Good luck trying to find this band on Google

When I wrote about Girls‘ performance at the Biltmore a few days ago, I mentioned that their best song was the singalong epic “Hellhole Ratrace.” The song is the first single from their upcoming debut album, the simply-titled Album, and the group recently shot a video for the tune. At seven minutes long, it’s not your typical radio single, but the song’s cinematic quality makes it perfect video fodder.

The clip depicts a dusk-till-dawn party, taking Girls and a group of friends around their hometown of San Francisco. Nothing much really happens—the action high point is when they steal a candy bar from a corner store. But the video uses some of the oldest tricks in the book—slow motion, lingering close-ups, lens flares—to great nostalgic effect. The video’s depiction of youthful abandon is the perfect accompaniment to the song’s seemingly endless refrain, “I don’t wanna die / Without shaking up a leg or two / Yeah, I wanna do some dancing too / So come, come on, come on, come on and dance with me.”

Beginning with sparse acoustic strumming and subtle atmospherics, the arrangement explodes about halfway through; fuzzy dream pop guitars take over, bringing the song to a blissful climax that’s sustained for over three minutes. Meanwhile, the video shows the band climbing up to a lookout over the city to watch the sunrise.

It’s a nice clip for a great song, so be sure to give it a watch (so long as you have a high tolerance for dude-on-dude kissing).

Album is due out September 22 via True Panther Sounds. The label will also release a 10″ single of “Hellhole Ratrace” on August 18. An mp3 download of the track is available below.

Download: “Hellhole Ratrace”

The soundtrack for your next “Disco Sucks” rally

The Novaks‘ debt to ’70s rock is so obvious, it feels a little silly even bothering to point it out. Almost everything on Things Fall Apart sounds like it was intended for Ford-era arenas: “Destroyer” features lumbering, Zeppelin-esque guitar riffs, while “Sometimes I Gotta Go Down” is a blues vamp that resembles late John Lennon. Meanwhile, the organ-drenched rocker “Under Those Wheels” sounds so much like Tom Petty that it could have probably been slotted into one of his albums and nobody would have noticed the difference. This is especially apparent because of singer Mick Davis’s nasal vocals, which sound near-identical to Petty’s.

Things Fall Apart is a fun listen, but at times it does feel a little like a pastiche. In that sense, the Newfoundland trio has more in common with Wolfmother or Jet than with actual ’70s rock. (But let’s give the Novaks their due—they’re infinitely less stupid than Jet.)

The best song on the album is the one that is least indebted to the ’70s: “There Goes the Night” is laced with daydream guitar licks and moody melodies that recall ’90s alt. rock. The lyrics display a biting wit not found elsewhere on the record, including a hilarious jab at “Some little shit with a picture phone.” It shows that there’s more to the Novaks than just a retro retread. And, so long as the Who are charging $100 a ticket for energy-sapped reunion tours, the Novaks are probably the better choice to fulfill your classic rock craving.

But band shot a video for “There Goes the Night,” although I must admit I’m not quite sure what the make of the weird underground art space/corporate/police raid storyline. Regardless, it looks pretty cool, and the song alone makes it worthwhile viewing.

Things Fall Apart is out now via Sonic Records.

Dave Longstreth: llama shepherd

I missed the first wave of hype for Dirty Projectors‘ new album, Bitte Orca; by the time I got around to listening to it, the internet was already flooded with rave reviews, so writing about how good it was seemed a little redundant. But I’m taking the opportunity to talk about it now because Projectors have released a video for lead single “Stillness Is the Move.” Like the rest of the album, the song mixes radio-friendly accessibility with bizarre genre-bending, combining a sexy funk groove with sped up guitar licks and Amber Coffman’s soaring RnB vocal runs. Orchestral swells take over in the final moment, bringing the tune to an elegant, baroque-tinged conclusion.

Given the song’s disorienting mish-mash of styles, it’s fitting that the video is equally baffling. Draped in a Mother Teresa-like white shawl, Coffman leads a dance routine in a clearing at the pinnacle of an island. Meanwhile, bandleader Dave Longstreth guides a llama through an evergreen forest. (What?) Despite its apparent inanity, it’s a captivating clip, with gorgeous scenery and some nifty camera work (lord knows how they pulled it off at the top of a small mountain). Coffman alone is worth the watch, as she delivers a charismatic performance with lots of extreme close-ups; the camera is so penetrating that it’s almost uncomfortable to watch (ala “Nothing Compares 2 U”), but her vulnerability is riveting.

Bitte Orca is out now via Domino.

I’ve been feeling weird, get over it

I’ve taken a gig as tour manager for a local band, meaning that I’ll be on tour for the next month. I plan on writing as much as possible while I’m on the road, but my updates are bound to be less consistent than usual. i’ll be back home on July 12, at which point I’ll resume my usual blogging routine.

In the meantime, enjoy this new video for “Over It” by Dinosaur Jr., the latest single from the group’s awesome new album Farm. The clip features the band members skateboarding and biking around town, setting an appropriately lazy summer vibe for the fuzzed-out tune and J. Mascis’s apathetic vocals. There are also plenty of gratifying wipeouts, which makes it well worth the watch.

Here come the “blow your mind” jokes

Although Grizzly Bear’s third album, Veckatimest, isn’t officially out until this Tuesday, a low quality rip leaked in early March, meaning that many fans have already had it in rotation for the better part of three months. Rather than taking the wind out of Grizzly Bear’s album release, however, the leak seems to have fuelled the hype, as the rave reviews are starting to pour in.

The Brooklyn quartet has released a video for the lead single “Two Weeks,” a fantastic chamber folk tune based around plinking piano chords and a soaring, Brian Wilson-evoking melody. Grizzly Bear uses harmonized vocal runs where other baroque pop bands would have used lavish strings, meaning that the song retains its humanity, despite the orchestral grandeur of the arrangement.

The group has shot a video for “Two Weeks” just in time for the Veckatimest release date. It begins with the four members sitting in a church, lip syncing and smiling creepily with blank expressions. Nothing happens for nearly half of the song’s four-minute runtime, until their faces gradually begin to glow. As the song reaches its crescendo, their heads explode in fireworks, with white sparks shooting out of the backs of their heads. It’s a strangely compelling clip, which is bound to illicit lots of bad jokes about “blowing your mind.”

Veckatimest is due out May 26 via Warp.

Being a good person takes a lot of energy

With futuristic synth lines and the ominously deadpan vocals of husband-and-wife duo of Seth Smith and Nancy Urich, Halifax’s Dog Day runs the risk of sounding like just another new wave throwback band, along the lines of Metric—and especially pertinent comparison since Urich bears a distinct vocal similarity to Emily Haines. But unlike the hyper-compressed glitz of bands like Black Kids or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (circa 2009, that is), Dog Day still have one foot in the garage. The guitars are raw and scuzzy and placed high in the mix, probably thanks to producer John Agnello, who also worked on recent albums by Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth.

These competing aesthetics are married perfectly in the lead single, “Happiness,” which begins with a spacey keyboard line and the unsettling ca-chunk of muted guitars. This soon explodes explodes into a vibrant chorus, with Smith’s vocals jumping from baritone to falsetto within the space of a single breath. “Wait It Out” is equally infectious, with handclaps and a sing-along chorus that’s as close as the band ever gets to sounding jaunty.

The album is only 11 songs long (totaling 45 minutes), but even at that length, the somberness becomes a little oppressive. There isn’t much in the way of sonic variety, and many of the lyrics read like self-help lists—”Do whatever you want / But don’t get carried away / Give whatever you gotta give / But don’t just throw it away” advises the chorus of “Youth of Destruction.” With instructional checklists such as this, it’s hard not to wish that Dog Day wouldn’t lighten the mood every once in a while. As a result, Concentration is album best enjoyed in small doses, and any one of these songs would fair well in a playlist.

The band also shot a charmingly retro video for “Happiness,” which features lots of ’80s-style green screen effects.

Concentration is out now via Outside/Black Mountain.

Searching for our spirit animals

It seems like only a few weeks ago that I wrote about a new Hey Ocean! video. Oh right, it was. Well, the Vancouver funk-folk outfit has released yet another new clip from its 2008 album It’s Easier to Be Somebody Else, this time for “Too Soon.”

In the video, the band plays in a wide, pillared hall with bright back-lighting and lots of sudden cuts. It doesn’t have the same candy-coated appeal of the MuchMore Top 10-cracking “A Song About California,” instead opting for art-house imagery, including tribal dancers, an anonymous painter, and a white-clad figure holding up lyrical cue cards. It’s a perfect fit for the song, with its hypnotically repetitive guitar riff and spiritually cryptic lyrics (“We sat there searching for / Our spirit animals / Mine appeared on the shore / We never once saw yours”). This ominous groove eventually gives way to a joyous chorus, with funky strumming at what sounds like djembe percussion.

Collected works

Today I’m preparing for an interview with the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, which I’m writing for next month’s BeatRoute. In the meantime, here’s a brief roundup of some recently published works:

I interviewed Apollo Ghosts for BeatRoute. I had a chance to ask them about their (awesome) debut LP, Hastings Sunrise, as well as their lounge rock roots and self-described “musical ADD.” Read the article here.

For this month’s Discorder, I reviewed the Reds‘ Early Nothing (here) and Clues‘ self-titled album (here). Clues sound a lot like the Unicorns, which makes sense since the group is fronted by Alden Penner. I also blogged about Clues last month.

And here’s something new for the day: the Streets released a new music video called “He’s Right Behind You, He’s Got Swine Flu.” Pandemic humour is always hilarious, especially when it involves zombies and excessive slapstick gore. It’s not exactly Beethoven, but you’ve got to admire the quick turnaround on this one.

You can slouch on the futon instead

I very rarely listen to hip-hop, which explains how I managed to go almost two years before hearing The Old Prince, the Polaris-nominated album by London, Ontario-based rapper Shad. But now that I have, I’ve become completely addicted to the single “The Old Prince Still Lives at Home.”

The song could scarcely be more different from the materialistic excess and hyper-masculine bravado of most mainstream rap. As the title suggests, it’s about living with your parents, and gives Shad the opportunity to offers plenty of money-saving tips: “Why’s a brother need a dentist? It’s expensive!” It’s laugh-out-loud hilarious, and pretty much every word is instantly quotable. It’s even kind of sweet, with Shad’s boasts about penny pinching tempered by self-deprecation: “Like students do, ‘cept I’m grown and it’s not dorms, so it’s a bit more pathetic—okay, a lot more.” The song finishes with an a cappella verse, after Shad claims that the royalties made the beat too expensive to use for the entire song.

The beat—before it’s cut off—is upbeat and funky, accented with keyboard blips and sampled horns. It sounds a bit like mainstream ’80s rap, evoking the feel good grooves of DJ Jazzy Jeff, so it’s only appropriate that the video is a recreation of the classic opening to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Shad plays the role of Will Smith, getting tossed around the basketball court and yelled at by his mom. It manages to be funny without needing to change much—they have some fun with the credits at the bottom of the screen, but it’s mostly a pretty faithful recreation.

The Old Prince was released in 2007 via Black Box Recordings.

A small victory

A few weeks ago, when I wrote about the Pains of Being Pure at Heart‘s new single, “Young Adult Friction,” I said “The tune has a hazy, nostalgic quality, so here’s hoping the band makes a sun-bleached Super-8 video to go along with it.” The video for “Young Adult Friction” was released today, and although it isn’t sun-bleached (since it takes place inside), it was shot with an old-school film camera, with washed out colours, missing frames, and plenty of weird flashed of light. So I’m going to claim a win on this one.

It’s a cool retro tune on an album full of cool retro tunes. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s sound is pure summer, with jangling guitars and warm, shoegaze harmonies—it keeps sounding better and better as the weather heats up, so I’m bound to keep raving about it for the next few months.

Check out the video here, courtesy of Pitchfork.

Download: “Young Adult Friction”