Word: vocalsã
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Lead singer and songwriter Jamie Stewart arranges his music to prod and engage listeners. Underneath Stewart’s vocals??which alternatively whimper, sing, and shout—layers of instrumentation and programming juxtapose guitars, drums, a banjo, a cello, and synthesizers, among other noisemakers. “Apple for a Brain” is composed particularly with provocation in mind, its bouncing beats and chirping drums suddenly giving away after two minutes into what seems like a completely different song. This is far from an isolated example of the group disregarding musical conventions—just...
...tracks which best exemplify this change populate the middle of the album. The brilliant “Plan A” retains some of the catchy, endearing elements—anchored by lead singer Gareth’s nasal vocals??that made Los Campesinos! likeable to begin with, but channels them into a two-minute blast of chaotic noise; a mash of throat-straining screeches and crackling guitar. “Plan A” is a statement—this is not the same band that, only two years ago, winnowed their way into the hearts...
Though recent indie rock groups have relied heavily on the choral sound of multi-track vocals??Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, and Sufjan Stevens to name a few—none of them have done it quite as impressively as Bon Iver in “For Emma, Forever Ago,” the 2007 debut album written, performed, and produced by Wisconsinite Justin Vernon. Part of the success of the album was the stark and at-times haunting instrumentation that supported his hymnal voicing. In Vernon’s newest project, an entirely new musical setting from...
...would be appreciated.But like every seasoned pop band, the Thermals have a few gems to salvage from the wreck. The sloppy, manic “When We Were Alive” shakes with the same bracing fury—noisy riffs that fall like axe blows over gleefully deranged vocals??of earlier releases. “How We Fade” glimpses at those heights as it surges to a close, and in its valleys it remains a passably pretty stab at punk balladry. The album closer, “You Dissolve,” finds the band...
...radio noise and a computer-processed chorus. On “Graveyard Girl,” Gonzales resurrects the perfect moment of the music he reveres. The choruses are so sublimely immersed in living sonics—and balanced ingeniously against verses with little more than drums and vocals??that the transitions between the two are huge, bright, and explosive. The listener can’t help but cringe at the brief, shamelessly emo spoken-word digression of the Graveyard Girl herself, but it’s forgiven by the time “found sounds?...