Cheap Girls - Giant Orange

Ah, Cheap Girls! The Lansing threesome have been recent faves at JS-NYC HQ in recent history. Anticipation has been high for a new full-length, and wonderfully Spring has brought the thaw as well as the aces new Giant Orange for our pleasure. This one is the first for new label Rise and for better or worse sports the production of Mr. Tom Gabel of Against Me!. That will doubtless appeal more to the Asslight Anthem set more than lovers of genuine unaffected rock goodness, but even his silly ass can't sink this ship.


He do try, though. Giant Orange certainly sounds a little overproduced in places (see the ZZ Top meets Boston guitar tone of Manhattan On Mute), but regardless of questionable engineering, the The Force continues to be strong with our heroes and songs are definitely still there. Six of the ten tracks on Giant Orange are damn solid and the other four ain't all that shabby neither. I'd say On/Off Switches is the current fave, but Giant Orange gets a lot of play around the JS-NYC corporate HQ and the front-runner changes by the day. Share our problems and get Giant Orange here from the Cheap Girls web presence. Lavish us/them with thanks later.

R

Ben Nichols - The Last Pale Light In The West

If you've made it this far, you probably already know that Ben Nichols is the singer from the Memphis rock juggernaut that is Lucero. It's been almost ten years for the band and they've been on a steadily rising trajectory since their inception, moving from local Memphis labels like Madjack, through Tiger Style and East/West imprints to their recent signing to Universal Republic. I trust that the boys know what they are doing and hope that they get some serious gas and distro out of the deal.

Lucero guitarist Brian Venable just had a baby and the band has been lying low while his family gets their affairs in order, giving our Ben time to drop a little bit of a solo release. It's called The Last Pale Light In The West and is allegedly a series of Cormac McCarthy characterizations from his Blood Meridian novel, ala Richard Buckner and his Edgar Lee Masters homage The Hill. There are only seven tracks and they are pretty spartan. Todd from Glossary adds some steel and the accordian guy from Cat Power pops up, but things are pretty stark for the duration. Ben's got the kind of voice that I'd listen to even if he was doing Matt & Kim covers. Luckily, he's not.

The Last Pale Light In The West will be released in tangible form in early 2009, but if you do the pre-order here, you'll get a link for a digital download to tide you over. There's also a cd/t-shirt deal here. Hopefully we'll see some random Lucero tour dates as the holidays draw nearer. In the meantime, check out Ben on the Suburban Home Revival Tour with Chuck Ragan and various regional guests like Tom Gabel and Jon Snodgrass. Dates are here.

R