Top 5 Albums of 2012

Mainstream, indie, and even the indie-mainstream have been bereft of good, major releases this year. When the best that outlets like Paste and Pitchfork can muster are albums by Best Coast, Beach House, Tame Impala, Alt-J, and the Lumineers, it’s obvious that we’ve been dealt a poor hand in terms of new music on the national level.

Overall it feels like the indie-mainstream in particular is waiting for a new movement. The Arcade Fire sound-alikes (which used to be Modest Mouse sound-alikes) have finally worn out their welcome. New Grass (or Banjo-core as I prefer to call it) never had the ability to sustain more than a few bands at a time and with Avett Brothers, Mumford and Sons, and the Lumineers on the scene, that quota has been filled. Like the generic “techno” outbreak in the mid-late 90’s, dubstep isn’t ever going to catch fire in a big enough way nationally and anyway, most of what people are calling dubstep isn’t really dubstep to begin with. And finally, the wispy synth-ish indie-pop movement (see: Alt-J, Tame Impala, and especially M83) isn’t worth taking a second look at and won’t last very long unless something changes.

The airwaves are bored and I couldn’t have picked a better year to dive head first into the Austin local music scene. In 2012 four out of five of my top picks come from artists local to the Austin, TX area. For several of these groups this will be the 3rd or 4th time I’m writing critically about their albums, having covered them for OVRLD earlier in the year. Given that fact, I ask you to forgive me if my blurbs about those albums seems lifted from my previous articles.

1. Balcones by Zlam Dunk
While never intended to be the band’s swan song, “Balcones” nonetheless performs admirably in this regard. Having recently called it quits, Zlam Dunk’s 2012 EP saw the group maturing, both instrumentally and lyrically. While still offering a unique blend of technique and danceable punk grooves, the absence of their debut’s synths along with the return of Charlie Day’s impassioned, raspy vocals create a more personal, introspective space on Balcones. There is a definite theme of coming into adulthood and striking out on one’s own here and while it leaves the EP feeling darker than Zlam Dunk’s previous work, it’s all the more powerful for it.

For fans of: At the Drive-In, Q and Not U, Cinemechanica

2. Lessons on Love, Sharing, and Hygiene by The Capitalist Kids
Austin’s prolific political punks came back this year with their 3rd full length and it may just be their best yet. Here’s the kicker though: it’s full of love songs! “Lessons on Love…” skates gracefully between political snark, finger-pointing anthems, and blisteringly fast ballads in a way that few bands could accomplish. The Capitalist Kids manage to find the goldilocks zone with every song in providing politics without being preachy and love songs without the sap. If you can’t get your toes tapping to this album then you may be a robot or possibly a Republican.

For fans of: Bad Religion, Screeching Weasel, Green Day

3. Arab Spring by Literature
I think it’s safe to call this album Austin’s sleeper hit of 2012. “Arab Spring” came out of nowhere early in the year and this first full-length LP by Austin’s Literature has subsequently ended up on the “best of” lists of many major local outlets. Literature play a lo-fi, punkish brand of jangle-pop that’s both catchy and playful. Never overproduced, but laden with poppy hooks, Arab Spring skirts the line between old-school punk and pop like a tightrope walker. The end result is an incredibly catchy collection of songs with a very genuine, DIY feel.

For fans of: Polaris (the band that did the songs for Pete and Pete), Vampire Weekend, Talking Heads

4. All Our False Starts by Pswingset
For me to compare an album to the mid-Atlantic post-punk music scenes of the late 90’s/early 00’s is high praise indeed and in my mind Pswingset’s debut LP “All Our False Starts” is worthy of no less. This album is full of the kind of jangly, technical, minor-key, post-punk music that scored much of my 20’s and continues to be a favorite. There’s a moodiness to All Our False Starts that while subtly reminiscent of mid-late 90’s emo, is at once more mature and less affected. The end result as presented on this LP is both gripping and chill.

For fans of: Shudder to Think, Bats and Mice, Sunny Day Real Estate

5. Fang Island by Fang Island
Despite being my #2 most listened to album of 2012, Fang Island’s self-titled sophomore release has to come in at #5 on this list simply for the fact that it’s actually a 2010 release. Fang Island is not your typical instrumental rock band. For one thing, they often have lyrics (though if their 2012 release “Major” proves anything it’s that they’re more interesting without them.) For another thing, this is the most positive, feel-good instrumental music you’ll ever hear. Where most instrumental bands tend to lean towards meandering, building epics, Fang Island aim to play fast, loud, and fun. This self-titled album is the perfect demonstration of what these guys do best and though it’s a quick listen that just means there’s plenty of time to hit “repeat”.

For Fans of: People who fall within the middle of a venn diagram of pop punk and post rock

One, Two, Three, Four Who's Punk/Geek, What's The Score?

This article on The Mary Sue discusses one of 2012's biggest pot stirring topics in the world of geekdom: the fake geek girl. I'll let the article speak for itself as the first 2/3 does a great job of introducing and analyzing the issue at hand. The part that really interests me comes after the line "Why does the impostor  who represents a small fraction of our community, seem to have grabbed so much focus and power?"

As a lifelong geek and a more recently self-identifying punk, I'm very familiar with the witch hunt mentality that develops around seeking out fakes and impostors in outcast social groups. The punk world particularly has dealt with the issue since the music first moved out of the basements and garages and onto the airwaves where anyone could hear it. Arguments over who or what punk really is still rage to this day. There are even punk songs about the topic such as Jawbreaker's "Boxcar", wherein Blake Schwarzenbach advocates dropping the labels completely because who cares?

The article covers pretty much all the bases in exploring why this behavior occurs. What really interests me though (and what I'd love to see someone with the appropriate background delve into) is the anthropological underpinnings of it all. What is it about outcast groups that seems to drive them to so vehemently weed out impostors and how far back in the human psyche does this reach?

My 2012 Music Stats

When I tell people how much I like music, I don’t think they really get an idea of how much music I actually acquire and consume in a given year. Here’s some stats from this past year on what my music purchases and listening actually encompassed:

1289 new tracks across 154 new albums by 95 artists 47 of whom I had never heard before. And I make it a point to listen to every new album I acquire at least twice.

Not counting untracked sources like Bandcamp.com and other web-based streams, I listened to almost 4000 unique tracks in 2012. At a median of about 5 times per track that's about 70000 minutes (1167 hours) or nearly 49 straight days of music listening.

According to Last.fm my Top 10 most listened to artists of 2012 are:

1. Quiet Company
2. Fang Island
3. Zlam Dunk
4. The Sour Notes
5. The Capitalist Kids
6. Coheed & Cambria
7. Markov
8. Wilco
9. Literature
10. Mother Falcon

My Top 10 most listened to albums of 2012 are:

1. Quiet Company - We Are All Where We Belong
2. Fang Island - s/t
3. Zlam Dunk - Noble Ancestry
4. Literature - Arab Spring
5. Zlam Dunk - Balcones
6. Pswingset - All Our False Starts
7. Markov - This Quiet
8. Mother Falcon - Alhambra
9. Dear Landlord - Dream Homes
10. The Capitalist Kids - Lessons on Love, Sharing, and Hygiene

And my Top 10 most listened to tracks of 2012 (if I only count the top track for each band) are:

1. Coheed & Cambria - Domino the Destitute
2. Quiet Company - Everything Louder Than Everything Else
3. Fang Island - Sideswiper
4. Zlam Dunk - Midnight Runners
5. Literature - Grifted
6. Pswingset - Husk
7. The Sour Notes - Hot Pink Flares
8. The Calm Blue Sea - We Happy Few
9. Markov - Lucky Me
10. Marmalakes - White Height

Statistically speaking 2012 has been my biggest year for new music since 2009 when I first started keeping these kinds of stats. With 8 albums already on my 2013 list, I’d say I’m off to a good start for next year as well. 

Greetings from the Rook Islands

I've managed to spend about 27 hours in the world of Ubisoft's Far Cry 3 up to this point and just when I thought the game had shown me all it had to offer, it pulled something new out of it's bag of tricks. Far Cry 3 drops you off on the Rook Islands as Jason Brody, some rich, young douche bag who has unwittingly gotten himself captured (along with his rich, young douche bag friends) by south Asian pirates/slavers/drug runners. Jason escapes his captors and with the help of an oppressed native population, begins a journey to rescue his friends and retake the islands. All the while Jason actually grows as a character, which while a foreign concept to most FPS games, is par for the course in a game like Assassin's Creed, which Far Cry 3 draws heavily from in more ways than one.

The game play format for Far Cry 3 will be familiar to anyone who has played through Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games. The player is dropped onto a map that is largely covered by a "fog of war" and that can only be removed by climbing towers in order to get a bird's-eye view of the area. Each uncovered map section has various side missions and activities that are available once uncovered and after a few hours of play it's easy for even the casual player to have tried each of these activities. For the average player I assume the pacing is rather even as the main story takes them from one island section to the next and frequently offers breaks wherein side missions can be obtained and animals can be hunted to craft new equipment. For the hardcore explorer type like myself, I spent much of my first 20 hours uncovering every section of the northern Rook island, liberating every pirate-held camp, and crafting every item available. To say that I've been playing this game "methodically" would be an understatement. The only thing that forced me to move the main story along was the fact that large sections of the RPG-style skill trees are locked by mission completion. You would think even the main mission would be boring to me by this point (having bought, fired, and customized every non-unlockable gun in the game) but I love the AC-style of open world game and as an explorer I'm a huge meta-gamer too. I would often partake in the game's existing challenges such as liberating a camp (killing all the bad guys) without being seen, heard, or having an alarm raised, but I also created my own challenges such as doing to the above using only the bow and arrow. Still (truth be told) by hour 24 I was starting to hit a bit of a wall.

With the southern island locked to me and naught but a few relics left to uncover on the northern island I finally set about progressing the rest of the main storyline. I was on the set of missions that take you to "Badtown" on the eastern half of the northern island, which had some interesting objectives beyond just killing pirates such as using a flame thrower to burn pot fields. Novelty aside, I was still just doing "shoot the bad guy" missions and each mission was more or less a self-contained experience. It was the next set of 3 or 4 missions that acted a shot in arm for me however. Having found that one of Jason's friends had been sold to a ne'er-do-well in the aforementioned Badtown, I embarked on a set of missions to bargain for his freedom. The bad guy wanted me to obtain some ancient knife that had been lost on the island centuries before by a Chinese conqueror. What followed was a chain of missions that (while still having the Assassin's Creed meets FPS feel) threw a heaping portion of Uncharted into the mix as well. I was still killing the occasional pirate, but I was doing so in cave systems and ruins that opened up to entirely new set pieces ranging from the rusted skeleton of a WWII-era boat, to an overgrown subterranean temple-like structure. The experience of this very interconnected mission chain reinvigorated my game play experience, both reminding me that I had only scratched the surface of the game's main story, but also showing me that Far Cry 3 still had new challenges and experiences in store for me. For a game that I'm already quite fond of, I find myself looking forward to the next 20+ hours with renewed vigor.

The Final Zlam

Bands come and bands go, and it seems that the closer you get to the local level the greater that churn becomes. Making a livable career out of making music is a huge undertaking and one that even for full-time touring bands doesn't pay much. There comes a point in the life of many bands where a decision has to be made as to whether people want to continue putting the effort into making music or pursue other options. While some bands may linger around and play a show from time to time without putting out any new music, others often feel it's better to just call it quits and hang up the guitars. The latter is a decision that Austin's Zlam Dunk has made and they'll be playing their final show along with Equals and The Couch at Red 7 tonight.

If you've read any of my articles here and on OVRLD this year, then you've likely seen me write about Zlam Dunk before. Back sometime in April I realized that after living here for three years I hadn't really been exposed to much local punk music outside the burgeoning garage scene. I took to bandcamp.com in order to search for the kind of punk and hardcore I was into and among my first crop of finds was this energetic, danceable, but totally hard group called Zlam Dunk. I immediately took a liking to their 2010 LP "Nobel Ancestry" and as luck would have it, they were going to be playing a show just a couple weeks later at the Beauty Ballroom. Zlam Dunk played last that night on a bill with Searcher, Goldspine, and Boyfrndz and by virtue of the fact that the Beauty Ballroom is not a venue with much walk-in potential and that the show was on a Thursday night, there were maybe 15-20 people tops milling about by the time they played. Despite this fact, the guys played their balls off and I knew then that I would need to catch them again.

Following the early May release of their "Balcones" EP I saw Zlam Dunk several more times over the summer, sometimes playing to small crowds and other times to big. No matter who or what size the audience was, Zlam Dunk always left it all on the stage or in the case of lead singer Charlie Day (especially during the cowbell breakdown in "Ghostwoman") out in the audience as well. During every show I was up front getting my dance on, pointing my fingers, and singing along. Yeah I liked the music, but the energy of the show was what drove me. It's one of the things I love about punk music. When I'm out in a crowd and it's sweaty and loud and there's adrenaline in the air, I feel alive and to have that experience with a local band all summer long was a great time indeed.

Am I sad that Zlam Dunk are calling it quits? Of course I am, but these guys need to follow their dreams and if that means something other than entertaining my 34-year-old punk ass, well then I respect that. At the end of the day I still live in the music capital of the world and while bands may come and go, I've got my pick of the litter. For now I'm going to keep spinning my Zlam Dunk albums and make sure I enjoy the hell out of their final show and remember that sometimes it's better to burn out than to fade away. If you dig danceable punk music or just want to see what these kids are all about, come on down to Red 7 tonight. I’ll be the guy in front, having a great time.