B
74%
Tiger Army
Music From Regions Beyond
Hellcat
Music From Regions Beyond is an appropriate title for Tiger Army’s new album. With Music, Tiger Army realize their desire to dabble in the world of rock outside of psychobilly, an experiment only hinted at in their last album’s flirtation with blues and country. A change in line-up, with only lead guitarist and vocalist Nick 13 remaining the same, isn’t all that’s new with this staple band of the American psychobilly scene. Trading horror stories for melancholic songs of longing, Tiger Army still manages to preserve the driving energy of the upright bass.
Nick 13’s vocals still wail in a 1950’s fashion but the band’s rock out energy is scarcely more contained in the recordings. Fans may see this as a dampening down of the band’s sound but the disc reveals a few unanticipated gems, like “As the Cold Rain Falls,” which veers into new wave territory and the Spanish “Hechizo De Amor.” These new directions show off the band’s flexibility, and although the content isn’t very heavy and a little watered down, the disc is still pretty fun.
—Adèle Barclay
C+
68%
Interpol
Our Love to Admire
Capitol
The cover of Interpol’s latest release, Our Love to Admire, is an overexposed photograph of a male and female lion attacking an antelope. All of the animals are stuffed and mounted. This seemingly frenzied moment stopped, permanently frozen through the magic of taxidermy, makes a good analogy for the album’s music.
The songs make false attempts at emotion, and no matter how many times Paul Banks sings the words “love” and “heart,” listeners are unconvinced they hold any meaning. Although the album doesn’t stray too far from the rhythmic methodism of their first two albums, Our Love to Admire makes an effort to be too grandiose—their one move away from the pop-infused stadium hits Interpol is known for (think “Evil” and “Slow Hands”).
Despite the band’s baroque attempts, there are no surprises on Our Love to Admire. Like the singles before it, “Heinrich Maneuver,” (which, if it weren’t for the gag-inducing “No I in Threesome,” might take the worst title award), is heavy on hook, with the melody pushed through by a driving rhythm. This is the first album the band has done with the keyboard involved in the songwriting process all the way through and it shows—along with the horn and string arrangements that have been added, making a notable entrance on the opening track.
The album’s finest track is the last one, a sea-washed dirge called “The Lighthouse.” The song’s secret is in its sparseness. With the percussion section removed and heavy echo effects in Banks’ voice, the focus is on the best lyrics on the album.
Our Love to Admire might have lofty aims, but it falls short of the goal in favour of plodding rhythms and Banks’ trademark bad lyrics: “All Fired Up” features a new low in the “emotional darkness as experienced by a teenage girl” category.
Like the mangy still-life on the album cover, Interpol seem stuck in a moment—the moment is 2004 and the songs are still sliding downhill.
—Meghan Sheffield
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