What I was listening to last month: May

Woah, this is a late post. Still, I’ll try and forget that we’re stuck slap bang in the middle of June, and instead look back to what I was listening to last month.

There were a whole heap of records released in May that will no doubt sit in and around the top ten records of 2013 by the time December comes around. Whether they get a place in my top ten is another matter.

The global salivation that greeted Daft Punk’s latest full-length was a tad OTT. It’s a good record, yes, but it hardly seemed groundbreaking. Likewise, The National’s latest effort, Trouble Will Find Me, was in every sense a The National record; morose, enveloping and stacked full of crescendos. Did it surpass the masterpieces of Alligator and Boxer? I don’t think so.

Still, there was much to enjoy last month. I made a trek to Field Day in London where I saw a caught the likes of Animal Collective, Savages, Chvrches, Solange and Django Django. But, the real find of the weekend was Francois and the Atlas Mountains, whose blend of French-tinted pop and intricate math rock motifs created a  limb-shuffling forty odd minutes of rare brilliance.

Finally - against all my better instincts - I fell hook, line and sinker for the new Vampire Weekend record, Modern Vampires of the City. I’ve never really paid too much attention to VW; their Graceland-inspired melodies merely made me want to reach for the actual Graceland. But this new VW offering is a supreme slab of indie intelligence, the likes of which I never imagined they were capable of.

Goes to show that, underneath all the superlatives and verbosity, we critics know very little at all.

Album review: Savages - Silence Yourself

They may be the latest British buzz band, but Savages sure don't sound like one. Rather than mining their home country's rich rock heritage, the current darlings of the U.K.'s indie press pull their energy from the seething, sex-charged sonics of acts like The Birthday Party and Suicide. Judging by the hype that's surrounded them since the release of their inaugural single in 2012, that approach is working.

Over the last year, the London quartet has taken to the road to tighten the towering gothic structures and rabid post-punk squalls that coined all the commotion. Their debut LP Silence Yourself is the fruits of this labour, combining the disarming thrum of their live appearances with a studio-born subtlety that showcases an ear for nuance.

 But this is no easy listen. Singer Jehnny Beth's moribund tones are led by a roar of serrated guitars and the kind of barbarous percussion that never seems to let up. From the opening notes of "Shut Up" the onslaught is relentless: "Husbands" pulverizes, "City's Full" howls, and "No Face" screeches. This is anarchic, itching punk at its most primal, most belligerent.

 In their pre-release press spiel, the band are at pains to state that these 11 tracks are best heard loud—in fact, it's the only way to hear them. The depth and ferocity of sound found on "I Am Here" needs decibels to deliver its full aural assault. Background filler these songs are not: each cut (and they all feel like a cut) is intended to rattle bones from the floor up.

 Perhaps the one chink in Silence Yourself's armor is the darkly veiled drone that turns "Waiting For a Sign" into a mechanical slog. But this is a minor stutter on a record that conjures up something truly unique. That something? A buzz band out-buzzing the buzz.

First published here for Under the Radar