Album Review: Happy Is the New Sad - Tennis Pro

I finally broke down and - as one of the first parts of a totally inadvisable but completely worth-it spending spree - bought my first Tennis Pro album.


I picked Happy Is the New Sad because it had one particular song that I loved, which I believe I've mentioned before: "Rock Over Tokyo". That song alone is good enough to merit a ten dollar purchase, but the rest of the album isn't slacking.


Most of the songs are pretty straightforward rock numbers, since the band is a pretty straightforward outfit: guitar, bass, drums. They swing back and forth between totally rocking and very melodic, but this album generally staying in the first category.


Out of thirteen songs, seven of them are currently rated as five stars on my computer. The rest? Four stars. The only thing keeping that average as low as it is is the lack of a 4.5 rating.


Top tracks: "Rock Over Tokyo", "Fireball", & "Why Break Curfew (If You're Only Going to Break My Heart)"

Best band (indie rock)

Before we begin this particular love-fest, let me lay out what I mean by indie rock. I mean the kind of band that is mostly based around the guitar-bass-drums archetype, a "traditional" rock band. Basically, it's totally subjective.

So, after all that, I'm talking here about the Lonely Forest. So far the most popular group I've written about - not saying much, but they are the only one with a Wikipedia page - I first heard of them through total coincidence. While standing outside an underwhelming show at the Vera Project in Seattle, getting ready to ditch out on the show with a few friends, a very excited guy came out of the door and introduced himself as John Van Deusen, and urged us to stay until the last band, because it was his. He then left to get cookies. The show started with a room full of bored, stock still hipsters but ended with nearly everyone on the floor dancing. I went out and bought their concept album Nuclear Winter the next day.

Recently, the Lonely Forest released We Sing the Body Electric, their newest LP. Based on a couple concerts and a lot of listening on podcasts and the internet, it is a pretty fantastic follow-up. Whereas Nuclear Winter chronicled a single story of a family escaping a world war, WSBE is a more traditional album with a few stand-outs: the title track and Turn Off The Song And Go Outside among them.

I love this band not because of their musical style, but because of the sincerity of Van Deusen's vocals. The music is great, don't get me wrong, but the melodic, minimalist refrain of Two Pink Pills ("I hear a voice, so faint and weak, two pink pills to fall asleep") - so unlike the rest of their catalog - and the heavy lyrics of Turn Off The Song ("I've seen the tweakers struggle, syringes line the floor") tell the story of the songwriter's struggle with and overcome addiction in between albums.

http://www.myspace.com/thelonelyforest

Best song around right now

Off the People In A Position To Know sampler CD (the origins of which I'm going to need to go into in another post) comes a fantastic track from a band I've never heard of. "Come On Mona" by Mona Reels is a bright, almost twee track with a solid piano back. In fact, listening to the song I'm unable to hear any guitar, just the piano and drums, with a few bits of harmony thrown in among the singing. Speaking of the singing, the lyrics are fantastic: "I found her very smart, she said 'you're just too dumb, and that's going to be the only time I tell someone'" is just one of the better bits. Despite a line like that, it's still an incredibly upbeat number. Check it out.

http://www.myspace.com/themonareels