Albums of the Month - June 2012
With summer officially beginning, we're more than halfway through 2012. While the year started out casually slow, the succession of months has really displayed some intensely original and invigorating material. This past month featured one of the year's most hyped releases (and it delivered!), emerging artists, and one man who shows up on Bears and Bullets fairly often. Here are my favorite three.
3.) Ty Segall Band - Slaughterhouse
Continually rising in from the San Francisco garage scene, Ty Segall's stamp on 2012 is more profound than ever. With his band's album Slaughterhouse (Insound), a blistering charm of cruising garage punk, an album collaboration with White Fence, and an upcoming tour with fellow San Fran-soon-to-be-legends Thee Oh Sees, Segall affirmed his name as the apparent torch-bearer to the late Jay Reatard. While there still seems to be a way to go before his name is put on the same pedestal as the Nashville punk pioneer, Slaughterhouse is the next step in that progression. Still unquestionably raw, especially on tracks like "The Bag I'm In," Segall put together his finest album yet.
2.) Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel ...
This year's front-runner for longest album title, the ageless (seriously, I don't think she ages) icon Fiona Apple's first album in seven years, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (Insound) continues the confusing mad-woman allure that is Fiona. She's cleverly affectionate, playing with the ideas of need, desire, and love to the point where the definition is null. There are few who can do this, mending through unconventional rhythms and vocal renditions to the poignant stories in songs like "Werewolf" and "Anything We Want." It's those sweetly chaotic moments, with Apple dolling out melancholy verse between odd-ball sounds, that give you a moment to step into the 34-year-old genius' mind. And maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but there's a serene satisfaction knowing it does to her.
1.) The Tallest Man On Earth - There's No Leaving Now
If you're familiar with Bears and Bullets, then you're aware of my outward affection of Kristian Mattson, The Tallest Man On Earth. On his third album, and first since 2010's The Wild Hunt, Mattson has found his unavoidable niche. The jarring, unequivocally saddening and uplifting style of modern folk music is usually nothing more than acoustics and an occasional piano, but his romantic verses are what keep pushing the limits of his artistic flexibility. Songs like the title track and "Little Brother" are impossibly emotional, evoking scenes that very, very few others are even capable of. But maybe I'm biased.
2.) Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel ...
This year's front-runner for longest album title, the ageless (seriously, I don't think she ages) icon Fiona Apple's first album in seven years, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (Insound) continues the confusing mad-woman allure that is Fiona. She's cleverly affectionate, playing with the ideas of need, desire, and love to the point where the definition is null. There are few who can do this, mending through unconventional rhythms and vocal renditions to the poignant stories in songs like "Werewolf" and "Anything We Want." It's those sweetly chaotic moments, with Apple dolling out melancholy verse between odd-ball sounds, that give you a moment to step into the 34-year-old genius' mind. And maybe it doesn't make sense to you, but there's a serene satisfaction knowing it does to her.
1.) The Tallest Man On Earth - There's No Leaving Now
If you're familiar with Bears and Bullets, then you're aware of my outward affection of Kristian Mattson, The Tallest Man On Earth. On his third album, and first since 2010's The Wild Hunt, Mattson has found his unavoidable niche. The jarring, unequivocally saddening and uplifting style of modern folk music is usually nothing more than acoustics and an occasional piano, but his romantic verses are what keep pushing the limits of his artistic flexibility. Songs like the title track and "Little Brother" are impossibly emotional, evoking scenes that very, very few others are even capable of. But maybe I'm biased.
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