AWmusic

Borrowing heavily from the Strokes with several nods to Radiohead, Raise the Dead is a fun, powerful record, and one of the biggest surprises of last year. Leading on its best foot, the album opened with the cathartic title track, arguably an instant classic. Their maturity shows with songs like Dropped and Demon Daughters, with their sound taking on darker, more sinister, and complex character. Much of the album has a dance vibe and is poppy, but never without a sense of finesse and never compromising the overall creativity. Throughout the album they experiment with sounds and rhythms and Alex Greenwald proves that he is not only a strong, but versatile vocalist.

The album centers around the concept of a cult, which could be one of its greatest strengths but a weakness as well. While it’s refreshing at first to get such bizarre and dark lyrics, particuarly when the sound is mostly bright, it does get a little old after a while. Of course, if you’re in a cult, then I suppose you could always relate to this album, and surely there is some metaphorical way to extract meaning from this album from one listen to the next.

Luckily, even though the album features some experimentation and relies somewhat on its grandeur, it doesn’t suffer from what I like to call “shock and awe” syndrome. In other words, the songwriting is strong as hell, and will allow you not only to be impressed on the first listen but can grow on listeners with time.

Of course some people will see the album as contrived, cheesy, or worse, a ripoff of the Strokes. To that I would argue that Phantom Planet managed to carve their own signature into this album, and should the band choose to continue after this hiatus, they may continue to disassociate themselves from the overhyped T.V. show that brought them to fame.

Phantom Planet – Raise the Dead
Phantom Planet – Geronimo

The reason I got tickets so late, was the line-up originally consisted of Paramore, Phantom Planet, and Paper Route for the Toronto show. As soon as Jack’s Mannequin was added to the bill, it became a star-studded event, and I had to go. It began inside the packed, very hot, and unventilated club, where concert-goers got a chance to play the new Guitar Hero 4. The night started off with Paper Route, an indie band from Nashville, Tennessee. Their ambient/electronic sound is very mellow but epic. With really hard hitting drums, and some very cool synths, it was a fairly interesting set, but not quite up my alley. The frontman followed in the direction of the music, and never played towards the audience as he could have, keeping in mind there are a ton of angst teens in the audience. But as for the music, it sounded very professional and quite extravagant live, which is a feat for any opening act.

Phantom Planet was up next, and I was honestly not the least bit excited to see them. After hearing about their signing to Fueled By Ramen, I thought how could FOB stoop so low. Of course, it’s time to eat crow, and I must say, Phantom Planet truly impressed me that night. With a highly revamped sound, they embodied that cool feel-good rock as seen in bands like Hot Hot Heat. The music was fun and enjoyable, and I found myself rocking out to their stuff. Most importantly, frontman Alex Greenwald, played the role well, with his cool demeanour, he got me more than excited. Finally finishing the set with the classic OC theme, California, I became an unlikely fan, and thought their performance was really good for an opener.
Phantom Planet – Do The Panic

Jack’s Mannequin was up next, and having seen them live earlier this month, I was ready to get the full concert experience. First and foremost, Andrew Mcmahon is INTENSE, and he’s always really exciting to watch. Beyond that, Everythin In Transit (first album), happens to be my favourite album of all time, therefore the music was absolutely amazing. Andrew has an incredible back story, one which you should read up on or watch when Dear Jack is released. Back to the performance, Andrew’s exuberant head bobbing, and ridiculous enthusiasm was definitely the best part of the night, all while playing the piano. He frequently got up and played the crowd, but everything for him was natural and passionate. Ending off by stepping on the keys, and swinging his stool, it was an EPIC finish to an extra long finale. The only quarrel I had with the performance was a noticeably short set list, consisting of only 6-7 songs, similar to his Warped Tour act. Although the set list was short, the performance was never short of amazing.
Jack’s Mannequin – The Resolution

Finally, Paramore took the stage to an extremely crowded, sell out audience. As a fan of Paramore, I was really excited to see them live. Hayley is definitely one of the hottest ladies on the planet, and her whole persona is just way too cool. Luckily for Toronto, she brought that swagger to the concert, and the performance was everything I expected and more. The music was so much better live, from the vocals to the fancy guitar work. One of the highlights was when bassist Jeremy Davis did a flip while holding his bass, it was extremely entertaining. Not only did they play a super long set, just over an hour and a half, they had some acoustic songs, and even a cover of Hallelujah. They also played a b-side track which I never heard before, and overall it was an AMAZING headlining performance by one of the hottest bands out today. Paramore pulled through to cap off the best concert I’ve ever been too, dethroning TAI of that honour.
Paramore – Misery Business

Check out their myspace: Paper Route , Phantom Planet , Jack’s Mannequin , Paramore for other info.