Music

Album Review: The Sunparlour Players – Us Little Devils [2011, Outside Music]

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Brian in Albums, Music | 1 Comment

Toronto – I find myself in something of a music rut lately. You know what I mean: it’s the sort of rut that sees you making lacklustre mix CD’s for the car filled with tunes you played to death five years ago and filling your mp3 player with old Nas and Four Tet albums for something a little different, that kind of thing. I could be getting old and nostalgic, ready to make the permanent switch to oldies and “light favourites” stations. Or possibly ten weeks of diaper changes and spit-up has been a little distracting for me. One or the other.

The solution to these doldrums? Quite possibly a new Sunparlour Players album.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, as I’ve gone on emphatically about the Sunparlour Players many times before. One of the best, most intense live acts I’ve seen, Us Little Devils is the band’s third studio album after 2007’s Hymns for the Happy and 2009’s Wave North.

As good as the band is in a live setting, it’s probably fair to say that their studio efforts have been a little hit or miss as far as capturing some of that live energy. So does the new album overcome the limitations of their past recordings and deliver a consistently good album from start to finish? Well…no, not really. It’s only got a couple of the sort of “storytelling” tracks that are one of the band’s big songwriting strengths, like the sample track below, “Green Thumb”. I can appreciate the band is trying a few new things, as they clearly went for a bit more of a mainstream pop/rock kind of feel on a lot of tracks, but this doesn’t always mesh well with their folksy, roots base. By my count, only three tracks out of twelve are really outstanding, with the rest ranging from “decent” to “ok.”

Of course, a Sunparlour Players album is really just something to listen to so you can learn the choruses to the new songs and sing along with them during the live shows. When I listen to this album I find myself mostly looking forward to hearing the live renditions and finding out how the band can pull off some of the harmonies and rich sounds with only the three of them on stage, where they’ll occasionally play five or six instruments at once between them during any given song. In the end, the new album is just ok, and probably not enough to shake me from my music malaise, but a new Sunparlour Players tour with new material to check out is something to look forward to. Check them out if you get the chance on their upcoming Ontario tour and the cross-Canada tour that’s likely to follow, you definitely won’t regret it.

Sunparlour Players Ontario Fall Tour Dates:

11/25 Ottawa, ON – NAC Fourth Stage
11/29 St.Catherines, ON – The Mansion House
12/1 Kingston, ON – Zappa’s Lounge *
12/2 Peterborough, ON – The Red Dog*
12/3 London, ON – Call The Office*
12/4 Guelph, ON – Van Gogh’s *
12/8  Windsor, ON – The Capital Theatre *
12/9 Hamilton, ON – The Casbah *
12/10 Toronto, ON – The Great Hall

*With the Sadies

Sunparlour Players – Green Thumb by Outside-Music

If you’re so inclined, you can listen to the entire album streaming at www.outside-music.com/backstage/sunparlourplayers

Cover of the Day: Taio Cruz – Little Lion Man (Mumford & Sons)

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Ricky in Covers, Song of the Day | 3 Comments

This cover sees two worlds collide as hip hop dance floor sensation Taio Cruz covers nostalgic folk farmy revivalists Mumford & Sons. The song covered is “Little Lion Man” and as you would expect, Taio puts his own touches on it which includes a rousing string section to replace the banjo hee haw explosion that is the song’s (and the band’s) signature moment.

The cover is a part of BBC’s Ongoing Live Lounge series which sees a host of disposable pop artists covering songs by artists slightly more popular then them. Other artists on this years compilation include Panic Manual favorites Pixie Lott and N-Dubz. I know this doesn’t exactly pass as glowing endorsement but have a listen anyway, it’s a good cover.

Track by Track CD Review: Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto [2011, Parlophone]

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Ricky in Albums | Leave a comment

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a full eleven years since Chris Martin walked through the rain on the beach and delighted everyone with his simple ode to a women not named Gwyneth. That track of course, was Yellow and started the English band Coldplay on a steady rise to the top of the charts. Arguably one of the biggest bands in the world, Coldplay are now back with their fifth album, Mylo Xyloto. Having not really paid attention to the band since A Rush of Blood to the Head, I decided to have a good listen to see what the 2011 version of Coldplay has to offer.

Mylo Xyloto
Must be the oddest title ever, but I’m not going to bother looking what this song title means. Probably something Gwyneth Paltrow discovered on the way to finding herself. How did some actress go from such a sweetheart to such an annoying figure in a span of ten years?

Hurts Like Heaven
I’m enjoying the quick pacing, soaring guitar and synthesizers on this song. If this song was released by a bunch of kids from Brooklyn (or someone in Toronto/Montreal), I’m pretty sure all the bloggers would be all over it. It’s one of the weird states of blogging today, once a band has been dismissed as a mainstream act, I feel like they have almost a disadvantage on the internet. Rolling in the millions of dollars they have helps I guess.

Paradise
The strings section that starts off this track seems to be directly ripped off from some medieval adventure movie where a bunch of rag tag characters discover either a really attractive princess or a temple. Also, sounds a lot like “pair of dice” instead of “paradise”

Charlie Brown
The opening parts of this track (some high pitch rewind effect first used in Bigmouth Strikes Again) reminds me of a Passion Pit song. Where are they now? The guitars are soaring in this one though, seems tailor made for an epic arena concert moment where Walmart moms are wetting their Lululemon pants as Chris Martin pretends like he’s going to go into a crowd but then runs back on stage just to play the piano for it song’s “tender” closing moments.

Us Against the World
Tender acoustic number that evokes memories of starry nights. The whole ‘us against the world’ theme sounds like something Bono would have written in the 80s.

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall
I can’t help but feel like I’ve heard this track before, but it’s pretty catchy in the beginning but descends into your normal Coldplay yearning and long pronounciation of each word choruses.

Major Minus
I listened to this track twice because I wasn’t really paying attention the first time. Not the most memorable track although the line “us against the world” is once again used.

UFO
Nothing to really say here

Princess of China
Not sure what Rihanna has to do with China but I guess when Coldplay comes a’callin, you don’t say no. She doesn’t really add much to it though. The dual vocal part of “you really hurt me” adds a nice bit of drama to an otherwise unmemorable song, I guess. If Coldplay really wanted to go with an edgier track, they probably should have enlisted Nicky Minaj.

Up in Flames
Slow piano falsetto number that is probably quite swoonable to a certain demographic. It’s easy to dismiss this as another Coldplay slow track but fact is most bands would give an arm and a leg to write a song like this, but since it’s Coldplay, let’s dismiss this as another slow Coldplay track for you to hold your smartphone in the air.

Don’t Let it Break Your Heart
The title reminds me of the Backstreet Boys song “I’ll never break your heart” which isn’t the best way to start off a song. In this track, pounding pianos are accomanpied by a rousing guitar riff that given other lyrics could probably pass as a song played by born again Christians in a church or something. It’s quite soaring, the church people would close their eyes, put both their hands in the air and then get down on their knees or something. Some might even faint from all the glory.

Up With the Birds
meh

Overall, it seems pleasant enough. Despite the band claiming this is a concept album with a more industrial rock direction, Coldplay will always just sound like Coldplay. I don’t really think that’s a big problem for them since their sound has made them millions of fans worldwide. Would I listen to this regularly? Probably not. Would I be annoyed if someone I was in a car with decided to play this on a road trip somewhere? Probably not.

Dan Mangan: Nice Nice Very Nice Liner Note Review

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Wade in Albums, Everything | 1 Comment

I did something stupid this summer. I bought a CD. I know, crazy shit.

I picked up Dan Mangans’, now almost immortalized album, Nice Nice Very Nice (2008) at Backstreet Records in Fredericton. Since my parents’ car didn’t have a USB hub, I had to buy a CD to fill my hour long car trips to my grandparents house. I had heard most of the tracks on NNVN over the past three years and quite liked most of them, so I figured this was a safe way to spend $20.

The thing about CD’s is that they have liner notes and unless you actually buy one, you are missing out on this part of the musical experience that the artist intends you to have. Inside the CD jacket of Dan Mangans’ album, right above the lyrics, is a brief statement about each song. These comments, although short, are very charming and personal statements about the songwriter, the song, or life in general. I enjoyed reading them so much, I feel compelled to share some of them with you, my downloading mp3 friends.

Road Regrets – In March of 2007, driving from El Paso to Austin, I drank 64 ounces of cheap gas-station coffee in a day; it was disgusting.

Robots – My cell phone died and I went for five days without a mobile before a new one arrived in the mail. The first day was terrifying – the other four were glorious.

The Indie Queens Are Waiting – I don’t think I’m the only person who feels that waking at 10AM to the promise of eggs over-easy and a newspaper, good company and a general sense of wellbeing sounds like a good start to the workday.

Sold – I played a gig for an advertisement agency awards gala – they asked me to play some upbeat material, and this was all I had. It was a laugh/cry moment.

Fair Verona – ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is about many things, I think. Sure it’s about romance and love, but it’s also about the impending influence of history in the present, reputations, grudges and fear. People who ostracize those who wander outside the status quo often do so because they don’t have the cahones to be so bold.

Tina’s Glorious Comeback – One day, they tore down all the old rain-worn wooden bus shelters that visually defined, for me at least, the way Vancouver felt when I was a kid. It occurred to me that those bus stops, place every two blocks along every thoroughfare in the city, were like strategically scattered reminders of life on the west coast. They replaced them with futuristic looking metal bus stops with handles built into the benches so homeless people couldn’t use them to sleep on.

Et Les Mots Croises – There are many things my friends make fun of me for. One of them was the time I got screwed by Ebay – another is this song.

Set The Sails – Eventually, we’ll all turn off the televisions and hide in the woods.

For a listen to the new Dan Mangan album, Oh Fortune, head over to CBC3 for the podcast where Grant Lawrence talks to Dan about the album and plays it track for track.

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