New Music Reviews: Panda Bear-Tomboy, Fleet Foxes-Helplessness Blues

So the new Panda Bear album "Tomboy" has been out for a few weeks now and the singles that led up to the official release of the album date go back as far as last July when the first single "Tomboy b/w Slow Motion" was released. If you count the other singles "You Can Count On Me" and "Last Night At The Jetty" along with the b-sides, well, you've already heard over half of the material before the album's release. From a promotional standpoint, it should make the listener pretty comfortable and familiar with the album even if a few of the songs undergo different mixes on the full length album (It works great with the sonic booms on "Slow Motion"). Or it could make the listener wish Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear just released the whole affair at one time since some may feel shortchanged with an album full of things already available. I'm in the ball park where I just wanted to take my time and review the album the same week as the animated Kung Fu Panda hits theaters.

After a month of digesting, a couple things hit me about "Tomboy". The best moments show Lennox's craft as chillwave spokesman, a moniker bestowed on him after his fantastically dreamy 2007 solo debut "Person
Pitch", at his finest form. Lead off "You Can Count On Me" is as pretty and intoxicating as anything from his debut. Those adjectives could be inserted into the equally lovely "Surfer's Hymn" and shimmering "Scheherazade". And if Lennox isn't coyly throwing you into his hypnotic lullaby trance with these slower numbers, he's hypnotizing you with faster and more aggressive numbers such as the great guitar line running through the self titled track or the highly addictive ryhtym of standout "Last Night At The Jetty". "Jetty" is like a disco party happening for completely stoned aliens who can't find the exit....and you want to hang out to see what happens next.

The best of best moments to these ears is the last two and a half minutes of "Afterburner" a song which has Lennox sounding like his singing into a fan at high speed, cleverly linking each lyric with the lyric before and after ("Trying to keep up/One Slip Up/Up on our way") before spilling into a coda that leaves you spiraling into a hypnotic daze as you feel like you're driving down a highway with no end in sight. Ah, this is the same feeling that "Person Pitch" left me feeling. And that could be why, as a whole, "Tomboy" falls a bit short of that debut. I enjoyed getting lost in a big wall of walloping never ending suites like "Bros" and "Carrots". It was like being in a huge room where you could bounce around for hours on end and get totally immersed in the sound scape. "Tomboy" is essentially a (wait for it) pop album not just in song lengths but in song structure. And that's not a knock, it just might not be what you're looking for or expecting. It could be the most polarizing factor for fans. Do you want long suites of sound? Or do you want things tidied up a bit? I kind of like them both but prefer the former in Panda Bear's case.

"Tomboy" is an album I'd recommend but I wouldn't say is essential. It's an album I can find enjoyable on many levels but I can't say is a favorite like I could with "Person Pitch". While indie music becomes more of an unstoppable force in mainstream music, you can't help but feel that "Tomboy" may be the guiding light to the best of both worlds without losing any charisma or style points, and that is enough for it to be on this side of just revolutionary. A pop album masquerading as the latest experiment in Lennox's solid discography. It's just not gonna be in the same stratosphere as Animal Collective's "Merriweather Post Pavillion" or "Person Pitch" as my favorite Animal Collective affiliated efforts.

Grade: B+

JHO Picks:
You Can't Count On Me
Last Night At The Jetty
Slow Motion
Afterburner






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I usually try not to sneak a peak at album reviews before I actually hear the album. I loved the Fleet Foxes 2008 debut and after a full listen of their sophomore "Helplessness Blues" on NPR a couple weeks before the release, I had to take a quick glimpse at what some critics were saying because I thought it just sounded fantastic. And it seemed universally loved on Metacritic except for a well written poor review from the UK's infamous NME who pretty much feels that Fleet Foxes music is "canoeing music". Their argument is hilarious and there must be some feud between the publication and the band. So here's what I've done. I looked deep into my soul and have found something I truly have always probably known. I like canoeing music. As a matter of fact...I love canoeing music. So I guess I'm cursed with adoring something so richly put together as "Helplessness Blues". It's a curse I can live with.

Straight to the point, "Helplessness Blues" picks up where Fleet Foxes debut left off. The harmonies and Appalachian wonderland of pitch perfect folk music is still all in tact. When I heard front man Robin Pecknold had writer's block and that the band ended up scrapping recording session I was worried that would mean tragedy, a classic sophomore slump perhaps.  What grabs me immediately is that this isn't the sound of a band trying to make part II to their debut, this is a band firing all guns at once and actually sounding better than the debut. I didn't think that was possible, but after repeated listens how can you not be immersed in rich textures of "Montezuma" or "Grown Ocean", drift off on the gentle instrumental "The Cascades" or see how Pecknold and mates out harmonize previous efforts with the title track. It's relaxing, gentle music for relaxing, gentle people. Most of the time, I tend to fall in to this category.

And if the vocals aren't doused in wonderful reverbed harmony enough for you, then you'll be amazed at the barrage of instrumentation flying through your ears as the band clearly had the green light to go in an antique shop and pull out whatever they could find. And instead of drowning songs out with the instruments, they are used to pitch point perfection on, say, the violin bit on "Bedouin Dress" or the ever so pretty waltz of "Lorelai". Hell, even by the time the free form sax section shows up near the end of the suite "The Shrine/An Argument" you could care less. Off putting at first, justifiable the next time around. Fleet Foxes are using everything in their musical cannon without overkill. A fine line they walk successfully.

And has even grown as a lyricist as well. He sounds like someone who is growing up and looking back at his youth with wide eyed awe shucks. On the title track he muses "I'd say I'd rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery, sowing something behind me" as he looks to the future with lessons learned from the past. His themes of rejection on "Battery Kinzie" ("I woke up a dying man without a chance") or redemption on "Grown Ocean" (In that dream I could hardly contain it/All my life I will wait to attain it") come off as a well worn veteran of life, a Springsteen for the soft spoken. And of course, there a lot of references to apples and orchards (Three more than canoeing or streams by my count).

Yeah, I'm pretty much enjoying this Fleet Foxes album tremendously at the moment. It's pushing the whole folk scene into the spotlight like nothing has in a very long time. But watching Pecknold and company go about it, just adding more rich flavor to there already vivid, pastoral sound, is where the real joy is taking place. Just put "Helplessness Blues" on this summer to prepare you for the harvest this autumn, where you can know it by heart as you look at the rustic sunsets and leaves falling slowly from the trees. It's a great soundtrack for anytime, but I'm pictuing October as the perfect moment to listen. A glorious treat from top to bottom.


Grade: A

JHO Picks:
Montezuma
Bedouin Dress
Helplessness Blues
Grown Ocean

Source: http://www.jhostation.com/2011/05/new-music-reviews-panda-bear-tomboy.html

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