Band of Horses - Mirage Rock

Band of Horses - Mirage Rock 
Columbia Records, 2012
Three stars

Band of Horses are one of those bands that, at least in my experience, are easy to like and hard to love. Over the course of three albums, they’ve made a lot of music I adore, but they’ve also constructed a fair number of songs that I don’t particularly care for. The haunting and bombastic “The Funeral” got my attention back in the fall of 2006 after they dropped their debut, Everything all the Time, but it’s still the only song from that record I come back to with any regularity. 2007’s Cease to Begin was their peak, with great singles like “Is There a Ghost” and “No One’s Gonna Love You,” and a consistently solid set beyond them, while 2010’s Infinite Arms took a stab at alt-country and came up short with lukewarm reviews. Contrary to popular belief, that one actually felt wholly organic and enjoyable to me, and the highlights (“Evening Kitchen,” “On My Way Back Home,” “Trudy”) were textbook summer night serenades.

The band’s fourth full-length, titled Mirage Rock holds onto the alt-country and folk influences, but melds them with the more indie-rock/chamber pop-based tradition that they had going on their first two records. Case-in-point is the first single “Knock Knock,” which bursts out of the gate with fuzzy guitars, “woah-oh” vocal lines, and an infectious refrain melody. “How to Live” is even better, boasting a vintage southern-folk lilt and a dusky, wistful guitar solo that recalls ‘90s Wallflowers records with effortless grace. Things go downhill after that though. “Slow Cruel Hands of Time” shows promise, but never goes anywhere, and “A Little Biblical” is a thoroughly disposable piece of filler. “Shut-In Tourist” is an improvement, offering gorgeous vocal harmonies, a pristine melodic line, and a cascading musical accompaniment that lends it an almost otherworldly feel. But the problem with Band of Horses, at least this time around, is that their music doesn’t really engage. There’s no measure of intensity or power here, no trace of the band that got their start by kicking down the door on “The Funeral.” On Mirage Rock, frontman Ben Bridwell and Co. seem content with just making glorified background music.

The record gets shaken awake somewhat during its second half, thanks largely to the propulsive “Electric Music,” which sounds remarkably like a Rolling Stones number. The credit for that goes in part to legendary producer and recording engineer Glyn Johns, a guy who made his name working with The Who and the Stones themselves, and who mans the boards here with seasoned assurance. You can hear the same throwback sensibility in “Feud,” which keeps the amplifiers turned up, but sadly the song ends up as an angry, melodically-challenged mess. Its still more appealing than “Everything’s Gonna Be Undone,” though, which returns to the same kind of safe, complacent, and sleepy songwriting style that killed the momentum of the record’s first side. Everything undone indeed, and back to square one.

Luckily, penultimate cut “Long Vows” is a sweeping alt-country ballad that could have fit on Infinite Arms, and the haunting “Heartbreak on the 101” closes the album out on its highest note. Bridwell splits vocal duties with lead guitarist Tyler Ramsey, only coming in at the two-and-a-half minute mark to carry the album out, but Ramsey’s ragged vocals do the song a huge favor. “Couldn’t really think that I’d just stand aside/Take up something new or start another life,” he growls, channeling some shattered cross between Johnny Cash and Tom Waits. An unsettling cello line gives way to a full-fledged string section once Ramsey passes the baton off to Bridwell for the anchor leg, and Bridwell’s usually pleasant and lilting vibrato sounds mournfully unsettling, only ratcheting up the tension further. It’s an eerie fade-out to a frustrating album, a break-up song where sadness and rage bubble just below the surface, and it gives the otherwise tepid Mirage Rock a note of redemption and electricity just before the needle lifts.

Unfortunately, a handful of good moments aren’t enough to outweigh an album jammed with songwriting that just doesn’t amount to anything. Bridwell’s voice is as distinctive as ever and the band is still the tight musical outfit they have always been (even though the members have constantly rotated), while Glyn Johns lives up to his legacy, making everything sound authentic and nostalgic. But all of that means when the material isn’t strong, and for most of Mirage Rock, it isn’t. I’ve hoped for a long time that Band of Horses would eventually make a classic, a record that would blend their indie-rock and Americana influences to the perfect degree, and one whose mix of melancholic strains and brash chamber pop ideals would channel all of their best qualities into one place. But ever since Cease to Begin, they’ve fallen into a trend of diminishing returns, and with Mirage Rock, they’ve finally crossed into mediocrity. Worse, they've lost sight of what made them special in the first place, and what they found to replace it just rings hollow. Looking forward from their worst release to date, it’s getting harder to believe that a magnum opus is anywhere in the future of Band of Horses, but at least their Greatest Hits will still be killer.

Keep on dreamin', even if it breaks your heart...

Next to Butch Walker scoring songwriting credit on major hits and earning the distinction of Producer of the Year from Rolling Stone magazine back in 2005, hearing Will Hoge's "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" on the radio waves is one of the most satisfying occurrences to take place within the mainstream in years - even if it's not Hoge singing on the record. I've gotta say, there have been a few moments this year that have almost given me hope for mainstream popular music. First, Adele's continued domination of the charts showed that the album format still had some gas left in it; next, fun. hit number one on the charts and even now continue to display a surprising amount of longevity with Some Nights; and now, Will Hoge's song, one of my favorite songs from 2009, is making waves on the radio waves, three years down the road from the first time it graced my ears. Of course, it's not his version: the "hit song" status that now lies on "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" is thanks to the Eli Young Band and their version of the tune. It's been bizarre hearing the song issuing from speakers that don't belong to either myself or my older brother, whether I was hearing it on the radio waves or in the midst of a slew country standards playing on my co-worker's iTunes, but I'd call it a good kind of bizarre. Even in decidedly less talented hands than Hoge's, "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" remains as great a song today as it has always been.

I always thought that "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" had crossover potential, from the first time I listened to The Wreckage and fell in love with Will's music, and I suppose I have been proven right there. Still, it makes me wonder: why isn't this guy a huge country music star? Eli Young is clearly a more talented individual than the majority of the stars in pop music today, and I think that, in general, country music, even in its most mainstream forms, is a much less egregious and offensive genre than the majority of what crops up on top-40 radio. For the most part, the singers can still sing, the players can still play, and the records still have a measure of emotional force and artistic integrity to them. That said, Young's take on "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" doesn't add anything new to it: he plays the song straight, which is fine, but the only notable difference is that it sounds more generic, more stereotypically "country," but only in a modern sense. Hoge is very much in the vein of classic country and rock music stars: he's Tom Petty, Hank Williams, and Springsteen rolled into one, with a twinge of Johnny Cash thrown in for good measure. His voice is distinctive and unique, his vocal performances sparked with an emotional honesty that is impossible to doubt, no matter what he's singing about. His songs are, across the board, stellar, flitting between rock, pop, country, folk, and even gospel, and breaking down the barriers between all of them. And more than anything else, he's a force of nature onstage, ranking amongst the greatest performers I've ever seen. If there were any justice, this man would be a living legend.

A cover song is a weird route into fame for any artist. Even if your performance of another artist's song takes it to a new level (basically, if you're Jeff Buckley), it still has an asterisk next to it. That's a bit odd to me because, inevitably, we all start out as little more than a collection of our influences. We take our first steps into music by learning how to sing and play other people's songs, and we channel that experience into our own music, if and when we begin to write it. The Eli Young Band doesn't exactly fit into any of this, since they had one big hit prior to "Even if it Breaks Your Heart," but the idea still remains: cover songs as hits are a tricky beast - especially if much of your audience will probably never even know there's another version of the song in question. And I guess, ultimately, it doesn't really matter, because Will's song is speaking for itself: a lot of people obviously love it, and it could mean big things for him. Maybe he'll take a leaf out of Butch Walker's book and start doing some songwriting for other artists; maybe it will filter out into bigger tour opportunities, more fans, bigger album sales, and a better life for Hoge; maybe he won't always have to drive his band from town to town in a beat up old van, foregoing sleep in order to get to the next venue and play a kick ass rock 'n' roll show. I don't begrudge Eli Young his success with the song, I just wish that the success were Will's to call his own, and I just hope that he's getting the recognition and compensation he deserves for it.

Tyler Hilton - Forget the Storm

Tyler Hilton - Forget the Storm

Hooptie Tune Records, 2012

Four stars

Of all the artists I follow, Tyler Hilton probably comes with the weirdest claims to fame. In addition to a minor taste success with his single "When it Comes" back in 2004 or so, the California native singer/songwriter has made a name for himself in popular culture based on his recurring guest role in the teen soap-opera One Tree Hill (which apparently just wrapped up a marathon nine-season run last week), for a brief cameo as Elvis in last decade's Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line, and for his appearance in the music video for Taylor Swift's "Teardrops on My Guitar." While those might not sound like the most promising credentials on paper, Hilton is a strong songwriter with a knack for infectious hooks and heartfelt lyrics, and his latest, entitled "Forget the Storm" (a title referring to his ongoing struggles with the major label system), is one of the best albums I've heard all year.

Hilton broke onto the scene in 2004, with the release of his sophomore album The Tracks Of..., a solid collection of mostly-acoustic pop songs that fit somewhere between Howie Day and John Mayer. It's an album I've always enjoyed, but not one I've ever loved, and as a result, not one I've revisited a lot over the years. Over the course of the last decade though, Hilton, thanks mostly to his role on One Tree Hill, tended to pop up and disappear every once in awhile, and I found myself increasingly interested in hearing another record from him. Quality singles saw the light of day every few years (including the gorgeous "You'll Ask For Me," a flawless piece of road-trip balladry that gets a nice, if somewhat unnecessary makeover here), but a full album follow up to The Tracks Of... never saw the light of day, and sometime around 2008, I was beginning to wonder if Hilton had hung up his guitar. Thankfully, he hadn't: 2009 and 2010 saw the release of a pair of EPs, and now, eight years down the line from the first time I heard him, Hilton finally drops his third full length.

Hilton doing his best Elvis impersonation for 2005's Walk the Line.

While Hilton's trademarks are still here (his slightly raspy vocals, a penchant for earnest lyrics, and a talent for writing sweepingly melodic hooks), Forget the Storm displays both a growth of personal maturity and songwriting prowess. Where "The Tracks Of..." was a hit-or-miss collection that fluctuated between pop gems and youthful clichés, Forget the Storm finds more sanctuary in classic singer/songwriter records and blues and soul singles, circa 1970. The result is a dynamic set of radio friendly songs that could be equally well suited for raucous live shows or pensive television soundtracks, and it's truly a joy to explore. It doesn't hurt that Hilton kicks off "Forget the Storm" with "Kicking my Heels," a ridiculously catchy, well sung track that ranks immediately as his best song to date. The chorus demands a sing-along, Hilton's soulful delivery, a commendation, and the rousing electric guitar solo that gives the song its climax, a sold-out club to resound through. It's one of a handful of songs on the record where Hilton, clearly a natural-born balladeer and pop artist, manages to sound edgy without trying too hard. The fate is similar for songs like the bluesy lead-off single "Loaded Gun," which gives Hilton a chance to show off his frontman charisma, and his band, another fine display, or the southern-rock tinged "Ain't No Fooling Me," both placed at perfect points amongst the album's more top-40 driven efforts.

But when Hilton does play to his pop sensibilities, the result is only a tad less compelling. Take "Prince of Nothing Charming," a harmless piece of radio fluff that will function well as a single, but works even better in context, or "Jenny," another rather innocuous chorus-driven number that is good enough to not come across as filler material. The unapologetic pop sheen of many of Hilton's songs may turn some listeners off, as will the potentially maudlin textures of songs like "Can't Stop Now" or "Leave Him," but Hilton's delivery very often makes up for any clichés he chooses to indulge in. "Leave Him," a gorgeous bit of Elton John-meets-Jon McLaughlin piano balladry, is actually a perfect example of this, since Hilton's vocal delivery turns what could have been a derivative love song into a highlight. Similarly, the pop-country tinged "I Belong" is an exquisitely well written pop song that will very likely make its way onto my summer soundtrack, despite using lines and ideas that could have sounded tired in lesser hands. We've all heard it before: young love, sweeping declarations, big chorus, etc. But "I Belong" is the kind of pop song that takes you right back to the moments of your life where you felt that way: moments where you felt lighter than air, completely alive, and (quite possibly) immortal, and that's something that will always keep me coming back.

We all look to music for different things: for inspiration, for refuge, for musicianship, for lyrics that will make us think, or for a million other reasons that I don't have room to list, and all of those are very admirable qualities to strive for. But sometimes, all you need is a great pop song, a big chorus, and a committed performer to, in the blink of an eye, make you feel great, and Hilton has those in spades with Forget the Storm. It will be too mainstream for some, but for a guy like me, with a romantic mentality and a weakness for a killer hook, this record is just about perfect. Calling back immediately to my favorite pop singer/songwriter albums of last year (Matt Nathanson's Modern Love and Mat Kearney's Young Love), Forget the Storm is a optimistic life-soundtrack waiting to happen, and with summer just around the corner, that's exactly what I need right now. Welcome back, Tyler. Here's hoping you stick around this time.

Bruce Springsteen Retrospective Part VI: Nebraska (1982)

Now I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers
And don't get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well I'm tired of comin' out on the losin' end
So honey last night I met this guy and I'm gonna do a little favor for him 

Well I guess everything dies, baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Following a week's residency on Jimmy Fallon, Bruce Springsteen will drop his much anticipated 17th studio record tomorrow. Wrecking Ball (which I have already reviewed, over at rockfreaks.net!), is the best album Bruce has released since Born in the U.S.A., I think, and I found myself wavering between giving it a 9.5 and a perfect 10. Only time will tell if I'll be pleased with my choice of the former, but check out the review (I got offered to write for Rock Freaks in response to my review of fun.'s Some Nights). Also, stay tuned for more in depth thoughts on the record's songs and their stories here, probably sometime in the next week, but perhaps even further down the road, when I finally get through this Springsteen retrospective project. Anyway, since it's a big week for Bruce, I figured I'd try to knock out a few more of his records here, so without further ado, I give you his 1982 masterpiece Nebraska.

Immediately, Nebraska is strikingly different than anything Springsteen had ever done before (and anything he's done since, despite numerous attempts to replicate it's successes). Legend has it that, after his first top 10 hit with The River's "Hungry Heart," Springsteen retreated. While The River gave him his first taste of success in the mainstream pop music world, it was "Stolen Car," a dark, sparse, hopelessly sad storyteller piece, that would serve as the biggest indicator of where he was going when he sat down in his bedroom and recorded the Nebraska demos on a 4-track recorder. Later, Springsteen and the E-Street Band convened to record the material (I'd kill to get my hands on this version of the record), but something was lacking in the full band arrangements, and Bruce ultimately decided to release the tape he'd been "carryin' around in his pocket without a case for a couple of weeks" as the record.

Despite it's rather dubious origins, Nebraska has become one of the favorites of the Springsteen catalog, and I often see people online naming it among his best. In the modern age of music, Nebraska's lo-fi sound has influenced a slew of singer/songwriters, from Johnny Cash to Sam Beam, and the haunting atmosphere of the record completely turned the perception of Bruce on it's head, removing the iconic trademark of Clarence Clemons' saxophone and bathing Springsteen's characters in darker themes than ever before. Whereas Darkness on the Edge of Town was basically a sequel to Born to Run, with songs that told the tales of what happened to those characters after they realized that the American Dream wasn't as black and white as they had believed in their youth, Nebraska focuses on different characters altogether. Here, Springsteen hones in on the underbelly of American life, often focusing on criminals or the people whose lives they disrupt. The opening title track, accented by a mournful harmonica, tells the story of a young man who went on a killing spree back in '57 and '58, and pretty much shows us right away what this record is going to be with its slow-burn storytelling and sparse, acoustic instrumentation. Interestingly, the story also inspired a Terrence Malick film called Badlands, a title Springsteen had used as his opener a mere two albums before: perhaps it's on purpose, then, that the two songs couldn't be further from one another.

Where Springsteen's previous albums were chalk full of huge full-band moments and anthemic choruses, there isn't any of that on Nebraska. Choruses become refrains (like the gorgeous one that floats through "Highway Patrolman"), and the sole obvious "hook" belongs to "Atlantic City," which became the most well known song from the collection. It's also the best, perfectly balancing Springsteen's older melodic ideals with this album's stark atmosphere, and coming out with a song that, despite finding its basis in no more than three chords, is immediately memorable. "Atlantic City," much like the songs on Born to Run, depicts a couple's romantic escape to a promised land of sorts, only to find that the city is as dangerous, corrupt, and difficult as anywhere they've ever been. Mafia violence and involvement permeates every moment of the song, from the iconic opening line ("Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night"), to the second verse, detailing the rise of crime in the gambling circuit, all the way to the final lines above, where the desperate protagonist turns to crime himself in order to make his way on the mean streets. Just like "Meeting Across the River," the penultimate cut on Born to Run, "Atlantic City" is a masterclass in lyricism precisely because it cuts the story off just before the climax. In "Meeting," it was a man trying to talk his friend into helping him out with a heist of sorts. Here, it's a man in a similar situation, and whether the "favor" he's prepared to do is in connection with the mob or in defiance of it doesn't really matter: something in Springsteen's delivery lets us know that things aren't going to go as planned.

"Highway Patrolman" is one of the most fully realized story songs in the Springsteen catalog, something Sean Penn must have realized when he made a movie based on it with 1991's The Indian Runner. Springsteen weaves the tale of a cop and his brother, a notorious screw up who the protagonist feels obligated to protect. The song masterfully juxtaposes happy memories with the main plotline, where Frank, the brother, kills a man in a bar brawl and then flees the country, with the "Patrolman" in hot pursuit. Ultimately, the brotherly bond wins out, and he lets Frank get away, saying "man turns his back on his family, well he just ain't no good." Themes of family permeate numerous other songs on the record, from "Used Cars" to "My Father's House," all with similar sonic textures (a 4-track doesn't allow for too much variety), but all with lyrical content that ranks amongst Springsteen's most spellbinding, and all with a hypnotic delivery from the man himself that embodies the songs' characters with life and spark. And indeed, these characters are among Springsteen's most fleshed out and memorable: take the title character in "Johnny 99," who turns to crime after losing his job and being left with "debts no honest man can pay" (the same theme as "Atlantic City," right down to the lyric). In a robbery gone awry, the character kills a clerk, and gets sentenced to life in prison, only to ask instead for the death penalty. Or take the protagonist in "State Trooper," a paranoid criminal whose plea of "Mr. State Trooper, please don't stop me," serves as the song's refrain as he drives through the darkness of middle America. Perhaps it's the same character from "Stolen Car," the guy who was just hoping to get caught so that things in his life would change; perhaps it's a different person, a person who knows that if he gets pulled over, he'll have no choice but to pull the trigger yet again. It's likely that Springsteen fully intended to leave the connection rather ambiguous, and that he does so on numerous occasions throughout his career only makes his discography that much more riveting and rewarding to explore.

"Open All Night," like "Atlantic City" or "Johnny 99" is more of a stripped down rock song than it is a piece of folk or Americana, and it's perhaps for that reason that these songs have remained standbys in Springsteen's live sets more so than the ones that surround them. The song has a drive and edge that would not have felt out of place on the latter half of Born in the U.S.A., and for that matter, a foot-stomping rhythm that feels a bit like the first five tracks on his latest. It's also the only appearance of electric guitar on the record (or of amplified instrumentation at all), and would be notable for that reason alone, even if it weren't as solid and straight up enjoyable as it is. And while I think it ranks as one of Springsteen's weaker closers, "Reason to Believe" serves as a perfect conclusion to this set of songs. Much like the characters in "Darkness on the Edge of Town" or "Wreck on the Highway," the figures in "Reason to Believe" are beset on all sides by tragedy or misfortune, but as Springsteen sings in the refrain, "at the end of every hard earned day, people find some reason to believe." Despite the fact that Nebraska is Springsteen's most hopeless record to date, it ends with a song that is, at least partially, a hymn to human resilience, giving the record a satisfying arc, and making it that much more rewarding on repeat listens: in that sense, "Reason to Believe" is a terrific finale.

If Nebraska is Springsteen's most unique record, it's also his most challenging. Over the years, this record has confused me, moved me, frustrated me, and amazed me, sometimes all at the same time; I've ranked it everywhere from fifth to tenth in terms of his discography, and unlike most other record's in the catalog, there are some days when I'm just not in the mood for this one. Certainly, it's never obtained the level of respect or the sheer volume of plays that I've bestowed upon Born to Run, and I've never been able to wrap my head around the lists where I see it ranked above that album, which I think is the only completely flawless full-length work in the history of recorded music. I don't think it compares to the four records that preceded it, and I also think that The River's more downbeat moments did a similar type of darkness in a more effective way. All of that said, on the days when I feel truly in the mood for Nebraska, I can put it on and completely understand why it's Springsteen's second most revered album: I can fully see how brave it was for him to strip his sound down to its rawest and barest essentials; I can see why the lyrics of this record have been the subject of entire studies by "Springsteen scholars; I can certainly see why this record, more than perhaps any I really know, has an almost cult following; and mostly, I can understand why this record took Springsteen to another level in terms of how he was viewed as a songwriter, how this might be the record to thank for his undisputed legendary status (because really, could there possibly be a soul who dislikes Born to Run, Born in the U.S.A., AND Nebraska?) So while it will never be my favorite Springsteen album, while I will almost always prefer to hear Springsteen's voice and lyrics with the full force of the E-Street Band behind them, Nebraska is an important piece of music history that I at very least respect, and one that, on its best days, I truly love.