Sharon Van Etten - Tramp

Tramp seems like a bold yet appropriate name for Sharon Van Etten’s album; made at a time when she was basically leading the life of a homeless person, crashing on friend’s couches and touring whenever she wasn’t recording at the home studio of producer, Aaron Dessner, of The National.

At such a tumultuous period in her life, you would only expect for this to show in Van Etten’s work. What you find instead is a young musician very grounded, her record is essentially a break up album like her debut record, Because I Was In Love, and 2010’s Epic, which were simple folk albums based around her stunning voice and her guitar, with the help of Dessner and other indie stars however, such as Matt Barrick from The Walkmen, Zach Condon of Beirut and Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak, she has expanded her sound.

From understated works of art to rich intensity, Tramp is certainly the most confident piece that she has released and there is still the same darkness and strain to be found in her lyrics. In ‘Give Out’, Van Etten sings:

“I'm biting my lip
as confidence is speaking to me.
I loosen my grip from my palm
and put it on your knee.
In my way, I say
you're the reason why I'll move to the city,
you're why I'll need to leave”

As frank and tense as the songs might be however, Van Etten manages to show hope, Serpents for example, the album’s only ‘rock’ track, is an epic anthem orchestrated by Dessner and his twin brother Bryce with winding melodies and a gutsy slide guitar, lyrically however Van Etten doesn’t venture too far from the angst,

“You enjoy sucking on dreams
so I will fall asleep with someone other than you
I had a thought you would take me seriously”

It isn’t easy listening then rather cathartic listening to hear these vignettes of a broken relationship being told through such an innocent and fragile yet commanding voice, Sharon Van Etten tells the break up story from the female point of view without being the damsel in distress which artists such as Lana Del Rey have made so fashionable.

The intimacy conducted throughout this album is like a private, confessional conversation that Van Etten has chosen to share only with you, and believe me; you should feel privileged to hear such stories!

The National - High Violet Album Review

Throughout your lifetime you find albums that stay with you forever. 'High Violet' is one of those albums. A gift that keeps giving, 'High Violet' gets better with time and each listen. Full of hidden treasures waiting to be discovered, The National's latest release, similar to their previous records, is full of vignettes about the daily lives of everyday folks layered with intelligent, metaphorical lyrics above driving beats, basslines and guitars. Every song is to some degree an epic, sounding like the most important song that they could make until it comes to it's climax, a crescendo of emotions and the next one starts. Each song also contains heart. I'm not sure what the heart is exactly. It could be the abrasive guitar riffs via the Dessner twins, Aaron and Bryce. Maybe the understated basslines from Scott Devendorf or the pounding drums provided by his brother, Bryan. Perhaps it's the rich, sultry baritone of Matt Berninger that makes you want to step into this album and never return to the boring duties of everyday life that are so perfectly soundtracked by The National.

Left-right (Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf, Matt Berninger, Scott Devendorf and  Aaron Dessner)
From the very beginning The National proved they were worthy of comparisons to Leonard Cohen, the master of gloom and Alt rockers REM but never more so than the song, 'Sorrow'. "Sorrow found me when i was young, sorrow waited sorrow won." According to Matt Berninger, singer and lyricist, 'Sorrow' is about a persons own relationship with their sorrow- a relationship that should be celebrated. A subject that most artists would shy away from but is spread out through High Violet, an album that does celebrate the dark and the heavy because after all, these are the emotions that unite us all, everyone feels these things: sorrow, disappointment, fear and anxiety.

Becoming a father seems to have just heightened these emotions for Berninger, or rather his awareness of them. In 'Afraid of Everyone', over the eerie harmonies of fellow indie rocker Sufjan Stevens and the pensive harmonium of Padma Newsome, Berninger croons "with my kid on my shoulders i'll try not to hurt anybody I like, but I don't have the drugs to sort it out...i'm afraid of everyone."

Now 10 years since their formation, it seems impossible for the band to create a bad record. They've marked themselves out from the underground and blog-o-sphere where they dwelled for years. It was in 1991 when Matt Berninger met bassist Scott Devendorf at the University of Cincinatti where they were both studying graphic design. Together they moved to New York in search of work.
Bryan, Scott's brother, was friends with the Dessner twins and had already been in several bands with them when, in 1999 the trio joined Matt and Scott from their hometown of Cincinatti, Ohio and formed The National.

This connection with Ohio is alluded in the first single taken from the album, 'Bloodbuzz Ohio'. With bombastic drumming from Bryan Devendorf and swelling orchestration via The Clogs' aforementioned Padma Newsome, 'Bloodbuzz' is one of  the closest things The National have produced to a pop song however, even this song is a richly, brooding song that delves into the character's insecurities; isolation is the theme that drives the song forward. Like each member of The National, this character lives in a big city, it could be New York, it could be not, but while visiting friends and family in the town they grew up in- they realise that it doesn't feel like home anymore, but then neither does the city they live in. Troubled with money woes, "I still owe money to the money, to the money I owe" the character feels more alone and isolated than ever before, "I never thought about love when i thought about home" he sings in the chorus.

His need for escape is expressed in the sexy, sleek 'Lemonworld'. Full of melodrama and mystery he is stuck in a fabricated, fictional world with two sexy sisters who get drunk and wear bathing suits all day. Lemonworld's protagonist desparately tries to stay afloat in his middleclass, suburban life  eventually ending up in a tug-of-war between sanity and reality. 
Despite the ominous and darkness of their songs, The National still manage to add subtle hints of humour. Dark humour it may be,  but humour nonetheless. In 'Conversation 16' Matt Berninger tells his wife that "I was afraid i'd eat your brains, coz i'm evil", and that he has his, "head in the oven so you know where i'll be."

These fun and nonsensical lyrics can catch you off guard especially after listening to songs like the heart wrenching, 'Runaway' featuring the same fingerpicking patterns from Aaron and Bryce that were heard on Alligator and Boxer.

Similarly the epic 'England' full of huge illuminating horn arrangements and orchestration compliments the weary and tired sound of arguably The National's most recognisable quality, Matt Berninger's low, rumbling baritone as he dwells on the lover who is living overseas, "you must be somewhere in London, you must be loving your life in the rain" he sings while he remains "in a Los Angeles cathedral" contemplating the simple geography that keeps them apart. Berninger has the amazing ability to sound deeply pained and contain emotional depth in his voice that many other frontmen can only wish of obtaining. The lover is left helpless and frustrated against the ocean that keeps them apart, heartbroken he sings, "someone send a runner through the weather that i'm under for the feeling that I lost today, someone send a runner for the feeling that I lost today."

It will come as no surprise then to anyone who has listened to past albums of The National's such as Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, angst filled Alligator or 2007's masterpiece Boxer that High Violet is not a light listen that is instantly embedded into the mind but rather a subtle and sincere record that over time gently begins to occupy a space in your heart. About a year since it's release and High Violet still proves to be relevant. I still regularly play this album from beginning to end and am blown away because this album and these songs changed my life and the way I think and feel about music. As I said at the beginning, given the chance, this album could stay with you forever!

5*
(Also see Top 10 albums of 2010)

Track List:

1. Terrible Love
2. Sorrow
3. Anyone's Ghost
4. Little Faith
5. Afraid of Everyone
6. Bloodbuzz Ohio
7. Lemonworld
8. Runaway
9. Conversation 16
10. England
11. Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
Expanded Edition
- Terrible Love (Alternate Version)
- Wake Up Your Saints
- You Were A Kindness
- Walk Off
- Sin-Eaters
- Bloodbuzz Ohio (Live on The Current)
- Anyone's Ghost (Live at The Brooklyn Academy of Music)
- England (Live at The Brooklyn Academy of Music)

Album Review- The Naked and Famous

This is my first ever review so if you dare to read it please be kind.

The Naked And Famous - Passive Me - Aggressive You

(left to right: Aaron Short, Thom Powers, Alisa Xayalith, Jesse Wood, David Beadle)
Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, The Naked and Famous are a band founded in 2008 by singers Thom Powers and Alisa Xayalith and synth player Aaron Short. The trio were soon joined by drummer Jesse Wood and bassist David Beadle who complete the quintet. TNAF are currently on tour with The Foals to support their debut album, Passive Me - Aggressive You.

The first thing that is really to be noticed about TNAF are the impressive vocals from Alisa Xayalith that, at one moment can remind you of Cyndi Lauper (Girls just wanna have fun) or electro-pop princess La Roux and at other moments can conjure up the same delicate whispery tones of Romy Madley Croft of The XX.

Opening the album is All Of This, a song about the slow disintergration of a relationship. Driving drum beats and bass lines intersect and weave through the synths as Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers tell us of the failing relationship:

"if there's anyone around when we collide
we throw them in the middle
they can pick sides
as the plans turn into compromise
the promises all turn into lies
the spite builds up and i can't get through
passive me aggressive you"

We are then transported into another world as the second single from the album, Punching In A Dream, begins. The abrasive guitar sounds and electro drums recall images of Psych-pop heroes MGMT while the harmonies of Xayalith and Powers are a reminder of The XX once again.

While listening to the album throughout you realise there is a variation between the psych-rock aspect, anthems like: Frayed, Spank and A Wolf In Geek's Clothing and songs such as The Sun and The Source which toy with different textures and layers teamed up with hypnotising vocals and playful intertwining melodies.

The first single taken from the album, Young Blood, with it's cathy chorus:

"the bittersweet between my teeth
trying to find the inbetween
fall back in love eventually
yeah yeah yeah yeah"
serves as a great fist-pounding live anthem that is bound to be popular during this years festival season.

It's the surge of psychedelic rock and energetic electro-pop textures with catchy chorus lines that make this fun record full of 80's synth lines a dreamy breath of fresh air.
3.5*