4Play

Aug. 10, 2008

Woodhands - Heart Attack - Paper Bag
The electropop-meets-disco pair of Paul Banwatt and Dan Werb have grooved out of Canada towards the U.S. with their super-energized live shows and pile of ’80s keyboards and other retro-fied gear. Whether its the propulsive and abrupt snappy drums of “Breaking Up” or Werb’s affected, aggressive vocals on the wackily-themed “Dancer,” that’s exactly what Woodhands will do - have you dancing 30 seconds into the very first track. They know how to effectively mix-n-match elements within their synth-disco sound, including instruments as diverse as the Keytar, and more classic, rough-edged drum sounds; which shows they’ve got that dance-floor-balance thing in the bag.


Landon Pigg - Coffee Shop - RCA
Singer-songwriter Pigg first gained recognition via a corny jewelry advertisement that featured his delicate, acoustic-based song “Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop” (you might remember it from the lyric “I think that possibly, maybe I’m falling for you...”), but that’s not all that the musician has to offer. The sometimes-falsetto “Great Companion” offers a similar pensive feel as his first hit (this one with added tambourine) - and, indeed, Pigg does favor the more downtempo songs - but he takes a slightly more unexpected (although not more upbeat) turn with his darker cover of “Young at Heart” and the faintly-Latin-sounding, foreign-language sung “Magnestismo.”


Union Trade - Everyday Including - Tricycle Records
With only a debut EP from 2007 preceding this full-length release, Union Trade’s arena-big guitar and keyboard chords and equally wide-scope melodies are further defined into more concise arrangements as they blend their instrumental skills with a more radio-friendly indie-rock. Union Trade favors distorted guitars for the most part, which sometimes gets a little monotonous as the album moves along from track to track, but texturally, although the songs are similar, it does suit their lyric and melodic style. Highlights include the echoey “Accident Prone,” the grunge-rock-meets-danceable “For the Resilient,” and the cymbal-laden and hovering “Crescent.”


Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst - Merge
Recorded in Mexico with a special assemblage of friends including Nik Freitas, Taylor Hollingsworth, and Nate Walcott, Oberst’s latest is actually his first solo album in thirteen years, as he’s been busy with a host of band projects, from Bright Eyes to the Desaparecidos. Opening with the somewhat sparse “Cape Canaveral,” Oberst moves through a more minimalist tracklisting of songs, from the country-esque “Sausalito” with its more peppy feel to the interestingly-lyric’d, almost-acoustic “Lenders in the Temple,” with its tales of infomercial vendors and late-night product pushers. More quirky than his previous efforts, it’s still a solid set from the singer-songwriter.