Capsule Reviews - Buttercup, Hearts of Animals, Neon Indian
Hey gang. For today’s capsule reviews, we’re keeping things Texan. We have the fourth full-length release from San Antonio’s pop mavens Buttercup, a new release from Alan Paloma’s psych-dance experiment Neon Indian, and an LP from the similarly homegrown aesthetics of the Houston-based Hearts of Animals. Without further ado…
Buttercup - The Weather Here
Buttercup’s career arc has been both pleasingly and frustratingly unconventional. For years, they honed their live shows into artsy love-ins that encouraged audience participation and reinvented the concert experience, but fans had nothing on disc to commemorate their experiences. Years later, the band - which includes bassist Odie Cole, guitarists Erik Sanden and Joe Reyes, and drummer Jamie Roadman - have since made up for lost time with a solid tonnage of songs on EPs and LPs.
The Weather Here is very much a Buttercup record - we have a pervasive atmosphere of wit and contemplation, and an unhurried unspooling of the band’s myriad gifts. These include vocal contributions of all four members, and varied, shared song composition. What separates this album from past Buttercup releases is the steamy subtlety of the songwriting and production. Behind the boards is Salim Nourallah (Old 97’s, etc.), who has worked at crafting a mood of restraint for this album. Unlike the unabashed Hot Love or the myriad emotions of their EP Captains of Industry, this new record stirs less and quietly requests your attention. The chiming “It’s In the Way” leads the soft charge, and the mood is staked in the heady harmonies of “Superior.” Elsewhere we have the lovely, acoustic-divined “Kite,” complete with Sanden’s falsetto, and the comparatively pounding “Betta No Better” and “Always Alcohol.” If The Weather Here is missing anything, it’s the harder edges and pop finesse that graced their debut Sick Yellow Flower and subsequent releases. We don’t have anything as close to the ear candy of “Living Again” or the fine “Epithalamium or “Cutting Daisies” from their debut. Closing track “Underground” might be the album’s best - it merges the band’s softer and more aggressive sides perfectly.
Hearts of Animals - Cave Lights
Visiting Houston for the Free Press Summer Fest a few weekends ago, we were made aware that the city isn’t just a swamp of old money, bad smells and bad hair (no offense, Houstonist. Well, just a little). Instead, it turns out that the scene in H-town is on the upswing. Huh. While this means fewer jokes at their expense, at least we’ll get some good new music out of the deal. Up first on the chopping block is Hearts of Animals, the recording project of Mlee Marie Suprean, who has her hands full with four other bands. Cave Lights is a short LP put out by Art Storm records. Made of the same dreamy, electronic, but guitar-tempered stuff that make certain blogs all stammery and lovestruck. Cloaking her soft, effusive vocals in reverb, Suprean’s song structures meander gracefully with the cold metronome of a drum machine keeping things in line.
Tracks one and two (“Maybe Maybe Maybe” and “The Next Day”) actual meander a little too much - the former just layers electronics over a repetitive vocal, and the latter plies the same formula with more experimental results. It’s the charge of third track “Pillow Fight” that cuts through the haze, and the real goods don’t arrive until “Sit Right Here” and “Sister Stories,” two songs that pair Suprean’s songwriting gifts with just enough production gauze and programming. “Versus” is another beauty, featuring Joe Mathelete on vocals, and “Drain Me” cuts out the electronic washes and takes it down to just vocals and guitar. A fine album closer, but then there’s an untitled track of layered saxophone and not much else. A little undercooked, Cave Lights nonetheless promises much more from Hearts of Animals, and when it does deliver, is a sublime pleasure.
Hearts of Animals: [website] [myspace]
Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
Out of the quietude and into the steamy world of lo-fi dance pop - Alan Paloma has taken a break from his project Vega (and a permanent break from Ghosthustler) to retreat into the less controlled, more free form world of Neon Indian. Psychic Chasms puts samples and hooks through the ringer, distorting and playing with the sonic structure of vocals, chiming synthesizers and bubbly low-end bass. Paloma is well aware that his inclinations are retro, and Neon Indian smartly nods to its older aesthetic while pushing strangely forward. The scattered pieces of “Mind, Drips” recall a slowed, skewered Cut Copy, and the excellent “Should Have Taken Acid With You” is both harmonically arresting and humorously nostalgic (who regrets not taking acid?). The short intro “(AM)” and “Laughing Gas” are also pleasing and playful if a little musically inscrutable. It’s surprising that the unfettered oddball experimentation of weirdo Ariel Pink and his ilk would spawn a movement, but here we are. If the now-vogue juxtaposition of dance and soupy lo-fi doesn’t do it for you, Neon Indian also has enough in the way of song craft and always-evolving sound to make this a worthwhile journey.
Neon Indian: [myspace]
