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By Ricky D - The Naked Lunch - 06/17/2008

The difference between the fifth studio album from the Louisville, Kentucky quintet and all previous work is the influence of producers James and Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, U2), who stray away from the synths on some of My Morning Jacket’s past work and instead, try to emulate their full, live sound. This just might be the reason why this time around, the band outdid themselves once again on their 2008 North American tour.

With over two hours of back-to-back songs from their newest album, Evil Urges, the band left me wondering once again: why aren’t they playing for larger crowds? Opening with the title track from their latest release, the band's sound was tight and focused from the get-go and it never let up; the concert was a non-stop ride, giving us catchy tunes such as "I'm Amazed" and "Thank You Too."

Although My Morning Jacket first emerged in 1998 and have been compared to followers of Neil Young, the band has since embraced everything from neo-psychedelia and Americana to funk, prog, and reggae. Bringing these influences and styles together live made for one of the best concerts of the year. Jim James amazing performance confirmed that he still has one of the best male vocals in the business (giving nods to artists such as Prince and the Godfather of Soul). There’s also something to be said about a band that easily shifts from alt-country / indie rock to delivering an eight-minute long, sexy and tripped out electro-funk track reminiscent of 80’s new wave. Maybe this is why I love them so much.  

With a twenty song setlist, the band was sure to deliver enough tracks from previous albums to keep fans happy. The list included “Laylow,” “Lowdown,” “Gideon,” “Highly Suspicious,” two encores, and finally “One Big Holiday” before the band sent us home more than satisfied.

Tune in The Naked Lunch with Ricky D every Thursday from 10am – 12pm

By Simon Howell - A Listening Ear - 06/03/2008

Seven years ago, Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff teamed up to create Shearwater's debut album, The Dissolving Room. It wasn't very good -- Meiburg seemed incapable of stringing together a decent melody, opting instead to warble aimlessly, and Sheff seemed to devote only his most maudlin material to the project -- even as Okkervil River cranked out their brilliant early releases. Only their third album, the sprawling Winged Life, felt like an evenhanded collaboration between the two, with Meiburg gaining confidence with sterling, lyrical tracks like "The World in 1984" and surreal banjo workout "Whipping Boy." Then, as the Sheff-led Okkervil River grew in stature with their breakthrough fourth album, Black Sheep Boy, Sheff left Shearwater, leaving Meiburg to steer Shearwater's follow-up without him, even as Meiburg remained in Sheff's more popular group (providing a distinctive caterwaul on tracks like "All the Latest Toughs" and The Stage Names' closer "John Allyn Smith Sails.")

The resultant record, Palo Santo, turned out to be a mild sleeper hit, eventually earning a profile-boosting partial re-release (and partial remaster) courtesy of new label, Matador. The record boasted a markedly more jagged sound than Meiburg's past work, juxtaposing his crystalline tenor with blasts of feedback and spare orchestral flourishes. The songs themselves brimmed with equal parts menace and tenderness. Recently, and likely to no one's surprise, Meiburg announced his departure from Okkervil River, citing the impossibility of properly promoting his own work while playing in both bands.

With Rook, Meiburg, along with bandmates Thor Harris and Kimberly Burke, assert their complete independence not only from the work of their associates but from the greater paradigms of indie rock. Instead of constructing a world and working within its borders, Rook feels palpably engaged with the one we actually inhabit -- likely stemming from Meiburg's background as an ornithologist and nature enthusiast. On "Rooks," Meiburg tells of nature's revenge on human aggressors ("the ambulance man said there's nowhere to flee for your life / so we stay inside and sleep until the world of man is paralyzed") and by the song's end, has made his allegiance known: "let the kingdom come tonight / let this dream be realized."

With "Rooks" as the centerpiece of a swift opening trio (including startling opener "On the Death of the Waters," which uses piercing horns to announce the album's arrival much as Elbow did on Seldom Seen Kid opener "Starlings"), "Home Life" finally allows for  some breathing room, peppering its seven minutes with lively percussion, gamelan, oboe, and a soaring string arrangement, and Meiburg's vocals at their most ornate. Unlike many lushly orchestrated records, Rook never feels compressed or overstuffed, and never lets any one element overwhelm all others. Meiburg is also careful not to overstuff the record with maudlin material, carefully sequencing left-turns like terse rocker "Century Eyes" and screeching instrumental "South Col." By the time Rook runs out of its brief 39-minute runtime with blissful closer "The Hunter's Star," we're left wondering if Sheff will fare as well without Meiburg. The Stage Names was among the best records of last year, and now Rook stands at least as tall in this one.

[This article was first published on Simon's blog.]

Tune in to A Listening Ear with Simon every Friday  from 2pm - 4pm

By Ida Jørgensen - Midnight Motion - 06/04/2008

To talk about The Raconteurs is inevitably to talk about the Jack White show, and so it also was when the quartet rolled into town last week. White's presence in the lineup is like a magic ingredient -- add him to any mix for instant rock 'n roll. The show delivered; between recognizable radio hits, Brendan Benson's poppy tunes and White's rugged howls, it was hard to go wrong. A pleasant surprise came in bassist Jack "mini-Jack" Lawrence's performance. His vocals perfectly accentuated those of White and Benson, and although he still stands squarely in the shadows of the two front men, he did not melt into the background. But, of course, it was all about White and his sidekick, Benson. The two clearly enjoyed being on stage together, and more than once, turned to each other to play off the other's rhythmic guitar riffs, building the crowd's expectation before releasing the catchy hooks. Still, attention swerved towards the pasty rocker to the right; White's penchant for raw, catchy tunes brimming with emotion left me wanting more...and created a void Benson's sweeter melodies could not quite fill. It came as no surprise, then, that the two highlights came in White's compositions, “Blue Veins” and “Many Shades of Black.” It's the kind of drum-thumping, fist-punching rock that makes you want to jump in unison and drink the night away. And that, more than anything else, was what a show was about, and the reason I'll be there the next time Jack White comes to Montreal, no matter who he brings with him.  

Tune in to Midnight Motion with Ida every Friday from 12am – 1:30am

By Josh Mocle - The Kids are So-So

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “when the hell did The Unseen play a headlining show in Montreal?” The truthful answer and also the most straightforward is that they didn’t. Southern California’s Tiger Army were actually the headliners of this particular Club Soda gig, however, I was unable to stay for their set, hence you are getting a review of the two openers, Toronto’s The Creepshow, and one of this reporter’s favourite live acts (and the reason I as at the show anyway), Boston’s own The Unseen.

(Semi-interesting side note: I first really listened to Tiger Army after seeing one of their patches on a rather awesome friend of mine’s bag, and in the years since I’ve lost touch with said friend I have missed, for one reason or another, every single Tiger Army performance I’ve had the opportunity and desire to attend. Weird huh?)

Shortly after arriving at the venue, Toronto’s The Creepshow took the stage. I admittedly knew next to nothing about the band prior to this performance and what I did know I didn’t particularly like. I knew they were rockabilly-tinged and that they were all about the “bats and death” theme that very few bands that don’t include Glenn Danzig can really pull off without looking dumb (and, really, Danzig doesn’t do it all THAT well either). I will not lie to you, lovely readers -- once I saw that their frontman was actually rather a cute looking frontWOman (who I later found out went by the name Sarah Sin), I settled in for yet another performance by a band (of which there are many) that sounded like the pre-eminent female fronted rockabilly outlet known as The Horrorpops (hint: I do not like The Horrorpops…at all…sorry Lindsay). Within about forty seconds though, my mind was completely changed; I was totally hooked and I realized (even before they covered “Halloween”) that they resembled the legendary Misfits much more than the aforementioned Horrorpops, despite the use of an upright bass. Ms. Sin was probably one of the most confident band leaders I had seen in a long time, engaging the crowd and bending them to her will (almost stopping the set twice when she wasn’t convinced that we were into it enough), which I can honestly say I not only appreciate, but wish I could see more of (Frank Carter of Gallows and Dave McWane of Big D and the Kids Table are really the only ones I can think of who operate on a similar level). However, probably what I liked the most about their performance and their sound in general was their use of keyboards and the previously mentioned upright bass. The keys were stuck on the basic “church organ” setting and almost all of the notes that came out of it were long, low and drawn out, creating a very “Classic-Scooby-Doo-Right-Before-They-Unmask-The-Bad-Guy” aura to the songs (which is normally a bad thing, but this time it actually worked). I also really enjoyed the fact that bassist, Sickboy, played his instrument like an upright bass actually should be played (unlike the MANY rockabilly bassists who play the thing like a standard electric bass). His parts often held the song together a lot more than Ms. Sin’s guitar leads or the organ dirges of “The Reverend Mcginty,” and honestly, who doesn’t love a little bass-heavy punk rock?

One of the things I’ve always loved about Club Soda is their staff’s ability to perform incredibly quick stage set-ups. Within ten minutes of The Creepshow’s set ending the venue darkened and the haunting organ introduction from The Unseen’s newest release, Internal Salvation, began to ring out. However, rather than running into “Such Tragedy” like the intro does on the record, the band ripped into “Live in Fear,” the first track off of their 2001 release, The Anger and the Truth. This immediately set the tone for the rest of set -- while the band was technically still touring behind the less-than-a-year-old Internal Salvation, they would proceed to only play four tracks (totaling about eight minutes of their forty-five minute set) from the record. The rest of the set spanned their catalogue as far back as 1999’s So This is Freedom and every album in between. Most modern-day punk bands, possibly out of a desire for “legitimacy,” tend to shy away from the “get up there and play the hits” mentality. So while many bands will save their singles and fan-favourite tracks for the end of the set or the encore (and even then only play, like, two of them…cough againstme! cough cough), The Unseen opted to fill their entire set with all their (and our) favourite sing-a-longs and the crowd (myself very much included) ate it right out of their dirty hands. Furthermore, vocalist Mark Unseen and drummer Pat Melzard were absolutely at the top of their game, with Mark spending nearly all of the set crouched on top of the venue-mandated barrier, effectively getting as close to his fans as he possibly could, often giving the microphone up to anyone who wanted it. However, I must admit a bit of disappointment in their fill-in bassist for this tour, Elvis Cortez (of Southern California’s Left Alone). While The Unseen’s bass lines are admittedly painfully easy and he generally did an okay job with them, he managed to mangle the beginning of “So This is Freedom,” a.k.a. the only bass solo he had the entire set and the opening to one of my favorite punk tracks of all time. A small complaint I know, but come on Elvis, it’s the most…okay ONLY recognizable Unseen bass part -- get it right!

Hitting everything from “False Hope” off 2003’s Explode to their cover of The Rolling Stone’s “Paint It Black” (released on 2005’s State of Discontent), they managed to, by my count, fit somewhere near twenty to twenty-five songs into their support set, effectively providing more “bang for your buck” than most headliners I’ve seen. While their chosen songwriting techniques place them squarely in the “generic street punk” category, I find they go above and beyond what most bands that also inhabit that category bring to the table. They show a decent amount of care and some much earned maturity (as they are pretty much elder statesmen in the international punk scene at this point), and while their writing style hasn’t changed much over the past ten years, they still manage to remain fresh and relevant with every record and engaging with every live performance. Not an easy feat by any means and if I had to guess their secret I would have to wager that their connection to their fans and to the scene is what gets them through. Sure they have done many silly “unpunk” things like signing to a subsidiary of established independent label Epitaph in order to guarantee steady work and decent production quality on their records and agree to tours that bring them to large, relatively comfortable venues like Club Soda, but they never once forgot why they play music, and their choice of songs to play and general attitude throughout their set was evidence of that. The Unseen has always been a band that existed for their fans and despite taking a few paths to make things easier for themselves, I suspect they always will (and for all you doubters, it absolutely makes a difference).

Tune in to The Kids Are So-So with Josh every Tuesday from 2pm – 4pm