Music Reviews

Everything, Now! – “Ugly Magic”

written by:
Matt Erler | 72hrsonline Editor

Rating: 5.9

After the release of March’s “Bible Universe,” the apex of Everything, Now!’s career, anything seemed possible. The band achieved a lot with that release – perfection of everything band members had tried up to that point and a subtle indication of the band’s future direction. That, coupled with the anemic, hollow – but ultimately becoming – production, suggested that Everything, Now! was entering a new period of creative near-genius.

“Ugly Magic” doesn’t support that theory.

The band, which sounds more like Jon “Crafty” Rogers And Some Other Guys with each release, uses the same production level as was successful on “Bible Universe.” Imagine recording an album from inside a giant tin cup, and you’ll get an idea of the sound on these two albums. But the production that worked so well on the former release fails the band this time around.

The problem is, “Bible Universe” worked because the laissez faire production illuminated the record’s strengths – mostly, the brilliant songwriting – and stayed out of the way.

“Ugly Magic” doesn’t have the benefit of terrific songs. The faux-funk on “Cursed Be the Everything, Now! and All Who Sail With It,” and the country-blues on “Dreamin’ About Bein’ Well-Hung Blues” are prime examples of the half-good ideas that trickle into a lot of the songs on the album.

The production swallows all the surrounding elements in one bite. The swirling electronics and piano effects on “Cursed Be” are buried beneath a repetitive lyric, the vocal hook and the track’s metronome-like drum beat – a departure from the band’s swinging, hard-hitting attack on 2004’s “Police, Police.” “Dreamin’ About Bein’ Well-Hung Blues” falls apart near the end, during the all-band rousing chorus, minus the actual rousing.
“Effort = Precision” is perhaps the most egregious example of the band’s production mistakes, as beating a delay effect on Rogers’ vocals into the ground only succeeds in making his wordplay even more incomprehensible.

But perhaps the biggest problem here is that these songs are simply too one-dimensional to merit multiple listens. These songs, so abstract in nature, deserve more ornate, elaborate production – production that blows the mind, production that expands a listener’s perception of what is possible, production that forgives an occasional songwriting misstep.

It’s not enough to press record and play the song; you have nurture an idea. Perhaps one of the greatest albums of all-time, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” would not have been more than a minor masterpiece with production like this.

That said, there’s something oddly admirable about an album like “Ugly Magic.” After “Bible Universe,” Everything, Now! could have cashed in on its small but devoted fan base. Instead, the band experimented – wildly. There’s something commendable about this record, however flawed it is.

It’s worth noting the speed of the release of “Ugly Magic,” as well. For the first time in a long while, Everything, Now! didn’t do a lot of road testing for the material. The songs from “Bible Universe” saw the light of day long before the album’s release; both “Freedom Sex With Bible Woman” and “Exile in Bible Universe” were gestated and morphed for some time before the band deemed them ready for distribution.

Yet, at the end of the day, these songs are nowhere near indicative of this band’s potential – so brilliant at times, so movingly special, so unfairly ignored outside of this small Indiana indie scene. “Bible Universe” was spellbindingly brilliant, which truly illuminates the major failure of this latest album; it could have been so much better.

Stars - “In Our Bedroom After the War”

written by:
Louis Jones | Staff Reporter

Rating: 7.4

Canadian indie pop. A few years ago, the musical layperson wouldn’t have been able to name many groups falling into the now-famed category. But today, Canuck bands are recognized as providing some of the most intelligent, innovative and downright pretty pop and rock music to hit the littered indie landscape. Albums such as Broken Social Scene’s self-titled homage to full-band pop orchestration and “Funeral” by Arcade Fire, a record hailed by Pitchforkmedia as album of the year, have proven that when it comes to shrewd melodicism and sharp social commentary, bands from the north have us licked.

Stars, with its 2005 break-out album “Set Yourself on Fire,” staked its claim as masters of one aspect of the Canadian indie movement: intimate relationship songs and layered, baroque pop.
But with all break-out bands and movements comes the question: what next? Will they, like lo-fi acts such as Yo La Tengo prove themselves time and time again while progressing artistically and maintaining their artistic integrity? Or will they end up like modern alt-rockers, making an unsuccessful attempt to propel themselves to commercial success while leaving older fans disinterested and disgusted? Or like the British Shoegazer groups of the early 90s, will they crash and burn before barely hitting the stratosphere?

Lyrically, “In Our Bedroom After the War” shows that vocalizing tandem Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan has matured. As the album’s title indicates, content still focuses on intimate relationship but puts the theme into the context of the world at large and the dreariness of adulthood in modern society.

On the album’s title track, Campbell narrates on a day spent contemplating the world outside his bedroom window, singing lines like “She left before you woke/Dishes, TV, bed/The darkness filled with dread/But at least the war is over.”

But with Stars’ new maturity often comes a sense of melodrama that, given the lyrical content of the songs, is hard to avoid, despite the fact the group has been able to do so effectively in the past. More and more often, Campbell and Millan sound like a couple, wistfully professing their confused love or whispering tender reassurances of promise to each other. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but in songs like “The Night Starts Here” the duo sings a round of lyrics over each other like “The night starts here/Forget your name/Forget your fear” above textured synth arpeggios and a warbly fuzz bass line, and the whole thing gets a bit corny.

In the cringe-worthy “Personal,” Campbell and Millan show how the insecurities of their youth have merely evolved into insecurities of adulthood, with lines like “Twenty-eight and bored/Grieving over loss/Sorry to be heavy/But heavy is the cost.” The honesty of the song is endearing, but its hard to swallow lyrics could have been pulled from the back pages of a low-circulation street magazine from a band that has shown a mastery of the romantic ballad so many times before. In the past, Stars tip-toed a delicate line between melodrama and sensitive brilliance. On “In Our Bedroom,” the melodrama is a bit harder to justify, as the hooks aren’t as clever and the fluid energy sometimes lags.

Still, “In Our Bedroom” shows Stars to be one of the most melodic and sensitive bands in rock today. And when they hit their stride on stand-out tracks like “Take Me to the Riot,” which features a chorus every bit as soaring as something off of “Set Yourself on Fire,” it’s hard not to think that Stars will remain a relevant indie act for a few years yet.

Growing up doesn’t have to be a bad thing for Stars. On a few tracks, all instruments expect the piano pull back, revealing the heartfelt beauty of Campbell and Millan’s voices. It may be poppier than old Stars, but it’s beautiful pop that blows anything found on top 40 radio out of the water.
For Stars fans, it’s another pretty album that tugs at the heartstrings of anyone with a soft spot for the dynamics of romance. When the lyrics get too sappy and the musical textures too thin, we can always turn back to “Set Yourself on Fire,” but “In Our Bedroom” stands alone as yet another work of indie pop brilliance.