Date: April 10, 2011

City: Toronto, ON

Venue: The Opera House

Rating: 4.5/5

Never in my concert attending history have I ever witnessed a show containing such joyful exuberance as the one I witnessed Sunday night. Bouncing and gyrating around as if they were children in the midst of a sugar rush, The Go! Team energetically blasted through seventeen songs with dynamic and sonic precision. For a band that was meant to be jet lagged (this was the first stop on their North American Tour), it wasn’t readily apparent.

It was definitely a much needed boost to an evening that was, at first, bordering on audience indifference. Prior to the band’s arrival, the crowd appeared to be a restless bunch. Not really buying into what the opening acts were selling, the spectators were simply listless observers for the first little bit. But that all changed when Team took the stage. With a whirlwind of ferocious velocity, the band opened up with the highly energetic “T.O.R.N.A.D.O.”, and immediately won the crowd over.

Playing nine songs off their latest record, the band also performed such past hits as “Huddle Formation”, “Flashlight Fight” and “The Power is On” (perhaps the best sounding song of the evening) which further adjusted the crowd’s demeanours. When they proceeded to introduce the older songs, the audience cried out with jubilant enthusiasm, and proceeded to dance with passionate delight.

Possibly adding to their excitement was an environment that contained unlimited musical instrumentation.  The Opera House is not a large venue by any means, but the stage still contained two side-by-side drum sets, numerous styles of guitars (including a banjo), a xylophone, a keyboard, a Jamaican steel drum, and even a typewriter that was put to interesting use.

By exhibiting their musical creativity, the sextet made it apparent that they were committed to entertaining by any means necessary. In fact, the moments in between songs were as interesting as the songs themselves. During some of the interludes, the band would have to alter their physical positioning onstage with other members and change up their instruments to best fit their particular musical abilities. For instance, guitarist Sam Dook would deviate his time between bass, banjo, drums and tambourine, while keyboardist Kaori Tsuchida would transition from vocals to tambourine to bass and electric guitar. It was actually quite intriguing to watch them manoeuvre amongst the stage and around one another as if it were a game of touch football.

Without slighting any of the other members (they were all passionate performers), the true attention grabber of the night was definitely lead vocalist Ninja. Flavoured with a raw musical talent that radiated power, sexiness and charisma, her very presence on stage hypnotically transcended the audience. Though, whether she was performing scissor kicks, jumping jacks or skipping over the wire of her microphone (she executed all of these feats during the show), she was always mindful never to overshadow the rest of the band. Her performance was an exhilarating centre-piece but it was always in keeping with what was important for the show. This is the true mark of a lead singer.

As impressed as I always have been with The Go! Team’s albums, their live performance far exceeded my expectations, and allowed me to appreciate them on an entirely new level.

Album: Shirts vs. Skins

Label: File Under: Music

Rating: 3.5/5

Graham Wright’s Shirts vs. Skins is power-pop at its most casual. Driven by an effortless, free-flowing vibe, Wright’s debut LP (In 2008, he released his first EP entitled The Lakes of Alberta) is a curiosity-piece reveling in simplistic bliss.

As is the case with most side projects (Wright is the keyboardist in Tokyo Police Club), the sound and style differ greatly from the indie rock aesthetics of TPC. Here, Wright embraces a quirkiness buoyed by (adolescent) self-reflective lyricism and folk-infused poppiness.

Bordering a very thin line between annoyance and intrigue, Shirts vs. Skins focuses on sweet, sugary ensconced mini-ballads that proudly embrace a dopey, yet endearing, sentimentality (No better exemplified than on “Keys to the Kingdom”).

“Heavens Just For Moviemakers” and “Soviet Race” are jovially eccentric tracks that rely heavily on catchy pop hooks that are shameless in their ability to superficially satisfy.

But superficiality has its limits, and though most of the tracks are light-hearted, honest and momentarily gratifying, its candy-coated structure tends to wear off quite quickly.

In the end, Shirts vs. Skins is ultimately undone by a lack of meaningful substance. Though it is grounded by a sincere innocence, it’s nonetheless an album that is undermined by sophomoric pop expressions of the heart.

Album: The Head and the Heart

Label: Sub Pop

Rating: 3.5/5

It was bound to happen. What with all of the recent mainstream success of folk-rock acts like Fleet Foxes and Mumford and Sons, it was only a matter of time before other similar sounding groups began to emerge from musical obscurity. Enter Seattle, Washington’s The Head and the Heart, an indie-folk rock band with a pop and country twist.

Originally released independently in 2010, the re-released self-titled LP follows the folk blueprint to a tee. But that’s not to say that it isn’t brimming with quaint, heartfelt tranquility.

In fact, The Head and the Heart’s debut album is actually quite enjoyable. Though it’s not overly challenging, the LP is quirky and endearing.

Buoyed by a simplistic minimalism, the album invokes contrarian themes of loneliness and connection. Sharing vocal duties, Jon Russell and Josiah Johnson communicate an innocence sparked by tenderness but punctuated with fragility. There is unease at the heart of this album, and the LP’s sorrowful nature is consistently at odds with the optimism striving to endure.

“Ghosts” is bouncy and spirited with a Ben Folds Five vibe, while “Down in the Valley” transitions from a weeping, melancholic ballad into an exuberant exploration of hope.

Sadly, the primary drawback of the LP really has nothing to do with the album itself. Instead, it seems to have more to do with folk music’s recent mainstream oversaturation. Jeopardizing originality and talent, this issue always tends to undermine honest intentions by bands like The Head and the Heart in their struggle to achieve success through sheer perseverance.

Album: Suck It and See

Label: Domino

Rating: 4/5

It’s never an easy undertaking to predict the sonic structure of an Arctic Monkey’s album. Their first two LP’s, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not and Favourite Worst Nightmare, were hyper-frenetic garage rock anthems while their third album, Humbug, was largely inspired by producer Josh Homme’s (of Queens of the Stone Age fame) fondness for classic rock with a psychedelic twist. Suck It and See is yet another reinvention that heavily embraces vintage rock of the 1950s and 60s.

In all honesty, it did take a few listens of Suck It and See to fully comprehend the denseness of its body. Seductively ensnaring, the music slowly and methodically glides upon you with mesmerizing serpentine prowess.

“Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair” is dark and foreboding with a dizzying array of dense guitar soundscapes and hypnotically dour bass lines. While “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala” and “Piledriver Waltz” revel in the unpredictability that has come to define the recent musical landscape of the Monkeys.

Easily one of the most intriguing lyricists in modern music, lead singer Alex Turner incorporates wordplay with an almost Dylan-esque sensibility. Full of bewildering imagery that borders on the fantastical and enigmatic (“Jigsaw women with horror movie shoes/ Be cruel to me cos I’m a fool for you”), Turner’s talent for colorful and playful explorations of vocabulary is at its finest and most puzzling during Suck It and See’s duration.

Though the sound of the Monkey’s continues to deviate from its original blueprint, the thematic structure of the band’s art remains largely consistent with previous releases. From the very first album, Alex Turner has brazenly identified himself as a volatile outsider, and with a Jarvis Cocker sort of swagger, Suck It and See once again delivers a funky romanticism peppered with antagonistic richness.

It’s nothing short of bizarre to witness the continual evolution of the Sheffield, England quartet. With simply four albums, the Arctic Monkeys have adamantly refused generic limitations. While some of their fan base may be diminishing as a result, their artistic diversity continues to expand with notable results.

Album: Destroyed

Label: Little Idiot

Rating: 3.5/5

Populated by desolate and dour soundscapes, Moby’s Destroyed eerily captures the essence of emptiness. Basking in haunting structural tones and textures, his tenth LP obsessively consumes itself with the re-creation of the fantastical elements of sleep deprivation. In fact, the electronica mastermind defines his latest release as “a soundtrack for empty cities at 2 a.m.”.

Suffering from bouts of insomnia during the configuration of this album, Moby’s latest release is definitely a curiosity piece; far from perfect, but hardly a write-off.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed his career that Moby prides himself on the seductive manipulation of sound. Embracing a seemingly limitless musical structure, Destroyed expresses a dense abundance of sonic diversity.

Whether it’s the hazy dreamscapes of “The Low Hum”, the Shoegazing-inspired “Lie Down in Darkness”, or the hallucinatory stillness of “Rockets”, Moby invokes a rich and enticing ambience throughout. Even when a few of the tracks border on tedious banality, there always emerges something intriguing hidden amongst the layers of depth.

Destroyed is exactly what you would expect from an insomniac at 2 a.m. (jittery/anxious creativity), and for this reason will more than likely turn people away. It’s definitely experimental, but then again most of Moby’s artistic output tends to be. Suffice to say, it’s intriguing but perhaps it’s too soon to judge if it’s truly memorable.