Category: MP3s

“Trophy Wife” – the Winter Sounds
     An intent, energetic rocker with an underlying Cure-ishness at its core, from its ringing, two-part guitar melody and mobile bass line to its yelpy-voiced front man, Patrick Keenan, who edges pleasantly towards the almost hysterical in his upper register. I’m mentally searching rock history for this voice’s precedent and I can’t find anything notable that goes further back than Robert Smith, truly the godfather of the almost-hysterical yelpers who’ve come along since 1979. I like how you can hear Keenan gulp for air in the middle of the chorus (e.g. 1:22); there’s a guy who’s singing first, asking questions later.
     For all its relentless flow, “Trophy Wife” is nicely put together. First, there’s the long introduction. Most long introductions just sort of tread water, and kind of bother me; this one sets the mood and contains actual melodic development. Much better. Second, note how the briskness and melodic movement of the verse is counterbalanced by the chorus, the first part of which is sung largely on just one note, and the second part of which is sung at half the pace of the rest of the song. Also, check out how the beginning of the second verse has a different melody than the beginning of the first verse. I like when that happens. And then there’s that strangely captivating bridge with interweaving falsetto vocals (2:39). Didn’t see that one coming.
     The Winter Sounds are a quartet that split their time between Athens, Georgia and Chicago. “Trophy Wife” is a song from the band’s second album, Church of the Haunted South, due out next week on Nashville-based Theory 8 Records.

“Animals” – Sara Lov (with Alex Brown Church)

Sweet-voiced Sara Lov has been on Fingertips twice previously with her duo, Devics, most recently in 2006 for the beautiful, torchy “Come Up.” Minus partner Dustin O’Halloran’s evocative keyboards, Lov sings here over a simple acoustic guitar lick and allows her voice the hint of a Jenny Lewis-like twang. But if the verse sets us up for a light bit of alt-country, the chorus moves us in a somewhat different direction. The sudden presence of Alex Brown Church (front man for the band Sea Wolf) as co-lead vocalist definitely changes the aural palette, as his warm baritone has not a bit of country about it.

An important, albeit subtler, shift in the chorus comes via the melody line. While the verse works within a limited, sing-song-y framework (simple, repeated, two-measure phrases) that actually hides musical complexities that do exist, the melody in the chorus opens up into a nicely developed eight-measure line. This serves to relieve a claustrophobia that we didn’t quite know we were feeling until the relief arrived. Then comes an interesting sort of tag line after the chorus, sung jointly, that works to transition us comfortably back to the verse, only what’s this? The second verse is altered and all but nonexistent, the tag line then leads us into rather than out of the chorus, Church and Lov singing together again. And everything leads to the final line of the song, which is exactly the same as the first line. Well done.

You’ll find “Animals” on the album Seasoned Eyes Were Beaming, released rather too quietly in March by Nettwerk Records. MP3 via the free and legal music site RCRD LBL. Note that the link above is not direct, but you’ll see what to do when you click it.

“Glass Brigade” – Little Tybee

A brand-new Atlanta-based trio, Little Tybee (named after a small nature preserve off the shore of Savannah) plays a sprightly, light-footed sort of indie rock that combines organic and electronic sounds with offhanded flair. The unexpected center of the song, musically, is Ryan Gregory’s violin. We first hear it at 0:10, playing a distinctive grouping of twelve notes, launched by a pair of oddly accented triplets that end up as the song’s guiding hook when singer Brock Scott gets hold of it. He’s got a friendly tenor, with a bit of texture to it, so we’re happy to hand it over to him. And listen to how Gregory, in the background, while Scott sings that off-kilter motif (first at 0:23), now plucks instead of bows his strings.

Note also that it’s the violinist who takes the song’s primary instrumental solo (1:15), which offers an embellished pizzicato version of the recurring theme, and also leads the jaunty instrumental coda. And perhaps the ultimate tribute to the violin here is that Scott sings rather like a violin in the wordless chorus section, doing a playful bit of vocal “bowing” and “plucking” himself, which is accentuated by the fact that he sings notes but not words, some of them precisely aligned with the notes the violin plays simultaneously.

“Glass Brigade” is a song from the band’s debut release, a seven-song EP called I Wonder Which House The Fish Will Live In, which will be self-released next month, and features hand-printed and cut and individually put together CD covers, just so you know.