This newsletter is an extension of the 2022 Summer Album Guide, and will evolve to include writing about the community, the city and the world in areas other than hot vinyl and vital music. But for now consider it a gesture to continue the art of the album review, forever disappearing from our print newspapers. - Dave Bidini
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poolblood
Mole
There are many things I admire about young musicians, but here’s one: they’re in less of a hurry than I ever was, and more poised at an earlier age. From a distance, they seem almost ambivalent about the velocity in which their craft, and careers, are assembled, despite it being easier to go from song-to-record than ever before with independent self-fulfillment now a mainstream vocation (although, granted, they might move faster if the business and its systems were more compliant). Still, the immediate nature of today’s creative process has made some songwriters turn back to slow the boil, an approach that suits the tastes and lifestyles of many, including an older person— the older person being me— for whom a rush of anything requires positioning, delay, the right drug and proper lighting.
One of the most charming qualities of poolblood’s affecting new album, Mole, is how confidently unhurried the songs are, each piece like a pot on simmer rather than a brick flying through a window. It’s not detached cool and it’s not ennui and it’s not world-weary defeatism, but rather an effective use of time within form, one finger pressing on clock hands, another on the fretboard. poolblood’s measured aesthetic allows the listener a moment to ponder the beauty of a piece— the notable song is “Shabby,” but “My Little Room,” the album closer, is the defining track— to a point where you become lost in thought beyond the notes, at least until singer Maryam Said, a centrifugal force that holds together the swirl of trumpets, nylon-string guitars and drums, gathers you back into the music. Another of the record’s charms is the musicians’ keening sense of melody, and how, in some cases, the brass and strings wage a sock fight to pull the tune their way. There are times when it doesn’t work, but maybe that’s part of it, too: Mole’s grace comes in its fealty to being rather than being perfect. We’re all so busy racing to become who we’re supposed to be that we forget who we already are.
But the album on Bandcamp HERE
White Reaper
Asking for a Ride
It’s not quite enough that the lead singer of this band is named “Tony Esposito” (second place: keyboardist Ryan Hater), but it’s close. I’m a little perplexed why this record dropped in January, since it’s got “Fairgrounds Tour ’23” written all over it, but White Reaper’s fourth album is a typically-- and typically good, for the most part-- American pop/rock/metal confection that sounds exactly like the kind of thing Paul Westerberg or Stephen Malkmus might hate. I’m always half-way about whether dispensable, elevated-high-school-binder-lyric rock and roll is worthy of our attention, but I can see both sides: how solid riffology and honourably stolen melodies are both the last and first thing we need in a burning world. Ask me Monday, and I’m probably Paul or Steve. But Friday is spangles and tequila night over here and those lemons aren’t going to slice themselves.
Buy the record from the bands website HERE