The Vintage Caravan, Monuments

Formed when they were just twelve years old, the Icelandic trio The Vintage Caravan's songs and sound had always stayed close to the 'hard hitting riff fueled' music of the bands they loved and idolized; Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Mastodon, Rush, and Cream. But, as lead singer and guitarist Óskar Logi Ágústsson recently said in an interview, they never set out to be a band that sounded like it was frozen in 1971 and then put in the microwave all these years later.

In February of 2020, after extensive touring that brought new attention and fans to the band, they entered the studio to record their fifth album Monuments. Twenty-two days later, after more or less living at the studio, the band walked out feeling that they had really found and stamped their own sound for the first time. And what a sound.

Monuments is a hard hitting, hard rocking, superb album with all the right riffs, hooks, and surprises to keep even the most ardent rock fan totally engrossed in it. For me, it's one of the best albums by a rock trio that I have heard in a long time.

Cory Hanson, Pale Horse Rider

I love an album that has a strong musical viewpoint and sets a tone right up front for what to expect next...and then delivers on it. Cory Hanson, the lead singer and guitarist for the band Wand, has done just that with his second solo album, Pale Horse Rider, creating a moody, psych-folk, Southwest desert atmosphere and vibe that set the tone for this excellent collection of songs.

Recorded in the high desert region of the Mojave desert, away from a studio, and surrounded by psychotropic cacti, Hanson sought to take a simpler approach to the instrumentals on his second solo record and have the album be more lyrically focused. While simpler, Hanson has created a specific atmosphere that he describes as being the force of gravity holding down and together the songs and album which take a dark look at the myths and truths of cities that Hanson knows so well, such as LA and Las Vegas and the people who inhabit them. They are somber and forbidding looks and views, but somehow also sanguine. It all makes Pale Horse Rider an alluring album.

The Snuts, W.L.

Scottish band The Snuts', W.L., was one of the most anticipated debut releases for me this year. And I'm happy to say that it lived up to my expectations. Apparently it did for many others as well...at least in the UK where it entered the charts at number one, making it the first time since 2007 that a Scottish band's debut album did so. 

What I appreciate about this self-described 'guitar-driven' band is that they had the confidence to actually not stick to a single guitar-driven sound or lane. In an interview, lead singer Jack Cochrane said that the band did not want to put themselves in a box. "If you record the same song over and over again, then people will just expect that from you. It was something that we were always cautious of while making this album.....we want our sound to take you different places: instead of causing you to throw pints, we want to connect on a deeper level. This album says that there is a place for guitar music in 2021, and it's nice to be able to say that we're not sticking to that classic UK indie sound."

With 17 songs clocking in at 59 minutes, there is a lot of music to explore here. Just don't set any expectations for what you hear next. Just sit back and enjoy it all. 

Fretland, Could Have Loved You

About 80 miles North of Seattle, in Anacortes WA, there sits The Unknown Studio. Built between 1909 and 1920, it lived as a church for many decades. It's now a performance space and recording studio. It's a huge space which creates a huge and open sound....the perfect place for the band Fretland to record Could Have Loved You, their follow up to last year's debut album. 

Hillary Grace Fretland, who the band is named for, said that their new album served as a home for her to explore her more enigmatic emotions that she generally tries to put to bed before she's really explores them. Each song and story capitalizing on a feeling; loss, mourning, shame, the kind that 'just takes up all your mental space and puts a heaviness in each room of your chest.' 

In the Unknown's space, the emotiveness of Fretland's voice and words can be felt reverberating off of its walls and soaring up to its ceiling as the band's songs rise, crest, and fall. It's warm and inviting, moving and beautiful, and at moments, breathtaking. Fretland has said that she wants the band to feel like home and like that long road that you take over and over again. Having listened to Could Have Loved You....over and over again....I can say that I'm home.

Kings Of Leon, When You See Yourself

I have had a frustrating relationship with Kings Of Leon from the guitar strike-in on Red Morning Light on their debut album Youth And Young Manhood. Raw, powerful, energetic, and with plenty of that 'fuck you' attitude, the band and their Southern rock music was right up my alley. Then other albums followed.

With each of those albums, the band, their sound, their song-writing, even their hair and clothes changed. For me, it was increasingly hard to separate a band growing and evolving over time from what also appeared to be a band driven by ambition and ego...wanting to simply be the biggest band in the world. Aha Shake Heartbreak...nope. Because Of The Times...loved it!. By Only By The Night, the band's big break through album....the band had lost me. Since then, I have not been able approach any new music they have released without suspicion and an overly critical ear and attitude. So imagine my surprise when I heard their latest album, When You See Yourself, and felt otherwise.

As NME wrote, with record number eight, the Kings marry the old and the new, bottling everything they have learned on the road and on their last four albums while "still reconnecting with the best parts of what made the world love these boisterous, unruly rockers in the first place." It makes sense. The band is older and apparently wiser now and it is great to see the band "finally embracing the mature, laid-back versions of themselves."

The Antlers, Green To Gold

After seven long years, The Antlers are back with their sixth album, Green to Gold. It is a welcomed return. And a sunnier one? 

Unlike past Antlers albums, Peter Silberman has said that he didn’t feel compelled to turn a human experience into a circuitous mythology and all the eeriness that goes along with it. He chose a more direct approach, documenting two years in his life, without overthinking or obscuring what the songs were about. The shift in tone he said is the result of getting older. 

“It doesn’t make sense for me to try to tap into the same energy that I did ten or fifteen years ago, because I continue to grow as a person, as I’m sure our audience does too. Green to Gold is about this idea of gradual change,” he sums up. “People changing over time, struggling to accept change in those they love, and struggling to change themselves. And yet despite all our difficulty with this, nature somehow makes it look easy.”

 

Conceived and written almost entirely in the morning hours, Green To Gold shimmers like sunlight pouring through the kitchen window on a Sunday morning. It’s an album that I would not have expected from The Antlers, but one that I am grateful to have.