Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Radio & Music >

Morningwood

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:52 / 24.01.06

So as you'll be gathering, I'm trying to give the Music forum a bit of a boost with threads about new artists/bands. With that in mind, who's familiar with Morningwood?

'Nth Degree' is the (should-be) big radio hit, the one that shows off their most joycore aspirations. The rest of their self-titled debut album is a lot more guitar-driven - it's brassy rock'n'roll that's reminiscent of everything from America's Sweetheart to Le Tigre (not the widest of scopes, but you get the idea).

'Nu Rock' is Queens of the Stone Age's '...Millionaire' reinvented as girl-powered punk-pop. 'New York Girls' will fill a hole for anyone missing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (and/or worrying about the fact that the new YYYs album is going to be a concept album about a cat). Through a sequence in which various woman shout out where they come from, it's made clear that the song isn't about coming from a geographical location. It's about an attitude, a whole way of being.

Morningwood aren't perfect - but they're just starting out, and where with some bands this might be expressed as a roughness around the edges, with Morningwood it's in the way they sometimes seem to be trying a bit too hard. And yeah, the new version of 'Take Off Your Clothes' isn't as good as the 'Cannonball'-sampling version that appeared on Fluxblog a while back - whether the new take on it is solely a response to sample clearance problems or represents a deliberate change in sound remains to be seen. Part of the interest with new bands is seeing which way they go, and Morningwood could clearly go many ways - many good, some bad. I'm definitely on board for the ride for now.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:20 / 24.01.06

Try before you buy*: 'New York Girls'

*Or, er, try some more, as the case may be.

14:05 / 15.04.06

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand here's Jack Fear to give Morningwood the kiss of feath by admitting he kinda digs 'em.

On first hearing, I assumed that Morningwood were a very young band. The brashness, the energy, the winking self-promotion all gave the impression of smart-assed naifs, wide-eyed and big-mouthed and ready to take on the world.

Imagine my astonishment to discover that they're virtually an indie-rock supergroup. The guitarist used to be in Spacehog (who I rather liked), the bassist played with the Wallflowers (who I loathed), and the drummer used to play with Cibo Matto (who gave me a headache).

But they're a perfectly constructed group, in the way that Garbage or the sadly-unknown Stimulator were perfectly-constructed groups, and it's beautiful stuff—disco drums, rock bass, big guitar hooks, cheeky samples, sexy sexy vocals—knowingly dumb, aggressively simple, produced to within an inch of its life, and utterly irresistible. Pogo pogo pogo pogo pogo go go go go go.

14:07 / 15.04.06

"kiss of feath" = "kiss of death," obvs.

"Feath" is what you're wishing upon someone when you cry out "Fie!"

06:16 / 16.04.06

I really like the album, "Nu Rock" and "Nth Degree" are the definite highlights, but all the tracks are pretty solid. I saw them open for Head Automatica last month and they were ok live. It was a mostly teen crowd, so there was a lot of over the top yelling, cursing and such, which I suppose is pretty rawk, but seemed a bit contrived. However, the sound at the venue was pretty awful, so at a better place, they might have been a lot better.

Still, they played well, and the album is excellent. I'll definitely check out whatever they come up with next.

07:51 / 16.04.06

I picked the album up on the strength of "Nth Degree," but it didn't hold my attention past a couple of listens. The tracks are well put together, well produced, but don't really grab me. The hypersexualized lyrics seem a little like a shock tactic though, a means of getting attention, and I find "Babysitter" to be just creepy, but that's probably me speaking more as a new parent than as a musi critic.

I'll have to listen to it again and see if my impressions bear out.