"We're Not Above Reviewing Leaks": Vivian Girls - Share the Joy

Ever since the Vivian Girls got their big break (relatively speaking) in 2008, they have been extremely busy. They have gone through two drummers, Frankie Rose (now with the Dum Dum Girls) and Ali Koehler (who subsequently joined Best Coast). They cut their vastly underrated second LP Everything Goes Wrong. They have also formed a record label (Wild World Records) and engaged in numerous side-projects. Cassie Ramone has recorded and toured as The Babies along with Woods bassist Kevin Morby. Kickball Katy Goodman has been especially active, releasing an EP and a 7" (including last year's most delicious shoegaze moment in "It'll Come Around") with Gregg Foreman as All Saints Day as well as a full-length, eponymous LP as La Sera, featuring two of the coolest videos made in the last eight months (check out the grim yet free-spirited clips for "Never Come Around" and "Devils Heart Grows Cold"). Oh, and it should also be noted that they have toured constantly in the meantime. So how did the Girls find the time to write songs and record their latest album Share the Joy? And is it any good?

Share the Joy is the Vivian Girls' third studio LP, their first for Polyvinyl Records. On it, they retain their jangly approach to pop and hardcore punk which is, as always, loaded with tasty girl-group harmonies. There are a few noteworthy developments here, though. Cassie Ramone's songwriting skills continue to improve. The group's harmonies are as lush as ever. Lastly, Cassie Ramone's guitar leads are more assured, more adventurous, often confidently straying away basic melody. It also boasts the best fidelity of their three albums thus far. While for most listeners this would appear to be a good thing, Share the Joy does lack the zestful naivete of their generally over-hyped debut (Vivian Girls) as well as the crisp immediacy and fury of Everything Goes Wrong. Lastly, new drummer Fiona Campbell lacks the precision of the recently departed Ali Koehler, but is still a vast improvement over Frankie Rose.

The album opens with the stunning "The Other Girls," the Girls' longest track to date (clocking in at six-and-a-half minutes). Cassie Ramone's simulated twelve-string jangle, along with Kickball Katy's insistent, thumping James Jamerson-inspired bassline, carry the listener on a journey that includes Ramone's most impressive guitar solo thus far. The album's first single, "Heard You Say," finds them in minor-chord pop terrain, highlighted by their hallmark vocal harmonies, especially during the chorus, and a guitar solo that sounds like it was played on a twelve-stringer. Songs like"Lake House" and "Trying to Pretend" retain the angst of the previous album with cleaner production. Share the Joy's most overt nod to 1960s girl groups comes by way of "Take It as It Comes," which has a spoken-word dialogue between Cassie Ramone and Kickball Katy that recalls the opening of The Shangri-Las' 1965 masterpiece "Leader of the Pack," albeit far more lighthearted, as its focus is on "boy problems" rather than, say, a fatal motorcycle crash. As a result, it is the most fun cut on the album. They don't stray away from the topic of mortality, though. They re-record "Death," which previously appeared on their limited edition 2009 7" for the song "Moped Girls." The album closes with another six minute track in "Light in Your Eyes," which essentially re-delivers the single "Heard You Say" with far more seriousness and scope. Share the Joy benefits from having the most variety of a Vivian Girls album to date. There is plenty to like here for fans and neophytes alike. While it lacks the sizzle of their previous album, Share the Joy reveals a group that is continually growing and redefining their aesthetic.

--Share the Joy will be released on CD and vinyl courtesy of Polyvinyl Records on April 12. It is currently available for MP3 downloading at Polyvinyl Records' website.

"We're Not Above Reviewing Leaks": Best Coast - Crazy For You

As Best Coast, Bethany Cosentino--with the help of Bobb Bruno--has quickly established a reputation for crafting sunny, infectious lo-fi pop gems like last year's wonderfully playful "When I'm With You." On Best Coast's debut long player, the aptly titled Crazy For You Cosentino pushes the Best Coast conceit--vaguely retro sounding beach pop about relationships--as far as it can go without breaking, while serving up some of the shiniest, most polished songs of the group's still young career. The biggest concern one has with Best Coast is that Cosentino's songs sound a little bland on paper--the album is another hazy summery album in a long line of the same, featuring nothing but lyrics about relationships, mostly failed. To make matters worse, Cosentino isn't just singing about relationships gone wrong, she's singing about relationships in what seems like a very juvenile manner, and that's where listener patience might stretch to its limits. How many ways can a gal really say "I miss you," before it all starts to sound the same?

Despite all these potential missteps, after a handful of listens, something funny happens--overly familiar lines like "I miss you, so much" fade into the background as creepier, more desperate lines like, "I want to go back to/the first time, the first place" bubble up to the surface. The trite surface sentiment, "I wish he was my boyfriend," from album opener "Boyfriend," gives way to the co-dependent creep-fest "Crazy for You," in which Cosentino sings such uncomfortable gems as, "I can't do anything without you/I can't do anything with you," and "I want to hit you but then I kiss you/I want to kill you but then I'd miss you." What begins to emerge from beneath the album's sugary facade is that Cosentino's songs aren't just typical pop songs about heartache, there's something darker and more desperate at work.

The desperation in Cosentino's songs is most apparent through her preoccupation with nostalgia. More than one song on Crazy For You invokes the ever popular age of seventeen: on "Boyfriend," Cosentino sings, "I dropped out when I was seventeen"; on "Each & Everyday," it's "I wish we could go back to when I was seventeen/and I wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't have been so mean," both marking that year as a turning point to be revisited. In a way, Cosentino isn't doing anything that hordes of indie pop dudes haven't been doing for years--think The Promise Ring--but rather than obscuring the nostalgia in obtuse turns of phrase, she owns the nostalgia resulting in an uneasier, sadder, but also more entertaining end product. Indeed, not only are the songs written from remarkably honest points of view, but they are also full of quirky humor be it an offhanded reference to how a character "freaks when she gets high," or another's list of complaints ending with a non-sequitor: "I lost my job/I miss my mom/I wish my cat could talk." Cosentino's real achievement with the songwriting on Crazy For You, it turns out, is her ability to make the songs sound simpler and easier than they are. Inside every whispy complaint exists an ocean of neurosis--less "Breaking Up is Hard To Do," than "The One I Love," or "Every Breath You Take".

But of course, the lyrics don't even matter if this album doesn't sound good, and sound good it does. The summery production is spot on, and every song is built on killer melodies and strong hooks. The only thing really holding Crazy For You back, and it's just a little, is that, after a spell, the songs start to sound the same. One wonders what a couple of stripped down songs, or some more outside-the-box production techniques sprinkled throughout might have brought to this album. Maybe some more of those lo-fi textures and and hints of shit-gaze aesthetic from Best Coast's earlier releases might have given the album just the right balance to keep listeners grounded in each song. That being said, while Crazy For You is a bit too easy of an album in which to get lost, it also illustrates that the key to Best Coast's disaffected energy and good-times vibe has more to do with Cosentino's songwriting than some might have expected.

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Best Coast' Crazy For You is available 7/27 on Mexican Summer. Also, you can hear a stream of the whole album here...