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Compare and Contrast: Born Ruffian's Birthmarks

This week Tori and I reviewed Born Ruffians newest release Birth Birks. 
Tori's Review
First, let me say that I initially fell in love with Born Ruffians for their spontaneous and unpredictable, upbeat and incredibly catchy rock and roll. (Side note: I just learned this great new term, "herky-jerky" and it's actually in the dictionary and it describes their music perrrrfectly). I will always love their album, Red, Yellow & Blue more than any of their others.

That being said, I really, really like their new album, Birthmarks. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. I may even eventually love it. But, I do feel that a lot of the herky-jerky was lost in this album. There's a vague familiarity to the style they're adopting. There are brief moments in this album when I feel like I'm listening to some one else. Songs like "6-5000" and "Cold Pop" I find reminiscent of Vampire Weekend and songs "Permanent Hesitation" remind me a little of Passion Pit. There's also a little Tame Impala mixed in there at moments.

This album is much more well thought out than the Ruffian's previous albums. It's definitely more musically, lyrically and thematically mature. (But is mature always better?) As the album progresses, more and more sounds not found in their previous albums started to slide in. Once you hit "Golden Promises" you might have to double check to make sure you're still listening to Born Ruffians. My favorite track on this album might have to be "Dancing On the Edge of Our Graves." While it is really different than "I Need a Life" off their second studio record, Red, Yellow & Blue (my all time favorite song of theirs), the bridge in it is killer. Gets me every time.

Side note: I saw them live a couple weeks ago. Amazing. I may venture to put them on the top 5 best shows I've ever seen. Seriously.


Zach's Review
Before listening to this album, my only exposure to Born Ruffians was a song called "Barnacle Goose", which I still really like. For some reason I never listened to any of the other songs on the album. I'm not sure why, because if I were to judge them by that one song, you would think they would be one of my favorite bands. I listened to it all the time. I think I even put in on mixes for some of my friends.

Fast forward six years and Born Ruffians have put out two more albums since then. Their latest, released this year, is called Birthmarks. The more I listen to this album the more I find that I like it. On the first song, "Needle", B.R. channel their inner Animal Collective. The vocals sound just like Avey Tare. It's also the strongest track on the album. I've found myself going back to this song all week.

The rest of the album is, simply stated, a very good pop album. It reminds me a lot of The Spinto Band's album also released this year, Cool Cocoon. It's not mind blowing but it's a solid album that I would definitely recommend and continue to come back to.

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Compare and Contrast: The Thermals' Desperate Ground


Tori and I are trying something new on the Wires and Waves blog. It’s a weekly post called, Compare and Contrast. As long as I've known Tori, I loved to discuss music with her. She’s one of those people that it’s fun to disagree with because she’s as passionate about her musical convictions as I am. Not to say we always disagree. We also have lots of common favorite bands and opinions on music too.

We thought it would be fun for each of us to review the same album and let you, the reader, get two different perspectives of it.
The first album we chose to review is a new album by The Thermals released a few weeks ago, Desperate Ground.

Tori's Review

I’ve been listening to the Thermals for some years now. I first fell in love with them right around when The Body, the Blood, the Machine came out in 2006. I heard them on the radio (thanks KEXP) and then saw them at Bumbershoot. That album and then Now We Can See, released in 2009, have been in my music listening rotation ever since. I love their raw, post-punk sound and angsty lyrics packed with symbolism of struggles with religion, sin, and the human race. And, yes, while most their songs do all sound pretty similar, using the almost all same chord progression, it’s in good taste, true to the punk sound. I only recently sat down and listened to their first two albums a couple months ago, More Parts per Million and Fuckin A. They were good, I especially enjoyed Fuckin A but not as much as the two albums the followed. The Thermals seemed to peek at The Body, the Blood the Machine with Now We Can See taking a close second. They then plummeted with Personal Life. They lost their edge in that album. There was no punch. They take no stabs at mankind or God. True to the album’s title, it was Hutch Harris crying about something personal. I forget what because I got bored and stopped paying attention.

The Thermals’ new album, Desperate Ground seems to be a slow crawl back to the height that The Body, the Blood, the Machine sits at. Still some parts where I got a little bored but there’s still a little more kick to it, a little more angst and vague symbols of war, blood and swords than in Personal Life. Like in his 2006 and 2009 albums, Harris is still fighting to live and struggling with his morals. The album started off really strong with “Born to Kill” which seems to be a bit of a sequel to the track “I Might Need You to Kill” off Body, Blood, Machine. The album continues with a few other highs (I Go Alone) and lows (Faces Stay With Me) then really fizzles out with “Our Love Survives.” And, more so than any other album, these songs really don’t vary much in sound. All in all, it’s not a horrible album, better than the previous one. It does give me a little more hope for what’s next. But, when it comes down to it, I’d much rather listen to any of their first four albums.

Zach’s Review
Before listening to Desperate Ground I’d never listened to The Thermals. I had no idea what to expect. First off, all but one song on this album is under three minutes long which makes for a quick listen of an entire album. This is a rock n roll, borderline punk rock album. The first and only thing that comes to mind for me when searching for a comparison are Japandroids. This may be unfair because Japandroids have set such a high bar for this genre of rock n roll.

Did I love this album? No, but that doesn't mean I hated it. I liked it but I don’t see myself coming back to it. To me this album has a few really great songs and a lot of average songs. I thought they mostly all sounded the same and that’s after multiple listens.

The biggest reason I couldn't get into this album were the vocals. The lead singer almost speaks sings every song. Sometimes l like that (mewithoutYou), but it didn't work for me on this album. That’s not to say there’s no emotion behind his voice. There’s real conviction in his words and the way he sings, I’m just not crazy about it.

“The Sunset” is the strongest track on the album and is the song with the most variation from the others, followed by the last track, “Never Age”.

Truthfully I probably just didn't get it. I usually don’t listen to this type of music. It’s a little out of my expertise to critique a band like The Thermals. I’ll admit the most exciting thing to me about them is that they released this album on Saddle Creek, which used to be my favorite record label. 

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Easy Street Records

This past weekend my favorite record store closed, Easy Street Records in Queen Ann. Fortunately, they still have their flagship store in West Seattle but who wants to go all the way out there??
Anyway, Ryan posted about this earlier but I just wanted to do a follow up post.
I went there twice last week. Once on Wednesday for one last purchase. While I was there, I actually got a little emotional. Well, I almost did. There were people around. I'm really happy about my last purchase there, though. I bought the Black Belles record. They're one of those cool, hot chick rock bands that I love so much. Not to mention, they record with Third Man Records (AKA Jack White's record label). Here's a cool video of them.



Moving on. My second and last visit to the Queen Anne Easy Street Records was Friday night. Their last show. Yo La Tengo played, which I missed because I have this really dumb thing called a job. I had a few friends go for the show portion of the evening and they said it was PACKED. One of my friends had to wait in line for 45 minutes just to get in. I also missed this really epic moment brought to you by KEXP DJ and The Young Evils band member, Troy Nelson: The rest of the evening was consumed with great music and dancing. They also had Empire Records playing in the back ground. Which was incredibly appropriate.
The night was the perfect send off for the greatest record store in Seattle. I remember the first time I went there. I was in high school and my brother and I had some time to kill during Bumbershoot weekend so we went to check out this record store we'd heard about. We both immediately fell in love. All through high school and whenever I was home from college, I would drive all the way to this store from North Bend (about a 45 minute drive) just to go there. I went there for all my music needs. Anytime someone would come visit me, I would always take them there and they would also fall in love. I even applied for a job there once. It would have been a dream to work there. It was such a great store and will be severely missed. So, goodbye Easy Street Records (in Queen Anne). You will always have a special place in my heart.

Posted by Tori

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