A roundup of CDs by people who go to the same dentist as you.
Cheese On Bread
Four Slices (demo)
by Paul Burress, M.J. Fine, P.R, Patrick Rapa and John Vettese
Outward signs point to this being a joke band: the weird-on-purpose name, the smiley-bread logo, the precious story of the UPenn dormitory brainstorming session that inspired the formation of the band -- related on the equally precious, if sparse, website. But track one on the demo, the charmingly idiosyncratic Stepping out of Ketosis, reveals the truth: Cheese on Bread is actually trying. The kite-high vocals of Sara Fitzsimmons mix smartly with Dan Fishback's soft voice, and the guitars strum with pep and professionalism. Bubbling over with theatrical flair (the two finish each other's sentences) and some well-timed humorous (sometimes not too subtle) moments, this demo wets your whistle for the long-promised debut full-length.
Step aside, Burning Brides. Here comes something leaner (and meaner). Though on the surface, Pretest -- recorded by Steve Albini -- conjures up shades of the late Don Caballero (and its Storm and Stress offshoot), Dysrhythmia is based in groove instead of dynamic and tonal changes. Stretching nine songs over almost an hour, the disc vies for the listener's attention at times; flashy time changes and skilled noodling are sometimes called upon to spackle in the holes. Fear not, though, you can easily file this one safely next to your treasured Oxes 7-inch or Trans Am bootlegs.
Losing a member hasn't hushed Hallelujah. If anything, they've gotten louder. Drummer Matt Johnson's departure has forced Lucy Rodemich and Justin Staller to play musical chairs on stage. (Staller also drums for the Snow Fairies, so sitting at the kit isn't much of a stretch for him.) But the boosted volume isn't overcompensating, it's proof of their growing self-confidence. On Hallelujah's second self-released EP, recorded with Johnson, Rodemich's voice still soars over betrayals, bad dreams and bulldozer guitars, but she sounds less likely to float away. Four songs into it, Our Noise is the sound of a bunch of bedroom recorders blossoming into a band. Bless 'em.
On Happy Accident's sixth album, San Francisco expatriates Blake and Yael Lehmann bring This Radiant Boy drummer Bucky Lang into their happy home. No Clear Channel is packed with enough bouncy dork-pop to fill a They Might Be Giants fan's study break. Aside from a cover of The Little Girls' The Earthquake Song, Happy Accident shuns science in favor of sartorial references; album highlight Blue Shirt and Khakis tweaks chain stores and uniformity, and Blake Lehmann's mom owes him a big hug for the banjo-riffic Grey Socks. The nasal mastermind rarely lets his bass-toting wife get a word in edgewise, but on Call in Sick, they sweetly trade reasons for playing hooky: practice making a baby, ride your bike, surprise people with presents. Take it from the Lehmanns: The family that plays together stays together.
It's a barely forgivable oversight that we're just getting to this disc now (it came out late in '02). Let's say it took that long to sift through the layers. Made noisy and complicated by the sort of everyday studio magic that sinks most one-man-band projects, Nate Ruth's Whatever It Meant is smartly finessed in its overproduction. Although well hidden behind a formidable wall of distorted guitars, huge keyboard movements and catchy beats, Ruth's melodious vocals radiate warmth and humanize the powerhouse sound. The result is a surprisingly smallish, lo-fi aesthetic, like if Trevor HollAnd could string a guitar -- or maybe if J. Mascis befriended a robot. Everybody thinks My Bloody Valentine when they hear Ruth, and that's fine, too. This is a loud record, even when the lyrics would seem to call for something calmer and sweeter. You learn to trust the South Jerseyite by the end of the album. The last track, It's Been Worth The Wait, is a hopeful, perplexing little ditty with words every bit as optimistic as its title demands. As on every song, the music blares like a car horn, but it works.
The problem with that glam-rock kick a few years back -- you remember, Placebo, Psychotica, et al. -- was an excess of glitz and gloss, not in band image but in the music's production. Ziggy Stardust maintained a fair amount of sonic grit back in the day, and local quartet Persona follows in kind, adding a healthy lo-fi sensibility to their retro leanings. On their eponymous four-song demo, Under The Gun works a mellow, electro-tinged verse into a speedy guitar-rock chorus, complete with room noise. Joseph Melchiorre's wispy falsetto builds into a robust vibrato, then switches to a reverbed deadpan on You're Not Trying. A warm treble-y organ takes center stage on Never Trust. We'll see what direction the band heads in after their recordings with producer Brad Wood (Liz Phair, Matthew Sweet) are unveiled, but for now they sound great.
Thu., May 22, 9:30 p.m., $7, with Nixon¹s Head and Cordalene, Doc Watson¹s, 216 S. 11th St., 215-922-3247. See artists.iuma.com/ IUMA/Bands/The_Persona.
From President Springsteen to Treasurer Mellencamp, Working Class Guitar Heroes Local 732 has excelled at ambiguous odes to the teenage glory years. Brian Seymour, the union's scratchy-voiced Philadelphia representative, upholds the tradition. On Memories of High School, Seymour wonders, How did we ever survive the best years of our lives? Not a new sentiment for those of us who went through school knowing that things would get better because they couldn't get worse, but it's good to hear all the same. Like three of When I Was Blonde's other standouts, Memories appeared on a previous Seymour album. The singer/songwriter, who now splits his time between Los Angeles and New York, widens his horizons with the best new compositions, Judas Kiss and Old Soul, whose marriage of modern rock and orchestral touches would sound at home alongside Coldplay and Our Lady Peace on Y100.
Sat., May 17, 10 p.m., $6, with The Figgs and Ty Cobb, The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298. See www.bamu.com/seymour.htm.
Don't take me too seriously, sings Townhall's George Stanford on Master of the Universe. I'm not really saying too much. That might have applied to the group's formative gigs when he sang the odiously pandering lyric Puffin' on a blunt in Philadelphia, Pa. over tight-yet-sprawling instrumentation, but with The New Song, the jam boys have come into focus. Stanford's voice still sounds distressingly cartoonish at times and some cuts, like the Beatles-y pop tune Working For Another Song, fall apart from their own complexity. But the album's funky licks and fluid bass sound sharp and mostly stay within constraints of the average listener's attention span. The Spanish guitar sea chanty Ellie Mae progressively adds sax, accordion, cello and conga but still sounds natural, while the Stevie Wonder-esque gem Chevy -- a crisp and concise rumination on life and love -- refutes what Stanford later sings about not saying too much.
In true rock 'n' roll fashion, The Vexers fixate on fast cars, city life and sweaty sex on their self-titled debut. Alternating power-chord strums and muted clicks fill the first 10 seconds of Something Dirty before a slick bass-line entry, followed by Jennifer Taylor's wailing vocals, which fall somewhere between Patti Smith and Siouxsie Sioux. It kicks ass, but from there the album quickly follows fast punk-rock-girl vocals format. Fun stuff, but nothing particularly distinguishable. However, The Vexers save themselves with a few standouts. The unfortunately titled Mutual Masturbation is surprisingly great, with angular bass and high-string guitar riffs; and the nine-to-five grind paean The Saint, with Daydream Nation-esque guitar tones and an addictive beat, is even better.
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