The Music Court

Power pop with a hint of punk and an intelligent dose of good humor and tangible fun. That is a very brief description of the real-world pop/punk act While We Are Up. You see, these young musicians just graduated from Arizona State University (where the band was formed). I, therefore, cannot call them a college act any longer. But semantics aside, Zach Booher and Steven Rouk create an eager blend of music that is fun to listen to.

According to the band’s bio, they actually met Sophomore year of school when Rouk locked himself out of his dorm room the first night of resident assistant training. They became quick friends and melded their similar musical influences together. The band blossomed from there.

The band released their first album, Transcontinental, in Spring of 2011, and the 14-track debut features a good variety of music. It is not just pop, but, in a similar manner to The Format features some fast-paced loud tracks and slower, more intimate pieces. The band has been featured on Van’s Warped Tour.

“Hold” is a rather simple track, but it’s simplicity is fresh. Acoustic and vocals carry a Plain White T’s rhythm and I specifically enjoy the pairing of guitars later in the piece. I must also credit Booher and Rouk for the strong harmonies they create as the song builds towards the end. They are also able to carry the vocals through the climax of the piece and it certainly sounds fresh, well mixed, and passionate. The end of the song features an intelligent mix of male and female vocals.

“Someday” is a pure definition of an “up” song. What I mean by “up” is it’s impossible to be in a bad mood after listening to the song and watching the comic-book dance-parade video that plays like a Saturday morning Disney live-action show but in such a genuine and hilarious way that it is almost impossible to not crack a smile at the dance-infused ray guns, buffed up bicycle cop, the random streaker, and the arms-toting duo attempting to spread excitement to a college campus. In a sense, the guitar-swinging duo of Booher and Rouk, who display this ability in the video, are much like the protagonists in the video. Through their music, they have spread enjoyment. The song itself is a hard-hitting pop piece filled to the brim with electric power riffs and an infectious chorus. It is less punk, more pop, and I like that. Great performance by the drummer as well. I can only imagine how fun it was to shoot this video.

You can stream the rest of their album on Youtube. Check out the band’s Website and Facebook.

Louisville rock outfit Seluah’s new release Red Parole is a true testament to sound – echoed, encapsulating, engrossing sound. It is a collection of guitar-laden riffs, minatory vocals, and fuzzy repetition, an ode to dark grunge like “Black Hole Sun” mixed with a tinge of 70s early metal. Do not mistake this music for metal, though, because it is certainly not. It goes without genre classification, but if I had to give it my best try I would say that Seluah takes elements of heavy rock, post-rock, and alternative and forms a concoction that is in some parts caliginous and other parts passionate and intriguing.

Seluah released their first EP all the way back in 2002 which received some positive reviews before the band took a hiatus, returning in 2010 to work on some new music. In March of last year they teamed up with My Morning Jacket engineer Kevin Ratterman to record Red Parole which was released in April of this year. The result, like I said above, focuses a lot on weighty instrumentation, heavy percussion, and drawn-out guitars. The album though does feature some well-timed quiet portions that do emphasize the vocals. This is well portrayed in the first track of the album, “We May Never Make It Home,” an ode to Homer’s Odyssey.

It is easy to get into “We May Never Make it Home” from the start. An echoed guitar riff is paired with a killer rhythm and portentous vocal. It doesn’t take long for guitars to pair on top of guitars and drums on top of drums. Soon the song becomes a wall-of-sound delight drenching listeners in a small taste of more to come later. The harmonized vocal is in narrative form. By narrative, I mean that the vocalists focus on telling the story of the lyric (much like folk artists) concentrating more on the lyrics than making vocal runs and such. At around two minutes the vocals fall off into one of the “quiet” parts I was describing earlier. This surf-guitar is a wonderful touch to the maritime song which pairs well with the album cover. It is deceiving, though, and rather ominous. You just know that eventually the symbolic storm will hit again, and it does skillfully, but not in this song. “We May Never Make It Home” is a great opener, and the overwhelming feeling of impending dread does hang over the album as you listen to it.

“The Other Side of the Gun” starts off with a riff that is sticky like molasses, and the verse flows over the riff easily. At around the three-minute mark the song changes entirely. It speeds up and extraneous sounds creep behind the scene waiting until they can explode with a heavily amplified guitar. The instrumental at the end is refreshing. It features several different guitar stylings that keep listeners on their toes.

“Elysian Fields” is the last track on the album and the last song I want to profile. Elysian means characteristics of heaven and the song does take on lingering cherubic qualities, but even these are gloomy and almost alien. The song repeats the line, “There is no such thing as a beautiful girl with a broken heart” and I’m not sure why the band chose to end the album on several repetitions of this line laid over a rising wave of sound culminating in one last flicker of guitar and static. That is up to you to guess. It is certainly an odd piece and one of my favorites off of the album.

To check out the rest of the album click here and you can also check out their website and Facebook

Before I begin writing this post (too late), I have a brief production note for all of you. If you are just here for Gavin please do skip down past the picture. Over the next week or so I am going to be doing three posts about my trip. The posts will be rich with photography and will certainly be melodic (supposing you are also under the belief that creative diction can be musical). Don’t worry, I will fit some music into the posts. You will see. We will start with London. Also, I am seeing the Beach Boys on Sunday. A review will certainly come of that! Now on to Mr. Stewart.

Folk music is diverse. This is not the first time I have written that and it will certainly not be the last time. That is one reason why I love the genre. It never gets old. The transformation of acoustic-driven songwriting has been molded into creative geometric shapes over time. This morphing is always done by musicians who are not afraid to change conventions. Do you see where I am going with this? Gavin Stewart is one of these musicians and his new full-length album Seep Through demonstrates a wide variety of indie-inspired tunes that shake the folk tree.

Stewart is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, choreographer and dancer from Tulsa, OK, who fell in love with music at five and never turned back from there. The album began as a solo project, but after meeting producer Drew Mantia in Kansas City a collaboration was formed that resulted in this album.

The album is full with inventive progressions and clever arrangements. Each track is concentrated and different, and the album avoids falling into the trap of monotony. Stewart’s voice does carry most songs; a strong croon like that of Justin Nozuka with a little more grit.

Let’s listen to a few tracks.

I start with “What We’ve Lost” which features a duo with the quirky and passionate Haley Day. It is an exposed piece, quiet and vulnerable, and I particularly like the call and response twist in the verses. The piano riff stays dominant, but does give way to some ambient background noises that create an even more individual experience for the listener. It is deep and very listenable.

As you can immediately hear from the first note, “Golden Silence” is completely different. A disjointed piano and echoed electric guitar is set to the background of a washy tape delay. The song does take shape and how interesting. It is in the form of a polka. The song certainly moves and it does so in an oddly uncomfortable manner, but I say this in a good way. It evokes a similar feeling in the listener that I believe was intentional.

“Iron Wings” is more convention in the sense that it features a quiet Stewart in front of an acoustic guitar. But this song does have this wonderful choral arrangement that adds excellent harmony. Well done, indeed.

Check out the rest of the album by clicking here