They actually sound like a band. That’s probably the most impressive thing about The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, which, by virtue of the people involved, sets an immediately high bar. It isn’t The Messthetics, with saxophonist James Brandon Lewis playing over top what the group would might typically do; nor is it the Messthetics serving as a backing band for Lewis. This is a true collaboration that demonstrate true musical kinship.
Sure, we all knew that the Messthetics could do a legitimate jazz record, but to hear what actually sounds like, in collaboration with the superb Lewis, is a revelation. And while this most assuredly falls within the context of jazz (or, as Nicholas Payton would rather we call it, Black American Music), the four musicians’ experimental and boundary-pushing leanings still are on full display.
The Messthetics with James Brandon Lewis in 2022 (photos by Kate Hoos)
The lead track, “L’Orso,” eases us in. A nice, buzzy roll from drummer Brandon Canty slides into a simple, sparse beat with guitarist Anthony Pirog, bassist Joe Lally, and Lewis engaged in a three-way conversation. Canty remains sure and steady, while longtime battery mate Lally offers up very cool bass chordings, giving Pirog plenty of space to shred. Pirog then falls back and begins a sort of call-and-response with Lally, while Lewis solos. Simple, sparse, thrilling, tasteful.
“Emergence” follows, with a groove reminiscent of Canty and Lally’s previous long running and iconic band, Fugazi, but it soon launches into something else. The rhythm partners double time, while Lewis and Pirog play in and around each other in a what can be described as intergalactic ska. Another left turn as the rhythm section turns up the intensity, Pirog steps on the distortion, and Lewis is off to the races. Punk jazz, baby.
The group slow down the pace for “Three Sisters,” featuring a dexterous guitar theme that segues into languid sax melodies and back again. The versatility of the rhythm section—the stuff of legend—is ever present here. Restraint, taste, and decades of telepathy are evident, as the rhythm shifts into high gear. Lally holds it down, while Canty plays off-time around him, while Pirog and Lewis solo and play off each other. There’s an improvisational feel to it all, belying the newness of this collaboration. Yet, they are together.
Another superb cut is the last tune, “Fourth Wall.” Pirog arpeggiates the main theme, mildly evoking Radiohead, with Canty and Lally locked into a relentless, driving groove. Lewis stretching out long, warm notes over top. Lewis, then Pirog, solo triumphantly over the krautrock-style rhythm. It’s hypnotic, heady, and hooky, feeling like it could go on forever—and you kind of wish it would.
It says a lot about the quality of the record, too, that it is out on the legendary jazz label, Impulse! Records. This ain’t no fluke or forced mashup. The music feels organic; it flows, it drives; it’s beautiful, it’s gnarly; it’s punk, it’s jazz; it’s traditional, it’s experimental. And it’s absolutely worth picking up.
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis is out now via Impulse! Records and available via Bandcamp and all major streamers.
Rebelmatic DCxPC Live Vol. 18 Rebelmatic Live at Fuzz Fest WV
Live albums are not as ubiquitous as they once were in decades past, but a great one can still be iconic and essential. A great live album not only catches a band’s energy and personality, but also crowd’s energy and interactions. DCPC, a label run by Scott Pasch, specializes in live vinyl, an idea that spawned from the proliferation of livestreams during the pandemic and has since carved out a very distinct niche in punk and hardcore.
For volume 18 of its live series, DCPC , along with Shiny Dome Records, captured a set from New York hardcore giants, Rebelmatic, during Fuzz Fest WV in Morgantown, West Virginia. Rebelmatic are an absolute force live, with kickass hardcore anthems, relentless energy, and superb musicanship. All of that comes through loud and clear on DCxPC Live Vol. 18 Rebelmatic Live at Fuzz Fest WV.
“Pony” kicks off the record in a fury, the band immediately on fire. Alkatraz’s near-metal guitar intro gives way to straight-ahead punk rock delivered the Rebelmatic way. Ramsey Jones is a flawless drummer, his snare rolls and tom-tom patterns sounding studio-perfect. Karnage adds depth and musicality on bass, especially underneath Alkatraz’s solos. And, of course, there’s Creature, aka Creech, his New York-accented growl sounding so fierce, delivering powerful vocals and inciting the crowd to match the band’s energy.
The chants of “Re-bel-ma-tic!” start immediately. Creech, from the stage, sees all—who’s dancing and thrashing and who’s maybe slow to respond. Some of the most entertaining and endearing parts of the record is hearing him try to get every single person in the audience involved, calling in the passive folks more than calling them out.
“You right here, my friend,” he says to someone in the audience, breathless after a particularly searing “Insult to Injury,” “you are not participating. We need everyone to participate to make this more of a celebration.”
From there, the band launches into “Blood and Gold.” Alkatraz’s descending “Rise Above”-style guitar intro is joined by an absolutely blistering snare roll from Jones. From there, it’s pure punk rock celebration, as intended. Creech bellows the singalong chorus hook, with Alkatraz and Karnage barking “Blood and gold!” behind him.
Rebelmatic live in Brooklyn (photo by Kate Hoos)
“Show N Prove” is a powerful NYHC stomper, and the West Virginia kids no doubt moshed their way into oblivion. Creech’s vocals are particularly intense during this tune, as he seems to reach for something extra. “Hey yo, don’t die asleep/hey, yo, don’t die a sheep” is a classic hardcore hook.
There’s another great interlude afterward, Creech encouraging the crowd to get to know each other. “If you don’t know each other, introduce yourself. I don’t care about all the social shit, say ‘Hello, my name is blah, blah, blah.’”
Shows, especially punk and hardcore shows, can sometimes be a little edgy and maybe off-putting for some. He’s quick to make sure everyone knows it’s an inclusive space.
“We’re at a social gathering. I want people to feel comfortable, I want people to have fun. Is that OK?” The crowd assures him it is so.
The positivity remains present during a tight-as-fuck “Born to Win,” a pogo-worthy rager. Creech seems to invoke a bit of Jello Biafra in his vocals during the chorus, “Oh baby, you/you’re born to win!” Jones is phenomenal here, his perfectly tuned snare cracking with such life, I can’t imagine anyone was left standing with their arms folded.
Rebelmatic live in Brooklyn (photo by Kate Hoos)
It’s a near-impossible task for a live album to match the intensity and magic of actually being at the show. But, hell, if this record doesn’t come damn close. The recording itself is pristine, serving as a no-frills, accurate depiction of Rebelmatic as an exceptional live band. They don’t need any trickery. Set up good mics and let them do their thing—which is what we get with DCPC Live Vol. 18. It’s as close to being there as you can get without sharing sweat with someone you just met.
DCxPC Live Vol. 18 Rebelmatic Live at Fuzz Fest WV is available now via Bandcamp.
SAVAK is a workhorse. They play tons of shows with bands both known and unknown (check out pics of SAVAK with Jawbox in 2022), and consistently put out records of intelligent and tightly crafted post-punk/jangle-pop. Flavors of Paradise leans more on its melodic side than its angular side, resulting in a record that seems to have more space and air without relinquishing any of the bands sonic power. And if it’s one thing Savak has, it’s power. The trio of Sohrab Habibion (vocals, guitars, bass, keys, percussion), Michael Jaworski (vocals, guitars, bass, keys, percussion), and Matt Schulz (drums, percussion) deliver a punchy and lean record with “no guests, no edits,” as the band states.
Vocally, Habibion and Jaworski share two sides of the Lee Ranaldo coin, the tuneful and the poetic. Jaworski kicks off the record with “Up With the Sun,” a driving, hook-y rocker. As the title suggests, lyrically, it’s a look forward, away from the current hellscape we’re mired in:
Up with the sun
Open eyes to a new dawn
Up with the sun
Left behind a broken body
And nobody in the void to hear me scream
Up with the sun
Shine a light on everyone
The illumination theme continues with “Let the Sunlight In,” in which Habibion and Jaworski are somehow able to make a very catchy chorus out of listing different years, 1953, 1961, 1972, 1985. I’m singing it as I type! “The New New Age” rages with incisive commentary on the cynical meta-ness of the Metaverse:
“Paid Disappearance” is pogo-worthy post-punk, feeling like a mix of Le Tigre and Gang of Four. “What Is It Worth” is a fantastic, moody jangler that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Guadalcanal Diary record.
There’s a warmth to Flavors of Paradise that allows SAVAK’s melodic prowess to come more to the fore, while still being chock full of driving guitars and Schulz’s particularly powerful and precise drumming. The record is “lean, spacious, and lively,” the band says, and I would agree. Matthew Barnhart (Superchunk, Bob Mould) deserves credit for production that serves each song and lets the band’s strengths come through. The angles may have been rounded off a bit, but it’s all killer, no filler. The SAVAK train keeps a-rollin’!
Mary Timony has been through a whole lot since her last solo record, 2007’s The Shapes We Make. She’s flexed her power-pop muscles with the beloved Ex Hex, and has been a force behind two supergroups, first Wild Flag and more recently, Hammered Hulls. She’s also experienced the travails of love and loss along the way. Now she has channeled the sonic changes and emotional challenges of life into her latest solo record, Untame the Tiger.
In the years leading up to recording the album, Timony dealt with the end of a long-term relationship and the death of her father, which both provide much of the inspiration for Untame the Tiger. Despite the title, the record is mostly subdued, subtle, and contemplative, with muted and compact production that never gets too high or low sonically. (Timony produced the album with long-time collaborator and essential podcaster, the drummer/composer Joe Wong, and Dennis Kane).
Timony’s guitar playing will always be a focal point, but perhaps just as compelling are the song’s vocals and melodies. She can be a soulful vocalist in a non-traditional sense. Her straightforward, unadorned vocal delivery convey the weight of lyrics, describing her sense of loneliness, sorrow, frustration. There is a confessional feeling to her vocals, like she’s talking even when singing. The dynamic and floating harmonies from guest vocalist Betsy Wright, her Ex Hex bandmate (who will join Timony on tour in March), are essential, adding a sad beauty to Timony’s more direct melodies.
In keeping with the overall subtlety of the record, Timony’s legendary guitar playing ability is evident, but in a different way than Ex Hex’s hard rock or the more European classical style of Helium or her early solo career. Her mastery of various guitar styles—acoustic, slide, fuzzy riffing, catchy melodic lead lines—all help serve the songs.
“No Thirds,” the album opener, is an evocative, driving tune (both in rhythm and subject matter). One can imagine her driving through the non-stop through the desert as the sun sets, til the dawn reveals new possibities alongside residual pain, as she sings “Brand new day/it still hurts like hell”. Wright’s haunting harmonies add emotional complexity to Timony’s melancholy vocals. Timony’s acoustic strumming provides the rhythmic pulse along with drummer Dave Christensen’s infinite groove. Bassist Brian Bettancourt keeps it simple along with the acoustic guitar, then works his way in and around Timony’s various lead passages. Her multiple lead overdubs counter and complement each other as the song closes.
“Dominoes” is pure indie pop, served up light and simple. “Kept saying I just wanted a friend/but my only emotion is to suffer til the end,” she sings atop a simple acoustic chord pattern. Timony and the band ease into a Rolling Stones-style groove to drive the song home, with her adding simple, yet tasty slide leads.
The desert vibes return on “Looking for the Sun.” Here, Timony shows off her ability to create atmosphere with some psych-folk. Once again, her acoustic guitar playing is the focal point, with a catchy, repeated motif throughout that counters her vocals. Timony’s electric guitar makes a beautiful appearance as the song closes, with subtle fuzz tones and a simple lead pattern that create an epic closing-credits ambience.
On the back half of the record, we reach the emotional crescendo as nightfall descends on the sonic desertscape she has created, particularly on “The Guest” and “The Dream.”
“The Guest” starts as hazy, melancholic country, Timony plaintively singing, “Hello, loneliness, you’ve come back home/You were the only one who never left me alone.” Her slightly deadpan delivery can’t mask the sadness behind the lyrics. Wright joins in for airy harmonies to really tug at the heartstrings. Once again, her deft closing guitar leads serve to drive the song’s emotions home rather than launch the song into another dimension.
Mary Timony in 2019 (photo by Kate Hoos)
“The Dream” slows things down, with an insistent, eerie arpeggiated guitar line. She begins: “I had a dream that nothing was really real.” The chorus relieves some tension with big chord strums and swelling strings—but not really, when she sings, “Can you hear the violence of spring, hear it ring from everything?” What a line. We think of spring as new beginnings, new life—but that is inherently violent, isn’t it, to be born or to reemerge from dormancy or turmoil. Her struggle between sweet oblivion and painful rebirth is laid bare, haunting the song’s conclusion, “I don’t wanna run to the dream.”
Untame the Tiger reveals emotional layers with each listen. At first blush, it’s pleasant and mellow listen; as you hear more of Timony’s life sung through the lyrics, the cozy production belies the raw emotion of her words. The psychedelic folkiness of the music helps soften the blow of the sadness and uncertainty she is expressing in each song. She has a long, storied history of laying her feelings out in her songs, but this record feels like a more pointed exercise than spilling ones guts. The pain of the death of relationships and towering life figures, like a parent, is universal. These feelings are universal and the record feels less like a private confession than a reaching out for mutual understanding.
Untame the Tiger is out now via Merge and available on Bandcamp and all major streamers.
Each Yo La Tengo album is like a visit from an old friend. They’re typically amicable and interesting, but also a little guarded and a little mysterious. Their most recent visit, though—This Stupid World—is heavy. Our friends are world weary, a little exasperated, and maybe a bit ornery. It’s not often they speak so directly about the state of the world (though, admittedly, I didn’t dive deep into 2018’s There’s a Riot Going On). They’re usually quite polite, mostly ignoring the controversial topics of money, religion, and politics in favor of ruminations on relationships or narratives from their own little corners of the world. The tribulations we all face today are impossible to ignore, though.
Album opener “Sinatra Drive Breakdown” sets the course, with some familiar themes: a krautrock bounce from drummer Georgia Hubley; an infectious, pulsing bassline from James McNew; and the melodic buzzsaw of Ira Kaplan’s guitar. But the heaviness is present from the jump. The reference to their the old Hoboken haunts in the title offers little levity. The outbursts from Kaplan’s guitar are neither exuberant nor cathartic; they’re searching, questioning, occasionally yelping. Kaplan and Hubley barely seem to be holding on as they sing the mournful refrain, “Until we all break, until we all break.”
The terrific first single, “Fallout,” is classic Yo La Tengo, but lyrically, you can’t help but ache right along with Kaplan: “Every day it hurts to look/I’d turn away if only I could/I wanna fall out of time/Hold back, unwind.” Even with the familiar driving rhythm and fuzzy guitar strumming, there’s still a pall over the proceedings. We’ll get no respite yet.
McNew offers a Motown-esque bass hook for “Tonight’s Episode,” but it’s the only light amid the swirling guitar noise and motorik rhythm. His voice cuts through, clear and deep, and a slight, wry smile appears as he intones, “Ask me nice, whatever you like, I’ll show you a yo-yo trick/I can Walk the Dog/I can Around the World/I can rock that cradle, too.” But, somehow even the imagery of various yo-yo configurations feels ominous within the context of the music and the record as a whole. What’s he talking about? Kaplan enters with beautifully picked acoustic guitar that, even its melodiousness, somehow adds to it to the anxiety.
The clouds start to part a bit with a slight chuckle from Hubley before she brings her soothing, spectral voice to “Aselestine.” At home as one of the great ballads in the Yo La Tengo canon, her voice seems to surround your head and ears. Lyrically, we step away a bit from the outside world, addressing a more insular relationship. It is a much-needed break, even in its sadness.
The record settles in a bit from here, with the ever-so-slight Latin touches of “Until it Happens” and the watery atmosphere of “Apology Letter,” featuring Kaplan’s voice at the fore, always a welcome sound—a little hiccupy, surprisingly rich, and distinctly heartfelt whenever he sings about relationships as he does here. He is charmingly self deprecating: “Then, I got mad ’cause you got mad/Another one of my delightful quirks/What a jerk.” But, given the perspectives on the outside world that make up a lot of This Stupid World, it’s hard not to wonder if these words can also apply to our societal relationships, particularly when he sings, “If I were to smile at you/would you smile at me?”
Yo La Tengo (photo by Kate Hoos)
We slide back into the darkness with the positively stellar title track. The rhythm section provide a relentless, trancelike thump under the guitar drone. “This stupid world is killing me/this stupid world is all we have,” Kaplan and Hubley sing high above, not evoking a dreamlike quality but an untethered distance from the chaos below. The words are a lament, a reminder, a caution. The band begins recede further into the ether on the final track, “Miles Away.” Processed drums groove warmly, washes of guitar create an ambient landscape as the mood shifts slightly; it’s still dark, it’s still tense, but Hubley offers a balm: “Ease your mind/bide your time/hold your thoughts for now.” Another couple short verses, and she’s gone. The drums drop out soon, too. A few notes via guitar or keyboard effects and now everyone is gone. Miles away. Just like we’d like to be sometimes in this stupid world.
