Quick hits: my stack of CDs is getting a little high edition

A few days ago, as I was thinking about cleaning up my home office, I realized something: I have a lot of CDs from musicians looking to have their music reviewed. Like, a lot. Like, an it's-threatening-to-take-over-my-entire-floor lot. And given that I'm always open to (and encouraging of!) bands sending me their music (though downloads are probably better), it occurred to me that I should try and make headway into that pile. So here goes...



My first reaction to After The Morning After, the most recent album from Ayla Brook: "I'm willing to bet Herohill has lavished this with praise." And, lo and behold, they have.

I'm not sure whether this says more about me or about the predictable love of the 'Hill for all things that would sound good accompanying wood-whittling on a back porch, but it's certainly an album worth praising. Brook has a knack for writing country-tinged tunes that are enjoyably breezy, as a track like "Wake Up Early" demonstrates. Even when he plugs in and turns up the volume, on songs like "Worth The Drive" or the title track, he still shows that he knows how to rock out in the most laidback way possible. After The Morning After feels kind of slight, but Brook manages to make "slight" seem like something that's both substantive and worth aiming for.



Equally slight -- though less by design, I'm guessing -- is No Junk Mail Please, the most recent album from 21 Tandem Repeats. With their jangly melodies and flat, nsal vocals, the quartet basically sounds like every generic mid-'90s Can-rock band thrown together in a blender (though I suppose Odds would probably be the best comparison). Obviously, sounding generic is a lot better than sounding awful, but at the same time, it's generally nice if the band you're listening to at least tries to sound like they're interested in what they're doing. Unfortunately, 21 Tandem Repeats don't (see "Heidi Stopover" for proof), and the result is an album that seems to bore both band and listener alike.



And speaking of Odds, it turns out they just released an album last year -- under the name The New Odds, admittedly, but it's still them. Obviously, Cheerleader didn't return the band to their former glories, but that doesn't mean it's completely devoid of charm.

Whether you buy into the charm it has probably depends on whether you're old enough to remember the band from their first go-around. I was, which means that tracks like "Write It In Lightning" and "I Can't Get You Off" certainly appeal to my nostalgic side with their nods towards '90s-style power-pop. If you're not, however, you may be a little less inclined to check it out. Heck, for that matter, even if you are the fifty-minute-plus running time may be enough to make you turn the album off halfway through. All in all, it's nice to see that Odds/The New Odds are capable of putting out an album that's not embarrassingly dated, but all the same, Cheerleader doesn't really press the case for why the band had to come back.



Lastly, I'm not sure how I never wrote about Some Are Lakes, the newest album from Land of Talk, before now. After all, I was a huge fan of their debut, and my love of the band was only increased by last year's stopgap acoustic EP.

Part of it, I guess, is that the band's sound isn't that dynamic. So where Liz Powell and company sounded fresh and new and exciting on Applause Cheer Boo Hiss, just one album later it sort of feels like they've done all they can do with it. Pretty much every track, from "Yuppie Flu" on through to "Troubled", sounds basically the same, with their slightly detuned, slightly fuzzy guitars coupled with Powell's Cat Power-goes-rock vocals. It's great that the band has managed to defined themselves just two albums into their career, but it'd be nice if they showed that they were capable of breaking out of those boundaries and surprising people as well.