The Fat Angel Sings

On May 27th, 1968, Iron Butterfly recorded their classic song “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”. Iron Butterfly’s signature track and often considered one of the most influential songs on the heavy metal movement — especially in the United States. A progressive rock gem, as well, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” has also been known for its length. Perhaps the highlight of the track is Ron Bushy’s drum solo at just over the six-minute mark. It delivers a kind of Jungle vibe. It builds up to a frenetic pace and cools off before the band comes together for a collective jam. Bushy again moves into the forefront at the 13-minute mark; an overall drum performance that was quite impressive for the late 1960s, and helped define this epic rock classic.

Okay – anyone who wants to make fun of hippie-era silliness has all the fuel they need in this album’s title, also that of the group’s #30 hit song of the same name (a just under three-minute edit of the 17-minute album track). The band’s stature as hard rock progenitors is underscored by the title of their previous album, “Heavy“, and big worldwide sales of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” certainly helped spread the sound.

At slightly over 17 minutes long, it occupies the entire second side of the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” album. The lyrics are simple, and heard only at the beginning and the end. The track was recorded at Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. The original title of the song was “In The Garden of Eden”.

The recording that is heard on the album was meant to be a soundcheck for engineer Don Casale while the band waited for the arrival of producer Jim Hilton. However, Casale had rolled a recording tape, and when the rehearsal was completed it was agreed that the performance was of sufficient quality that another take was not needed. Hilton later remixed the recording at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles.

In later years, band members claimed that the track was produced by Long Island producer Shadow Morton, who earlier had supervised the recordings of the band Vanilla Fudge. Morton subsequently stated in several interviews that he had agreed to do so at the behest of Atlantic Records chief Ahmet Ertegun, but said he was drinking heavily at the time and that his actual oversight of the recording was minimal. Neither Casale nor Morton receives credit on the album, while Hilton was credited as both its sound engineer and producer.

“Welcome 2 Club XIII”, Drive By Truckers the 14th studio album, marks a sharp departure from the trenchant political commentary of their last three records. A reckoning with the dualities of the things that make you alive and how they sometimes can kill you. A life affirming flashlight for the dark nights of one’s soul. The title track is a tongue in cheek homage to a local dive that founding members Cooley and Hood played in the early days. As they say in the song “Our glory days did kinda suck”.

As on the Drive-By Truckers’ terrific trilogy about growing up below the Mason-Dixon line – “Southern Rock Opera”, “Decoration Day” (2003) and “The Dirty South” (2004) – “Welcome 2 Club XIII” is a loose concept album, this time looking back at the years before their identity was fully formed. “Tonight we’re gonna be entertained by our favourite Foghat cover band,” Patterson Hood sings on the title track, recalling their indifferently received opening gigs as Adam’s House Cat, who get a name-check here.

Their seven-minute opener “The Driver” sets the tone as Hood opens an early tour diary filled with late nights, new towns and youthful optimism. But it’s not always fond memories: There are Klan sightings and hazardous icy roads along the way, and, drugs and booze take their toll in “We Will Never Wake You Up in the Morning,” a tribute to a late friend. “Wilder Days,” the album’s six-and-a-half-minute closing song, drops the Drive-By Truckers in the present day while tracing the line from before there were families to support – “we were invincible and unafraid” – to the life that now keeps them on the road for months on end: “The days are getting shorter and the years counting down, and the sun gets dizzy watching us as we go spinning around.”

Recorded quickly and with little fuss, “Welcome 2 Club XIII” sounds raw and weary, as if the past couple of years aren’t the only thing that’s weighed on the band; the decades have, too. When the Drive-By Truckers spring to life – the throwback “Shake and Pine,” Mike Cooley’s horn-abetted “Every Single Storied Flameout” – it’s a temporary salve. But they never sound defeated. “Have a seat and stay awhile,” invites Hood in “Forged in Hell and Heaven Sent.” They’re still in for the long haul.

Fresh grief, like fresh love, has a way of sharpening our vision and bringing on painful clarifications. No matter how temporary we know these states to be, the vulnerability and transformation they demand can overpower the strongest among us.

Then there are the rare, fertile moments when both occur, when mourning and limerence heighten, complicate and explain each other; the songs that comprise Angel Olsen’s “Big Time” were forged in such a whiplash.

“Big Time” is an album about the expansive power of new love, but this brightness and optimism is tempered by a profound and layered sense of loss.

“Big Time” by Angel Olsen from the forthcoming album ‘Big Time’, out June 3rd on Jagjaguwar.

Soak’s Bridie Monds-Watson has spent their last two albums sifting through melancholy, trying to find nuggets of hope. “I’m lost in some nothingness,” they keened on “Valentine Shmalentine” backed by weary drums and sympathetic strings, “And I can’t find where the exit is.” 2019’s Grim Town brought out a cheeky, jauntier side of Monds-Watson compared to the drifting anxieties of their debut, but it’s on their third full-length “If I Never Know You Like This Again” that they finally embrace joy with a sprawling sense of abandon. Like a Mary Ruefle poem, these songs are spiked with a stream-of-consciousness candor that grapples with the pandemic’s absurd precarity: exploitative landlords, “Live Laugh Love” signs, existential crises. It’s a departure from the spare narratives of their past releases, but one that seems to come naturally for Monds-Watson.

Derry artist Bridie Monds-Watson’s third Soak album If I never know you like this again was released today is inspired by 90s college rock and bands like Broken Social Scene and Pavement.

‘Swear Jar’ is a fine example of how SOAK’s music has developed over the years, with an internal confidence, matched with lyrics about depression and the breakdown of a relationship. It’s got some wonderful string and backing vocal flourishes.

“I felt so disconnected from myself and life that I was starting to question if I’d ever truly been present or if I’d always been on autopilot,” said Bridie Monds-Watson of the song.

New album ‘If I Never Know You Like This Again’ out now.

On the title track to “Welcome 2 Club XIII”, Drive-By Truckers pay homage to the Muscle Shoals honky-tonk studios where founding members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley got their start: a concrete-floored dive lit like a disco, with the nightly promise of penny beer and truly dubious cover bands. “There were no cool bars in town and Club XIII was the best we had but it wasn’t all that good, and our band wasn’t particularly liked there,” says Hood, referring to the vocalist/guitarists’ former band Adam’s House Cat. “From time to time the owner would throw us a Wednesday night or let us open for a hair-metal band we were a terrible fit for, and everyone would hang out outside until we were done playing.

It wasn’t very funny at the time, but it’s funny to us now.” The 14th studio album from Drive-By Truckers  whose line-up also includes keyboardist/guitarist Jay Gonzalez, bassist Matt Patton, and drummer Brad Morgan — “Welcome 2 Club XIII” looks back on their formative years with both deadpan pragmatism and profound tenderness, instilling each song with the kind of lived-in detail that invites bittersweet reminiscence of your own misspent youth. Featuring background vocals from the likes of Margo Price, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills and Mississippi-bred singer/songwriter Schaefer Llana,

“Welcome 2 Club XIII” was recorded live with most songs cut in one or two takes, fully harnessing the band’s freewheeling energy. Notes Cooley: “For us it’s always about just getting together and having fun, but this time there was the added feeling of being set free after a long time of wondering if we’d ever get to do this again.”

“Welcome 2 Club XIII” is the first single from Drive-By Truckers’ upcoming album ‘Welcome 2 Club XIII’.

Seattle-via-Connecticut band Bread Pilot have signed to Double Double Whammy and announced a new album, “New To You”, due out May 27th via their new label home. On their debut, “New to You”, Bread Pilot create a time capsule that holds all the highs and lows of the last 10 years. The band began making music when they were in high school and draw on their decade’s worth of memories together to make something truly sentimental. They manage to catapult between comfortable nostalgia and energetic indie in a way that authentically captures the whole spectrum of emotions they experienced. Listening to the album feels like flipping through a photo album where each song is an intimate snapshot of a specific person or place sacred to the band.

The lead single is “Skin Day,” a tuneful, fuzzed out slice of upbeat indie rock. “‘Skin Day’ is fuelled by the urgency to complete an idea before the inspiration expires,” guitarist/vocalist Stephen Ibanez, Jr. says. “It was conceived on a winter afternoon while housesitting in an unfamiliar place. I had taken a bit of a substance and felt the effects coming on as I was writing, and in fear of being unable to be in control of my body/mind for much longer, I focused in and wrote the rest of it in a bit of a panic.”

“Skin Day” from the album “New To You”, out May 27th 2022 via Double Double Whammy

Remixes don’t quite have the appeal they did in the ’90s and ’00s, when indie rock and club culture were intertwining a little more. It still happens, and we’ve seen a lot of remix albums through the pandemic but those often seem like a way to remind fans that they’re finally going to tour for that record they made two years ago. Still, some groups seem to understand the appeal of remixes and what makes a good one. UK motorik darkwave duo The KVB have turned over last’s “Unity” to a select group of sympathetic friends and fellow artists and the result is this excellent EP that offers up across-the-board great alternate versions of songs that, in a couple cases, might better the original.

One of those that feels like a step up is Trentemøller‘s remix of “Lumens” that strips out a lot of the original’s synths and refashions it into textured dreampop not unlike what’s on his new album “Memoria“. Also bettering the original is The KVB’s own “After Hours” version of “Structural Index” that adds a little laid-back swing and house feel. Elsewhere: Drab Majesty give “Blind” a whole new (killer) bassline, Moa Moa take “Unbound” into more overt rock territory, Principleasure reimagines “Unité” as pure techno, and “Ideal Living” is shot into the stratosphere by maXIon. None are radical reworks, but all add welcome detail, making for a worthy companion to a very good album.

Through the years, Weiss has played with everyone from her bands Quasi, Wild Flag, and Sleater-Kinney, to collaborators like Elliott Smith, Stephen Malkmus, and others.; Grow has fronted his own groups Modern Kin and the Pastors’ Wives, producing other bands along the way. Starting as a moonlighting collaboration, the meeting of this particular group was kismet if not totally cosmic.

Slang, the Portland band that includes Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney, Quasi), Drew Grow (Modern Kin, Pastors’ Wives), Kathy Foster (The Thermals), and Anita Lee Elliot (Viva Voce), started in the mid-2010s, but between Janet getting in a car accident and the pandemic, they’ve were a little slow out of the gate. With Janet more of a free agent these days, and the last two years giving everyone a little more free time, Slang are finally here with their debut album.

For those imagining some sort of true PDX supergroup, combining elements of the many notable bands involved, you might be disappointed but on its own terms “Cockroach in a Ghost Town” is a very solid record. Drew Grow is the primary creative force here: he sings lead and wrote all the songs (or co-wrote with Weiss) and he’s got an emotive, anthemic style that’s closer to Arcade Fire than Sleater-Kinney or The Thermals.

He knows his way around big choruses, not to mention memorable verses and middle-eighths, and has the fiery vocal chords with which to deliver them. Having such a killer band — including one of the best drummers on the planet — all just makes it kick a little more ass.

Rock-n-roll group hailing from Portland, Oregon.

Band is: Drew Grow, Janet Weiss, Kathy Foster, Anita Lee Elliott
Debut album,
“Cockroach in a Ghost Town” out now on Kill Rock Stars.

There’s something elemental about a trio, take one member away and the whole thing falls over. Chicago’s Dehd are as elemental as it gets, with Jason Balla, Emily Kempf and Eric McGrady laying down guitar, bass and drums at their most minimal. They have a unique chemistry, though, with Balla and Kempf both singing lead on Dehd’s brand of scrappy, occasionally twangy indie rock earworms. You couldn’t lose any of them. They are a band that makes me miss NYC’s Lower East Side club Cake Shop, as their style and spirit would’ve fit right in alongside Crystal Stilts, Box Elders, Hunx & His Punx and other groups who frequented the subterranean venue in the late ’00s.

Following their 2020 breakthrough “Flower of Devotion”, Dehd signed with big indie Fat Possum and “Blue Skies” is their first for the label. The gentle electric piano on “Control” that opens the album make make you might wonder if moving on up has changed their sound, but then they barrel into the feisty, full-throated “Bad Love” and it’s clear this is the same Dehd, just spiffed up a little.

They worked at the same studio as their previous records, with Balla still behind the boards, but they were afforded more time to make this one, as well as to have engineer Craig Silvey (Jarvis Cocker, The Horrors) mix the album. 

The songs are tighter, the drums hit with more oomph, keyboards colour in the edges just a little, and Balla and Kempf’s voices sound just a little sweeter. Dehd haven’t gotten slicker, just more vivid.

Stars have always crafted widescreen, romantic pop, songs full of intimate details and grand ambition even when they were working as a duo with a few cheap keyboards and a drum machine. Over the last two decades, their line-up has expanded, contracted and expanded again, and records have been made with bigger budgets and sometimes famous producers. But their core ideals have remained resilient: heartfelt music that sounds good in an indie disco or at home by yourself. You know, the whole spectrum of “How Soon is Now?” but finding the joy in little moments as well as those when you go and stand on your own and you leave on your own and cry and want to die.*

Working with The Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek, Montreal’s Stars sound appropriately cinematic on their very good ninth album.

Their ninth album, “From Capelton Hill” finds Torquil Campbell, Amy Millan, Chris Seligman and the rest of the band working with a very sympathetic collaborator, The Besnard Lakes’ Jace Lasek who really helps them achieve the appropriate level of grandeur and sweep that their songs deserve. It’s a wonder these Montreal residents haven’t worked together before. Jace also sings backup on the album, as does

The Dears’ Murray Lightburn, making this a very Montreal affair. Stars remain at their best with one foot on the dancefloor, mixing electronics and a beating heart, and “Palmistry” and “Build a Fire” are wonderfully sultry additions to their cannon, as are swoony indie-pop numbers “Pretenders” and “Hoping.” Few bands that were with us at the dawn of the millennium continue to sound this vital. “If I could count up every mile we passed, how did we even make this last,” Campbell and Millan ask on “Patterns.” “Our memory splits in two cause we don’t do goodbye.”

released May 27th, 2022

Written and Arranged by Stars:
Chris Seligman, Evan Cranley, Torquil Campbell, Chris McCarron, Amy Millan, Patrick McGee