Apex Manor: Puff the Magic Drinkers

Sometimes mistaken for Starsky and Hutch

Southern California is a great breeding ground for melodic rock and pop, often with a tinge of dark roots just beneath the blonde highlights. Maybe it’s the sunshine, maybe it’s the bare skin, maybe it’s the Beach Boys imagery, maybe it’s the Ecstasy in the water supply. But nobody mates lyrics that rhyme with guitars that chime to produce hummable offspring like Left Coast South. Is it any wonder our state flower is the Golden (Power) Poppy?

The latest example of our unwaveringly melodic sensibilities is Apex Manor, led by former Broken West frontman Ross Flournoy. When the latter band broke up a couple years ago, Flournoy took his Big Star-meets-the-Beatles mindset and moved from ultra-hip Silver Lake to more pastoral (sorta) Pasadena and hunkered down with an unwelcome case of writer’s block. He eventually escaped the jaws of uncertainty with help from frequent collaborator Adam Vine. Inspired by an online songwriting contest for NPR (whatever it takes), Flournoy managed to pen the aptly named track “Under the Gun,” thereby unlocking the creative floodgates. Like a Guided by Voices float chugging through the Rose Parade, he came up with a large batch of songs, some of them co-written with Vine, and soon they were to the Apex Manor born. The band was named after the peaceful environs of Vine’s apartment, a spot Flournoy dubbed his Los Angeles “Zen place.” This may be hard to envision if your apartment is more like “condemned place,” but that’s artistic inspiration for ya.

Apex Manor’s debut album, “The Year of Magical Drinking,” issued earlier this year on Merge Records, is chock full of indie rock-by-way-of-pop supporting insightful lyrics about romantic and life lessons learned. The opening track, “Southern Decline,” envelops you in a tumbling cascade of guitar, piano and drums, and cruises to the finish line on a bank of “ooh ooh ooh” vocals. The aforementioned “Under the Gun” is a propulsive number with lyrics like “Where were you / when I was turning blue / I tried to breath but you were gone.” “My My Mind” finds Flournoy offering romantic musings in a simple, understated growl a la Pete Yorn. “Teenage Blood” cranks up the guitar energy as Apex Manor channels its inner Strokes with the refrain “got teenage blood running through my veins” / “got teenage blood boiling in my brain.” You can practically feel the percolating hormones. On “Elemental Ways of Speaking,” guitars ring out like something from a lost Coldplay session, if Chris Martin’s lineage had been less Fab Four and more Arthur Lee and Love. “Holly Roller” is a gently acoustic ballad in which Flournoy cautions “Love is like a figure of speech /sometimes I know you can’t practice what you preach.” Then he breaks out his best Chris Isaak falsetto for the lava-like flow of “Burn Me Alive.”

Flournoy mixes plaintive yearning and joyful celebration for the feeling of an indie rock barbecue where wise hipsters frolic to a portable power pop juke box as the late afternoon sun shines through blades of freshly cut grass. There’s something in the air and it’s more than just a collection of jangling guitars, crashing symbols and welcoming vocal harmonies. Apex Manor has amassed a military stockpile of memorable melodies powerful enough to be deemed weapons of mass reflection. 

YUCK: One Word Can Say So Much

It’s tempting to say YUCK suck like a truck stuck in the muck, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair (although incredibly clever). It’s just that the London-based outfit’s self-titled debut sounds like they’ve been isolated in a college dorm room surrounded by nothing but Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth albums, with someone occasionally ordering Chinese take-out and a Teenage Fanclub cassette.  Led by guitar-vocalist wunderkinds Daniel Blumberg and Max Bloom, formerly teamed as indie-pop press darlings Cajun Dance Party, YUCK never met a line of soaring, distorted feedback and hazy vocalization it didn’t like. It’s so derivative at times you can almost hear J. Mascis dialing up his copyright lawyer (if he wasn’t paralyzed by lethargy). The ‘90s time warp extends to the video for “Holing Out,” with its lo-tech psychedelic lighting, negative exposure sequence, slackeroid stances, and vague hairy-beast-chasing-a-blonde-in-the-snow-carnage. Maybe they should’ve called it “A London Werewolf in America.”

The second half of the album does ease off the distortion pedal for a number of songs, with relatively ballad-esque tracks like “Stutter,” Sunday” and “Suck” (their title, not mine). But then there’s ”Rose Gives a Lilly,” an instrumental that sounds like somebody left the tape running while the band was tuning up. The wall of noise fever-dream finale “Rubber” builds like a bunch of kids who’ve locked themselves in a Guitar Center outlet after-hours and can’t quite figure out what all those knobs are for. (They had it remixed by Mogwai – no nineties guitar fetish there, right?) The lyrics, when not buried in the mix, seem to mostly deal with early 20-something relationship type-stuff that probably felt really heavy after one too many English Lit classes.

Blumberg and Bloom (what, he couldn’t afford a “burg”?) are probably nice Jewish boys. Heck, they recruited drummer Jonny Rogoff from a kibbutz in Israel (BTW, Rogoff manages to connect YUCK to current indie rock in that he sports both a beard AND a healthy Jew-fro, but he’s from Jersey, so that might explain it. Bassist Mariko Doi is from Hiroshima, but it’s never too late to convert). It’s just that YUCK have nothing new to say and they say it loud. Maybe with some luck and pluck and if they don’t forget to duck, YUCK will make a fast buck. Otherwise, just replace the “Y” with an “F,” add an "ed" at the end and move on.

Skybombers Drop In Again

"Everybody look pensive!"

 

From early pioneers like the Saints and Radio Birdman, to respected outfits Hoodoo Gurus and Hunters and Collectors, to international stars INXS and Midnight Oil, Australian alternative bands have always had a knack for cooking up a rambunctious strain of vegemite rock. Melbourne indie/garage quartet Skybombers carry on that fine Aussie tradition, no barbies required.

“Black Carousel,” Skybombers’ new album on 429 Records, represents a great expansion of musical horizons. The disc’s opening track, “Love Me Like You Used to Do,” is coolly propulsive with a sing-along chorus that would sound good bouncing off bear-stained club walls. “Lies” begins with singer/guitarist Hugh Gurney explaining in a gently Lennon-esque tone, “They say the truth will set you free / Well, I agree to a degree / A lie can do the same for me” before kicking into the kind of melodic yet meaty rock the band is so good at. “Daylight Saving Season” and “All at Sea” showcase melodic sophistication and pop smarts; “Can’t Say No” is hard to resist, while “Jenny and the Night’s” walking bassline and “na-na-na’s” prove Skybombers have much more up their sleeves than just a hot time in the ol’ garage. All the while, Gurney sings in a strong, pleasantly raspy voice reminiscent of Paul Westerberg or Kelly Jones of Stereophonics, with a touch of Liam Gallagher.

Gurney copped his early moves from stand-up bassist Scott Owen of fellow Melbourne group The Living End (the trio responsible for the punkabilly classic “Prisoner of Society”). Such free-thinking radicalism got him kicked out of the prestigious Scotch College orchestra. No matter – Gurney hooked up with three classmates – guitarist Sam Bethune, bassist Ravi Sharma and drummer Scott McMurtrie -- and formed a Cure-inspired mope-rock group called Collusion. After ditching the eyeliner and adopting a more straight-ahead rock vision a la the Clash, Nirvana and Oasis, they changed the name to Skybombers in honor of an Australian popsicle brand (apparently, even the frozen treats kick ass Down Under).

Their 2006 debut EP, “Sirens,” included the start-stop grabber “It Goes Off,” which managed to get significant airplay on influential L.A. station Indie 103.1 (may my former employers – under an alias -- rest in peace). That led to the odd circumstance of the band being recognized here in Tinseltown (hello, ladies, cute accents here), but still unable to draw more than a few dozen paying customers at gigs in their home city. Undaunted, Skybombers risked serious jet-lag and returned to L.A. to record their 2008 debut album, “Take Me to Town.” Those songs featured plenty of surging, slashing guitar, with an occasional touch of tremolo and folk reflection to cool things off. They only hinted at the band’s potential. It’s hard for a rock band to have a hit on the radio these days, but Skybombers might buck the odds. Anyone listening?