Polar Bear Club "Sometimes Things Just Disappear"

Presumably named after what Wikipedia calls the "oldest winter bathing organization in the United States," listening to Polar Bear Club is (fortunately) a more pleasant and inviting experience than plunging into frigid waters. (Hard to believe, eh?) It's something I'm wont to do -- and have been doing, as of late -- just about every day.

This New York-based band's first full length, Sometimes Things Just Disappear, recently dropped on Red Leader Records, and it is, as far as I can tell, a sleeper hit. It's a little surprising that I haven't heard a whole lot about Polar Bear Club, as their smooth-flowing, crafty songs are fresh and genuine, and equally catchy. Harnessing mid-paced post-hardcore -- stuttering riffs, breezy picking sequences and all -- and melodic punk rock's sense of grit and energy, the band admittedly warrants comparisons to Small Brown Bike and Hot Water Music. Jimmy Stadt's vocals, which straddle (and cross) the line between gruff and clean, don't hamper the comparisons, either. While the record is ultimately familiar, I'm really attracted to the way Polar Bear Club manages to write detailed songs without forgetting the hooks. There's some really catchy stuff here, and it helps to round out the effort.

Sometimes Things Just Disappear is relatively consistent, although it hits a bit of a lull around the eighth song, "Our Ballads," in which the cleverness and attention to detail fall off. Still, the record is almost entirely solid and, throughout its duration, Stadt unleashes witty, honest sentiments (it's hard to not identify with some of the self-depreciating, "I'm-a-fuck-up" kinds of lyrics in particular). I really enjoy this album. I haven't listened to much of this kind of stuff lately, so it's a nice change of pace.

Polar Bear Club - Eat Dinner, Bury the Dog and Run

Grab your copy here.

The Secret "Disintoxication"

I've been meaning to write a brief entry for The Secret's sophomore full length for weeks now, but work's been picking up and, in all honesty, I just haven't been feeling the motivation. So I'm going to take the easy path today and say that Disintoxication sounds like a beefed-up Converge record. Furious, blasting tempos and some dense grooves lay the groundwork for jarring, noisy, stop-start riffs and throaty screams. These Italian lads don't mess with their tried-and-true formula a whole lot and, while most of the songs are a bit same-y, it's not a formula that needs changing. After all, the riffs are energetic and powerful, conveying plenty of feeling, and the caustic vocals amplify the harsh, ominous tone. The more atmospheric, drawn-out parts, such as the middle section of "Inferno" and much of the sludgy "Umea," add some depth and variety, and help reign in the chaos.

I don't have any serious complaints with this one; it's not something that will sate lovers of all-out experimentation, but it's tastefully executed and subtly diverse metalcore.

The Secret - Inferno

Pick it up at the Relapse store.

Cursed "III: Architects of Troubled Sleep"

Let's get one thing -- one thing that you all should know and firmly believe -- in the open: Cursed is fucking awesome, totally badass, and one of the best hardcore bands out there. Just listen to their first two full lengths and more recent 7-inch EP, Blackout at Sunrise, and try and tell me otherwise. I dare you.

Or try the band's newest effort, III: Architects of Troubled Sleep. It's as stellar as anything else Cursed has written.

While this Canadian hardcore band has always played harder and with more intensity than just about any other band I've heard, III comprises some of their hardest-hitting material yet. There are more blast beats. There's sludgier, more unnerving heaviness. The textures are rawer. Cursed ultimately hits hardcore's extremes a little more often -- "Night Terrors" is a frantic, light-speed opener, while the mid-album "Friends in the Music Business" is a massive, lumbering jaunt with menacingly sludgy riffs and a slow, beastly tempo. Cursed fills the gaps with their familiar brand of crusty, ominous hardcore punk, replete with throaty vocals that sound as bitter and disdainful as the messages behind them, and a couple brooding, meandering songs ("Unnecessary Person," "Gutters") that carry the cheer of three straight days of rain. (Not a lot. I know from last week.) There's a sense of pacing to III, with slower songs and bigger riffs breaking up the jolts of neck-snapping, driving hardcore.

The raw, analog recording adds character to the tunes and is a perfect complement to Cursed's style. Polish simply wouldn't sound natural on such an inherently harsh sound, and it wouldn't mesh with the nihilistic, socially aware lyrics or fittingly black-and-gray color scheme. All things considered, III is another tight, intense package from Canada's finest. I may be caught up in the excitement of the record, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that there's hardly a better modern hardcore band than Cursed.

Cursed - Magic Fingers
Cursed - Friends in the Music Business

Spend your $10 on something totally worthwhile over at the Relapse store.

With Blood Comes Cleansing "Horror"

First off, With Blood Comes Cleansing's debut, Golgatha, sucked. That's all I remember about it, which speaks volumes about its frustratingly boring songs. Horror is better; not great, mind you, but a more consistent, chunky-as-chowder (Christian) metal record.

I'm sure these guys are still getting lumped into the deathcore genre with Horror. And I wouldn't argue, as gravelly, scathing vocals accent an onslaught of bold, atonal breakdowns, here-and-there blast beats, and sinister death metal riffs. While the album is nowhere near as grind-oriented as something from Despised Icon or as breakdown-obsessed as a The Acacia Strain effort, Horror has its place as a middle-of-the-road record. In this case, that's not an inherently bad thing because there's certainly an audience for something a little less technical and a little more accessible. There's also only scant pig squeals and nothing sappy, so, despite it being a hip brand of metal, it's not laden with every contemporary trend imaginable.

It may not leave a lasting impression, but Horror is a simple, entertaining listen, and it does have some conviction. But you probably know whether this is something for you. It's youngsters playing death metal with lots of modern breakdowns, so enter at your own risk.

With Blood Comes Cleansing - Filthy Stains

You can get this slab o' metalcore here.

Tiger Lou "The Loyal"

Mournful as a procession past a mass grave, Tiger Lou's The Loyal has brought boundless joy to my life for the past month. Reviving a sound that had been MIA since Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights -- comparisons to which led me to this release -- The Loyal transmutes the cellar of somber, subdued hues into vibrance.

Enveloped in a lush gloom, sullen guitars march forward, propelled by the purposefully pulsing rhythm section, an imperative organ ceding center stage. Mellow strings sway behind many tracks, and the hypnotic hum of Rasmus Kellerman's voice buttresses a sound of pervasive fullness.

Kellerman's touch -- he writes and records almost entirely solo -- lends itself to steadiness. The pace flows, adjustments emerging as natural tides; vocals inflect only slightly, but ranging just beyond monotone with a voice so naturally melodious and musical radiates polychromatic appeal. Kellerman's voice is so integral, enlivening, in fact, that I often find myself skipping the closer -- a fine piece of instrumental ambience, cold and droning -- to begin the album anew.

Eyeball Records has spied itself one of 2008's best indie albums.

Tiger Lou: "The Loyal"

Become a Loyalist at Eyeball Records.

Hot Chip "Made in the Dark"

If every time a bag of Skittles opened Hot Chip's music streamed from the ripped packaging riding rainbow-colored waves of sound, every toddler in earshot rejoicing, twitching in robotic unison, I wouldn't bat an eye. If precocious preschoolers made mixtapes of the Teletubbies at the pinnacle of their substantial psychosis, the melange of zips and clicks, hums, whirs and low-end rumbles that comprise Made In The Dark would be a natural fit.

Made in the Dark plays like a drug frenzy. After the opening track blossoms from a long whine into a pulsing harmony of short guitar licks and driving percussion, a noisy circus of effects melting atop, the mania lingers. The warbling, video-game transition into the second track, "Shake a Fist," sounds like an opening level theme ripped from the NES classic Double Dragon, and the ominous beat that emerges on the other side is pure, tribal-infused Mortal Kombat.

Hot Chip's synthetic compositions are invigorating, oddball fragments of abstraction. Repetitious volleys of vocals in ephemeral, ethereal wisps, often distorted behind the tinny veneer of computerized effects, and a multitude of subtle panned sounds reward headphone listeners. With occasional moments of calm proving smooth comedowns between blasts of adrenaline, Hot Chip shows a range and delicacy that too often escapes the battiest musicians. While the predominance of Hot Chip's time is spent ricocheting around the realms of noisy-dance and meth-tinged synth-pop, harnessing a very '80s vibe and then galloping across plains of indie rock and electronica, tracks like "In The Privacy of our Love," delve into the unexpected -- '60s soul in this instance.

Once the Skynet takeover is complete, and computers grasp the concept of leisure time, they'll discover the market for soundscape recordings: ambient recreations of various cyber-ecosystems. These collections of soothing cyber-sounds will be featured during non-prime hours of the machine-preferred equivalent of TV, some mindless pastime interrupted by the inane promotions of silky-voiced human slaves. Very quickly, the machines will realize that Made in the Dark is the only example of cyber-ambiance that need exist. At this epoch, Made in the Dark will become the bible. And, once the machines exhaust their stable of human slaves through their new favorite pastime, slow disembowelment in order to capture and digitize a range of pained screams for a universal database of sound effects to replace the familiar chimes and dings and "You've got mail"'s characteristic of human computer applications, Made in the Dark will be humanity's single surviving relic.

Finish Him!: Hot Chip - "Shake a Fist"

Check out Hot Chip at Astralwerks.

This Is Hell "Misfortunes"

I was a pretty huge fan of This Is Hell's demo and self-titled, debut EP, but never got the same excitement out of their first full length, Sundowning. It felt too calculated, with all kinds of catchy, clever sing-alongs and predictably placed breakdowns, to give me the rush that blazing melodic hardcore often does. Misfortunes is a redemption, though, as it restores some of the burly, bare-knuckled rage and energy that I came to love a few years ago.

Still the same Long Island hardcore band, This Is Hell has taken their established, melodic sound in a crunchier direction, shedding some of the American Nightmare/Give Up the Ghost similarities and, at times, sounding more like (old) The Hope Conspiracy. The guitar parts can be downright visceral, with a satisfying crunch, and the shouted, in-your-face vocals resonate with feeling. As has always been the case, This Is Hell uses smart guitar interplay and accomplished melodies to prove to be one of the more musically inclined hardcore bands. Even though their songs often exceed three and four minutes, they gracefully flow from part to part, and from fast to slow.

Misfortunes is admittedly long for a hardcore record, but there is a payoff for listening to the entire thing. The tenth song, "You Are the Antithesis," shakes things up with an earth-quaking breakdown (which is one of my favorites yet this year). The closer, "Last Days Campaign," is Modern Life Is War-ish with its slow, steady progression toward a booming crescendo and, like the earlier "Realization: Remorse," it's one of the album's most intriguing and affecting songs.

It's hard to go wrong with This Is Hell when melodic, beefy hardcore (and lots of gang vocals) is what you're after. I don't know that the band will ever top their first EP, but that shouldn't downplay Misfortunes' quality. This is pretty good stuff.

This Is Hell - You Are the Antithesis

Grab the album here.