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Album Review: Hell City Glamours - Hell City Glamours

August 15th 2008 03:16

I could easily hate the Hell City Glamours for touting their derivative brand of rock ‘n’ roll, if it weren’t for the music they’re making. Yes, I could readily loathe them for their well-worn schtick, their overt cock sure swagger and those prosaic pseudonyms. But I don’t.

You see, rock n roll of this type – a brazen kind of trash rock – has been severely under-represented of late and it’s reassuring to see the Hell City Glamours as one of its most dogged proponents. And there’s nary a threadbare cardigan or scuffed chuck in sight.

Theirs is a dirty, bluesy rock, held up by equal parts bravado and damn good musicianship. Their self titled debut LP is a rather curious affair. The songs oscillate between great foot stomping anthems and hackneyed filler but the lower points are inconsequential because when they’re at their best, they’re remarkably good.

It begins with the brash One Night Only whose anthemic group chorus is more reminiscent of 80’s punk than the 90’s cock rock frequently attributed to them. Rock just hardened the fuck up in one sweet song and it doesn’t abate either. They push forward with the Southern porch rock of Flying Away, it’s a little bit honky tonk, a little bit rock & roll and it works remarkably well. It’s pure unadulterated rock and it continues with the rousing High Brow, the infectious sing along of Back to You and the ballsy Josephine which features a riff which sounds like a more rollicking, grittier version of The Animals' Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.

Lead singer Oscar McBlack’s scratchy vocal works well within these songs and it’s never more apparent than in the rather nostalgic and slightly tender Worst Kinda Man. Well, it’s as tender as it’s gonna get with McBlack’s jagged tones imploring and beseeching amidst the obligatory guitar solos and kick arse riffs. Of course there’s guitars. And then some. Guitarist Mo Mayhem is quite an adept musician and his technical ability redeems the album for all its niggling inconsistencies. The archetypally rock Right My Wrongs is particularly noteworthy for McBlack’s protracted cadence which manages to extend the word ‘ear’ to three syllables long.

I’m Not Here has to be one of the strongest tracks on the album, if not their entire oeuvre. It contains one of the most interesting riffs to grace these weary ears in the longest of times and a wonderfully atonal group chorus which just implores you to sing along. Go on.

At times, the music does tend to sound a little contrived and the lyrics abound with far too many naff references to rock & roll. It’s too gimmicky and doesn’t bode well for longevity, after all you can only push the rock schtick – replete with babes and booze - so far before people start to nod off.

If truth be told, the majority of Sydney bands tend to bore me with their lacklustre tunes and affected manner. Our city’s best and brightest are only marginally better than the mediocrities it continually disgorges and there are very few bands I’d part with money to see live. This is one area in which Melbourne seems to fare better.

It would be just as easy to simply dismiss the Hell City Glamours as another paint by numbers revivalist band but they’re more than that. Maybe it’s because they unashamedly wear their influences on their sleeves without apology or pretext. Sure, an inordinate amount of fuss has been made about their 80’s cock rock leanings but I bet there’s just as much Motorhead and Misfits in their influences as there is Motley Crue and it’s precisely this which makes their music all the more refreshing.

Don’t be fooled by their bravado. Behind the distracting pseudonyms, the well manicured hair and devil may care ethic stand four astute musicians for whom music is king. They say that the Hell City Glamours brought back rock & roll. Don’t believe the hype - rock & roll of this type never really went away. It just needed a good kick in the pants and the Hell City Glamours have well and truly seen to that.

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Album Review: Oh, Laura - A Song Inside My Head, A Demon in My Bed

August 11th 2008 01:42

There are times when you randomly catch a fragment of a song, or chance upon a lingering melody which resonates within your being long after the moment has passed. A guitar line that plays itself over and over. A melancholic vocal which continues to sing inside your head. On some occasions, you may endeavour to uncover the artist in question but on the whole it remains just another one of those missed music moments which are inexorably consigned to the past.

Most of you have probably heard Oh, Laura without even knowing it. Release Me, a beautiful elegiac song from their debut LP A Song Inside My Head, A Demon in My Bed was recently used by Saab for a prominent advertising campaign which featured heavily on Australian TV. Ever since it graced our screens the previously unknown Swedes have enjoyed a sharp surge in popularity based purely on the strength of that one solemn song. And what a song it was. It was a song which was laden with so much expectation. A plaintive ballad that was devoid of music, perhaps just a whisper of a guitar here and there, and held together by a raw, scratchy vocal. That mellifluous voice, as thick and viscid as honey, resonated so strongly it prompted me to seek out this band and purchase their album. It promised to yield to me a new band and an unknown oeuvre of similarly nostalgic tunes, yet what unfolded was wholly unexpected.

The studio version of Release Me is dramatically different when paired with a lilting, country tinged melody. The raw, heartfelt vocals are now tempered by the warm country/folk influences and it aids in alleviating the heaviness of heart induced by Frida Ohrn’s impassioned vocal. It’s still an engaging song but it loses some of the ardour that initially made it so appealing.

Despite their apparent lite country/pop aspirations there’s a strong solemnity which has managed to wend it’s way into every song on this album, perhaps aided to some extent by Ohrn’s bluesy vocals. From the sleepy Call to Arms with its dark country/pop mish mash to the doleful Friend Like Me with its funereal horns and a disconsolate Ohrn wailing in her gravelly tone there’s a sad, woebegone feeling which simmers beneath each song and consequently dictates the tenor of the album.

At times it works remarkably well like in the heavy hearted Thunderbird Motel, with the sad, enduring melody and Ohrn’s disconsolate vocal. However, when they’re not espousing their middle American brand of country they all too readily revert to a cloying, cookie cutter approach such as the cutesy, sentimental pop of Out of Bounds and the twee ballad Raining in New York.

There is nothing particularly remarkable about Oh, Laura. They’re just another emerging band espousing an ambivalent country/pop meld that neither wholly gratifies nor displeases. The problem lies in their appropriation of a genre and reference points which they seem to know very little of. Their songs are littered with references to the American landscape, to roads they have never traversed and cities they are yet to visit. Perhaps because English is their second language they all too readily resort to well worn clichés which consequently make the songs sound tired and uninspiring.

If they were to just dispense with the malapropisms and trite platitudes and simply sing about what they know - nothing more, nothing less - than Oh, Laura could be a band worth seeking out. It’s a shame because Frida Ohrn has one of the most engaging voices I’ve heard in a very long time and it goes some way to redeeming the inconsistencies on this album. Not all of them though and perhaps that’s why, for now, Oh Laura are nothing more than just a transient music moment.

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Album Review: Jet & Iggy Pop - The Wild One

August 6th 2008 01:25

I’m sure Jet have a place somewhere within the murky quagmire of Australian music. In fact, I’m quite certain of it. I just don’t know exactly where this place might be. Perhaps it’s better this way. It’s quite telling that despite their misappropriation of a genre, their hackneyed rock schtick and their oeuvre of vapid tunes they’ve deemed it necessary to assail us with yet another piece of derivative dross. They’re tenacious, if nothing else.

So, they’re back, only this time with the godfather of punk in tow. You would think that after heinously appropriating the bass line from ‘Lust for Life’ they would tire of riding on Iggy Pop’s coattails. They haven’t. To make matters worse, they’ve been chosen to record a cover of Johnny O’Keefe’s The Wild One, a song indelibly etched into the consciousness of my generation by Iggy Pop himself (under the guise of Real Wild Child).

And so it begins in the manner that it always does - with Nic Cester’s strangulated yawl - but this time it leads into an interesting 70’s infused rock which somehow manages to pay homage to the genre rather than bastardise it. For the most part, their rendition remains rather faithful to the original, with the exceptions of Cester’s strained interjections - he screams with an irritating ferocity that is likely to induce haemorrhoids – and those sporadic spurts of bluesy rock.

Still, this does very little to redeem such a soulless and apathetic attempt at music making. Iggy Pop’s input is perfunctory and it lacks the bravado and visceral energy of Real Wild Child. His voice is weak and unsteady and as a consequence he sounds more like Jim Osterberg, infirm pensioner, than the progenitor of proto punk.

I was once of the opinion that Iggy Pop could never err. His most prosaic efforts were continually applauded. Excuses were made. CDs were religiously purchased. He was lionised for who he was a lifetime ago rather than on the merits of his recent offerings.

Such blinkered idolatry is akin to rewarding a toddler for doing a poo in a potty instead of in their pants. At the end of the day they’re both one and the same and no matter how hard I rail against it, there’s simply no denying this one stark truth. Not even Iggy Pop can polish a turd.

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Album Review: My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade

July 13th 2008 09:43

My Chemical Romance's third studio release is an epic concept album that toys with the idea of mortality but the first single off the album confirms that the only thing that's flat lining is their creativity.

Back when My Chemical Romance were as emo as they came – all eyeliner and black skinny leg jeans – I was loathe to admit that they were my one guilty listening pleasure. Their appeal lay in the fact they knew they were the musical equivalent of navel lint and were unashamedly proud of it. The music was histrionic, the vocals were tortured and the lead singer was pretty – requisite qualities which launched many an emo band into the seething musical quagmire of carbon copies and superfluous tunes. That was until they went and complicated things by changing both image and sound.

The dark, exaggerated emo ballads have now been replaced by a pompous hybrid of arena rock and an upbeat pop/punk contrivance. The intro of the first single Welcome to the Black Parade contains the most pretentious string and horn arrangements and a guitar treatment, ripped straight from Queen’s oeuvre. It leads into a chorus which is so saccharinely pop punk its incongruity is grating. There’s a close parallel to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody with the guitars from Bicycle Race thrown in for good measure – just in case you didn’t get the reference points the first time they hammered them in. The theatrical rock opera influence just doesn’t ring true and comes across as a substandard Queen rip off but without the bravado of Freddy Mercury or the warm tones of Brian May’s Red Special.

Frontman Gerard Way still continues with images of blood and scars in his writing and rather than just hinting at his discontent he opens himself right up; he surrenders viscera and all, like some pagan offering. It used to work well when the music was as melodramatic as the lyrics but now it just sounds hackneyed and self indulgent. “I’m just a boy, who’s meant to sing this song. I’m just a man, I’m not a hero” Way erroneously shrieks.

Some form of credit must be given to them for trying to do something different from the typically stagnant emo bands out there but they need to recognise the difference between drawing from influences and brazenly imitating them. There are scores of prepubescent pop/punk scenesters and manicured poseurs who are just tingling with anticipation at the thought of parting with their money and tearing the shrink wrapping off this CD. That’s okay though, because there are countless others out there who want to invest more than just money, a reason for social legitimacy or a fashion credo into their music and I heart each and every one of you. I really do.

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Gig Review: Rocket Science @ the Annandale Hotel (21/12/07)

July 9th 2008 23:33

They’ve taken a back seat for long enough. They’re always the proverbial bridesmaid but maybe, just maybe, Rocket Science’s time has finally come.

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Album Review: The Good, the Bad and the Queen

July 8th 2008 06:09

It comes as no surprise that the world is no Empyrean dream but Britpop's prodigal son, Damon Albarn, wants to remind you of this fact any way he can. His latest release is a rather sombre affair but despite its melancholic overtones it still manages to instill a little bit of hope in your heart.

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Album Review: Magic Dirt - Beast

July 6th 2008 08:45

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Gig Review: Tiger Army @ The Metro, Sydney (9/3/08)

July 5th 2008 08:15

The punks and pompadoured masses convened on The Metro Theatre for psychobilly's prodigal son - Tiger Army.

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Gig review: HIM @ Luna Park Big Top, Sydney (25/3/2008)

July 5th 2008 08:06

It’s quite appropriate that on the night HIM came to town the heavens swelled and let down a steady surge of rain. It was an ominous sign for a gig that was overshadowed by an enduring sense of mediocrity.