More album reviews

Published 12:00 am Friday, January 22, 2016

Chairlift

“MOTH”

Columbia Records

The mile-high atmosphere of Boulder, Colorado, has added just the right amount of rarefied air and icy bite to everything Chairlift has done. Imagine Bjork in her pop prime fronting the oblong, synth-skronky Boards of Canada without either’s usual elliptical lyricism, and there’s choppy contralto Chairlift singer Caroline Polachek and her small, chilly unit.

What makes “Moth” different from its two chattering predecessors is its molten-hot thawing of Chairlift’s cold calculation with gently swaying melodies and an overall brassiness. It may be a synthetic trumpet’s toot that gives “Romeo” its horny syncopation, or the slow skanking “Ch-Ching” its ska-reggae slinkiness. Every element is geared toward warming up their sound.

In particular, on the clicking “Crying in Public,” the foot-stomping “Show U Off,” and the flickering “Moth to the Flame,” Polachek sings as if she’s ready for a kiss on the lips rather than a kick in the shins.

On occasion, “Moth’s” smooth, warm tones and easygoing melodies (e.g. the aforementioned “Crying” and its flowing “I’m falling for you, I’m falling for you” refrain) give Chairlift the feel of telephone hold music. At least it’s a call you’ll take.

— A.D. Amorosi,

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Savages

“ADORE LIFE”

Matador Records

Savages arrived in 2013 pointing fingers and blasting guitars, its discontents compressed into four-minute blasts of music notably short on frills. Its caustic debut, “Silence Yourself,” even came with its own manifesto on the album cover.

Onstage, the band was even better: a virtuoso rhythm section (drummer Fay Milton, bassist Ayse Hassan) that reveled in dynamic mood swings, a guitarist (Gemma Thompson) who toggled between extremes in the space of a few bars, a vocalist (Jehnny Beth) who suggested she was punching her way out of a corner.

On the follow-up, “Adore Life”, the fight in this band is still audible. But there’s something else too — desire, cutting humor, vulnerability. It turns out behind the dissonant confrontations of “Silence Yourself,” there’s also a desire for connection.

Not that Savages has gone soft. It mines the post-punk tradition and yet approaches its instruments with a sense of delight and discovery.

Thompson carves out single-note lines and bold riffs, but just as frequently turns her guitar into a sound machine, nuanced in the way she plays the buzz in her strings or modulates the overtones in the feedback she stirs. Hassan’s bass is often foregrounded in the mix, the lead instrument on several songs, as it balances forward momentum and melody. And though she can be a ferocious percussionist, Milton just as often brings an orchestral feel to her drumming, playing parts that become hooks.

“The Answer” opens with wave upon wave of Thompson’s guitar, and then Milton and Hassan jump in and the wave becomes a 25-footer crashing against the rocks. “If you don’t love me, don’t love anybody,” Beth sings. Is this desire? A threat? The answers are inconclusive, and that ambiguity makes that mighty wave seem more threatening with each pass. Thompson tries to apply the brakes a couple of times, and the amplifiers screech to a halt, only to come back to life, the unkillable guitar.

Love is the big subject, and it’s sacred, profane, messy, glorious. On “Evil,” Beth gets frisky, warding off the unnamed “they” trying to destroy her companion. Beth as superhero plays out over Hassan’s irresistible disco bass line. A scream shatters the eroticism suggested by “Slowing Down the World.” In “I Need Something New,” the impatient narrator trash-talks a boring sexual interlude. “All the words coming out of your mouth are something that I’ve heard before,” Beth rasps before the band pounces.

Beth makes a virtue of repeating phrases until delirious, as if by saying something often enough, it can be made real. That’s usually a bit terrifying, but on “Adore,” it’s like the sun breaking through a storm front. The song serves as the album’s centerpiece, a contemplative bookend to the accusatory tone that dominated “Silence Yourself.”

“Is it human to adore life?” Beth asks on “Adore,” and then transforms the question into an ecstatic affirmation. “I adore life,” she sings, riding atop another one of those 25-foot waves conjured by her band, a band that has now made two excellent yet very different albums.

— Greg Kot,

Chicago Tribune

Daughter

“NOT TO DISAPPEAR”

Glassnote Records

The first EPs and the 2012 debut album, “If You Leave,” from London trio Daughter were hushed, mainly acoustic affairs tinged with melancholy atmospherics and restrained tension. “Not to Disappear” is bigger and bolder and, at times, more embittered.

Elena Tonra sings in a beautifully introspective, clear-toned alto, and the album still has moments of calm, such as “Made of Stone.” But “Fossa” and “Mothers” build to emphatic climaxes worthy of Florence & the Machine. There’s an anger and aggression in the ominous “Alone / With You” and the skittery “No Care” that dispel any sense of placid acceptance.

Best of all are forceful, reverb-drenched tracks such as the fabulous “How,” which, with Igor Haefeli’s shimmering electric guitar and Remi Aguilella’s cymbal-crashing percussion, sounds like Sigur Ros gone pop. These are songs meant to fill a big room.

ON TOUR: March 20, 2016 — Wonder Ballroom, Portland (SOLD OUT); www.ticketfly.com.

— Steve Klinge,

The Philadelphia Inquirer