Album Review: Vicky Cryer - The Synthetic Love Of Emotional Engineering

Album Rating: B+

Before we even begin to talk about the music, I’m happy to nominate The Synthetic Love Of Emotional Engineering as an early contender for Most Bizarre Album Art of 2013: plenty of artists—more accurately, all of them—dabble in discussing sex, but Vicky Cryer’s going straight for the jugular from the beginning. (As we speak, I am turning my phone’s brightness down to its lowest level, lest anybody see the cover and suspect me of unscrupulous activities.) This candor isn’t just reflected in the album art, as it turns out. If The 20/20 Experience is taking the pop spotlight at the moment, The Synthetic Love Of Emotional Engineering is its drunk older brother, head in the toilet and wallet stocked with fresh singles to throw away at the bar. Much like that album, however, The Synthetic Love Of Emotional Engineering is all about the ride: shimmering, grand, and unashamedly campy.

Artist Of The Day: Álfheimr

The last album I listened to by Álfheimr was released around the same time I started writing at MuzikDizcovery, and Madison Asche has increased his musical repertoire greatly since the last time I looked. Since the first quarter of 2011, the solo project has released two full-length records, two EPs, at least three singles, and a B-sides set, all of which are absolute stylistic advances on top of what Álfheimr already had to present. They seem to be inspired by different things as well - while What Allows Us To Endure is centered on the traditional post-rock sound, Here feels as though it was written with minimalist folk in mind, and Asche took and ran with it, and it sounds incredible. If post-rock / folk became the new norm, I'd be fine with it, if tracks like "Sleep" were prominently featured. The mix between so many acoustic bells and strings combined with just a small number of electronic effects to enhance the song's atmosphere is just about perfect. New tracks are slowly being released through SoundCloud, so watch for song releases in the near future. Additionally, the entire Álfheimr discography is available to stream and download for free on the Bandcamp page, so definitely take a look and check out how far the project has come.

Album Review: Paris - Paris

Album Rating: A-

Paris' self-titled EP is sure to please the "plebs." The group to which the pejorative term refers is typically made up of more casual listeners who genuinely enjoy watered-down metalcore, among other genres usually treated with scorn by an unfortunately elitist music community. While I could go on for days about the poisonous nature of this elitism and scorn and how it hurts the community as a whole, this discussion isn't the point of the review. Going back to my original statement, then, Paris seems tailor-made for the droves of people who will no doubt air-guitar along with tunes like "The Heartless." There's a noticeable amount of chugging, the guitars are all distorted and fuzzy, and lead vocalist Lynn Gunnulfsen sounds like a grittier version of Hayley Williams, no doubt attracting fans of the more popular (and usually critically disliked) pop-punk and alt-metal bands with female vocalists like Flyleaf and Tonight Alive. While I am personally fine with angsty teenagers having fun with bands like Paris, critical appreciation is a different story altogether. Too many bands of Paris' ilk are trapped under pointless clichés and poorly-done instrumentation and lyrics, and no matter how many people enjoy them it's simply impossible to say glowing things about the bands in a well-written review that people will respect.

Artist Of The Day: Frankie & The Heartstrings

It'd labour the point to say it's not before time, but a new Frankie & The Heartstrings record does nevertheless seem somewhat overdue. Believe it or not, it's little over two years since the Sunderland quintet unveiled their tremendous debut Hunger, but anticipation - coupled with tantalising early glimpses of a follow-up - have conspired to make this decidedly average gap resemble a gaping colourless void. Thankfully, that interval is nearing its end, with this week finally bringing the announcement of The Days Run Away, which is due to hit shelves on May 27. Overlooking the production skills of their very own Mick Ross, the LP (partly funded by those Dominos pizza ads) was instead overseen by former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, whose polished pop sheen has already been heard on the likes of "Everybody Looks Better (In The Right Light)," "I Still Follow You" and "Nothing Our Way." Those are by no means the only cuts that'll be familiar to fans either, with many having been showcased live over the past year or so; perhaps as a means of testing the waters before committing them to the studio. So what should we expect? Certainly nothing groundbreaking or any radical sonic departures - just another collection of perfectly written, mildly flamboyant indie-pop nuggets from a group who've already proven themselves to be among the best in the business.

Album Review: James Blake - Overgrown

Album Rating: A-

Last time around, Mr. Blake was displayed to the world as poster boy for the very temporarily named “post-dubstep” movement. It’s not quite sure what the idea behind gifting this title was: whether James and co. were going to fill the carcase left behind when dubstep’s mainstream heyday inevitably ended, or if it was seen as a natural progression with the genre smoothly squeezing into something mum would like, too. Unsurprisingly, neither of these things happened -mostly because dubstep should have never been brought up in the first place- but Blakey certainly did happen. However, now the context has petered out his self-titled debut is looking pretty shaky on its own. It’s made it important for Overgrown to prove JB is capable of sticking it out without the momentum he benefited from before; which it does, for the most part.

Artist Of The Day: Their / They're / There

A while back, I participated in a few events called "fantasy band drafts" where the participants picked out active band members in order to create the band of their dreams. I wouldn't doubt for a second that the idea of an "emo supergroup" led by prolific Into It. Over It singer-songwriter Evan Weiss and American Football/Owen superstar Mike Kinsella popped into the minds of quite a few people. Well, that group is fantasy no more, as the the two musicians teamed up with guitarist/songwriter Matthew Frank of math rock group Loose Lips Sink Ships to form the grammatically judgmental Their / They're / There. First single "Concession Speech Writer" perfectly represents everything that the whole EP has to offer. Expect more of Weiss's silky smooth vocals over twinkly riffs that have almost a metal quality to them and Kinsella's creative drum patterns. While it may be disappointing to some that Kinsella doesn't take over lead vocals even once throughout the six song EP, the band obviously had an idea of what they wanted to do and they easily succeeded in creating a strong six song release based on showcasing that idea. The EP will definitely remain one of the stronger emo releases of the year, but based on the cast, did anyone actually doubt that?

You can stream "Concession Speech Writer" on Rolling Stone, and be sure to check out the band on Facebook. The band's self-titled EP is out on Record Store Day (4/20).

Live Review: Conquering Animal Sound, The Cumberland Arms, Newcastle, 02/04/2013

Good labels are like good brands: trusted, sure-fire stamps of quality which listeners can rely on whilst sifting through a never ending mirage new music. For me, none epitomises this notion more than Chemikal Underground, the Glasgow-based independent which was at the heart of the city's late '90s scene with signings such as Mogwai, Arab Strap and The Delgados, and has retained its relevance with fresh blood like RM Hubbert, Loch Lomond and The Phantom Band. When it reached my attention, then, that they were issuing the second LP by local buzz band Conquering Animal Sound, it seemed like a no brainer to invest time in these latest protégés, and as anticipated the product in question, Of Floating Bodies did nothing but justify my faith. Indeed, the extent of the new record's excellence was on full display during this low-key appearance at Newcastle's Cumberland Arms - a gig where Anneke Kampman and James Scott completely overlooked 2011's Kammerspiel (A Scottish Album of the Year candidate, no less) in favour of fresh material.

Watch This: Deerhunter Debut New Music on Jimmy Fallon

Every generation needs their rock and roll eccentrics. These characters, your Mark E. Smiths and your Frank Zappa's for example, seem to exist outside the context of hype and cool and trends while simultaneously defining those things in the eyes of the public. They’re not part of movements because they are movements - definitive archetypes of their own with legions of loyal followers who think that most of the other slop that comes out of the general underground is crap. If we’ve got one of these, it simply has to be Bradford Cox. He’s got all the hallmarks - Just take a look at this performance with his band Deerhunter on Jimmy Fallon the other night. First thing’s first - he’s wearing a wig. For those of you unfamiliar with Brad, that’s not his regular hair. He’s playing a character, Connie Lungpin, a regular slice of early-'70s Bowie androgyny if I ever saw one, except that Bowie put on characters to fit these vague narratives he drew over his records. As far as we know, Connie is completely purposeless. I would like to also note that Cox (Lungpin) seems to be missing two fingers, apparently a ‘tribute’ to his father, who lost several fingers in a sawing accident. Hm.

Crossfire: Olafur Arnalds - For Now I Am Winter

Album Rating: B/B+

Greetings! Today, Moses Kim, a newcomer to the work of Olafur Arnalds, and Jacob Royal, a longtime fan of Arnalds, will discuss the neo-classical musician's latest album, For Now I Am Winter.

Moses: I guess I should preface all of my opinions by saying that this is the first album by Olafur Arnalds I've ever heard in full. He's becoming an increasingly ubiquitous name in the cinematic music community, and with a body of work as prolific and as consistent as his, it's not hard to see why. It's surprising, however, that For Now I Am Winter is as accessible an entry point as most new listeners will get. It takes what he's refined over the years--sparse but emotional melodies made more affecting by disciplined, minimalistic composition and instrumentation--and reconstructs it into something both familiar and exciting.

Artist of the Day: CyHi the Prynce

With the recent departure of Kid Cudi from GOOD Music, a new man has to take his place as the fourth biggest artist (behind Kanye, Big Sean and Pusha T) on the GOOD Music roster. Right now, that artist seems to be CyHi the Prynce, who made his first appearance on Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with a respectable verse on "So Appalled." He may not have showed up Yeezy or Jay-Z, but his flow was competent aside from his silly acknowledgment of a particularly fresh punchline. Bottom line, he had poise, and a whole lot of potential. However, over the past two years, few has been heard from CyHi. He threw down an underwhelming cameo on GOOD Music crew cut "The Morning" but stayed under the radar apart from this pop-up. His most notable release to date is his mixtape from earlier this year, Ivy League: Kick Back, which generated a little bit of excitement, but still showed that CyHi isn't necessarily ready to blow up yet.

So why is he the artist of the day? Honestly, because his association with Kanye is arguably more important than his talent. CyHi can certainly string a verse together, but he's not as clever as he thinks he is and too often gets shown up by his guest stars (see: Smoke DZA murdering him on "Mary Jane"). He's green, but that's ok. It took Big Sean four years of being on GOOD before he blew up, and many would argue that the still doesn't demonstrate the technical skills that Cy already has. Furthermore, his style is elastic, so he can flow over any beat. On Ivy League, he deftly spits over beats from producers as diverse as Lex Luger and The Audibles. It's also his flashes of brilliance, like the second verse of "Favorite Things," that make me think CyHi can fill Cudi's vacancy. He may not be as adept at dropping hooks as Cudi, but his rhymes can be vicious, his stories occasionally keenly interesting. The biggest problems right now with CyHi are his lack of material and inconsistency. His mixtapes are stuffed to the brim with filler and his rhymes get stale after a while. With a little refinement, don't be surprised if CyHi becomes a big name on the scene.

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Ivy League: The Kickback

Artist of the Day: Thao & The Get Down Stay Down

"We The Common," the first track on Thao Nguyen's latest album, We The Common, is addressed to one Valerie Bolden, a prisoner Nguyen connected with on a community service visit. The entire album, in fact, is dedicated to a similar struggle: the singer-songwriter took a sabbatical to reconnect with her surroundings, and that awakened desire for community bleeds into every aspect of her music.

A plucky banjo opens the song before Nguyen layers a litany of struggles over it, detailing desertion, heartbreak, and victimization from those who do not understand what it means to walk in the shoes of a prisoner. The band, however, turns this seemingly morose soliloquy into a slam-poetry festival, amping up the emotion and making it a learning experience for all listening. What's equally surprising is how resilient Nguyen herself is, firing off grievance after grievance but quelling the temptation towards woe-is-me posturing with bombast and vitality. As she declares, "How we the common do cry!" in the chorus, she finds solace in the voices echoing her own frustration--and perhaps more than a smidgen of hope as well. Later on, she asserts, "We die, we die, we die, we die until we try," and it's easy to see where she's coming from: We The Common is a musical--and spiritual--revival for anybody willing to take the time to connect.

We The Common is now available worldwide. You can also check out Nguyen and her band's Facebook page here.

Artist of the Day: Jesus

Although it may have passed some, yesterday marked the second birthday of legendary musical figure Jesus. His time on this earth was brief, but he single handedly inspired entire generations of musicians to the extent of many artists -i.e. angelic ITAOTS creator Jeff Mangum- proclaiming their love for him in their hits. I'd like to see Morrissey say he's done that - even if the theory suggesting Morrissey and Jesus are the same person is most likely true.

Entire genres have been traced back to Jesus' contributions, such as organ music, Christian rock and indie folk: a genre famous for its artists' physical impersonations of their beloved inspiration, much like angelic ITAOTS creator Jeff Mangum. Other forms of music such as satanic metal have always offered a fun alternative to the Jesus-insprired norm, but have often failed to find mainstream acclaim amongst a wider audience. Many claim Jesus is still working in the music industry today under pseudonyms including the aforementioned Morrissey and angelic ITAOTS creator Jeff Mangum, as well as Justin Hawkins, all of Mumford and Sons and Bill Odie. This remains speculation, however, but I'd like to believe on this day the grandfather of music still listens to contemporary pop music today in wonder of what he's instigated.

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Best Of The Year 2013: First Quarter Update

As we've done every three months since the beginning of 2011, we will again be doing quarterly updates in 2013. All of the staff here at MuzikDizcovery listed our top five albums that we've heard so far in 2013, and wrote up little blurbs about why we love these albums. We really hope you check out the albums on our lists, as I'm sure most of them are very dear to us. There's a very wide variety of music that you'll find on these lists, as groups such as Owel, Autre Ne Veut, Justin Timberlake, K Sera, The Story So Far, My Bloody Valentine, Youth Lagoon, Foals and Frightened Rabbit all have mentions from at least two of our staff members, so we guarantee that there will be at least one artist on here that you will end up loving. Check out all of our lists below.

Album Review: The Strokes - Comedown Machine

Album Rating: B-

In 2009, I had no interest in indie rock. I was a wanna-be radical high school sophomore straight out of Episcopal middle school, passing my relatively dull evenings (shouldn’t I have been doing homework?) listening to Propagandhi, Bad Religion, and Rise Against and thinking about how bad President Bush had been. Oh, girls too. I thought a lot about girls. It was girls that showed me the Shins, the Fratellis, the Decemberists, and any number of other girl-wooing indie acts that just ended up making me feel bad about not being able to woo girls. And then there was the Strokes. I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I spent a particularly long April of my life with nothing but Is This It on my iPod. I learned every crevice of every song. For the first time in my life, I felt like an album was made just for me.

Artist Of The Day: Anamanaguchi

Do yourself a favor and go watch the video embedded below. It's the music video for Anamanaguchi's new single, "Meow," and it's insane. For those of you too lazy to click the Play button and wait for four minutes, what essentially happens is the four guys in the band go into some sort of demented arcade, join four different "cult"-type groups, die, and get reborn into a live show. It's insane, it's confusing as hell, and it's utterly brilliant. That's the style characteristic of Anamanaguchi, though - the chip-rockers most famous for creating the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World The Game have made an admittedly short career a worthwhile one with their hyper-fast, continually-sugar-high music. Everything they create is a shot of pure, distilled energy, and listening to their music is always a joy if you're in the mood for smiling. Their upcoming LP, Endless Fantasy, looks to further their success, if "Meow," the album's lead single, is any indication. This reviewer will most certainly be looking forward to the release date, for there will be only smiles when the play button is finally pressed.

Interview With Casey Crescenzo (The Dear Hunter) (3/23/13)

When starting out in music journalism, I knew exactly what I wanted to do-- show who musicians really are. Music can say so much, but even if an album speaks perfectly for itself, its creator can, as Casey Crescenzo told me, come across as some "cloudheaded" figure. This is silly, of course-- musicians are just as human as we are-- but it can be hard to realize that, especially in this time of readily accessible music.

Jukebox: Icarus The Owl - Jaguar Shark

"Jaguar Shark" is a standard Icarus the Owl song. Make of that what you will, but there's no way around it - it's something which is so characteristic of the band that almost no one else could have written it, and one listen without context will make anyone say, "Yep, sounds like Icarus the Owl." Personally, I believe it's a very good thing that "Jaguar Shark" sticks to the same formula as what made Love Always, Leviathan such a stellar album. You've got the same quasi-nonsensical title and lyrics, you've got the same "instrumental acrobatics" which fellow writer Jacob Royal loved in his earlier review, you've got the same powerful Joey Rubenstein pop-punk vocals, and you've got the same mathy feel, especially with the kicking and pounding drums. And, to be honest, I'm perfectly happy with this. Though "Jaguar Shark" isn't quite up to snuff with the best of Love Always, Leviathan, it's still a very solid song in its own right. It feels like more of a maze than much of the group's other work in that it's more heavily distorted and foggy than other songs, and as a result it's more akin to their earlier album, The Spotless Mind, which I personally think is a fair bit weaker than the excellent Love Always, Leviathan, my second-favorite album of last year. However, the similarities "Jaguar Shark" demonstrate to the band's earlier work mean different things to different people. And even though I liked the best off Love Always, Leviathan more than "Jaguar Shark," it's still a very solid song, a roller-coaster ride that picks the listener up early and shoots him straight off to the end of the ride. "Jaguar Shark" should whet people's appetites for Icarus the Owl's upcoming EP, and since it's a strong song in its own right it deserves to do so.

You can stream the song here.

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Artist of the Day: Waxahatchee

When’s the last time your heard a guitar record that sat you right down next to its maker in a tiny room, staring them straight in the eye? For the better part of the past four or five years, bands have been content sending us out on to wide-open plains or to the top of mountains where the reverb goes on and on forever and a whisper can sound like a shout. No doubt it’s pretty, but honest? It can’t be. It’s fantasy. This is what sets Brooklyner Katie Crutchfield and her indie folk project Waxahatchee apart from the rest. The quality of her vocal performance actually relies on the quality of her voice, rather than carefully produced wafting emanations of glassy fullness that erupt every time so many other lo-fi folkster singer-songwriters so much as hum. Her guitar is just a guitar, a little bit out of tune every now and then, with a wooden body that thumps when it’s accidentally tapped. What she’s doing isn’t new, but somehow it seems revolutionary. Her songs are simple things, but if you’re focused on structure you’re missing the point. It’s the words and the stories, mostly about herself, or at least a character she’s invented with an acute understanding of pain. The songs are themselves are frames, wooden and unadorned, enabling and, in their own way, enhancing the beauty of their contents. 

Defending the Experience: A Brief Response to Anthony Fantano's Recent Justin Timberlake Review

Before I get into the meat of this post, I wish first to express my admiration for Anthony Fantano and his work under The Needle Drop. I am a huge fan of his, and I respect every video he's put out, not least of which including his recent review of Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience. Furthermore, this post will not be a rant. I will attempt to stay away from the dangerous cliff of "butthurt Internet troll" over which many writers of response posts often fall. I agree with, or at least understand, all of Fantano's criticisms of The 20/20 Experience, and this post is meant to deal with what I think he missed regarding the album. (Also, I apologize that this post is a bit late - I've been away until yesterday, and I didn't check my YouTube subscriptions until this morning.)

Live Review: Ajimal, Heartattack & Vine, Newcastle, 26/03/2013

With his debut mini-album finally nearing completion and a brand new single already in circulation, Fran O'Hanlon - aka Ajimal - can justly claim a place along the hottest up-and-coming acts in the North East. Already hailed as "unearthly" and "setting a new benchmark for sensitive pop in 2013," the Mick Ross-produced 'This Human Joy' saw release on Monday, and was available at this launch gig as a special handmade CD, limited to 20 copies. The show itself was similarly exclusive; fans having been encouraged to register online, with 25 lucky pairs assigned a passcode and the secret location, which as it turned out was Newcastle's Heartattack & Vine. An intimate - albeit chilly - renovated room, its cosy confines provided the perfect stage not only for Ajimal, but also the two support acts who preceded his appearance.