Fang Island - S/T

Fang Island’s own description of the band’s music is “everyone high-fiving everyone” which well describes their self-titled new album full of positive energy. That positive energy isn’t, however, given as sugarcoated pop hooks but instead as grand, unstoppable guitar rock.

The album is a solid entity and not least because of the clear intro and outro tracks. Between the fireworks (!) of the opening and ending tracks it’s all about combining rhythmically interesting punk rock with fanfare-type guitar melodies and vocal harmonies. Vocals are used extremely rarely and often without actual lyrics.

Despite of their huge energy, Fang Island has a sense of structure and dynamics, which is perhaps best shown in the five-minute crescendo of “Davey Crockett”. Other top moments include the concise first single “Daisy” and the simply marvelous second half of “Sideswiper”. Their live performance must be quite a therapy session.

Fang Island @ Spotify
fangisland.com

New Material from The National

The National is going to release a new album, High Violet, in May. The cover is above and below you can watch them play its opening track "Terrible Love" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Sounds as promising as you'd expect from them and also turning even more to the rock side than before, I think. They also have a website for the new album with some pics and videos (short and low quality though).



The National @ Spotify

OK GO: The kings of music video

OK GO might not make the most interesting music, but they sure now how to make jaw-dropping videos. A few years ago, they became famous of their treadmill-dance-video for "Here It Goes Again". They released a new album Of the Blue Color of the Sky early this year and have already made a couple a cool videos for its songs. The new video for "This Too Shall Pass" features a Rube Goldberg machine built by some sixty people inside a huge warehouse. Check out the new video as well as some of their previous masterpieces below.

This Too Shall Pass RGM


This Too Shall Pass featuring Notre Dame marching band


Invincible


WTF?


Finally, the legendary Here It Goes Again


OK GO homepage

Live Report: Florence + The Machine

On Wednesday, I proved Florence + The Machine’s first visit to Finland at Tavastia. Florence was one of last year’s most interesting new artists and it was great to see the debut album Lungs become such a commercial success. They definitely stand out positively among other top-sellers. The success was not a real surprise, though, with an album full of original-sounding potential hit singles.

The warm-up artist was changed just a couple of days before from Sian Alice Group to an unknown Finnish singer-songwriter Anastacia Mouna. She played an extremely short set alone with a piano and didn’t really impress with her songwriting. However, I have to give her credit for a self-confident performance replacing a rock group as an opener for a British platinum-selling artist.

Right from the point when Florence entered, the stage was hers. As the name Florence + The Machine suggests, the band has an important role, but Florence is the star. She has an impressive voice which she uses very skillfully. She sang sentimentally but had a close contact with the audience between songs. From song to song I could tell she was really living with the music, even though my view on her was blocked a lot of the time by others’ heads. When this happened, it was easiest to close ones eyes, since the atmosphere was based mostly on her performance.

The band played very well, but apart from Florence there wasn’t much else to follow than the beautiful playing of the harp. That’s something you don’t really see anywhere and I hadn’t realized that it was the harp played on the album. Seeing it played live was a pleasure both musically and visually.

They succeeded rather well in reproducing the large sound of the album. In the strong percussive parts, especially on Drumming Song, Florence and the bassist did their share of the banging along with the drummer. The final level of the massive sound wasn’t, however, reached. I felt that in order to give room for Florence’s voice, the volume of the band was kept a bit too low at times. Or perhaps I just had too strong filters on my earplugs.

The audience in the sold-out Tavastia comprised of people of surprisingly large variety ages. There seemed to be also both regular concert-goers and the ones attending gigs more infrequently. As the case is on most gigs at Tavastia, the crowd moved very little and kept rather quiet for a long time. However, towards the end of the gig, there was more activity including the synchronized jumping during Dog Days Are Over. Considering their large sound, catchy tunes and Florence’s charming personality, I’d say they will answer for some fantastic gigs on festivals this summer.

Florence + The Machine homepage
Florence + The Machine @ Myspace
Lungs @ Spotify

Live Report: Disco Ensemble, Rubik

I haven’t had the time and energy to write here as often as I would have liked to and therefore this report comes two weeks late. On February 16th, I decided to attend a student party in one of the bigger nightclubs in Helsinki, Circus. I haven’t been interested in that sort of parties for a long time but now there was a clear reason to attend: the two Finnish bands booked there were both among my favorite bands of the past decade.

First off played Rubik. I had seen them, if I recall correctly, three times before and all those gigs within year 2009. They’re one of my favorite live bands. They’ve got 8 guys on stage each having fun with a variety of instruments. This suits well for their playful songs with big arrangements. Rubik has released two albums: Bad Conscience Patrol (2007) and Dada Bandits (2009). I enjoyed their first album which seemed to bring something fresh into the Finnish music scene, but the second album was in a whole new level. It took a while to get inside its mix of positivity and experimentalism at the same time being distracted by the fact that the results of the record’s mastering didn’t fit well in my ear. Quite soon, however, I was ready to call it the best Finnish album of 2009. Now I could expand that either to best album of 2009 anywhere or best Finnish album of the whole past ten years. Even though some like to compare Rubik to Radiohead (mostly on first album) or Animal Collective (mostly on second album), I feel they’ve really got some fresh ideas and a unique sound.

There was a huge queue outside and I missed a couple of first Rubik songs. It didn’t really matter since I had seen them so many times before. On the other hand, I must say that it’s hard to get enough of them and their live performance. They played with enthusiasm even for the drunken audience in the half empty nightclub. I love the fact that regardless of the audience they seem to play their most progressive tune, Indiana, which of course pleases us fans. Otherwise the set list, for the parts that I heard the gig, included a large number of catchy tracks from Dada Bandits and only one song from their debut, the single City and the Streets. At least one other would have been expected: the riff-driven, perhaps the heaviest song in Rubik’s catalogue, Buildings. But you can’t get it all in a short gig.

What makes Rubik such a great live band is the positive energy that the large group seems to perform at all times. Drummer and bassist are the only ones with only one instrument and I think even the bassist plays something else at times. There are three guys with both guitar and keyboards, including the lead singer Artturi Taira, and additional three guys offering horns, percussions, keyboards, vocoder, you name it. All in all, it’s a beautiful balance between chaos and order, just like on their records.

The headliner of the evening was Disco Ensemble from the same label, Fullsteam Records. DE was one of the bands to bring this fine Finnish label to surface some five, six years ago. They are currently working on their fourth album. The two previous ones were also released outside Finland and since their minor breakthrough album, First Aid Kit in 2005, they’ve done a lot of touring aboard. I found them some time after the release of First Aid Kit and became a huge fan at the time. I enjoyed their energy, how tightly their played together and especially Jussi Ylikoski’s fantastic guitar work and of course the great songs.

Disco Ensemble are known for their amazingly energetic gigs and this was no exception. They played very confidently and well together and made the audience go crazy as always. The set list comprised mostly of tracks from their latest album, Magic Recoveries. For most of the audience that was probably the most familiar material, but I was disappointed since I’ve enjoyed their first two albums a lot more. Of course they played some of the hits from First Aid Kit like Black Euro and the simply marvelous We Might Fall Apart. However, I didn’t hear any songs from their debut.

They played some new stuff including the new single White Flag For Peace. I’m a bit skeptical about their upcoming album. I don’t think I’ll ever be as excited about their music as I used to be. Nevertheless, they seem to be constantly capable of creating catchy, energetic songs and keep their own sound. With the talented Lasse Kurki as a producer they might as well make a very interesting record. At least one thing’s for sure: next summer many people will leave their festival gigs bruised, sweaty and happy.

discoensemble.com
Disco Ensemble @ Myspace
Rubik @ Myspace