Broken Bells is the new alt-rock project of Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and James Mercer of the Shins. By now you’ve probably heard their single ‘The High Road’, taken from their self-titled debut album released in the UK last week (on 08 March).

I am totally digging their sound that recalls the expansiveness of the Eagles, psychedelia of the late ’60s, the great falsettos from ’70s disco, and even ’80s video game blips. The two met at Roskilde Festival in 2004 and discovered they were fans of each other’s work. They worked in secret on new music until September 2009, when they finally revealed their new project.

Here’s a live performance of their groovy ‘The Ghost Inside’ on American telly’s ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ earlier this month. It even features trippy lighting!

Broken Bells’s self-titled debut album is available now from Columbia Records.

From accounts I’ve heard so far, We Were Promised Jetpacks have been wowing audiences across North America on their latest tour, which just wrapped up on 15 March. And at these shows, singer Adam Thompson has been referring to “our new EP” which is called ‘The Last Place You’ll Look’ and will be released digitally in the UK on 12 April. I’ve seen the Scottish quartet twice now and really love the immediacy of their debut album, ‘These Four Walls’. So I’ve been itching to get my hands on their new material.

‘A Far Cry’, the first song on the new EP, sounds like the Jetpacks’s “going to war” song. Darren Lackie’s drumming on the song should bring everyone to attention. The spare guitars from Thompson, guitarist Michael Palmer and bassist Sean Smith in the lyric-less ‘The Walls are Wearing Thin’ are proof that these Scots are technically dextrous with their instruments. They put in good effort with ‘With the Benefit of Hindsight’; the only problem with the track is that in the joy of putting horns with their usual backing, Thompson’s vocals are muddled and lost in the mix. For me, his powerful vocals are a central source of power in the band’s songs, so it’s the one disappointment I have with this EP.

Two of the songs should be familiar to WWPJ fans: for this EP, ‘Short Bursts’ and ‘This is My House, This is My Home’ have been reworked and give way to amazing results. An uncle of mine once asked me what they sounded like, and at a loss of how to describe their hard-hitting live sound I said, vaguely, “uh…punk? Rock-ish?” But you’d never think of these songs as punk. The re-do of ‘Short Bursts’ is less raw, warmer. And the new version of ‘This is My House…’ is slowed down, with added strings and Thompson’s emotional Scottish brogue coming together to feel like your mother wrapping you in a warm blanket. Lovely. While this EP is a good stop-gap between albums, it’s made me look forward to their sophomore effort and hope that they’ll be able to take the maturity evidenced in this EP and combine it winningly with the ‘These Four Walls’ laddishness.

As alluded to in my Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel gig review last month, I couldn’t buy this EP at the show because the merchandise table had disappeared from its post before I could get over there. And I’ve found out why I couldn’t find information on the physical release of the new EP: the physical format will only be available at their shows this year, so word to the wise: if you’re like me and prefer physical CDs, be sure to see them live and buy this great EP in person.

7/10

We Were Promised Jetpacks’s new EP, ‘The Last Place You’ll Look’, will be released digitally by Fat Cat Records on 12 April and can be pre-ordered now. The physical format of the EP will be available exclusively at the band’s live shows this year.

French band Phoenix are on a roll. Earlier this year, their latest album ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’ won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album, handily beating out albums by David Byrne and Brian Eno, Death Cab for Cutie, Depeche Mode and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They quickly sold out an April date at D.C.’s Constitution Hall – not bad for a band that played a small club the last time they visited our fair city. And they’ve already announced a handful of summer festival appearances, with more on the way I’m sure.

Check out the band’s recent live performance ‘Lisztomania’ at Los Angeles’s Wiltern from American late night programme ‘Last Call with Carson Daly’.

Cymbals Eat Guitars seem to be spending a lot of time in Britain, having played a series of dates in the UK in February in addition to opening for the Flaming Lips during Wayne Coyne’s band’s London residency last November. But earlier this month they started their first major headlining tour of North America in Philadelphia. The second date of the tour was a sold-out show on 06 March at D.C.’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel. (If you’re interested, I had a brief question and answer session with their newest member, bassist Matt Whipple, the first week of March, and you can read it here.)

The two openers for the night were fellow New York bands – the electro-folky Freelance Whales and the experimental pop band Bear in Heaven. I’ve had the misfortune of missing out on Freelance Whales twice – once, when D.C. traffic wreaked havoc on me and Mary Beth’s plans to arrive early for the Fanfarlo concert early last December at Iota (when FW was supporting the London folk pop band) and twice, they had sold out the smaller Black Cat Backstage floor when I was on the bigger, upstairs floor covering We Are Scientists.

This Saturday night, the Whales played to an appreciative crowd, many of whom knew and sang along to songs on their forthcoming, self-released debut album ‘Weathervanes’. The band is an interesting juxtaposition of traditional folk (banjo, accordion) and new-fangled instruments (synth and keyboard) as well as the unusual (xylophone, watering can used as percussion). Note: I thought they were great and the current hype around them is insane, you’d be remiss not to at least have a listen.

Bear in Heaven was the wild card of the night for me, not knowing anything about the Brooklyn band. I thoroughly enjoyed the combination of voice, guitars, synth, and drums coming together to create some atmospheric masterpieces that at times could be called rock and at times could be called dance. You would not have guessed this looking at the three men on stage displaying various stages of beard and mustache. Fun stuff like ‘Wholehearted Mess’ surprised me with the band’s brand of experimental dance. (Is that even a genre?)

When 23.30 rolled around and it was time for the headliner Cymbals Eat Guitars, I was feeling a little apprehensive. I hadn’t been in such a testosterone-fueled, excitement-filled room since seeing the Hold Steady at the 9:30 last summer. The quartet’s sound is tight, sounding better than ever. They powered through several of the songs like ‘Under a Hazy Sea’ (featuring Joseph D’Agostino’s emotional vocals and jangly guitar) and the jaunty ‘Indiana’ from their Memphis Industries’s debut ‘Why There Are Mountains’ and played some new ones for us as well.

I’m pretty sure they could have sold out the next biggest venue in town, the Black Cat, but my feeling is that the rock of Cymbals Eat Guitars feels right in a sweaty, packed place like the RnR. The band heads to South by Southwest this week and I’m sure they will wow the Austin crowd just like they wowed us here in D.C.

After the cut: more photos!

Read the rest of this entry »

Northern Irish dance pop band Two Door Cinema Club have just announced a string of 12 dates for September. The tour starts on the 15th of September in Birmingham and includes their biggest headlining show to date, at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire on 22 September. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday (19 March).

Wednesday 15th September 2010 – Birmingham, Academy 2
Thursday 16th September 2010 - Newcastle, Northumbria University
Friday 17th September 2010 – Glasgow, Oran Mor
Saturday 18th September 2010 – Manchester, Academy 2
Monday 20th September 2010 - Sheffield, Leadmill
Tuesday 21st September 2010 – Leeds Metropolitan University
Wednesday 22nd September 2010 – London, Shepherds Bush Empire
Friday 24th September 2010 – Oxford, Academy
Saturday 25th September 2010 – Brighton, Digital
Monday 27th September 2010 – Stoke, Underground
Tuesday 28th September 2010 – Cambridge, Junction
Wednesday 29th September 2010 – Liverpool, Academy 2

Editor’s note: For the sake of disclosure, I want to state for the record that I have very strong feelings on this topic, and I will do my utmost to present the facts and keep my emotions to a minimum.

Every year the BBC Trust conducts an audit of all BBC Radio stations to analyse their listenership and whether they’re getting the best value for their money, as all BBC radio stations are funded by the state and paid for by UK residents. On 02 March the Trust confirmed a proposal to close of two of its digital stations: 6music, the Beeb’s alternative music station, and the Asian Network, broadcasting Asian music, news, entertainment, culture, debate and drama. According to an article published in the Guardian the same day, Director General Mark Thompson stated, “even to propose the closure of BBC services is a very big and in some ways painful step. There’s lots of great content on BBC 6 Music and some real talent …[but the station was] expensive … given its relatively small audience.”

BBC Radio 6 describes itself as a station that “brings together the cutting edge of today and the iconic and groundbreaking music of the past 40 years.” Indie music stalwart Steve Lamacq (pictured above), who currently hosts a 3-hour evening drivetime programme Monday through Friday on the station, posted a quite eloquent entry on his personal Web site’s blog with his thoughts on 6music’s closure, including these that I believe are two very important bits to contemplate:

On a personal level, I believe that shutting 6music would be disastrous for the British music scene – and alternative music from further a field too. There is so much music being played every week on Six that simply doesn’t get played anywhere else, that losing it would be unthinkable … The cultural hole it would leave if scrapped, would have terrible repercussions for everyone from small promoters to indie labels to bands and to music fans of all ages. We’d be denying people the chance to hear music which could – even in just a few cases – alter their life, as listening to John Peel changed mine.

Ex-Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, who recently joined the 6music team as a Sunday afternoon presenter at the start of 2010, had this to say about the closure:

As far as I can see, a station like Radio 6 is perfectly in the spirit of what the BBC was supposedly set up to do – public service broadcasting. It’s airing music that wouldn’t get heard otherwise.

Many other artists, including Emmy the Great, David Bowie, Frankie and the Heartstrings, La Roux and Mark Ronson, just to name a few, have voiced their opposition to the closing of 6music, which just celebrated its 8th birthday on Thursday the 11th of March. Loyal listeners have also become involved in the fight to save the station, starting Facebook and Twibbon campaigns and organising petitions and demonstrations, all in an effort to make their voices heard.

No matter which side you’re on, you can see this is a very charged, passionate battle being fought. If you wish to weigh in on this issue, you have until 25 May to complete an online survey, part of the Strategy Review Consultation, here.

As you can imagine, there is much in the media on this proposal. And below are just some links that we think you may find interesting on this topic.

BBC – In Quotes: Reactions to BBC Cuts

The Independent – BBC radio stars hit out over 6 Music closure plans

Music Week - Viewpoint: Beggars Group chairman Martin Mills

The Times Online – BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons admits licence fee cut possible

Many, many years ago I had a young girl’s dream of becoming a singer. Long story short: for a multitude of reasons, it never happened, but as a result, I’m very critical of female singing voices upon hearing them for the first time. Most of the time, I am displeased (that’s putting it mildly) by what frivolous and unimpassioned warblings some girl is passing off as quote music unquote. I’m happy to report that last week I was pleasantly surprised and even a bit stunned upon hearing the band I am about to describe to you.

The anti-folk foursome Erin K and Tash is fronted by, yep, you guessed it, two angelic, incredible-sounding singers named Erin Kleh and Tash ter Braak. The two met in August 2009 after ter Braak, a talented pianist, answered Kleh’s ad for a backing vocalist for her burgeoning amateur band. The two hit it off right away and have been writing and performing together ever since with Paul Durbin (percussion) and Nicolas Cornu (guitar).

Check out the funny and evocative ‘Sorry I’m Not Black’ (mentioning American basketball star Dennis Rodman and English party girl singer Amy Winehouse) for an example of their lyrics: witty, humourous, and a breath of fresh air. The songs are delivered with such sweetness than the first thing that came into mind upon listening to a gorgeously spare version of ‘Oh Well (without noise version)’ on their MySpace, I thought of Emmy the Great.

The sultry ‘Jiggy Miggy’ reminds me of the great Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas. It’s a great example that even though female voices can be angelic, these women are real women; they feel emotions like love and lust like the rest of us and aren’t afraid to sing about them in a thoughtful way that we normal people can relate to, not at all in the distasteful way that seems pretty much par for the course for female, mass-marketed pop singers these days. So I say to Erin K and Tash, hip hip hooray!

This unsigned band is based in London and plays in venues around town. Here are some upcoming dates taken from their MySpace.

Sunday 21st March 2010 – London Islington Old Queens Head
Thursday 15th April 2010 – London Gladstone (free gig)
Thursday 22nd April 2010 – London Earl’s Court Troubadour
Monday 10th May 2010 – London 12 Bar (Blang! night)
Saturday 22nd May 2010 – London Leytonstone Library Hall

The third album ‘Barbara’ from those loveable American pranksters We Are Scientists is on the horizon. However, we won’t be able to get our little hands on the album for a couple more months. In the meantime, we have a little teaser in the form of ‘Rules Don’t Stop’.

Per my interview with Chris Cain and Keith Murray in February about the new material, it was written for a three-piece line-up, unlike the last album, 2008’s ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’, which featured synths (a change from their original sound I wholeheartedly embraced). They took a back to basics approach with this third album-length offering, so I’m expecting ‘Barbara’ to sound more like their debut, ‘With Love and Squalor’ – you remember the cover, don’t you? The one with the cats?

I disagreed with the sentiment, but some critics complained that ‘Brain Thrust Mastery’ was overthought and unnecessarily complicated. I think these detractors will be pleased with this first single from ‘Barbara’. ‘Rules Don’t Stop’ is a punchy, barely 2-minute affair. And when I say ‘affair’, it’s an all too brief one, with a poppy melody and lyrics sung by Keith Murray with usual We Are Scientists conviction. Hearing it live for the first time in January, well before it debuted as one of Zane Lowe’s ‘Hottest Records in the World’, was a total joy, so I’m expect great things from this new album. The promo video for ‘Rules Don’t Stop’ premiered yesterday, and you can check it out below.

By the way, I’m not entirely sure what’s the deal with the band’s current citrus fixation. But I’m guessing it has to do with a creature they dreamt up that has a mirrored tile exterior and is filled with 100% juice. Don’t believe me? Watch this video of the guys hamming it up with celebs at the NME Shockwaves Awards on 24 February. (Editor’s note: there’s a slightly off colour joke question proffered by Bombay Bicycle Club, so if you’re easily offended, you may want to stop playing the vid at the 4-minute mark.)

The single ‘Rules Don’t Stop’ will be released on CD and vinyl on 5 April in the UK. We Are Scientists’s third album ‘Barbara’ is scheduled to be released on 14 June.

It’s been quite a while since the Temper Trap’s debut album ‘Conditions’ was released (June 2009 for the UK and October 2009 for America). But seeing that the Melbourne, Australia indie rockers will be headlining their first North American tour next week at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, I wanted to take a closer look at their first major release that made the top 25 in the UK albums chart.

Prior to reviewing the album, I was aware of probably the same two songs everyone else is, if they’ve been listening to UK radio over the last 6 months or so. ‘Sweet Disposition’ is arguably the song that broke them first in the UK (thanks to radio airplay) and then America (thanks to the young person romance film ‘(500) Days of Summer.’ Featuring the smooth falsetto of lead singer Dougy Mandagi and bouncy guitar, it’s one of those songs that I initially lumped in with “infinite”-sounding tracks like Delphic’s ‘Counterpoint’, but then later realised they were completely different (the Temper Trap going for the indie rock sound vs. Delphic’s more electronic bent). The album’s opening track ‘Love Lost’ sounds like the younger brother of ‘Sweet Disposition’ – a bit more jazzier at times but falling short of its elder sibling.

‘Fader’, the other song in question, is completely different, and in my opinion, it’s one of the better tracks on the album. A very summery pop song, it’s got “ooh ooh oohs” that encourage the listener to join in (and don’t even try to tell me haven’t sung along or at least once played air guitar upon hearing it). Interestingly, Mandagi’s voice in this sounds like he’s from the Deep South (think of Caleb Followill’s drawl in Kings of Leon’s ‘Revelry’). Had I not known this band was from Oz, I’d probably made the completely incorrect assumption they were from Dixie.

Falsettos can certainly divide: some people love songs sung in a falsetto voice, and some don’t. I’m on the fence – I didn’t get the warblings of Hayden Thorpe (Wild Beasts) but now I’ve come to understand the appeal, and anything Muse’s Matt Bellamy sings in a high register is okay by me. And Mandagi’s voice is the problem I see with the Temper Trap achieving mass appeal. It’s certainly not in the instrumentation – the guitars and drumming are spot on, so I’m imagine they easily kill it live. But if you aren’t a fan of the falsetto, you probably won’t dig songs like ‘Soldier On’ and ‘Fools’.

Much better is ‘Science of Fear’, supposedly released as the second single from the album but I’d never heard previously because it didn’t do a thing in any of the major countries’ album charts. On this track, the falsetto is smartly reined in and set off by fine, swirly guitars and astronaut communications. This song easily beats out anything put out by more popular American rock bands like Paramore and Fall Out Boy.

The most unique track on here is the band’s final bow, with ‘Drum Song’. It’s entirely instrumental, and at least to me, it’s entirely unexpected, and the band get kudos from me for it. But it should be noted that even on the songs with lyrics, the Temper Trap sound a bit proggy, if that’s at all possible for the 21st century. Overall, it’s a good effort for a debut album but they haven’t hit it out of the park on their first go-around. I’d be interested to see where they go for album #2.

6/10

The Temper Trap’s ‘Conditions’ is available now in the UK on Infectious Records.

New York band Cymbals Eats Guitars have already received the praises of Pitchfork and Clash Music, so it’s safe to say they are poised to take on the world. Despite having returned from a short but triumphant tour of the UK last month, their newest member and bassist Matt Whipple was kind enough to answer some questions for us while they prepare to embark on their first headlining tour of North America. Read on about how they got their name, their ‘carnival’ experience opening for the Flaming Lips, and more.

Hello Cymbals Eat Guitars! Where are you guys right now?
Hello! We are at home getting ready to head out on our U.S. tour, spread out between Staten Island, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. Lots to do!

So your band has a very visual and musical name. Who came up with it? Is it inspired by someone’s love of percussion over ‘traditional’ guitar? I have this idea in my mind that there could be some really artsy logos and merch made up utilising your band’s name, have you considered anything like that?
Joe came up with the band name long before I joined the band last October. It is a reference to something Lou Reed used to say about the Velvet Underground’s records explaining why Moe Tucker played a drum kit with no cymbals. Cymbals and guitars battle for some of the same sonic territory in the high frequency range. It doesn’t really say much about the sound of our band though. The guitars are right there. We actually have a new t-shirt for this upcoming tour that is along the lines of that idea. Noah Venezia, who has been my friend since we were about 3 years old, is a really amazing New York-based artist and designer and did a design for us using a Fender Jazzmaster pickup as a huge monolith in a field. It looks really cool.

Tell us about your band’s history. How long have you guys known each other? How long have you been playing together?
Joe, our singer and guitarist, and Matt, our drummer, have known each other the longest and have played together since they were in high school, going on 6 of 7 years now. Brian, our keyboardist, joined the band in May of last year, and I’m last to the party and joined in October.

Congratulations on all the buzz surrounding your debut album, ‘Why There Are Mountains’. I think it’s a really cool record because it’s so incredibly varied in terms of instrumentation and tempo. How long did it take to write and record the album?
Thanks! Unfortunately I was not around for the creation of ‘Why There Are Mountains’. I came into the band as a fan of the record, so I definitely wish I had been. Technically, it took about 5 years to write and record that record considering how long ago some of the songs started to take shape. Some of the songs on the record date back to when Joe was about 16 or 17, and he’s 21 now. Specifically, I think ‘Wind Phoenix’ might be the ‘oldest’ song on the record. I couldn’t say with any certainty whether 16-year-old Joe in his bedroom was thinking, “this record will be done in 5 years”, though. I doubt it will take that long to make our next record, but it does still take us a relatively long time to write a song. From when Joe has an initial idea to when we have a final structure with all the parts in place, it can take 3 or 4 months.

One of my favourite tracks on the whole album is ‘Indiana’, because it’s like this multi-part epic piece of music. There are too few songs that actually implode on themselves at the conclusion. Tell us about how this track came about.
According to Joe, the song is about a trip he took to Indiana to visit his girlfriend at the time, probably 2 or 3 years ago. I like to think of it as our Sonic Youth song that becomes a Beatles song, at least when it comes to a live rendition. For me as a listener, the lyrics really nail those times when you’re a passenger in a car through a stretch of rural America and your imagination runs wild with what life must be like in the spaces that you pass by. Like, you blow by in an instant, but people live out entire lives in the houses that whiz by. Why is the pool in the front yard? Why is the stairclimber on the front porch?

Last year you were chosen by Wayne Coyne himself to open for his band the Flaming Lips during their London Troxy residency in November. How did you find out he’d chosen you for this honour? What was it like opening for a band as unusual as the Lips?
We had heard that someone in Stardeath & White Dwarfs, which is Wayne’s nephew Dennis Coyne’s (outrageously epic) band, was a fan of ours and sort of greased the wheel for that to happen, because they were playing the show as well, but when we actually got to speak with Wayne we found that ultimately our booking agent sent over our CD and Wayne liked it and said “ok let’s go.” Opening for the Lips was initially a very intimidating experience. Their entire stage is orange and yellow…mic stands, duct tape, cables, everything…so just being up there feels like being on some sort of carnival ride that isn’t completely unfolded from the flatbed truck. Wayne is very hands-on with their show and watched us play both nights, which seemed to be equal parts curiosity and quality control. After they had finished their set on the second night, when we finally got to speak with him and thank them for having us, he could not have made us feel more welcome or worthy of the honor…err, honour. He is a true gentleman. The whole experience was a terrific thrill. It’s something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.

Following those dates you also toured in the UK and Ireland. Was that the first time you’d been over to the UK to play? Seems like you spend a lot more time over there than you do in America.
A few months prior to that tour in November, and prior to me joining the band, the guys had been over for a very brief run of shows at a few different venues in London. CEG is the first touring band I’ve been in, so I have only been on tour in Europe and the UK. I am looking forward to seeing America!

Here’s a question I like to ask bands: what’s the feeling/overall vibe you get when you play in the UK (or the Continent) versus when you play back at home (in America), say, like really at home, in New York City?
I think London and New York are very similar, in terms of rock crowds. There’s a feeling that the fans are very discerning and you definitely have something to prove. There is a slight difference we’ve noticed between how folks in the UK and people on the Continent engage in rock shows. Folks in the UK tend to be a bit more interactive, like the gentleman in Liverpool who kept throwing beanbag chairs at us.

Where haven’t played yet that you’d like to play someday?
Australia, New Zealand, and Japan definitely. Not necessarily in that or in any order of preference.

Are your friends and family aware of your success here and abroad? If yes, what do they think of what’s happened so far?
Three quarters of us still live at home with our parents, who have varying degrees of understanding of what this all means, but are nonetheless tirelessly supportive. We’re very lucky.

Thanks very much for your time and best wishes for all the tours you’re doing this year, seems like you’re travelling all the time. Is there anything you’d like to say to your UK fans?
THANK YOU. We’ll be back soon.

Cymbals Eat Guitars’s debut album ‘Why There are Mountains’ is available now from Memphis Industries. TGTF will be covering their headlining gig in D.C. tomorrow night.