Poison The Well - Versions

Holy crap. I've been listening to these guys for 5 years now, and they've always been a band that I liked but never loved. Until now.

With their latest album, Poison The Well has blown all expectations out of the water. They've progressed from fairly standard whiny hardcore to somewhat progressive songwriting to promising-but-flawed experimentation to this album's near-perfection. From what I understand, it's come at a high cost; the band has gone from being a tight-knit five-piece to being a bare-bones three-piece, which must have been heart-wrenching after doing four albums as a full band of close friends.

But I digress.

What makes this album stand above the rest?....

....the inclusion of country influences.

No, I'm not kidding.

This record blasts out of the gate with face-melting intensity on the opener 'Letter Thing', but Poison The Well has done intensity before. The magic comes from their new sound, which takes brutal hardcore and layers in country stylings without a hint of irony. They use twang, they use slide guitar, they use banjo. And it all works. You can still hear the classic elements of their sound (punk rock drum beats, dry lung vocals, energetic/erratic guitar), but it's all been centered by the outstanding production and unified vision of this album.

PTW's clean singing has never done it for me in the past, because it's always seemed way too safe and formulaic. It's been emo suckiness, frankly. On this record, however, vocalist Jeffrey Moreira has really found his stride, and his vocal performance is worthy of good indie rock. The drums and guitar both rip as hard as ever, and the songwriting is incredibly solid. It took a year and a half to record this album, and it shows. The songs have excellent structure and tons of patience; even the burners take the time to break things up. Not a lot of bands know how to do that.

This is a hardcore/metal/heavy album with texture, heart, maturity, talent, growth, balance and atmosphere. This one isn't going to be forgotten. It's not waiting for the next big scene record to knock it out of your consciousness. Music fans are going to remember this one for a long, long time. I can't urge you to check it out strongly enough.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Buy It!

SXSW 2007 Recap

Yep, it's been forever since my last post. Been busy, blah blah blah.

Anyway, SXSW 2007 ended a few days ago, so I thought I'd do a quick recap and point out some of my favorite shows (along with mentioning a few big disappointments). I've probably forgotten some of the shows I've seen, but hey, I'm only human. So without further ado....

The Great

Buck 65 - I first learned about Buck 65 two years ago, when I saw him without knowing anything about him, and while this year's show wasn't as magical as that one (this time he performed a lot of new unreleased material) it was still top notch entertainment. His stage presence, facial expressions and flow were in top form, as was his DJ. His remixed version of 'Blood of a Young Wolf' (which was represented on my 2006 mix) was enjoyable, and it sounds like the new material is great. I can't wait to hear what he's got coming next.

Galactic w/ Gift of Gab, Lyrics Born & Boots - Holy crap, this show came out of nowhere and rocked my socks off! Galactic is a New Orleans jazz/jam type band, and normally I'd never listen to them (I find their style a bit cheesy for my tastes), but fronted by three top-notch MC's they really came alive (plus their drummer is the most excitable, funkiest nerdy-looking dude ever). Gab kicked things off and just killed it from the get-go, bringing the crowd intensity to a peak early on during his 3 songs. Lyrics Born then kept the momentum going with his sing-song style, doing 4 tracks if memory serves. He had a lot of fun with it, dancing and singing with the crowd. Then came Boots (from the classic rap group The Coup), who was a bit of a dark horse. His first song was a downtempo funk song, and I thought that he'd positively lost the crowd (especially following Gab & Lyrics Born). But then his second song tore the place down. I can still hear the chorus in my head, backed by distorted guitar and crash cymbals ("We! We are the ones!"). The show closed with all 3 MC's on stage. At first they took turns rhyming, but when they all went off at the same time the crowd blew up like The Dillinger Escape Plan had just hit the outtro of '43% Burnt'. Holy crap, what a fun show!

Girl Talk - Speaking of fun shows, this dude is insane. He basically does a laptop set that's one long, super-intricate mashup. Instead of settling for 3-minute songs with rap lyrics, he changes samples every 20 seconds or so. But what makes his set so fun is that he just goes nuts. As soon as the beat kicks in he's jumping around like crazy, doing handstands on the table, diving into the crowd and even doing a conga line through the whole venue. This is a guy who knows how to take a laptop show and make it 3x as exciting as half of the live bands out there.

Holy F**k - Great band, lame name. So lame, in fact, that I'm using asterisks (or referring to them as "Holy F-Bomb, Batman!" for fear that my mom will read this post). I heard that they were great last year, so I was excited to check them out this year. Needless to say, I was really impressed. They put on a great, energetic show. Their music really comes off better live than in the studio, though their new EP is a real step forward for them. If you get a chance to see them, check them out. They look really excited to be playing music, and their energy makes it all the better live.

Kid Koala - I pretty much showed up for this one to get in line for Amon Tobin and hear Koala's staggeringly beautiful triple-deck remix of 'Moon River', and I got that plus so much more. There's no one single thing that stood out for me at this show; it was just consistently fun throughout. Other than the 'Moon River' interlude he never let up with the upbeat intensity and the fun blends. All I can say is that if you get a chance to see him live you should; he's fun, he's energetic, he interacts with the crowd and he just plays a fun set.

These Arms Are Snakes - As my best friend Steve pointed out, a lot of things came together at this 1am show: we were hammered drunk, we had a lot of energy, the venue was small but crowded, the band was on point, they played a great selection of songs and the singer dialed his normally way-too-self-aware-and-pretentious stage presence down a few notches. So many things came together, in fact, that my boy Steve, who is mainly into indie rock and hip-hop, was moshing and shoving like an animal! It was super fun, just rocking out like completely un-self-conscious idiots to a badass heavy set at the front of the stage. By the end of this one we were spent, but it was totally worth it. Super fun.

Yppah - If I had just been rating their/his live show (Yppah is one dude, but at SXSW he went the live band route) I would have just called it good, but I got their record today and it's phenomenal. I'd describe it as a more upbeat Boards of Canada with a touch of glitch & Bonobo, but not afraid to drop a dirty old-school hip-hop beat. Beautiful and grimy, I can't recommend this album enough. Buy it!

The Good

Nick Butcher - His music is ambient and atmospheric, so it was a great start to the festival. I heard it from the next room as Kristine and Brian and I talked about our plans for the night, but my ears kept perking up at Nick Butcher's sound. Definitely worth checking out if you can find out where to get it (a quick look at his website turned up no options).

Drumcorps - The break at 1:25 in 'Botch Up and Die' pretty much ensured before the fact that the show would at least be good, but I can't say that it was great. If there had been more people there (and more people rocking out like the idiotic yours truly) it would have been more fun, but I still enjoyed it. His crazy blend of glitchy drum & bass with badass hardcore/grindcore is super unique, and he pulled it off very well live. The live guitar was mediocre, but his energy and tightness were quite impressive.

The Mediocre

Daedelus - I'm a huge fan of his most recent album, Daedelus Denies The Day's Demise, but this live show was pretty underwhelming. It was too quiet, he didn't play any of his recognizable songs and the live elements that he and his partner performed were pretty sloppy. Oh well.

The Bad

Amon Tobin - He used way way way way too much bass (my left ear is still screwed up) and he only played a few things that were remotely recognizable from his albums. If he were just a party DJ his set would have been great, but I came to hear the songs I love so much from his impressive discography.

Bonde De Role - They had decent beats at times, but the changes were way too frenetic. They've got pretty crappy flows, too. They did do a great break with 'The Final Countdown', but it's gonna take more than shameless pandering to pull off a great live set. I hear they're good when they play with a band, but if you go to see them and find that they've just got a DJ you're in for some disappointment.