San Diego, California's Pinback have been known to offer special tour released EPs over their career. Arrive Having Eaten was one of these EPs and it happened to be released during a 2003 tour. Pinback started out back in 1998 as a collaborative effort Armistead Burwell Smith IV and Rob Crow. I've mentioned Smith before in a previous post on another of his bands, Three Mile Pilot. Pinback had released their second full length album, Blue Screen Life in 2001 and one of the songs, "Seville", appears on this album in a slightly different version. "Anti-Hu" (a fan favorite over the years) appears here as well in a variation from the original which appeared as a B-side on the 2001 CD single, Penelope. There are only four songs on Arrive Having Eaten, but I would support all four being good and certainly something Pinback fans should check out. Those not familiar can expect indie rock with a unique bass sound and very smooth vocals, the duo simply play well off of each both instrumentally and vocally.
Pinback - "Hohum"
Sometimes it can be a little difficult picking out the guitar from bass on certain songs as Smith's playing although unique in regards to the sound he pulls from his bass guitar, is all over the fret board map at times. "Hohum" starts out with what sounds like both guitar and bass playing through each other as both Crow and Smith do wonderfully, and some simple drums setting a moderate beat. High-hat is opened during the vocal parts adding emphasis initially. Catch that little piano/keyboard break at about 0:43 in the song? Its a nice little preview for a return around the 1:37 mark were it acts to bring some charisma on top of a rolling guitar and drum part. The song is increasingly catchy at this point as the following lyrics are sung:
you forget I'm awake
I forget I'm awake
you forget I'm awake
I forget I'm awake
There is a break away from the drums that occurs before the final portion of the song. My favorite moment on the whole EP (though the intro to "Seville" is close second) is this little ending piece, both for the lyrics, "I want to breathe in blue", and the songwriting. It emotes elements of a rough seriousness yet also a softened exasperation.
You can find all of Pinback's available releases at their website and website store. I was lucky enough to catch them playing here in Cleveland about a year and half ago and I have to say their shows do not disappoint. They have a west coast tour planned for July, you can see the dates listed here at their myspace page.
No Man's Slave's recording spanned roughly five years before completion in 2000. This was because the instrument parts (drums and guitar) were completed in the Summer of '95, while the lead and back-up vocals weren't done until 2000 as the band had disbanded in '96. So this release was done posthumousness (like Tu-Pac!) and actually not fully available until 2002. Infest is, or at least should be, one of the most well known American hardcore bands. Their sound fits into the power-violence grand scheme of things (faster than fast music and hoarse vocals). Their lyrics are fairly straight forward, socio-politcal though often through a personal viewpoint. The recording on this album can be perceived as their cleanest though it is rough enough and fitting of the band's sound. Song lengths average under one minute per song, so you can get an idea of the pure thrash fury in short bursts. One of my favorite hardcore bands.
Infest - "Behind This Tongue"
Hey a Infest song that starts out relatively slow!. "Push me, test me, Bring out the best in me". These lyrics still have meaning to me to this day, even in their simplicity. Reframing opposition as simply a building block for the self through converting it into motivation.
Infest - "Terminal Nation"
And here's a relatively long Infest song (1:31). The principal thrash onslaught gives way to a rare instance of a slower, groovier riff, and of course the song swings back and closes at full speed.
Infest - "Contact"
I love the drum roll - vocal paring here, which flies in between open guitar chords and lots of high-hat and crash playing on the percussive end.
This 19 song album is only released on vinyl (12") as far as I know. You can purchase it over at Deep Six Records, for $10 in the U.S., a bit more for outside of the U.S. The "link within" widget down below should have a fun time pairing this up. I'd say check out my posts on Born Against, Man Afraid,, and to a lesser extent Assault, if you are into this stuff.
I was in Bela Dubby, which is a coffee shop type place here in Lakewood, the other day and this album was playing on their small stereo and found myself really honing in on each song. Between this album and their second album Loveless (1991), I had always leaned toward Loveless as my favorite. It took the shoegazing super distorted guitar sound up ten notches and really just stood out in my music collection because of it. But something really kicked in that day in Bela Dubby, as I heard these songs again for the first time in a long time. I'm finally giving this album a second thorough exploration these past few days.
My Bloody Valentine formed in Dublin, Ireland in the early 1980s, but during their long career only released two full length studio albums, amongst a number of EPs and singles. The band was composed of founding members Kevin Shields (guitar/vocals) and Colin Colm Ó Cíosóig (drums), along with Bilinda Butcher (guitar/vocals) and Debbie Googe (bass). Their sound on Isn't Anything (1988) was, as I mentioned above, less about distorted guitar and more traditional alternative/indie in sound, though a fair level of distortion and sound experimentation existed. The song structures tend to be simple, though variety exists thanks in part to the experimentation in sounds and occasional lead vocal switches between songs.
My Bloody Valentine - "Lose My Breath"
"Lose My Breath" gives example of a Bilinda Butcher led song. The pace is a wonderfully methodically slow plod during the sung lyrics. The breaks formed during the softly sung chorus part act as beautiful clearings amongst the darker portions surrounding. The percussion moves to a tom roll that though lost somewhat in the mix is really the difference maker in the pacing/tempo of the song. This is also an example of the simplicity of song structures that fit into the more introverted dazed feel of the shoegazing genre.
My Bloody Valentine - "[When You Wake] You're Still in A Dream"
Kevin Shields takes the lead on this catchy guitar and vocal driven song. The backing vocals soothe as they are sung behind Shields' smooth lead vocal delivery. They act similarly to the softly sung breaks in "Lose My Breath" as a juxtapose to the rough guitar driven instrumental parts of the song. Once again song structure is simple yet effective as the song length is relatively short.
The fifth song on the album, "No More Sorry", is a departure in structure and make-up from the remainder of the album's songs and appears to omit any percussive beat choosing to be more string instrument based. "All I Need" provides a peak into the type of guitar distortion and sound that would evolve into Loveless. "Sueisfine" is one of the more straight up catchier songs within, while "Nothing Much To Lose" stands out with it's extended drum rolls appearing around the song's mainline parts and could be judged as good as anything else on the album.
Friends Dave Brylawski (vocalist/guitarist) and Steve Popson (bassist) worked during the late 1980s in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to form what would later become of the more important 90's indie rock band's, Polvo. The band released four full length albums between '92 and '97 along with numerous singles and EPs, before disbanding in '98. It was a pleasant surprise that they reformed in the past year and released this album, In Prism, along with an upcoming European tour, which you can read more about at their myspace page.The music is influenced with Eastern and Middle-Eastern musical tints which appear at times in the percussion and guitar. The vocals are sung, while lyrically it can be out there at times. The recording is clean yet the low end packs a punch (see the third song, Beggar's Bowl, for an example). Musically, they fall into the post-punk/progressive rock arena, with a stronger leaning toward the prog-rock end of things on this album, but mostly avoiding the self-indulgence that sometimes plagues the genre. Though the song lengths aren't overly too long, they typically rest around the five and half mark with a couple songs reaching into the eight minute territory.
Polvo - "Right The Relation"
Single guitar layer is followed by second guitar, drums, and bass. Math-rock elements are evident in the writing here, but not overly disjointed or harsh. In fact the guitar parts, broken when they are, work extremely well to accent and add perfect little hooks over the rhythm. The vocals took me a little time to warm up to, but now I think they fit extremely well with the music, sung toward the higher end of things, clear yet powerful. There's a guitar led solo about half-way through the song that doesn't last all that long, before the main instrumental line returns with vocals. The second half of the song mirrors the first mostly, though it ends in a bit of a big finish fashion.
Polvo - "Lucia"
"Lucia" starts off softly, with reverbed guitars, light cymbal taps, and calming vocals. This lasts almost two minutes, before snare hits signal a crashing of drums and guitar, which briefly recedes only to return with the main line and chorus and wonderfully catchy guitar parts that play off of each other and end in cymbal accented crashing closure each time. The Eastern sounding hand played drums lead into an interesting middle portion of the song, that includes multiple instruments (sounds like violin/viola, maybe a sitar as well). Because of this interlude, the return of the chorus is even stronger, and those catchy guitar parts pack even more of a punch this time. The last forty seconds of the song returns to the softness of the beginning, trading in reverb for a clean guitar sound.
When Polvo decided to reunite for this album they also decided to do it on their first label (well in regards to LP releases), Merge Records. They are selling the cd and the flac and mp3 files for download through the Polvo site there. Its always interesting to see how well a band does after years of being apart, and away from each other. Its good to see that Polvo still has a knack for songwriting and avoiding staleness in their sound.
