Cara Blanca; “Thank you very much, we are dear Blanca: live” (Comfort Monk)
Find it: dearblanca.com (available on February 5th)
The best live albums make you wonder if the artist should bother recording in a studio. “Thank you very much, we are dear Blanca” is one of those albums.
This is not to say that the indie rock band from Columbia has been underrepresented in previous releases. The weight of the 2014 “Pobrecito” double drums and the brilliant clarity of last year’s “Perched” provide especially good scenarios for Dylan Dickerson’s low voice and strongly emotional songs.
But “Thank You So Much” bottles the live vibrancy and instrumental chemistry that have become Dear Blanca’s strengths since guitarist Alex McCollum joined the group a few years ago. The main flexible and adaptable lines he weaves through these songs, and the harmonies and counterpoints that singer / guitarist Dickerson gathers to meet him, promote dynamic intensity.
Most of the album was recorded at the New Brookland Tavern in late 2019, during drummer Marc Coty’s last show with the band. Two additional songs were captured in an unpopular performance at the Township Auditorium last summer, with Richie Harper behind the kit.
Hearing the difference between the two drummers should be a pleasure for attentive listeners, as Coty’s propulsive attack and Harper’s spacious and muscular approach push the band in subtly divergent directions. It is a credit to Cam Powell’s expressively strong bass lines that the overall vibe remains largely unchanged.
Dear Blanca includes practically all of his best songs, enriching them with exciting crescendos and irregular but melodious vocal harmonies, which is hard not to shout together – even if you’re sitting at home with headphones on. “Thoughtless”, which explodes in a rush due to punk after a serenely distorted guitar intro, is particularly impressive.
There are few active bands from South Carolina with a catalog as rich as Dear Blanca. But “Thank You So Much” is the essential album that I would recommend to anyone who wants to know each other.
100 percent of pre-order sales before the disc’s release on February 5 will be given to New Brookland Tavern to support the club during the ongoing pandemic. JORDAN LAWRENCE
melon in, “are you sad” (self-released)
Find it: melonin.bandcamp.com
The concept of melancholy is an old one. It comes from the Greek word for “black bile”, since the physical excretion of bile inside the body was considered the main cause of depression.
It may seem like an exaggeration, but there is something about the concept and “you are sad”, Columbia’s new EP by Ony Ratsimbaharison (fk mt., Chemical Peel), which seems resonant.
The cover art, a painting by the singer / composer, features a black Rorschachian ink stain, which hangs over an abstract representation of a blue figure curled up in a fetal position. The five matching songs – strummingly strummed on the electric guitar, dressed in minimal overdubs and sung with a cadenced melancholy – are fundamentally concerned with a particular type of, say, melancholy.
The opener “every time” struggles with a circular feeling of regret (“I don’t want this anymore / The feeling so familiar / The weight we carry hurts us more / Than others sometimes”). “Tears” are lost in the solitude of sad songs, while the ending “let go” narrates the anxiety of suppressing emotions.
This themed tenor is supported by the influences of second wave emo and shoegaze evident in the astringent rhythmic parts of the guitar and distant reverberation in the vocals that lead each of the three songs with vocals. Simple main lines on the guitar or keyboard cut sparingly, even on both instrumentals, giving most of the EP a guitar-centric pop quality reminiscent of artists like Soccer Mommy and Black Belt Eagle Scout – composers who explore similar emotional terrains and alternative influences from the 90s.
Perhaps the only criticism of “I feel sad” is that the hooks, although present, may not be as sharp or resistant as they could be. There is a kind of unadorned integrity in not leaning towards some of the underlying pop dynamics at work, of course, but also an unrealized potential for a composer with Ratsimbaharison’s obvious gifts. KYLE PETERSEN
Cicala, “Cicala” (Unstable Acrobat)
Find it: cicala.bandcamp.com
There are MANY people on Cicala’s new self-titled album. The Myrtle Beach group is led by singer / guitarist Quinn Cicala, but he joined seven backers on bass, keyboard, drums, slide guitar, auxiliary percussion and backing vocals.
The results, however, are surprisingly organized. Led by vocals with a heart in Quinn’s sleeve, the Myrtle Beach team is essentially a lush and rude garage band, a mix between Son Volt’s basic and no-frills rock and the Drive-By Truckers ruthless aggression at its fiercest .
The band is right to approach opening “Truck Stop”, a staggering mid-time rocker. James Uzzel’s drums sway everywhere under sloppy guitars and a beautiful rising chorus.
It is a welcome to an album of modest yet pure pleasures, from the buzzsaw riffs of “Intervention” to the hot organ-driven rock of “Worm” to the dirty yearning of “Interstate”.
Cicala’s lyrical perspective is as bruised and damaged as the music. “Interstate” revolves around a bleak cry of “Not now, but maybe someday”, which becomes more and more abandoned as the song progresses. “Truck Stop” ends with Cicala asking himself repeatedly: “What am I doing?” out of pure frustration. And the longest song, the ballad “Speak”, has one of the most devastating passages you’ll probably hear this year: “You really don’t like me / If you did, you wouldn’t be / That kind of person.”
However good “Speak” is, however, it suffers from its placement on the album. It is followed by another oppressed ballad, “Tahoe”, and this dulls the impact of both songs. The lost momentum also makes it harder to enjoy the “Turn it Off” closure, a rocker anthem designed to be blown up with the car windows open.
With better sequencing, “Cicala” could be excellent, rather than just very good. VINCENT HARRIS