A+
98%
Laura Barrett
Earth Sciences EP
Independent
Getting a degree in Linguistics doesn’t necessarily mean a career in languages. Such is the case for Laura Barrett, a Toronto singer-songwriter and kalimba player, who released her first collection of songs after graduating.
The release, titled Earth Sciences, is a hidden gem of the freak folk genre soon to be unveiled: the track “Deception Island Optimists’ Club” was recently nominated for a SOCAN award for songwriting, alongside the impressive company of Final Fantasy and Wolf Parade.
There are only five tracks, but the lack of material is the only negative critique I can think to give Earth Sciences, which leaves me wanting more from Miss Barrett.
“Robot Ponies” humourously points listeners to the apocalyptic theme of the EP. With her solid, yet airy timbre, Barrett perfectly enunciates every syllable of this strange song, making it easy to sing along to, “They feed on plastic bags, cut up like lettuce right out of hand / Things get out of hand / Unless you use one of 20 preset functions.”
It may be difficult to find this album, given its limited release. But hold out for Laura Barrett, she plans to release a full-length album in the near future.
—Lauren Raham
C
64%
hellogoodbye
Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!
Drive-Thru Records
Don’t be fooled by the kitschy title and adorable cartoon cover art—Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! is distressingly close to being a B4-4 album, and whether you find that description horrifying or oddly intriguing is a good barometer for how you might feel about hellogoodbye. Harmonized synth-pop that often sounds like Nouvelle Vague doing club remixes of pop-punk songs, singer and songwriter Forrest Kline coos about crushes ripped from the margins of high school notebooks in the simplest of rhyme schemes. However, even sugar-pop aficionados need a melodic progression worth rotting their teeth for, and although it’s catchy, this album doesn’t quite have it. Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! also suffers from an overly compressed sound that doesn’t suit the expansive ambitions of its songs. hellogoodbye are most successful when they try something different, as on the grittier, driving, Franz Ferdinand-lite of “Homewrecker” and the genuinely adorable, mandolin-laced “Oh, It Is Love.” But after 35 minutes of Kline’s breathy and presumably doe-eyed vocals, one desperately wishes his balls would drop already. “There exists a melody that just might change your mind,” Kline sings, and while I’m sure he’s right, hellogoodbye haven’t found it yet.
—Meghan Harrison
A-
82%
The Rapture
Pieces of the People We Love
Universal
Though The Rapture divorced DFA Records some time ago, the band was awarded some of their former label’s record collection in the settlement. So while the new Rapture disc, Pieces of the People We Love, still has many of the signature sounds that helped propel disco-punk through its 15 minutes of popularity earlier this decade, it’s no longer a monogamous relationship. It would be so very, very easy to name-drop a dozen bands whose sound—or something like it—pops up somewhere on the record (the blogosphere’s go-to was the Talking Heads), but what’s the point in ragging on them for it when it resulted in their strongest disc to date? The boys in The Rapture have tied all their influences together with slicker production, fuller arrangements, and a more distinct, disco sound–even if Pieces’s best moments are arguably not as great as those of its predecessor, Echoes.
— Vanessa Crandall
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to eic@queensjournal.ca.