New Music: Call Me Lightning, Aereogramme, Booji Boy High

Call Me Lightning - Billion Eyes (Frenchkiss 2007)

Call Me Lightning - Soft Skeletons / Frenchkiss

After a week listening to minimalist house, wooded noise walks and icy folk wonderlands, I thought I'd warm myself up with some more traditional "rockist" stuff coming out of the periphery of the pop camp. Call Me Lightning are first up and, after apologizing to The Detachment Kit for calling them Frenchkissers (They self-released +), I thought I'd redeem myself a bit by calling lightning out for what it is: Soft Skeletons is their second full-length out on the New York label and a seething follow-up to their 2004 debut on Revelation, The Trouble We're In. Not exactly Soft Pyramids, then... In three years, the vivacious Milwaukee trio has been out on tour with a host of folks and, road-tested and mother-approved, will be back out in a venue near you soon with the album in tow February 20th. "Billion Eyes" is the second song off the album, its shouted chorus sounding for a split second like The Von Bondies (C'mon, c'mon, it's just that one part) but everything else is anything but. The ear-splitting guitars and easily hummed melodies are what the band plays to on this one, and with boundless enthusiasm for their music, no end seems in sight. Maybe this second strike will be the one that catches fire. First step: Album art. I look like such an amateur right now.

















Aereogramme - The Running Man (Sonic Unyon 2007)

Aereogramme - My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go / Sonic Unyon

Aereogramme is going to be a harder sell if you've already read the Pitchfork review and tried to be objective about the complementing (and complimenting) Drowned in Sound review. These particular Scots are definitely more a band for the heart than for the head; in past years they have gone from aggro-metal to post-rock lesser Mogwais to an improved Hope of the States (Coldplay?), but that's kind of Aereogramme's charm: They never stay in one pigeonhole for too long. For example, a lot of kids everywhere were thrilled about their Seclusion mini-album/EP. But Americans have by and large rejected My Heart Has a Wish That You Would Not Go in the same way they've rejected Bloc Party's new album: Either you've outgrown it or, that failing, you dismiss it as being "too British" because your heart ain't in the same place. If you want anything from Blighty, you want it shallow and 4/4 (Calling all Klaxons: Your rave has arrived), you want it Radiohead, or you want nothing to do with it.

I can't say I blame you, but Aereogramme are, I think, an oft-overlooked exception. Here's the problem: Mogwai is sort of like post-rock for the mature adult. But would you let your kid delve head-first into Happy Songs for Happy People or that Fukugawa track from Mr. Beast and call your parenting job anything more than half-assed? So Aereogramme become the logical stepping stone, an Explosions in the Sky for people who need vocals and not just music to move them to tears and football. They're a bit amateurish, a bit melodramatic, a bit forced at times (I mean, the fucking title guys, come on), they want "this moment" to last just long enough for the John Hughes-approved credits to start rolling over that crystal-clear moonrise... But when they're on, when all sixteen candles are glowing and Jake Ryan is leaning in for that kiss just so... Aereogramme really can shine in a way that would have all of Odessa, Texas jealous they didn't know the Chemikal Underground crowd better. You've already heard about the stirring opener "Conscious Life for Coma Boy" (and, for better or worse, it most certainly is stirring); now try "The Running Man" on for size and and tell me Richard Dawson isn't the only good memory you'll come away with after hearing that phrase again.

















Booji Boy High - Twist Myself Again (DFA 2007)

Booji Boy High - Doubleshaw 7" - DFA

And then there was another kind of high. Booji ("boogie") Boy High, to be exact. I left this one for last because it's probably the least pressing for me personally; most of that great big mess of a web we call the blogosphere has already latched on to the indomitable DFA's latest release, a 7" from Georgios Panayiotou and Mother Markzbow you already know from Hot Chip... Well, those not illegally downloading Sound of Silver already. Anyhow, Booji Boy High sounds a lot like Hot Chip at the end of the day; both "Doubleshaw" and the song presented here, "Twist Myself Again," are like Hot Chip if they'd hung around Miguel Manuel de Pedro more. Glitch, twitch, twist, again: Perhaps this comes from added influence courtesy Devo, though Mark Mothersbaugh probably never would've started a song with "I'm so sad," so there's The Warning. Ba dum tish. If you just can't settle for the b-side, try both songs in lower quality on the DFA's MySpace page. Leave your disappointment at the door and head on in: You wish your 'High was this good in every twist of that phrase, too. How good? In the time it took you to read that, three more blog posts on Booji were banged out faster than the Brat Pack at full tilt in 1986. Pass the coke, Mr. Hughes. I'm struggling to keep up with recycled goodness.