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Pulling An All-Nighter

4½ stars

Love Is All
A Hundred Things That Keep Me Up At Night
What’s Your Rupture?

Discerning what the term “post-punk” means is like traipsing drunkenly through a field of buried mines. One wrong step and it all blows up in your face. After all, is post-punk anything that literally occurred after the punk rock explosion of 1976 or is it music that just leans toward the general punk sound? An easy solution to the problem comes by way of a listen to the new album from Love Is All, A Hundred Things That Keep Me Up At Night. Released on New York imprint What’s Your Rupture?, this Swedish group has encapsulated the post-punk genre in one fell swoop.

From the start of the first track, “New Beginnings,” A Hundred Things offers up jagged guitars and sharp saxophones with spot-on production work. Imagine if no-wave was tutored in pop music. It’s as if The Buzzcocks met up with The Jesus and Mary Chain and decided to mash and mesh their signature sounds. “Give It Back,” the album’s second track, follows suit with frantic James Chance-ish saxophone blasts and some rapid-fire dance-rock drumming.  

The band then transitions into what I will easily deem the album's standout track: “Movie Romance.” It’s a snotty pop-punk yarn in the vein of Sex Pistols' “Holiday in the Sun” or The Boys' “First Time” — simple in its formulaic teardown of love as depicted on film. The startling thing about Love Is All is how well everything fits together on the record at hand and “Movie Romance” in particular. The band is so tight ... crisp ... perfectly sealed. There are no loose ends to be found and it's clear that drummer Markus Gorsch and saxophone/keyboardist James Ausfahrt are simply phenomenal musicians.

Flowing over top of the band's perfect weave, lead singer Josephine Olausson spits venom just like Johnny Rotten. Her delivery is both timely and remains completely stellar throughout the album. I feel like someone shoved the X-Ray Spex “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” single up her nose and it now plays on infinite repeat in her brain. Or perhaps she somehow traded voices with the girl who sings “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas.” Regardless of any comparison, Olausson delivers an absolutely captivating performance on A Hundred Things.   

Equally as fascinating as Olausson is the band's smooth, progressive ability to switch gears into indie-pop dance grooves on songs like “Last Choice.”

Love Is All clearly show that they dig the dancefloor aesthetics of 1980s Madonna and Michael Jackson, what with all the tight snare snaps and double-time hi-hat hits. The addition of cutesy church bells, synths and other doodads make Hundred Things seem like a futuristic reinterpretation of MJ's Off The Wall. In the end, although I can namedrop no-wave and punk bands all day long, I can best liken listening to Love Is All to suspense-filled songs like “Leader of the Pack” and “Last Kiss.” In every song, the band delivers perfect passion, tension and apprehension, while at the same time encapsulating the post-punk sound. The band does this by following the amazing intricacies of the genre, but by also remaining unafraid to escape its more tired tendencies. — ERIC ALLEN

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Merry Me

4 stars

Rosie Thomas & Friends
A Very Rosie X-Mas
Sing-A-Long Records

If you can only take those 100.3 WNIC tunes for so long (how you do at all is beyond me), A Very Rosie Christmas makes for a nice departure from the same old, same old. Listen to Thomas’ playful mix of original and classic holiday tunes done the indie way — with gentle synth, dreamy vocals, quiet chiming bells and her sweet, catchy melodies. With songs that lilt smoothly from tender to wistful, it’s a good selection for holiday get-togethers and really just makes you want to slip on some pajamas ... or an ugly Christmas sweater.

 “Snow Day” brings soft, slow drumming that cascades beneath gentle piano and synth and her charming little vocals, as “Alone at Christmas Time” attempts to paint the album as an accurate portrait of the holidays by depicting seasonal depression. Thomas’ voice swells with the quiet feeling of holiday contentment and nostalgia, and rather than belting out commercialized holiday cutouts like “All I Want for Christmas is You,” or singing “Silent Night” the loudest, Thomas doesn’t break new ground but beckons you to the organic purity of folksy Christmas songs past. The endearing traditional quality of her voice is bound to melt your heart like the ice outside your window. — Kelly Durbin

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88-Keys
The Death of Adam
Decon Records

This record's horrible. I climbed the mountain of hype surrounding this Harlem producer-turned-MC expecting something amazing, but this concept album (completely based off biblical Adam’s mission to get laid, and its consequences), is nothing but a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it. The half star represents Phonte’s (of Little Brother) killer verse on “Close Call.” The hype of 88-Keys? Nothing to load the shotgun over. The hype surrounding South Carolina’s Little Brother? Take aim and fire. — RYAN P. HOOPER

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3½ stars

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Tone & Niche  
The House of the Rising Sun EP
Self-released

The sound of Tone & Niche burns with spellbound somberness. This makes the gristly, pounding showstopper “House of the Rising Sun” a perfect cover for the quintet. Nicole Vagra’s violin goes from long dramatic sawing sways to more aggressive, choppy, blurted blitzes while guitarist/singer Anthony Retka bellows in his deep syrupy tones. Fiery indeed. “Epitaph” showcases their unique take on neo-folk with buzzy electric guitars waltzing with violins. — JEFF MILO

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in my ear
Silverghost

If it were up to us, there’d be marble idols of this dashing duo lining the sidewalks of Woodward, and their sexy synth jams would be blared from the speakers that blast the monthly tornado alarm. Check ‘em out at PJ’s Lager House on 11/20. Here's music they're diggin':

MGMT
Oracular Spectacular
The Fall
50,000 Fall Fans Can’t Be Wrong
Wanda Jackson
Rockin’ With Wanda
Gary Numan
The Pleasure Principal
Ike and Tina
Working Together
Suzie Quatro
A’s, B’s, and Rarities
Sweet
“Love is Like Oxygen”
Deerhunter
Microcastle
Jay Reatard
Matador Singles
Public Enemy  
Power to the People and the Beats

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