Blind Benny, No Honor EP

By Less Lee Moore

If you’re looking for a new band to get into, you should check out Blind Benny. The duo of Jade <3 and Jonathan Carmelli hails from Brooklyn and their music is enthralling. Their EP, No Honor, features six songs, each bursting with talent in both songcraft and performance. Best of all, there’s a yearning quality that belies the band’s obvious pop hooks.

Right away, “Chewjitsu” feels like a hit single. It’s positively anthemic, but the sweetness is cut with some dark undertones. Although you can easily imagine this song in the soundtrack to your favorite ’90s indie romcom, it’s still fresh and modern. Jade’s voice is a big reason why: it’s cute but not cutesy; plaintive but not cloying; tiny and huge at the same time.

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Weep, Alate

By Less Lee Moore

An alate is a winged reproductive of a social insect (especially ants or termites, but the term can also be applied to aphids and some thrips). Alate females are typically those destined to become queens (also referred to as gynes), whereas alate males are occasionally referred to as “drones” (or “kings”, in the case of termites). However, the existence of reproductives that do not have wings necessitates a term to distinguish the winged from the wingless reproductive forms. This is an example of polymorphism associated with eusociality.
—Wikipedia entry on “alate”

On Weep‘s latest album, Alate, vocalist and guitarist Doc Hammer stretches his musical and vocal capacities into heretofore unexplored territories, with mixed results. Although not as immediately gratifying as the band’s previous release, Worn Thin, the expansive nature of Alate still brings considerable pleasures.

Opening track “It’s So Late” seems to shrug and say, “Oh hey, remember us? We’re Weep and this is what we sound like,” featuring all the hallmarks that we’ve come to associate with the band: ringing guitars, New Romantic synths, vaguely Goth basslines, and memorable melodies. Yet immediately we sense a change in Weep’s sound. Hammer’s voice is still gravelly, but there is a sprightly nature that we have not heard before. It’s startling and charming all at once.

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Assemblog: August 31, 2012

Cruising, 1980

New this week on Popshifter: John talks about the secret handshake and Booker T. and the M.G.s’ Green Onions reissue on Stax; Melissa B. wonders if Harry Shearer’s Can’t Take A Hint is timely; guest blogger and author Alex Bledsoe gives the deets on Rafael Sabatini and pirates; Chelsea loves Micah Sheveloff’s Exhibitionist and the singer/songwiter’s “lived-in marvel of a voice”; I proclaim Big Black Delta’s Tour EP to be “diverse” and “thrilling”; and I share some photos from FanExpo Canada 2012.

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FanExpo Canada 2012: In Pictures

By Less Lee Moore

We came, we saw, we Fan Expo’d.

Click on each thumbnail for a larger image and a description!. We’ll have more coverage of some of these happenings in the upcoming weeks.

Micah Sheveloff, Exhibitionist

By Chelsea Spear

Listening to Micah Sheveloff‘s solo debut brings to mind a variant on everyone’s favorite movie trailer voiceover: “IN A WORLD. Where smug, solipsistic bros have taken over the airwaves. ONE MAN. Can save the ‘singer/songwriter’ genre from navel-gazing boredom.”

While Micah Sheveloff easily fits into this niche, his work lacks the snoozy self-absorption that has given it a bad name. His music, with its rich melodies, rolling bar chords, quotable lyrics, and that lived-in marvel of a voice, elevates his material from the closing credits of Grey’s Anatomy to something more transporting and otherworldly.

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Big Black Delta, Tour EP

By Less Lee Moore

While Big Black Delta might seem like the name of a blues band, the new musical incarnation of former Mellowdrone and touring M83 member Jonathan Bates sounds nothing like that genre.

The new four-song EP from the band—created for their recent tour—sounds more like the soundtrack to an apocalyptic Blade Runner sequel; you can almost visualize Rachael smoking in the Tyrell Corporation building. Fitting, as Big Black Delta is actually a reference to UFO folklore.

Even with its vaguely retro synths, “Betamax” isn’t some Kraftwerk retread. The drums are too booming, and Bates’s voice is too romantic for that. What’s striking is how warm and sensual his voice is against the coldness of keyboard explosions, especially when he breaks out the falsetto. The end ushers in some Hans Zimmer-ish synthy strings before ending abruptly.

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The Man Who Gave Us Pirates

By Alex Bledsoe

Alex Bledsoe is guest blogging today on Popshifter. Our Q&A with him appeared in our 2010 Halloween Horrors issue, Season of the Witch.

Rafael Sabatini

My fourth Eddie LaCrosse novel, Wake of the Bloody Angel is about pirates. Yes, those filthy, illiterate, ruthless criminals of the sea who tortured, raped, murdered, and pillaged their way into history in a surprisingly short period of time (roughly 1690-1730). And after reading about some of their deeds, I was struck by this question: why the hell do we admire these people? Why do we look up to them as heroes, write books and make movies about them, give them sexy faces like Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, and Johnny Depp?

And then I realized it’s mostly because of Rafael Sabatini.

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Harry Shearer, Can’t Take A Hint

By Melissa B.

Can a record that relies as heavily on current events as Harry Shearer‘s Can’t Take A Hint stand the test of time? Political humor is almost ephemeral, and the political climate and players mercifully change so quickly. Songs about Herbert Hoover, for example, are so rarely sung today, and sea shanties about the Great Fire of London have fallen out of favor. So how does one approach a record in 2012 that has songs about the 2008 election, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, and the Iraq war? If this album had arrived two years ago, it might have been cutting in its satire. At this point, however, it feels a bit creaky.

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Booker T. & The M.G.s: A Sweet, Sweet Serving of Green Onions

By John Lane

Yes, Virginia, back in the ancient times of the mystical 1960s, there was a universe that expanded far beyond The Beatles, even though they were heaven-sent. While The Beatles were decompressing after playing to a kajillion people at Shea Stadium or elsewhere, I guarantee you that somewhere in their collective mind were the righteous sounds of Booker T. & The M.G.s taking them to a soulful place.

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Assemblog: August 24, 2012

No Assemblog this week, folks. I’m going to be at FanExpo Canada all weekend. Dry your tears, Popshifter fans; I’ll be back next Friday. In the meantime, here are this week’s posts in case you missed them.

New this week on Popshifter: Chelsea compares fictional and real versions of Jean-Michel Basquiat in the movies; J Howell delves into the 20th Anniversary Edition of Los Lobos’ iconic album Kiko; and I review a few new releases: Maximo Park’s fun and frenetic The National Health, the retro rock riffs of Nude Beach’s II, and the wonderful Weird Wild World of Sleepies.

—Less Lee Moore, Managing Editor