Feature Crush: C.D. on Songs, 12/15/09

It's ten days until Christmas. And we know that you have recorded some sort of holiday music. You can admit it. After you admit it, we hereby demand you send it in to us for next week's super-special Holiday Edition of C.D. on Songs, where I'll review every holiday song you send as well as some old (local) favorites. Check the bottom for instructions on how to send it all in. No giftwrap necessary.

Abram Taber - "Five" [download]
In this, the age of MP3 and instant information, one sees Abram Taber's "Five" looming way off in the distance, weighing in at a hefty 9 minutes, 21 seconds of play time. Heck, even those annoying street canvassers know enough not to ask you for 10 minutes to help save the environment/save the children/elect Lyndon Larouche.

So the question is this: is "Five" worth ten minutes of your life? In short, it would really depend upon what you seek. "Five" is largely atmospheric, mainly comprised of a repeating bassline that very seldom wanders from its pattern. Odd sonic patterns fade in and out, but by the point that they do, you're left wondering if it's merely a mirage of sound, born of the repeating landscape that makes up most of this track.

The sounds that haunt this piece are mostly ethereal, soft-padded affairs that sort of shiver in and out of each measure. There are some interesting takes on the pattern and sounds, but they seem to take a while to materialize. Taber does a good job of thematic misdirection; you feel like you should be concentrating on one sound and all of a sudden, here's another that snuck right up on you. You shouldn't throw "Five" on at your party, unless everyone's already deep into the drugs. You should, however, throw on some headphones and wander through the desert for a bit, as there are some interesting things to be seen.

The Stools - "Good Morning" [download]
As our days get shorter and the nights get longer and colder, there's less and less reason to hang out on porch. Enter "Good Morning," a fairly outrageous howdy-do. This song staggers about, as if it just got out of bed and doesn't have a hangover but is probably still a little buzzed from the previous night's activities.

If Mr. Lance Norris is a method actor (method singer?) then he must have downed quite a bit of whiskey to come out with the croaking, smiling, Randy-Newman's-Wasted-Again vocal tones showcased on "Good Morning." Norris sounds like he just rolled out from under a couch and is merrily making you breakfast in his underwear, surrounded by cartoon birds and thought bubbles.The atmosphere of this sound is wacky, but it's just wacky enough - but in the name of comfort and coolness, like installing fine plush carpeting on your deck, or perhaps having a light-up palm tree decoration that stays on all the livelong day. Everything sounds and feels a little dirty, like the clothes that you didn't expect to sleep in but ended up doing so anyway.

Taxpayer - "We Have Arrived" [download]

Before we get to any business of reviewing songs and being all "he sang that" and "she played that" and "oo-ee, whaddup wit dat," we must first take a moment to bow our heads and recognize the fact that Taxpayer has possibly the coolest local band name of the entire lot of you (Campaign for Real-Time, yeah yeah yeah, we know you're out there).

That business out of the way, we can really rip into the sweetness of "We Have Arrived." One might argue that Taxpayer arrived long before this recent release, but this track serves as an exclamation point upon the band's presence in the local conscience, and what should be your own conscience, those of you who love music.

Taxpayer comes correct with just the right combination of poise and dynamic energy. They know when to kick things up a notch and they know when to hold back (slightly). More than

almost anything, they seem to be able to recognize and pull off a great musical hook.

Vocalist/Dominic Monaghan stunt-double Jared Marsh serves as the humanity of the piece, demonstrating all of Taxpayer's strengths with a confident, personality-laden vocal. When

Marsh sings the refrain "We have to survive," it makes us wonder why there was any question.

The guitar-heavy motif of the song lends itself to an almost Foo Fighter-esque vibe, complete with booming drums and a meaningfully stated rhythm.Yes, Taxpayer has arrived. Heck,

they've been here a while, but have yet to out-stay their welcome.

Tony the Bookie - "True Love" [download]
Tony the Bookie has a name right out of a Goodfellas scene and the stature of a main-event professional wrestler. He has the sound of... neither. At least if we are to believe what we hear from his new release "True Love."

"True Love" rides through your ears in a weird low-shift gear. The entire song moves, but at different speeds. The churning, full-sounding acoustic keeps things moving while an eerie-sounding electric guitar beeeeeeends single notes with such languished grace that they are almost hypnotic. The Bookie's crisp baritone serves as a guiding light through the darker-tinged passages of "True Love." He has a definite vocal register in which he does most of his work, but he shows the ability to work his way up the scales as well, mostly after the mid-point through the end of the track.

The multi-tracked unison vocals add a bit of ambiguity to the personality of this song, but it is an enjoyable one, providing a pleasant murkiness that is dappled here and there by moments of brightness. Maybe that's what he means by "True Love."

Patrick DeCoste - "Saudade" [download]

Instrumental music must be extremely expressive. This is non-negotiable. If you don't want to tell the listener a verbal story, then you best be prepared to let your instrument do the talking. Patrick DeCoste's sinuously smooth guitar work does just that. His guitar tone is just the right mixture of sweetness and the occassional touch of nasty that makes for a dynamic trip through varying levels of atmospheric. DeCoste's guitar is smooth as liquid - that occasionally boils.

DeCoste's guitar performance alone is the dynamic element that powers and sustains "Saudade." It has many faces, from the graceful swan dives off high cliffs to the crashing crunch of saturated, rhythmic waves. DeCoste is just as capable of long, luxuriant string bends as he is of flying up the fretboard in the arpeggiated perfection of a smooth, mellofluous combination of notes.

DeCoste makes the guitar sing loud, whether he's flying or simply...gliding."Saudade" seems to exist in some world or clime other than our familiar urban landscape. You can't tell if he's swooping over vistas of sand, snow or stone. The song seems to breathe, inhaling and exhaling each new movement and melody. DeCoste's compound will take you places - and they actually end up being places you wanted to go.

Ann Driscoll - "I Wanna Be Your Zombie" [download]

Everyone seems preoccupied with zombies as of late. Usually we receive songs about killing them and whatnot, but Ann Driscoll is here to put on the costume and do the Thriller dance and somehow manage to charm us anyway with her whole "back from the dead" thing.

"I Wanna Be Your Zombie" starts with a funeral dirge that loses its steam and, well, dies. We soon find out that this is Driscoll's (dramatized) death, and she's back in undead form. But instead of doing that whole moaning and staggering bit that zombies usually do when trying to eat your brain, Driscoll instead sings this high-speed dirge that is both complimentary and a little threatening at once.

Were she to actually become a zombie, Driscoll wouldn't really have to chase many people around, as this song is sonically arresting in its punchy macabre. Driscoll promises an unhappy ending, but we find ourselves wanting to stick around anyway, just to hear the song end. And it does, in another wheel-brake organ stop, except by now she's probably popped the lid off your

cranium and is feasting down. Scratch that idea - this song simply worms its way into your ears, through whatever connects them to your brain and gains access that way, eating away at you, yet still leaving your head bobbing mindlessly. And it's OK.

The Doctors Fox - "Sacha" [download]
From the very beginning, it is apparent that The Doctors Fox and "Sacha" are something that is of a certain peculiar flavor. It's not totally unfamiliar, yet it remains exotic. Unfamiliar sounding instruments keep doing familiar sounding things all throughout the 5:29 run of this track, but it's deceptively easy to get a grip on what's happening in this track. For whatever reason.
"Sacha" has a skewed appeal in that there's no musical perch upon which the listener can easily latch onto and sit a spell - the floor of this song is a moving target.

This track is well-suited for short attention span listening. The plus side is that it is thoroughly enjoyable to hear. The minus side is that it's difficult to retain the sounds after they have ceased playing. "Sacha" sounds perfectly at home with itself, for all the weird off-speed curves that come flying at the listener, everything matches up well as a continuing piece of music for all its swoops and swerves.

Sometimes "Sacha" comes straight at you, but more often than not, it's whipping from side to

side, caroming through weird genre changes and odd sounds. If that's the kind of ride one seeks, then one will certainly dig the pleasant weirdness of this track.

Dadfight - "In The Fashion of K9S" [download]

The title of this track is almost an invitation to those of us who look into such things to wonder exactly what the fashion of K9S might be. From the outward appearance of this song, the fashion has several hallmarks. One is a well-stated guitar riff, that both introduces the song and punctuates phrases in the verse. The guitar is an important feature of "In the Style of K9S." It makes statements and apparent "comments" on the other things going on in the song.

It's entirely possible to go through the entire song listening to the guitar part as a lead to the secondary vocals - it's that strong. That is not to say that the vocals and the other parts of the track are not exemplary. The rhythm section provides a smooth bed for the guitar to rip over and the vocal to coast upon. The way-cooler-than-cool vocals sit just above "mumble" level, yet seem to have a definitive purpose. Things get amped up a tad in the second half of what we shall refer to as the chorus, with the vocals whipping up into a sort of still cool yet fiery forceful plateau.

This song is quite smooth due to its strong connection to a tonic note - the bass, guitar and vocals are never too far away from the tonic, yet they flirt endlessly with other ranges. This song is a cool medium-pace walk through the city, confident yet ready for any action that comes its way.

Want to submit your band's song to C.D. On Songs?

To be reviewed in a C.D. On Songs column:

• Be a Boston-based band/artist.
  
• Email a single mp3/m4a/etc. (or a download link to one) to cdonsongs (at) gmail (dot) com, with the subject line "C.D. on Songs" (DO NOT send us a bunch of songs and make us pick, we will ignore you). We require a file – not a streaming link.
• Include album cover art if you have any. If you don't, a band photo or logo is acceptable.
• We will assume that we have your permission to make the song downloadable on Boston Band Crush (readers will want to hear it, after all).
  
• If that's not ok with you, say so and provide us with a link to the song on an embeddable player like ReverbNation – something we can include in the post (and not just link to).