Author Archives: Andrew Halverson

Christopher Smith is an artist of little notoriety. His name sounds familiar only because it is so simple. To school the rest of you, he is a singer/songwriter from Vancouver, but before he started working on music he was involved in the city’s art scene. I actually ended up noticing this album because of this fantastic little video for his song “Gently Gently”. I figured I would purchase it on my own as a courtesy to the artist and what I got was just a little underwhelming.

The starting track, “Gently Gently” is ominous as it is sweet. It is also perhaps the best song on the album. There is no percussion on the entire runtime, but on “Gently Gently” it seems to really help the song. The looming electric guitar keeps the song fun to listen to while the acoustics keep it progressive. The lyrics are simple as well and end up being useful in the overall simple-delivery of the entire song. It also helps that his voice sounds incredibly soothing but real.

Smith sings the next three songs as if he was in front of his girlfriend’s porch with his guitar in attempt to woo her back into his arms. Unfortunately, it’s also like he’s in high school and has had little experience in writing lyrics. “Middle of the Night” is wrought with clichés and painful repetition that made me want to cringe a few times. The turn in the three songs after “Gently Gently” abandon the feeling that he was the quiet kid that you knew in school, never really knew, but respected him because of his obvious intelligence, and replace it with sort of an amateurish take on songwriting.

Some my complaints changes for the better when he becomes a bit edgier in the second half of the album. “The Beckon Call Part 1” and “The Beckon Call Part 2” aren’t much on the side of music, but are good, ambient tone-setters. However, you can find a five-note connection between the two songs making them consistant.

“Two Strawberries In a Jam” finds Smith in a place of weakness, when he has little sound backing him and his guitar and it comes off as honest, catchy and enjoyable. In fact, there is a sense of the same weakness on the rest of the album but it becomes disappointingly edgy. The cohesion in “Hands” seems like it wasn’t written with a whole lot of thought and depends solely on the sadness in its musical tone.

The problem with this album is that it’s really kind of boring. Honestly, I had trouble listening to it and it’s only about 35 minutes. In times when it should be personal, it just comes off as whiny. When you want him to be emotional, he portrays himself as cold with his delivery. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this album doesn’t want you to like it that much. It wants you to say “it’s okay but I wouldn’t listen to it again.” And to put it frank, that’s what it is.

WINNER: Andrew

WHY: Christopher Smith is an okay artist. Nothing should be expected of him, but “The Beckon Call” just isn’t that interesting to listen to.

It seems that every time I listen to Panda Bear’s 2007 album “Person Pitch”, I get stuck in to this world of mesmerization. I like every member of Animal Collective a ton, but with the release of the “Tomboy” single, (first in a series of three singles that will be released prior to the full album release in September), I seem to have gained a larger admiration for the stylings of Noah Lennox, the man behind Panda Bear.

Both “Tomboy” and “Slow Motion” seem marginally different from Panda’s past work, but you can see great comparisons between both of Animal Collective’s most recent albums, “Strawberry Jam” and “Merriweather Post Pavilion”. There is a lot less sampling used in both of these songs, the most possible culprit to the departure from “Person Pitch”.

One can pull many more similarities between “Tomboy” and the previous works of Panda Bear, but something about the new track feels like it tries to break free with frequently echoing guitar. Lennox could easily have went with the same basic premise of “Person Pitch” but this escape adds a sense of mystery to the rhythm of the song. “Tomboy” is great.

“Slow Motion”, where do I begin? I absolutely love this track. It starts off with a swift and memorable hip-hop beat and progresses with a catchy, dark piano riff, ending with soaring vocals that you’ve come to know from himself and Animal Collective. Everything seems to mesh extremely  well together and it makes me wonder if more artists will begin adding seemingly out of place hip-hop percussions to their music.

WINNER: “Tomboy/Slow Motion” by Panda Bear

WHY: Panda Bear has added a great deal of newfound depth to his style and the tracks prove it. Best song: “Slow Motion”

Best Coast is one of the most popular buzzbands of 2010 and their debut album is nearing its release. Most of the EP’s they have put out have been generally well received and excitement was built for somewhat good reason.

Until I realized every song on “Crazy For You” is essentially the same, each based around boys, cats, weed, and being a bitch. Sure, there are some standouts, like “Boyfriend”, “Our Deal”, and “When I’m With You”, but in the end it feels like all these songs were thrown together in a matter of days, reminding me of a more half-assed experimental version of Dr. Pepper’s “Band In a Bubble”, where bands of mild popularity and mediocrity are thrust into a bubble-like household for thirty days and are expected to leave with a finished album.

Not only do the majority of the lyrics on “Crazy For You” seem insanely similar crossing each song, the music written for each of them is reminiscent of the one before it. Best Coast lead, Bethany Cosentino talks about how she writes most of her songs with simple, catchy lyrics because that’s just her style. Normally, I can agree with that, except none of the songs have anything special to offer besides their simplicity, and in the end the album comes of as short and monotonous. Which it is.

Literally, from song to song, the basis is exactly the same, just with slightly differentiated lyrics. I am not sure if this was Cosentino’s intention, but if it is, boy, what a bitch. It makes no sense, how you can rhyme “crazy” with “lazy” probably three times on the entire 31:33 runtime, and be called a respected artist. I don’t know how I can ask her to improve on anything because I don’t even know anymore what she is capable of. So, in a nutshell, just listen to “Boyfriend”.

The problem with this album is that it has a terrible struggle with finding variety and is simplified for a four year-old.

WINNER: ANDREW

WHY: Because everything about Best Coast’s album is indulgent and can’t be counted as anything but a summer album for one listen. Make-out music my ass, Bethany. These are young children you are talking to about weed and boys.