Another Form of Relief

I’m not really sure whether this can qualify as a ‘new’ Pants Yell! song or not. I first heard this one way back in February when it was on Skatterbrain’s awesome If You Like Everything, There’s Nothing Left To Love! compilation. Back then it was called Cold Hands, You Make Me Nervous, a title I actually like more than the rather shortened one here, but that’s a minor quibble. This version is certainly different from that one, and it comes heralding a new album, so it’s just as good as a whole new song.

This version seems a little harder than that one, but that feels a bit unfair towards it. Pants Yell! have never been a band where “hard” can be used to describe them. The band have always revelled in their restraint. Gentle words half spoken out over music that is just there to support the story. Even the stories themselves are never huge. Just those little everyday things most of us can relate to at some point. Even when the emotional parts inevitably come, they tend to focus on the mundane. This isn’t a band that wants to change the world. They just seem to want to observe it.

Received Pronunciation will be released on November 10 by the ever brilliant Slumberland Records.

I suppose it’s kind of sad that the first thing you notice about Pants Yell’s My Boyfriend Writes Plays is that it’s sung by a man about a man. Once you’re past that initial surprise though, you’re welcomed by a rather tender sounding song that is rather more acidic than it sounds. The song ambles along, and the lyrics are gently spoken, which slightly covers the brutal honesty in the words.

Here we are at my first end of year listings as a blogger. It’s all very exciting and all, and I’d like to think I’m doing things a little differently. There will be absolutely no album list anywhere on this blog. This is because I don’t tend to listen to albums anymore. Yes, I know this makes me some kind of charlatan, but I may as well be honest about it. I’m all about the quick burst of the song these days. As such, over the next five days, we’ll be running down my favourite 49 songs of 2006. Now, I know this list isn’t perfect. There’s probably a bunch of songs from 2005 in here too, but if I only discovered them for whatever reason in 2006, they made the list anyway. Seeing as this is a lot of songs to write about, I’m only going to cover some of them. On others I will just use the original comments I posted earlier on in the year. Not that it really matters, as it’s the mp3s that people want, not my rambling comments. Anyway, I now present Another Form of Relief’s first annual Top 49 Songs of the year:

#49
The Victorian English Gentleman’s Club
‘My Son Spells Backwards’

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“Cumbersome name aside, this three-piece from Cardiff are putting out hyperactive music that falls somewhere in between new wave, punk and electro pop. Their music jumps all over the place, and yet it’s still all alarmingly melodic and catchy, the kind of thing that wouldn’t be out of place on a number of Pixies albums. ‘My Son Spells Backwards’ is so catchy and cheerful you probably won’t catch on at first that it’s all about a special needs kid. Clocking in at under two minutes, it’s an incredibly efficient little ditty, not wasting even a second of the song. It jangles, it rocks, and it features that favourite of mine, duelling vocals. This was included as a b-side on their last single, given an indication of how solid their material already is if this can be spared as a secondary song.” – originally posted April 10.

#48
Odeon Beatclub
‘Take It Off’

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Odeon Beatclub are another band to come off of the production line for great music that is Glasgow. Having spent time supporting the likes of Snow Patrol and Babyshambles, they are building quite a cult following in their native land, and if there’s any justice in this world, that will spread south of the border too. There’s nothing all that new to be heard here, but for solid, catchy songs, you don’t need to look any further than ‘Take It Off’, their single from earlier this year.

#47
The Foundry Field Recordings
‘Buried Beneath The Winter Frames’

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Myspace

Isn’t it perfect that in the same year as Grandaddy decide to call it a day, their natural successor seems to appear out of nowhere? Of course, that is a little unfair on The Foundry Field Recordings, but there is certainly a hell of a lot of Grandaddy in their sound. Their album was full of the kind of randomness that made that band a joy, and while ‘Buried Beneath The Winter Frames’ may tone down the eccentricities, it’s probably their most catchy and accessible song.

#46
Pants Yell!
‘Your Feelings Don’t Show’

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Myspace

I used the term “dorky charm” when I first wrote about Pants Yell!, and that term seems to sum the band up far more concisely than anything I’d be able to write in this paragraph. A delightfully simple tale about running into an ex-girlfriend and then wondering in the back of your mind whether the meeting was an accident or not, but being far too spineless to actually ask if that was the case. Pants Yell! have an entirely catalogue of songs like this, and singling one out for this list was pretty hard, but ‘Your Feelings Don’t Show’ just about manages to edge the others out.

#45
Beeches
‘Sin Nombre’

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I discovered Beeches earlier on in the year when they sent me some of their music, but it only really clicked with me how great they are once I saw them live a little while later. These guys know how to put on a hell of a show, giving their songs even more life than they already have on the recorded versions. I even had the honour of having them play at Another Form of Relief’s first promoted gig in December, where they put on a fantastic set, even if not many people were there to watch. Like a lot of great songs, ‘Sin Nombre’ didn’t really grab me immediately, and it was only after several listens to their CD that it won me over. I still couldn’t really tell you what it’s about, but it certainly sounds good.

#44
Battle
‘Tendency’

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Myspace

“We may as well get the lame comparisons out of the way now, so yes, Battle do sound rather like Bloc Party, particularly on ‘Tendency’. Please don’t let that put you off though, as it sounds like one of those rare good Bloc Party songs. The guitars jerk all over the place, the bass drives and the drumming keeps it all in line. All this while Jason Bavanandan belts out words in such a manner that it sounds like it could actually be physically painful for him to do so. This adds to the urgency of the song though. As for the song itself, it’s a suitably downbeat tale about how crappy life can be at times. “I know I dance like a drunken arse / Every weekend, it’s my only vice / Let me drink myself to death / To forget about the rent” asks Bavanandan, sounding as if it’s what he really wants to do. Ultimately though it’s a love story about loving a girl, but knowing that it’s probably not going to work out as it only really goes one way. I like the whole realist point of view this gives the song, rather than the usual optimism or complete pessimism that usually appears in songs of this nature.” – originally posted June 27.

#43
Nathan Asher & The Infantry
‘Turn Up The Faders’

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“‘Turn Up The Faders’ is hands down one of the best songs that I have heard this year. It also confirmed exactly what the comparisons had promised: somehow this young, unsigned band had a sound that evokes both Bright Eyes and Springsteen. Asher’s vocals are very similiar to Oberst’s, partly shaking yet also full of power. He drives through the song with such urgency that you’d think that lives depended on it. This is supported ably by some excellent instrumentation, including a fantastic piano breakdown toward the end of the song that could have come straight off of ‘Born To Run’.” – originally posted May 19.

#42
The Amateurs
‘Things You Only Know If You Don’t Drive’

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Delightful twee pop from Edinburgh that would be far too easy to compare to Belle & Sebastian. With male-female vocals and a truckload of cute little references, it’s just a joy to see British bands actually trying this kind of thing. The song itself is exactly what it says in the title: all about how buses come in groups and what shoes to wear in the rain. It runs out of steam a little bit before the end, but it’s still so wonderfully catchy that it’s impossible to ignore.

#41
The Young Knives
‘She’s Attracted To’

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Myspace

The Young Knives seem to get a lot of flack, but I think they are one of the best of the current crop of “popular” British bands. Of course, me being the unaware person that I am was entirely oblivious to them until I was dragged to see them at a festival in August. They won me over very quickly though, putting on a great high energy performance, which included this song. It’s probably not their most developed song, but it’s the one that I enjoy the most. A simple tale about liking a girl but hating her parents, it’s just a hell of a lot of fun.

#40
Math & Physics Club
‘Darling, Please Come Home’

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Myspace

“‘Darling, Please Come Home’ builds on the promise of last year’s two EPs, bringing us a simple tale of a lost love. Nothing here will sound all that different if you’re already familiar with twee pop, but the point here is that MAPC are as good as, if not better, than any other band working in the genre at the moment. It’s percussion is steady, the guitar work gentle and Charles’ vocal manages to somehow be incredibly restrained and while still emotive. If this is an indication of the rest of the album, we could be looking at one of the best of the year.” – originally posted October 5.

Feel free to join me again in the coming days as we’ll be counting down ten songs each day with the final nine being revealed on December 30.

Thanks to me being a little out of it over the past week (constant painkillers = fun!), I’ve been pretty lazy in my blogging. This means that I haven’t posted about some awesome new band or whatever in over a week now, which is pretty awful. I assure you that this will be rectified in the near future, but for tonight I’d like to present you with Another Form of Relief’s fourth mixtape, entitled ‘Let’s Get Literary!’.

The theme of this one is pretty simple. It’s a collection of songs that have some literary theme, either through their words, their subject matter or in a couple of cases, their titles. It’s not the tightest collection ever put together, but it’s kind of fun, particularly for dorky music listeners like myself who get a kick out of references to authors and books and the such. Best of all, there’s not a Thom Yorke song in sight.

MP3 Belle & Sebastian – Wrapped Up In Books (expired)
Not really a literary song in it’s own right, but how could you have a mixtape of this nature and not include some Belle and Sebastian, particularly when they have an awesome little song called ‘Wrapped Up In Books’? Belle and Sebastian songs always come across as being closer to prose in their lyrics than most pop songs anyway, so I’m happy to let them slide in here, and it does set a wonderful tone for the songs that follow.

MP3 The Pop Project – House Of Books (expired)
The Pop Project are a band from Michigan that I discovered thanks to Bethanne at Clever Titles Are So Last Summer (two shout outs in two posts.. terrible) writing about them. They have a nice, cheerful sound that works perfectly, assuming you don’t mind a little sunshine in your music from time to time. The song is all about living inside a fictional world made out of your books or something. Not that it really matters when it’s this much fun.

MP3 Ryan Adams – Sylvia Plath (expired)
Well you can always rely on Ryan Adams to bring the mood down, can’t you? ‘Sylvia Plath’ is a great song, but by god it’s depressing. The melancholy vocals, the restrained piano, and the general miserable subject matter of wanting someone who is depressed to the point of suicide. That said, Ryan Adams is far better when he’s in this kind of a state than he is when trying to rock, so I’m not going to complain too much.

MP3 Modest Mouse – Bukowski (expired)
One of my favourite Modest Mouse songs, although it isn’t particularly about Bukowski other than the narrator singing about how his life is turning into something out of a Bukowski novel. The song itself is pretty much entirely a slight against the fundamentalist view of what God is supposed to be (“If God takes life, he’s an Indian giver / .. / God, who’d wanna be such an asshole?”). I’m a fan of any song that tries to challenge beliefs or offer up something controversial, and being a proud rider on the Heathen Bus makes me appreciate this all the more. Take away the content though and it’s still a mighty catchy song.

MP3 MC Lars – Ahab (expired)
MP3 MC Lars – Mr. Raven (expired)
A couple of literary adaptations offered up by MC Lars. Being an English major, he seems to enjoy working a lot of literary content into his work. There’s a third song like this called ‘Rapbeth’ but it’s pretty awful. ‘Ahab’ is an awful lot of fun, telling the story of ‘Moby Dick’ from Ahab’s point of view, somehow managing to work in a Supergrass sample for the chorus. ‘Mr. Raven’ does much the same thing for Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’. It also has to be the most stacked pop culture namecheck song ever, managing to work in Paris Hilton, Bob Dylan, Michael Moore, the Fugees, Fred Durst and Nietzsche all into the same song, as well as a fun Vanilla Ice parody. All this and it still manages to retain the story of ‘The Raven’ relatively well.

MP3 Holiday With Maggie – A Girl Like You (expired)
So we enter a little section on relationship songs that somehow connect to literature. Holiday With Maggie are a band that I keep meaning to write about, but never seem to get around to thanks to not really liking their newer material. This song though is from a time when they still sounded like 60s pop crossed with Weezer, and thus is rather excellent. The literary link is tenuous, pretty much just the guy first saw the girl in the library reading. It’s enough for me though, even if half of these are just very poor excuses to get a bunch of good songs in one post.

MP3 Rhett Miller – Our Love (expired)
I know a lot of people find Rhett Miller to be a little too middle of the road for their liking, and I’m one of them on the most part. I like a handful of his songs though, and this is one of them. The choruses are pretty cheesy, but the verses make up for them, with nice little stories about the unrequited love of both Richard Wagner (I originally wrote Robert..) and Franz Kafka. The upbeat style of the song masks the misery in the words (“Kafka in his letters to his lover Milena was alive / But he was waiting for a love that never would arrive”) very well. It’s just a shame that the depth in the choruses couldn’t get beyond the repetition of “our love”.

MP3 Pants Yell! – My Boyfriend Writes Plays (expired)
The point where the relationship with a writer falls apart. The narrator is getting bored of his relationship with his playwright boyfriend (“It’s some sense of purpose for you / Fuck your stories, I’m leaving, it’s true / All your prose and one act songs / Were never meant for me”) and keeps promising to leave. Whether this is an idle threat or not, we’ll never know, that ambiguity adding to the song. I also have a great love for any band that can use the word “fuck” with such seriousness while still sounding so twee. It’s not an easy move to pull off.

MP3 Camera Obscura – Books Written For Girls (expired)
A song from back when Camera Obscura didn’t solely make upbeat 60s pop numbers. Actually, that might be a bit harsh, I haven’t really listened to ‘Let’s Get Out Of This Country’ enough yet. ‘Books Written For Girls’ is a melancholy piece about the end of a relationship between seemingly two very quirky people (“Give me marks out of ten for the clothes that I wear / .. / He reads books written for girls / Prides himself on being a man of the world”). There is always a certain sadness in Traceyanne’s voice whatever the song is, but something like this just brings it out even further.

MP3 Belle & Sebastian – Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie (expired)
And so we come full circle and end with one of the finest Belle and Sebastian songs. A fun song about a slightly nerdy girl who doesn’t really fit in with everyone and so takes refuge in the worlds of Salinger and Kerouac as a means of a escape. Which may be slightly weird worlds to want to take refuge in, but I guess they would be pretty interesting. Oh how I wish B&S still made songs like this one.

I hope you enjoy at least some of the songs here. I had a lot of fun putting it together anyway. Now I just need to come up with an idea for our next mixtape type thing. They seem to be appearing every two or three weeks at the moment, which is quite a good rate I think. We’ll be getting back to more regular posting following this one seeing as I’m feeling a fair bit better than I have been over the past week, so be sure to keep checking back to actually see some new content!

And yet another hat tip to You Ain’t No Picasso (aka the bestest music blog ever) for putting me onto an awesome little band called Pants Yell!

Granted, their name is slightly strange, yet after listening to their songs it becomes oddly fitting. Not that there is anything in the way of yelling here (no idea about the pants), this is gentle twee rock, the kind that recalls ‘Oh, Inverted World’ era Shins.

There’s a dorky charm to it all. In fact, you might be noticing this is the kind of thing I often come back to in these posts. I’m just a fan of dorky music I’m afraid. ‘My Boyfriend Writes Plays’ is the kind of thing that I could listen to on repeat and not get tired of, although that extends to a lot of their material.

To get to the pimping part of the post, they are releasing a new album on April 7, entitled ‘Recent Drama’, and they have made two songs available from it for our sampling enjoyment:

MP3 Pants Yell! – Kids Are The Same
MP3 Pants Yell! – Your Feelings Don’t Show

..and some older material:

MP3 Pants Yell! – My Boyfriend Writes Plays
MP3 Pants Yell! – Onward, Sailboat
MP3 Pants Yell! – The Not-So City Life

You can pre-order ‘Recent Drama’ for a mere $8 from Asaurus Records, where you can also stream a bunch more tracks from it. For more information about Pants Yell! and ordering information for some of their other releases, head on over to their website.

Other cool stuff:

I Am Fuel, You Are Friends has an incredible live version of Counting Crows’ ‘Rain King’ that seamlessly turns into a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road’. There’s a bunch of other Springsteen cover releated goodness there too.

There’s an excellent cover of Feel Good Inc. (Gorillaz if you’ve been living under a rock) by Editors up over at The Rich Girls Are Weeping.

Clever Titles Are So Last Summer is dedicating the week to “guilty pleasures”. I’m quite proud that I only own albums by two of the artists she’s covered so far.