Proud Simon - Night Of Criminals

A couple of years ago I had become quite smitten with Shoestring Universe, the alt country debut release by NYC's Proud Simon. I've found that their sophomore album Night Of Criminals had taken me a little bit more time to form an attachment to, but now that I have, I feel that it is a significant step up for the band.

The album is presented as a concept album of sorts, although the storytelling aspect is kept relatively dubious. According to Brian Keenan's official explanation, the album tells the story of a summer's night and ruminations on life, death and all that other important stuff that said night inspired in Brian. The CD is also divided in Acts, with Act I remaining musically straight forward, not straying too far from the alt-country pop stylings of the first album, while Act II finds the band expanding a little bit, both in depth and style. The first two songs, Newspaper Boat and Clockwork On and On are catchy songs, sounding rather mainstream in their delivery. It's on the third song, Tar Washed Ashore, where things start getting interesting. The opening banjo meets fuzz guitar meets psych-prog keyboards is something that you don't hear every day, although in this case it works very well, and surprisingly still leaves the song sounding accessible. Everyone On The Train Could Use A Little Change is a solid southern rocker, while Everywhere is a peppy instrumental that could possibly be my favourite song on the album. Act II begins with Tales As Tall, an eerie number that sets the stage for the menacing second half of the album, equipped with some very chilling cello work. Union Chains dips into a bit of a Fleetwood Mac area, while Second Hand Jackets has a more traditional folksy feel to it. One Night Stand on a Cadmium Yellow Avenue is the greatest pop song that the Counting Crows never recorded and the album ends nicely with Bled Red Wine, a beautiful harmonica laden number that recalls some of the great Harvest like songs of the 70's. Ultimately, I think it's great to see an artist who has the guts to step it up a notch and try something a little bit different from album to album, and hopefully we see Proud Simon continue to do so.

Night Of Criminals sees its official release on November 11th.
Above photo by Ivonne Loyola.

Myspace: Proud Simon

More stuff: Austin's Oh No Oh My releases a new EP today entitled Dmitrij Dmitrij. The songs they've got on their myspace page sound scrumptuous.

Myspace: Oh No Oh My

Although I haven't talked about them much lately, Amos The Transparent are as busy as ever as they head off to play the Halifax Pop Explosion with The Love Machine and The Golden Hands Before God. They've also been working hard on new material and they've been chronicling their adventures in video form. If you get a moment to watch it, do so 'cuz it's tons of fun.

Myspace: Amos The Transparent

Matt Mays & El Torpedo are currently rocking across Canada and in order to celebrate the fact that they're doing so, they're offering two previously unreleased live mp3's for all of y'all to enjoy. They're playing The Phoenix on November 6th.

Download: Long Since Gone (live) mp3 / Tall Trees (Live & Acoustic) mp3
Myspace: Matt Mays & El Torpedo

Noisy pop trio The Happy Hollows is releasing their Imaginary EP as a "pay what you want or nothing at all" type of deal. Personally, I find their brand of lo-fi hooky distortion to be instantly likable. Check out the widget on my sidebar.

Myspace: The Happy Hollows

R.E.M. is releasing a new double disc deluxe edition of Murmur, arguably their masterpiece. There seems to be a few opinions circulating about this one, and you can read all about it on Pitchfork, Chromewaves, Blurt and Imwan. It hits your favourite record store on November 25th.

Myspace: R.E.M.

Au Revoir Simone w/Oh No! Oh My !@ Lee's Palace

I suppose right away that it should be noted that the girls in Au Revoir Simone are way cute. Waaaay cute. However, I'm not in the habit of dishing out my hard earned moneys to attend a concert based on superficialities. Therefore, it should more importantly be noted that the girls in Au Revoir Simone are also way talented. Their CD "Bird Of Music" has been on my playlist for several weeks, and it's exactly the type of sweet pop delight that one requires at the end of a hectic day or week or year. I saw them open for Peter Bjorn and John back in May, and although I admired their performance back then, I felt that last night they significantly kicked it up a notch. It's likely a challenge to be animated and entertaining within the constraints of a three keyboard setup, but I thought the girls were all that and more. Annie Hart is probably the most energetic of the bunch, dancing and rocking out in such a way that you feel that even if she was only successfully entertaining herself, you'd imagine that would be fine with her. Of course, that wasn't the case. We were ALL entertained! Erika Forster played the role of sort of the frontwoman, enthusiastically soliciting handclaps and jump-arounds, and even occasionally mugging for the several cameras that were in action that night. (She even posed for my camera and what would have been an awesome picture except that my camera stinks and wouldn't focus properly... gotta get a better camera!) And finally, Heather D'Angelo, probably my favorite one, was note perfect as the shy one of the trio. I don't know if she is actually shy. I get the feeling she isn't but she did stay rather reserved in comparison to the other two. Still, they had a terrific chemistry and they all seemed genuinely enthusiastic (and even a tad surprised) that Lee's Palace was hosting such a devoted group of fans.

Download: Through The Backyards mp3
or listen to more of their music on myspace.

Check out my pics of Au Revoir Simone on flickr.

The opening act was Oh No! Oh My! from Texas. I had never heard of them but I did sample their music a little bit before the show. They perform perfect summery indie pop that would sit nicely next to Yo La Tengo, Bishop Allen or even Neutral Milk Hotel. They had just released an EP entitled "Between The Devil and the Sea," and from what I've heard, it sounds instantly likable. The songs also fit nicely into a live setting and, besides the band being instrumentally very tight, they were also a lot of fun to watch. Honorable mention goes to keyboardist Tim Regan, who gets my vote for rock star of the year as he bounces around the stage with reckless abandon, keeping the audience (and it seems the rest of the band too) in stitches for the duration of the show.

Listen to their music on myspace.

Check out my pics of Oh No! Oh My! on flickr.