Apollo Ghosts - Mount Benson (2010)

This is one weird and amazing album. Apollo Ghosts may not be classified as a punk album, but it has all of the elements - the singalong vocals, the youthful energy, the noisy breakdowns - that become teenage angst anthems. However, what makes Apollo Ghosts so great to listen to is that it's quite evident that they're having a lot of fun.

This is thirteen songs in twenty-six minutes of pure, unabashed joy; a band sounding like the Ramones one minute, Pavement or the Minutement another, and then switching to some 90s grunge before putting an acoustic ballad in there. Before you know it, the entire album is over, and you've crossed several musical genres in very little time.

What I think is nicest about this album is that it goes by so quickly that you feel like it hasn't overstayed its welcome. Despite being a three-piece outfit, I can see future growth as musicians and potential for even more greatness. As long as they keep up the fun levels, they shouldn't have difficulty crafting another gem like this.

Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring (1986)

The Colour of Spring is not Laughing Stock, and never will be. I know that as much as anyone else, and still, I find it to be a beautiful, compelling record that stands up to its two follow-ups.

The story, in brief: Talk Talk scored a few new-wave hits in the early/mid 80s, including the thanks-to-No-Doubt ubiquitous It's My Life. They grew as a band and came out with this album, The Colour of Spring, which was highly regarded and quite successful in the UK. Next came Spirit of Eden, which was even more experimental, less commercially successful, but highly regarded. In 1991, they put out Laughing Stock, which barely resembled anything of their early days, taking an experimental/avant-garde approach to modern music; it is widely regarded as an all time classic. Then they broke up.

These three albums are often lumped in with one another, in part because they so fascinatingly show the band's growth as songwriters and composers, most notably leader Mark Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene. I love each of the three differently, the same way some may have a preference for a single Nick Drake album, or argue between the trilogy of Big Star albums (let's all forget that reunion one a few years ago). In some ways, the It's My Life Talk Talk died the second this album came out, pronouncing a bold new artist willing to take risks and create beautiful new music. Laughing Stock is the least accessible by far, but definitely the most rewarding. Spirit of Eden is the perfect mix of the poppier, catchier side, mixed in with some essentially post-rock and experimental elements, long before that was a thing. The Colour of Spring is a pop album, but a lush and well-crafted one at that.

Given the universal acclaim and fawning over Laughing Stock, and even a general high regard for Spirit of Eden, The Colour of Spring very frequently gets neglected when discussing Talk Talk. Unlike their earlier work, which seemed to revolve around singles, The Colour of Spring is a cohesive, intricate, and complex album that is intended to be taken in as such. Some of the tracks, especially I Don't Believe In You, stand out with immediately catchy melodies and dark gothic tones, but they fit comfortably within the songs around them. Much like subsequent albums, the band favours fewer but longer songs to what has become the common twelve three-minute track long player. The Colour of Spring features eight tracks in roughly 45 minutes, which gives each song time to develop and become fleshed out. The next two albums feature similar album lengths and six tracks, further focusing on the development of tone and sound within each song.

The Colour of Spring will never top anyone's best of the 1980s list, and more than anything, will be forgotten in favour of the two albums that would follow, but there's no reason, in my opinion, that it can't be mentioned in the same breath. As far as music from the 1980s, it is as lush, complex, and beautiful as anything put out in that decade, including the band's later fare.

Clem Snide - Your Favorite Music (1999)

Eef Barzelay might be the coolest name in late 90s indie folk music. As the singer of Clem Snide, he manages to combine slow, mellow, almost understated folk with nasally, slightly laconic vocals, and utterly bizarre lyrics. It's a combination that on paper, doesn't sound very interesting.

I know for a fact that the band has serious detractors. I vividly remember an early encounter with Pitchfork, who, love or hate, have become the most important tastemakers in North American music. Pitchfork gave the album a 2.0 rating, and hated just about everything I really enjoy about it.

Unlike their albums that followed, the tone and pace of this album is slow enough for a crawl, and the music at times sounds like someone asked the band to be quiet so they wouldn't wake the neighbours. That's not to say that they don't pick up the pace for a few songs; the track I Love The Unknown comes after a few quieter and slower tracks, and rocks just enough to reinvigorate the album.

When I think of this album after a little while of not hearing it, I distinctly remember two sections: the first three and last three songs. The first three really set up the slow, folky sound that most of the album follows, but it's the last three, Messiah Complex Blues, a cover of Richie Valens' Donna, and the unlisted secret track The Water Song. Messiah is a straightforward country rock number that apparently the band wrote for Johnny Cash. While Barzelay and Cash's voices couldn't be more different, it's not hard to hear how the latter could make this song his own. Donna slows the original to a crawl, and while not a perfect cover, seems to encapsulate everything this album represents with regard to the band's sound. My favourite track, however, is the Water Song, which features a solo Barzelay and a guitar. It is a raw, imperfect track that has a genuineness that I really love.

Recently the album was rereleased on coloured vinyl, much to my excitement. However, the Water Song was unfortunately left out, and while it may be an added bonus track, I can't help but feel that the album is incomplete without it. Ending on Donna seems like there's no resolution; tonally, Donna fits right in, but thematically, it doesn't connect as well for a cover to end the album. It's almost a cop-out ending, like a movie where you find out it was all a dream.

I tried really hard to enjoy the many Clem Snide albums after this one, but the band seemingly decided the slow, subtle sound doesn't work as well as the faster, more generic folk-rock sound they adopted on subsequent albums. There's something eerily beautiful about Your Favorite Music. While not being entirely different than music of the era and after, there's really not much else quite like it.

Wheat - Per Second, Per Second, Per Second... Every Second (2003)

It shouldn't be hard to see where I took the name for this blog. I wanted to talk about this album first, not because it is one of my all time absolute favourites, but because I feel like it's one of those albums I still go back to, talk about all the time, and often get puzzling looks when I faun about it.

I first heard Wheat's album Hope and Adams some time in high school. It was a moody, emotional, and at times complex orchestral pop album, which probably might have had a broader audience had the Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin not come out the same year. In some ways, Wheat are a lot like late 90s-early 00s Flaming Lips without most of the weirdness.

It took the band four years before Per Second was released; it was put out by Aware Records, which was distributed by Columbia. It was a foray into major label-dom right around the time that digital music sharing completely decimated the record industry. Needless to say, this album got very little publicity. I don't know that Wheat were ever really that popular, but they definitely had a buzz going in the late 1990s.

On the surface, the album sounds extremely polished and very acutely produced, a possible repercussion of the move to a major record label. Hope and Adams had a lo-fi-ness to it that endeared many; it wasn't quite shoegaze, but had a raw quality that I'm sure to some was the Wheat sound. In sticking with the Flaming Lips comparisons, the band picked up Dave Fridmann, producer of the Lips' music from the era. Per Second sounds like a glossy, polished major label record. To some, this is definitely a turn-off. To me, it's natural evolution.

On Per Second, the guitars shimmer, the harmonies sound almost too perfect, and the drums sound crisp and clear. But what works most for the albums is that the songwriting is really strong. Album opener I Met a Girl is propelled by an off-tempo punctuation in the drumbeat. The song, along with many of those that follow, is catchy, well-constructed, and quite instantly memorable. There is a definite predictability in the song structures, but where Wheat are at their best is when the upbeat songs sail along, and the slow moody numbers don't come across as trite.

On the outset, I wouldn't be surprised if this album was mistaken for one by Jimmy Eat World, or the commercial power-pop of the time. To be honest, I don't think this is a bad thing. The album is processed, glossy, and extremely tight. Everything seems intentional, from the brief studio muttering before Go Get the Cops, to the synth swells and many-layered harmonies.

The biggest misstep on this album is the inclusion of the secret track, an overproduced update of Hope and Adams' signature love song, Don't I Hold You. Where on the previous album, the song felt vulnerable and genuine, the new version is far too polished, and loses a lot of its emotional resonance. One of my favourite moments on Hope and Adams happens right at the end of its version of the song, when singer Scott Levesque sings the word hold for the last time, and it sounds like it's almost out of tune. The moment is endearing and realistic; it makes you think that this singer, who has written a beautiful and personal song, is a human, and these are real emotions. The new version misses this point. It seems like a robotic copy, the same way that certain radio pop songs are overproduced.

Sometimes pop, even at its most accessible, can be beautiful and enjoyable. Per Second... is not a perfect record, but it is cohesive, comfortable, and well made. What more could you ask for?

An Appreciation of Underappreciation

I hate when nobody listens to me.

I am a music snob.

I generally dislike Radiohead.

I am quite friendly in general, and know far too much music trivia.

I can usually tell you what year a song or album was released.

I want to write about some albums I like. Some other people might like them too, but I'm guessing they're not on heavy rotation on your iPhone.

So give these a listen. You might just find a gem. Or a lump of something else.