Something wicked this way comes.

The last time I mentioned the band Dead Man's Bones was in this post. I'd not really heard much news from them of late, but knew their album was coming out this month. Well, I was just skimming Spotify earlier this week and discovered that the album is up there already (it came out yesterday) so I listened and enjoyed it enough to want to blog about here.

If you want the short version, it's really a very good record and worth your pennies, or at least a listen on Spotify (you'll have to search for Dead Man Bones, since spotify seems to have a grammatical disaster on the name), or Myspace; it's streaming on their page I believe. If you want the long version, read on.

How best to describe what they do? Well I came to the album armed with the knowledge that there's is an oscar nominated actor in the band, that the songs were originally slated for a 'horror' musical and that there was fair amount of singing from a children's choir. Pleasingly all these elements are there and they all fit really nicely, if in a rather weird way.

The record starts quite slowly, it has to be said. There's an spoken word intro followed by first song proper 'Dead Hearts'. The first line of which is 'I woke up whistling by your grave'. That kind of sets the mood nicely for the record, we aren't looking at the giddy joy of 'I'm From Barcelona' here. Anyway 'Dead Hearts' is a good mood setter, the beat in the background sounding indeed like a pumping heart, there's odd percussive crashes like breaking glass and a sound not dissimilar to The Arcade Fire. It's a good start, if for me, it drags on a little too long.

The next song 'In The Room Where You Sleep' has been available on Myspace as a demo for quite a long time. Here it sounds fairly similar, the creepy organ sound intact, but it's more polished and all the better for it. The rhythmic organ line and the repeated downbeat 'you'd better run' makes the song.

After that there's 'Buried In Water'. A slow burner, which becomes something special in the last minute of the track, when the Silverlake Children's Community Choir join in and raise it into the realms of the euphoric. Actually the children's choir are a great addition to the record. It could easily have been gimmicky, or even worse like a horror version of the Saint Winifred's Children's choir (youtube at your peril) The next track, 'My Body's a Zombie For You' being a case in point. It is the epitome of what the band are about I think. A tune that sounds like it plays endlessly on the calliope at Dr Death's Circus Of Disaster, Ryan Gosling's odd 50's vocal, and some "ooh ooh ooh" backing vocals are made even better by the giddy children calling "I'm a Z.O.M.B.I.E, ZOMBIE" at the end. It's infectious.

'Pa, Pa, Power' follows, again made lovely by the harmonious calls of the children's promise that "We won't destroy you". 'Young and Tragic' follows that and is one of the definite high points of the record for me. The sole track powered only by the childrens' choir, a rolling drum and a lovely tune make it a deeper song then the young voices might have you believed. After this comes 'Paper Ships'.

'Paper Ships' sounds like it was played in a haunted cafe some 60 years ago to zombie greasers and vampirella prom queens. It's period apeing is spot on, but it creates a little bit of magic all of it's own. The 6 tracks from 3 - 8 are so strong that the rest of the record can't quite stand up to them, which stops it being an all out outstanding record. Of the final few tracks though, the title track comes close, channelling the same well of darkness that Nick Cave has mined so successfully for so long.

In closing then, as I said at the beginning it's a damn fine record. It's understandable if you've read through that review, and alarm bells are ringing in your head whilst your brain shouts "gimmick" but it's really not. Yeah, a children's choir and songs which were intended for some horroresque musical performed by an actor sounds like a gimmick, but the songs stand up for themselves. Is a gimmick needed when they could probably shift records on the strength of Ryan Gosling's name alone, I don't think so. It comes down to this. Fill a cauldron with some 50's doo wop, a pinch of Arcade Fire, a large dash of Langley Schools Music Project, elements of Beck, Beirut, and a whole dollop of weirdness, bring to the boil and then filter through a cone of evil and you might just get this record.

It's catchy, it's strange, it shouldn't really work, and yet somehow Dead Man's Bones have managed to make one of the best records I think I've heard this year. If it sounds like your kind of thing, you should definitely make time to hear it.

Acting up

Being a actor/actress and being in a band should usually be mutually exclusive things. I once had the misfortune of seeing Keanu Reeves' band 'Dogstar' at Glastonbury. It was long, long 35 or so minutes, punctuated by a few moments of brightness when the crowd preceeding to throw various pieces of fruit, I will never get that time back. There are other, greater, offenders (bruce willis for one or the truly terrifying '30 odd foot of grunts') but that's a whole article for another day. I want to talk about the brighter side of actor/band relationships, in this case Ryan Gosling and Dead Man's Bones.

You may know Ryan Gosling from his acting work, he's very good. Both 'Half Nelson' and 'Lars and The Real Girl' are well worth watching if you get the chance. Especially Lars. You might not know that he and another actor Zach Shields have a band called Dead Man's Bones and that in recent months they've signed to eclectic record label Anti, whose roster includes such luminaries as Os Mutantes, Tom Waits and Nick Cave.

The band actually started as a sort of play about monsters and the like (which is unsuprising for thespians) but expenses caused the project to be shelved, but having the songs already, they decided to continue. I've heard three of the songs now; there's a new (or recent) one on their myspace which prompted me to write this, and they are all great. Ryan Gosling sings in a crooner sort of style, it's rather 50's. The music that goes along with it is sometimes a bit doo wop, I guess. Certainly on 'Your Name In Stone'. Add the fact that they recorded with The Silverlake Conservatory Children's Choir and that all the songs are monster based and you get a kind of 50's b movie type album crossed with The Langley Schools Music Project and what's not to like about that? To top it off the band are using local choirs for all american dates, and having a battle of the bands type thing in each city to decide their opening act. Hopefully growing a sense of community along the way. I've seen this called gimmicky, but really I don't think a hollywood actor really needs a gimmick to sell records.

Anyway the bands music can be found here, and here is the video for 'Name In Stone' too. I think this is their best song, and it might not even be on the record.

What else?

Oh yeah, I really like the band 'Boat' They're quite hard to google because of the name, so it's sometimes hard to find info on them. Anyway Boat are great. Their last album 'Songs You May Not Like' was a bit of an overlooked gem. If they were being classified I suppose they could be lumped in alongside Tullycraft in terms of where their sound is coming from, but there's a bit of Pavement in there too perhaps, and there's elements of 'The Soft Wonder' by A.C newman in there too. The whole of the last Boat record is available to listen to on Last FM right here if you have a chance to listen, it's worth your while.

To get back on track though, I was searching for Boat, when I stumbled across a blog called 'You Ain't No Picasso' which has a new Boat song called 'Name Tossers' available to listen to. The song is great, they sound a bit more fleshed out on it, if anything, but with no loss of melody. I suggest going to the aforementioned blog and listening to it. Here's the link you need.

Finally, and quite excitingly, Slumberland have finally, finally released 'Dream On Daisy' by the sorely missed Parallelograms. If you've never heard the Parallelograms, and I envy you the delight of discovery, think The Rosehips, Talulah Gosh, the best bits of C86 and Subway records, girl vocals and more than a touch of charm. You can listen to some stuff on their myspace, but you should probably rush over to cloudberry and buy it right now. Who knows it might be worth a fortune one day. Even if it's not, if the band sell enough of them, they might be able to pay Markie's airfare and get him to come back. You know it makes sense.