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| Sadie
Hawkins - Up & At Them EP These Montreal kids are off to a great start. Tricky guitar parts, a good sense of melody, and the exuberance of youth make for a promising combo. Fans of Thursday, Braid, and Get Up Kids, check these guys out. Sahara Hotnights - Jennie Bomb Not that it's a competition, but...THESE FOUR SWEDISH GIRLS CAN WIPE THE FLOOR WITH THE HIVES, THE WHITE STRIPES, AND THE STROKES ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. Some of my favorite female rock vocals since Elastica are found on this record. Sick riffs, great melodies, fun songs. I've listened to this about 3 dozen times. It's getting ridiculous. |
Sharks
and Minnows - Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board The underdog album of 2001 - the pop sensibility and thoughtfulness of veterans wrapped in the bodies of rookies. Fans of Seam and Knapsack should definitely check these Atlanta kids out. The Sheila Divine - s/t EP This is a tough one. I don't know how to reckon the live performances that I've seen of this band with the versions of those songs that appear on this record. I can only guess that the producer missed his mark a bit and ended up not really harnessing the power of Aaron Perrino's voice or the sharpness of the instrumentation. The songs are great, however. The band sandwiches a song with some Thom Radiohead-ish wailing and falsetto work in between pairs of fierce tunes that recall the big rock/pop sound of the Frank and Walters and even fellow Bostonians Tugboat Annie. The best part about these songs is that they are pop songs without the usual excesses of recent excesses of pop bands. Just enough to get you hooked. (CherryDisc/Roadrunner Records) |
| The Scaries - wishing one last time This is awesome! A really great blend of sky-high melodies and riffs that will rock you. A bit of palm-muting keeps this tough enough to hold my attention. I love the cover of The Cure's "Pictures of You" as The Scaries have given the song some guts. Despite (or perhaps in spite of) a song on here called "Hate the Summer", this really is a great record for driving around with the windows down, thinking about that girl...you know...that girl you just broke up with. (Route 14 Records) The Scott Farkus Affair - Sorrows Learn to Swim Tight stuff here. Great bass lines that weave in and out and around the guitars a la Hot Water Music. I think any fan of HWM, Grade, The Enkindels, Seaweed, Quicksand, or Fugazi would like this as much as I do. (Opulence! Records/Ambiguous City! Records) |
The
Sheila Divine - New Parade Wow! Slick look...great photos and layout work by Jon Sulkow of Tugboat Annie. Big sound. The bespectacled Boston boys take it up a notch with their promotion to the Major League. Going for an even-bigger sound than on their demo/debut EP last year (all 5 songs appear here, some reworked, some not), they take their choruses to stadium-size heights. On most of the tracks it works great, evoking that same feeling that I get when I listen to my Glass Tiger and Outfield albums. The new version of "Like a Criminal" seems a little overproduced, but I understand the attempt to make that chord hit you like a brick as Radiohead did in "Creep." But this is a good'un, well-paced, and bound to be a recurring ficture on my stereo... (Roadrunner Records) The Shyness Clinic - Sea of Redlights Sleepytime rock from Boston. All in all, a well-thought out and executed album. The tone of the album rises and falls only to rise and fall once more. My favorite is "Living Museum" which has a couple different parts that work surprisingly well together. A must for Christie Front Drive fans. (Espo Records) |
| Seam - The Pace is Glacial First off, let me say that I've been waiting for this for a long time, about 3 years or so. I wouldn't be surprised if the title was a reference to their own pace of releasing records. I also won't dwell on it. This is a great record if only for the first two songs. "Get Higher" in particular is pure brilliance, with some of their poppiest and most vicious moments combined to a jaw-dropping effect. In fact, just about the entire album has that effect on me, for its combination of pop sounds with lyrics of great depth, the words of a man not afraid to take life's licks, but not willing to gloss over the pain either. (Touch and Go) Cecil Seaskull - whoever The story goes like this: Ms. Seaskull, along with an bunch of fellow Montrealers, used to be Nerdy Girl. She wrote some great pop songs as Nerdy Girl. Two years ago, she moved to Los Angeles, for some reason. On this, her latest, she teams up with a bunch of people you may know to record some songs that are equally catchy. Tim Armstrong on Rancid plays some minimalist guitar with Cecil while Rufus Wainwright sings some back-up vocals on "la song." Melissa Auf Der Maur (Smashing Pumpkins, ex-Hole) contributes some wispy vocals that make you wonder if Hole would sound like Slowdive if they kicked that Courtney person out. Pop for the forlorn. (Teenage USA) |
Silver Scooter - s/t I swore by their The Other Palm Springs record when it came out...that and a song called "Hearts and Stars" that they had on a KXLU-FM compilation (which singer/guitarist Scott Garred does on one of his solo Super XX Man cassettes, which are also excellent). Sweet pop songs with all these slightly rough edges to keep your interest throughout. Lately, the Silver Scooter sound has become a bit more polished. And I believe that it's to the detriment of their records. It started with their last album, Orleans Parish, and it continues with this EP. The songs are still good, mind you, but they're not great and it hurts me to say this about a band I care about deeply. It may be worth it for you to check this out just so that you can hear their cover of New Order's "Run" (which comes off more like Joy Division), but I wouldn't...All those unpolished edges were what made Silver Scooter different than the Elephant Sixers...and much more interesting. (Peek-a-Boo Records) Sixty Stories/Painted Thin - split CD Sixty Stories play mellow rock boring melodies, off-key vocals; Painted Thin are sadly no more, because they play some cool rock tunes that would find some fans among the Cursive, Thursday, and Strike Anywhere fans. |
| Seaweed - Actions and Indications If you thought these guys were done, you weren't the only one. Apparently Hollywood Records was among the non-believers. And obviously the years were well spent figuring out how to write their best album yet (and that's a tall order after Spanaway). "Antilyrical" and "Hard Times" alone are worth the price of admission, but a cover of Joy Division's "Warsaw"?? "Pretty big rock, think you can lift it?" These guys prove that they can rock with the best of the. The lyrics are downright beautiful; the words of a man that's seen the roughest of days and walked through to the other side. Inspiring. And now they've gone and broken up once again. Sigh. (Merge) Secession Movement - Academic They're tricky like Shudder to Think, Braid, and Sweep the Leg Johnny (without the sax) but with a pretty upbeat feel...very cool. |
Six Going on Seven/Hot Water Music - split 7" "I believe that there is more to life than just living"- HWM One great song from each; how can you go wrong with these two? Six Going on Seven, soon to be rivaling The Cars as the best band from Boston ever (okay, so that was just fun to write)., contributes a mid to fast temp rocker, that includes some great lyrics. Hot Water Music contributes a song that could've ended the last album. (Some Records) The Sixth Great Lake/The Essex Green - split 7" The various members of Ladybug Transistor and Guppyboy have taken on two more band names to differentiate the songs that the different band members write. To further compound the situation, each of the three songs on this 7" are sung by different members. Like the other monikers, these two bands feature talented songwriting skills of the members in their ever-impressive effort to keep alive the feel of 1960's pop music. Apparently the next release by these folks will be on the Elephant 6 label, the home of lots of other bands that think Brian Wilson is God. (Sudden Shame Records) |
| Sense
Field - part of the deal EP MIA for three years (since Building, a great album even now), Sense Field are back with five songs, two of which will appear on their new full-length. Color me impressed! The slow songs are tender without being cheesy. The louder songs are even better. (grapeOS) Shake Ray Turbine - the sauce of solution Airy sounding blips and beeps bleed into an Into Another-ish bassline while syncopated guitar lines weave in and out of each other drawing you in. Then the rock kicks in. Well thought-out rock that fans of Drive Like Jehu, The Trans Megetti, Shipping News, the tougher Chavez songs, and maybe even Error Type:11 will like. Thinkers, these kids. (File 13) |
The Skywriters - s/t A five-song EP that effectively shows off the bouncy and catchy pop of these Phillie kids. Singer Rose Bochansky has a very pleasant, kindergarten teacher feel to her voice and it sounds great with the frolicking music being played. Kind of reminds me of Go Sailor a bit. My one complaint is with the male vocals; they need to be removed from future efforts or at least tell the guy to blow his nose. Otherwise a treat. (Brentwood Estates) Slight Return - You are Not Our Demographic These guys are more pop than rock, but damn, do they have some good songs! They're like Hey Mercedes meet Wheat, if you can buy that. Very cool. MORE S REVIEWS |
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