Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is known for two things: 1) being called “hippies” by Brian Jonestown’s Joel Gion in Dig, and 2) very strong live shows. So considering the latter, it’s fitting the group is set to drop a 2 DVD and CD live package, poignantly titled Live. The package spans a number of European shows on their Baby 81 tour. The jam hive hits shelves next Tuesday, November 10th. Wanna win a copy? Cool… well I have two to give away.

Just shoot an email over to kb@thedecibeltolls.com and tell me what you’d like to see more of on the blog. We’ve had a lot of discussions on how to better serve you, the smarmy blog reader. This way, we get something, and you get something awesome. Contest closes on Friday at 5 p.m.

You can peep the track listing and pre-order info here. Good luck.

MP3 :::
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Spread Your Love [Live]

The Big Pink currently enjoy an astounding wave of Intarwebz hype, but I certainly won’t let that affect my opinion of the their debut A Brief History of Love. However, the record itself just happens to suck, all things considered. No, the hype didn’t ruin the listening experience. It just epically blows, hype or not.

Yes, The Big Pink is a true and accurate nod to shoegazing, and yes, I love shoegaze and second-wave shoegaze. However, it’s bad shoegazing, dude. It’s The Jesus and Mary Chain AFTER Darklands. Ya know, when they made rad videos for “Sidewalking” and shit, with, like, their name on a big marquee behind them while the Reid brothers are fuckin’ rawwwkin’ (one of the few unintentional hilarious decisions of the Creation camp). Gross…

There are some worthwhile moments on this album, such as “Velvet,” wherein the band combines their natural pop-centric attitude with truly thick distortion swells and harmonies, coming off more like The Catherine Wheel or The Boo Radleys than, ya know, an even shittier version of Pop Will Eat Itself or somethin’. Maybe The Big Pink could rename themselves Pop Will Shit Itself. That would be poignant. But even if the whole album was packed with songs like “Velvet,” no amount of quality songwriting on A Brief History of Love can make up for “Dominoes.” That song gave me gastric pains. As Jeffrey said while we were listening to the record in the office, “it’s like Jesus Jones goes on a date with Kevin Shields, and JJ tells everyone they slept together, and Kevin is totally embarrassed.” Gotta do better next time, 4AD.

So yeah, this record is doo doo. I’m totally bummed. Gonna listen to the new No Age EP instead for a pick-me-up. Laters.

For fans of:  Jesus Jones, Shitty-period Jesus and Mary Chain, The Jesus (circa Big Lebowski)

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
The Big Pink – Velvet

Been totally missing Serena Maneesh as of late. Not sure what they’ve been up to or if they’re still together or if they really dig their day jobs or what, but it’s been a minute since their eponymous record dropped. Regardless, lots of other groups pick up that slack. Joensuu 1685 is one of the best and most accurate interpreters of the bunch. Their cover of The Boss’ “I’m on Fire” captures Bruce’s grandiose battle for the working man, then noises it the fuck up with scary walls of sound. The dude’s ten minutes long, too. I’m excited to explore more of their catalog…

Joensuu 1685 have a rad blog here with lots of pretty gorgeous photos and trippy videos.

MP3 :::
Joensuu 1695 – I’m On Fire

A Polynya is an oceanographic term that refers to an area of open water generally engulfed by sea ice. The band Polynya do not provoke such imagery.

Rather, Polynya come to us from fun, friendly, and gorgeous North Carolina, and their sophomore effort Crop Rotation sort of evokes more of that same feeling. Polynya is a group firmly planted in neo-gaze, or what I call “second wave dream pop” or “shadow dream pop.” They don’t exactly emmulate, say, Slowdive or The Catherine Wheel, which is probably for the best anyway. Rather, the group sounds closer to collectives like Dirty on Purpose, The Aislers Set, or The Eaves, who take the trademark characteristics of shoegaze and dream pop, and transform them into something decidedly their own sound, replete with a contemporary gloss. All the while, Polynya feels familiar and welcoming in the most rewarding of manners.

I really enjoyed this record, because sometimes I don’t really want to hear insanely experimental noise jumble screaming at me from my laptop’s tweeters (despite the fact that The Decibel Tolls sorta strives to write about challenging music). Sometimes it’s nice to listen to a perpetually enjoyable sunny afternoon body of songs. Polynya does that well, while still maintaining a variance of moods, layers, and most importantly, cool noises dripped in reverb. This is no rehash, friends. Polynya are quirky, fun, and interesting dream pop for 2009, with a warm southern flair to boot. Totally worth your time to czech out.

Dig the kraut-ish feeling on “Fan Fiction” meshed with Stereolab-sugarry vocals. Definitely dig on the distorted autoharp tones and old school 4AD good vibes on “Fields.”

Crop Rotation is available now courtesy of the band themselves. Grip it here.

For fans of:  The Eaves, Velocity Girl, Aislers Set, Cocteau Twins

MP3 :::
Polynya – Fan Fiction
Polynya – Fields

I’m making it my personal mission, my top task on the action items list, to spread the gospel of Detroit quartet Oblisk. This is an amazing new band that, no exaggeration, might be the best American shoegaze group (and it’s gritty shoegaze) these ears have ever heard. I will do everything in my power to make sure these guys sell billions of records, and it’s a goddman travesty that this is not the case.

Anyway, there’s no need for any sort of overlong, overhyperbolic review for Oblisk’s Weather Patterns, despite the fact I’m wont to do such. The brass tacks of the matter is that Oblisk has crafted an absolutely beautiful record that both travels at high speeds above the troposphere and slithers within cracks in the earth. It’s odd in many ways that Oblisk hails from a decaying industrial metropolis. Sure, the minor keys, grimey fuzz, distant tones, and distorted vocals suggest a bit of an ominous environment. But Weather Patterns is packed with mystique and excitement – a record that wonders and wanders.

Oblisk’s loyalties are outlined with a line in the sand – this is new psychedelia. That is to say, this is not a group rehashing flower power like the Paisley Underground did. Oblisk is a group that synthesizes what’s good in psychedelia and adds an opaque gloss. Weather Patterns evokes pure Spiritualized-informed space rock, kraut a la Amon Duul, a touch of post-punk, darkly veiled and midtempo pop-oriented shoegaze in the vein of Medicine and Slowdive, and eastern mysticism (best exemplified on instrumental “Blue Iceberg”).

The epic “Tiger Fighter,” and I’m calling this right now, is the “Leave Them All Behind” of this decade. It’s fucking gorgeous and I don’t want to ruin it by yapping on about it. The song is available below along with one other sample (and it took me forever to narrow down my selection for sharing to two because the album is sick).

Buy this record at Candy Colored Dragon. Do it.

For fans of:  Slowdive, Deerhunter, Spiritualized

MP3 :::
Oblisk – Tiger Fighter
Oblisk – Epicenter

Back in 2004, The Legends released Up Against the Legends, a rather unfortunate band and album name for a body of work that was quite good. But the Legends have always had a sense of humor. When the record was first released, many were under the pretense that this group of C86 nostalgic bros were a nine-piece noise pop orchestra. That wasn’t exactly true, as The Legends are/is really a one-studio wizard deal a la Dungen by the name of Johan Angergård. While it’s easy to ignore The Legends since they’re Scandinavian and might be mistaken for some Stereogum overhyped garbage, you should not do this. Though not terribly groundbreaking, The Legends are awesomely interpreted sublime dream/shoegaze pop perfect for these warmer months.

The recently released Over and Over is a decidedly more polished effort than their ’60s garage fuzz pop centric Up Against the Legends, and leaps and bounds better than their dreadful Public Radio. The most intriguing aspect to Over and Over is Angergård’s ability to write gorgeous, sunshiney major-key vocal melodies while created a darker album. Over and Over is more spacious and moodier in its softer moment, while the noise and distortion is more grating in its wall of sound moments. This notion is best demonstrated with the title track and “Turn Away,” included below for your consideration. Over and Over, while not a mindblowingly original record, is a well crafted and fun-loving document of what was good about C86 and the poppier side of shoegaze.

Over and Over is available now through Labrador.

For fans of:  Shop Assistants, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Vivian Girls

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
The Legends – Over and Over
The Legends – Turn Away

I recently started exploring the realms of what was known as the Paisley Underground, a movement mostly around Los Angeles in the early to mid ’80s that acted as a reaction to the machismo of the hardcore scene percolating at that time. The groups involved in the Paisley Underground (a moniker that, like punk, was meant as a joke) wanted to spread peace and love again through candy-ass rock and roll. Some very incredible albums came from this movement, and not all were specific to LA (Soft Boys and Big Star come to mind). While The Dream Syndicate and The Three O’Clock probably championed the scene the most, The Rain Parade’s austere yet lavish 1983 album Emergency Third Rail Power Trip is my pick of the litter. This album rips.

If “I Look Around” sounds familiar, The Asteroid #4 covered it last fall on These Flowers Of Ours. Jangly, lush, gorgeous – Emergency Third Rail Power Trip is unrelentingly powerfully, probably because it’s the perfect balance between two significant movements in rock – ’60s psych, and C86 dream pop. “This Can’t Be Today” is the type of unequivocally perfect, slightly askew pop song that makes everything else sound shitty. Everything. I mean, really, after hearing a song so flawless, it makes me want to go find the members of poppycock groups like Passion Pit, roundhouse kick ‘em in the domes, steal their money, and donate it to the formers members of the band. While The Rain Parade never saw much commercial success before their split in 1986, vocalist David Roback went on to form two other excellent bands – Opal, and the mighty motherfuckin’ Mazzy Star. So Roback still got real paid in the end, I suppose.

Though Rain Parade’s original label, Restless, is no longer around, Ryko still distributes Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, but not widely. Hence, if you don’t live near a rather large record store, your best bet is to grip it through Amazon. Which you should. Amazing that there was a time when indie rock didn’t suck, yes?

MP3 :::
The Rain Parade – This Can’t Be Today
The Rain Parade – 1 Hour and 1/2 Ago
The Rain Parade – I Look Around

Continuing the Contraband series, showcasing various finds and older, often out of print, records that deserve some ink in the blogololosphere, today we discuss Swirlies and three albums – Blonder Tongue Audio Baton, What to Do About Them, and They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons – all of which are very worthy of your attention.

Swirlies served as a Yankee response to the Thames Valley-centric shoegazing movement, though it could still be argued that Swirlies didn’t necessarily fit nicely in that box either. The group masterfully amalgamated both dream and noise pop aesthetics like champs, while also pioneering what was known as “chimp rock,” or music with a deliberately childlike, uncouth approach to songwriting.  Though they’ve not done a whole lot in more recent times, it’s worth noting that Swirlies never officially disbanded. As a matter of fact, they recently resurfaced to play three east coast shows in February.

What to Do About Them, released in 1992, is rather cohesive for a debut EP. Under the soundboard-clipping washes of noise is a touch of bubblegum pop that carved a niche for Swirlies as America’s The Vaselines. Dig the sweet and sour “Chris R” and anthemic “Upstairs.”

Blonder Tongue Audio Baton, released in 1993, maintains the typical cadence and aesthetic of the time as a freewheeling, sloppy recording. One important distinction, however, is Swirlies’ mastery of the quiet/loud dynamic. Songs like “Bell” have a real Ride quality in terms of soaring melodies and silky guitars – minus any sort of production, of course.

While Swirlies’ 1995 album They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons is still in print, it isn’t widely released, discussed, or revered, and that’s an abject bummer. Compared to their noisier, more disjointed previous releases, …Salons features cleaner production and more sophisticated, concise songwriting, ostentatiously because it is, indeed, a latter album and the members are older, etc. However, the band proves they still don’t give a shit by way of their classic muddy, brutal distortion. The liner notes state that no synthesizers have ever been used in Swirlies, making some of the sounds scattered on “Sound of Sebring” over the ’90s-centric, tinty, active rhythm quite curious indeed.

MP3 :::
Swirlies – Upstairs
Swirlies – Chris R
Swirlies – Pancake
Swirlies – Park the Car By the Side of the Road
Swirlies – In Harmony New Found Freedom
Swirlies – Sound of Sebring
Swirlies – Sunn

There are very few poppy indie rock groups I like. Very few. Viva Voce is one of them. Viva Voce toggles between genres like you eat lunch – psychedelic, dream pop, electric folk, classic rock, and general early ’90s slacker pop. Sure, this blog tends to champion artists who do fuckin’ weird shit. But sometimes you want a good no frills rock and roll record. Viva Voce’s forthcoming Rose City is just that.

Latin for “by live voice,” Viva Voce is the type of compositionally tight group that feels organic and feels like a group that must be seen live to appreciate fully. Other than a heightened production level, there’s not much separating Rose City from 2004’s The Heat Can Melt Your Brain and 2006’s Get Yr. Blood Sucked Out. Fine with me, Viva Voce is the type of band that makes the familiar sound fresh, and the type of band that created a forumla that works and shouldn’t be fucked with.

Opener “Devotion” evokes Darklands-era Jesus and Mary Chain and mid-career Primal Scream, with rapid-fire percussion, swelling synths, and reverb-drenched vocals. “Good as Gold” is classic Breeders – simple, sloppy, and catchy. “Red Letter Day” is the classic Morricone-informed, absinthe-influenced, highly hummable, drive your truck into the sunset dirge that made Tara Jane O’Neil’s new record so engaging. However, it’s the sound the group cultivates on songs like the western-tinged, ornate, classic 4AD vibin’ “Flora” that separates Viva Voce from the general NPR-friendly hipster garbage – placing them along the best in contemporary jangle and dream pop, or as I call it, C86 v2.0. Trippy and accessible, Rose City gets a 9 on form, 8 on mind-meltingness, and is 100% worthy of your attention.

Viva Voce’s Rose City drops on May 26th. Grip it here.

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
Viva Voce – Flora
Viva Voce – Red Letter Day

Recently, I discovered I had quite a volume of unmarked CD-Rs lying about my personal caverns (closets, that is, not some strange sexual euphemism). Last night, I gripped L-Train’s industrial-strength Sony Walkman (remember those?) and went through 30 or so unnamed CDs. I found some amazing stuff – much of which I will share with you over the next few weeks. A lot of tracks I found were certainly of the older, rare, and/or out of print variety, as I pirated a lot of music from my former college radio station WRFL, where I dwelled for most of my college career. The station pretty much had a “don’t throw anything away” policy since its inception in 1988, so it’s a veritable museum (though certain titles were stolen at some point in the past obviously). This is why you see a new category called “Contraband.” Since the concepts are somewhat similar, entries from Cut-Out Bin Classics and Vinyl Finds have been consolidated into one easy, low-APR category. The MP3 categories, as always, refers to hawt new traxxx (or easier to find music).

The first awesome find in last night’s excursion is the 1992 self-titled album by The Nightblooms. The Nightblooms were, as often is the case, an underappreciated collective from The Netherlands who only released two albums. Shoegazing is certainly the easiest reference point, as the group concealed melodic vocals under massive Big Muff guitar sounds. However, the Nightblooms were not nearly as ethereal as, say, Lush – the group packed a crunchy punch… almost reminiscent of a sped-up stoner metal band. You also hear an amalgamation of fuzz, punk, noise, and twee a la The Vaselines. There’s very little information on the group and I have yet to find any interviews on the intarwebz. If you find something, please send it my way! Otherwise, enjoys these rare gems perfect for warming weather.

For fans of: Lush, The Vaselines, Velocity Girl, Aislers Set

MP3 :::
The Nightblooms – Panicle
The Nightblooms – 59#1
The Nightblooms – Slowly Rising