Valley Lodge and Mario Soutschka

Valley Lodge-Fog Machine. The Dave Hill musical assault continues with the fourth Valley Lodge album and first since 2013's Use Your Weapons. That album made Hill's music a household item as it spawned "Go", the theme to Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. And the band's self-titled 2005 debut remains one of my favorite power pop records of all time while Hill's Painted Doll project brought us some serious rawk earlier this year. So what does he do for an encore? He serves up 14 power-poppin', catchy-as-hell tracks is what he does. "Stars Won't Fall" kicks things off in classic VL form (melodies, call-and-response falsetto vocals and rocking guitars) just like "Go" and "If it Takes All Night" were the lynchpins of the previous efforts. "Stand" is a frenetic, almost danceable number in the manner of "Go" ready-made for another late-night talker to adopt, while "Come Back to Bed" is a rocker with attitude. Other standouts include the soulful "I'm Gone" (the chimes in the chorus give it a Philly soul feel), the Slade-esque glam rock of "It's Alright", which hearkens back to 2009's Semester at Sea, the mid-tempo power pop of "Fire", and "Days of Our Lives" which starts off with (gasp!) an acoustic guitar before settling into another of Hill's melodic numbers. So crank up the Fog Machine and get ready to rock (and pop).

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Mario Soutschka-Long Stories Short. While Dave Hill and Valley Lodge are undoubtedly familiar to AbPow readers, I'm quite certain German singer/songwriter Mario Soutschka isn't. His second full-length caught my ear with its bright tuneful power pop in the vein of Butch Walker and Cliff Hillis. "Right Back to Me" comes out of the blocks with guitars and melodies from the Badfinger playbook, and "Do" is a catchy number with a shuffling melody. "Facebook Mom" recalls Fountains of Wayne both spiritually and sonically, "Flying Away" is a lovely, largely acoustic duet with Melanie Hirsch, and "One in a Row" is a fine rocker.

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It's Dave Hill's world and we're all just living in it.

Seems like Dave Hill is everywhere these days. His comedy stylings are ubiquitous and if you've watched HBO's Late Night With John Oliver at all over the last few years you've heard Valley Lodge's "Go" from 2013's Use Your Weapons as the show's theme song. And now his all-out aural assault continues with two releases from different projects, both of which are worth your time.

Painted Doll-Painted Doll. Hill loves his different musical projects (going all the way back to Uptown Sinclair, one of my favorite all-time band names) and by looking at the cover of his latest effort you might be forgiven for thinking it's another heavy-metal outing like his band Witch Taint (one of my least-favorite all-time band names), especially when you learn that he's teamed up here with Chris Reifert of "extreme metal" bands such as Autopsy and Death. But Painted Doll is closer in spirit to Hill's power pop band, Valley Lodge, only without the bubblegum. It's a rock album that's more rock than rawk, drawing on Hill and Reifert's love of 60s/70s garage, psychedelic rock and stoner rock, and will appeal to power-poppers as well. Opener "Together Alone" owes a bit to "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (and perhaps The Smithereens' "Blood and Roses"), while "Hidden Hand" has a bit of a glam rock vibe. Elsewhere both the title track and the catchy "She Talks to Mirrors" channel late 60s British mod rock and "Find Your Mind" is just straight-up raucous rock. And it all closes with the loudest, trippiest cover of "I Put a Spell on You" that you're ever likely to hear.

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Valley Lodge-Stand b/w Come Back to Bed. And fear not power poppers, Valley Lodge is back as well as Hill & Co. have released a two-sided single from what is believed to be a forthcoming album. "Stand" is another of the Lodge's infectious, almost-danceable tracks in the vein of the aforementioned "Go" while "Come Back to Bed" is straight-ahead, catchy rock.

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CD of the Day, 9/3/13: Valley Lodge-Use Your Weapons

Why do we listen to power pop? At one level, it's the love of a catchy melody, ringing guitars and a steady beat. At another - for many of us - it's the music of our youth. But at the most elemental level, we listen because it's fun. Power pop appeals directly to the pleasure centers of our brains. And no band encapsulates this appeal better than Valley Lodge, who brings us Use Your Weapons, their third album.

Led by funnyman extraordinaire Dave Hill, it's tempting for some to write off Valley Lodge as a joke band, as merely an example of Hill's performance art. And I couldn't exactly argue that analysis if you chose to make it as Hill & Co. rattle off every rawk cliche in the book in both their performance and presentation. But whether tongue-in-cheek or not, there's no denying that their music is preternaturally catchy, rocking, and most of all - fun. Their brilliant self-titled 2005 debut was the perfect example of this, and still to this day remains perhaps my favorite power pop album. 2009's Semester at Sea was good fun as well, but the emphasis on glam rock made the "put-on" aspect of their act a bit more distracting (still, Semester did yield awesome rocking tracks like "The Door", "Baby, It's a Shame" and "When the Rain Comes", which found success in excess).

Use Your Weapons, it could then be said, is a return to form. It's more of a piece with the debut, which means it's time to turn your brain off and just embrace the non-stop fun. Opener "Go" is relentless, rambunctious and infectious, and has a rare quality in power pop - you could pretty much dance to it. (Here's a link to the video I posted a couple of weeks ago, which you need to see if you haven't already). "Sweet Elizabeth" lets you catch your breath, but isn't exactly a ballad with its glam rock and speedy Bo Diddley-style beat. The midtempo "Kiss Me I'm Drunk" finds Hill in vintage bad-boy mode and features a great bridge, while "Pretty Thing" rocks with abandon in a fashion similar to "The Door". And "Make Up Your Mind" closes out the first half of the album with a near-perfect slice of almost Big Star-like pop.

The second half of the album is no letdown either. "Waiting in the Rain" sounds like a lost garage rock tune from the 60s, and "Gimme Gimme" brings back Hill's penchant for incorporating 70s pop R&B into the mix much as "All of My Loving" and "Hanging On" did on the debut. Its Jackson 5-like chorus will have you grinning from ear to ear. "Are You Okay?" keeps the rawk going and features some of Mr. Hill's best shredding, "Restless Heart" is light glam rock a la Sweet and throws in horns in support of yet another supremely catchy melody, and closer "Blind" - with its 80s synths and frenetic melody - leaves you wanting more. They may be called Valley Lodge, but if you believe in truth in advertising Nate Ruess needs to cede the name "fun" to Dave Hill because this is the band that really lives up to that moniker.

CD Baby | iTunes

New Valley Lodge video (and album on the way)

Dave Hill & company are back, set to release their third album as Valley Lodge. I've gone on record as stating their 2005 debut might be my favorite power pop album of all-time, and while 2009's Semester at Sea found them mostly turning to glam rock, it was still a fun album and some of the high points on that album rivaled the high points of the debut. They're releasing Use Your Weapons on September 3, and I'll have a review up around that time. (SPOILER ALERT: It's a return to the form - and sound - of the debut). To get you amped up, here's a typically amusing video from the boys (Hill's daytime job is professional funnyman) for "Go":

"Go" by Valley Lodge from KobiyoshiViewing on Vimeo.

Video of the Day

Before Valley Lodge, comedian/rocker extraordinaire Dave Hill had another band, the amusingly named Uptown Sinclair, who released a self-titled 2001 album that's a must have for any kind of VL fan. Here's a funny video for the disc's biggest "hit", "Girlfriend":

Lala embeds added.

Thanks to their becoming available on Lala subsequent to my original reviews, you can now listen to Valley Lodge's Semester at Sea and J.P. Cregan's Man Overboard in their entirety by scrolling down to the respective reviews below. A great way to spend the next hour and fifteen minutes or so.

Expectations: Valley Lodge-Semester at Sea & Bob Evans-Goodnight, Bull Creek!

I've often thought about how expectations and preconceptions influence music (and other forms of art) reviews. There's no doubt they have an impact, as an artist's first album is judged on its own merits and in relation to the general sea of music in that genre, while the second album is inevitably compared to the first. In the case of an artist putting out a disc that is one of the best of its year, decade (or even all-time), the bar is set almost impossibly high and even a very good followup disc can come out looking relatively off by comparison.

Which brings me to two discs I've eagerly been awaiting. The first is Valley Lodge's Semester at Sea, the followup to their brilliant 2005 self-titled debut, which I recently declared the fifth best power pop album of all time*. So try topping that, guys! As it turns out, they really didn't try topping the first disc; instead, they created a somewhat different sound. Instead of a more traditional power pop sound with sugary and crunchy melodies (i.e., making Valley Lodge II), they've opted to go in a harder, faster, glam-rock direction. Although off-putting at first (hey, what happened to Dave Hill randomly going falsetto?), letting the album wash (or steamroll, to be more accurate) over me has quelled my original disappointment. There's plenty to love here: Opener "Break Your Heart" (which namechecks "Every Little Thing", the first disc opener), "The Door" (the best song Gary Glitter or Sweet never wrote), "When the Rain Comes", possibly the disc's best track with its big guitar riffs and lyrics of decadence ("been kissed/been pissed/got freaky at a brist"), "Baby It's a Shame" (probably the closest cousin to the debut), the gloriously catchy "My Baby" and the rifftastic "Comin' Around". An interesting choice here is the (apparently) unironic cover of "Sentimental Lady"; it's a bit out of place but well-executed nonetheless. So while they didn't manage the near-impossible task of topping themselves, Valley Lodge has nevertheless topped about 90% of what's out there in the power pop genre right now, and will be up there at year's end.

CD Baby | MySpace

Bob Evans' 2006 release Suburban Songbook may not have been the all-timer that Valley Lodge was, but it was still my #1 disc of that year. Unlike Valley Lodge, Evans has charted the same course with his new release, Goodnight, Bull Creek!. Once again, he's enlisted genius producer Brad Jones and the overall sound is quite similar to Suburban Songbook. Which means you'll get tuneful tracks in the manner of Neil Finn, Josh Rouse (before he went to Spain) and David Mead (before he got all show-tuney) with a twinge of Americana (Australiana?). "Someone So Much" is the kind of folky ballad that Evans is a master at; "Pasha Bulker" is an uptempo treat that reminds me of Rouse's "Winter in the Hamptons", and "Hand Me Downs" is as good as anything on Songbook, with a backing piano riff and harmonica that gives the chorus a Stevie Wonder/"Don't You Worry Bout a Thing" feel. Elsewhere, "Your Love" is a bright, sunny track; "We're a Mess" rocks with a busy background, and "Power of Speech" is a lovely ballad with a bossa nova sound. Evans has done it again, and while there may not be a "Friend" or "Comin' Around" here, like Valley Lodge he's going to be high on the year-end list. (Like Suburban Songbook, this disc isn't being released domestically in the USA initially; expect it to show up at some point, though, at least through iTunes).

MySpace | Listen at official site

*Astute observers will note that despite considering Valley Lodge the fifth-best power pop album of all-time, it only placed #11 on my 2005 year-end list. A couple of caveats: it came out very late in the year (around Thanksgiving), and while Derby's This is the New You was my favorite album during 2005, VL is obviously now my favorite album of 2005.

The election is upon us!

No, I'm not talking Obama vs. McCain (not much suspense there any more). I'm talking about the "Shake Some Action" Revisited site, where your vote for the top 5 power pop albums of all time is being solicited for the rest of this month in order to come up with a fans' list to go with the Top 200 list John Borack compiled in his excellent Shake Some Action book.

Of course being the opinionated sort that I am, I have my own top 5 picks, which consist of one unsurprising pick, one not-too-unsurprising pick, two unsurprising artists but surprising discs, and one out of left field. Here I go:

1. Big Star-#1 Record/Radio City. The Rosetta Stone of power pop. I don't have any grand new insights on this legendary disc, but I will state that "September Gurls" might just be the perfect song.

2. Cotton Mather-Kon Tiki. I've waxed poetic on this one before, but I will simply state it comes closest to approximating a Beatles album than anything else out there, and I don't mean it simply in the sense of aping the Beatles sound, which a lot of bands are quite capable of. And if Kon Tiki was the best album the Beatles never released, "My Before and After" was the best song they never released.

3. Matthew Sweet-100% Fun. I've taken some heat for picking Clint Sutton as the #1 disc of 2008 in my spring list, and although I'm not sure it'll stay at the spot at year's end, the reason I love it so much is that reminds me of what I consider Sweet's best album and a stone classic. Although Girlfriend gets all the praise and the list mentions, I always thought 100% Fun was the more focused, tighter, melodic and rocking of the two. The first couple of seconds of "Sick of Myself" might be best way to open an album I've ever heard, and the wonderful "Get Older" is probably the most overlooked great song on this disc. (Side note on Sweet: The title is the notoriously thin-skinned Sweet's response to complaints that the Girlfriend followup, Altered Beast, was too "dark". Later, after the 100% Fun followup Blue Sky on Mars took some critical heat, Sweet responded with the bitter "Write Your Own Song" on 1999's In Reverse. So I sure hope he isn't reading this when I mention that his new disc, Sunshine Lies, didn't do much for me.)

4. Marshall Crenshaw-Field Day. Like the pick above, this isn't the disc people have in mind when they think of the artist, and while his self-titled debut would find a spot in my all-time top 20, this one to me is his true best. Maligned at the time as a result of Steve Lillywhite's reverb-heavy production, the controversy about the sound obscured the fact that this was Crenshaw's strongest set of songs, from the perfect power pop of the album's lone hit, "Whenever You're on My Mind", to gems like "For Her Love" and "Monday Morning Rock". My only knock on the debut was that it was a bit too retro-conscious, and what makes Field Day so great is that it marries Crenshaw's brilliant songcraft (which shows a greater depth and maturity here) to a more up-to-date vibe, even without considering Lillywhite's production.

5. Valley Lodge-Valley Lodge. Wha??? Alert and/or longtime readers might recall that this wasn't even my #1 disc of 2005, so what's it doing at #5 of all-freaking-time? Well, first of all if I had to re-do my 2005 list, this one probably would be at the top, and secondly, I've been listening to it a lot lately. But the more I listen, the more I'm convinced this might be the purest, most fun, power pop album I've ever heard, and here I mean power pop in the narrowest sense: rocking guitars, sugary melodies, etc - not the broad parameters I use in the choice of discs I review on this site. This disc has it all - aside from songs that deliver one hook after another, there's an intelligence and sense of humor that prevails here, unsurprising since frontman Dave Hill (ex-Uptown Sinclair) is an adept a professional comedian as he is a rocker. And what seals the deal for me is Hill's penchant for slipping into falsetto in the middle of verses and choruses, which makes these songs so much damn fun to sing along to. If you've been somehow immune to this disc's charms these past three years, do yourself a favor and check it out.