Remember when there was subtlety in political and social discourse? Neither does LuciD. Raging against a world far, far down the “news with a narrative” rabbit hole dug by Fox News and its self-appointed competitors, the SGF rap-rock trio follows up its debut EP T.R.U.T.H. just a year later with its first full-length, On the Record. The double entendre is also the mood-setter: Not only are these 10 songs on the record—or the CD, anyway—but these are also the band’s definitive, we’re-not-taking-them-back comments about the state of life in America today. Buckle up, because they’re going to be that brash all the way through.

The band has grown its musical approach to go with its new, bigger pair of brass ones, too. Working at Red Room Studio in Arkansas, the producting tag team of Phil Taylor and John Lecompt brought a sound more full and more fierce out of the group. Where Jake Bollinger‘s guitar was more often a complementary piece on the previous record, it’s pushed to the forefront now, lower and more overtly metal in tone. The beats move the pace and tension up, as well, with Chris “Hazoh” Tilley (DJ Landon left the group late last year) adding some new production wrinkles to help fill out the sound. Not to be left behind, lyricist Kyle Colson leaves questions such as “Where the f*** is my song?” behind and starts tackling taboos—religion’s hollow condemnations (“Bible Belt”), political duplicity and incompetence (“Oblahblah”), the cultural dumb-down brought on by life imitating TV (“Rad Bro,” the lead single) and more. Think of him as the mic-wielding agent provocateur, out to incite any kind of reaction from his targets, even if it just amounts to pissing people off at times. If collars can be popped in anger, “Rad Bro” should make it happen. If political and “the party ends in hell” types had their own collars to pop, the rest of the songs would get them going, too. The one outlier in all this musical prodding is “Hindsight,” the lone relationship-oriented song and, though not bad, an awkward oasis from the righteous anger.

Finally, if the band’s sound blueprint makes one recall the Public Enemy-plus-Anthrax “Bring the Noise” more than the b-boy leanings of the first EP then think of “Rise Up” more like On the Record‘s “Fight the Power,” a generic-cause rallying cry reminding the listener that, no matter what a record, politician, religious fanatic with a sign or Jersey Shore wannabe tells you, the ability to make real change remains, now and forever, in your hands. If that’s the biggest takeaway then the album wins, but, regardless of whether you agree with its opinions or not, try to also enjoy a rap-rock band bringing more rap and more rock to the table and making an enjoyable album while not bringing the Limp Bizkits of the genre’s past to mind.

[[Show as slideshow]]
photos by Kyle Green (BakedFreshDaily.com) and Brett Johnston

Cornbelt Chorus released its highly-anticipated full-length album, Monsters and the Color Red, at the Outland, Saturday (Jan. 7).

Review

This, finally, is the album Cornbelt Chorus meant to bring you two years ago. The songs are old hat by now after being brought to light through live shows, but the record holds up regardless of the context. The band uses instruments and tunings familiar to Midwest porch picking to make music that often has more avant-garde aspirations. Listen to the Death from Above 1979-style fuzz bass about a minute into “Drunk Hymn” or the eight-minute opus “The Color Red” with its ending devolving into a mess of unsyncopated noise and horn bursts—Kid A fans much, boys?—to see the quiet subversion going on. Monsters and the Color Red is a roots rock record that refuses to go about its business the same way roots rock records always have. It’s nice to finally have it out in the open. — Chris DeRosier

Cornbelt Chorus covers Bob Dylan, The Man In Me

The art of the mixtape was thought to be long dead in hip hop. No, not the mixtape as in “unofficial album using unapproved samples you can download from certain websites” or “CD being handed out to tide you over until next official album release.” I’m referring to the underground act of passing along cassette tapes–the cheapest, easiest way to reproduce songs when the medium was popular–as a way of spreading word about artists. The digital age made the Internet the ideal, most efficient place to dispense music, but it has changed DIY music distribution from passionate to passive. “I just downloaded eight songs from so-and-so’s BandCamp page and they’re sick” doesn’t evoke feelings the same way “I just got ahold of so-and-so’s mixtape and it’s sick” does. It’s the new reality progress forces us to deal with, but damn if it isn’t less fun.

It’s fitting that SGF hip hop group The Spacetones is the one to buck this trend in releasing Welcome to the Land of Drugs and (e)Money first on cassette tape as Side One and Side Two, going to great lengths to break its digital recordings down onto analog tape for an album that flows organically from song to song. (It has since been released digitally in track-by-track form, as well.) For starters, the group has always held it down for hip hop’s fun side, particularly with its live show. Second, there may be no local act in the genre as spiritually devoted to what the music was all about at rap’s inception. This isn’t the ’00s hip hop of talking about how much (insert symbol of wealth here) they’ve got; it isn’t the ’90s and the often graphic storytelling of the gangsta and post-gangsta movements. No, the ‘Tones’ heart lies most closely with the early and middle ’80s, when MC and DJ both worked hardest toward the job they’ve really had all along: rocking the party. The beats have always had bounce and the rhymes, usually for-the-heck-of-it lyrical odysseys or old-school boasts of prowess, always come in mellow-yet-confident delivery and at tongue-pureeing pace. The group sticks to these core characteristics on its second full-length but changes the presentation, incorporating the beats of its most recent addition, fourth member e$Money, as well as his backing rhymes. The new beats, consistent with e$Money’s solo work on his sprawling soulinyabowl double album, is atmospheric, sample-heavy and a little trippy at times. It’s so layered that it’s hard to appreciate its nuance in one listen; a good set of headphones and lack of distractions are highly recommended.

Into this sonic landscape–or planet, if you will–slides MC Tahmiipee, tonally hovering just above the beats and their blip-boom bass structures but occasionally rhyming too soft and smooth and becoming hard to distinguish from the surrounding music. When he’s on and heard, though, he’s a whirlwind; “Tommy P goes, enebedetetepelelelele, I don’t even know what he’s sayin’, it’s like he’s gonna seize,” hype man/visual effects guru Chuckmo raps on “Layback Bounce,” which is a pretty close approximation. Tahmiipee’s rhymes are always maddening to try and keep up with, but since The Spacetones’ first record he has found ways to use his voice as an instrument that weren’t there as much before–hard to do in what is essentially a spoken-word medium–confidently playing with his volume and range to add yet another layer to an album that gets more interesting with each listen. Long after the appeal of the mixtape format and its homage have worn off the songs on Drugs & (e)Money should hold up as both a good album to get lost in and a solid way to get a party started.

“Now if you can talk you can rap. If you got ears you’re a DJ. Every idiot on the block is claiming that they’re gonna be the next Jay.” When you’re a young man wanting to show he can rap that’s a difficult ether to rise out of–harder still when your musical background doesn’t explicitly help build your rap résumé. Jason Nunn, the former reggae guitarist in Roots of Mankind now rapping under the name J-None, delivers this lyric on the song “Ambition” not just as an indictment of “every idiot on the block” but also as a hint at the perceptions he’s up against. It’s harder to stand out at something when everyone thinks they can do what you do–or, worse yet, when others dismiss your abilities as something anyone can do and lump you in with the herd before you get a chance to distinguish yourself, effectively labeling you another “idiot on the block.” J-None does not belong in such a category, and from the outset his debut rap album, Adhittana, is a self-assured–at times even strident–declaration from a young man who won’t let himself be dismissed.

At 19, J-None reveals himself to be not only confident in his rapping but remarkably self-aware for his age. In fact, the two qualities blend together. Most underground rappers described as “self-aware” can also be described as self-deprecating, harshly examining their flaws in verse. J-None goes the other way, examining his struggles in the context of character building while frequently expressing gratitude for his life and the people in it. His pace and meter can jump all over the place while he says these things, too; “I rap behind the beat, I rap on top of it,” he confesses. Such is his ambition to say what is on his mind, rhyme scheme be damned, that J-None at times has to quickly reel his sentences in in a flurry of words in order to finish and start a new thought on the one. Even if it noticeably takes away from the “tightness,” if you will, the approach doesn’t suggest lack of skill so much as reinforce his single-mindedness; J-None could say less to fit the beat better, but it wouldn’t be what he really wants to convey. His delivery is something of a throwback, too, pinning specific syllables to parts of the beat for effect rather than take a more modern, conversational approach. In truth, the songs on Adhittana are not conversations anyway and J-None is not trying to level with you; they are statements of purpose. He will make the music he wants and pay the cost–walking away from his band, starting over in a new genre, dealing with doubts and doubters, spending time away from the stage–to do it.

Shining at least as brightly as the mic work are the beats produced by Trak Masta Tom, which are as mature and nuanced as much of the top-line professional work you’ll hear. The beats throughout are supplemented with flourishes of live instrumentation for a more human feel, lending some non-mechanical warmth to a record exuding big heart and strong will. Tom needs to start selling his beats to the underground rap establishment and J-None needs to keep rapping. Adhittana isn’t a technically perfect record, but it’s close to the right record for a young, still-learning MC who knows what he wants to say. It shows proficiency with room to grow, flaws that make it human and a consistency of message and vision that suggest an artist staying true to his muse–his life. Idiots on the block, take notice.

Nebraska was often described as the Springsteen album for people who don’t like Springsteen. Similarly, you might be able to call A Better Way a reggae album for people not into reggae. The sophomore album by SGF chill-reggae trio The Seed, again made with crisp production from engineer Kevin Gates at Engaged Audio, takes the band in directions it likely wouldn’t have thought to go when making its debut record, Big Outside. Where the first album was heavily influenced by the heavier, fat-bass grooves of dub reggae, this one has a livelier rhythm section, a more spiritual lyrical bent and origins in roots reggae–when you hear what you’d recognize as reggae at all, that is. Interestingly, it’s those songs, less fettered to reggae’s rhythmic style, that are some of the strongest on the album. “Realize” and “Easier Said Than Done” are the biggest winners, and while “New Things” retains strong reggae guitar and bass the very un-reggae drum syncoptation of Rico Samuel breathes a fresh life into the track’s dance-happy celebration.

The album’s second half gets back to the group’s reggae foundation, but even here things are different than on Big Outside. This could reasonably be attributed to the side project of guitarist Lance Sitton and bassist Tom Gibson, a roots-reggae effort called To the Sensi Tree that means to explore different corners of the reggae universe. Some of that experimentation seems to be making its way back into the primary band, as A Better Way features more intricate bass lines, faster-paced songs and more references to spirituality and religion, all of which point back to roots reggae in varying degrees. The group also makes more frequent use of two-part harmony than on the first effort, even allowing Gibson’s gruff-but-heartfelt vocals to take center stage during the second verse of “Realize.” All of these new wrinkles are worth it. The knock on reggae from the casual listener has always been that the genre is something of a one-trick pony, enjoyable but inevitably sounding after a while like the same song repeating. The Seed are trying just enough tricks. musical flourishes and styles of writing with A Better Way to maybe have found just that: A way for hardcore reggae lovers to enjoy the same album that someone who enjoys an occasional reggae song or live show can listen to and appreciate each song for its individuality.

Hallmarks of a good storyteller: look beyond the obvious for inspiration, find grandeur and profundity in the simple. Singer-songwriter Barak Hill, to his credit, accomplishes both on his first full-length album, This Life I Love. Hill is far from a newcomer, though–he has been releasing recorded material since 2004–and his songwriting style reflects both experience and a deft touch. Where Hill excels, and so few of his contemporaries do, is in making silence and pause into storytelling devices unto themselves. Similar to his friend and fellow songwriter, Dallas Jones (who appears on This Life I Love as a backing musician), Hill’s lyrical approach is economical and plain-spoken, the words of everyman. But they’re delivered with the careful pacing and assuredness of a man who knows the impact he wants and how to get it. It’s this sense of when not to sing or even play that lends the songs a gravitas they could lose in the hands of someone else. You’ll find this on best display in tracks such as “A Garden, a Dog, and a Son,” “Been Dying To Tell You,” the album-opening “My Way Home” and the excellent title track, which spirals its way up its chorus to its uplifting, climactic declaration.

For the other part of the above equation–the not-obvious stories–Hill looks to one of the most overlooked members of the circus with a gruesome, but dramatically attention-getting, endgame (“The Lion Tamer’s Plan”); The Wizard of Oz (“Building the Tin Man”); a peon’s escapist daydream (“Kerosene (An Arsonist’s Lament)”); and a Civil War soldier coming home to his love (“Hannah, See You Soon”), the last aided (because, let’s face it, the returning-soldier thing has been done before) by the actual letters a soldier from the period wrote to the woman waiting for him. All are stories well told and worthy chapters in this album, an early bid to be remembered among the year’s local best.

Give the album a listen for yourself here.

The members of The Bootheel nailed the description of their band’s sound from the very beginning, and only needed two words to do it: “aggressively Midwestern.” (My attempt: Rustic-tinged power-rock weaving elements of punk, Americana and country with choruses often using two- and three-part vocals that blur the line between singing and on-key shouting… nope, still like their description better, and it’s 1/15 as long.) Such is the benefit of knowing what you want your band to sound like from the start. The Bootheel’s first EP, Gold Tops, is remembered more in most people’s minds for showing the band’s Midwestern side, due in no small part to the EP’s opening track, “Meg,” making a big impression on those who heard it with its vibe of a ’70s country song amped up to 10. Transatlantic Drag, by contrast, may be remembered for showing more of the aggressive side of “aggressively Midwestern,” even if it ends up without such a standout individual track.

All seven songs on Transatlantic Drag, once again recorded at Steve Albini‘s Electric Audio studios in Chicago with former SGFer Jonathan San Paolo, will sound immediately familiar to regular attendees of Bootheel concerts, as all of them have been played onstage at one time or another. From the outset it rips through one all-out rocker after another, beginning with “258,” which gives us the album’s name (“tearin’ up the transatlantic drag/never gonna bring it back”) and flies into the ode to low-cost escapism “Birds on the Bat” and then the album’s longest, and perhaps most compelling, song, “The Midnight Stalker,” the chorus of which sets lead singer Todd Balisle‘s emotional, wailing chorus in contrast with bassist Dillon Rudder‘s dark shout-back to creepy but good effect. After all, a stalker is creepy to everyone but the stalker; to him or her it’s a matter of love. Shouldn’t a song about a stalker show both sweet innocence and dark aggression, too?

The latter song is arguably as close to a signature song as there is on Transatlantic Drag, though the album doesn’t suffer in the absence. The songs, if less immediately attention-getting, are consistently better written on this second album and more naturally integrate the elements I mentioned in my 15-times-longer description of the band. It’s not all pounding and energy on Transatlantic Drag, either, as “Macho Man Randy Travis” (catch the blending of names there?) brings some ‘roided-out country into the mix before jumping back into the supercharged Americana rock with “Hustler Club.” The record concludes with “Bering Sea,” a holdover from the band’s early material that didn’t wind up on Gold Tops and another more country-ish (the bass line is all country, anyway) with a dose of wistful trumpet toward the end. Taken as a whole, one can see how this and “Macho Man Randy Travis” make the rest of the album work. Without them there is no counterpoint to the prevalent rock assault and Transatlantic Drag would feel repetitive. With them there is a reminder that the word “Midwestern” comes after “aggressively” in the band’s self-description, and neither would matter as much or sound as good without the other.

You’d think with a name like Cold War Kids you could expect angst-filled punk songs about climbing under desks and protest tunes against a nuclear arms race. But, such is not the case with this alternative rock band out of Long Beach, CA, which released their third full-length album Mine Is Yours on Jan. 25.

Back in 2009 I had the chance to see Cold War Kids at Lollapalooza, the annual Chicago festival that boasts a lineup of around 130 artists in August. At the time, “Hang Me Up To Dry” was the only Cold War Kids song that I had heard. It had been played on the radio quite a bit and had piqued my interest. So, I decided to give the band my time and check out its set. I was impressed with the atmosphere the band created and the professionalism with which they performed. I could tell, seeing Cold War Kids in Chicago in 2009, that it was a band worth remembering.

Well, here we are in 2011 and Cold War Kids is back on the radar with its most complete album to date. Mine Is Yours begins with the title track, a vocally driven song which introduces the album and builds anticipation through vocalist Nathan Willett’s repetitive, soaring lyrics, “What is mine is yours.” It’s as if the band set out to create something memorable right out of the gate with its opening song. The second song, “Louder Than Ever,” is the first single from Mine Is Yours and includes a noteworthy drum and bass combination leading into a positive pop chorus. The fourth track, “Finally Begin,” is easily one of the most polished Cold War Kids songs the band has recorded. This is one those songs that makes your day a little better no matter the mood. It would not surprise me if “Finally Begin” gets the nod for the next Cold War Kids single at some point down the road.

The album keeps pace throughout its second half with “Bulldozer” sticking out as one to remember. Mine Is Yours ends with a pair of songs reminiscent of the band’s earlier, more traditional Southern rock sound.

Overall, Willett’s refined vocal range mixed with a solid batch of songs creates a soulful pop rock album that will amplify already optimistic feelings induced by spring weather.

If You Like This Album, Check Out:

In Between Now and Then, by O.A.R. – In 2003, Of A Revolution (O.A.R.) released an album at a similar point in its life in comparison to Cold War Kids’ latest. O.A.R. had just finished an extensive series of tour dates and was gaining notoriety across the country. With In Between Now and Then, O.A.R. began shedding some of its jam-band roots and started recording songs with more traditional song structures. The band was adjusting its style and in the process created a solid album filled with notable songs. Transition albums are hit and miss, but when created to showcase a band’s talent in many different ways they can end up as classics. This is one of those albums I consider an example of a band coming into its own and playing to its strengths.

An SGF Band You Might Also Like:

Howdy, by The Cropdusters – In 2009 this SGF band released a six-song record which is good-time Southern drinking music. Although a little grittier and with less optimism than Cold War Kids, Howdy has a similar Southern blues sound which Cold War Kids played with on their earlier releases. The Cropdusters play unpolished, attitude-filled rock ‘n’ roll live, and some of its members perform every Wednesday night as The Nighthawks for The Outland’s “Wild Turkey Wednesday.” Check out The Cropdusters’ Howdy or make it out sometime to see them live to help support local talent.

The rap-rock fusion, once considered fertile ground for musical exploration, now carries a perception it may never totally escape. You can thank Fred Durst and his backwards ball cap for that, at least in part. While the popularity of bands such as his Limp Bizkit and the similarly skyrocketing-at-the-time Kid Rock raised the profile of the genre and inspired record labels to seek out a landslide of copycats, their singing skills were nonexistent and their rapping was very least-common-denominator: little wordsmith ability, nothing thought-provoking or clever and crude when trying to go for classic-MC boastfulness. “I’m gonna paint this town red, then paint his wife white.” Really, Kid Rock? The only thing you should get to paint white after a line like that is vinyl siding, because in the rap world that sort of lyricism is a good way to stay broke. In the rap-rock world of the late ’90s and early ’00s, though, it went to the top of the charts.

In the wake of such douchebaggery (made-up word alert!) and questionably skillful music comes LuciD, a local rap-rock group making music at a time when many will still roll their eyes at rap rock. The group shares many of the same instruments with its forebears, with Kyle Colson rhyming over Jake Bollinger‘s guitar and Landon Wells‘s beats and turntable work, but the resulting music is altogether different. The band goes for an uncomplicated, at times even throwback beat structure and rhyme scheme that reminds one a little of Volumizer-era 2 Skinnee J’s with more rock edge and zero nerdiness. They even work in some classic rock, merging the guitar riff from Neil Young‘s “Southern Man” into “Radio Determination.” Bollinger’s guitar turns out to be arguably greatest asset on the five-song EP T.R.U.T.H., knowing when to feature more prominently and lead the way through the “loop,” as it were (“Mary Go Round,” “Radio Determination,” “No Return”), but also having the willingness to take a spare, background role on the album’s strongest cut, “Hip Hop, Right?,” letting Colson come to the fore with what is easily his most agile rhyming on the record. These aren’t skills that will blow minds, but all three members are capable and, perhaps more importantly, are aware of how to use–and not use–those capabilities. Where rap rock used to force-merge rhymes to rock songs, this brings the genre back to using rock instrumentation on hip hop songs. It’s an important difference, and one worth hearing the results of, especially as a reminder that the genre isn’t doing it all for the nookie anymore and can, when it wants it, be a different game entirely, wearing its ball caps forward as those in the rap game do.

Perhaps more than any other artistic medium, music makes room in its present-day spectrum for artists to keep the past alive as well as the present and future. You won’t find many working cubists among present-day painters, for example, but there is a following in music for Wayne Hancock to keep the country music of Hank Williams‘s era alive and for Amy Winehouse to become famous by bringing ’60s Staxx doo-wop back to pop radio. She won’t go, go, go, and she doesn’t have to; styles don’t die in music. (Well, except maybe Big Band, and even that’s debatable.) Truett & The Traitors exists in the realm between the Beatles-weened pop-rock acts of the early ’80s and the stripped-down garage rock sound of the early 2000s. It’s music that looks back on music that looks back, but it does so without sounding tired in the way someone playing music not of their time could.

When Seth Truett released The Wind Is Gone in 2007 he did so as a solo artist, picking and employing a backing band to help fill out his songs when performing them live. This time around Truett & The Traitors is the name of the band and the record, a four-song collection of pop songs on rock ‘roids. Four songs is about as brief as an EP can be (don’t most CD singles come with two B-sides now?), and the band doesn’t waste time playing filler. From the first chords of the bouncing opening song, “One Way to the Future” (ironic title alert!), the band is out to rope the listener in with its “A” game of poppy hooks and three-part harmonies. Vocally Truett delves into Oasis singer Liam Gallagher‘s territory on “Rest” and “Reactivate” with a slightly nasal tone and deliberate phrasings, which is ironic given that band’s devotion to a Beatles-like sound and the fact that these are easily the two songs least influenced by John, Paul, George and Ringo. The band seems to want to hang on to a retro-pop innocence and perkiness without ignoring that the last 40 subsequent years of rock also happened. In the end, their ideal scenario might have been to share a bill with Fools Face in the SGF of 30 years ago, but there’s as much room for music like this today as there was then.

Gas Pump Talent‘s shows have always been rough around the edges, full of personality and surprisingly engaging for being two guys on acoustic guitars. Now that the duo has set about recording its songs and making a record, the resulting album, No Place In History, is much the same. What they’ve done here is take a moment to add in some things they not in the live show such as percussion (rather than rely on their own foot-stomping to keep time as they do when playing live), extra vocals (the backing singers toward the end of the album-closing “Revolution”) and little storytelling aids (when Austin Thompson sings “I brought my dad’s accordion to class for show and tell” in “Ruler of the Elves” you actually hear an accordion playing). All of this augments the songs at the heart of the record, music for the workaday Americans who do what they have to do to pay the bills and wait for the night’s stiff drink to leave it all behind them. The title track nails that vibe with its mix of resignation and quiet chin-up ownership of fate. Resilience is as good as gold on this album: Maybe the song’s most downtrodden song content-wise–you learn more about the downtrodding, anyway–”Ruler of the Elves,” about a boy coming to terms with not fitting in, is also its most musically upbeat, complete with handclaps and, yes, accordion. Neither Thompson nor Ty Hutchens sing with great vocal range, but they both find the middle ground between life-hardened tough guy and hear-on-his-sleeve singer-songwriter, blue-collar troubadours rather than faceless, polished pretty boys.

GPT had some excellent guidance along the way, too, with Nick Sibley along for recording engineer and Ozark Mountain Daredevil John Dillon acting as producer. It’s Sibley you hear on much of the supplemental instrumentation, filling in songs many people have come to know through the band’s weekly Thursday-night shows at Ebbets Field or the growing number of weekend gigs and local events it has played in the last two years. It all serves to soften the songs’ rough edges compared to hearing them live, but only just a little. The roughness is the charm, really, and in that regard it made it through the recording process intact.

The Gardenheads, in their one-year existence, rapidly became an SGF buzz band when they arrived onstage in the latter months of last year. Taking the low-pitched treble-fuzz guitar and bombast drumming of ’90s alternative music and applying it not only to that genre but to Americana and Beatles-esque pop, the band seemed to strike every significant music-influence cord this city has had in recent years. As a one-year anniversary gift to itself and its fans, the band released The Haunted TV EP October 29–the night of its first show the year before.

The five songs on The Haunted TV EP are refined versions of material the band has been playing onstage since those early shows. The group takes an unusual approach, not subscribing to a musical style so much as applying a general sound to different styles to create cohesion throughout. The band sounds most at home when it cranks the distorted guitars up for “Walking Dead Tonight,” “My Haunted TV” and particularly the album-closing “Sinkhole,” but the Rubber Soul-outtake-sounding “Vegetable Heart” is enjoyable in its own right, even if it sounds like an altogether different band. “Highway 65 Blues” seems most out of left field, even working in a bit of banjo and alt-country guitar playing for a song that, while out of character with the rest, is maybe the most accessible one on the record. It’s redeemed as belonging in the last minute or so when the tempo slows and those delightfully fuzzy guitars come roaring back, ignoring that the last 15 years in music even happened and sounding like a melancholic acid trip might if such a thing had a sound.

Where the album does itself a bit of a disservice is in its low-fi home recording, which loses the room-filling force of the band’s live sound. Such a concession was necessary to do the album on a budget, but it would be a lie to say the record sounds as good as the band does onstage. Instead, it’s an enticing morsel of the meal that is the next Gardenheads concert, a fuzz-soaked nibble of alternative-rock goodness with some unusual seasoning thrown in. If you’re salivating, dig in.

“It’s all been done before” is an easy phrase to employ in music today. (It’s also grammatically incorrect, but I’ll spare you any more of that.) Bringers of the Dawn buck that phrase by embracing it, melding together R&B, swing jazz, lounge and soul–all done before–to create a sound that is unique locally, and all with the ease of a group together longer than its not-even-two years. Musically the band ably dances back and forth over the line between serious and playful, selling every emotion between the lines and notes, from weary to lonely to the classic lover scorned, but always with a hint of a smile on its face. It’s obvious when listening that this is a band that derives real joy from playing its own music.

It would be easy to sum up the group as the project of keyboardist and singer Houston Ussery; too easy, in fact, and slightly incorrect. Ussery, a former member of local Alexander Kofi-fronted reggae group Jah Kings, teamed up with Nathan Gamel on drums, Cody Lane on bass, Gordon Lewis on saxophone and guitar and Michael “Bear” Schwartz on trumpet, and while he puts a strong personal stamp on every song all five members play distinctive, clearly heard roles in Granny Dred‘s 10 tracks. Gamel sets the pace, Lane rubber-bands the others to the beat, Lewis and Schwartz provide the fire to the songs and Ussery applies a healthy dose of heart and soul. You can hear the pieces, and how well they interplay with one another, with help from some crisp mixing by the guys at Dark Egg Studio, and they may have done some of their best work yet with this group. The instruments all have such life and breathing room that no individual song drags on the album, an unusual feat that should be a point of pride for studio and band alike. Standouts include the classic ’60s R&B balladry of “Retire,” the on-edge “Help Yourself,” the oh-so-smooth streetlight jazz numbers “What You Do” and “Richard Nixon” and the self-describing “Bringers of the Dawn,” which combines reggae rhythm and high-wire bass with sensational Mexican-style banda horn sounds. Each is a treat in its own way, something so delightfully forthright in intent and execution that one would assume such music stopped being possible a generation ago.

Ussery puts everything he’s got into singing each song, and while his gravely vocals have just the right amount of yelp and rough-around-the-edges humanity for most of the album there are times his range can’t keep up with what the band is doing. It may mean Granny Dred gets played, say, every couple of days as opposed to on a loop (if you’re the sort who hits the “repeat” button with new albums), but credit the band for taking its game that far and credit Ussery’s effort. A more vocally trained, range-capable singer might pull off more notes, but he or she would be less emotionally honest–and just less fun–doing it. And even when they’re trying to be serious, Bringers of the Dawn seem to know that’s what their music is really about.

While we do our best to work in local album reviews, we often receive requests for reviews of non-local work, too. Since we love discovering new music, but want to keep a non-local piece helpful for SGFers, we had an idea: What if we review one non-local album per week, whether brand new or just something we’re just learning about, and tie in recommendations of similar-sounding albums both local and otherwise? With that in mind, here’s the latest installment of our New (to us) Music Monday. Hopefully you find these useful and build some new favorites into your CD shelf or iTunes playlist. Watch for a new one every Monday (or so). Happy discovery.

There are few emcees in the world more polarizing than Asher Roth. I understand there are many of you who are going to click Back, or jump to another website right about, um, now. And then there are the people who would click on or listen to anything with his name on it. And maybe everyone assumed he went mainstream as soon as you saw the “I Love College” video.

And while I have a weak spot with emcees with charisma, there were few records as disappointing as Roth’s solo debut, Asleep in the Bread Aisle, especially after loving Roth’s mixtape with DJ Cannon in 2008, the first time we saw Roth emerge. The difference? On Asleep in the Bread Aisle, he tried to write songs. And to be honest, some emcees can’t write songs, but they can rap their asses off.

Roth clearly belongs in the latter. And that’s totally OK.

See, in Seared Foie Gras served with Quince and Cranberry, a mixtape effort with DJ Wreckineyez, Roth clearly focuses on the craft of lacing well-known beats with on-point lines. To be honest, it’s tougher than you’d think.While everyone loves beats dreamt up by Kanye West, Pharrell, 9th Wonder, J Dilla, Just Blaze, etc., not everyone can sound as good as the original artist. And don’t think people pay attention to those to fraudulently bless those tracks, either. Roth has the rare skill to make the beat his own, without sounding lazy or disrespectful to the originals.

And that’s all I ask from him. I don’t need thought-provoking songs and insightful lyrics. Nope, I need stuff like this:

Hey, yo, quick life lesson. Never tough a man’s (god damn)
While he’s resting, or while he’s bench pressing

or

Please don’t be so aggressive
You wastin’ T cells when you hating on my flesh and blood
Don’t be mad that this rap’s my profession
And I go to class in the same clothes I slept in
And watch hoes arm wrestle when I’m reffin’
Over the top? Psyche, no mic checkin’

Deep? Pensive? Not even close. But in a world of rap with people trying to act hard, or at least important, Roth reminds me of music that’s having a great time, without thousand-dollar bottles of liquor in some type of contrived club setting.To be honest, it’s refreshing. And funny. And he drops sports references like Jeremy Maclin, Mark Madson, Rik Smits, Mark Lemke, etc. Plus, he doesn’t line up a ton of other guest spots. B.o.B. makes an appearance, but that’s really about it.

He’s allegedly releasing a 2010 full-length record called The Spaghetti Tree. I’ll listen, because he makes me laugh, but I’ll likely be waiting for his next mixtape.

Meanwhile, click here to download his two FREE mixtapes. What do you have to lose? Fresh, recognizable beats and rhymes with levity. Sometimes, that’s all you need.

If You Like This, Also Check Out:

* Eastern Philosophy, by Apathy – Another emcee who struggles with songs, but kills freestyles and random verses, the Connecticut rapper does some good work on this record, a collection of songs he wrote while his major label deal was (indefinitely) shelved. One of the best rappers ever, just not a great songwriter.

* Cruise Control Vol. I, by Copywrite – An emcee who took a run at Asher Roth in 2009 for sounding like Eminem, hasn’t really put out a quality “album” since 2001. He went the mixtape route, with CC Vol. I in 2005. It’s solid, with some

A Good Bet In SGF:

Oy. There’s not much similar, so just go with something cool, like the new Kids and Chemicals stuff. They have nothing to do with Asher Roth, but it’s a whole bunch of fun.

Three days is a dauntingly short amount of time in which to record an album. The door that timeframe opens for playing mistakes, poor mixing and general lack of attention to detail sounds like a recipe for disaster. But by starting on a Friday and ending on a Sunday, armed with only his instruments–by which I mean everything played on the album–and recording equipment, Dallas Jones did just that, making his latest, American Weekend, happen in, well, a weekend. What’s arguably more remarkable is that the resulting album doesn’t sound rushed at all, especially given that it is, in essence, a home recording.

Jones, a veteran of the local roots and Americana music world, does a very smart thing with his songwriting: He doesn’t out-think the songs. It’s an easy songwriter trap to try and stuff too many words into a lyric or seek out clever words and phrases in an attempt at profundity that often results in obtuseness. Jones, on the other hand, treats his songs like a musical Occam’s Razor: Simplicity is truth. He writes about subjects he knows well–music (“The Opener,” “Play You My Records” “Don’t Call Me (I’ll Call You)”), being a new father (“Kitchen Table”) and the universal subject of love, but Jones’s stylistic kinship to the worlds of country, folk and even Appalachia (on “Red River”) keeps his messages clear and the feelings behind them easily interpreted. His vocals have a gentle quality reminiscent of a more salt-of-the-earth Paul Simon, too, giving the songs an added earnestness that generally sells the listener on them that much more. His voice may be almost too nice for songs such as the death meditation “Red River,” but otherwise it’s invitingly warm, a campfire singer’s take on some of the classic American songwriting styles of the last century.

That brings us to the other feather in Jones’s cap here: He takes such styles and their naturally rearward-looking mindsets–”things were better and simpler when…”–and gives them a more contemporary, cliché-free worldview. Here the reminiscences are of John Hughes films in “John Hughes Film” (natch) and of the music of Jay Farrar in “Play You My Records,” things a child of the ’80s who grew up on country and Americana music would understand and relate to. It’s a simple adjustment that makes an enormous difference in the listener’s ability to connect with the songs. What they’re attempting to make you feel is timeless, but the modern subjects keep them from feeling dated. In short, Dallas Jones didn’t out-think himself with American Weekend; he just thought it through. That’s an impressive accomplishment itself for three days’ work.

The first thing that jumps out when listening to local college-rock group Berch‘s debut full-length album, Before and After the Fall, is how polished it sounds. One always got the impression that this was a band that, from its inception, knew what it wanted to be and how it would go about crafting its sound and style, but doing that onstage and on record can be radically different. At its live shows the band bathes itself in purple and green hues from the floor lights it brings with it for every show. A necessary detail? Not at all, but, as the adage goes, it’s about dressing for the job you want, not the one you have. Berch dresses its music for venues five times the size of the ones it currently plays, and it’s doing the same with Before and After the Fall. As debut albums go it’s less a starting point to build on than a stylistic stamp, 10 sweeping tracks explaining what the band is all about. Taking alternative rock in the more emotive direction of Switchfoot while incorporating piano and saxophone–two instruments all but dead in contemporary rock even 10 years ago–the band creates an album as self-assured and well-rounded as local debuts get.

Making a polished record means being careful, and Berch was certainly that in making Before and After the Fall. After initially recording in Springfield at Monarch Recording Studio, the band hit the road to finish the album in Memphis with additional producer input. The result is a textured sound that shows how much really is going on during the band’s songs. While Berch shows can get pretty busy with five members onstage (four now; guitarist Stephen Owen left the group) and one of them, Paul Bowen, doubling up on keyboards and saxophone, on the album you can hear just how nuanced the band intends for its songs to be, more than what you’ll hear live. The added clarity gives songs such as the opening “Aurora Skies,” “Crooked Souls” and the album’s true rocker, “The Magician,” more room to breathe and embrace their grandiose tendencies. The flip side of being careful, though, is not taking chances, and by honing older songs such as “Still In the Air” to pitch perfection the fire slips out of parts such as the saxophone solo, which can be scintillating live but sounds lifted from a late-’70s Billy Joel ballad here. Even coming from someone who indulges in listening to “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” once in a while, it needs more passion.

The occasional misses on Before and After the Fall are just that: occasional, momentary. The constants here are the excellent songwriting and impressive voice of singer Colin Elmore, pipes that can remind one of Coldplay‘s Chris Martin, only more muscular and with less Brit-pop whine. Elmore and the rest of the band combine to pull off an unusual feat on this record: They make you believe along with them that every song is, or at least can be, both wide-audience popular and alone-in-your-bedroom meaningful. If that’s success for a band’s debut album, then Berch dressed it right for the occasion.

While we do our best to work in local album reviews, we often receive requests for reviews of non-local work, too. Since we love discovering new music, but want to keep a non-local piece helpful for SGFers, we had an idea: What if we review one non-local album per week, whether brand new or just something we’re just learning about, and tie in recommendations of similar-sounding albums both local and otherwise? With that in mind, here’s the latest installment of our New (to us) Music Monday. Hopefully you find these useful and build some new favorites into your CD shelf or iTunes playlist. Watch for a new one every Monday … err so. Happy discovery.

Something to Write Home About doesn’t feel 11 years old. Kansas City grown, The Get Up Kids created singable hooks driven by grunge-driven powerchords under synth melodies at upbeat tempos. The album was the group’s second full length and is still timely today. The danceable songs are balanced by the down trodden, especially on the third track, Valentine. The occasional broken heart lyrics shoved Something to Write Home About into the dreaded emo genre, though I’m not sure anybody knows exactly what emo means. The album’s promotional tour was with Weezer during the ultra-pop Green Album days, which didn’t help the perception.

Catchy is the one word definition of the project. It opens with an immediate bolt of energy on Holiday – a breakup song that you can’t easily shake from your head. Red Letter Day and ballad Out of Reach drop directly in the middle of “can’t get out of our head.” Maybe none as much, however, as the fast paced 10 Minutes. It dances from riff to riff and the lyrics are memorable, again recalling the process of a breakup