MUSIC REVIEW
Brazilian girls take listeners to paradise BY DESDEMONA BANDINI Daily Titan Staff
Picture this: The sky is a soft blue and the warm sun is beaming upon the turquoise colored ocean. You are at a cool beach bar in a tropical paradise, surrounded by hot men and topless women. The wind gently rocks your hammock as you sip on a tall blue drink that is topped with a pineapple wedge. In the background you hear an original blend of dreamy, danceable lounge music from a band called the Brazilian Girls. You think to yourself, in this moment everything is perfect. Okay, well maybe you aren't
on a vacation in a foreign tropical paradise, but if you throw on the new self-titled CD from the New York-based band the Brazilian Girls, you will find yourself exported to a delightful and hypnotic new world of exotic sound fusions that are so perfect you can almost taste the sea salt. The Brazilian Girls sultryvoiced lead singer, Sabina Sciubba is the only girl in the band and she is Italian but grew up in Germany. Keyboardist Didi Gutman is from Argentina, bassist Jesse Murphy is from California and drummer Aaron Johnston is from Kansas City, leaving no Brazilian girls to be found.
Louis XIV sports glam rock mojo BY RYAN TOWNSEND Daily Titan Managing Editor
However, the Brazilian Girls take their international influences and translate it into poetic electropop-dub-punk with ambient beats that are layered with horns, percussions and features 12 diverse songs in five different languages. If you have not caught their music, go to the store, pick up the CD and impress your friends with how you have your finger on the pulse of the latest hipness. You won't regret it.
Kiev constructs depth, creativity BY JAIMEE FLETCHER Daily Titan Staff
If you like Muse and Radiohead then you will love the clean, melodic sounds of Kiev. Its self-titled album will be a
must-have for those who love music with depth and creativity. This album combines upbeat rock songs with a few ballads to hold the interest of any rock-lover. With a sound that is radiofriendly, yet complex, Kiev’s music has the ability engross its listeners. Kiev’s sound is young and catchy but uses a keyboard element that opens up its music and takes it above typical rock-pop. Numerous key changes make the songs melodic but not monotonous. Simple drum beats make Kiev’s songs easy to listen to, but creative transitions give the music depth. The lead singer, Bobby Brinkerhoff, has a vocal tone that is similar to Muse’s lead singer Matthew
Bellamy or solo artist Jeff Buckley, but at the same time he has his own flavor. His voice has a nice tone, with strong dynamics. Currently unsigned, Kiev is Orange County’s newest up and coming band and is catching the attention of various labels. No matter where this band plays, the venue is packed with fans. Places like the Key Club in Los Angeles and Chain Reaction in Anaheim hold sold-out shows for this band on the rise to stardom. Kiev’s album is not yet available in stores, but it is available for downloading on the Internet and can be bought at one of its shows.
Packing for spring break road trip: cell phone, PDA? Check. Keys, wallet, sunscreen, Jack Daniels? Check. Glam-inspired, raucous and unapologetic partytime record by formerly unknown band? Check. San Diego’s Louis XIV revel in the kind of vacuous rock n’ roll that celebrates grimy hijinks, naked women and excessive substance abuse. Recorded in France and Southern California, The Best Little Secrets are Kept should be a tongue-incheek delight for anyone who feels that life was much better during Ford’s presidency. Analog production suits Louis XIV just fine, as the band rips through ten concise, balls-out odes to the joys of pilfering 1970’s AM catalog rock for inspiration. It would all be a joke, if the band wasn’t so damn good at it. “A Letter to Dominique” demands attention with its Bowiederived background wails and golden power chords while “God Killed The Queen” rolls with the charged energy of a single worth its weight in gold. Of course much of the band’s early buzz has been directed to-
wards “Finding Out True Love is Blind,” which is every bit as good as you read it was in SPIN. And yet, a glowing recommendation is still not in order. Unfortunately, the band’s attempt at balladry, “All the Little Pieces,” sounds like your kid brother’s Beatle’s cover band and the stoner-folk of “Ball of Twine” elicits nothing more than a casual “so what?” Also, Louis XIV’s somewhat disconcerting and one-dimensional attitude towards women will likely attract the type of fraternity fanboys responsible for the Woodstock ‘99 debacle. True, The Best Little Secrets are Kept sports three monumental singles but it will take a more cohesive album to prove that Louis XIV is not just a one-trick party machine.
Phantoms strength lies in pop delights BY RYAN TOWNSEND Daily Titan Managing Editor
Clearly aiming for global megastardom, Acceptance held out six years for a major label deal instead of taking the indie route. On their Columbia Records debut Phantoms, the boys from Seattle represent for aremo, that is arenaready emo, in much the same way their peers from The Juliana Theory did on Love. Unlike that godawful album though, Phantoms only occasionally veers into overthe-top-production hell and when it does the songs acquit themselves enough to be tolerable. When Acceptance sticks to its strengths, the band churns out smart-pop delights that are immediate and effective. The album opener “Take Cover,” melds Knapsack indie-pop melodies with big-budget sheen and buried deep in the track list, the brooding “So Contagious,” snaps and pops with sugar-rush
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Daily Titan April 21, 2005
intimacy. When the bands gets too ambitious for its own good, missteps like the Jimmy Eat Worldmimicking “In too Far” remind us that this kind of shit is jamming the airwaves like the new Puddle of Mudd. Still, it must be taken as a good sign that label executives supported the band’s choice to put its most substantial song, the moving, three-minute-epic “Gloria/Us Appearing,” last. They, like us, believe that Acceptance shows promise.
