mizeryFree
Listen
[self-released]

by Lounge Lizard

Alternative rock (ala the mid-Nineties, teen-demographic friendly radio rock) is a four-letter word in the music industry nowadays. It is not just a genre of music done to death; its appeal to the ever-fickle music listener has dwindled over the year with the emergence of nu-metal, post-rock and everything in between. Barely a decade old, the last nail on its coffin has already been hammered in.

Yet, the boys from mizeryFree still flog their wares in their passion for such music. Sonically, the group sounds like a continuation of Singaporean rock pioneers Concave Scream, picking up the baton where Concave Scream left off at Erratic. Metal riffs sitting side-by-side with trippy guitar lines. Not just singer Kevin Teoh’s impassioned yelp a dead ringer for Concave Scream’s Sean Lam, he indulges in similar lyrical themes as reflected in Kevin’s penchant for penning angst-ridden lyrics.

mizeryFree stray dangerously to being a run-of-the-mill act. However, keyboardist Eric Ng holds the fort with his J-rock inspired synth flourishes. His sense of melodrama works strongly in the band’s favour, acting as a strong prop for Kevin to dish out his quivering tenor. A quick spin of the album reveals the band’s sense of adventure when it comes to arrangement. Not just dabbling with electronic beats, the group tries its hand at playing symphonic rock pieces in ‘Perceptions’. The intricate layering of sounds is pretty impressive, reflecting their collective maturity as musicians.

Yet, the band’s true strength lies in their rockers such as the opener ‘Puppets’, ‘Overrule’ and ‘Denied’. Ballads such as ‘Broken Wings’ tend to drag the album down. While it’s a valiant attempt on mizeryFree’s part to keep the album varied in mood and musical styles, the slower pieces didn’t do it for this reviewer. The end result is a mixed album of electrifying rockers and characterless ballads.

Serenaide
The Other End Of The Receiver
[Fruit Records]

by B Boy

Interestingly enough, I had the privilege of catching Serenaide at their inaugural performance on Valentine’s Day 2002. I remember thinking then that every song the band played sounded like The Cure’s ‘Friday I’m in Love’ but then I didn’t pay a lot of attention since I was there for Force Vomit.

Fast forward almost 3 years and I have in my hands, Serenaide’s spanking new album, The Other Side Of The Receiver. Well, the Cure comparisons are gone; however, principal songwriter/singer Pheyroz Yusuf seems to have developed a Jarvis Cocker obsession of sorts. ‘Lonely Bedroom Encounters’ wouldn’t sound out of place on Pulp’sDifferent Class and ‘Sofa Series’comes with a Cocker-patented breathy speak song bridge. Similarly, ‘The Hands Of The Doctor’ is singularly impressive with Pheyroz’s faithful recreation of Morrissey’s laconic croon.

While well-crafted songs in their own right, the near-facsimile quality of the tunes mean Serenaide will constantly be compared to Cocker and Co. (as well as the Moz); this is especially unnecessary considering the strength of songs like the propulsive surf-rock of ‘1900-CONFESSION’ and the beautifully jangly ‘The Sweetest’ which contains what might be the best sing-a-long chorus I’ve heard this year. The greatest peak of the album comes in the delightfully-named ‘The Girl From Katong’(written by guitarist Zuremy Ibrahim) which sounds effortless and throwaway in the way the greatest perfect pop songs usually are.

It’s songs like these that prove the band have the chops to make it on their own terms, rather than rely on overt idol worshipping. Serenaide have no doubt studied their influences carefully and worked hard to achieve the same levels of songcraft. All it takes now is for them to realize that they have more than enough pop sensibility to make it all on their own.

Elliot Smith
From A Basement On The Hill
[Anti-]

by K. Vicious

It is not a stretch to suggest that Elliott Smith wrote some of the most affecting pop music over the last decade or so. A penetrating songwriter who hovered near the dark lower edges of human existence, Smith’s brilliance hangs on his music’s profound emotional resonance, the ability to use his voice and songwriting talent to make us see that life is not always a bowl of cherries. His songs come from such a breed of excellence that even when he missteps – 2000’s Figure 8 is the most obvious example, a beguiling collection of old-fashioned pop nevertheless deflated by the thin song material – the music is compelling always. Turns out that there are more than a few clunkers here on From a Basement on a Hill as well, the posthumous record put together from the two albums’ worth of songs he was sitting on right before he died. Recorded mostly in his home studio, Smith’s final offering is a bumpier ride than any of his other records. With tragic hindsight, maybe it’s the perfect album for the resolution of his restless songwriting life, roughened pencil-marked sketches that bring listeners up close to the destructive muse that ultimately consumed Smith.

Hardly a gentle bidding, From a Basement on a Hill works best as the raw portrait of a disaffected songwriter who fell out of love with his own soul. In a way, Smith’s final studio album deeply mirrors his own life: a messy record full of contradictions, and yet its raggedness betraying shards of beauty and tenderness. It’s also hard not to read the noisy ‘Don’t Go Down’ and ‘Strung Out Again’ as pieces of harrowing autobiography, a trek down his weaknesses and addictions. Yet when his forceful intelligence shines through the carefully matched words and melodies on ‘A Fond Farewell’, it’s clear that Smith still had enormous pop riches at his command to sweeten the hangover. Single ‘Pretty (Ugly Before)’ is ever so satisfying with its consummate popcraft masking inner struggles (“I s it destruction that you require to feel?/ Like somebody wants you, someone that's more for real”), while ‘Memory Lane’ echoes Paul McCartney so unreservedly, it reminds us of how Smith himself was once the sad, shaken kid so infatuated with the comforting sound of The Beatles.

But then, ‘Twilight’ breaks my heart each time I listen to it, especially the part when Elliott sings, “you don’t deserve to be lonely, and those drugs you got won't make you feel better/ pretty soon you'll find it's the only little part of your life you're keeping together” . I always loved it best when Elliott lunges fearlessly into the most vulnerable core of his songwriting, and ‘Twilight’ is destined to be dumped into my treasured vault of his music from big nothing, heartrending songs that share the total intimacy of his early solo albums like Elliott Smith (1995) or Either/Or (1996). On the imperfect From a Basement on a Hill, the songs are sometimes flawed and their rough edges sound altogether not too precious, but perhaps that’s the way Smith ought to be remembered: beautifully conflicted, a little torn and frayed. Elliott was obviously adding something more to his dislocated art than simply wheeling his depressions along. It’s unfortunate then that his shocking death has likely turned him into another mopey rock and roll martyr, but Elliott Smith’s significance as an inspiring songwriter to so many will not be diminished easily.

Old 97s
Drag It Up
[New West]

by K. Vicious

Over a music career that is eclectic to say the least, the Old 97s have jumped deftly between a fair share of different musical styles, from their early incarnation as sloppy alt-country rockers to the sprightly power popsters during their uneventful major-label tenure. Frontman Rhett Miller also showed a very light, featherbrained side of his songwriting recently in a fine, eccentric solo album, 2002's The Instigator, in which Elektra obviously tried to hard sell him as the next John Mayer or something. But inevitably, Miller's writerly wit got him nowhere near idol status - so Elektra dumped them fast, real fast.

Anyway, it was time to regroup: hence Drag It Up, the band's bung down to an indie label, an album that completes Miller's long drawn metamorphosis from the sensitive dude with the freshmanly zeal (his ironic teenage anthem ‘19’ is about as close as Miller will ever come to having a hit) to the bitter, stoical 30something with a few great tunes. For better or worse, the Old 97s enter no new territory with Drag It Up, the gamut of their growing pains still running from familiar cowpunk twang (‘Won't Be Home’) to snotty pop balladry (‘Borrowed Bride’, ‘Bloomington’). Miller's flame-eyed collaborators in the band, guitarist Ken Bethea and bassist Murry Hammond (the latter's ‘Smokers’ is wonderful), pitched in with the singing and songwriting too, but the record really belongs to Miller and his big sad moments alone.

With the drippy sadness of ‘Valium Waltz’ and ‘Adelaide’, the pedal steel arrangements that make ‘Blinding Sheets of Rain’ the closest the Old 97s have in evoking the great Gram Parsons, Drag It Up very much reflects Miller’s dithering emotions, our punch drunk songwriter here finally realizing that maybe the world is never his oyster and that a book of poems is not going to be enough. Rest assured though that there is not an ounce of sappiness on this record - Miller is too good a songsmith for that.