EP of the Day, 2/18/11: Derby-Madeline.

Portland Oregon's Derby has been a personal favorite going back to their brilliant 2005 debut This is the New You. It was my #1 album of that year (although in retrospect I'd give the nod to Valley Lodge's debut), and made a nice splash in the power pop community. Posters Fade, the followup, didn't quite make the same impact but it still made my top 10 in 2008. Now they've released Madeline, a 4-song digital-only EP that drifts away from the indie-influenced power pop of the debut and more toward some of the darker, moodier sounds that made up Posters Fade.

"Don't Believe in You" opens with some snaky bass lines and rock guitar before frontman Nat Johnson begins a call-and-answer verse with the band. A lot of Derby's appeal apart from the songwriting is tied up in Johnson's voice, which recalls a less breathy Joe Pernice, and it lends Derby's songs extra gravitas. All in all, the track is an effective and interesting rocker, leading into the midtempo title track. This might be the most "Derbyesque" of the four tracks here, a passionate power ballad.

"Creeping Climbing" finds Dave Gulick and Johnson on vocals, and it's another moody and meandering track that will eventually get under your skin, and Gulick goes it alone on the lovely acoustic closer, "One's a Lonely One", reminiscent of Big Star's "I'm in Love With a Girl". It's a fine EP, and if you're a Derbyhead like me, a must-have. The uninitiated should start with This is the New You, however.

CD Baby | iTunes

download "Madeline" at their official site

CD of the Day, 6/18/08: Derby-Posters Fade

Expectations can be tough, especially in the world of music. "Second Album Syndrome" (SAS) is a well-known (12,700 Google hits for the phrase in quotes) affliction for artists who put out a dazzling debut disc, only to have album #2 disappoint fans and critics alike. Enter Derby. Their 2005 debut, This Is The New You, was my #1 disc that year, and an instant all-time favorite of mine. How could they possibly live up to that (at least in my eyes) on the followup? Well to be frank, they don't. But Posters Fade is 85-90% as good as New You, so I'd say they've safely avoided SAS, and while they may not challenge for #1 on my year-end list in 2008, the top 10 is a distinct possibility.

Most of what was great about the debut is present here. The great melodies are there, Nat Johnston's vocals are perfectly matched with the material (for those unfamiliar, he comes across a huskier-sounding Joe Pernice or a less histrionic Ed Roland), and the quieter moments again sparkle. The primarly stylistic difference is subtle - overall, the disc shades a bit more toward indie pop than power pop. Not that New You was Fountains of Wayne or anything, but Posters Fade is a bit less Beatlesque. Like the debut ("Jet Set" into "Qualities"), Posters opens with a gently strummed acoustic number that segues into a louder, faster-tempo track as "Why Don't You Do It?" leads into "All or Nothing", a great track with more BPM than you've heard before in a Derby track. The lovely "Only What's She Selling" follows with its "don't feed the bear" refrain (not to be confused with the later bookend track actually titled "Don't Feed The Bear"), and "Stop Stalling" and "Hopes" are excellent examples of how well Derby can do power pop and are sonic cousins to some of the debut's great tracks like "Pay No Mind" and "One Reason".

Elsewhere, "If Ever There's a Reason" (a holdover from their interim EP) is an acoustic number that sports an infectious drum-and-handclaps backing and has a bit of "I've Just Seen a Face" in it. "Streetlight" (also an EP carryover) is another choice cut with its driving beat, tasteful synths and a fine melody. "Michigan" is a quality rocker, and "As My Own" is a real standout, coming in as a bit of a cross between Nirvana in their quieter moments and the Alan Parsons Project in their less prog-rock moments (Johnston reminds me a bit vocally of Eric Woolfson at times as well).

So while this isn't New You II, there's no shame in that, as Derby have crafted a followup that stands on its own and bodes well for the band's future.

CD Baby | MySpace

New Music from a couple of AbPow favorites.

Two big-time favorites of mine have released some new music for digital download: Derby and Josh Fields.

We'll start with the boys from Portland, Oregon. Derby's still yet to release Posters Fade, their full-length followup to 2005's AbPow Album of the Year This Is The New You, but in the meantime they've given us a download-only EP that's a teaser for the disc. Available at CD Baby, it shows them further refining their sound. They've upped the BPM on "Streetlight" and even the midtempo "If Ever There's a Reason" without sacrificing their melodic gifts, while opener "Argyle" brings to mind "Jet Set", the wonderful opener from New You. (And to confound, they have a new track titled "This Is The New You" on the EP as well).

Meanwhile, 2007 Album of the Year contender Josh Fields has three new songs available for purchase via Snocap on his MySpace page: "Malibu", "Sleepwalking", and "Everywhere I Shouldn't Be" (non-album track "Bigger Than Life" is available as well, and all but "Sleepwalking" are streaming on the MySpace player). These tracks are of a piece with those on his self-titled debut and are definitely worth the .99 each.

Updates & Miscellany.

By way of follow-up on some earlier posts, and some other things that I've been meaning to mention over the week or so since I last posted:

* I made reference a few weeks ago to a new David Grahame album becoming available through downloads from his official site. It now turns out that Grahame is only releasing individual tracks as he completes them, and not only are they going for $2 a pop, he's not making any previews of them available before purchase so as to preserve the surprise element. This business model of Grahame's has created quite a lengthy discussion on Audities, with the general consensus being that it's too steep a price, and even those who feel they could justify spending $2/track are put off by the lack of ability to sample the tracks. It is kind of a "pig in a poke" type of setup here, especially with Grahame's hints of a departure from his earlier sound. If anyone here has heard the tracks, please post a comment with your take on them, and if by some reason you're reading this Mr. Grahame, feel free to send me the mp3s on a promo basis and I'll be glad to write up my thoughts on them. :)

UPDATE WHILE PREPARING THIS POST: Apparently bowing to semi-popular demand, Grahame has made samples available. After listening to the five 20-30 second snippets, I'm not detecting that radical a change in his sound, with the exception of "The Slide", which has a horn section and sounds kind of bluesy. The others sound nice enough, assuming the snippets are representative of the tracks as a whole. I'm a bit more tempted to shell out the $2, but I'm not quite there yet.

* Contrary to earlier reports, Derby is not imminently releasing their sophomore disc, Posters Fade. It will probably be out later this year, according to their publicist. Nevertheless, the three new tracks are still playing on their site (click on "music") and I remain eager to hear the rest.

* I'd be remiss not to mention that Jason Falkner has a new disc out, but only in Japan. It's titled I'm OK, You're OK, and if you want it now before it gets a US release (if ever), Kool Kat has it for $32. I may have my power pop membership card taken away for saying this, but I've never really gotten into Falkner that much. It's not that I dislike his music, and maybe it's also due to his very spotty track record of solo releases, but for whatever reason his stuff has never jumped out at me. I'll certainly be glad to give the new one a listen, but not for $32.

* Not Lame put up some new discs today, and one of them looked particularly interesting: This Is Grand Atlantic, by the Australian band of the same name. Although this new full-length is not available yet on eMusic, their EP Smoke and Mirrors (which features several of the same tracks on the full-length along with a cover of Abba's "The Winner Takes It All") can be found there.

* Speaking of Not Lame, they've also rolled out the red carpet for the new disc from The Well Wishers, How I Won The War. So head on over and listen away. You know I'm stoked for this, since their previous release, Under The Arrows, was my #5 disc of 2005. I just got the disc in, so I'm not ready for a full report yet, but it sounds like more of the same goodness.

New Derby!

Long-time readers of the blog will know that we yield to know one in our fandom of Derby, a Portland, Oregon band who had our #1 record of 2005 with This Is The New You. So it's with great pleasure that I pass on the word that the boys are getting ready to release their second disc, Posters Fade, and that three tracks from the disc are now streaming at their myspace. "Untitled" is the best, but the other two are quite good as well, so any fears of a sophomore slump appear to be unwarranted.

Video of the Day: Derby-"Parade"

Been a while since I posted a video, so here's "Parade" from the Portland band Derby, whose This Is The New You was my favorite album of 2005. "Parade" might have been about the 6th or 7th best track on the disc, but it's an excellent tune nonetheless.

My Top 20 of 2005, #1: Derby-This Is The New You

Well, 20 days later, here it is: #1. My top spot for 2005 goes to Derby, a band out of Portland, Oregon who put out a stunningly accomplished debut last February to great acclaim. However, most of that acclaim came around the time the album came out. While I heard and read several saying at the time that the album was "best-of-year" and "top 10" material, it pretty much got the shaft on the Audities year-end poll despite my #1 vote. The only other place I saw it was on David Bash's list at around #27, and by the time I saw it there, I was grateful to see it at all. I know Craig Leve of Snap Crackle Pop touted them, but I never did see his best-of list, so perhaps I wasn't alone, but still a distinct minority.

OK, enough complaining about how this album didn't get the props it deserved, and time to explain why it did deserve them. Simply put, it's an album that pays homage to the greats without slavishly imitating them, and by the time you've finished listening to it, you realize they have their own distinct sound. Who are the influences? Well, you can start in their backyard with fellow Portlander Elliott Smith, and for contemporaries you can also include The Shins and The Pernice Brothers (circa The World Won't End), and for the classics, The Beatles and The Kinks. But they've managed to assimilate all of these influences into something of their own.

The album starts off with the acoustic "Jet Set", which is where the Smith/Shins influence can be heard. Frontman Nat Johnson, who has a voice that reminds me of a less histrionic Ed Roland, sings "maybe it's all right to turn you on/turn you on to something new", which could serve as the mission statement for this blog. This beautiful yet short number is suddenly overtaken by the crashing chords of "Qualities", where the brilliance continues. While at first sounding like Bends-era Radiohead or even good Coldplay, the song then turns to a late Beatles sound in the "stereo afterglow" of the bridge, and then it all comes around again.

And another winner immediately follows with the shuffling "Sunk a Few", complete with handclaps and Revolver-ish backwards-sounding guitars. After that comes "One Reason", which sounds like a great lost Alan Parsons Project track (Johnson does have a bit of Eric Woolfson in his voice as well); "Parade", which features Johnson's best vocal performance of the album; the uptempo "Get to the Feeling" which summons Sloan and borrows their use of fake crowd noise to nice effect; and the rocking "This Conversation", whose cool-sounding keyboard intro has found a place as the bumper music for the Not Lame Podcast. Finally, Derby close with "Pay No Mind", a driving track that's equal parts ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky" and the Beatles' "Getting Better". And when Johnson sings "a photograph is all I have/a photograph is all I have of you" in the fadeout, you're almost sad the album is over. This release also reminds me quite a bit of my current year's #1 to date, Supraluxe (or perhaps the other way around, since Derby came first). If you like that one, you'll like this one as well.

Where to listen? Start with some mp3s here (they're playing SXSW, which is where the first one is from):

Sunk a Few
Qualities

You can stream "Parade" and "Pay No Mind" here. Then hop on over to their myspace page, where you can stream live versions of "Get to the Feeling" and "This Conversation". Finally, you can sample the rest at their cd baby page. You can get it there, or at Not Lame, or a used copy in the Amazon marketplace. I won't care where you buy it, just as long as you do. And Audities, I demand a recount.

UPDATE: Also available via eMusic.