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 Bright
Sides
By
Erik Hage
Hector on Stilts
Same
Height Relation (Fun Machine)
Pittsfield,
Mass.-based Hector on Stilts churn out impossibly bright,
unnervingly melodic music. The opening track, “Taxi,” just
might be the most polished three minutes of guitar pop ever
to grace our region. (As a breed, we music critics are prone
to momentary enthusiasms and hyperbole, but this is a statement
that I’ve sat on for a good half-year—and will stand behind
a year from now.) Same Height Relation is shot through
with bolts of melodic sunshine; cousins Jeb and Clayton Colwell
simply seem to release the string of their helium-infused
popcraft and let it sail into the sunny upper reaches. One
has to wonder if there’s even a market for this kind of music
anymore: music that hails craft over catharsis; that finds
strength in levity; that seems to nod a little bit toward
everyone from XTC to Colin Hay to the Beach Boys. Here, harmonies
swell and guitar accents spiral; “Winterland” is a tune continuously
arriving, glassy guitars and lifting harmonies thrusting it
beautifully and breathlessly upwards. As keenly intelligent
as it is brightly melodic, Hector on Stilts’ Same Height
Relation reeks of perfectionism and popsmithery.
 |
 Friends
of Dean Martinez
Live
at Club 2 (Aero)
Originally released four years ago in Germany, where this
live set was recorded (at Munich’s now-defunct Club Zwei),
this CD by Friends of Dean Martinez has been expanded with
an additional disc, recorded last year at a club in Berlin.
In a bassless trio, Michael Semple’s guitar often acts as
a rhythmic anchor in tandem with drummer Dave Lachance, while
the band’s founder and steel guitarist, Bill Elm, flies over,
around and through it all like a flock of airborne bird-machines
emitting fireworks. At other times, Elm’s atmospherics provide
a ground-hugging early morning fog through which Semple’s
clearly delineated lines stroll with the certainty of a paper
boy on his predawn route.
FODM have not strayed too far from where they began in the
mid-’90s, as an instrumental ensemble started by Giant Sand
alums Joey Burns and John Convertino. Those two departed after
the second album, with Elm now the band’s mainstay. Pared
down to a trio and in a live setting, they conjure a gently
raucous and unpredictable element that has added bolder dramatics
to their recipe.
–David
Greenberger
 Bif
Naked
Superbeautifulmonster
(Bodog Music)
Holyfuckingshit. This is terrible stuff. What gives? Taking
her shot at American markets with cheap pop-rock that evokes
images of the famished, tattooed Canadian writhing in lingerie
on a mattress in some abandoned warehouse through a softened
lens, Bif Naked has made an album that comes off like the
remnants of Dallas Austin’s cutting-room floor after a painful
sake binge. And speaking of Austin, there is unmistakable
Gwen Stefani idolatry going on here, but supposedly Naked
writes her own songs—a heartbreaking and misguided anomaly
if there ever was one. Tattoos and pouty, Teri Weigel-style
posing does not a good rocker make. Besides, the only other
Biff I know is the great and wise Peter “Biff” Byford of Saxon
fame and he’s almost better looking. Want a true iron maiden?
Try Karyn Crisis. Try Candace Kucsulain. Texas Terri Bomb,
Roxy Saint, heck, even Juliette Lewis has more spark than
this poor lass, even after three full-length releases!
Unconvincing,
clichéd, and devoid of any real monster hooks, this syrupy
sugar sham needs something more to elicit even a faint wisp
of consideration. Even her most formula-driven anthems fail
to give off any real spark. Case in point: I can listen to
the entire CD while reading De Saussure’s Course in General
Linguistics. Not that I understand a word of it, but my
point is that I can actually read it without distraction.
Bad music must distract; if not it has no purpose. And as
if it couldn’t get any worse, Naked tackles Metallica’s “Nothing
Else Matters,” as if the song hadn’t been covered in perpetuity
by no less than, oh, 46 bands in a blatant (and poorly advised)
attempt at airplay. I guess. Now, had she attempted “Trapped
Under Ice,” well, that would be different. But no. Instead,
thinly veiled references to female orgasms (“Yeah, You”) and
flimsy grrrl power anthems like “I Want” abound with little
new insight to these age-old curiosities.
—Bill
Ketzer
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