BLOODY RED BARON CD REVIEWS

What’s the deal here?  How come I’m handing out so many stars?  If I listen to a record and it doesn’t grab me I stop listening to it.  The stars are representative of how often I listen to the record.  If I can’t keep it off the stereo, that’s a four and a half or five star record.  It’s that simple!

Below are reviews for Pop Pioneers that gather up some of my favorites of 2011 so far.   In the coming weeks, we’ll get caught up and start focusing on some of most recent releases but let’s take down the first half of 2011 and make sure you aren’t missing anything.

Off we go……(more reviews posting here next week!)

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BASTARDS OF MELODY: Hurry up and Wait (FDR)

This muscular power trio inhabit a rather narrow three chord zone but they fill it with sound.  “All I Want to Know” hits the sweet spot with a cheeky garage rock vibe and swooning chorus.  “Dream Jeannine” sounds eerily like Cotton Mather’s Kon-Tiki before it morphs into Big Star/Material Issue territory.  Songs like “Flunkin’ Out” with its laid-back mood, “Exit 10” about stumbling home drunk, and “Unproductive,” an energetic ode to slackers with an appropriately snotty vocal indicate the Bastards have a soft spot for life’s losers.  On the other hand, “Cut and Paste” gives throbbing urgency to the creative process with a memorable bridge.

Three and a half stars.

Label Site – HERE

Kool Kat – HERE       Jam Records – HERE    CD Baby – HERE

HANS ROTENBERRY & BRAD JONES: Mountain Jack (50 Ft Records)

Rotenberry and Jones conjure both the Everly Brothers and the Posies circa Failure in this mostly acoustic set delivering material that is both fresh and familiar.  “Count On Me” opens the set with a warm mid-loping pledge of faith with characteristic Rotenberry chords and voice, which sounds like a nicely rounded piece of butterscotch.  Jones sings lead on the hook-laden acoustic “A Likely Lad.”  “Froggy Mountain” sounds like a Rotenberry comp in the chords and fleet guitar work as well as McCartney circa White Album, no more so than when Rotenberry throws in a minor chord hook that snaps your head around like an Anderson Silva punch.  You can practically hear Shazam playing these songs.

“Next to You” has a “Rocky Top” feel.  “Ain’t Gonna Hurt No One,” sung by Jones in faux drunk sounds like something Scott Miller would do.  “Greef” opens with chiming Midwest power chords before edging into Rolling Stone territory in the soaring Beggar’s Banquet era chorus.  “Buffalo Daughter” has an epic, CS&N feel to it.

Rotenberry and Jones have created a powerful low-key winner that draws you in with inventive songwriting, beautifully layered vocals and some hot guitar licks.

Four and a half stars.

Buy from Hans ‘n Brad – HERE

The Shazam home page – HERE

Kook Kat – HERE

Listen to “It Would Not Be Uncool” – HERE

MARCO JOACHIM: Hidden Symphonies (TransUnited)

Beatles imitators are legion.  But how many have the cojones to zero in on something like Sgt. Pepper?  NY-based Marco Joachim with guitarist and producer Jim Gordon have created an epic album of Beatles-based sunshine pop that succeeds as a major achievement in its own right.  “And When the World…” opens with plangent Beatles chords and Joachim’s warm vocal wrapping itself around the lyric.  Jim Gordon who does all the solo guitar work is a synthesis of Harrison and Lennon.

Violin and cello kick off “Things You Do” which reworks the message of “The Love You Make” into an admonition  The song has a McCartney/Wings bounce with Gordon adding poignant, arcing guitar that ends with a proper Beatle chord.  “Cellophane Sue” is obviously inspired by “Polythene Pam” but “Sue” is bluesier with swaggering horns and ELO chords– it could have come off A New World Record.  “Penny Lane” horns cascade behind the chorus, then fall back into step behind Gordon’s piercing guitar solo.

“Nameless” is chamber rock played by violin and cello with a telepathic vibe that yields lines of heart-tugging beauty, no more so than when the cello dives and the violin soars in anticipation of the bridge.  “Those Days” harks back to Revolver/Barry & the Remains era Brit pop with a melting garage rock chorus.

“Gramercy Park” is an ambitious pop suite and the centerpiece of the album beginning with a mini orchestral tune-up that fades behind Joachim singing in a McCartney-esque voice and playing piano.  Gradually he layers in harmonies and Harry Nilsson gives way to pure McCartney in the piercing guitar and orchestral chorus.  Sound effects, country barkers abruptly fall into a driving juke-joint beat as Joachim sings, “The last time I saw her she was standing in the silver sun.”  There are so many Beatlesque elements in this piece it reveals new insights with every listen.

The album art by May Ann Licudine perfectly illustrates the music inside.  Go on the internet and take a look (www.marcojoachim.com.)  Reminds me of Jellyfish: Spilt Milk.  And not just the graphics.  A sure bet for Top Ten.

Five stars.

Marco Joachim’s Home Page – HERE

CD Baby – HERE

Listen at YouTube – HERE

THOUSANDS MILLIONS: Rock Days (Tannen)

This Italian trio sounds like they reverse-engineered their songs from old Who and garage rock records while the lyrics read like the English directions for a Chinese truck.  And you know what?  It works.  Federico Vaglio, Daniele Moreno De Matteis, and Massimiliano Giannuzzi have created appealing, minimalist designer garage rock.

Guitarist De Matteis is a strummer not a picker so the Millions sustain musical interest with constant chord changes and vocal harmonies.  Except every now and then he throws in a zinger like the crazy descending figure on “Get Over.”  “If you get over you get stopped/and pass it all, pass it all up/if you get over you get stopped/then pass it all, pass it all up.”

De Matteis sings with impudent punk energy, lending urgency to his doggerel with sharp dynamics, changing it up every eight bars on the tonic and every two bars on the bridge.  The 20/20-ish “Similar to Me” has nearly perfect power pop contours and chords.  These guys might wear skinny ties.

Three and a half stars.

Listen to “Rock Days’ at SoundClub  – HERE

Label web site – HERE

SCOTT’S GARAGE: Soul Magnet

Soul Magnet has a pleasing heft to it.  Greg Marrs favors psychedelic guitars summoning the spirits of John Cipollina and Duane Allman.  The wide range of subject matter and poppin’ rock remind me of Bill Lloyd’s Set to Pop.  A Nashville twang struggles to break out, most noticeably on “December Stars” and the Gram Parsons-like “Wasting Time.”

Lead singer Gary Hankins wrote all the material with a keen eye for detail and an ear for hooks.  No wild melodic invention here but a careful respect for the craft and a minimum three chords.  Add a bit of twang and a steel pedal guitar and this would chart country.  Marrs’ guitars permeate every song.  He sounds so much like Derek and the Dominoes on “You Were Such a Tool!” it’s scary.  John Bollinger’s robust, melodic bass gives the guitars a dense platform on which to play.  He’s particularly adept with glissando on the Quicksilver-like “Kaleidoscope.”

“Add Me As Your Friend” is the purest Scott’s Garage song, sounding like no one else as it addresses the social network with witty lyrics and gorgeous chords.  Bollinger’s booming bass rises to meet Marrs like a sounding whale.  “Underground,” “Time to Think” and “High Above the Fray” sound like Yardbirds songs.  Nothing wrong with that.

Three and a half stars.

Kool Kat – HERE       CD Baby – Here

MySpace – HERE

THE GENUINE FAKES: The Striped Album (Pristine)

The Genuine Fakes are four guys from Stockholm, singer Johan Berqvist, keyboard player Tommy Wassgren, bassist Martin Bengtsson, and drummer Joan Sundin.  They should just call themselves the Fakes.  And may I be the umpteenth to say the Fakes are the Real Deal.  They have set out to raise a titanic yawp with their first record and they have succeeded.  The Striped Album is a glittering disco ball shooting off beams of light in all directions.  Like all great pop it builds momentum with every song.  “The Promise” starts things off with in your face guitars and a swooning, soaring vocal.  “Something New” continues the full frontal assault in this Sloan-esque rocker with a crushing bridge.

“When Reality Hits You” has the gleaming pop technique and gravitas of The Grays with a bridge to die for.  “If You Then I” resembles a Merrymakers song in its Beatlesque pomp.  There’s a Scandinavian twist to a lot of these sweet poppy chords–the Scandinavians more fully embrace major chords and keys than their Brit and American counterparts which has led some listeners to brand Scandi bands “too happy.”  Never understood this sentiment.  Is there too much happiness in the world?  Both “I Don’t Want It” and “Irreplaceable” are soaring cathedrals of song with a lot going on– the Fakes have crammed seven minutes into three.  Their arrangement of Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” as a power pop powerhouse sounds like they wrote it.

“C’mon Linda” is a stadium-ready romantic power ballad with big, bodacious U2-ish chords and heavy strumming like a happy Superdrag or Sugar.  The album closes with “Whatever Comes Your Way,” a big-hearted anthem sweeping listeners along with irresistible musical magnetism.

Four and a half stars.

Band Web Site – HERE

MySpace – HERE
BandCamp – HERE

Kool Kat (w/ bonus disc offer!) – HERE

BOOKENDS: Proud of My Stereo (Spiritual Partners/Rhythm Barrel)

This Finnish trio touches so many power pop, progressive and glam bases you will hear echoes of everyone from David Bowie to the Hoodoo Gurus.  Don’t get me wrong.  The Bookends are totally original within power pop parameters.  This is an epic record.

“88” explodes out of the speakers on the back of Ville Tirila’s piano, an anthemic rocker with the baroque interplay of the High Dials.  In melody and lyrics “No Rebel” suggests Joni Mitchell, Ville’s piano gleaming like an LCD display.  “Balconies” begins with a sweet rhythmic vamp on piano, makes a mid-song change up worthy of Yes as guitarist Lauri Leskinen fires off tracer after tracer like day-glo paint on black velvet.

“Shaking off the Mantra” is a mini-suite of epic proportions.  “If I don’t worry about my karma I worry about the afterlife.”  Three minutes in there’s a dramatic change-up with glam flair.  Like many of these songs there’s a show-biz touch as in a musical.  Lauri steps in with a crystalline guitar solo.  “Analog Man” with its baroque melody and haunting refrain is worthy of XTC.  This song to the info-overload age is filled with beautiful guitar and keyboard flourishes.  Ville’s voice displays an effortless contralto.

“Gloves” suggests the Cavedogs in its minor key urgency.  “Killing a Man is Easy” is sooo XTC with its arresting melody and vocal acrobatics worthy of Andy Partridge.  One of those songs that’s bursting at the seams with musical ideas and ends too soon with a vibrant and visceral guitar/keyboard dialogue.  “Waves” is a slow powerful tide pulling you into the tug and pull of love, instrumentation perfectly matched to subject matter.

“Aftermath” opens with the elegant simplicity of a madrigal with piano/cello tracing the melody.  The vocal sends a chill up your spine as the bottom fills out and you hear the song gathering density like a snowball rolling downhill until it turns into an orchestral juggernaut.  “The Letting Go” sounds like the showstopper to the best musical Andrew Lloyd Webber never wrote.

Five stars.

MySpace – HERE

One Chord To Another (Finnish music blog) – HERE

RADIO DAYS:  C’est la Vie (Tannen Records)

This double guitar Italian quartet tears through a set of jangle and harmony-happy power pop like cheeky marmosets liberally cribbing from forty years of garage and lounge acts.  Guitarist Omar Assadi throws in unexpected grace notes like the lounge-y but oh-so-appropriate jangle at the end of “So Far So Close,” which sounds a little bit like Paul Revere & the Raiders singing a Beach Boys song.  On several songs including “Dirty Tricks” he introduces a pizzicato phrase at the upper end of the scale, a flash of sound that hits your ears like a stun grenade.

“Elizabeth” begins with the same chords as Toby Keith’s “Stays in Mexico.” Elizabeth is total upper with major chords, swelling harmonies and elegant changes.  The band is a well-oiled rhythm machine and drummer Paco Orsi is particularly proactive and melodic.  “Evelyn Town” sounds like Curtains 4 You song at least until the bridge where Radio Days veer into a more Brit-flavored chorus.  The two guitars perform a pas de deux launching Omar into an epic solo.  “Enemies for Friends” sounds as Midwestern as Huckleberry Finn with Fools Face chords and Orsi hitting the skins like a shaman in the grip of a vision.

“The Meaning of Fire” has a pastoral end-of-day feeling due in large part to Omar’s lounge-influenced guitar.  It takes guts to play these chords but no one would mistake Radio Days for a lounge act despite Mattia Baretta’s jazz-like walkin’ bass.  “One by One” is irresistible power pop and dig that lounge-o ending!  No one will sleep during “Sweetest Lullaby” but it is pretty damned sweet.  Raspberries stuff.

These guys save the best for last.  “Dirty Tricks” has a retro-sixties feel and a stop and go rhythm that will wrest your ass to the dance floor.  They could and should string this out to at least six minutes in concert.  This song is as addictive as crack–listen for the guitar ping toward the end.

Five stars.

Band home page – HERE

Buy off band’s Facebook Page – HERE

ITunes link – HERE

BILL MAJOROS is The Foreign Films

It’s been three years since The Foreign Films’ cosmos-shattering Distant Star and Bill Majoros has been busy.   His unconventional melodic gift and hushed but powerful vocals give Foreign Films a gravity lacking in most pop music and this seven song collection does not disappoint.  Kori Pop adds her vocal to “Fire From a Spark” which almost has a Band feel to it in its plaintive country simplicity and use of a moog-altered trumpet to sound like a “harmonica from space.”

“City of Bright Lights” combines a chilling guitar riff with vibes and tension-building tonic that erupts into a full-throated rocker with pizzicato piano over thrumming bass and graceful chords that shun Brill Building conventions.  Majoros weaves a deep blue velvet lead with rhythm guitar to masterful effect.  That’s Arcade Fire’s Alex McMaster on cello and in the vocals.

“Imperfect Perfection” combines a big chrome bumper of a riff with a swooning bridge and a satisfying, unraveling guitar coda.  The languid “A Message” uses violin and pedal steel to create textures that swerve from bombast to heartbreak in the space of two measures.  Majoros often builds his songs on two consecutive chords and it works every time.  Of course it’s that third chord that seals the deal.  “Lucky Strike” is built on an ascending guitar riff that recalls every spy theme from “Mr. Downtown” to “Secret Agent Man” and Majoros’ vocal drips of intrigue.  Majoros should do the theme song to the next James Bond movie.

“Yesterday’s Girl” starts out like “Summertime Blues” and changes into an exhilarating rocker that might have come off Graham Parker’s Squeezing Out Sparks.  “The Upside Down” combines violins and a chorus with a typically strong Majoros melody in an operatic sweep.  Once again the production, vocals and song craft combine to create a pop album of uncommon emotion.

Four and a half stars.

Main home page – HERE

Purchase at BandCamp – HERE

Kook Kat – HERE (this is for the genius 2 CD debut – w/ free bonus of the new EP)  Then go THIS LINK to add the free EP to your cart

MySpace – HERE

YouTube ‘in the studio with Bill’ video – HERE

SCOTT GAGNER: Rhapsody in Blonde

The Sandra Dee-like profile on Scott Gagner’s new album is an accurate representation of the music with one foot in country and one in power pop.  “I Hate to Say” is a finger-poppin’ arrangement of nursery rhyme doggerel distinguished by Gagner’s dead solid vocal and the interplay between James Nash’s hyper-active lead guitar and Arnie Kim’s rhythm, especially following the a capella passage.

Both “Speak & Spell” and “Laura No. 1” have the chiming guitars of the Spongetones but Gagner’s voice marks them as his own.  “Laura No. 1” has that heartland twang with a great minor key bridge and would not have been out of place on That Thing You Do soundtrack.  With its pedal steel guitar, haunting melody and intelligent vocals “You Can Say That Again” is an adult love song that begs for widespread release.  Can’t you just hear Randy Travis singing this?  Love the way Gagner jumps an octave at the end.

“Right Before My Eyes” is another mesmerizing love song that channels Tim Buckley in coffeehouse mode–nothing but vocals and guitar.  No place to hide.  Gagner doesn’t need a band to put on a show.  “Love You More” offers more slow pedal steel and another haunting melody that would fit neatly in the Country Top Ten.  “Houdini” is a simmering song about irony.

The pace picks up with “Between,” a soaring big guitar thumper followed by “Take Two” which adds fuel to the fire with a Readymade Breakup vibe but a vocal that is pure Gagner.  “Ride” is a sleek low-rider of a song with a soaring chorus and a crippling hook.  “No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get your license back.  Let me take you for a ride…”  Cruise rhapsody.

“The Least I Can Do” is another impressive ballad.  I’m not much of a ballad fan but Gagner wins you over with powerful melodies and intelligent lyrics in the tradition of Billy Joel and Paul Simon.  Yeah, he’s quite a songwriter.  “Golden Mean” only reinforces Gagner’s ability to mount slow, powerful, dramatic songs.  Lastly, “Sweet Child” leaves us with a lullaby.  The only reason this doesn’t get five starts is because it’s a shade too weighted toward slower tempos.

Four stars.

Scott’s home page – HERE

MySpace – HERE

ITunes – HERE

Kook Kat (w/ bonus disc) – HERE

MICK TERRY: The Grown Ups  (Emptyhead)

Mick Terry is a singer/songwriter whose relaxed melodic style recalls Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman.  He is equally adept with guitars and keyboards.  Beginning with “Hoxton Song” Terry weaves a beguiling spell with strong melody and evocative vocals–dig that Beatlesque muted trumpet near the end.  Terry has a knack for memorable melodies and trenchant lyrics reminiscent of Joni Mitchell although Terry’s melodies are easier to grasp, as in the satori-preaching “Comets.”  Satori is a Japanese term meaning to see life as it really is and “Comets” is a blinders off song with a graceful stuttering vocal in the bridge.

“T.E.D.” is a “woulda, shoulda, coulda” song that effortlessly reaches into the past, a bittersweet ode to what might have been highlighted by what sounds like vibes.  “The Usher’s Tale” uses the language of cinema to chart a wholesome obsession, Terry stretching to falsetto to highlight the bridge.  “You’re in my head on a Silver Screen, Laughing as the frames roll by…Always in my head like a Movie Queen, Where the camera tracks your every sigh.”

“Tinseltown” is another sepia-hued dip into the past using the language of cinema.  “Safe From Sound” reaches back to 1983 with a pizzicato string accompaniment and a Beach Boys-inspired backing chorus.  The last song effectively reprises “Hoxton Song.”  This is a short record and it never gets out of second gear but the quality of the songs augers well for the future.

Three and a half stars.

Listen at SoundCloud – HERE

Itunes – HERE

Mick Terry & Jim Boggia live on YouTube – HERE