Music reviews: Heidi Klum's Bangs, 'Palace Pier'

By Jeff Loudon

Heidi Klum's Bangs Palace Pier

The music business is an industry of trends. Top 40 radio stations seem to change overnight whenever the most recent sound begins making waves. Everything from Auto-Tune and Dubstep to current lyrical subject matter can be considered a trend and if you're a new artist looking to make money in the industry, you usually have to follow one of these trends or have very powerful friends.

With iTunes and the Mp3 taking the market away from CD sales, many big name artists are moving away from the conventional album release in favor of singles.

Now that most websites are allowing you to pick and choose which songs you want off of an album anyway, the release of individual singles maximizes the profits of each song produced.

For up and coming artists hoping to break away from existing molds and create something completely new, most artists are forced to rely on the strength of one key single to get them noticed.

Look at Foster the People, for instance; "Pumped up Kicks" is a brilliant track that gets stuck in the heads of listeners easily and because of that, they were able to work their way into the market on the strength of one song. Little by little, other songs from their album are becoming familiar to listeners, but for a long time, many seemed to believe "Pumped up Kicks" was their only song.

It is for all of the above reasons that I was completely shocked to run into a brand new band brave enough to release their debut album as one complete work and not just a collection of singles. They're from Mountain Home, Arkansas and they're called Heidi Klum's Bangs.

Zach Beck, the lead singer and guitarist of Heidi Klum's Bangs, not to mention the performer of a host of other assorted instruments, also completed all of the songwriting and production work for the group's self-titled debut. With his brother, Dylan, handling drums, percussion and many other instruments as well, it's clear they share many of the ! same mus ical influences.

Elements of Sufjan Stevens, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Antlers, and Beirut can all be heard throughout the album's 13 tracks, but together, the brothers have created something both unique and extraordinary.

Armed with a single microphone, a computer, a basement of instruments, and hundreds of ideas, Heidi Klum's Bangs doesn't try to recreate the polished and pristine studio recordings most listeners are accustomed to hearing; the tracks are gritty and raw. Continued...

There is no heavy compression applied to the mix and if a clip is heard in the recording, it's just a reflection of the energy of the performance at that moment.

To hear an album that hasn't been recorded and mastered by millionaires can occasionally be a welcome change for the ears.

"Palace Pier" opens with "The Window," which slowly fades in the music behind samples from Zach and Dylan's own old family vacation videos.

As the song progresses, a host of instruments are added to the mix including xylophone, trumpets, and even a guest vocal from Gracie Callais, a friend of the band, who lends her vocals to "Spinning Eye" and "Ten Years Before" as well.

For any band hoping to release an album as a complete work as opposed to a collection of singles, transitions between songs are very important and are frequently overlooked.

For having no professional mastering engineer to lend their opinion on the order, the tracks flow from one to the next exceptionally well on "Palace Pier." The album doesn't come off sounding like one long song, but with key instruments returning throughout "Palace Pier," maintaining a uniform sound thanks to the use of a single microphone, each track grasps onto a feeling of familiarity to the album as a whole.

The family video sample that opens the album is also brought back, along with the familiar instrumentation, for the sho! rter tra nsitional tracks "Skye" and "Brighton." These tracks serve as a reminder of the work as a whole and continue to tie sections of the album together.

One of the key aspects of "Palace Pier" that ties each song together is the vocals. Although Zach Beck's vocals are already fairly distinct, a doubling effect is frequently utilized which adds some added body to the majority of the verses, but also causes the listener to instantly focus on the words when the doubling is dropped. Listen to "On the Quay" for a great example of how this is put into action.

"Palace Pier" is not an album you'll hear on the radio and it isn't likely to win any critics' choice awards, but it is rare to find a band making unique music just for the sake of making music.

With shows like American Idol and Glee steering an entire generation in a solitary musical direction, it is comforting to know there are young bands out there that are still creative and willing to take chances with a disregard for typical mass-appeal music. Continued...

"Palace Pier" can be listened to and purchased from the Heidi Klum's Bangs bandcamp page: http://heidiklumsbangs.bandcamp.com/

Similar Artists: Sufjan Stevens, Neutral Milk Hotel

Track Suggestion: "The Horizon Drawing Near"

Three and a half stars

Reviews are out of five possible stars