Tag: Power pop

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #14 The Beths “I’m not getting excited”

<< #15    |    #13 >>

Just a few days ago I posted about a set I caught at last year’s Ottawa Bluesfest, a set that serves as just one example of what makes the festival so special: the strong possibility for musical discovery in the joy of live music. This next band on my Best tunes of 2020 list was another example of one whom I really fell hard for when I saw them at this very same festival.

The Beths were formed in Auckland, New Zealand in 2014 by four musicians who met at university while studying jazz. They released their debut long player “Future me hates me” in 2018 but I didn’t come across it until the following year, else I might have included it on my list of favourite albums that year. Luckily it didn’t escape other’s notices because all the critical acclaim meant multiple tours and one of these landed them on the 2019 Bluesfest lineup. I don’t remember now if I picked up on them before I saw their name on the website or afterwards, but I definitely earmarked them as a set I really wanted to catch after repeat listens of their power pop harmonies. And of course, I’ve mentioned a few times on these pages how the New Zealand quartet “blew the doors off” the stage and I afterwards stumbled over to the merch tent to pick up a copy of their record.

So for me, “Jump rope gazers” was a highly anticipated release in early 2020, after having played the hell out of the debut record for the rest of 2019. Unfortunately, the sophomore record wasn’t quite as immediately attention grabbing as I was expecting and instead was one that had to grow on me, working hard to earn its place on my end of the year list. Track one on the album was an exception to this, a real standout for this writer, right from the first spin.

“I’m not getting excited
‘Cause my fight and my flight are divided
And so I don’t enthuse
Keep my grip on joy loose
And I wait for the news
With my feet in my shoes”

At first glance, the music doesn’t match the song title. The revving guitars, insistent drum beat, and Elizabeth Stokes’ breathless delivery is all very exciting and feverish and energetic. However, when you consider its almost like an updated and more self aware take on Green Day’s “Basket case”, albeit with a different set of neuroses, the anxious tone reveals itself, as does the pervading take on The Jonah Complex. “I’m not getting excited” is so good and so relatable.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Eyelids “A colossal waste of light”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Eyelids
Album Title: A colossal waste of light
Year released: 2023
Details: ‘purple lightning’ coloured vinyl

The skinny: Two weeks in a row and two vinyl love posts and both were amongst my favourite albums of last year. Where last week’s was just on the outside of my top ten faves, this week’s was just outside the top five. As I wrote in my end of year posts, Eyelids are a band I had not heard of at the beginning of last year, despite having been around a good while. I actually heard about the release of “A colossal waste of light”, the group’s fourth album, from a posting on The Decemberists’ Instagram account, whose drummer, John Moen, is one of the Portland based band’s principal members. Co-produced by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, I fell hard for the hook-laden jangle pop and an album that lacks any real skippable tracks. After two listens, I was on the internet to track down a copy for my record shelves and found this rather pretty pressing on clear vinyl with purple splatter, aka purple lighting. It looks and sounds great on the platter.

Standout track: “Colossal waste of light”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #13 Snow Patrol “Spitting games”

<< #14    |    #12 >>

Snow Patrol got started in Dundee, Scotland way back in 1994 when Gary Lightbody formed a band with university friends Mark McClelland and Michael Morrison. Of course, they went through a few name changes and struggled mightily before settling on the moniker we now know and signing to indie label Jeepster, original home to another Scottish indie band we love*. Unfortunately, the struggles didn’t end there, seeing an almost complete turnover in personnel and middling sales and critical reception of their first two records. They were dropped by Jeepster in 2001 but it turned out to be the best thing to happen to them, because they were signed to Fiction less than two years later and sent to the studio to record their major label debut.

“Final straw”, Snow Patrol’s third record, was where I came in. I don’t remember now exactly how I heard about the group or the record, but I definitely remember that it was never a grower. I was hooked to the sound of the album right away. I bought the album on CD**, something I wasn’t doing a lot of at the time, given my lack of disposable income. And when I went back to sample the music of the previous two albums, I didn’t find them nearly as compelling. So something truly clicked here.

“It’s not as if I need the extra weight
Confused enough by life so thanks a lot”

“Spitting games” was the first of five singles to be released off the record. It was and still is my favourite of the bunch. At just shy of four minutes, it is one of the longer tracks, especially on the first side but it is no less driving, nor hard-hitting for all that. It is brash and breathless, starting off all guns ablaze, a punishing drum beat and raging guitars, and it never really lets up. The verses all have the same energy as the non-chorus, where Lightbody just lends his voice to a raging wordless melody. It all leads to the feeling of nervousness and anxiety of someone that has feelings that he doesn’t know what to do with, the confusion of youth and the uncertainties of love.

“Spitting games” is a track, much like the rest of the album, that is raw and passionate and hints at the success that the band will find a few years later.

*Um, Belle & Sebastian.

**And I’ve since replaced that with a copy on vinyl.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.