zone).  All in.

Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour.  Holy shit, man.  The opening track of this album sounds so much like Beck's stuff from Morning Phase - down to the soft acoustic, the swelling sound, whatever organ-ish machine makes those noises, the banjo plucking, even the drums and bass that kick in at about 1:40.  It's either "Country Down" or "Say Goodbye," I can't tell which, maybe both.  No, it's definitely "Say Goodbye" more than "Country Down."  But the line - "grandma cried when I pierced my nose" - is money stuff.  

If you have been reading my blog before, you know I have a large, irrational love for Musgraves.  This album does nothing to dissuade me from that love, even though it does take her even further afield from her country roots.  "Lonely Weekend" sounds like a soft rock John Mayer tune (and Mayer is a guilty pleasure for me, who also toured with Musgraves a few years ago).  "High Horse" is a ridiculous disco dance party that needs a roller skating video so badly it hurts me to consider it.  And not only is that tune fun (and very weird for a country star), the lyrics are very good kissoffs to a jackass on his high horse.

Funny, I came here to talk more about "High Horse" and the other two early singles "Butterflies" (damn pretty) and "Space Cowboy," but "Slow Burn" has occupied my brainwaves all day.  It is really good, but such heavy Beck flavors.  I so want to know if that was intentional or just coincidental.  I'd tweet at her about it but don't want to appear creepy.  Anyway, the top song (for now) of those three early release tunes is "Space Cowboy," at 2.8 million streams.

Beautiful voice.  And achingly sad lyrics about a relationship that is over.  "Well sunsets fade, and love does too, Yeah, we had our day in the sun, When a horse wants to run, there ain't no sense in closing the gate, You can have your space, cowboy."  Loving this album overall.  Not a perfect from front to back - "Happy & Sad" is weak and "Velvet Elvis" is kind of corny - but even those ones sound nice.  I'm also a little offput by the use of digital vocal trickery, when her voice is so damn great on its own, but I can live with it.  Good lyrics, sweet vocals, enjoyable tunes, this one gets my seal of approval.