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Heartland Feelings

 

What can be said that hasn’t already been said? “Verily there is nothing new under the sun”, wrote Melville in 1855. And so it is. But in the absence of new things, we recreate the old ones. The maps have all been filled, but that hasn’t stopped us from exploring. The same can be said of The Young’s latest release, “Dub Egg”, out today on Matador Records. Reminiscent of Crazy Horse era Neil Young, the (indeed young) Austin, TX quartet injects a heavy dose of Americana into their already ragged sound.

Over the past ten years, a wide range of avenues have been explored in search of a “new thing.” “Yawn”, I say. Ironically, all of them have been done before. It’s a simple mathematical fact that there are only so many notes and combinations of notes that can be weaved into song. New melodies inescapably evoke the old ones. The Young are no exception, but as I’ve argued before, it’s less about the notes and more about the “feeling” behind them. It’s the snarling distortion, swarming reverb, and sparsely accented pedal steel mingled with the rasp of frontman Hans Zimmerman’s vocals that bring to mind wide open spaces, complete with dust devils and cacti.

 Dub Egg’s opener, “Livin’ Free” is a full-throttle run-thru of heartland aesthetics, while there are times throughout “NUMB”, an anthemic, alt-country B-side viber, that I’m looking for another log to throw on the campfire I’m not allowed to have in my living room. Until I kill my landlord, a flannel shirt will have to suffice...



 And remember, denim is always underrated from the waist up.

HVD

Fascinating.

Chop Chop

You've probably heard Devil's Work already by Miike Snow. Now check out "Paddling Out" and prepare yourself for his full-length Happy To You coming out in March.

Quote: Though this song is like a freight train of awesome

I LOVE JANA HUNTER I LOVE LOWER DENS. I love this song. It chugs along and gets better with every listen.



Go HERE and click to download.

Seeing dubble

As per usual I am more than a year behind on cool new happenings. Awesome-band Gayngs did a cover of Godley and Creme's "Cry." A cover of the song AND the video. Check. It. Out.

The Words That Maketh Murder

Somewhere along the line, someone (THANK YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE) recommended that I check out PJ Harvey. I'm going to take a second to set a precedent:

A big part of music blogging is just passing on information you've already heard; information that's already readily available but that you feel deserves an extra boost of hype. Everyone, Gangster Legs included, is guilty of reposting something they've gleaned from major sources, ie. Pitchfork or Gorilla Vs. Bear. But it's important to consider that this is how just about everything gets passed on. We, the bottom feeding scum of the music world, don't have Isaac Brock's email address in our Gmail rolodexes (thank God!). Whatever the means of transmission may be, whether it's by word of mouth, the internet, or telephone, information starts with a primary source, which then gets passed on to numerous secondary sources. You didn't actually read Beowulf for that high school English class, did you? (Aside: You should have! Seamus Heaney's translation of it is EPIC!) No, you Wikipedia'd that shit. That's how music blogging works too. It's a big game of Telephone.

HOWEVER...

I ignored all those articles and reviews about PJ Harvey this year. Here's what I know about her off the top of my head.

1. She's British
2. Because she's British, she probably has bad teeth and smells like onions.
3. Because she probably has bad teeth and because onions are fucking delicious, she's got an incredibly unique sounding (and smelling?) voice.
4. She's got traditional rock instrumentation on LOCKDOWN. 4/4 beats, clean, reverb laden guitars, horns, harmonies, even an autoharp.
5. She's not this week's hottest electro sensation.

That being said, "Let England Shake" is one of the best albums I've heard in a really long time. I'll cease with the embellishment and let you make up your own mind.





Rave on, Kid Rodeo, rave on...

Grimes est CLEAN!

New musical crush! It's hard not to imagine Grimes as a porcelain doll. Her voice is like glass, and her synths are equally chilly. I mean that in the nicest way. Come to think of it, maybe she's not a doll. Maybe shes a magical snowflake with vocal chords and opposable thumbs. Either way, her tunes are catchy as hell. Her new album (she's released alot of material, but considers this her "debut"), "Visions", is out in March. Till then, kids...






Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!