There are two ways that you can be a great singer, one is more reliant on technical ability; the vocal range, the timbre (lets call this the Paul McCartney side for the sake of argument) and the latter is perhaps even harder, to live in your songs to make the experience both universal and truly heartfelt. Like Lennon, Levon Helm was among the latter and he left an indelible mark on American rock music with his plaintive gruff vocals. When you think of The Band, you immediately think of songs like “The Weight”, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “Up On Cripple Creek”, and “Ophelia”. All of which had Levon Helm’s Arkansas bred hands all over them. Yet this performance of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” might be his finest moment, it would be simple to marvel alone at his ability as a drummer to sing as well as he played, but moreover you get the sense that Levon Helm was in the Civil War himself, a marvel against time ( in part due to Robbie Robertson’s fine lyrics) come to represent the ever burning hope of man. Robertson made a point to focus not on what the war’s issues were, but the theme of what war does. This is Levon Helm’s legacy, and the world will be lit a little dimmer without him in it.
In todays music, psychedelia usually falls victim to being too out there (see chillwave, electronica, trance) or an homage with little originality. Here though Spiritualized makes the most of taking up the mantle of psychedelic rock that The Beatles left in 1968 (The lack of a statement with the album cover is a fitting callback to The Beatles own White Album) with “Little Girl”, there are beautiful strings that haven’t felt so delightfully strange in an arrangement since “I Am The Walrus” and a great rousing chord progression that belies the song’s downcast nature. A tongue in cheek piece of songwriting worthy of Lennon.
Sweet Heart, Sweet Light was released April 16th, 2012 on Fat Possum Records. You can find the digital version on iTunes here .
I hadn’t heard Maps & Atlases until I received a tweet from my sister a day ago praising this song as “a barn party of Bon Iver, Toro Y Moi, Fleet Foxes, and New Villager”. I wasn’t the biggest fan of New Villager but I gave it a shot anyway. The song may well be one of 2012’s best, a gorgeous multilayered vocal with just the most subtle hint of autotune (no small feat) and a muted guitar rhythm that explodes into polyphony worthy of the most daring of Bon Iver tunes. Don’t miss this one.
Beware and Be Grateful was released on April 17th, 2012 on Barsuk Records. You can find the vinyl on Insound here, and the digital version on iTunes here .
Iceland has always been a surprising hotbed of musical activity and like Sigor Ros before them, Of Monsters and Men seem destined to become a global musical act. While they may have the ever-enchanting “foreign band” label as a calling card, Of Monsters and Men show more similarities to bands like Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, though thankfully they didn’t pursue the & symbol in their name. "Mountain Sound" the third track off of their debut LP My Head Is an Animal has a bright opening hook worthy of Springsteen and sparse guitar chords and an upbeat call and response vocal fitting the chorus between Nanna Bryndis Hilmarsdottir and Ragnar “Raggi” Porhallsson.
As the song builds, the arrangement widens with an echo befitting the mountain sound of which they speak, filling the air with backing harmonies and handclap-stomp rhythms as the lyrics turn into exultant Walt Whitman-esque chants. A fine piece of work for a band debut.Check out “Slow and Steady” as well, which melds Florence and the Machine vocals with Local Natives percussion and packs quite a punch.
Elsewhere, Of Monsters and Men show off a large sphere of influence from the powerful “Six Weeks” inspired by an article on the most badass men in history and tales of whales with houses on their backs (“From Finner”). Overall it’s a wonderfully produced album and sure to be on the tops of lists for best of 2012.
Mountain Sound- Of Monsters and Men
Slow and Steady- Of Monsters and Men
My Head is An Animal was released April 3rd, 2012 on Universal Republic Records. You can find the digital version on iTunes here .
The Art of the Mixtape 