Quick Hits, Vol. 261 (The Killers, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Hum, Tyler Childers)

The Killers - Imploding the Mirage.  The Killers' first album was classic.  The second one was still very good.  Since then?  Not so much, for me personally.  But, like a moth to the flame, I still go back each time they fire up a new album.  This one has some good stuff on it - I wouldn't say the whole thing is great - but several tracks get me moving and jamming out.  It still has too much synth for my tastes, and some of them strain too hard to be arena rockers, but it also has enough Springsteen fan-boy sound to make me happy anyway.  "Dying Breed" absolutely sounds to me like something The Boss would have created and performed many years ago - driving beat, huge chorus, lyrics about a girl in love, and that one riff that very much sounds like a "Born to Run" bit.  "Caution" was the lead single I've been listening to for months, and it's also got a good, driving beat that lends itself to some Molly Ringwald dancing.  Cheesy lyrics, but still, exceedingly danceable.  "Lightning Fields" also sounds highly cheesy - don't love that one. "Fire in Bone" was another early single, but I don't much care for that one.  "Caution" has the most streams, at 10.5 million.

All the synths.  All the weird little noises that kind of remind me of a seagull.  All the nostalgia.  But also a very triumphantly joyful song that matches its lyrics very well.  Enjoyable album - nothing particularly special, but I'll probably listen some more.

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Sideways to New Italy.  I feel like their band name is going to limit the ability for this band to ever really gain fame.  It's just too many words, and none of the words appear to fit together in any memorable way.  Very weird.  When I try to remember the band name, my brain is like, "uh, yeah, Rowdy Broken Party Fever?  no, Rummage Fever Bummer Brown?  Blammo Rowing Cruiser Seven?  I give up."  But beyond that, the band itself is really good.  Kind of sunny rock and roll - the kind with bright guitars and harmonies in every vocal.  Maybe like Real Estate?  It's not punk, it's not pop, but it kind of has a whiff of both of those things.  Definitely catchy.   I figured that "Falling Thunder" would be the single, but "Cars in Space" has 1.4 million streams.

Those kooky Aussies.  Every bit of that song works really well - definitely catchy, driving beat, danceable.  I dig it.  The whole album is a nice collection - not overly long, just the right mood and vibe to click for me.

Hum - Inlet.  So, you may not remember Hum.  I have an oddly particular memory of their only hit song - "Stars."  (which is not from this album, it is from 1995)

(that video is awesome mid-90's shit!)  Before I get to this album, I want to take a trip down memory lane.  When I was a kid, I got to go on an annual ski trip to Wolf Creek ski resort every winter with my church youth group, starting in the Winter break of my sixth grade year.  We would take a massive charter bus up from Austin to Pagosa Springs, and the bus had tiny televisions embedded in the ceiling every few rows of seats, so that we could watch VHS movies as we traveled.  This was where I first saw Princess Bride and learned to love that movie.  But we would also watch these videos by a guy named Warren Miller, who created the best skiing movies, to get hyped up for skiing.  Like this, but for an hour.  And I couldn't tell you anything about those videos in particular, except for the moment when they paired up that song - "Stars" - with footage of a dude ripping through powder and executing these gigantic jumps that, no shit, I just got goose bumps on my arms when remembering now, 30+ years after the fact.  And so, probably five years later, that was one of the first songs I ever hunted down on Napster, and it still absolutely freaking jams.  Just the initial crash is a money move, much less the joyfully volcanic eruptions of the rest of the track.  Heavy and tasty and a definite favorite.

But, this is a new album, twenty-two years after their last one.  According to some of the Tweets I have read about them, their main sound is apparently a shoegazing kind of drone rock, not the badass sound of "Stars," which is maybe why they lost out on popularity back in the 90's.  This album is heavy rock - not sure I would call it anything like shoegaze - and nothing on it sounds like it is destined to launch them back into radio airplay.  Kind of sludgy, stoner rock, tons of fuzz, with plodding tempos and the kind of drumming that sounds like it could be done while the drummer is also enjoying a slice of pizza with his spare hand.  Also, half of the songs are over 8 minutes, which makes it definitely seem like one of the heavy stoner bands with epic tracks intended to drone on for extended periods.  If I'm being honest, I would have preferred a tighter set of songs - not necessarily something radio-friendly, but at least a little more melodic and memorable.  "Folding" spends the last two minutes sounding like some Nine Inch Nails remix of the Mike Pence debate fly.  The opening track - "Waves" - is the top streamer, at 386k.

Man, for a fan-made video, that is honestly very good.  And like the rest of the album, I like that tune as well.  The mix of one guitar chugging in the bottom, while the other soars above, is tight.  I'll keep this one.

Tyler Childers - Long Violent History.  Childers is a real one.

Hit about 2:55 if you want to hear the key bits.

This album appears to be something he cooked up really quickly so that he could release this one song.  The first eight songs on the album are instrumental numbers that sound like they were thrown off in 30 minutes by a band who hadn't practiced them much beforehand.  (not that I could do anywhere near as good as this band does, I'm just saying there are like, obvious missed notes and kind of sloppy playing in here that makes it sound like these were not meticulously rehearsed numbers).  And then the final track is a finely written look at why white folks in Appalachia ought to be linked, arm-in-arm, with the Black Lives Matter protesters.

"Now, what would you get if you heard my opinion

Conjecturin' on matters that I ain't never dreamed

In all my born days as a white boy from Hickman

Based on the way that the world's been to mе?

It's called me belligеrent, it's took me for ignorant

But it ain't never once made me scared just to be

Could you imagine just constantly worryin'

Kickin' and fightin', beggin' to breathe?

How many boys could they haul off this mountain

Shoot full of holes, cuffed and layin' in the streets

'Til we come into town in a stark ravin' anger

Looking for answers and armed to the teeth?

Thirty-ought-sixes, Papaw's old pistol
How many, you reckon, would it be, four or five?
Or would that be the start of a long, violent history
Of tucking our tails as we try to abide?"

Its such a smart move - humanizing the black lives matter to a huge group of folks who may otherwise have a knee-jerk negative reaction.  I like it.  "it ain't never once made me scared just to be" is a strong line.