Paste Magazine June/July 2010 : Page 82
THE SIGHTS PAUL THORN MENOMENA N E W M U S I C THE SIGHTS Most Of What Follows Is True SIGHTS ARMY RELEASE DATE: JULY 13 Most of what follows is alright Detroit quartet The Sights’ fourth full-length offering is about 70 percent rock, 20 percent ‘60s pop and just enough upbeat folk to rev the album into fifth gear. Hooky tracks like “3 Cheers” come along just in time for summertime windows-down driving; the Rock Band-worthy “How Do You Sleep?” runs completely on prominent electric guitar. And just to make sure there’s a little something for every musical mood, The Sights throw in the rock-twangy “I Left My Muse,” complete with pedal steel, a lilting rhythm and choral howls. The variety is nice, but the album would have been better if it had etched out a more defined route. On “Guilty,” the Sights play it safe, with half-hearted guitar riffs and slightly subdued vocals. “My songs, they might be true / But they don’t sing me back to you,” the band professes on “Back To You,” and the confession seems apt.At best, this is a good album for coasting—or any activ-ity where you don’t have to pay full atten-tion. ANNA SWINDLE 5.0 PAUL THORN Pimps and Preachers PERPETUAL OBSCURITY RELEASE DATE: JUNE 22 The marriage of heaven and hell Angels and demons, dark and light, prosperity and poverty—rock music has revelled so long in these dichotomies that they've become cliché, but Tupelo, Miss.-raised singer/songwriter Paul Thorn has lived them all. He was influenced in his formative years by his father (a preacher) and his uncle (a pimp), who created a tug of war in his psyche, inadvertently priming him for his future as a musician—and that yin and yang is apparent in both Thorn's lyrics and the way in which he mix-es gospel themes with his rootsy rock ’n’ roll.The sacred and the profane pair nicely here, driven by Thorn's dusky voice and subtle, often self-deprecating wit on songs like “Weeds inMy Roses” and “I Don’t Like Half the Folks I Love.” Thorn wades in the muggy Southern rock exemplified by the Drive-By Truckers, but with more humor and less bombast. In his world, good and evil aren't clichés—they're life. HAL HOROWITZ 8.1 “Killemall,” an apocalyptic race between steady drums and scurrying piano arriv-ing nearly 10 minutes into the album; the song rises and falls in just the right places, with agitated flutes and electric guitars spinning like helicopter rotors at the start andfinish and ascending strings acting as checkpoints cuing verses' end. After that cinematic clamor,Menom-MENOMENA Mines BARSUK RELEASE DATE: JULY 27 Portland band finally cuts loose Monster!, juxtaposed stilted crescendos of piano, guitar and saxophone with si-lence. The melodies of 2007'sFriend and Foe were a bit more bombastic—drums pounding, horns blasting—though the remaining loops still entered and exited without warning, cutting out before they could air out. Monster and Foe were sonically tidy, M moody yet never indulgent. On Mines, however, full-blown insanity finally breaks free of the straightjacket. Take enomena has always taken a cut-and-paste approach to songwriting. The trio's 2004 debut, I Am The Fun Blame ena dives headfirst into a murky stream of consciousness, where ghostly voices fill the cracks of their past. Disappearing and reappearing melodies play out like fleeting thoughts; the simple “please don't fail me now” plea of “BOTE” shocks with shrill electric convulsions, and “Five Little Rooms” sounds down-right sinister as deep tubas and hollow knocking sounds create a supersonic claustrophobia. Mines is Menomena at its best—mentally relentless and physically ruthless. CHRISTINA LEE 8.5 82 PASTEMAGAZINE.COM JUNE | JULY 2010 !Photo by Alicia Rose
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