PREVIEW/BUY THE CD HERE

On their 2001 debut, B.R.M.C., Black Rebel Motorcycle Club offered a song titled “Whatever Happened to my Rock and Roll (Punk Song),” an energetic and attitude-driven paradigm for what the band thought rock and roll should sound like, or at least the attitude that rock bands should possess. Including this type of song on a debut implied that they would try to right the ship (and also demonstrated that they care more about their music ideology than about the grammar rules of “whatever” versus “what ever”).

For a few albums, including a creative peak in the vastly underrated Howl, BRMC encompassed all that they believed rock should be, a crucible of influences that spanned decades, that fans of The White Stripes and Zeppelin and Supergrass and JAMC could all relate to.

Their seventh LP, Specter at the Feast, is anything but complacent. It comes nearly three years after their previous release, 2010‘s Beat the Devil’s Tattoo, and the band has endured the unthinkable tragedy of bassist/singer Robert Levon Been’s father, Michael Been of ’80s band The Call, suddenly dying backstage while working as the group’s sound engineer as the trio performed at Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium. The time between this event and now has seen the group trying to cope with the loss of a crew and family member, and Specter at the Feast is written as a document to that time, an ambitious and personal project from a group that hasn’t been associated much with ambition since the release of Howl.

And, the effort shows, as the album sits easily with their early best, a worthy addition in the tradition of turning heartbreaking circumstances into cathartic art. Just this year we witnessed Local Natives digging in the same mine, but from Lou Reed to Arcade Fire, some of rock’s best music has been a reaction to personal losses.

Specter at the Feast, though, doesn’t drown in its depression. It is intent on showing the range of the human experience. Opening with the dirty, bass-driven “Firewalker,” the first emotions on the collection are not self-pity, but self-reflection, and the following “Let the Day Begin” covers The Call with a nod to ’70s metal riffs and British rock revivalism, both songs paying as much homage to Been’s father as they do to the history of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

At its best, Specter at the Feast is more than just vintage BRMC, with some of the more UK-indebted noise pop reaching impressive heights. “Returning” lunges for vast emotional peaks and exceeds them with a sense of a sprawling shine, while “Lullaby” takes the guitar lick of “In My Life” and spins it in freeing, new directions, avoiding anything more than comparisons as a successful homage.

And if the album was written to demonstrate the ups and downs that come with life’s typical unpredictability, the closing combination of “Sell It” and “Lose Yourself,” together clocking in at around 15 minutes, encapsulate this mission. The end impression left by these closers is how out of control we all are, as they shift from noise and chaos to beauty and peace. More than a decade later, you have to wonder if BRMC ever realized that the only thing that ever happened to rock and roll was life, and that it’s all far more complicated than a single song or band can remedy. Reacting to what life has given them has made Black Rebel Motorcycle Club a better band on Specter at the Feast, and we can hope that this change will stick. -Paste Magazine

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The Record Exchange and Treefort Music Fest are planning a series of Secret Treefort In-stores during the festival, and we’re pleased to announce our fourth confirmed show:

Friday, March 22 (4 p.m.)
The Record Exchange
1105 W. Idaho St., Boise (two blocks from the Treefort main stage)

RSVP HERE

FULL SECRET TREEFORT IN-STORE SCHEDULE

Thursday, March 21, 5 p.m.
Friday, March 22, 4 p.m.
Saturday, March 23, 3 p.m.
Sunday, March 24, 4:30 p.m.

All Record Exchange Secret Treefort In-stores are free and all ages, and a Treefort pass is not required to attend (but you really should get one because this festival is gonna rule).

The RX and Treefort will announce the artists the morning of each event via social media and The Record Exchange email list, which you can sign up for HERE.

Shhh!

PREVIEW/BUY THE CD HERE

Even after 10 years away from the spotlight, David Bowie – pop’s most important post-Beatles innovator – still commands unrivalled levels of fascination. 

Just when it seemed that he had slipped into a dignified retirement, which no one would have begrudged, the world awoke one morning in January to the remarkable news of not only a single, ‘Where Are We Now?’, available immediately, but also this album.

In the context of the album, ‘Where Are We Now?’ – a moving, backwards glance at The Berlin Years – seems a slight red herring. Bowie does consider the past, ageing, mortality: on the title track’s chant of “My body left to rot in a hollow tree” and ‘I’d Rather Be High’s’ stumbling “to the graveyard”.

‘How Does the Grass Grow?’ poses the question, “Would you still love me if the clocks could go backwards?” (You Will) Set the World on Fire seemingly addresses his pre-stardom self, a You Really Got Me riff and slick confidence reminding us that he’s always had “what it takes”. This elegiac nostalgia is matched by the beautiful You Feel So Lonely You Could Die.

A complex mood pervades elsewhere, a sense of things gone awry. The nicely sinister ‘Dirty Boys’ expressive, serious vocal depicts a skewed Englishness of cricket bats, “Finchley Fair” and running “with dirty boys”.

‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ sees those stars (a recurring theme) anthropomorphised: “sexless and unaroused”, unsettlingly “beaming like blackened sunshine”.

The most experimental cut, ‘If You Can See Me’, proclaims – amidst spacey, tumbling rhythms and scattered jumbles of notes and words – “I will slaughter your kind”.

‘Love Is Lost’ makes youth seem ominous – newness abounds but still “your fear is old”. Clearly this is no elder statesman simply wistfully gazing into a dappled, romanticised past.

‘Valentine’s Day’ and ‘I’d Rather Be High’ are further standouts – the former is a mid-paced depiction of a character with a “tiny face” and “scrawny hands”; the latter, a furious anti-war song.

The closer, ‘Heat’, is a brilliant example of what makes our finest, bravest musician of the past 40 years so irreplaceable. It’s full of spaced-out vocals, ominous noises and bangs, keening strings and disturbing, impressionistic poetry.

With all the opacity and lack of easy answers that you would hope for from this most stylish and creative of artists, this is a triumphant, almost defiant, return. Innovative, dark, bold and creative, it’s an album only David Bowie could make. -BBC Music

The Record Exchange and Treefort Music Fest are planning a series of Secret Treefort In-stores during the festival, and we’re pleased to announce our third confirmed show:

Sunday, March 24 (4:30 p.m.)
The Record Exchange
1105 W. Idaho St., Boise (two blocks from the Treefort main stage)

RSVP HERE

FULL SECRET TREEFORT IN-STORE SCHEDULE

Thursday, March 21, 5 p.m.
Saturday, March 23, 3 p.m.
Sunday, March 24, 4:30 p.m.

All Record Exchange Secret Treefort In-stores are free and all ages, and a Treefort pass is not required to attend (but you really should get one because this festival is gonna rule).

The RX and Treefort will announce the artists the morning of each event via social media and The Record Exchange email list, which you can sign up for HERE.

Shhh!

Daniel Bachman (Tompkins Square) will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise) followed by a Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside meet-and-greet at 6 p.m. Friday, March 8. This is Bachman’s only show in town! Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside are playing Neurolux later that evening and we have tickets for sale at the store! As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages. RSVP HERE.

ABOUT DANIEL BACHMAN

WATCH AN NPR FEATURE ON BACHMAN HERE.
WATCH A LIVE VIDEO OF BACHMAN HERE.

Daniel Bachman is a 22-year-old musician born and raised in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He has been playing what he describes as “psychedelic Appalachia” since he was a teenager, releasing small run editions of tapes, CDs and LPs for the past three years, with a sound that evolved from drones and banjos to a now guitar-centered focus.

Touring off and on since the age of 17, Bachman has managed to cover thorough ground across the U.S., sharing stages with like-minded folk such as fellow Fredericksburg native Jack Rose, for whom he fashioned the artwork for the posthumous release of Luck In The Valley.

His newest effort is the full length LP Seven Pines, sprung from a year living and working in the city of Philadelphia. The sound results in a combination of homesick worried blues and the ecstatic buzz of fresh experience and a new life in unknown territory. Familiar and known, but also seeking to access memories from lives past, dead and gone.

ABOUT SALLIE FORD AND THE SOUND OUTSIDE

Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside’s new record Untamed Beast is a visceral rock and roll romp. Like a cross between “Ella Fitzgerald and Tom Waits” (Mashable) Sallie has established herself as one of the most powerful female voices in indie rock. Ford and her group – Tyler Tornfelt (upright bass), Ford Tennis (drums), and Jeffrey Munger (lead guitar) – recorded the album’s 11 tracks with Adam Landry and Justin Collins (Deer Tick, Middle Brother) at Jackpot! Studios in the band’s hometown of Portland, Oregon.

On the new album the band creates a powerful statement on finding freedom through defying conformity. Through clever (often racy) turns of phrase, Sallie twists traditional notions of gender and genre. She says “it’s time for a girl to infiltrate the boys world of rock n roll and grab it by the balls. To me rock n roll isn’t a genre, it’s an energy.” From the exuberantly sexy “Do Me Right” to the free-spirited cry of “Party Kids,” Untamed Beast has a lust for life.

Untamed Beast is the follow up to 2011′s Dirty Radio, which Brooklyn Vegan called “phenomenal [and] monumental.” In 2011, Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside made their national television debut on Letterman, were one of the most talked about new performers at Bonnaroo, the Newport Folk Fest and Bumbershoot, and were championed by Jack White and The Avett Brothers.