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Indie Basement (6/2): the week in classic indie, college rock, and more

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It’s only the second day of June and things are already jumping. Reviews this week include two Indie Basement all-timers, Protomartyr and Baxter Dury, plus we’ve got records from Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters), RVGBeach Fossils, Juan Wauters and Lanterns on the Lake.

Meanwhile, Andrew reviews new albums from Foo Fighters, Bully, Rancid and more in Notable Releases. You can also catch up on last month with the Indie Basement Best Songs & Albums of May roundup.

A reminder to visit the Indie Basement corner of the BV Shop that is full of great records, hand selected by yours truly, including our exclusive, limited edition color vinyl variant of Alvvays’ debut album, our exclusive, limited edition swirled vinyl edition of Thee Oh Sees’ Live at Levitation, an autographed Don Letts single, and lots more.

Head below for this week’s reviews.

attachment-Protomartyr - Formal Growth In The Desert - Cover Artwork

Protomartyr – Formal Growth in the Desert (Domino)
A happy Protomartyr record? Almost but it’s definitely a great one

Protomartyr’s fifth album, Ultimate Success Today, came out in the summer of 2020 and its themes of death and disease felt like a prescient warning delivered a couple months too late. Between the election, Black Live Matter and other civil unrest, not to mention a number of personal tragedies, Protomartyr asked themselves “What are we doing?” Frontman Joe Casey didn’t write lyrics or listen to music for a year, guitarist Greg Ahee was similarly uninspired, and the Detroit band came this close to breaking up.

Ultimately, the pandemic allowed Protomartyr to reset. Guitarist Greg Ahee scored a couple short films which reignited his creativity and he started writing songs again. The dumpster fire of the last three years also proved too ripe a source for Casey to keep down his pen. The band decamped last year to Sonic Ranch in El Paso, with Ahee enlisting pedal steel player William Radcliffe on nearly every song.

For those who listened to Ultimate Success Today and thought “if this was made before the pandemic, what will a record made during it be like?,” the answer is “pretty great.” Formal Growth in the Desert is Protomartyr’s best record since Under Cover of Official Right. The whole band seems energized and locked-in, and where Success felt unrelenting and bleak (some would say that’s Protomartyr’s thing on all records), here are they empowering. Casey hasn’t lightened up, per se, but he doesn’t sound quite as defeated.

A couple themes emerge: the burden of the past (and the dangers of nostalgia), and corporations / the wealthy sticking it to us while laughing. As to the former, you hear it on the album’s one-two-punch opening salvo of “Make Way” and “For Tomorrow” which together are a nod to Leo McCarey’s heartbreaking 1937 film Make Way for Tomorrow. Then there’s the razor-sharp “Fun in Hi Skool” which, to borrow of phrase from Tony Soprano, is how “‘Remember When’ is the lowest form of conversation.” When Casey seethes, “At least you had fun in hi-skool,” his voice fades into echo, like a specter whispering horrific truths in your dreams before you wake up startled.

As for those corporations, there’s “Tip the Creator,” which wickedly lampoons tech billionaires, in particular Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse; and “3800 Tigers,” where Casey notes there are only 3800 tigers in this world but “there’s far too many of you,” while working in a few Detroit Tigers baseball references, too. It’s clever stuff. Casey drops in a lot of humor throughout, actually, though you might have to google some phrases to get the joke. Much like with Bill Hader on the final season of Barry, what he sees as funny may play as pure horror to many audiences.

Greg Ahee, the band’s sonic architect, does amazing work on these songs, building atmospheres with guitars, synthesizers and pedal steel that contrast/compliment Casey’s vocals, and the addition of pedal steel makes things all the more cinematic without falling into spaghetti western cliche. The album is also expertly sequenced, taking us from despair to hope with some wonderful transitions, like when Alex Leonard’s precision drumming on “Fun in Hi Skool” kicks in as the final chord in “Elimination Dances” fades.

The album ends in brand new territory for Protomartyr: a genuine love song, “Rain Garden.” (Casey just got married, congrats to the happy couple!) One of the most musically ambitious things the band have ever recorded, Casey lays himself bare, singing “Make way for my love,” and bringing the album full circle. Last year Casey described the Formal Growth in the Desert as “A happy Protomartyr record, just as we slide into nuclear war? I’m the king of bad timing.” I wouldn’t call it a “happy” album, but it’s certainly a great one.

We talked to Greg Ahee about the musical influences behind Formal Growth in the Desert and you can read that here.

Baxter Dury - I Thought I Was Better Than You

ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: Baxter Dury – I Thought I Was Better Than You (Heavenly)
Baxter Dury grapples with his childhood and famous father while adding elements of hip hop to his established sound on his excellent seventh album

After three albums where he memorably played a variety of louche, seedy characters, Baxter Dury has turned the lens on himself for his seventh full-length LP. Back in 2021 he released his terrific memoir Chaise Longue, and clearly had a lot more to say on his youth spent as “the son of a famous working class poet.” (That would be Ian Dury who put Baxter on the cover of his classic 1977 album New Boots and Panties.) He’s still playing a character here, but this time it’s himself 40 years ago.

While he’s still working within his self-described style of “narrative-based, blokey, indie type talk music” — including his mastery of casual, flowery British slang and creative swearing — I Thought I Was Better Than You is a much more focused, inspired, and better record than 2020’s Night Chancers. Part of that is the subject matter but it’s also the melodies and music; the album was produced by Paul White who has previously worked with Danny Brown, Charli XCX, and Sudan Archives. Bringing a hip hop sensibility on songs like “Celebrate Me,” “Crowded Room,” and “Aylesbury Boy” is like a missing piece from Baxter’s wardrobe that now completes the look. There are still elements of dub, “indie guitar,” and drippy strings, along with the invaluable work of vocalists Madeline Heart,  Eska and JGrrey who serve as counterpoint narrators to these vivid tales of schoolyard fights, petty larceny and a famous dad who was on tour a lot.

Baxter’s words, and unique London elocution, are still the star of the show though. He can turn a “yeah” into a full, filthy sentence as it rolls around in his mouth on “Aylesbury Boy,” and comes up with amazing one-liners, like describing himself as “a really budget nepo-baby.” The album’s most striking song is “Shadow,” which is a litany of criticism that folks have lobbed at Baxter over the years, most of which is sung by a chorus who sound like they were pulled out of the 1940s: “They say you’re a modern Gainsbourg / Out of tune and absurd / But no one will get over that you’re someone’s son / Even though you want to be like Frank Ocean / But you don’t sound like him, you sound just like lan.” His retorts are set against a ’90s hip hop beat, but no one else would ever make anything that sounds like this.

Baxter may never fully escape that shadow — or get arrested in America — but 20 years into his career, Baxter Dury has developed a sound that may echo of the past but is entirely his own.

Baxter told us about the influences behind the album — read that here.

noel gallagher - Council Skies

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Council Skies (Sour Mash Records)
Who needs Oasis? Noel Gallagher is doing great on his own on his fourth High Flying Birds album

Despite basically the whole world — his brother and Matty Healy among the most vocal — begging for an Oasis reunion, Noel Gallagher wants none of it.* “If Oasis hadn’t fulfilled its potential, I might have a different attitude towards it,” he told SPIN. “But as Oasis did everything it set out to do and more. I don’t see the point. It was a moment in time and if you missed it, tough shit. I missed the Sex Pistols and I’ve managed to get over that. So, people should get over it.”

Noel Gallagher’s greatest talent is as a quote machine that always pays out gold, but he remains a pretty great songwriter, and as long as he’s making records as terrific as Council Skies (and still playing some oldies live), I’m totally OK with Oasis never getting back together. He may still be quick with an insult, but musically he has mellowed wonderfully and for the most part he’s traded in his Les Paul and Marshall stacks in favor of an acoustic guitar and a string section. He’s always had a great voice — watch Oasis’ MTV Unplugged — and while his delivery has less attitude and swagger than his brother’s, it’s prettier and sounds at home in these 12 lush songs. Tracks like the wonderful “Dead to the World,” chiming “Open the Door, See What You Find,” and the conga-and-vibraphone-driven title track are closer to Burt Bacharach than The Beatles or The Who, but are no less potent widescreen anthems.  People may just want Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and nothing else, but Gallagher is still delivering the goods.

* Noel protests too much, he will probably cave at some point before he hits 60.

-Jake Shears_LastManDancing_COVER

Jake Shears – Last Man Dancing (Mute)
The Scissor Sisters frontman still has a stash of magic pixie disco dust that he sprinkles all over his second solo LP that features Kylie Minogue, Iggy Pop and more

What a year for disco! Jessie Ware dropped the awesome That! Feels Good! earlier this year, we’ve got great new albums from Roisin Murphy and Girl Ray on the way, and here’s Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears throwing his hat into the ring. His old band’s debut album, which turns 20 this year (whoa), was born of Giuliani’s cabaret license war on nightlife and the electroclash scene that they suavely swerved out of, and a similar sense of purpose is at the heart of this one which Shears calls “my ultimate house party.” It’s also loaded with guests, including Kylie Minogue, Big Freedia, Le Chev, and Amber Martin, plus cameos from Iggy Pop (!) and Jane Fonda (!!).

It’s also the best thing Shears has done since that first Scissor Sisters album (though I have time for the second and third LPs, too), and feels like a concerted effort to get back into that jubilant feeling. He’s still got some of that Scissor Sisters magic pixie disco dust, too, which is sprinkled all over Last Man Dancing, an album that also feels like a bid to reclaim the throne. Shears comes out swinging with “Too Much Music,” a swirling dancefloor creation that owes a little to Vicki Sue Robinson’s “Turn the Beat Around” and finds Shears’ ability to conjure Barry Gibb still in full force. Across two distinct halves — Side 1 is all bangers; Side 2 is more cinematic, flowing and psychedelic — the album goes from classic disco, to Giorgio Moroder electro, house, and beyond.

The guest stars are all well used and fit right into the party planet Jake has created: Kylie Minogue duets on the sparking tech-house anthem “Voices”;  Big Freedia brings her distinctive voice to electro-jam “Doses”; and Amber Martin belts it out in a role that might’ve once gone to Ana Matronic on “Devil Came Down the Dance Floor.” (As for Iggy Pop and Jane Fonda, they look good on the hype sticker, but don’t add a lot here.) The producers, including Le Chev, Alexander Ridha (aka Boys Noize), Ryland Blackinton (Cobra Starship) and Vaughn Oliver (Latto’s “Big Energy”), are not trying to make Jake relevant to the 2023 streaming algorithm; they are are helping him realize his vision. Shears may have left New York for London, but his hedonistic spirit — and way with dance music — are very much alive.

RVG_BrainWorms_FrontBackCovers

RVG – Brain Worms (Fire)
This Australian band remain fiery and strident on LP#3

Romy Vager, the RV to her G(roup), is still flying the flag for “80s-style alt-rock and heart-on-sleeve, exposed nerve lyrics on the band’s third album. “I just sound insane / when I try to explain / to the lady on the aeroplane trying hard to look away,” she sings of Brain Worms‘ fierce title track, a visceral look at mental health that is not without (pitch black) humor, also part of RVG’s distinctive sound. What really makes this band work, in addition to the very catchy songs, is the conviction that Vager and the rest of the group bring to these songs. “Common Ground,” “It’s Not Easy,” and “Midnight Sun” are as strummy as they get, but you can tell that everyone is playing loud, with Vager’s impassioned voice leading the charge. “If we could only make one more album, it would be this one,” says Vager, and while we hope there are more, that all-or-nothing vigor travels through the speakers.

Beach Fossils, Bunny

Beach Fossils – Bunny (Bayonet)
First album in six years finds this Brooklyn band charting a very mellow course

Beach Fossils began life in the late-’00s with such a specific sound — intertwining, hyperactive guitars and bass, driving drums, majorly processed vocals — it’s interesting to hear how they’ve evolved over the last decade and a half into a much more chill band. Much like 2017’s underrated Somersault, their first album since that one is the epitome of breezy, all-vibes indie. Guitars shimmer over mid-tempo beats, basslines drive the melodies, and vocals are sung at a level that sounds conscious of neighbors. Bunny doesn’t have anything as immediate as Somersault‘s “Sugar,” but these 11 songs are still sweet and go down very smooth, like “Run to the Moon” which owes just a little to Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air.” As vibes go, it’s a pretty good one, warm and nostalgic, like the memory of a sunset on the last day of a perfect summer.

Juan Wauters - Wandering Rebel

Juan Wauters – Wandering Rebel (Captured Tracks)
The former Beets singer gets help from Frankie Cosmos, Y La Bamba and more on his restless sixth album

Formerly one half of Jackson Heights’ finest garage-folk duo The Beets, Juan Wauters has spent the last decade travelling, and made 2019’s La Onda De Juan Pablo all over Latin America using local street musicians to back him. The pandemic, however, made him settle down. “During COVID I discovered that I like stability,” he sings on the title track of his new album, “but the world still sees me as a wandering rebel.” Made during lockdown, the album is full of guests and is all over the place stylistically, as it wanders from the trap-meets-Ravel creation “Bolero” featuring Super Willy K, to the pretty, string-laden duet with Frankie Cosmos, “Modus Operandi,” to the title track which features Solange collaborator John Carroll Kirby. For a singer who once operated in the lowest of fi, Wandering Rebel is his most lavish production yet, but his innocent worldview and offbeat charm, reminiscent of Jonathan Richman, remain Wauters’ greatest assets.

Lanterns On The Lake, Versions Of Us

Lanterns On The Lake – Versions Of Us (Bella Union)
Radiohead’s Philip Selway joins as the UK band’s drummer on their fifth album

In an unexpected turn of events, Radiohead drummer Phil Selway joined Newcastle, UK band Lanterns on the Lake last year as a full-time member just in time for their fifth album and follow-up to 2020’s Mercury Prize-nominated Spook the Herd. (Maybe it’s not that surprising; Phil’s had more time as bandmates have been busy with other things, and he and LotL share a label, Bella Union.) It was not an easy album to make, with a year’s worth of work scrapped after drummer Ol Ketteringham parted ways amicably with the band, and Selway joined. “Philip brought an energy to the songs that reignited our belief in them,” says singer and songwriter Hazel Wilde. “Within a few weeks we had a whole other version of the album and things felt very different. We had changed the destiny of the record.” While Versions of Us may have had a difficult birth, sweeping anthems like like “String Theory,” “Real Life” and “The Likes of Us” sound effortless.

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