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The Good Life

Help Wanted Nights

"Its very simplicity is a lesson that his pal and label mate Conor Oberst could benefit from."

 

Maria Taylor

Lynn Teeter Flower

"...While the debut (11:11) was a strong beginning, this one takes her closer to where she's headed, but doesn't quite get there, probably because she still can't quite let go of her sepia-toned past."

 

Eric Bachmann

To the Races

"Bachmann's songs, as stark and aching as they may be, are nothing less than purely gorgeous, like all his friends up in the sky."

 

Phosphorescent

Aw Come Aw Wry

Bob Mould

Body of Song

 

Adam Richman

Patience and Science

Simone White

Sincere Recording Co. Presents Simone White

XXX: Music from Thinking XXX

various artists

The Great Depresssion

Unconscious Pilot

Aloha

Here Comes Everyone

 

The Polyphonic Spree

Together We're Heavy

The Slats

Pick It Up

Local H

Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles?

Wheat

Per Second... Every Second

Comets on Fire

Blue Cathedral

 

Tilly and the Wall

Wild Like Chidren

Owsley Sunshine / The Tone Def Amigos

Modest Mouse

Good News for People Who Love Bad News

The Good Life

Lovers need Lawyers

Sour Deluxe

White Noise

 

At the Close of Every Day

zalig zijn de armen van geest

Andy Logan

Last Dance on the Wild Frontier

Miss Autopsy

Ruhr

 

Humble Gods

Born Free

 

The Kite-Eating Tree

Method: fail, Repeat...

 

Centro-matic

Flashes and Cables EP

 

Hannah Marcus

Desert Farmers

Statistics

Leave Your Name

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start

Perris, CA

Burgess Shale

It's Never Enough, Is It?

Maxeen

s/t

 

Consonant

Love and Affliction

Guided by Voices

Best of...

 

Fiel Garvie

Leave Me Out of This

 

Young People

War Prayers

 

Miracle of 86

Every Famous Last Word

 

Amy Blaschke

self-titled

Denison Witmer

Recovered

 

A People's History of
The Dismemberment Plan

various artists

 

Bronwyn

Through the Fog, Through the Pines

Emily Easterly

Cole

Azure Ray

Hold On Love

David Bowie

Reality

 

Bleu

Redhead

Just another reviews page?

Probably... except that we try to review the typical and not-so-typical (and just about anything else you can think of). The emphasis is on Indie, but who knows what will pass through this page? I sure don't...

The rating system is irresistibly simple. Recordings will be rated with a simple yes or no. You be the judge of what it means.

Watch this page for new reviews. Most have appeared in The Omaha Reader.

Keep up with received, reviewed and not-reviewed CDs at the Review Matrix -- all received CDs are checked-in and checked out.

Attn.: bands, labels, promoters: Send promotional materials (CDs, one-sheets, demos, etc.) to:

Tim McMahan
www.lazy-i.com

The Break / Let It Burn

split EP

Big Collapse

Prototype

The Karl Hendricks Trio

The Jerks Win Again

Arthurkill

Addiction

Calibretto

Dead by Dawn

Strawberry Burns

self-titled

Canoe

I Give You Canoe!

WInfred E. Eye

The Dirt Tier

Self-Evident

Angular

The Sister Maria

Topekamericana

John Larsen

Kismet

Poleposition

XO EP

Mogwai

Happy Songs for Happy People

Marianas

Onward + Upward

Lovetap

There's This Girl

Mayday

I Know Your Troubles Been Long

FCS North

Vocabulary

Alkaline Trio

Good Mourning

North Sea Story

Rebuilding Season

Cex

Being Ridden

Blue Shade Witness

s/t ep

Saddle Creek 50

various artists

Atom and His Package

Attention! Blah Blah Blah

We Talked About Murder

Expecting the Explosion

Gatsbys American Dream

Ribbons & Sugar

The New Pornographers

Electric Version

Lanky

Inner Onwriter

No Escape

A Tribute to Journey

Head of Femur

Ringodom Or Proctor demo

Killian Ryan

Words Never Said Again

Citizen's Band

s/t

For Against

Coalesced

Two Guys

Recorded

Fairburn Royals

From a Window Way Above

Gary Numan

I, Assassin / Warriors

Lazy-i Best of 2002 Compilation

 

Keleton DMD

Body Double

Madcap

East to West

Theselah

Nice International

Sprawl

Sarah Veladora

Halifax Pier

Put Your Gloves on and Wave

Lisboa / Kid Brother Collective

split EP

Rizzudo

self-titled EP

Matt Marka

Repeat Pete Repete

Gerty

Sweets from the Minibar

Heros Severum

Wonderful Educated Bear

The Jim Yoshii Pile-Up

Homemade Drugs

The Lepers

The Love from Above

Maybe This Christmas

various artists

Two Gallants

Two Gallants

Rating: Yes

There's a knock on Two Gallants, it's that all their music sounds the same.

It's an easy, lazy statement to make. It's also easy to prove. Take someone who's never heard the band before and play a typical track from The Throes, their 2004 debut on Alive Records. Follow that with a song from Where the Toll Tells, their 2006 Saddle Creek Records debut, and one from this, their new eponymously titled follow-up. Now ask your test subject how the three vary musically and lyrically. First, they'll assume they all came from the same album; next they'll ask (eagerly) if all their songs sound like this. The answer, of course, is yes.


Like I said, it's an easy knock, and it's not fair, really. Two Gallants, the San Francisco duo of singer/guitarist Adam Stephens and drummer Tyson Vogel, have crafted a unique sound that feels like a cross between '60s blues-rock, "The House of the Rising Sun" and modern-day pirate songs. Stephens' craggy voice and rolling, picking' electric guitar bend the music over Vogel's bright, almost militaristic syncopated marching-band percussion. The result is a slice of turn-of-the-(20th)-Century Americana merged with Delta blues and indie rock.

(continued)


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Also check out the Live Reviews Section, featuring reviews of Omaha appearances by:

  • The Warlocks / Little Brazil, Cursive, Examination of the.. , The Carsinogents, Califone / Sea and Cake, Low, Simon Joyner / The Mariannes / The Golden Age, Landon Hedges, The Lepers, Mary Lou Lord, Interpol / Calla, Dave Dondero, Owen Mark Eitzel, Fizzle Like a Flood, Desaparacidos, Sorry About Dresden, Spoon, The Good Life, 754-HERO, Kinsgbury Manx, Azure Ray, The Jealous Sound, The Gloria Record, Sunshinte, The Carsinogents, The Sound of Rails, At the Drive In, Murder City Devils, Cursive, !!!, Tristeza, The Good Life, Bright Eyes, Her Space Holiday

Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.
Revised: April 27, 2008 .