Post-Punk pick of the week: The Hospitals

I have no idea whether they're still together and it looks like they haven't done anything in a while, but I stumbled onto The Hospitals last week and I've fallen in love. It's some of the thickest noise I've heard in a while that remains, somehow, melodic. It's basically harsh noise with a discernible beat and that's a wonderful boon.

They hail from San Francisco and have a cryptic, almost non-presence on the web but if you can dig up mp3s, please give them a listen. Here's some live stuff.

Divine Providence - Deer Tick

The drunken snarl of Deer Tick's latest is almost worthy of Black Lips status. Growling, nicotine-stained vocals and twanging garage guitars inform the album with a brutal honesty that you just couldn't fake. Add to this the twinkling of an old grand piano and you have pure, main-lined Americana.

"The Bump" carries the same picaresque bad-assery of "Bad Kids" mixed with a dash of "Don't Mess Around with Jim". Much the same for "Clowin' Around" which despite the flip title, talks of sharing a life with the devil.

Grade: A

Misfits - Famous Monsters

In honor of Halloween I'm going to do a review of an album that's by no means new but is certainly close to my heart. While Glen Danzig is indisputably the best front-man for the Misfits, Michael Graves' short-lived custody of the sacred office of Misfits front man wasn't too shabby either.

I remember when this album came out while I was in Middle School and it's proved to be a cool re-imagining of the Misfits sound. There's a far more metal/hard-rock bent to this one as opposed to the punchy punk of the Danzig days but it somehow works really well.

Without "Famous Monsters" there would be no "Saturday Night", a slow crooning rock song that's been adopted enthusiastically as a post-Danzig Misfits classic. Graves sonorous whole notes and beautiful punk melisma show through on songs like, "Scream" which is almost better than "Saturday Night" in my opinion. Other showstoppers include, "Hunting Humans" and "Dust to Dust".

As long as you're not one of those dickheads who will squabble for hours and hours over punk purity and how I'm pissing on the grave of Danzig's Misfits contributions then you owe it to yourself to sit back and put on this fun new chapter in the band's legacy. Critics have trashed this one up and down but there just approaching it with the same shitty attitude Danzig is known for having about nearly everything. It's not even close to their best work but it's a lot better than you'd expect.

Soon I'll review the band's latest, "Devil's Rain".

The Dead Revolt - Vanixer

[FOR POSTPUNKD READERS: If you haven't heard of The Dead Revolt, they are an up and coming local Houston band. Go here to be fans.]

Chugging diligently away, The Dead Revolt have already released their second album and it sounds wiser and more developed. Still working within an aggressive prog rock framework, the music is more focused with less rambling despite the still-impressive track lengths.

"Vanixer" employs a greater number of truly iconic and anthemic licks instead of bowing to the very real prog rock temptation of being pretentious and inconsistent. The noticeably short track (well for this band, anyway) "Indigo Fashion Show" is prime example of economic repetition and thematic riffing.

Another shining example of this is the delightfully Steve How-ian solo about four minutes into "Day of the Dead". The drumming is very Yes as well. It's nice to hear the neo-classical prog-rock sound is still prevasive throughout their second album as well. For more of that counterpointalism, listen to the intro of "Chili the Kid".

This is the best possible sign of progress from a band that shouldn't feel the need to impress anyone.

Grade: A-

Saxobeats - Alexandra Stan

I was pretty surprised when I saw that euro-dance sensation Alexndra Stan had actually gone through the effort of putting out a bonafide LP. Most of these kinds of artists are satisfied with putting out one or two singles and spending the rest of their days racking up producer and collaborator credits. However, I'm not surprised at the quality of the album.

The bubblegum sound would probably be thrilling to people not steeped too heavily in the wide world of electronic actually out there but for me it's just more club kitsch. At times the sounding is endearingly sweet and naive in a cute way but the unrelenting sax loops and vapid lyrics eventually take their toll. It's really all a bad stereotype of parochial, behind the times, Eastern-European dance music. It makes me want to exclaim in a terrible Romanian accent, "In Soviet Russia, sax beats you!"

Instead of "Saxobeats" this album would be more aptly titled as "Sax-o-craps". Blech. At least Stan's beautiful face makes for an enticing album cover.

Grade: not my sort of electronic music, so I'll give Ms. Stan an incomplete

M83 - Hurry up, We're dreaming

While lacking the concise hits of "Saturdays=Youth", M83's new album succeeds because it is so thoroughly listenable is its own musical universe. There aren't any real standouts on this LP because it is so album-oriented in nature. That should be apparent even just from the impressive two-disc length.

Previously, "Kim and Jessie" signalled, at least for a minute, a move toward a more concrete song structure when compared to the indefinite and boundary-less songs of past albums. Much the same for the long-winded but slightly pop-rock structured "Skin of the Night".

However, for M83 the pendulum has swung back toward pure electronic and kraut-rock psychedelia, like on "Shades" only a bit louder. Echoing and pulsing with brightness, "Intro" sets the tone for the entire album, introducing washed out lyrics, celestial synth pads, and a lack of definite refrain. The far happier mood works out to be very Sigur Ros. See the quiet, "Wait". "Splendor" is by far the most distinct and beautiful, boasting choral arrangements and strings.

The most accessible numbers in a non-album setting are the highly promoted, "Midnight City" single and "Steve McQueen". As for the rest, don't rush it. Listen to the entire thing.

Grade: B+

Justice - Audio, Video, Disco

Justice's latest release is by no means Cross pt. II. That should have been clear when the surprisingly eclectic single "Audio, Video, Disco" was released a few weeks ago. Although there certainly was a part of me that hoped naively that their sophomore LP would be chock full of immediately accessible goodies like "Let there be Light" or "DVNO". The truth is, resoundingly, that this is not the case.

Cross boasted songs that you could easily slip into a DJ's playlist at any club without a drop off in dance potential. AVD instead allows the duo to showcase their experimental abilities instead of just introducing more stuff that's instantly gratifying. "On'n'On" starts off at a crawling pace, featuring a full set of lyrics that develop over the course of the song in a very rock fashion as opposed to the repetition of bite sized house phrases.

The neo-classical disco theme is still very prevalent on the album with dramatic key shifts and much pomp as on "Canon (primo)" which is the theme for "Canon". "Brianvision" is heavy on these loved Justice tropes as well but with far more guitar than most are used to hearing. "New Lands" also brings a lot of guitar distortion and bombastic rock style to the record and a hard-rock coda that could have been played by Tony Iommi.

Fairweather fans will not be as entranced as with "Cross" but the songs "Audio, Video, Disco", "Civilization" and "Helix" excel at capturing at least some of the same house mastery the duo is best known for. For the most part, the noodling and experimentation succeeds in showing the Justice is capable of evolving and trying new concepts.