Voxtrot - "Voxtrot" Era.... Debut Album! (May 22)

[joker]

Voxtrot - "Voxtrot"
(May 22)

Tracklist

1. "Introduction" - 3:32
2. "Kid Gloves" - 4:23
3. "Ghost" - 4:48
4. "Steven" - 3:27
5. "Firecracker" - 3:43
6. "Brother in Conflict" - 4:04
7. "Easy" - 3:35
8. "Future Pt. 1" - 3:41
9. "Every Day" - 4:25
10. "Real Live Version" - 4:00
11. "Blood Red Blood" - 4:13

First full-length album by the Austin band, following three EPs. Looking forward to this!

[joker]

Actually, it's leaked already, but I plan on buying the dang thing, so in the meantime you can sample one of the songs, "Kid Gloves", which is streaming at their MySpace.

[oscillations.]

Everything is leaking so early!

[joker]

No kidding, two months is just crazy... between this and a few other recent/still-upcoming CDs, my willpower is really being tested!

[oscillations.]

Be strong!
So many May albums recently leaked; BRMC just leaked, and I'm resisting, although my brother downloaded it.

[joker]

Oh really? Might check them out. I always wondered why their songs haven't done better here. I heard "Love Burns" and "Stop" once in a while on Live 105, but neither came close to charting IIRC.

Two other May albums that I know of, Feist and Wilco, are also all over the net.

[oscillations.]

Blonde Redhead, too. And you know NIN will leak anyday (and that's only a few weeks away from release, but you know Trent is keeping the unevitable under wraps for as long as possible, considering the theme of this album).

BRMC are going to get big with "Weapon of Choice", I believe. It's an almost undeniable anthem practically engineered for repeated listening. I can't see radio passing it by.

[joker]

^ Yeah, that song is really catchy. They've always kinda reminded me of a Stone Roses/Strokes hybrid. And I'm a huge Stone Roses fan, which leads me to think, not only has US radio slept on BRMC, but I have, too, considering I have only a few of their mp3s.

[joker]

There's the album cover.


"Blood Red Blood" will be the first single.

[joker]

Excellent! That's promising.... I've still only heard "Kid Gloves", as I'm trying to hold off until 5/22. I mean hell, I've waited this long right?

[joker]

Voxtrot Add Dates to Summer Tour

Never content to give the people too much at once, adorable Austineers Voxtrot-- who'll finally give up their eponymous LP debut in the wake of, like, a hundred great EPs-- have thrown a few tour dates on the back end of their previously announced summer stint. It ain't much, but as we've come to know and love about our Voxtrot, any stinginess in quantity is more than made up in the quality department.

In other Voxtrot news, those curious as to how the notoriously short-form Voxtrot came to the conclusion to go full-length can check out the Beggars Group's YouTube channel for a mini-documentary helmed by Voxtrot chum Elizabeth Skadden.

They'll also take part in Urban Outfitters' rack-rumbling FreeYrRadio series, and puddlejump over to the Great Escape Festival mere days before the May 22 release of their Beggars/Playlouder debut.

Voxtrot:

04-28 Houston, TX - Urban Outfitters (FreeYrRadio
05-17-19 Brighton, England - The Great Escape Festival
05-25 Austin, TX - Emo's #*
05-27 Phoenix, AZ - Anderson's Fifth Estate #
05-29 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey #^
05-30 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall #^
05-31 Davis, CA - UC Davis Campus Quad
06-01 Portland, OR - Doug Fir #^
06-02 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe #^
06-05 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock #^
06-06 Grand Rapids, MI - Intersection #%
06-07 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick #%
06-08 Toronto, Ontario - Sneaky Dee's #%
06-09 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa #%
06-10 Buffalo, NY - Mohawk Place #%
06-11 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom #%
06-12 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar #%
06-13 Washington, DC - Black Cat #%
06-14 Boston, MA - Middle East #%
06-15 New York, NY - Webster Hall #%
06-16 Philadelphia, PA - Pure
06-21 Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds
06-22 Miami, FL - Studio A
06-23 Tampa, FL - Crowbar
06-26 Tallahassee, FL - Crowbar
06-29 Baton Rouge, LA - Spanish Moon
06-30 Houston, TX - Proletariat

* with Tosca String Quartet
# with Au Revoir Simone
^ with Sound Team
% with Favourite Sons

[joker]

More about the documentary series:

In preparation for their first full-length release, Voxtrot will be the subject of an eight-part min-documentary series about the recording process. Reaching For The Lasers is directed by Elizabeth Skadden of the Austin punk band Finally Punk. A new episode of the series will be released every Wednesday, starting this week, on MTV's Subterranean blog and iFilm. Voxtrot's debut full-length will be out May 22 on Playlouderrecordings/Beggars Group.


Here's part 1.

[joker]

"Reaching For the Lasers", Part 2.

[joker]

"Reaching For the Lasers", Part 3.

[joker]

"Reaching For the Lasers", Part 4.

[joker]

"Reaching For the Lasers", [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3-YA3v3Gvk[/url]Part 5[/url].

[joker]

PrefixMag review

Voxtrot
"Voxtrot"[/i]

Release Date: May 22, 2007
Label: Play Louder/Beggar's Group

By: Dan Nishimoto
Rating: 8.0 out of 10


Rocket from the Crypt's John Reis once said of his band's early shows that they would intentionally play for only about twenty minutes in order to leave the audience wanting more. Although the idea was straight out of Show Biz 101, it now seems quaint in an age that embraces super-saturation.


So, small wonder that a more recent group has built a rabid following on the bare essentials. Over the last four years, Austin, Texas-based quintet Voxtrot has kept a slim discography of three limited-run EPs and singles. Granted, the band has toured for the vast majority of the last two years and networked extensively on the Internet. That said, this is hardly any different from any other "indie" buzz band. And none of Voxtrot's members were previously in popular groups nor, to my knowledge, have any nepotistic contacts in the industry. So, what has brought about the excitement for the band's first full-length? One particularly unique trait: great songwriting.


All Music Guide's Tim Sendra described Voxtrot's music as "a seminar in U.K. indie pop of the last twenty-plus years," which is apt considering the group's penchant for broad guitar-pop that stretches to include atypical (by rock's standards) chords, instrumentation, and arrangements. While the band previously manicured each song on its singles and EPs, it transitions to album-writing on its self-titled effort by spreading these hooks, bells, and whistles across almost forty-five minutes of music.


Sonically Voxtrot is still part and parcel of the group's previous work. "Kid Gloves" is a worthy successor to the brisk rhythms and up-and-down melodies/feelings explored in the 2006 singles "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, and Wives" and "Trouble." Lush strings set up a wonderful counterpoint in "Introduction" and "Ghost," much like the subtle arrangements in the Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, and Wives EP's "Soft and Warm." However, instead of creating an album of singles, lead songwriter Ramesh Srivastava distributes each song's charms evenly to craft a lucid whole. Voxtrot sounds like an exercise in welcome restraint that reveals surprising turns at the turn of each track: the Costello-like "Steven" is interrupted by the punchy "Firecracker," which in turn builds toward the turbulent "Brother in Conflict." The writing, arrangement, and pacing is deliberate enough to create a sensible package yet light enough to invite a listener in. And, best, it leaves you wanting more.

[joker]

"Reaching For the Lasers", Part 6.

[joker]

New York Times review

VOXTROT
“Voxtrot”
(Playlouder/Beggars)
By: Kelefa Sanneh

For the last few years fans of the indie band Voxtrot, from Austin, Tex., have been bracing for crushing disappointment. On a series of mini-CDs and vinyl singles the band revealed a knack for fervent little masterpieces, as well as a debt to a string of British forebears. (The most common comparison was to Belle and Sebastian, though Voxtrot’s restless pop songs more often evoked the Housemartins or the Wedding Present.) Each release raised the stakes, all but ensuring that Voxtrot’s debut album would be a letdown.

In September, the group’s singer, Ramesh Srivastava, took to his blog (thevoxtrotkid.blogspot.com) to admit, “I have never felt such an immense sense of pressure and expectation.” And in a pre-album song called “Your Biggest Fan,” he turned that fear into a petulant refrain: “I used to be your biggest fan/Now I find that you are slipping in my estimation.”

Maybe all that fretting paid off because Voxtrot’s self-titled debut album is marvelous: a collection of 11 tightly coiled songs, loud and fast and sweet. Mr. Srivastava is an unapologetic overwriter, cramming stanzas full of details and songs full of stanzas. In “Ghost,” he dashes through 12 quatrains, ricocheting from a plainspoken confession (“I don’t ever want to be alone like this”) to a cryptic vow (“I have no choice but to be vicious on my feet/I never sleep, I never eat”).

The band sounds pretty vicious, too, in a wimpy sort of way. It’s bigger and louder than before; agitated strumming still pushes the songs forward, but now strings and horns add bursts of harmony and noise. And Mr. Srivastava never stops wriggling, as if that were the only way to keep pressure and expectation at bay. In “Firecracker,” even the catchy chorus becomes a contortion: “Oh, did you turn your back on me?/Or did. I. Turn. My. Self./Oh, against myself, oh?” One fears — well, hopes — that Mr. Srivastava is already tying himself in knots, trying to figure out how on earth his band will top this.

[joker]

Out today in the USA!

[joker]

Voxtrot Set off on Tour in Support of LP

Tonight, following years and years of EPs and EPs, Voxtrot kick off a tour with an LP to hock in tow. Voxtrot, the eleven-track Beggars/Playlouder-issued album, is in stores right this instant.

The Vox will trot out their new tunes alongside the likes of Au Revoir Simone, Sound Team, and a few others. For some hot behind-the-scences action, watch the conception of Voxtrot via the band's Reaching for Lasers web-documentary.

Voxtrot:

05-22 Austin, TX - Waterloo Records
05-25 Austin, TX - Emo's #*
05-27 Phoenix, AZ - Anderson's Fifth Estate #
05-29 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey #^
05-30 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall #^
05-31 Davis, CA - UC Davis Campus Quad
06-01 Portland, OR - Doug Fir #^
06-02 Seattle, WA - Sonic Boom Ballard
06-02 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe #^
06-05 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock #^
06-06 Grand Rapids, MI - Intersection #%
06-07 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick #%
06-08 Toronto, Ontario - Sneaky Dee's (two shows) #%
06-09 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa #%
06-10 Buffalo, NY - Mohawk Place #%
06-11 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom #%
06-12 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar #%
06-13 Washington, DC - Black Cat #%
06-14 Boston, MA - Middle East #%
06-15 New York, NY - Webster Hall #%
06-16 Philadelphia, PA - Pure
06-18 Newport, KY - Southgate House
06-21 Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds
06-22 Miami, FL - Studio A
06-23 Tampa, FL - Crowbar
06-24 Orlando, FL - Backbooth
06-26 Tallahassee, FL - Crowbar
06-27 Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn
06-28 Birmingham, AL - Bottle Tree Cafe
06-29 Baton Rouge, LA - Spanish Moon
06-30 Houston, TX - Proletariat

* with Tosca String Quartet
# with Au Revoir Simone
^ with Sound Team
% with Favourite Sons

[joker]

Voxtrot (and the culture of right now)
An Austin indie band on the verge of...something...talks art, tech and passion

Man, Voxtrot's rehearsal space is just so indie rock.

A ramshackle stucco house that used to be a preschool; to walk in is to take the proverbial quantum leap back to 1993, when it looked like independent guitar rock was on the verge of dominating the pop music discourse, when major labels were snapping small bands up in often ill-advised (for both sides) attempts to capitalize on the tastes of nerdy college radio DJs and dedicated club rats.

The space doubles as a house for Voxtrot drummer Matt Simon and keyboard player Jared Van Fleet and a couch is shoved off to one wall. A brand new (and very heavy) guitar amp sits in one corner. "I haven't even recorded with that yet," soft-spoken guitarist Mitch Calvert says. (Everyone in Voxtrot is soft-spoken and 25 or younger.) "That just came in the mail. I kept asking them to leave it at the door and the post office was like, 'We can't leave something like this just sitting in front of the house, man.'" Scattered around are drums, keyboard stands, amps and the usual maze of cords on the floor.

There's also a computer with a cable modem next to the wall opposite the couch and it's this item, as much as the band-house living room or the instruments, that symbolizes the biggest difference between indie rock's golden age and now.

Friday, Voxtrot celebrates the release this week of its debut full-length album with a show at Emo's. "Voxtrot" is a darker and more detailed album than hardcore Voxtrot fans might expect from the band that seemed to single-handedly bring twee pop back from the dead. It's being released on Playlouder Records, a division of the semi-mighty Beggar's Banquet family of labels, which includes such taste-making outfits as Matador, XL and Too Pure. Not bad for a band that had three stylish CD-EPs to its name, fewer than 20 songs released in five years of being a band.

But perhaps more important than the physical recordings is Voxtrot's status in the increasingly important world of music blogs, something that flat out didn't exist in indie rock's heyday.

Sure, there were plenty of fanzines. Usenet and e-mail prompted the rise of music-centric discussion groups and mailing lists. But with readily available MP3 and fannish commentary, music blogs (and their spiritual godfather, the music Website Pitchfork) have turned taste-making into a daily activity, feeding the music geek's frenzy to be up on something before everyone else.

No question —Austin's Voxtrot owes its success to their popularity with music blogs. But they're not completely sure how they feel about it.

In the summer of 2002, Voxtrot formed as a vector for singer and guitarist Ramesh Srivastava's songs, a studio-project to document his muse before heading off to Scotland for school. The band found itself playing the occasional Austin gig when Srivastava was on breaks.

These shows were, as many recall, a little loose, the somewhat chaotic guitar pop of, well, a band of serious Smiths fans who didn't rehearse all that much.

"Sometimes it was sheer coincidence that we were hitting the same chords," keyboard player James Van Fleet says between bites of bagel. "I'd look over at (bassist) Jason (Chronis) and try to see where his fingers were."

After a few years of on and off shows, 2005 saw the release of Voxtrot's first CD-R and a handful of out-of-town gigs, including a really fortuitous one in January in New York that happened to be noticed by the then-new music blog Brooklyn Vegan (brooklynvegan.com).

Voxtrot's manager, James Minor, posted something about the gig on his own Website, which was set up a bit like a blog. "There were so few New York music blogs at the time that they all read each other's stuff," Van Fleet says. "Brooklyn Vegan mentioned our show, our first New York show, and linked to some songs. It was a total fluke."

Brooklyn Vegan (who declines to reveal his real name) started the national ball rolling Jan. 7. 2005, when he described our heroes' upcoming New York debut as "most likely worth checking out anyway for a band from Austin, Texas, called Voxtrot."

"I think music blogs in general have a lot of impact in spreading the word about new bands," Vegan said in an e-mail recently. "Even if the vast majority of people aren't reading them, many working members of the music industry and mainstream press are reading them."

"Voxtrot were absolutely beneficiaries of the blog-rock phenomenon," says Dead Oceans Records co-owner and former Emo's local booker Phil Waldorf. "Bands that tend to do well on the Web are bands that have an audience who sit in front of computers. I bet Voxtrot does pretty well in digital sales." (Indeed. Srivastava says nearly half of the sales for the band's 2006 EP "Your Biggest Fan" have been online.)

Voxtrot are hoping that fans will want a copy — either digital or physical — of the new album as well. Where the group's early EPs had a marked light pop sense and bouncy rhythms, "Voxtrot" is a different animal — darker, crankier, more lush.

"The new stuff was a lot more painstaking," Srivastava says of the layered tunes on "Voxtrot." This is what happens when you have a real recording budget, some time to think things through and a real producer in the form of Victor Van Vugt (PJ Harvey, Nick Cave).

"We played the initial tracks live, but would occasionally max out the number of tracks for the string section," Srivastava adds. Yes, a string section. On over half the songs. No wonder they're playing Friday with the Tosca String Quartet.

So no more knocking out quick-fire twee pop just for grins? Srivastava demurs. "When I was in Europe, I got so sick of listening to our new one I swore to book studio time when we got back to town." The photos that accompany this piece are from that session, which should produce a new single sometime in the coming year.

Of course, now the trick is figuring out how to live by the Internet without dying by it. Srivastava keeps a blog (thevoxtrotkid.blogspot.com) and over at reaching4lasers.com, a friend has posted brief clips of an ongoing documentary about the making of the album.(The blog attention is translating to big-time print recognition, such as a review this week in The New York Times.)

All of the band members agree that, given their tech savvy and seriously devout fanbase, a leak of their album was absolutely inevitable. "Voxtrot" began appearing on the Internet in mid-March; physical copies hit stores on Tuesday.

"I was a little surprised it leaked so far away from the release date," Calvert says. "That was pretty distressing. If it had leaked in early May, eh."

"I think there's way too much of a tendency to blame the leak if something goes wrong with sales," Van Fleets says. "If the music is good, it'll help."

"I think with this record it's good that it leaked so early," Srivastava says. "Especially for fans of the older material, this one takes a bit of time to get used to; it's a bit of a grower so it's probably good." He pauses. "But then again, if it's different and you wanted to make an impact with the fact that it's different, then it becomes a problem."

These are questions that all bands face, but it seems a little more acute for these guys. Their careers have been shaped by forces that seem in competition: the trainspotting blog reader and the indie rock record nerds who enjoy holding the physical record in their hands.

But several members of the band noted that there are much bigger cultural issues at stake. "The people who download a lot of music sort of collect it, without any intention of ever attaching themselves to it," Srivastava says. "That's a sad way to live.

"The culture of immediate gratification that exists — and not just immediate, but immediate and instantly disposable gratification — is out of hand. Before something is even out, some people have to have it and make a judgement about it and move along."

On his blog Blissout, (blissout.blogspot.com) critic Simon Reynolds makes a similar point when reporting on "The Future of Thinking About Music," one of the panels at the most recent Experience Music Project pop music conference. There was much hand-wringing about shrinking word counts, but, as Reynolds notes, "Amy Phillips, Pitchfork's news editor, ... more or less chided the assembled for thinking like dinosaurs: She invoked a new breed of youth today who want their info RIGHT THIS MINUTE and don't have time to read (or write) considered and extended reviews, let alone think pieces."

Reynolds writes he reacted almost viscerally. "An involuntary cry rose up from the core of my being: 'NOOOOO!!! Slow- it - down. Marinate, reflect.' " (He also noted that, ironically, Pitchfork has a reviews section with fairly long pieces.) (It's also worth noting that Pitchfork has been very good to Voxtrot.)

It's a debate that's impossible to resolve, but it's one that, barring a massive technical singularity in the next few years, will likely be around for the life of the band. "The Internet sort of boomed in a way that helped support music at the same time we were putting music that Internet-savvy people like on the Internet," Mitch says (and man alive, does that look like a Gertrude Stein quote).

While nobody is quite sure where this new paradigm will go, Voxtrot seems to be in a pretty good position.

"When singles were the dominant format, there were lots of regional hits and a lot of people were spending their money on records that not everyone across the country would have heard of," Van Fleet says. "There's a similar thing happening now, but instead of being geographical it's subcultural. People are really able to dig into the type of music they like even if that music isn't really appreciated across the board. Instead of 100 people buying the same record, those 100 people are all buying different records."

Srivastava, who has been listening, looks up: "There are all sorts of media competing for everyone's time," he says. "but music is a qualitatively difference experience. I don't think there will ever be a time when that is denied."

[e-mail]; 912-5926

THEIR BIGGEST FANS: VOXTROT VS. BRITPOP

So like many outsiders in the long, sad history of alienated adolescents, Ramesh Srivastava took solace in music when he was in high school, leaning on '60s pop, dance music and indie rock giants such as Belle and Sebastian and, especially, the Smiths. He futzed around in bands with drummer Matt Simon when he was a teenager before escaping to the East Coast for college, where he lived with guitarist Mitch Calvert. They formed Voxtrot in 2002, rounding out the group with bassist Jason Chronis and Jared Van Fleet on keyboard.

Over the next four years, the band tightened up and toured plenty. By the end of 2006, Voxtrot had produced three smart-looking CD-EPs and handful of limited singles in the U.K. Dead Oceans Records co-owner Phil Waldorf says these recordings created a bit of a myth for themselves. 'Releasing really good looking EPs was very smart,' Waldorf says, commenting on the Voxtrot EPs uniform design and heavy paper sleeves. 'It's a really digestible amount of music and you could really fetish over them.'

As one might expect, given Voxtrot's music, much of the Austin band's graphic sense seems inspired by the Smiths. 'Nobody ever used the EP format better,' Srivastava says. 'They had their own look and those three songs really felt like an event, like something you would really enjoy having in your hand.'

[joker]

PopMatters Review[/url]

Voxtrot
"Voxtrot"

(Play Louder/Beggars Group)
US release date: 22 May 2007
UK release date: 28 May 2007
by Dave Heaton

Each of Voxtrot’s first two singles—7"s, now out-of-print—gave the impression, in 2004, that this brand-new band from Austin, Texas was already capable of absolute greatness. It wasn’t just the A-sides: smart, punchy, vaguely Smiths-ish anthems, both later featured on the eponymous CD EP that really lit the spark about the band. It was how they were each paired with a long, lingering ballad that built with feeling as it went, the vocals achieving midnight-sky transcendence even when the lyrics were slyly bitter. It was hard to imagine how a band could come out of nowhere with four songs that sounded this precisely formed, and classically so, filled with melodies and lyrics to ponder and swoon over. It made you wonder if they had their hands on a secret reservoir of new classics. It made some of us immediately consider them our new favorite band.

As they slowly let their songs out over the next couple years—in the form of three EPs and one compilation track—the buzz about Voxtrot only grew, while their music gently changed from release to release, mutating into what’s to be heard on their self-titled first album. On each subsequent EP they toughened up their sensitive-pop, building muscles of electric guitar onto the rock numbers and dramatic waves of strings onto the ballads. Though Voxtrot in 2007 plays bigger, fuller music, with more layers and pieces, than three years ago, the progression hasn’t been continual addition so much as refinement, as if they tried to strip their music down to an essence, and then took that and built into something that’d be clearly identified as “the Voxtrot sound”. One dominant sound, one with a rock ‘n’ roll oomph and grand presence that would translate well live, or even on the radio.

The upshot of this is that a band which had been putting out small releases that each sounded fresh now has an album with one dominant style. The blog-writers and next-hot-band-spotters shouldn’t let themselves write this album off as a disappointment, though, just because it lacks the quick pleasure that a quick-and-hot single or EP provides. For if Voxtrot seems less magical the first time through, it grows in stature with each listen, as an album should. There’s moments when it sounds more ordinary than I want it to, but that feeling never lasts long. What feels like a dull hook is quickly replaced by an exciting one; a song that starts off sounding too much like the one before changes quickly. Every song I try to write off has at least a few redeeming surprises within.

Many of the songs on Voxtrot have their own subtle interior progression; they change before your ears. Album-opener “Introduction” first seems like what its title makes you expect: a gently building set-up for the next song’s burst of energy. And it is. But it’s also a suite in and of itself, not just building—with guitars, bass, drums and a string quartet—but also reaching a joyous plateau, one that echoes in some ways the even more hectic release of the album’s final song, “Blood Red Blood”. That song has a strain of free-jazz running in the background, one that begins like ska accents. It’s an unexpected touch that’s woven smoothly into the song’s rises and falls, one of many such touches throughout the album. Many are courtesy of Tosca String Quartet, who appear on seven of the album’s tracks and fit in so well that they now seem like an extension of the band itself. There’s other times when piano switches in for guitar, like on the remarkable “Steven”, which also has some quick harmony vocals that are perfect enough to imagine that the song had another life as a Beach Boys-style beach sing-along. And there’s moments throughout where a song seems to be taking you one direction and then changes course.

The mid-album pair “Firecracker” and “Brother in Conflict” is partly the album’s most frustrating songs, because they seem the most ordinary. But each is fascinating, too. “Firecracker” has a rev-up-the-crowd chorus that rubs me the wrong way, sounding like it’s leading towards some type of stadium/sporting event communal pump-fist-along… but only for a second. Even within that chorus itself the song mutates into something prettier and subtler; lead singer (and band songwriter) Ramesh Srivastava sings the verses with an undeniable glee; and the song keeps hammering forward and picking up joy with each step. “Brother in Conflict” also has a chorus that seems too simple for the band’s talents, but the verses—with those strings soaring behind—go down smoothly, especially with the fun “My Sharona"-like groove. And near the end the melody builds into another, unexpected hook before ending. And that’s how it is with Voxtrot—disappointments melt into moments of illumination… exhilaration, even.

And then there’s songs that feel just right from start to finish, like polished-up versions of the songs Voxtrot first caught our attention with. “Kid Gloves” offers gloriously big arena rock; what could be more fun than a typically melancholic singer cheekily singing “cheer me up / cheer me up / I’m a miserable fuck” over pounding guitars? And that hook isn’t even the main chorus, itself a killer for its melody. “Ghost” begins contemplatively, but with enough of a kick that you can tell it’s going to build towards some grand release; it doesn’t disappoint. “Real Live Version” is a gorgeous maturation of those slow-burning, pristine ballads on the B-sides (a confident, reinvented “Dirty Version"). “Every Day” at first seems unremarkable, but it gains strength as it becomes a striking, sweet love song. It seems like the completion of the song before it, “The Future, Part 1”, which touches on love’s complexities in whirlwind style, at mid-tempo.

One memorable line from that song, “We scratch to the bottom of memory,” resonates with both the general self-analytical approach of Srivastava’s lyrics and the looking-back-and-making sense tone of Voxtrot as a whole. It seems no mistake that the album art is a collage of Polaroids, or that the band’s cover art always involves snapshots of people. Voxtrot’s songs are filled with “we"s and “you"s and “I"s; they so often resemble letters, sent or unsent. And while it’d be tempting to brand their songs as generational commentary—to take lyrics like “Introduction“‘s line, “We made our rules and then we broke them first” and turn it into a social statement—it’d be such a mistake. Voxtrot’s songs have universal qualities in the way that detail-driven, artfully written creations about people’s personal lives often do. The lyrics hit home, along with the musical notes. Interpersonal drama—and post-drama analysis—is central to these songs, as it is to life. In our heads we all go back over things that happened years ago, trying to make sense of them, to figure out what we did wrong or how things could have been different. Most of us don’t do it within brilliantly constructed pop songs, however. We just listen, spellbound.

[joker]

Not bad....

[joker]

New Music - "Steven" / "Soft and Warm" / "Kid Gloves" / "The Future Part 1" (Daytrotter Session)

Four mp3's at the link.

[joker]

"Reaching For the Lasers", Part 7.

[joker]

Uh-oh, no sign of them yet on the BB200, hope they snuck in!

[joker]

From the BB200 thread:

zago said:

indie
indiehq.com/2007/05/30/independent-sales-chart-5-30-07/#more-523

42 VOXTROT VOXTROT

This week: 3,000
Total: 3,000

So it seems they missed the big chart by about 700 copies.

[joker]

These Charming Men

Voxtrot are the new Smiths. And before I start getting pelted with rotten vegetables, please hear me out. I'm not specifically talking musically, nor am I comparing quality, influence, or anything that has been solidified in the Smiths' canon. I'm talking about how Voxtrot's career outline is eerily similar to the humble beginnings of Manchester's finest, and how, more than most current upstart bands, they seem to have the ability to create a heritage that will outlast the current indie-boom.

The Smiths destroyed with their early singles and Voxtrot's first EPs have followed this same career path. But an even stronger echo of the Smiths' history is that their first attempt at turning those early successes into a full album ended up being a bit disappointing. Both the self-titled Smiths album and the newly released self-titled Voxtrot album sound overproduced, and rather than fully realized albums, they sound like a handful of singles mixed with filler.

Voxtrot's brand of indiepop is comparable to a twee-influenced Ted Leo. It contains all the same emergency, melody, and flair, yet rather than attack the outside world, the camera is turned inward in classic twee self-deprecation. Singer Ramesh Srivastava has a penchant for penning arty, witty, and wry Morrissey-esque lyrics, such as "Cheer me up, cheer me up, I'm a miserable fuck/Cheer me up, cheer me up, I'm a tireless bore." The vocals take center stage while the guitar—sometimes edgy, sometimes jangly—provides the perfect backdrop, a composition similar to the Morrissey/Marr duo.

It took the Smiths three tries to finally produce a classic album (The Queen Is Dead), and with the amount of talent that Voxtrot possess, it seems like they're close behind that schedule in producing a masterwork. More great EPs are sure to follow, and now one can only hope egos don't start getting in the way before their potential is fully materialized.

[joker]

Video - "Steven"