Tag: Trio

Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #16 Dehd “Haha”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date February 13, 2024
2 Comments on Best tunes of 2020: #16 Dehd “Haha”

Dehd recently announced the upcoming release of their fifth studio album, “Poetry”, due out in May. Some very welcome news for fans of their energetic blend of surf, post-punk, and garage rock.

I only came across Dehd with the release of 2020’s “Flower of devotion”, but that was actually their third album, after forming five years earlier. They are the trio of Emily Kempf (bass guitar, vocals), Jason Balla (guitar, vocals), and Eric McGrady (drums), based in Chicago, which surprises me every time I remember this fact. Because for some completely irrational and unknown reason, to me, they sound like they should hail from the UK.

And though I’ve not heard anything prior to it, I felt completely at home with “Flower of devotion” when I first heard it upon its release in July 2020. It felt alive and raw and vibrating with nervous energy, though from all reports it’s shinier and cleaner than its predecessors. It was exactly the kind of music that we needed as we were coming into the first summer of the pandemic, very much like an invitation to go outside and play.

“How does one get here?
When did we cross the line?
When it comes to falling, yeah
I’m falling all the time“

My favourite tune on “Flower of devotion” was track three, right from the very beginning. “Haha” was never released as a single but it certainly sounds like it could’ve been one. It is just over two minutes of jangly guitars, a hopscotch bassline, tongue clucking, and he said/she said, call and response vocals. With its staccato and twitchy chorus but fun feel throughout, it all seems so simple. But sometimes simple is exactly what you need for a perfect pop gem. And yes, that title makes me laugh every time.

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

Tags 2020, 2020s, Alternative, Alternative Rock, American indie, Best tunes, Dehd, Indie, Indie rock, Post-Punk, Trio

Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #19 Doves “Prisoners”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date July 5, 2023
2 Comments on Best tunes of 2020: #19 Doves “Prisoners”

<< #20 | #18 >>

“Hello, old friend
It’s been a while
It’s me again
We’re just prisoners of these times
But it won’t be for long”

For all the horribleness and traumatic change 2020 handed to us throughout its entirety, there was still some good to come out of it. And I’d have to say that somewhere near the top of the list of positives has to be the release of new material by Doves, one of my favourite ever bands.

The Manchester-based trio had just completed a successful run of live dates in the summer of 2019 after eight long years on hiatus. Things were going so well that they pooled together material that frontman Jimi Goodwin had been working on* with the Williams brothers’ as yet unreleased work as Black Rivers, along with some ideas that were leftover from their last album together as a band**, and then, tied it all up with a magical bow. “The universal want” was released in the fall, just in time for yours truly’s birthday, but not before justifiably teasing us all with a couple of excellent advanced singles, one of which is the focus of today’s post.

“Prisoners” and its lyrics may sound like it fits in perfectly with everything that was going on at the time but Goodwin and his bandmates have vehemently denied any connection with the song to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that were happening all around the world attempting to temper the virus’s spread. They haven’t said if it was one of the songs that had been written beforehand but as they tell it, it follows the same conversation the band has always been having with itself in their songs. “Just over the horizon, there’s always something better. Sometimes we get trapped by our own behaviour. You can be a prisoner of your own thoughts. They can take you to some pretty dark and unexpected places if you let them. It’s a song about checking yourself.”

This song (and the rest of Doves’ newest album) has the group picking up practically where they left off. It’s beautiful and atmospheric and set apart in its own world. It all begins with a light strumming on the guitar and a sprinkling of sunlight and wisps of haze and then that driving drum beat kicks in and the bopping bassline falls in step not far behind. There’s plenty alien and new, but it’s not strange at all. It’s familiar and comforting and fluid and when the guitar starts a-wailing amidst all the glow, you just have to soak it all in, bask in the glory of it all.***

*Which, of course, was supposed to be his sophomore release, the follow up to 2014’s “Odludek”.

**The absolutely incredible “Kingdom of rust”, which was released in 2008.

***These last few sentences are some self-plagiarizing from a post I wrote back in 2020 praising “The universal want” as my favourite album of the year.

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

Tags 2020, 2020s, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Andy Williams, Best tunes, British rock, Doves, Indie, Indie rock, Jez Williams, Jimi Goodwin, Manchester, Reunion, Trio

Tunes

Best tunes of 2013: #26 Guards “Ready to go”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date May 17, 2023
2 Comments on Best tunes of 2013: #26 Guards “Ready to go”

<< #27 | #25 >>

Back in 2013, I was into my second year of furiously writing about music on my old blog Music Insanity and I found myself, because of this new hobby, discovering all sorts of new music. Seriously, it was coming from all over the place, from unsolicited emails to reading other blogs, and just plain old-fashioned research. I became even more voracious in my musical appetites*. I felt like I was listening to new bands every other day, some of them stuck, some didn’t, and some were exciting at the time but quickly got lost in the excitement of the next big thing.

Guards and their debut album “In Guards we trust” is a prime example of this last.

I checked out the album when I first heard about it because I’d recognized the name of Guards’ frontman, Richie James Follin, and with a bit of digging, confirmed him as sibling to Madeline, who was one half of Cults. Of course, I had been a big fan of that band’s self-titled debut two years earlier, especially the wall of noise single “Go outside”, and that was enough of a link for me. I was rewarded with a twelve track, forty-seven-minute barrage of stadium ready anthems masquerading as indie pop. And I listened to it again and again and again. It became one of my favourite albums of the year and theirs were one of the sets I was really looking forward to catching at that year’s Osheaga. Perhaps the fact that I missed it due to a conflict might have foreshadowed their fading from the top of my music playlist pile, especially since I can’t recall at all now who it was I saw instead of them.

I had to actually go back and listen to the New York-based trio’s debut album** and its single “Ready to go” when I was putting together this list to make sure it belonged and then, again this week when I was writing this post. Each time I did, the answer was a resounding ,“Yes”! I instantly remembered how great it is, a bundle of revved up energy, retro pop hooks, and fun boy-girl vocal melodies. It’s psychedelic and fuzzy and positively joyous.