Chris Garneau

Album: Music for Tourists

Genre: Piano driven dark pop?

Label: Absolutely Kosher

Price: $10.00 Used

Release Date: January 23rd 2007

(The links are to download the tracks in question)

I was flipping through the used section at Vertigo when the artwork caught my eye, I read the track-listing and was unimpressed as nothing seemed to jump out at me. After flicking through the used hip-hop section and finding Nelly’s “Hot In Here” on 12” and J-Kwon’s “Tipsy” for 2 bucks. I figured $2 on debit would be absurd so I went back and grabbed Music for Tourists.

I’m so glad I did. The moment I had started to rip the CD I knew I made the right choice. An unlisted bonus track of a cover of Elliott Smith’s “Between the Bars” popped up on the list. Elliott Smith is most likely my favourite artist, his beautiful intertwined guitar with his carefully planned out vocals really are something I truly appreciate.

http://www.zshare.net/download/71344302e1860ee4/

I broke a rule of mine and went directly to the bonus track to hear the cover of “Between the Bars”. The simple piano and his androgynous voice was unexpected, and I seriously doubted his masculinity at first, but as the song progressed and he hit the chorus, I knew I had fallen in love with another artist. After I had finished going nuts over the Elliott Smith cover I returned the to beginning; “Castle-Time”.

http://www.zshare.net/download/7134394715567156/

“Castle-Time” is a depressing tune driven by piano. I also think that you could say that about every song on the album. His musical ability is good but not amazingly diverse. He knows how to play the piano and some strings. And that’s what he sticks to, at no point do I feel like he’s using production techniques to make him sound better then he is. “Castle-Time” is a very simple song; piano, words and a few strings overtop. But I find where Chris really shines is his writing. You can hear the queues from Elliott Smith and Daniel Johnston. The simple and sometimes juvenile rhymes are what made me fall in love with the songs. “Castle-time” is about how a teacher he had in elementary school died. The lines like “my teacher died/even the frying pan cried/rain fell slowly/according to castle-time/I was only nine” feel unforced and genuine, almost innocent even. “Castle-Time” is one of the most accurate cd openers I’ve heard. It let me know exactly what to expect.

http://www.zshare.net/download/7134384319871c8b/

“Black & Blue” is just a couple of tracks into the album. This song is probably the best way to introduce someone to him. The piano mimics the _almost intro_ to the song “the air conditioning is old/summer’s hot and love is old/I wish I was smaller/A little creepy-crawler”. After he sings crawler he hits a chord and lets it ring for a second or two more. The song becomes a little more intricate as he fuses ideas of love, pain and death. The song’s climax is where I could see people absolutely start to detest the song, very simple rhymes and almost whiny vocals. But as I stated before, I think what he sings is completely genuine. “Ohohohoh/I wanna Catch my Death of Cold/Ohohohoh/Cause I’m scared of growing old/ohohoohoho/Don’t return the love I gave/ohohohohoh/You’re still my favourite/” rings out over the piano, his high voice pronouncing every syllable with such forced feeling. “Black & Blue” sounds full of self-doubt, and a fear of not being able to continue in the life he currently has. This song is like a window into his seemingly damaged mind.

http://www.zshare.net/download/71344233410199c4/

“We Don’t Try” is the highlight of the album to me. I could see this being written by a young Elliott Smith. This song is depressing, the lyrics ranging from a friend quitting a diet, to a friend passing away. But the underlying tone of giving up is there the entire song. “I Think about my friend who died/ and how her kids didn’t get to say goodbye/thought neither did i/ no neither did I/ and neither did my friends/thought some of them pretend/and it’s easy if you cry/because you feel bad for yourself/” is such simple writing, but it still feels very powerful. The way he blends together emotions with such predictable rhymes is impressive. The song takes an even darker turn in the next verse; “If you Pretend everything’s fine/I won’t hurt myself or lie/to you or mom or dad/ just pretend that I’m not sad/ And we’ll work everything out/ even all the stuff we don’t talk about/ it would be easier if we cried/ because we’d feel bad for yourself/”, this verse is almost cheesy in the way that it states how depressed he is. But the simple repeating piano almost seems reassuring as you hear him talk about not hurting himself.

I only talked about 4 songs, but I feel like these four give a very accurate depiction of the album. A depressing piano driven album. What won me over with this album is the fact that at no point do I feel like he’s trying to be something he’s not, there is no unnecessary layering of guitars and vocals, no unnecessary words thrown in his lyrics, and no unnecessary collaborations with other musicians. But at the same time the album can get monotonous, there’s only so much piano and simple lyrics your brain can take. Also this has the bad habit of making me feel kinda shitty.

Final Verdict: 8.3/10. This is one of most genuine albums I’ve ever heard, and I definitely think it’s worth the $10 I spent. I would recommend this album to pretty much anyone. The thing that brought the score down was the fact that the album can become quite monotonous, the songs follow the same instrumental formula, and the lyrics follow the same depressing tones.

Fox Jaws: At Odds

The first band on my random cd review list is Fox Jaws.

Label: Nevado Records
Price: 16.99

The album caught my eye in HMV a couple of days ago, maybe because it was mistakenly placed behind Death From Above 1979 which was the CD I went in for originally, but there was more to it than just a serendipitous find. The cover art was interesting, and the band name let me take a guess at what kinda music they are.

When I got home I popped the album in to be greeted by the genre I was expecting. Alt-country with loud twangy electric guitars. In the same vein as Rural Alberta Advantage, Hollerado, or Deer Tick.

The opening track, “Migrating Deer”, quickly grabbed my attention with a fast and heavy drum track, tempo changes, and a really fitting unpolished female vocalist. The song really takes off about two and half minutes in, with a quick tempo change and a brief change to a male vocalist. This song really got me excited to hear the rest of the album. Quite a good opener.

Unfortunately the next two songs didn’t grab me at all. The next song “Two By Two” (Which seems to be one of their most popular to songs on their myspace page) is incredibly dull. The music was very generic, nothing like the first track. And the biggest disappointment was that the girls vocals turned from meshing very well to downright annoying.

A couple of songs later “Youth Dance” kicks in with a completely different feel then anything else on the album. A snarly vocal that could be taken right out of an Against Me! song and a well chosen acoustic guitar chord strummed over a consistent drum beat creates an almost unplugged feeel. This stripped aesthetic was another different feel then anything that came up before, and really doesn’t come back up until the beginning of “Hunting Knives”.

My hopes of the album becoming more like “Youth Dance” were destroyed when “Drinking Fountains” started. The female vocalist was back in the spotlight, with a song about I don’t even know what? “Drinking Fountains”. This song is so boring. I don’t know whether it’s the annoying vocals, the repetitive unadventurous music or the ridiculous time and music change near the end of the song that It ushered in a new scale of dullness.

The boring music continues for a couple more songs until “Hunting Knives”, a much more traditional sounding country start to some grinding guitar then back to the traditional country sound. A duet this time, and it really works. About a minute into the song it slows down and you hear some harmonics. Then there is a sample….a sample that doesn’t fit at all. No where on the album is there another sample. A computerized voice goes “It’s learning Time”, and then there is a tempo change. If the tempo change didn’t usher in a fantastic new badass sounding guitar I’d say the song would be ruined. During “Learning Time”, the song speeds up with a grinding guitar and bass line and a really, well-done drum part. Other than the out of place computer voice this song was definitely the standout track of the album.

“I Am An Army” follows “Hunting Knives” by staying in the same vein of upbeat distortion drenched rock. This song strayed pretty far from the country that was so heavily intertwined in the previous songs. The ending of this song is nothing like anything else on the album. A guitar solo right out of radiorock and screaming vocals gave this song an exciting energy. The fact that this was the first time on the album that there were two songs in a row that were good really showed the problems with this band; absolutely no consistency. The feel of this album changes from song to song, going from fantastic to awful.

“The Enabler” comes up after and again it sounds completely different then anything else on the album and again really spotlighting how many different things this band has tried to do on this album. A synth is the driving force throughout this entire song. A lyrical chant about answering a phone and a very obvious chorus, but still really enjoyable, not nearly as good “Hunting Knives” or “I am An Army”, but at least this song wasn’t completely ignorable.

The last song of the album is called “Himmelfarb”. Yes….”Himmelfarb”. What a stupid song title. The song isn’t that special; a very very mellow generic closer.

I really really don’t know what to say about this album. There’s a lot of REALLY boring songs on it, but there’s also a lot of great songs. I’d never recommend it as a purchase. There are songs on here that are definitely worth listening too, but I say it’s hard to justify the 17 bucks I spent on this album. The first song leads you to believe that the album is completely different from what it actually is. There are some songs that manage to make this album seem exciting but there are more songs that bring it down to a point of sheer boredom.

As much as I may have made this sound like a negative review I really have to say I’m undecided on the album as a whole. The songs that are good, really are good. The songs that suck, really do suck. I’d say listen to (or iTunes purchase these individual songs) “Migrating Deer”, “Hunting Knives”, “Youth Dance” and the “Enabler”. If you treat it like an EP, it’s really fucking good.

This Blog

This blog is focusing on accidental finds on music. I’ll be starting a hopefully weekly review of a CD that I’ll purchase without knowing anything about the band. There will also be reviews of albums with pre-existing knowledge, and concert reviews.