After even a few days in Scotland, beautiful as it is, it’s easy to see why, like no where else on earth, doom and gloom is inherent in the fabric of anything created within the kingdom’s boundaries. Just survey the bands from Glasgow alone to test this theory: the storm and stress of Mogwai, the decrepit pub mutterings of Arab Strap, and the loser-luck indie of Frightened Rabbit. Even Snow Patrol, for all their stadium-expanded vanilla sweetness, seem covered in a shroud of melancholy more often than not. If those bands wallow in certain aspects of the city’s scraggly, hungover temperament, than in the course of two albums, the Twilight Sad have sought to encompass the entirety of what it means to be Glaswegian.

Forget the Night Ahead, the band’s sophomore album, says it all in the record’s title, and with that intentional stance to live within the moment, they’ve bottled up the romantic notion of elegance through stoicism exuded throughout Glasgow’s darkly passionate streets. Of course to fully grasp the drama of Forget the Night Ahead, the listener will have to contend with the curt sophisticate of James Graham’s thick Scottish accent and the rest of his band’s penchant for a fairly glossy sonic sameness from beginning to end. Still once that sometimes impenetrable shell is breached, songs like first single “I Became a Prostitute” soar well below the ceiling of impending rainclouds, boiling in constant waves of mutilation, but never quite breaking through the thick veneer. There lies the struggle. “Interrupted” might meander as late-album filler, but is really a confident pop song displaying the Twilight Sad’s mass appeal, even with lines like “feed you to the dogs” revealing the ugly. Underneath the tidy, proper exterior of “Seven Years of Letters” tartan clashes of guitar maculate any hopes for mainstream salvation, and in reality, the quartet is all the better for such a tense and brooding backbone. While not exactly easy listening, especially given the second half’s spiral into desolation, Forget the Night Ahead is filled with a euphoric rush just smart enough not to show much joy.
Kevin J. Elliott

After a couple of albums wildly successful for their sense of theatrics and use of innuendo, 2006’s Awoo and, in particular, 2004’s Mississauga Goddam, the Hidden Cameras have seemingly scaled back their scope for their fourth and latest record, Origin: Orphan. Scaled back because the album seems neither as grand nor as manic as its predecessors, though songwriter Joel Gibb’s pop knack hasn’t dissipated in the least.

On “In the NA” the band comes close to repeating past glories, its syllabic refrain not unlike “I Want Another Enema” from Mississauga, though its keyboard squelch is more than a little more confectional than that record’s instrumentation. And while tracks like “He Falls to Me” and “Kingdom Come” also work within a similar MO as the Camera’s previous work, none utilize the same scale. Instead, Gibb seems content with using the tools of a traditional band, and it’s hard not be a little disappointed, as this makes the Hidden Cameras seem ordinary for the first time, and the simplistic “Underage” and “The Little Bit” somehow beneath them. But with the splendour found on songs like “Colour of Man,” Gibb’s pop charms eventually have their way, and the album, though smaller proportionately, turns out to be still big on kicks.
Stephen Slaybaugh

Why’s fantastic 2008 album, Alopecia, was perhaps the most successful marriage between hip-hop and indie rock since the Beta Band’s Hot Shots II. And I’m not talking about “indie rap,” as in the title sometimes bestowed upon acts like the inestimable Def Jux crew. No, Alopecia features tracks that would sound right at home on a Paste magazine mixtape, if not for lead singer Yoni Wolf’s intermittent rapping. If the sound of that makes you cringe, keep in mind that Wolf comes from a legitimate hip-hop background that includes a membership card with the Anticon Collective, as well as a stint with critically hailed group cLOUDDEAD.

Now, if you’re still not firing up your internet to download Wolf’s entire discography, then Eskimo Snow is probably the Why? record for you. On this impressive follow-up to Alopecia, the frontman eschews all of his predilections for hip-hop in favor of more conventional indie rock singing. Wolf possesses the agreeably nasal tones of They Might Be Giants’ John Flansburgh or Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch, with the former’s strange sense of humor and the latter’s capacity for doom and gloom. (This combination of both qualities is apparent in song titles like “Berkeley By Hearseback.”)

Meanwhile, Wolf’s lyrics are cryptic but not undecipherable. On “Against Me,” to illustrate the painful memory of a former lover who’s moved away, Wolf sings, “I see the rain does not respect state lines, why should you?” And later in the song, he sees “pissing boy fountain statues,” which cause him to imagine lightning striking water and traveling up his “piss stream,” as if to eradicate the need to spread his seed along with the frustration that accompanies those carnal desires. In this song and others, Wolf accomplishes the Herculean task of actually crafting a compelling stream-of-consciousness narrative, and not just listing random images that happen to sound cool together.

The songs on Eskimo Snow are outtakes from the Alopecia recording sessions. But as was the case with Radiohead’s Amnesiac in respect to Kid A, this collection of “lesser” tracks only stands as a testament to the brilliance of its predecessor. That Eskimo Snow is, in Wolf’s own words, “the least hip-hop thing (he’s) ever done” does make it less eclectic and varied than some of his previous work. But the hip-hop influence was never the most striking quality of Why’s albums. Rather, it’s Wolf’s troubled and idiosyncratic psyche that keeps us coming back, and here it is once again vibrantly rendered for the listener.
David Holmes

MP3: “The Blackest Purse”

Whether or not San Francisco’s Girls debut Album will be lauded as a generational watermark, or even one of 2009’s best, is truly besides the point (though both are certainly possibilities), simply because Girls, though cherry-picking through all that’s good and wholesome from the past five decades of power-pop music, exist in a ephemeral moment. Were Album time-capsuled and opened up in the year 2050, it would likely baffle scientists. But those alive who once found the songs of Christopher Brown magnetically endearing would likely faint from the whiff of nostalgia. Album is effortless music to say the least, of a particularly scene (San Francisco) and a particular season (summer), and that lack of trying too hard becomes universal enough to connect with anyone, at any time. All of Brown’s illusions to weed, women, and suntanned rock & roll seem to never relent, showing a band that rarely lacks in thematic focus even when the songwriting lacks substance.

If there’s eventually a trend of classic-sounding bands making classic-sounding, hi-fidelity music then Girls could likely be the spokespersons. With the grand and bloated schmaltz of Spiritualized on “Hellhole Ratrace” and the teen rebellion greaser’s shuffle of “Big Bad Motherfucker” among the prom ballads and surfing safaris that compose Album, Girls distance themselves from any bedroom-recorded contingent by stretching bridges with virtuosic chops and spacing out with arena-sized scope. While that may be a change of pace, the over-saturated, sweet and glossy, nearly huckster homogenous mock of pop (in all its forms) can get a bit too cheeky in large doses. Girls really prove their worth in singles. True, Album is sunny and weightless, a record to put on in the background and to forget about tomorrow. The real value of Girls comes in the awkward crevices of Brown’s writing. Be it the spectral campfire folk of “God Damned” or the soft-rock creep in “Headache,” combining these much darker moments with obsessing over jukebox glamour could very well be Girls’ golden ticket.
Kevin J. Elliott
MP3: “Lust for Life”