On opener ‘Sun Lake Rinsed’, The Ruby Suns mastermind Ryan McPhun is just warming up. Setting his backdrop awash in simple, pulsing synths and percussion, McPhun lets his falsetto soar and test its limits over the top as you cannot help but imagine yourself driving along the beach on a day described by the track’s title. From here, the reins gradually come off and what results is roughly 45 minutes of cover-to-cover guiltless and irresistible fun.

This is the Suns’ third full-length effort, their second with Sub Pop, and the experience shows. McPhun and company have always displayed a flair for incorporating world music into their sound, and frankly were fairly heavy-handed with it. 2008’s Sea Lion featured tracks entitled ‘Oh, Mojave’ and ‘Kenya Dig It?’, for example, and while the music itself never felt hackneyed or contrived, there was a sense that maybe the African and Caribbean influences contained a bit of pretension, or were at least tongue-in-cheek. Any of these suspicions are gone on Fight Softly, however, as they have found a groove in which all of the music they love fits. The medium this time around is electronic, which may seem like an insincere one for a band so interested in incorporating world music. Their goal isn’t an authentic reproduction or survey, but rather a lighthearted journey filled with hooks you can’t escape.

The dominant voice on the album is McPhun’s, and it is unclear what role the other two touring members of the band play, but really it is inconsequential: all the vocals are his, including harmonies, and it wouldn’t be surprising to find that he is largely responsible for the arrangements as well. In an unexpected turn, the first half of the album sets the table for the second half, and even though a sample of Jack Buck’s classic home run call invites listeners to “Go crazy!”, it shows restraint until first single ‘Cranberry’ marks a significant shift in aesthetic. Blending a mix of Afro-Caribbean styles that is now indicative of the band’s sound, it features a sinfully catchy chorus that is so simple it’s mind-boggling, but irresistible nonetheless.

This happens more often than not, where as soon as one chorus is ingrained, the next one promptly replaces it. As with many dance albums, lyrics are not exactly McPhun’s strong point, occasionally breaching on the sophomoric, but when paired with his melodies, it is a forgivable weakness. Not every track lacks depth, though. Highlight ‘Closet Astrologer’ is an example of self-examination that never gets too far past the superficial, but he reaches some conclusions as his voice seems to climb almost infinitely. Some will point out similarities to Animal Collective in the Suns’ approach, but really they are more respectful nods than shameless imitation and McPhun draws as much on the synthpop and dance of the 80s, most specifically Michael Jackson. To dismiss the album as dependent on these influences overlooks their infatuation with music from different cultures. Towards the end of the album are ‘Dusty Fruit’ and ‘Two Humans’, which are both microcosms of the band’s M.O. The former is a Caribbean-inspired shuffle with layered synthetic marimba and perfect island harmonies and percussion and the latter is a sultry groove that again features African percussion and almost vaporous keys that are meant to recreate a woman’s voice accompanying a conversation between lovers.

While it might be possible for some to toss Fight Softly off as derivative or superficial upon first listen, they are likely missing some of the ethnomusicological intricacies of McPhun’s writing in addition to some of the more delicate and inescapable pop songs that we will see this year.

Paul Bulow

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Sunny Day Real Estate 2010 Tour Dates:
04/18 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
04/22 – London, UK @ HMV Forum
04/23 – Meerhout, BE @ Grozerock
05/27-29 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound

Minus the Bear Tour Dates:

April 19 Knitting Factory Concert House Spokane, WA
April 20 The Railyard Billings, MT
April 22 Slowdown Omaha, NE
April 23 Sandstone Amphitheatre Bonner Springs, KS
April 25 St. Andrew’s Hall Detroit, MI
April 26 Newport Music Hall Columbus, OH
April 28 Madison Theater Covington, KY
April 29 Town Ballroom Buffalo, NY
April 30 Webster Theatre Hartford, CT
May 2 Bamboozle Festival E. Rutherford, NJ
May 5 Wilbur Theatre Boston, MA
May 6 Trocadero Philadelphia, PA
May 7 9:30 Club Washington, DC
May 8 The National Richmond, VA
May 9 The Fillmore Charlotte Charlotte, NC
May 10 Variety Playhouse Atlanta, GA
May 11 Revolution Ft. Lauderdale, FL
May 12 The Ritz Tampa, FL
May 14 House Of Blues Houston, TX
May 15 Granada Dallas, TX
May 16 La Zona Rosa Austin, TX
May 18 Sunshine Theatre Albuquerque, NM
May 19 House Of Blues Las Vegas, NV
May 20 Mayan Theatre Los Angeles, CA
May 21 Glass House Pomona, CA
May 22 SOMA San Diego, CA
May 23 Marquee Theater Tempe, AZ
May 26 Regency Ballroom San Francisco, CA
May 27 Knitting Factory Reno, NV
May 28 Roseland Theatre Portland, OR
May 29 Sasquatch Music Festival George, WA

04-16 Indio, CA – Empire Polo Field/Coachella
04-17 San Francisco, CA – Grand Ballroom @ Regency Center
04-20 Seattle, WA – Showbox at The Market
04-21 Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom
04-23 Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot
04-24 Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
04-26 Kansas City, MO – Midland Theatre
05-02 Chicago, IL – House of Blues
05-04 Boston, MA – Royale Boston
05-05 Boston, MA – Royale Boston
05-07 Toronto, ON – Kool Haus
05-08 Montreal, QC – Theatre L’Olympia de Montreal
05-11 Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Live
05-12 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
05-14 Pittsburgh, PA – Club Zoo
05-15 Atlantic City, NJ The Borgata Music Box
05-18 New York, NY – Terminal 5

Sun Araw – Beach Head (2008)
The name of the band Sun Araw captures fairly well the essence of the music contained within Cameron Stallones’ second full length album Beach Head. “Sun” obviously insinuates the greatest star in our sky and stimulates the social branding and allusion that is attached to the word, whereas “Araw” is foreign and unknown, and infers something that we are unaware of or that is beyond our understanding. The former induces familiarity, fun, and warmth; the latter induces mystery, alienation, remoteness, and inaccessibility. In the same way, the music of Beach Head divulges this dichotomy, blending the local with the strange, the commonplace with the abnormal, the known with the unknown. ‘Thoughts Are Bells’ does this most obviously, opening the track with four minutes of various drones and jungle sounds and then slowly progressing into a slow, mellow, sitar-backed beach jam, while the other three combine these opposites a bit more astutely; stretching the surf rock of ‘Horse Steppin” out to 10 minutes and layering it with a faded psychic jam session, meshing the drone of ‘Beams’ with a welcoming, cozy guitar riff that signals summertime, and harboring the subtle melody and acoustic picking of ‘Bridal Filly’ amongst the constant buzzing noise of a wall of amplifiers. This mix of harshness and harmony in the context of the sunny and tropical is what puts this album in the kinship of others like Fennesz’s Endless Summer and makes it one worth the patience necessary to unravel its shell and discover the essence contained therein. – Brian Riewer

Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s – Dust Of Retreat (2005)
If guilt and loneliness could harmonize with one another, they might be able to underscore a heartbreak as well as Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s. Dust Of Retreat is beautifully tender chamber pop that swells with emotion. The specificity of the lyrics and the dynamic instrumentation make everything feel like a slice of life with all its beauty and ugliness left exposed and unaltered. This sincerity exists equally in the album’s only rocker ‘Quiet As A Mouse’ and in the simple and tragic ‘Jen Is Bringin’ The Drugs.’ The characters Richard Edwards sings about are so real with both strengths and flaws that you feel like you might actually know them. This is a great album to listen to while making up stories about the strangers all around you. It’s easy to get lost in Dust Of Retreat, and that’s a great place to be. – Jeremy Schaefer

Baroness – Red Album (2007)
Melodic depth and stylistic versatility are not usually talking points for metal bands, but for Savannah, GA’s Baroness, these are just a couple of the qualities that have them racing towards the top of the melodic metal genre. On their 2007 debut Red Album, they incorporate all the abrasiveness and fury that one expects, but temper it with slick time changes, dalliances with other styles, and indelibly catchy vocal and guitar melodies. While glimpses of folk and southern rock would elicit an eyebrow raise from any fervent headbanger, Baroness more than make it work. On highlight ‘The Birthing’, parallel guitar lines evoke Skynyrd and Thin Lizzy, but the frenetic chugging of frontman John Dyer Baizley’s guitar hook you without more than a couple lines of vocals. ‘Wailing Wintry Wind’ opens with reverberating, ambient guitar noodling that leads into a drum solo with an aimlessness reminiscent of prog-rock bands of the 70s and ‘Cockroach En Fleur’ is a twangy acoustic guitar solo, but it is their ability to meld these influences into one unifying sound that makes them perhaps the most exciting young metal band on the circuit. And if last year’s follow-up Blue Record is any indication, the chops on display here aren’t a fluke. – Paul Bulow

Kate Bush – Hounds Of Love (1985)
Though she had made four Top 10 albums in the UK by 1985, Kate Bush was still a relative unknown in the US. But Hounds of Love — her most commercially successful album to date — would change all that. Bush produced the album herself, infusing her lush, experimental compositions with a more coherent pop sensibility than 1983’s The Dreaming. Bush’s vocals are characteristically expressive and eccentric throughout, from the impassioned vigor of ‘Jig Of Life’ to the spacey quavering in ‘Watching You Without Me’. The album showcases multiple string arrangements, plenty of piano, and a host of obscure instruments, including the didjeridoo, uillean pipes, bouzouki, etc. Rousing percussion on tracks like ‘Hounds Of Love’ and ‘The Big Sky’ ferry the album from dense to epic. Bush also makes good use of subtler dance beats, especially in her only Top 40 US single to date, ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’, in which she sings about yearning to experience sexual pleasure as a man. The album also features a variety of sound samples, culled from such sources as an old British horror film, the chorus of a traditional Georgian song, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and clips of her own voice played backwards. Somehow, Bush is able to gather all of these disparate elements and create flawless pop songs and poignant ballads, producing an album that is as close to perfect as it is deeply weird. – Laura Mojonnier

Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend (2008)
I came to a realization this weekend: I am a big fan of Vampire Weekend’s first album. There goes all my indie cred. I find the Brooklyn-based band’s first album to be incredibly infectious, in a Graceland sort of way — the combination of African and classical influences are apparent throughout the album. ‘A-Punk’ is preppy in the best sense of the word and tells a rather interesting story of a girl who steals a ring off a dead guy’s hand. The chanting and overall atmosphere on ‘M79’ is hard not to fall in love with. The most overlooked song on the album and my personal favorite, ‘Walcott’, is filled with a maze of references best suited to people who know the area being referenced. Maybe it is because I know all the areas they are referring to or maybe it is because the album is just genuinely good, but I am addicted to Vampire Weekend’s debut. – Joe Mateo

Pearls Before Swine – One Nation Underground (1967)
From the very instant Tom Rapp unveils his curious near-lisping vocals on opener ‘Another Time’, it becomes evident that Pearls Before Swine don’t quite align with their colleagues of the time. The tune is imbued with stately grandeur as was common in the late 60s, yet it’s also chimerical, hinting at remote, nebulous dimensions, constantly teetering between fey and fictitious: “Did you find that the world outside is all inside your mind?” The band’s debut is steeped in both gentle and jarring elements throughout, a polarity that has come to define One Nation Underground — amidst familiar folk instrumentation lie foreign inclusions such as the sarangi, celeste, clavioline, etc. as well as a druggy forcefulness impelling these tracks in accordance with the vitriol produced. Rapp further chisels the affair’s binary shape on ‘Playmate’ and ‘Uncle John’ as he presents his fiercest takes atop pulsating Farfisa organs and coltish percussion, lamenting if not outright attacking political mores of the era. “Your chamber-of-commerce soul, you talk of war so bold. God is on our side, but he’s lost in your wallet fold.” However, after each invigorating bolt of lightning comes a delicate drizzle. In addition to comprising the record’s longest cut, ‘I Shall Not Care’ is also the foremost example of this pattern, commencing in meditative, sylvan fashion for the initial minute or so to then take a turn for the mercurial, transitioning from serene to strident with organs blaring, guitars wailing, and Rapp adamantly refusing to buckle under societal strains. Just as we believe to have caught on to Pearls Before Swine’s game, the boisterous juncture bows out in a matter of seconds, yielding way to droning cosmic naturalismo. The 5-minute number is wonderfully flighty, reflecting the disposition of an artist who sees so much to decry in his surroundings that he can’t stick to one stylistic base, attempting to ease his conscience and attain quietude by ridding his soul of every last biting aspersion and bleary anxiety. – Vinh Cao