"Celebration Castle" from the Ponys is really good

And man, they're so good live. They've got one of the guitarists for 90 Day Men playing with them now, and although that's pretty odd he slots in very nicely. No more organ tho.

*sniff*

I don't see how the vocals sound particularly different from those on the first album.

July 26, 2006

The Ponys
After months of wining, dining, and more than a little dying, we're very happy to announce that the amazing Chicago quartet THE PONYS have been signed to a worldwide, multi-album pact with Matador Records.

Toiling since the year 2000, the band's two album highly acclaimed albums for the terrific In The Red label, 2004's Jim Diamond-helmed 'Laced With Romance' and 2005's Steve Albini-assisted 'Celebration Castle' have been stereo fixtures for smart, savvy rock fans across the globe.

Like many of our other favorites, new and otherwise, the Ponys' uncanny meditation on the great guitar bands of New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Manchester circa 1976-1983 ultimately come through with a voice all their own. Though we think they've already got a couple of modern classics under their belt, the new material we've heard from 2006's gigging hints at their most ambitious work to date, and one they'll begin work on very soon....with subsequent worldwide release on Matador in 2007.

But I'm surprised by the (mostly) unreserved acclaim. Laced with Romance was wonderful, one of my favorite rock records of the past few years. Celebration Castle isn't a total failure, but it is a real step down.

For one thing, the tunes are weaker. They're more ambitious, perhaps, but not half so well realized. Hell, the non-album singles and B-sides from the Laced era trump most of Celebration Castle. Perhaps all their best songs wound up on the debut, and they then had to paw through leftovers and scramble to mint fresh hits. I dunno, but while CC does perk up occasionally – notably on "Glass Conversation", "Get Black" and "We Shot the World" – its peaks don't match those of the first record ("Kill Yourself", "My Little Friends", "Fall In", "Sad Eyes", and more).

When you come right down to it, they're both patchy records, redeemed by a few standout tracks. But lately the standouts don't stand out so much. And the fascination with glamorous post-punk cool that dominates the first half of Celebration Castle simply doesn't suit the band (not yet, anyway). The songs are strongly reminiscent of various 80s soundtrack favorites, but somehow, nothing really sticks to the wall. It feels more like pastiche than inspired reinvention, and worse yet, it all comes across as rather flat and studied. The splattery mania of Laced With Romance, evoking both the Voidoids and the first few XTC records, has been scaled back. But they can't quite manage the tension, restraint and attention to sonic detail that this new, more minimal style requires. As a result they tread water, the half-written songs blending facelessly into one another.

Finally, the Steve Albini recording is remarkably unremarkable. It bears no trace of his usual grit and fire. The drums are dull and distant. The guitars pleasant, but rather soupy. The vocals, well, they sound pretty much the same. Albini is famous for absurdly accurate drum recordings, raw and boomy, for scathing, acidic guitar tones, and for squashing the bass like a bug, resulting in super-primitivist recordings that flay skin and punch holes in the wall. This does none of that. It merely sounds a bit cleaner and "bigger" than Laced. The production is nice, but it brings nothing new to the table, and only emphasizes the blandness of the arrangements.

As a transitional record, it may generate a more successful follow-up. If they produce a more coherent record for Matador, the relative weakness of Celebration Castle probably won't seem so damning. But as things stand, it doesn't bode well...

a) i think the songs are better, if less immediately catchy (mostly growers rather than "damn what's this?" stuff like "let's kill ourselves"). also no filler to my ears, not "patchy" at all. the first one was way more of a garage revival sorta thing with a couple of killer tunes and then a lot of stuff that just sits there, but here i feel like everything belongs. it's not a BIG record, just a really, really well done little one.

b) CC seems to be a much more accurate reflection of what the band is like, and likes to play (speaking with them mostly confirmed this). i get the sense that LWR was way more of a stylistic put-on than this one.

c) recording style = not stereotypical albini, but fits the sound of the songs very well. gentler than the jesus lizard, sure, but i think it does a good job.

d) "pastiche...rather flat and studied"? no way! there's postpunky stuff here, but i never feel like i'm not listening to the ponys. besides, if you wanna incorporate postpunky sounds, i got no problem w/bands ripping off the feelies and similar strumtastic riffery over another fuckin Go4 clone. the thing that i like though is that it doesn't sound like a straight rip to me, just the incorporation of that stuff into the band's sound. the recording style emphasizes this ("glass convo"/"we shot the world" doesn't sound like a diff. band compared to "ferocious," which could be on the 1st album).

I like the band, and love the show. Think the new material works much better live than as recorded. Looking forward to the next one.

But, behind my back, I've got my fingers crossed...