(this review may
spin off into an absurd rant about the link between pop music and extremism. I
can amend this for a little ‘cash for comment;’ Hint Hint ;) )
Overall thoughts on debut album
I’ll give the LittleLam’s debut album ‘Plastic Paper Lemonade’
a Richard Wilkins, which is 3 and a half stars for people not in the know about
Australia’s TV network 9’s host of Keynotes. This puts the album on par for me
with movies such as The Wolverine, Her and Caddyshack. I really dug all
those movies and this is Little Lam’s first album so it’s going to be uphill
from here! If my Stallone Rumpology skills are correct, their next album will
be at least 4 stars, which is getting into Raiders of the Lost Ark and Anchor
Man territory.
Cohesion is such a tough thing to nail with a band with so
many great influences. Watching Lam live, the songs fit a bit better together
in my opinion so I can only attribute any reservations I have to the
production. It’s still far, far better than most first albums, but if I could
pick on one thing, I would target the vocal post-production on some of the
tracks. The balance between getting bored of sameness and adding more trinkets
than when children decorate Christmas trees is so tough to get right. My
opinion is that Leanne’s voice is so wonderful that it only needs a tiny amount
of extra seasoning every now and then. But this is of course my taste and I can
think of massive bands that do similar varied treatments to vocals. There is
only 1 teeny tiny teensy weenie yellow polka-dot vocal blemish on the whole
album that I’ve found which is testament to a band that refuses to use
Auto-tune.
When I die and turn into a Ghost then meet Whoopie Goldberg
to try and work out what unfinished business I have left on Earth, my primary
motivation will be to go to Heaven in order to listen to angels with voices
like Leanne’s. I’m not sure what else there’ll be to do in Heaven anyway. No
depiction I’ve ever heard of has anything enticing other than the music.
The diverse influences come together into a 10 course modern
Australian fusion banquet straddling pop, country, alternative, rock and no
annoying glitch dup chiptune circuit bending step. Some may not unequivocally adore
every track, but I’m quite confident that you’ll fall for at least one after a
listen or two. And the whole meal should grow on you after that. I like or love
all the tracks now, but the last track, ‘All you can get’, is perfection for me.
It knocks up the album into a blissful climax, like the end of a ‘date night’.
Bring on the next one I say, which could be called Bakelite
/ Parchment / Hair-Tonic or Carbon nano-fibre / Tablet PC / Slurm or Polyvinyl
Chroride / Cellulose / Mostly Dihydrogen monoxide.
And go see them live too if you are lucky enough to have
been captured by the glorious Brisbekistan State!
 |
| LittleLam live at Kerbside Brisbane |
LittleLam the band
Little Lam was a slow build for me. I find when I know
people doing the art, there is an authenticity hurdle to jump over before I’ll
embrace them as legit. Not sure why this is. Perhaps I want to protect my
impeccable reputation as being THE taste maker and breaker. I have been
described as the Bernard King of my generation.
But after seeing Lam twice I think it began to wash over me
like the Japanese Buddhist monks that stand under near-freezing waterfalls in
the middle of winter. This was a band that deserved much more attention than
from just their circle of friends and family. If I didn’t really believe this,
then I doubt I would be bothered to write this review. Just 1 thing: Kirk
should talk between tracks during gigs. He is a Joan Rivers-level master of
inappropriate shock humour which would knock back and forth with the Dad jokes
like a perfectly-balanced perpetual-motion Newton’s cradle.
 |
| Joan stole this line from Kirk... |
Lam are a traditional 4-piece band with Leanne able to add
acoustic guitar or keys. There is a reason why this combination is so popular;
everything usually fits in a mix without having to perform crazy production
tricks or add quad amps and octavers to the guitar/s.
1.
The drums are solid and always add that extra
little flourish to keep it interesting. It’s just a basic kit which is all you
need if you have the skill to keep things hot & spicy.
2.
The bass is the least out there element to the
mix. Sorry Dave, it’s not your fault! This is what the bass does in most music.
It keeps the listener grounded to the root note of each chord and all that
music theory stuff. Somehow I don’t think that a Flea funk bass solo would fit
in the middle of ‘Stars’. Actually, I’m listening to it now and maybe it could…
3.
The guitar shows to me how practise does
actually make a difference. I ‘inspired’ Kirk to play guitar. That’s my story
anyway! He practised and I didn’t. He can now nail all the styles required including
some sick Matthew Bellamy -ish solos. And he is extremely solid live too and
provides lots of call and response with the vocals that is the hallmark of
great lead guitar work
4.
I can’t say enough about the vocals; so I’ll
keep it short. Problems with vocals and the song-writing are the 2 compulsory
ingredients that get most contestants kicked off Master Chief: the singing
& cooking reality show set in the Halo Universe. Leanne can do both with
far more range than your average ‘The Voice’ contestant street busker and I’m
sure that there’s even better things to come; like maybe some Sia/Pink/Lady
Gaga inspired singing with her back to the audience in a meat dress hanging
upside down
Breaking out from every other talented musician should never
be the primary aim for any artist in my opinion. Success is not always a sign
of talent and becoming known in Australia is about as likely as being struck by
lightning while riding a shark voiced by Barry Humphries. It should always be
about the art and the passion. Staying dedicated is no guarantee of anything either
except being true to yourself. One has to admire those that don’t just flit
about like the rest of us and actually manage to devote themselves to their
creative endeavour and finish something. We all know ‘artists’ that have never
finished a single thing but believe they are special and should be adored. I
know this feeling all too well so am elated for Little Lam for completely an
album that they are proud to perform and promote. That reminds me of my 20%
finished EP that I haven’t worked on for 6 months and the Lam remix that I
promised and haven’t even started. But enough about my failures…
Don’t be hatin’ on pop music, you pretentious w*nker
As I said before, It took me a while to carve up the Lam. I
was led astray by certain individuals who believe that being harshly critical
of everything, especially anything near the pop end of the spectrum, somehow
makes them more interesting to cool people. I used to be like that too, but
realised that it is terribly unfair to lump all pop together as puerile music
for children and imbeciles. Some of it is of course, but there is some great
pop music that I can at least appreciate for the production values and yes,
catchiness. Unless you listen to music that is random noise, you are attracted
to patterns too. Your most anti-pop band that you believe in your pretentious
smugness to be the greatest artists are pretty much doing pop music with a 10 degree
twist.
And there is no line anymore between pop and alternative
anyway. The Australian public radio station Triple J put the last wooden spike
in the last vampire when they eliminated Taylor Swift from the 2014 Hottest
100. Alternative music actually meant something in the 90s, but like anything
that becomes popular, of course it eventually just becomes another flavour of
pop music. And so what? Pop music is so much better now than it used to be I
think. The pop artist has so many colours to choose from now. I look forward to
seeing how many other genres that can be incorporated into the next Little Lam
album. Nintendocore? Chap Hop? Clown Step? ;)
Enjoy music on its own merits. Don’t judge by the cultural
effect that it has. It’s perfectly OK to like a Beyonce song. You don’t have to
like all her fans or her politics or her husband or her sisters or her badonk-a-donk.
“Remember those walls I built? / Well, baby they're tumbling down / And they
didn't even put up a fight / They didn't even make a sound”.
 |
| Beyonce / Goro |
But don’t go too far. ‘Blurred Lines’ has no artistic merit
whatsoever and has brought sexual politics back to before we hunted all the Manfred
‘Manny’ Woolly Mammoths to extinction. If you like Brian Thicke or whatever the
person with dirty misogyny’s name is, take an Ice Age cold hard look at
yourself. What are you doing with your life? Turn around, walk the other way,
and don’t look back; never look back. You might believe you can fly, but you've just face planted a tree.
Disclaimer: I've known the guitarist, Kirk
Harmer, my whole life. He is one of my parents’ God children. Kirk has a
brother, Adam, and ever since I can remember I've only got along well with one
of them at a time. It was Adam, then Kirk, then Adam, now Kirk. After an unintentional
vicious attack on my recent Facebook activity, Kirk is definitely front and
centre as my favourite brother, so I prefer Noel to Liam Gallagher? He has now
turned into a way better person than me too.
And I adore Leanne. She has truly brought balance to the Force
of Kirk. He is no longer trying to create his own horde of micro-organism
minions and feeding them with festering food. And he smells better now too. ;)
So how am I going to be able to give a review that doesn't just gush fan-boy? I have tried my best to separate the man from the machine
and the music from the personalities. I will fail. I don’t even listen to
lyrics so will only really focus on the music. My brother swings the other way,
so if I can convince him to write a review, it would be a perfect complement to
this article; like extremism and violence: you can’t have one without the
other.
Outrageous self-promoting plug: If you abhor violence but
are obsessed with the extremist dysfunctional brain with absurdist humour and
dumb pop culture references, then find me on Facebook or my blog or subscribe
to my weekly email. I can also review one of your products or services. I run a
donation model for my services so pay me nothing if you like. All I promise is
I’ll be honest and I’ll scrap the review if you don’t like it. Or you could
improve your product or service until I do like it, then I’ll gladly amend my
review.
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