Reviews: Wow & Flutter and The Dead Trees

[December 10th, 2008]

Wow & Flutter Golden Touch

[POST-POST-PUNK] Even through the fuzz that clings to every song on Wow & Flutter’s Golden Touch, it’s easy to hear the irony dripping off the album’s centerpiece, “A Little Help.” Over glockenspiel, banjo and handclaps, a member of the trio (all three contribute vocals, but it’s near impossible to tell them apart) wonders aloud, “Peace on earth/Where on earth have you been?” and is soon joined by a chorus chanting, “So let’s all make love to each other.” It’s a satire of the age of hope; a post-punk take on Nick Lowe’s sarcastic eulogy for hippie utopianism, “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding.”

“A Little Help” is the most distinctive moment on the Portland vets’ sixth record, but it’s not an exception. With domineering bass lines, densely distorted guitars and loud, clanging drums, the band announces its influences—Joy Division, Gang of Four, the general ’tude of ’70s New York—while refusing to swear by them: “Heaven,” for example, introduces itself with a spaghetti western-style trumpet blare, then gradually morphs into a Balkan party jam. A dark tint colors the entire disc, but it’s never brooding. And at times—particularly the opening volley “Red Face”—it’s plain fucking rocking.

The Dead Trees King of Rosa

[INDIE-ROCK TRANSPLANTS] King of Rosa, the debut long-player from the Dead Trees, comes bearing a stamp of approval from not one but two whole Strokes. It’s not difficult to see why: The album radiates with ragged tunefulness. But this isn’t a band of skinny-jean pretty boys. Although the quartet only recently moved to the Rose City from Boston, there’s an intangible flannel-wrapped Pacific Northwestern quality to these 10 songs. Maybe it’s the near-grunge guitar work. Maybe it’s the calmer, cloudier tracks that invoke the ghost of Elliot Smith. Or it could just be the song about fighting a hangover.

Whatever it is, these guys fit right in—even when they don’t. The recording is too pure (as in, it doesn’t sound like it was recorded in a basement), the pop almost too savvy. And those are pluses. Opener “OK Standby” recalls the alt-rock classicism of Screaming Trees. “Shelter” is a fantastic single, singer Michael Ian Cummings breaking out of the stoned haze that usually envelops his voice to scrape his larynx on the ascendantly infectious chorus. And the acoustic “My Friend, Joan, She Never Asks” is beautifully melancholy without wallowing. There are only two missteps: The self-explanatory “Instrumental” just doesn’t need to exist, and “Loretta” is a poorly aimed shot at glam swagger. The rest is gold.