Life Partners “Music is Hard” LP
Life Partners have been at it for a half-dozen releases at least by now, grinding out records and carving out their little niche for the true believers. I don’t think anyone who hears a Life Partners record would ever say they’re a shitty band. They’re a smart outfit, perhaps too smart at times, reflecting the New England weirdo hippie-slash-punk DIY scenes of Forced Exposure/Twisted Village and whatnot. Clever music for clever people. Or something like that. Anyway, Life Partners do plenty of things well: goony Gulcher-esque proto-punk, burnout folk-rock, lo-fi metal-psych (“Are We Practicing Tonight?”) and honestly their best tunes come about when they just sound like a really really good bar-rock band playing some cooking originals. They do some bad shit too. The title track is a bit funny but almost becomes an SNL skit. The vocals get a little too wacky on a few of the tracks, but at least the lyrics are good enough to make you forget their few sins. It all gets a little snarky after a side’s worth, but they hit the target more often than not. Wayne Rogers twiddled the knobs for his Major Stars’ cohorts here, so it sounds fantastic for the duration. If you’ve never heard this band, get the “AIDS of Spades” 7″ and work from there.(RK)
(Ride the Snake // www.ridethesnakerecords.com)

Reports are a Boston quartet that has toiled in the minor leagues for the last five years, releasing their homemade pop skronk all by their lonesome, screen printing by hand, and using mail-order as their preferred distribution, as if the internet and mid-level indie labels didn’t exist. With the Reports, it’s like the last 10 years never happened, as they hearken to a time before we tagged The Strokes with celebrity status. It’s confounding that their 2007 debut,Mosquito Nets, didn’t garner more attention—especially when lesser groups in the same vein, like Oxford Collapse and Harlem, were getting major play. If one had any doubt that the Reports deserve more ears, their sophomore offering, Dinamo Cambridge, expands upon the shambolic glee and ragged riffs that made their debut such an intriguing delight.

It should be said that the Reports only use indie rock as a springboard. In the years since their arrival, they’ve adopted other styles to enhance the fuzzy blasts of pop in which they specialize. Take for instance the lead track, “Turnaround,” which begins in an era that Sebadoh and Unrest might populate, but then quickly changes into distorted psychedelics (the recent spate of San Fran garage denizens come to mind). “Pick a Side” and “Arrows” follow a similar tread. Reports have the luxury of toying with these sonic outliers because they pack such a defiant punch in their execution. Nothing about the tunes is sloppy or slack. In fact, the tightness of the quartet accents the hooks, while at the same time allowing the woolier guitar parts room to breathe. Dinamo Cambridge is endlessly scruffy, but compact. Even when the band takes the time to dabble in mid-tempo floaters, like the excellent “Sub Toucher,” there’s a conciseness to what they do that’s reminiscent of Guided By Voices and that demands repeat listens. Reports may not touch upon the idiosyncrasies of Pollard and company, but in terms of memorable melodies and riffs, there is no dearth of them on Dinamo Cambridge. When the Reports do stray from the two-minute pop song, as they do on the 12-minute title track, we instantly see their other side. This is a band that can wholly embrace the epic jaunts and repeated organ drones of Oneida without sacrificing their penchant for holding the listener’s attention. This is quite a jolt away from the first six songs of the record, but worth the time spent, especially in the end where the payoff explodes outside of the central grind. The best part about the Reports is that they serve two purposes: one completely indebted to nostalgia for the mid-90s indie boom and another to remind us that even in a day when fashion and gimmicks trump substance and hard work, there are still bands out there with a “get in the van” mentality. Long live the real indie rock. - Kevin J. Elliott

THE second album from Hobart-based electronic pub rock duo The Native Cats is superb.

It is dark, too: songs like the morbidly optimistic You Need A Driver are shot through with the sort of Gothic elan that served the early British post-punk bands so well. The minimal Self-Rep (the title surely a nod to Native Cats’ clear influence, Mark E. Smith of laconic beat-masters The Fall?) swirls with a sense of isolation and paranoia. Yet it never feels bleak, only welcome. That will be the influence of Hobart then, where wilderness nestles up to espresso machines. The electronica is rudimentary, but exploratory and fully realised. There’s humour, but even more so there’s awareness: Eyes Of The Gang is reminiscent of those heady sprawling early Rough Trade and Au-Go-Go days, the bass recalls the silence at the heart of Joy Division and Young Marble Giants.

The Native Cats are two men; label boss Julian Teakle on bass, Peter Escott on acerbic song: just two men, a drum machine and a keen sense of melody, but their sound could – in a better clime, with a stroke of magic – be as successful as Savage Garden. The melodies are way more memorable, the kitchen sink dramas endlessly re-liveable. Imagine a world where everyone was singing along with the deprecating The Singer is Dead to Me. Surely that would be worth living for?

Always having their feet somewhat submerged in the pool of indie-pop, Reports have seen a gradual shift from those straight forward numbers found on their first album to what has become a noticeably more garage and fuzz filled sound for this second LP Dinamo Cambridge. The single that preceded this album a couple years ago featuring the excellent “Bill Wyman Metal Detector” was a pretty good indicator as to the direction they were heading. For those that enjoyed that, well Dinamo Cambridge should hit the spot as it’s punched up some with healthier doses of noise and one that boils the songs down to the absolute essentials. Every song here keeps things quick and to the point while cramming in all the pop hooks that one could hope for. The only outlier is the interesting title track that runs roughly twelve minutes that makes good use of a droning organ as a backdrop for the track as it slowly gains steam over its hypnotic travel. For these guys the releases have been few and far between since their ‘07 debut, but those that have been following know that it’s been well worth the wait. Don’t sleep on this one.

Anyone interested in picking this one up would be wise to do so in a timely manner as I believe these are reaching the point of being nearly sold out with a pressing of only 150. They can be had currently over at Ride the Snake, who have been releasing nothing but quality for awhile now.

Rock lps:
1. Total Control-Henge Beat lp (Iron Lung)
2. Rank/Xerox-s/t lp (Make-a-Mess)
3. Kitchen’s Floor-Look Forward to Nothing (Siltbreeze)
4. La Ligne Claire-Cheri lp (Bruit Direct Disques)
5. Shoppers-the Silver Year (Drugged Conscience)
6. Royal Headache-s/t lp (RIP Society)
7. Comet Gain-Howl of the Lonely Crowd lp (What’s Your Rupture?)
8. Iceage-New Brigade lp (What’s Your Rupture?)
9. Household-Items lp (Dull Knife)
10. Mmoss-”i” lp (Burger)

Runners Up: Crystal Stilts-In Love With Oblivion lp (Slumberland), Cruddy-Negative World lp (12XU), Apache Dropout s/t lp (Family Vineyard)

Non Rock lps
1. Red Horse-2nd lp (Type)
3. Clams Casino-Instrumentals 2xlp (Type)
4. Glands of External Secretion-Reverse Atheism 2xlp (BUFMS)
5. Pumice-Pebbles lp (Soft Abuse)
6. R/S-USA lp (Pan)
7. Stillbirth-Toward Sailor lp (Hospital)
8. Call Back the Giants-the Rising lp (Kye)
9. Graham Lambkin-Amateur Doubles lp (Kye)
10. Ali Ag Amoumime-lp+7″ (Mississppi)

Singles/eps:
1. Holy Balm-7″ (Hustle Muscle)
2. Bad Banana-Cry About It 7″ (Puzzle Pieces)
3. Andy Stott-Pass Me By 2×12″ (Modern Love)
4. Andy Stott-We Stay Together-2×12″ (Modern Love)
5. Crazy Spirit-Remastered Demo 12″ep (Quality Control)
6. Raime-Hentail 12″ ep (Blackest Ever Black)
7. Regis-In A Syrian Tongue 12″ ep (Blackest Ever Black)
8. Vaccuum-2nd 7″ ep (Irukandjji)
9. Factory Floor-Two Different Ways 12″ (DFA)
10. Home Blitz-A.T.K. 7″ (Mexican Summer)

Reissues:
1. Void-Sessions 1981-83 lp (Dischord
2. v/a-Krypton Ten 2xlp+7″ (Unwuch)
3. the Vacuum 7″ (Siltbreeze)
4. Jack Ruby-Hit and Run 7″ (Saturday)
5. the Embarassment-Sex Drive 7″ (Last Laugh)
6. Bastard-Controlled in the Frame 7″ (540)
7. Just Urbain-Everybody Loves Just Urbain 7″ (540)
8. Young Identities-New Trends 7″ (540)
9. Trad Gras Och Stenar-Gardet 12.16.70 2xlp (Subliminal Sounds)
10. Dow Jones and the Industrials-7″ (Family Vineyard)

runner up: Erkin Koray-Mechul: Singles and Rarities lp (Sublime Frequencies), all 3 Dead Moon reissue lps (Mississppi), v/a-Those Shocking Shaking Days 3xlp (Now Again), June Brides-London 1983-85 lp (Social Music/Mississppi), Black Humor lp  (Superior Viaduct), Hagar the Womb-A Brighter Shade of Black lp (Mississppi), Above Ground-Gone AIWA lp (Siltbreeze)

live shows:
1. Big Freedia/Katey Red at Red 7, Austin TX
2. Kreigshog/Double Negative at the Broken Neck, Austin, TX
3. Lebenden Toten at O’Briens, Allston, MA
4. Kitchen’s Floor/Reports at PA’s Lounge
5. Mmoss at PA’s Lounge during the Deep Heaven Now fest last January, Somerville, MA
6. Arnold Dreyblatt at Goethe Institute, Boston, MA
7. Felix Kubin at Goethe Institute, Boston MA
8. Slices at “HOUSE”, Allston, MA
9. Iceage/Rank/Xerox at the Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain MA
10.Whore Paint/Major Stars at Precinct, Somerville Ma
11. Destroy All Monsters at Boston University, Boston, MA

12. Swann Che at Aviary Gallery, Jamaica Plain MA

13. Boston Strangler at Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain MA

$25 THE SARCASM SPECIAL – Men are Talking + Right by the Beach + any other LP or two 7″‘s of your choice!

$15 THE SARCASM SPECIAL LITE - Men are Talking + Right by the Beach

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