Ambivalent Peaks

 It's no secret that The Front Bottoms are one of my all time favourite bands in the universe. I haven't reviewed their albums, but I've reviewed their shows, so I thought giving this a bash would be cool. Don't let me down, lads. 

The record opens with a song that has already been released - everybody blooms - so you get a sense of what the record is going to sound and which direction they're taking for this record. It's noted that all of the songs are written in lowercase, except for Fairbanks, Alaska due to obvious reasons.  The first song is hopeful, in its own way given that the lyrics are 'everyone blooms in their own time.' 

"don't worry, you're gonna be fine, fine, fine." rings out, and I am inclined to believe them.

The second song camouflage starts a bit wavey with ominous piano, ufo, and phone call sounds that cascade into Brian Sella's vocals. "I don't know who I am, they're probably calling the cops on me. They could tell I was having a nervous breakdown." Shit - so maybe things aren't okay. This shift is a dramatic one. Wearing camouflage to blend in is Brian's or I guess the band's way of doing it to survive. 

jerk seems to be a new kind of TFB sound - mixed with how they've always sounded. Echoing vocals with brash guitars, and then a smattering of beats. The vocals start to harmonise, and it builds upright to the end. 

the truth is reminiscent of their song Peach, citing that the person they're singing about is in fact 'the truth i choose to bend myself around,' It's a love song. It's sweet. I really like it. 

montgomery forever is a bop. I don't know who or what montgomery is, but I want it to live forever. Classic TFB sound on this one, with full band instrumentals. Lots of 'heys' to punctuate the song. The end of the song drifts to a piano part - with Sella performing a soliloquy about being not being on drugs, and that someone he knew fell in love with someone else - and that he would be happy if they were happy. 

the hard way is a hard way in the album. It drops and gets slower here. It feels dreamy, almost. violins come in, and the song crescendos.  

leaf pile does not fuck around. The intro is mighty - Manchester Orchestra scales of mighty. It's so glorious.  The mighty sound continues throughout the song to punctuate the words. "I feel anxious, do you?" "Montgomery forever. First, you get hurt then there's healing," This song is a journey -- a blur, but a journey nonetheless. The protagonist (Sella) is struggling here - he doesn't want to talk - he just wants to look out a window. He's removing himself from whatever situation he's in and getting space in order to look at it from another point. 

The longest song on the album, new song d opens with a Coldplay-esque beat, then into synthesizers and then the voices come in. "It seemed like a good day - a good day to be alive." - it then changes into a one-sided conversation between Sella and someone else. There's a lot of spoken word/singing going on in this song. Lots of harmonising voices. At the end of the song, there's another soliloquy with Sella - he wonders if he's ready. There's piano playing in the background. Ominous stuff.

Fairbanks, Alaska is a song about seeing the northern lights in surprisingly, Fairbanks, Alaska. This song is another sonic journey that flows and ebbs and it's pretty tight.  

love at first sight is an amalgamation, much like the other songs on this album are. You can tell they're trying to be experimental with all the sounds that slide in together under Sella's voice. Then there's an evangelical sound blended with a drum beat to finish the song.

bus beat has Sella proclaiming that love has no bounds, then in comes Sella's spoken word type singing about how he does things because that's the way his baby likes it. I wish I could be the baby in person talking here but sadly, no. The hook of the 'because that's the way my baby likes it' is prominent throughout the song. 'Whether in sickness or in flames' - WAHEY WE HAVE THE ALBUM TITLE. Excellent. 

make way slows the fuck down, there's violins, piano, and a light drum beat. It turns into a great toetapper. The album starts in a hopeful note but then this seems to change into insecurity. "it's like i'm wearing a mask" "My name is Stephen but that doesnt make it right." Because his name isn't Stephen - I swear. He's said this in another song but it's been debunked. So what is he hiding behind? The violin in this song is beautiful and adds to Sella's vocals. 

I'll admit - I never caught on to the Creeper hype. I don't know what they sound like. What they're supposed to sound like. All I know is that... they're supposed to be creepy. Right? They're called Creeper. I've seen the back patches and merchandise, I've seen the book that was published with 404 INK. (Now £5! What a bargain.) They're a multifaceted band indeed. So this will be my unfiltered, honest review of their second album, and of what I think of the band in general. 

Opening with the song Hallelujah - it's the sound of rain and thunder and then an echoing "hallelujah for the devil almighty rains..." you get the jist. It's the introduction. 

Be My End is the second in a 16 song run this album has. It sounds...indie? It sounds like an alternative indie rock band that got bitten by vampires. It definitely sounds indie. If Skins was still around today - this would be on the soundtrack. Born Cold is similar, an indie-pop vibe that teases out into a piano-laden sound with overlapping vocals.  I can hear My Chemical Romance's influence in this as if Gerard Way had something to do with the record personally. Maybe not early MCR in the sound specifically, but in the creepy-vampiric sort of way. 

Cyanide opens with a blend of guitars and piano - it's a floaty affair, spooky but still modern. "Black lipstick on a coffee cup," sounds English - you almost forget the band are from Southhampton until you hear the word cup. They're crafty. Between this song and the next, there's a spoken word bit that breaks up the record nicely. It's like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe poem. 

Annabelle is a jovial number, citing about how they're both going to hell. Belle, Hell, I get it. It rhymes! I want to believe they're going to hell, that there's actually going to be a trip but the upbeat tempo of the song makes me just want to dance instead, forgetting all mention of a trip at all.  

With Paradise, finally, FINALLY, the 80's inspired sound I want to hear. The Cure inspired, anyone?  There are wispy guitars and a steady drumbeat that envelopes you into the sound. It's the longest song on the album, but one of the best. The vocals are low and menacing until the chorus hits and then he belts it out. G'wan, son. Then -- there's a saxophone?! That's lit. It's like I can imagine this song being played in a speakeasy in the dead of the night. 

Poison Heart comes in the Elvis-esque vocals, in the beginning, then opens up again in the chorus.  Similarly, Thorns of Love is very rockabilly, similar to the song before but it crescendos into more modern sounding, and then dives back. I could hear this being played at the Cathouse. I miss the Cathouse. Yes, I'm 24 but I'm not ashamed to admit that. It would fit on either floor - the first floor being the classic rock floor and the second floor being the pop-punk, more modern day floor, if you were unaware, which shows the range that this band has. 

Four Years Ago is a duet, and it's pretty and sad. It's enough to make you want to sit at a rainy window and think about a conquest from years past.

Naplam Girls is a great song. "We met at a strange time in my life," a line from Fight Club, is sang by the feminine vocals over and over. It has a banging bassline - very dancey. Hell yeah. I know I've linked the album above - but listen to it below. I know you're lazy. This is a certified BOP. A definite highlight for me. 

Another eerie tune is Black Moon, definitely indie with the Creeper flair. "Let love kill me," is the stand out lyric that repeats, with "ohhhs," building up to a sick guitar solo. It's a definite toe-tapper. 

All My Friends is a piano ballad about how they - or us, I guess - all hurt. It sounds like it could be an Alkaline Trio song, but it's given the Creeper touch with strings and feminine vocals. It's a definite lighter or phone torch moment in a live show. Hey, remember live shows? I'm not crying, you are. Shut up. 

Cutting up the album is four separate spoken word soliloquies, and the album ends on a lengthy one.  

I'm not sure if I should give these albums ratings, but if I did -  this would be a solid 4/5. 4 stars? We'll say 4 stars. Whatever way you look at it, this is class. Creeper are unlike anything in the scene at the minute, especially in the UK and they should be commended for their unique nature. I'll be revisiting this in the coming Autumn months, while I prepare for the ultimate in holidays -- Halloween. I think that's appropriate. 

There's no doubt that this is a stellar album, but why do you need me to tell you? You don't, but I want to. So there. 

 It opens with DVD Menu, an ambient collection of strings and sounds. Fitting, as it lulls you in. At around 1 minute 10 seconds, it feels like a dream. There are ebbs and flows like this throughout the album. 

Garden Song, a single from a while ago, is a gentle ebb into the album. With the vocal harmonies of someone who sounds like Charles Bukowski, it's haunting. Lighter is Kyoto, a more upbeat song lamenting about her time, surprisingly, in Japan. I've always wanted to go to Japan thanks to the movie Lost In Translation - one of my favourites of all time - but this song has really done a number on me. Thanks, Pheebs! 

Punisher is punishing. Why? It's just so goddamn sad. 'I love a good place to hide, in plain sight,' reverbs in this really beautiful, sad way. GOD DAMNIT. The piano is enough to put a dagger right in your heart, but you welcome it because the blood tastes so sweet. 'Either I'm careless, or I wanna get caught,' is another killer line. 

Moving on to Halloween, one of the longer songs on the album, Am I going overkill on the word haunting? Well the songs about fucking Halloween, so suck it. It's pretty haunting, and perfect for a hipster Halloween playlist when you don't want to play Monster Mash again and again. Just play this. Please.

Talking about ebbing and flowing, the next song definitely ebbs - Chinese Satellite. It's GLORIOUS. It flows into Moon Song, which is also stunningly beautiful. Slower, with ambient sounds and guitar. It's heartbreaking. It's like this gif in a sad song form:

It's a sad, sad love song. Listen to it, and cry.

Now Savior Complex is another ebb, it only has two verses. There's prominent strings on here that, cliche, tug on your heart ones. It does what it says on the tin - it laments about having a saviour complex, and what that's like. It's about vulnerability and it's wonderful. 

My favourite next!! ICU or I See You is a big, big bop. It hypes up with drums and guitar, and then slides into vocals, and it all melts together beautifully. My favourite line is about hating someone's mom. That's iconic. It's pessimistic, it notices that there's good in something but acknowledges that things might get fucked up, because why wouldn't they? All good things must end, right? 

Right?!? 

Graceland Too has celtic-y, country sorta vibes about a girl 'who could do anything she wants to.' Is she talking about herself or is another being? Who knows. She's thinking about Elvis, anyway. A rebel without a clue. 

Big mood. 

I Know The End sounds frightening. The title, I mean. It's the longest by a mile, clocking in at 5 minutes and 45 seconds. It's a solid end of album song, it crescendos midway through and triumphantly erupts into 'The end is here,' with what sounds like a thousand - okay I'm exaggerating - voices. Then, a scream. Pianos, drums, trumpets, the lot. It's madness. I've inserted the video where Phoebe makes out with an older woman (I'm not jealous, one bit. Nope). 

It's a perfect album. Throw all your other albums in the bin. In the bin. They're not necessary anymore. 

Well done Phoebe Bridgers, you've finally broke me. 

I wrote this for the Strathclyde Telegraph in January 2018. 

  Photo credit: Vicky Grout for The Fader

Ever wanted to feel like someone was caressing the skin over your torso with their soft hands, singing softly to you while the hum of a baritone guitar serenades you in the background?

That sounds nice, right?

Imagine now, just when you’re just about reach that euphoric sense of nirvana; that the hands cut through your skin, snap open your ribcage and rip your heart right out of your chest.

The perpetrator of this crime, as you look at her, smiles sweetly as she clutches your heart in her hands.

That’s what hearing Phoebe Bridgers play live feels like… pretty much.

Following the support act of the night, James Hindle of the band The Pooches, Bridgers walks on stage, meek and unassuming, to a roar of applause. She is followed by her best friend, Harrison, who accompanies on pedal steel and electric guitar throughout.

Bridgers opens with popular track ‘Smoke Signals’ to a packed – and when I say packed, I mean so full that there were signs up indicating that everyone should make as much of the space as possible – audience at Broadcast.

As the night goes on, it becomes apparent that her haunting vocals on record are only amplified in a live setting. There is not one hair on the back of my neck or arms that does not stand to attention when she raises her voice — notably on the song ‘Georgia’ and set closer ‘Motion Sickness.’

The divine irony and genius behind Bridgers boils down to how incredibly self-aware she is. In between songs, she asks the crowd the usual “how is everyone doing tonight?” Despite the fact it probably would’ve been enthusiastic regardless, her retort to the cheerful response is: “You’re all liars! It’s bummer town down here.” This is in reference to the general melancholic nature of her songs – both in their lyrical content and sound.

It is not “bummer town” because the songs are bad, not at all. The songs, and overall performance are very, very, very good. So good that it may or may not make you tear up two songs in and then subsequently be blinking back tears the entire show because oh my god these songs are so beautiful and emotiona- I mean…what? It was good.

Even her merchandise on sale tonight consists of various formats of her debut album, Stranger In The Alps, and one single black t-shirt. The only print on this is Bridgers’ name in a black metal-esque font. (Which, of course, I bought.)

One quite jarring moment of Bridgers’ open nature and honesty before playing her song ‘Killer,’ is the revelation that the man she recorded this with “would only record with me if he saw a picture of me first,” to which she also then quips, “I guess I passed the test,” before she starts playing.

(Author’s aside comment: Whoever this guy is, fuck him. Stranger In The Alps is an absolute triumph of a record and Bridgers is most definitely going to go far, no matter who she records with or what their creepy requests are.)

To sum up, listening to Phoebe Bridgers is an experience that will break your heart over and over again – in the best way possible – but in a live setting? Be prepared to pick up the many pieces of your scattered heart from the floor of whatever – this point on, they will most definitely be bigger than Broadcast’s cozy venue basement – venue you have the good fortune of seeing her in.

What could have been another album’s worth of material has recently been released as an extended version of blink-182’s California. A decade ago, this may have been another compact disc, or in the modern day — an opportunity for a double vinyl re-release. On the streaming side of things, the extended album’s tracks total a whopping 28 songs. While the formerly released album appears to be penned as a love letter to the coastal state of California, the songs are clearly peppered with feelings and anxieties about place and meaning which spills over to this surplus of songs.

The call of “cale-forn-ie-ah” is present in the first track in previously released, on Youtube by way of a lyric video, ‘Parking Lot,’ which laments an aggravation at changing American landscape against a backdrop of a pubescent narration. There is something inherently jarring listening to successful men in their forties sing lyrics about being a “forgotten young suburbia,” when they are charging their fans, who will no doubt actually fall under that category and pine for hope and meaning in their music, upwards of £500 for meet and greets on their upcoming UK tour.

The grapplings of identity are clear with the overall Achilles heel of the songs seems to be a feeling of discontent and a narrative displacement of place. This may come from a place more on Hoppus’ side, or perhaps, Skiba’s, given that he has been wedged into the band to replace long time vocalist and guitarist, Tom DeLonge.

The moody introductions of ‘Misery’ and ‘Don’t Mean Anything’ are extremely similar, and it’s unclear if they are using some kind of cut and paste formula for each of their songs, given that there are many and they all share similar melodies and the same token hook that comes later in the chorus. Maybe, at this point, blink-182 have stopped trying tell songs from their grown and experienced perspectives but stubbornly cling to this young, disillusioned narrative in order to remain relevant to their ever youthful audience.

The band clearly have a penchant for catchy songs, as they always have, but it shown moreso on the extended version of the album that are they are driven heavily by drums. It’s palpable that even with the loss of DeLonge, the band would be weakened without Barker. The opening riff of ‘Wildfire’ wouldn’t have been displaced on their 2001 release, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket – this only then feeds into the idea that this band, despite a line-up change, are frozen in time.

There’s a thirst for destruction, and possibly rebirth — but there’s a lack of progression. The sound overall, produced by John Feldmann – who works with many the polished groups that work their way through his machine – who seems encourages and cultivates this lack of movement or natural progression that arguably faltered and lost it’s way after the 2003 release of blink-182, pre “indefinite hiatus.”

It’s not all negative – there are two stand out tracks in the more ambient sound of the softer, more poignant ‘Long Lost Feeling,’ which follows a refreshingly different and visceral sounding ‘6/8,’ where the verse feels urgent and arresting – with a spoken word outro that includes the ask “forgive us for greed,” – perhaps this is where a guilt and moral compass for blink comes to the surface – only present in one of the later tracks of an extended version album. ‘Bottom of the Ocean’ is also a strong track that helps to keep this selection of songs afloat and my generalised anger at bay.

From a few strong songs, comes the dreaded closer. The horrendously titled ‘Can’t Get You More Pregnant.’ The 35 second diddy is unnecessary, confusing and could have been left out. Even on the extended version. If anything, the instrumentals are decent, but the lyrics are incredibly bizarre. What exactly are they trying to achieve or explore with this line? Nothing.

But maybe that’s the point. blink-182, after over 20 years and various dramas and shifts — the whole point of the band is that they don’t have a point at all. They aren’t political, or at all evolving with an accurate timeframe that reflects their lives much like one famous redheaded singer songwriter who harkens on about his time at university, despite his earnings meaning he will probably not need to worry about any student debt. But, in the same breath, it’s worth noting that they’ve never tried to be – and after all this time, it’s clear they don’t intend to start any time soon.