The Hickey Underworld - I'm Under the House, I'm Dying

This is all I've been listening to all week.
Since I got it, this album is the only thing I've really wanted to hear. And is that any surprise? In 2009, when Hickey released their self titled debut album, I was completely in the dark. It would be a year until a friend would give me a mix tape featuring "Blonde Fire", among other things, and I would search the Earth until I found the debut record on amazon and bought it for the low low price of twenty USD with overseas shipping.
Now, two years later, I've become even more familiar with music. In fact, since then, it's become a real hobby for me, and I blame that a lot on Hickey really opening up the world of music to me with that debut album. It made me want to go out and find more music, which I have
The Hickey Underworld, of course, are a Belgium rock act, and they won the Hugo Rock Rally in 2006, a competition in Belgium that happens every two years, made solely to exploit their huge underground garage rock scene.
Their newest effort is titled "I'm Under the House, I'm Dying", and I've been freaking for it since they announced it was coming back in December. Finally, I would have another set of songs just as catchy, as gritty, as downright magnificent as the first ten were. I had a hell of a time getting the album when it did eventually release, and maybe sometime I could get into that, but I'm so sick of talking about my little adventure these past few days: all you need to know is that I've got the album, I'm waiting for my LP to ship, I'm saving money for a copy of the CD for my car rides, and I'm shipping this shit HARD.
The new songs -there's eleven of them - are poppier, and they always have a more uplifting end in comparison to the old stuff, which ended in a depressing spot as often as not. Each track is rewarding in it's own way, from the opening "UNTITLED", which introduced us to the new guitar style that'll be demonstrated over the rest of the album - and along with tracks like "Thierry", "Space Barrio" and "Overfiend", "UNTITLED" is a sort of track that helps the fluency of the album. All of these tracks are shorter, quicker, fun, and they really keep the energy going for the bigger efforts, which might take more of your patience, such as "Cold Embrace" - a catchy riff and fast as fuck paced chaotic track surrounded by wind chimes - and "Martians Cave" - a haunting melodic track that actually manages to be the only real disappointment in that it doesn't ever rise to a huge climax like it has the potential to, but instead just fades out.
The real heavy hitters here are all fantastic. "Year of the Rat" is the track you put on when you're about to walk away from an explosion on the set of a Guy Ritchie film being shot. It just makes you feel like the coolest mother fucker. "Pure Hearts in Mud" has three different moods depending on your setting, and so you can listen to it three times as often. And, finally, the title track, "I'm Under the House, I'm Dying" pulls back zero punches - it blasts psychedelic riffs better than any of the other tracks, turns into a second song half way through, and manages itself well enough to be the grand finale Hickey's second effort deserves.
I want you to listen to this record, and when you're done and you love it, I want you to spend a lot of money paying for it. I really want you to support this artist the way I do. Maybe this review will help you understand how much love really is involved here. Get this shit and listen to it and fall for it. This is my current album of the year. There's not much chance of anything beating it.
Tier: 1 [Album of the Year Material]
[plays pretty for baby]

Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II

So, it's finally here. The second part to Earth's double LP, "Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light".
I'm not that familiar with Earth. I'm a huge fan of drone and doom and their predecessors, and I've heard "Earth 2", but that's about it.
What Earth have done with their sound though kind of surprises me. I've always held highly a group that could evolve with eachother and change their sound as they went - I figure them frontrunners of our time, musical pioneers. Earth aren't necessarily high up on my list of innovators, but they are on it.
They've managed to take these ghastly negative genres usually riddled with feedback, and they've turned it into something clean, atmospheric, wandering. This album gives you feelings, it puts you out in a setting. If you ever find yourself playing a Fallout game, this is the album to listen to.
the only thing that I'm really bugged by about "Angels" is that it comes a bit short of the first installment, at only a basic 45 minutes - but that's nothing to complain about. This is a full album, and each track is haunting, and western. And forward thinking.
Tier: 3 [Good Shit]
[heading out west?]

Pulled Apart by Horses - Tough Love

When Pulled Apart by Horses released their debut self titled LP in 2010 I missed them. However, plenty of friends compared them to The Blood Brothers, who have released some of my favorite albums ever.I don't really see the likeness on their sophomore LP, Tough Love, but that doesn't mean I don't like it. Pulled Apart by Horses don't have two screamers, and their one vocalist doesn't have a squeaky croon a la Johnny Whitney, nor does he have a buttery twiggy kid swag voice such as Jordan Blilie's. What he does have, however, is a strength which stands on it's own and in a unique way. I would even dare to say that Tom Hudson's chords are what dictate the overall sound of the band - the way they can take glam rock sort of pedals and effects and make it sound like something new from a genre that isn't very new at all. This is innovation.
And I appreciate it. These guys seem to be really down for getting on the ground and performing some real rock and roll, the way the kings made it. Classic techniques, formulas and all. And the catchiest parts of the album - the chorus to Epic Myth and the general being of Night of the Living - make this not only the first post hardcore release of the year, but the first album of 2012 that I find myself really moshing out too.
And Tough Love only tires when those dire cries and rockin' chords become a bit less various and a bit less filling - everything between Night of the Living and Degeneration Game could do with better hooks and maybe a revamp of sound and energy to keep the album going, to keep it fresh. Even then, though, the album finishes with a bang. I can see myself nine months down the road still rocking to this stuff.
Tier: 2 [Playlist]
[what does V.E.N.O.M. stand for, anyway?]

Burn Idols - Theodicy

Burn Idols are this hardcore band from Long Beach I guess. Theodicy is this album and it starts off with a great instrumental track. It's really calm and relaxes you. The atmosphere teetering along the edge in the background of the actual progression of music also kind of prepares you for the rest of the album - a fast paced screaming craziness that could be called hardcore, but could also bring you back to your first black metal album.
And that's the thing. Some of these songs are really short. Some are a decent length. None of them overstay their welcome. They're all chaotic apart from the opener, so when the second track starts you get surprise attacked at the bum. There are riffs sticking up around here that might also fit well on a stoner rock album, even. The influences here are from your favorite metal genres, but the overall sound is hardcore, and it really does rock.
Technically, Theodicy released late in 2011. So late, in fact, that I couldn't get to it then and it was promised to my 2012 chart. As most people who follow the year work, I consider December an interim of the year it belongs to and the year that follows it. Anything after the fifteenth or so is technically up for grabs in my opinion.
And I'm glad because Burn Idols' new album is one of those types that you can enjoy under half an hour and get on with what you were doing. It's also perfect if you ever want to tear apart a room or break something.
Tier: 4 [Can't Feel]
[future home wrecker]

Pop. 1280 - The Horror

Pop. 1280 are a relatively new noisy no-wave - and self proclaimed "cyberpunk" - band from New York, and this matters because one of my new favorite record labels, the very on the rise Sacred Bones Records, also hail from New York. In fact, Pop. 1280 are on that record label, and The Horror is their first long play release on that label.
The Horror is the sort of album that may catch you off guard, actually. My head was definitely spinning when opener "Burn the Worm" took the first few steps of the journey, and it didn't have me dizzied just because I had been listening to some extremely soft music just before.
Burn the Worm is abrasive. It's so loud that you might think to yourself that 1280 are a pretty messy band, but as you get further and further in you'll realize that these songs are technical. The songs are offset by electronic bass effects and melodies are often made by synthesizers. Everything about The Horror is mechanical in nature, and yet I can't help but feel as if I'm covered in dirt.
In fact, we've had this feeling before. Sort of. Do you remember it? It's actually called Filth, and it's a gem out of the early eighties by the legendary Michael Gira's Swans. The difference, however, is that Gira's voice has been taken out, replaced by someone younger and with more range, alongside electronic components, and, actually, somewhat less filthy lyrical subjects.
And because of these updates, The Horror might also tend to sound closer to a more modern Swans release - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky - instead of Filth. That it is constantly being compared to albums by the only popular no wave band is only a curse of the genre, however. Pop. 1280 stand well on their own, and their influences aren't nearly as strong as we might make them out to be. "Crime Time" and "Bodies in the Dunes" are entirely their own songs, entirely their own ideas. Damn good ones, at that.
I'm loving this album. It's the soundtrack to my afternoons, my jogs - though I don't dare try to sleep during it. It makes me dance and it makes me laugh and it makes me a bit disturbed. Top of my list so far.
Tier: 3 [Good Shit]
[sort of curious]

Foxy Shazam - The Church of Rock and Roll

So I'm going to be shortening reviews and putting albums up more often.
We'll start here, at Foxy Shazam's The Church of Rock and Roll.
Foxy have released three solid albums in the past, and as time has gone on, they've become less "Foxy Shazam" and more "Freddy Mercury". 2010's self titled LP, "Foxy Shazam" managed that perfect blend of Queen copy pasta, and it's own "secret sauce" sort of flavor. Tracks like "Killin' It" and "The Only Way to My Heart" gave, lyrically, a modern Freddy attitude, and by composition they were catchy, and fun. Some tracks were even more Queen than others.
Here, however, on Church, Foxy have forgotten their unique taste and have gone straight for the bottom of the barrel. I wouldn't be surprised if Eric Sean Nally traded in his freckles for an overbite, and knowing that makes me really depressed, because honestly expected something so much more from a group that aspired to be the best band in the world.
The opener, a title track with "Welcome" tacked onto the front (think Plastic Beach) is the catchiest, and most unique The Church of Rock and Roll actually gets - and it's only two minutes long. Many of the other songs - "I Like It", and "The Temple" - also take a few numbers out of Jimmy Page's book.
If you're a fan of Foxy, you'll either be disappointed or content. If you're a fan of Queen or Zeppelin - or any of the oldies, really - you'll either be offended or nostalgic.
Tier: 4 [Can't Feel]
[Hit me with your best shot]