New Music: Born Ruffians, Coach Fingers, Annuals, The Curtains

Born Ruffians - Hedonistic Me - Born Ruffians (WARP 2006)


Born Ruffians – Born Ruffians EP / WARP

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit. The last indie-rock EP I heard with this amount of youthful exuberance, creative intensity and limitless potential was Bloc Party’s self-titled EP, and we all know what’s happened to them. That vibe you get when you’re absolutely sure that you are listening to the next big thing is almost visibly spewing from the Born Ruffians’ 6-song self-titled debut (the eerie parallel to B.P. is ridiculous). Stylistically the Ontario trio plays a completely infectious brand of loose, jaunty indie-rock, as if The Libertines were influenced by angular art-punk rather than pub rock. Front man Luke Lalonde sounds like the long lost son of Frank Black Francis and sings with the energy of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Alec Ounsworth while bassist Mitch DeRosier and drummer Steve Hamelin yelp background vocals that would make Isaac Brock swell with pride. The music is attacked with an angular pop approach keeping things minimal but never lacking with unexpected turns at every corner. Though only six songs long, this EP is surprisingly sufficient leaving you wanting more but satisfied with just playing it over and over again. With the backing of WARP, the young lads of Born Ruffians are in for a very busy immediate future of touring, press and warranted hype.




Coach Fingers - A Pine Bush Fantasy - With Friends and Family (Locust 2006)


Coach Fingers – With Friends and Family / Locust

Jason Meagher sounds like a man possessed. It sounds as if all of the great spirits of 60s/70s Southern Rock are battling their way to the forefront of the main Coach’s music, but none seem to really take priority over the other so styles wish and wash in and out of a song almost as if Meagher can’t control it. And while the Southern tag does define the rural, bearded swagger of Coach Fingers’ sound, the influences range much wider, especially into the realms of psychedelic rock and backwoods blues. In just one song, you can hear John Fogerty jamming with Ray Manzarek (keyboardist from The Doors) while Zappa arranges, The Free Design adds a touch of color and Pink Floyd hints on their studio trickery. With a more contemporary frame of mind, I routinely hear the kind of sound Man Man would embrace but without their unyielding instinct to skew unrelentingly, or All Night Radio brought up on blues rather than hippie hoopla. Any way you define it, Meagher, and a couple of his fellow members from the No Neck Blues Band, have created a thoroughly enjoyable, challenging and unpredictable album that stays humble in its lo-fi production and does an amazing job of embracing its influences without straight copping them.




Annuals - Complete or Completing - Be He Me (Ace Fu 2006)


Annuals – Be He Me / Ace Fu

So the hype has been trickling in on North Carolina’s Annuals for a couple of months now: a couple promising demos here, a couple kind words there, and the absolute kicker, some positive anticipation from Pitchfork, “like some fantasy hybrid of Animal Collective, the Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene…” nice. And ridiculously, it’s not a bad assessment. Not one member of the Raleigh band of merry men (and one lady) are older than 22 years of age, but their eclectic blend of indie-folk is anything but immature musically. The songs are extremely unpredictable with stylistic shifts that would make Mike Patton proud but always remaining true to their rural folk roots, hence the Animal Collective comparison. Per Arcade Fire, they go abouts composing music with lush instrumentation but remaining tactfully lo-fi and with an underlying epic urgency. And finally, for better or worse, it’s a collective outing like BSS, all members contribute, play a variety of instruments and are just waiting for their solo break. I want to say this is all potential, but the young’uns seem to be delivering already. Be He Me is wonderfully eclectic, masterfully performed and posed to dominate the indie world.




The Curtains - Green Water - Calamity (Asthmatic Kitty 2006)


The Curtains – Calamity / Asthmatic Kitty

There are some people who like their pop music to prance gently at a humbled speed, some who like it to bounce and smile and cheer to no end, and then there are some who like it stumble drunkenly in a woozy, care-free skip with a don’t-give-a-shit grin and an ominous hiccup. The Curtains are the latter group’s new favorite band. The brainchild of Deerhoof and Natural Dreamers member Chris Cohen along with help of his close friends, including John Ringhofer aka Half-Handed Cloud, former Mae-Shi drummer Corey Fogel and Kill Rock Stars Nedelle Torrisi, The Curtains play a brand of loopy pop rock that is eccentric without being pretentious. Drawing from familiar 60s psychedelic pop riffs, art-punk and even occasional prog-like moments, Cohen keeps it wonderfully unpredictable and unsuspecting throughout an entire album that sounds innocent without being ignorant. I don’t think everyone will believe they ‘get this,’ and I’m not completely sure I do, but I’m thinking that’s because there is nothing to get. Calamity may just simply be 13 odd pop tunes that could no longer be restrained in the colorful imagination of Chris Cohen.