Rilo Kiley, "The Execution Of All Things"
Hannah Nefler grows up...

By Byron Schaller, Delicious Media contributor

In 1989, Jenny Lewis fell into America’s hearts as the daughter of Phyllis and Freddy Nefler in "Troop Beverly Hills." Nine years later she did it again. Except this time she is fronting her new group, Rilo Kiley.

Rilo Kiley has been categorized many ways (alt-country, indie pop, indie rock), but none of them really sum up what this foursome is really about. The band did not release their first album, 2001’s “Take Offs and Landings,” until three years after they formed. This record was release on Barsuk Records. Jenny would later go onto sing the female parts on label mate Ben Gibbard’s 2003 collaboration with DNTEL, The Postal Service. In 2003 they released their second offering, “The Execution of All Things,” on Saddle Creek Records, located in Omaha, NE. Jenny even gives a small shout-out to the new label in the title track with the line: “Then we'll go to Omaha to work and exploit the booming music scene and humility.”

Anyone who has never heard Rilo Kiley before and expects the same sweet girl they saw in "Troop Beverly Hills" is in for a big surprise. The lyrics are dark and brooding with a lighter poppy back drop. Jenny grew up. In the title track she is not talking about execution as in “doing”, she is talking about mass genocide of everything, and does so in a disarming way. The music is intelligent, thought provoking and above all else, enjoyable to listen to. The melodies are catchy and the rhythms bounce along. So much so you will find yourself humming about death and destruction and everyone else will think “My, what a lovely tune.”

The album is full of great tracks. Starting off with “The Good That Won’t Come Out” and continuing on for the next two tracks with “Paint’s Peeling” and the title track. “Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight” and “Three Hopeful Thoughts are also quite good. You’ll find many unexpected things as you listen as well. From orchestral instruments and pedal steel guitar to a full choir, the music is a constant surprise. Jenny’s bouts of Tourettes Syndrome may come as quite a shock too. She is not afraid to say “fuck this” and “fuck that” as often as she wants. It almost gives the songs a grittier tone, and I mean that in a good way.

“The Execution of All Things” is a great follow up to their debut. They really overcome the sometimes fatal “sophomore slump.” If you have not heard these indie darlings I suggest you change that. I have not seen them yet, but I also hear that they are a powerhouse live. Jenny Lewis and company hit one out of the park.

Byron Schaller is a guest contributor for Delicious Media. He mantains his own blog, In The Congo, enjoys writing, collecting records, and watching Italian horror film. He is a Hoosier, but looks nothing like Gene Hackman.

John Wesley Harding, "Adam's Apple"
The return of gangsta folk



Naming yourself after a Bob Dylan album, well, that’s just asking for it. Nobody could accuse Harding (nee Wesley Stace) of being a Dylan soundalike…sure, there’s some Dylanesque threads in his neo-folkie sound, and early songs like “Red Rose and the Briar” are reminiscent of Bob’s epic narrative style, but what really got the critics in a lather in the late eighties (when Wes, as he will be known for the remainder of this review, began making albums) was his similarity to another guy who drastically changed his name: Elvis Costello.

It wasn’t just the quasi-punk, British-accented vocals and wry, caustic lyrics that brought on these comparisons. Wes upped the ante considerably by hiring Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas – Elvis’ famed rhythm section – for his full-length debut studio album, “Here Comes the Groom.”

I’ll admit, I got caught up in the hype. I first heard Wes in 1990 while listening to Joe Reiling’s sadly now-defunct “no playlists allowed” show on Armed Forces Radio. The song was “The Devil in Me,” a hilarious, horn-spiked blast of fresh air with a heaping helping of old-school Hammond organ. Within a couple of weeks (this was pre-Amazon, and I was stationed quite literally in the middle of nowhere), “Here Comes the Groom” was mine. I still consider it one of my all-time favorite albums by anyone.

Wes eventually left Sire Records (home to Madonna and Talking Heads, among others) and appeared on a number of independent labels, all the while continuing to crank out what he calls “gangsta folk” and establishing himself as a hugely entertaining live act.

Wes’ latest, “Adam’s Apple,” was originally slated for a 2002 release (under the title “The Man With No Shadow”), but his label at the time (Mammoth Records) folded, and he was left with a bunch of songs and nobody to release them. Along came the small independent label DRT, who released “Adam’s Apple” in February 2004.

Was it worth the wait? Of course. Wes’ catalog has been peppered with largely acoustic, often live recordings, in addition to a covers album (“Trad. Arr. Jones”) and a few EPs (“The Garden of Eden,” “God Made Me Do It: The Christmas EP”). A good, full band album reminiscent of both “Here Comes the Groom” and 2000’s overlooked “The Confessions of St. Ace” could be just the thing to get Wes the commercial push he deserves – but I’m not holding my breath (I call “Confessions…” an overlooked album, but it does in fact contain the closest thing he’s ever had to a bona fide hit: “I’m Wrong About Everything” was featured in the soundtrack to “High Fidelity”).

If you’ve only seen Wes in concert and not heard his studio recordings, you’d think his music was overtly folk with little concessions to full band recordings, but “Adam’s Apple” is gorgeous studio power-pop of the highest order. Songs like “Nothing At All” and “It Stays” contain aching hooks and engaging instrumentation, often featuring lots of tasty Hammond organ. There’s a nice combination of upbeat stuff and slower ballads – the raucous “She Never Talks” (the only song I’ve ever heard to name-check the Strauss opera “Die Fledermaus”) sits comfortably alongside gentle numbers like “Sleeper Awake.”

As always, the Wes wit is alive and well in songs like “Sluts,” where brash backing vocals and a funky backbeat support a darkly comic commentary on materialistic, all-night club-hopping yuppies (“We’re sluts, the two of us/Why walk, when we can get the bus/Why get the bus, when we can cab it/Living large is our best habit”). “Protest Protest Protest” is a playful jab at protest singers, where Wes sarcastically complains to today’s crop that there’s nothing to protest about these days (“that negative attitude will get you nowhere”).

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the dark, beautifully orchestrated “Sussex Ghost Story,” co-written by modern classical composer Gavin Bryars. The song, about an acquitted wife killer who gets what’s coming to him thanks to wife number two, ends with the line “I begged for my life.” Not exactly Hillary Duff material.

If you took Billy Bragg, subtracted the overt political statements, added a healthy dose of Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, John Prine and a little Dylan for good measure, you’d have a general idea as to the sound of John Wesley Harding. And if you buy this disc, you’ll make the guy some money. And he deserves it.

Note: much of Wes’ back catalog was out of print for some time, but many of his earlier albums have been reissued recently. “Here Comes the Groom” and its follow-up, “The Name Above the Title” are now available as a reasonably priced set; “Awake,” “John Wesley Harding’s New Deal” and “Why We Fight” have also been reissued recently as well. These are all excellent albums, worthy of your hard-earned money. And don’t forget to see Wes perform live if he makes it out to your neck of the woods: he’s extremely entertaining on stage.

Broken Social Scene, "You Forgot It In People"
Come on feel the noise



One of the most accurate things I can state with any certainty regarding Broken Social Scene's "You Forgot It In People" is that the album's title is inscrutable as the music contained inside.

And, to quote everyone's favorite jailed domestic diva, that's a good thing.

A Canadian "music collective" formed in 1999 by Kevin Drew (of K.C. Accidental) and Brendan Canning (of By Divine Right), I had never heard of BSS before picking up this disc. The band's (um, sorry, "music collective's") modus operandi is all over the map. It's as if some highly eclectic bar band of egghead college students performed "rock music history" set to shuffle mode.

The cover, with its dark, muddy black & white photo of the band in the middle of what appears to be a sweaty club gig, is misleading. I was expecting a thrashy blend of indie punk, and while there certainly is some of that here, when I first hit "play," the results were refreshingly more diverse. The opening track, "Capture the Flag," kicks everything off with ambient keyboards before a rising, intrusive trumpet barges in, signaling the beginning of the album proper.

This is the first major gear shift. The second track, "KC Accidental," is - make no mistake - heavily influenced by prog rock (by way of some D.I.Y. punk). The swooping melody and galloping rhythms suggest Yes as a bar band (as fronted by the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne). Gears shift once again on track three, the heavily New Order-influenced "Stars and Sons." It should be noted (before I carelessly forget) that Sonic Youth's sound is all over this album as well. And so on. I doubt Blogger's bandwidth can handle the list of influnces these guys absorb.

There's lots of noise on "You Forgot It In People," giving the album an unpolished feel, but never compromising the band's commitment to aching hooks. Like Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," there's plenty of distorted effects, random feedback, and "found objects" that give the listener plenty to chew on, keeping it infinitely listenable. It's one of those albums (again, like "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot") that you could listen to a hundred times and still discover something new.

There's a refreshing down-to-earth quality throughout. "Looks Like the Sun" lumbers along in sunny, acoustic beauty, while the singer (being a true "collective," the liner notes don't credit who exactly plays what) can be heard calling out chord changes between lines, in addition to various other instructions ("keep it going"). Let's try Britney do that (once she learns what a "chord" is).

The band employs sing-songy, idiosyncratic, nursery rhyme-like lyrics ("Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl"), wah-wah guitar reminiscent of Ween's "A Tear For Eddie" ("Shampoo Suicide") and even tropical-influenced instrumentals ("Pacific Theme"). And that's just for starters.

There doesn't seem to be a game plan to "You Forgot It In People," just a need to create, experiment, and keep the music flowing. Even within the alleged originality and vitality of indie rock, Broken Social Scene finds new ways to keep it fresh.

The Holmes Brothers, "Simple Truths"
God made them funky



The Holmes Brothers have been cooking up their unique brew of blues, gospel and funk for more than 20 years, even though I've only heard them for three. 2001 was something of a comeback year for the guys, even they hadn't really gone anywhere. A chance meeting with Joan Osborne after one of their New York City gigs led to a contract with the blues label Alligator, and the Osborne-produced "Speaking in Tongues" was the result.

Not only are Sherman Holmes, Wendell Holmes and Popsy Dixon accomplished musicians, they also sing their asses off. With Joan in the control room, the boys churned out an album's worth of exciting original material, along with an inspired array of cover songs (including songs by Bob Dylan, Ben Harper and the O'Jays).

Three years later, can Sherman, Wendell and Popsy continue the momentum? The answer is a resounding "yes," and then some. "Simple Truths" is arguably stronger than its predecessor, as if the critical success of "Speaking in Tongues" inspired them to push even harder. First of all, the original material is better than ever. Wendell's "We Meet, We Part, We Remember" is easily my favorite song on the album, with an easygoing yet gritty soulfulness that sounds like a R&B chesnut from thirty years ago.

The covers are eclectic and well-chosen: "Shine," the somewhat forgettable mid-nineties alt-rock staple from Collective Soul is given new life as a high-energy gospel stomper. Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" manages to sound gleeful and sad at the same time (Wendell's deft guitar solo is part of the song's charm). They don't exactly break any new ground with their version of Bruce Channel's one-hit-wonder "Hey Baby," but the acoustic guitar-driven arrangement and the emotional singing raise the song to a higher level.

The sound is hard to describe, but its appeal is simple. A little Blind Boys of Alabama, a smattering of Bo Diddley, and just enough Wilson Pickett to give it the right amount of soul. These are all qualities sadly lacking in an era of remixes and Pro Tools. Get back to your roots and get funky with the Holmes Brothers.

welcome

Stay tuned. I plan on stuffing this baby with content.