Tuesday

Album Review: City and Colour, Little Hell (for The Music Network)

01 June 2011
by Poppy Reid
In a day and age where synths and autotune are king, City and Colour has managed to redefine the concept of musician. Not for pioneering reasons or state of the art developments, but for heading back to lo-fi basics and offering a collection of songs that are both poetically and aurally honest.
For as good as predecessors, Bring Me Your Love and Sometimeswere, Little Hell embodies a giant leap forward for Dallas Green (who is wholly, City and Colour). Recorded entirely on analogue tape, each track laid down in just one take, without the luxury of an isobooth, the record emanates a profound energy that spills through and from each song. Green has sewn together an assemblage of 21st century revolt that will surely be unparalleled this year.
Album opener, We Found Each Other In The Dark delivers one calming hook of cadence after another. Setting the tone of vulnerability versus responsibility, Green’s honeyed voice flows effortlessly over the beachy guitars and simple keys.
Astonishingly, the next song and the rest of the album follows in this same line of quality. The burden of picking a standout track is only made a little lighter with Northern Wind; silky vocals, congruous percussion and even a hint of cello all melt harmoniously behind Green. Both lyrically and atmospherically, Northern Wind is Little Hell’s version of Bring Me Your Love’s The Girl. Women everywhere will fall more in love with Green for this track whist simultaneously hating his wife for being the muse.
Fragile Bird, also inspired by his wife, is still receiving Australian radio rotation after being picked up by Triple J in April. Green pushes his addictive trill into Alexisonfire territory, he sings of his wife’s night terrors over fusing blues guitars which reverberate through staccato keys and an open-aired tambourine beat.
O’Sister is Green’s way of coping with his sister’s mental illness before she overcame it herself. The lack of isobooths is perfect here with the sound of fingers sliding through every chord change and the wailing of Green’s voice which radiates with both worry and strength. It’s accessible blues; depressing yet catchy, isolating yet strangely calming.
The Grand Optimist in an ode to his father, Green still brings forward the same raw emotion felt across the whole record but this time he’s more assertive in his opinion, “this is not a cry for pity or for sympathy,” he sings.
Final track Hope For Now puts heavy onus on Green’s voice and poetry, swaggering guitars and drums take a backseat as he sums up his own little hell through subtle roars of self-deprecation.
In an interview with TMN, Green said of the track, “that song is about how no matter how many records I sell, no matter how many people come to my concerts or tell me that they like what I do, for some reason I still don’t have that much faith in myself. There’s a line in the chorus that goes: ‘how can I instil so much hope, but be left with none of my own.’ It’s a question I ask myself a lot.”
Little Hell is an album that’s impossible to grow out of. For a year that has brought us many gems already, it’s possible Dallas Green may have outdone them all.
Little Hell is out June 10 through Shock Records.

Monday

Live Review: The Dandy Warhols (for The Music Network)

30 May 2011
by Poppy Reid
Sunday May 2
Enmore Theatre, Sydney, NSW 
A squinty-eyed adolescent was apparently already “greening out” before The Dandy Warhols had even made it onto the Enmore Theatre stage last night.
Touted as one of the most enduring psych-rock bands of all time, the Oregon four-piece showed us why over an almost two hour set. It may have taken them a few tracks like Mohammed, Solid and We Used To Be Friends to warm up to us, but the crowd had their arms open and beers up on offer from the get go.
Frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor began the band’s breakout track,Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth looking vulnerable and poised with his legs squeezed together and his guitar resting upon his hip. As effeminate as that may describe him, Taylor-Taylor exudes sex, his refrained voice soon turned sour with a silky grit that wavered across light and shade throughout the 27-track performance.
After taking an iPhone picture of his view, Taylor-Taylor said, “Thanks you guys; I'm just gonna go ahead and turn that all the way off now.” Most ignored the hint, kept uploading to their various social media sites and shouted requests. The singer listened and seared into Cool As Kim Deal.
Almost as if the request was a bargain, the band then introduced the synth-heavy new track, Rest Your Head which will feature on their February 2012 release, This Machine.
Keyboardist, Zia McCabe was enchanting throughout, from her haunting whispers that introduced I Love You, to her slow tambourine taps that juxtaposed the manic strobe lights.
There were many highlight tracks, like Lou Weed where guitarist Peter Holmström played his strings with a violin bow and Taylor-Taylor confessed his love for the smell of marijuana emanating from the crowd; or All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey where the singer held his guitar up millimeters from a massive amp before swinging into a meaty but fleeting solo; or even during Fast Driving Rave-Upwhere three members of The Vines joined them on stage. But it wasLegend Of The Last Outlaw Truckers which impacted the most.
Perhaps because the band looked the most green in that moment; they interacted with a knowing excitement and played their instruments with the kind of fervency that comes when you know you’re onto something great.
“Okay, calm down,” said Taylor-Taylor once it was over.
In final track Country Leaver he sang, “I hope when I see you that you’ll still like who I am.” If after almost 17 years The Dandy Warhols can still pull a crowd as manic as Enmore Theatre’s with as many lifers for fans, then they can be certain we’ll all be back to hear the new record, and its successor… etc. etc.

Wednesday

Album Review: Moby, Destroyed (for The Music Network)

19 May 2011
by Poppy Reid
When you’ve suffered from insomnia from the age of four, it’s inevitable that you’ll find a creative outlet to qualm your active mind; or at least keep you occupied until daybreak.
Moby says in his 12th album’s liner notes that this record materialised during the ungodly hours of the morning, when most of the cities he found himself in were asleep.
Destroyed sounds more like a refined model created from 2009’s blueprint, Wait For Me. It takes the melancholy and sadness (which was only sprinkled through his 2009 record) and takes it one step further in this calming collection of ambient isolation.
Tracks like The Broken Places with its oceanic gushing, the lethargicBe The One and album explainer and first single, The Day all paint Moby as the polar opposite of his early work. 2008 record, Last Nightaimed to fill dancefloors and target the electro/dance market, this goes for most of his work before 1999’s multi-Platinum selling record, Play.
Moby may be endeavouring to re-create his Play era, even enlisting vocalists Joy Malcolm, Justin Kielty, Emily Zuzik and Inyang Bassey to share minimal (we don’t even hear Moby’s voice until six tracks in with The Day) but impressive lyrical additions.
As discerningly milieu as Destroyed is, there are slight tinges of electro-pop throughout; Blue Moon expels up-beat, laser-like synths over a subtle base of low humming and in the track After, Moby takes a trip to African-American territory, the results of which bounce with energetic spirituality.
Destroyed may be the product of a sleep disorder but for all its tranquil sonic healing, Moby seems content and ready to benefit from it.
Destroyed is out now through EMI

Monday

Live review: James Blunt (for The Music Network)

17 May 2011
by Poppy Reid
Monday May 16
The State Theatre, Sydney, NSW
There is no doubt James Blunt is an adorable performer; the British soft-rocker had an awkwardly confident air about him at Sydney’s State Theatre last night.
At first, this oxymoron could have been mistaken for stage jitters but from his catwalk down the theatre’s isle onto the stage to sing So Far Gone and right through his 20-song set, it became clear he wasn’t nervous, just a charming, graceless soul.
It has to be said that Blunt’s stage set was an elaborate surprise, 13 guitars including three acoustics were placed on and around the band’s box platforms which flashed moving digital images of city life, birds, trees and a dancing woman. Interestingly, Blunt’s band members all wore military style jackets; perhaps to remind us of his British army officer chops and that even dulcet toned cutie-pies can lead a regiment of soldiers.
During Wisemen, Blunt attempted to have eye-sex with a few audience members, “we’re in Sydney baby!” he yelled; his voice, his between-song banter poking fun at his music and his body language all seemed confident but his timidness shone through. During These Are The Words Blunt took to the piano and stood, rocking back and forth, creating a hilarious shadow for the crowd members whose minds were gutter-deep.
“C’mon, someone take your clothes off,” he joked. “You’re Australian. This was the highlight of my tour! I’ll play this song really good if someone hot just takes their top off.”
The crowd remained quite clothed but there were a few “I love you James,” shouts from the top balcony.
Goodbye My Lover was everything Sydney’s jilted lovers could have dreamed of. His timorous demeanour whilst sitting at the piano worked rather well here, giving the hit song a raw touch and awarded him a well-deserved standing ovation.
Final tracks You’re Beautiful, So Long, Jimmy and I’ll Be Your Manwere met by an upstanding and swaying crowd who seemed to inch closer to the stage with every chorus. His three-track encore was a mix of old and new with his Platinum-selling track, Stay The Nightsandwiched between Into The Dark and 1973.
As sad as the audience looked at the realisation it was over, the satisfaction after such an intimate set was more than enough to force them out the doors.

Sunday

Live review: A Day To Remember (for The Music Network)

16 May 2011
by Poppy Reid
A Day To Remember changed the season on Friday night and brought Luna Park’s Big Top to boiling point.
US Christian metal band, Underoath roused the crowd with an interesting set list that skipped a few popular tracks. However, with frontman Spencer Chamberlain whipping his long dreads with more vigour than Willow Smith in set closer Writing On The Walls, there was no doubt this six-piece delivered a passioniate and impressive set.
From opening track Sticks and Bricks, ADTR pulled out all the stops to create a wild celebration for their very first Australian headlining tour. The Florida quintet seared through an avid set which tipped its hat to all of their four albums; tracks like This Is The House That Doubt Built, All Signs Point To Lauderdale and Monument saw the punk band start a toilet paper fight, release beach balls and blow up the stage with erupting smoke during all the best screaming bits.
The crowd boasted some of the fiercest hardcore dancers I’ve ever seen; there were a few fly-kicks to the face and punches thrown in detrimental directions but the audience highlight was when one kid got down on all fours and a stream of crowd surfers ran at him to use his back as a spring board to surf the waiting sea of pumping fists.
“This is the heaviest song we have,” said frontman, Jeremy McKinnonbefore 2nd Sucks. “There is a shit load of people in this god damn room,” he said, almost mocking Underoath; we then created a mind-blowing circle pit.
For Homesick, a guy in a monkey suit came and shot at us with an ADTR T-shirt gun, and in final tracks You Should Have Killed Me When You Had The Chance and The Plot Bomb To Panhandle, balloons fell from a suspended net and McKinnon climbed inside a giant zorb ball and ran like a drunk hamster across the top of us.
The two-track encore included a clumsy but lovely If It Means A Lot To You on acoustic guitar and crowd favourite, The Downfall Of Us All, where McKinnon strummed the riff on guitarist Kevin Skaff’s guitar. The Florida boys basically had a massive party onstage, guitarist Joshua Woodard did a fair bit of skipping across the stage's back wall; the energy was higher than heaven, the crowd knew every single word and the night was a visual spread of fun and games.

Monday

Album review: Jennifer Lopez, Love? (for The Music Network)

10 May 2011
by Poppy Reid
Jennifer Lopez is a business woman. After wisely taking a spell following her 2007 release, Brave to have a family, the 41-year-old eased her way back into public consciousness as American Idol's newest judge last year. Her successful re-entry into the world of pop put her in that position to call upon some of America’s most storied songwriters and producers, such as RedOne, Lady Gaga, Taio Cruz, Lil Wayne, Pitbull and Tricky Stewart for her seventh full length, Love?
Lopez has saved the limelight for herself, in an effort to replicate the same R’n’B-pop she made her trademark over a decade ago. With just two tracks on the album to feature another artist, this certainly is'nt a guest-fuelled release, as is the fashion. Ironic, considering the album title, a lack of heart is what most holds this album back.
Album opener and first single On The Floor (featuring Pitbull) is sadly, the best she’s got on the record. This track is dance-pop at its most shallow but shouldn’t be stigmatised because of it. It’s fun, thought-free and catchy. In fact, many of the tracks follow this lead but often fall short, in part due to the high expectations foisted onto this album. If she hadn’t cut gems like Get Right, Play and Ain’t It Funny perhapsLove? would be more celebrated on this end. But with tracks likeGood Hit, I’m Into You and Run The World, that are heavily reliant on autotune and lyrics you just don’t expect (or want) from a 41-year-old, it’s just too unconvincing. Even the Lady Gaga composed trackHypnotico should have Lopez rethinking her artistic collaborations.
However, the track One Love inspires a sigh of relief; Lopez is acting her age with biographical lyrical content that is believable. Tellingly, this is the only track she penned herself.
Papi is more reminiscent of the Brave circa 2007 album when she discovered dance-pop, still with repetitive lyrics like “Move your body, dance for your Papi,” J.Lo again trips and falls flat.
Although each track may triumph in compositional terms, the collection just isn’t credible enough to be presented as an album. Rather this comes across as an idea, tone and voice that has been pumped through the marketing cogs and subsequently vomited out singles; singles which may have been hits had they been sung by a newcomer, rather than attached to the latest JLo project.
No doubt Love? will heat up wintery dance floors over the next few months with sugary dance-pop beats and untenanted lyrics, but at album number seven, one would have hoped Lopez would have either moved forward from themes more shallow than a shower or at the very least taken us back to the days of Jenny from the block.

Sunday

Live review: Maroon 5 (for The Music Network)

09 May 2011
by Poppy Reid
Friday May 6
Acer Arena, Sydney 
Maroon 5 are undoubtedly one of the biggest bands to come out of the U.S. With a string of hit singles and Grammy Awards honouring their three albums, it’s no wonder they’re now filling Australian arenas.
As the moniker hints, Maroon 5 are a five-piece act. However judging by the collective disappointment at the absence of side screens (that would have given the cheap seats a glimpse of fetching frontman Adam Levine), most were really just here for a perve.
Opening with Misery, the first single from their most recent album,Hands All Over, Levine destroyed my schoolgirl crush in one minute flat; he pranced from stage left to right and swivelled his lacking hips with what seemed like rehearsed Madonna-esque movements. Effeminate poise aside, Levine has an incredibly articulate and high reaching set of lungs that framed tracks like If I Never See Your Face Again, Harder To Breathe and Won’t Go Home Without You.
Maroon 5 showed their eclecticism in The Sun where they incorporated Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean before soaring into an impressive instrumental; bassist Michael Madden attempted a head bang with as much fervour as you can offer a Maroon 5 track.
“We've been around for a long time and it’s so incredible to see this support all the way from Australia. So from the bottom of our heart, our collective heart, thank you very much,” says Levine before new track,Never Gonna Leave This Bed.
“That one was G, this one is maybe PG 13 slash R,” he said. “It doesn't have any curse words, just sexual innuendo.”
Secret was a sonic treat, the band remixed the track acoustically withTina Turner’s What’s Love Got To Do With It and Al Green’s Lets Stay Together.
“The most important question for tonight is where the ladies at?” this comment almost made up for the body roll he felt necessary to snakes around his mic stand in the previous track. “Some of the smartest men in Australia are here tonight.” The singer then rejected a fans request for his shirt and instead gave her a bracelet given to him by a fan in Jakarta. “Don’t lose that fucken’ bracelet,” he said.
She Will Be Loved proved the best sing-along for the night, Levine hit the highest note with dexterity on his knees, before creating a questionable medley with the crowd.
Closing with tracks, Stutter and This Love, Levine got back on his knees and played his cordless guitar to a low amp, a fiend to the feed back; a sea of hands waved back and forth behind him.
Encore tracks Hands All Over and Makes Me Wonder showed the band's progression to a more electro-pop sound but it was the intelligently placed final track, Sunday Morning that the arena appreciated most and sang all the way out the arena's doors.

Justice Crew: Living Proof (for The Music Network)

09 May 2011
by Poppy Reid
For Paul ‘Paulie’ Merciadez, Justice Crew saved his life. Before teaming up with the eight other singing, dancing juggernauts, Merciadez wasn’t exactly a poster boy for temperance.
“As a kid I would say I was lost, I had no direction. I didn’t really know what I was doing with my life,” he recalls while on a Sydney train on his way to a Dolly Magazine photo shoot. “I was a bit of a naughty boy and it was hard to keep me in line, I had a lot of struggles and issues that I couldn’t deal with.”

Fortunately, at the age of 14, Merciadez was invited to attend a youth group where he started to learn the acrobatics that have now become his trademark. The youth group ignited a passion inside the now 20-year-old, and diverted his fast track to destruction to a rise to fame and brotherhood.
“If that youth group didn’t take me in, who knows where I’d be now,” he states bluntly.

Today, even before the release of a debut album, the troupe have garnered Australia- wide recognition; most notably by taking out the #1 spot on last year’s Australia’s Got Talent and signing with major label, Sony Music Entertainment. The band’s second single, Friday To Sunday peaked in the top 20 on the ARIA charts, with an Australian support tour with R ‘n’ B star, Chris Brown just wrapping up. “I had no idea that we were going to win, let alone release three singles and have our own tour coming up on the way,” Merciadez says, the shock still evident in his voice. “It’s unreal.”

Talented, celebrated and philanthropic, Australian audiences seem to want Justice Crew to succeed. Part of their $250,000 winnings went toward starting Justice Academy, a dance class the boys teach themselves three times a week in Sydney areas Miranda, Bankstown and Parramatta. Every three months all eight members hold fundraising events or take the kids on an outing; this project hits home for Merciadez in particular, as he sees himself in many of the kids he mentors.

“There’s one little boy, his names Isaiah, I’m close with him because I see a lot of myself in him. We’re just good friends, he texts me and says things like ‘I miss you and I’m sorry I couldn’t come to rehearsal,’ stuff like that.” Merciadez seems to gain just as much from the friendship. “I hope I can be a mentor to him and show him I’m living proof that he can do anything he sets his mind to, and that goes for all the kids.”

Although he’s open about his passion for the Academy, he’s tight-lipped about a Justice Crew headlining tour and what it will entail. Merciadez says he “can’t really reveal much” but did say he would like to use his acoustic guitar skills to record a few slower tracks; although he jokes when asked how exactly that will fit into their high-energy, dancing performance. “We can make some remixes and stuff like that, or maybe we can just take up contemporary dancing,” he laughs.

One rubbing point with some naysayers is that although they are clearly accomplished acrobats and dancers, Justice Crew seem to have little input in the music they release. In fact, Merciadez says he only pursued singing as a career after the opportunity was thrust upon him on Australia’s Got Talent.

“I never really strived for it, I never really thought I wanted [singing] to be something I wanted to be known for,” he says. “It was just a hobby and then out of nowhere I had the opportunity so I thought ‘why not’?”

Regardless of how suddenly pop stardom was thrust upon them, Justice Crew have more than stepped up to the musical plate, with a string of infectious singles and impressive live performances showcasing them as a genuinely talented young musical act. It’s early days for the group; as Merciadez says, for now he just hopes the Australian youth will take away the lessons he has learnt and prospered from.

“The main thing we want to teach is that things aren’t impossible, if you have a dream just go for it. It’s mainly the youth we want to inspire, the next generation,” he says. “If they believe in something then just go for it. Nothing comes without hard work but just if you work hard for what you believe in, things will happen.”

Monday

Album review: The Wombats, This Modern Glitch (for The Music Network)

02 May 2011
by Poppy Reid
Considering the four-year wait for This Modern Glitch, this sophomore effort isn’t a huge development from their debut, A Guide To Love, Loss And Desperation, and thankfully so. Just like its predecessor, the record will receive mixed reviews, yet opinions from either side of the spectrum should surely agree on this: although the sequel doesn’t push past The Wombats’ musical comforts, it does satiate four-years' worth of expectation.
Lead vocalist, Matthew Murphy delivers opening track, Our Perfect Disease with his trademark Liverpool accent in this fast-paced intelligent-pop track. It moves forward with the sound a few UK indie bands seem to be taking on, however this by no means should discredit the UK three-piece, as this upbeat new flavour is just the kick that indie’s sagging arse is in desperate need of.
First single, Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves) leaves you with the same feeling, as Murphy’s subtle vocals spin around electro drum beats that you can click your fingers to. Unfortunately, just when The Wombats were almost on a three-point winning streak, Jump Into The Fogthrows a spanner in the works with its repetitive chorus, formulaic pop structure and a random choir in the background, which should have been left at the alter.
The other let down track is Last Night I Dreamt, where the boys are so close to getting it right it hurts that little bit more when the broody guitars and vulnerable vocals are let down by a substandard chorus.
Conversely, simple chorus lines and lacking lyrics have and still do work in The Wombats favour, the track Girl/Fast Cars is a prime example; “I like girls, girls and fast cars,” Murphy sings. The trio may have not grown up yet but perhaps that’s precisely their point; this is merely album number two after all, and they have at least another few records in them before they are required to mature.
Although This Modern Glitch is a collection of ups and downs, each track (bar one) has a general essential feeling. Walking Disasters has ingested a fair amount of cheese lyrically; this teamed with the middle eight breakdown and ‘80s keys makes for a track which may have been better left out, but who would be satisfied with a nine-track album these days?
Album closer Schumacher The Champagne is a nice surprise and a gaudy finish for the record. “My teeth have never looked quite this yellow and my body never quite this fat. I'll pay well over the odds just to have some teenage abandoned [sic] back.”
The Wombats have offered punk rock’s mentality, indie’s nostalgia and pop’s catchy schtick in what is a hefty sophomore effort.
This Modern Glitch is out now through Warner Music