Track Reviews (Yeah. That's the most interesting title I could come up with.)

Nothing too complicated here: 3 reviews of 3 tracks off 3 new releases. One hard, one mid-tempo, one kind of folky (but still a little bit punk-rock in its delivery). Ch-check it out...



Artist: Guns for Radios
Album: losses and gains (Rockin' Stan Records)
Track: "kings and queens"

This band is made up of members of past bands who were well-respected in the Seattle scene (including Alta May and The Fluid [Editor's Note: I have since found out that this is incorrect--GfR contains no one who used to be in The Fluid. That's what I get for trusting a blogger. Sorry for the error. -n]), but has charted a new course. GfR occupies the space where 90's "alternative" (yes, kids, that's how we described music in the 90's) butted up against more traditional pop song structures, simultaneously obliterating them and giving them an entirely new life, and nowhere on the record is it more apparent than here. Starting with a snaky, distorted bassline that belies the high melodic sensitivity apparent in the higher registers of the composition, it calls to mind such disparate influences as Pinback and The Catherine Wheel. The lyrics are a chess game (get it?) of emotion and a vague heartache ("Hearts on the sleeves / of Kings and Queens"), matching wits with the complicated guitar and drum interplay. This band has started to make waves on KEXP--and this is a standout on the record, released last month. Of all the bands in the NW who are re-vitalizing sounds lovingly remembered from the "grunge/alternative" era, this is easily one of the most interesting, and most competent, I've heard.



Artist: Laura Jorgensen
Album: Feathered Arms (self-released)
Track: "Pens"

The lead-off track to Laura's new record is all about blood. Using the vivid and topical imagery of writing, she lets us into her creative process ("We sit down with our pens / And bleed ink"). But the real glimpse of her insides is in the vocal performance she delivers here--her voice lifts and falls with recklessly throat-shredding abandon, rocketing to impossible heights and cascading rapidly to barely-fathomable lows. Her voice matches the emotionality of the confession she alludes to in the lyrics--and that's all fine and good, if you can stop listening to the singing long enough to get all the words. I personally have a hard time with that. Her band, led here by Nolan Eley's trumpet mixing with her own accordion, proves a worthy match to the amazing power of her voice, providing crescendos at a moment's notice and never overplaying the role it's given. This is an amazing recording of an amazing song. I must admit, I've been in love with this song since back when I'd only heard it live and as a demo--hearing it with the full band and the full power of Laura's unbridled talent has given me an even bigger appreciation for it.



Artist: Unnatural Helpers
Album: Cracked Love & Other Drugs (Hardly Art)
Track: "The Truth About You"

Punk-rock? Garage? Indie? Yes. You know what they say: "If the Doc Marten fits..." This song is led by a BLISTERING guitar riff into a valley of sludge-tastic bass under a sea of cymbal crashes and double-kicks. The production is pitch-perfect medium-fi, allowing Dean Whitmore's voice to rage out of the muck with a caterwaul of betrayal and apathy that nonetheless lends itself to a slightly ironic twist (the recriminating "I learned the truth about you" is tempered by a rationalization: "You'd be unhappy with me") that, I'm convinced, is as much a product of the thick skin necessary to make it in the Seattle music scene as it is indicative of the thick skin necessary in matters of the heart. There is rock music, there's good rock music, and then there is F***ing Good Rock Music--this is the latter.



And there you have it--3 local bands, 3 great songs, 3 new albums. Listen to 'em! Tell me what you think! Get out and see some local music!!

'til next time,

rOaR,

TRx