Permalight

Rogue Wave | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 2, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Brushfire Records
• ASIN: B0033AX1ZU
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,582 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Now we're born again," sings Zach Rogue on the closing track of Rogue Wave's fourth studio album, Permalight.

The dreamy acoustic lament lasts just over a minute but in sound and spirit it neatly sums up everything that comes before it. A punchy, deceptively effervescent set of multi-instrumental pop tunes, the Northern California band's latest set represents a giant breakthrough for Rogue and his longtime musical partner, drummer-keyboardist-vocalist Pat Spurgeon. "The record sounds, for lack of a better word, fun," the frontman says. It's an astonishing change of direction, to say the least. Formed by Rogue in 2002 after he lost his tech job and parted ways with the Oakland rock group Desoto Reds, Rogue Wave has a reputation for crafting classic, inward-looking pop songs highlighted with psychedelic guitars, pastoral sound effects and intricate rhythms. On tunes from the new album like the title track "Permalight" and "Good Morning," however, Rogue Wave steps away from expectations with synthesizers that simultaneously sound brittle and blissful. "Stars and Stripes" builds on a deep groove before spilling over in a raging chorus.

Then there's the album's unofficial centerpiece, "I'll Never Leave You," a simple acoustic tune that finds Rogue coming to grips with the overwhelming emotions that come with young fatherhood. Like many of the songs on the album it's rooted in Rogue Wave's triumph over seemingly constant peril -- including the tragic death of a former band mate and constant health issues -- and the band's undying determination to push forward.

Making this album was no exception. In September 2008, after the band returned to Oakland following a summer tour, Rogue played a solo show opening for Nada Surf. Two days later, the singer woke up and couldn't move. There was some concern that he might be having an aneurysm or heart attack, so doctors wheeled an X-ray machine into his living room to check his heart and lungs. It turns out Rogue had slipped two discs in his neck, which were pressing on his spinal cord.

"It was the worst pain I had experienced," he says.

Over the next few months, his condition grew worse until he eventually lost feeling in his right hand. Confined to his bed, there was nothing doctors could do for him, no medications that could relieve his pain. "I just felt like I was being tortured," Rogue says. "I felt like I was dying." In January, the pain began to gradually lift, giving him just enough sensation to pick up the guitar and strum it. He celebrated the recovery the best way he knew, by pouring his relief into new material. "When I started writing I wanted to make a record that was a little more up, a record you could move your body to because I couldn't move for so long," Rogue says. "I told Pat I wanted to make a total dance album."

To do that Rogue decided to make a conscious break from the past. "I decided when I picked up the guitar again I didn't want to play anything I knew," he says. He still had to make accommodations for his hand, which remains numb. So Rogue started playing an old Sears Silvertone guitar just because it was the lightest instrument he owned. The guitar set the signature sound for the album. "I would plug that in every day and record little musical thoughts," he says. "After a month I had about 50 ideas for songs."

After trying to get the new songs down in couple local recording sessions Rogue Wave decided to tap producer Dennis Herring, whose previous clients include Modest Mouse and Elvis Costello, to take on the project. Herring brought the band out to his Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, Mississippi where they meticulously worked together for four months. Spurgeon says, "Dennis knows what he wants and he'll keep working until he gets it. If he's going to put his name on something it's got to be good." Then one day Costello dropped by the studio. "He told us, `Trust Dennis,'" Spurgeon recalls. "That was good enough for me."

Permalight could represent a great push forward for Rogue Wave. Having toured with the likes of Death Cab for Cutie, Jack Johnson, Spoon, The Clientele and The Shins, the group already has two indie albums - 2004's Out of the Shadow and 2005's Descended Like Vulture on Sub Pop - which earned it prime soundtrack placement for movies and television shows such as "Napoleon Dynamite," "Heroes," "Weeds," and "Nip/Tuck." Its move to Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records for the release of 2007's politically charged, multilayered Asleep At Heaven's Gate brought critical acclaim and the band's first foray onto the alternative radio chart with "Lake Michigan." The track has also been licensed for the upcoming film "Up In the Air," and was used for a popular Microsoft Zune commercial.

Product Description

2010 release, the fourth album from the Alt-Rock favorites. A punchy, deceptively effervescent set of multi-instrumental Pop tunes, the Northern California band's latest set represents a giant breakthrough for Zack Rogue and his longtime musical partner, drummer-keyboardist-vocalist Pat Spurgeon. Rogue Wave has a reputation for crafting classic, inward-looking Pop songs highlighted with psychedelic guitars, pastoral sound effects and intricate rhythms. On tunes from Permalight, however, Rogue Wave steps away from expectations with synthesizers that simultaneously sound brittle and blissful.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rogue Wave - Permalight 8/10, March 2, 2010

By 

Rudolph Klapper "www.klap4music.com" (Los Angeles / Orlando) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Permalight (Audio CD)

"Will you be the bed for me when they set the world on fire / just to see it burn?" frontman Zach Schwartz asks on "Solitary Gun," the opening song off Rogue Wave's deliciously bouncy new record Permalight. For a band that has been through some of the hells Rogue Wave have suffered over the past few years, including the death of a former bandmate and one member's struggle with kidney failure, "Solitary Gun" is an unexpected shot in the arm, a booster of unbridled joy and money hooks that belie the song's apocalyptic images. Indeed, "Solitary Gun" is a most unlikely anthem, one that sets the tone for the rest of Permalight as a bright, buoyant beacon of hope.

Viewed through the context of the band's three-year hiatus and the tragedies the members' themselves have suffered, one would be forgiven for thinking that Permalight would be a dirge of a record, one mired in weepy indie pop and bent on exorcising the ghosts of its past. But while it does exorcise those ghosts, it does it in the most defiant way possible, through bubbling synths and lyrics about love machines like on the obscenely catchy "Good Morning (The Future)," or via quietly surging lullabies like the beautifully glacial "Sleepwalker." Gone are the dreamy guitar-pop of their past and the constant Shins references - Rogue Wave have embraced electro to buff up their strikingly powerful guitar hooks, and rather than lose themselves in a fad they assimilate it flawlessly, as one listen to single "Good Morning (The Future)" quickly proves.

That's not to say that the folksy heart of Schwartz's songwriting has been subverted by mindless hooks; rather, the electronic additions to songs like the gently swelling "Fear Itself" and the jittery hooks of "Stars and Stripes" inject a whole new kind of life into the proceedings. But at the heart of it all is Schwartz's relentlessly heartening songwriting, which floats from effortless pop-rock to whispery ballads with the same ease and, more importantly, the same strength, both lyrically and musically. It's the way the gutsy bass line and ragged guitar slowly build to a hammering chorus on "Right With You," the way "I'll Never Leave You" somehow turns one of the more clichéd sentiments in rock `n roll into a heartrending promise with just a shaker, handclaps, and some beautiful harmonies, the way that every song here just seems overwhelmed with joy. It's hard to describe the perfect hook with words, but suffice it to say that nearly every song here has that sublime ability to punch one right in the aural stomach, the place directly attached to your foot-tapping and singing-in-the-shower nerves.

This isn't a perfect record, as made evident by the annoyingly repetitive title track or the way things sort of tail off by the last two songs, but it's leagues ahead of your average indie pop album, and it's certainly Rogue Wave's best effort yet. Their ability to turn what would have wrecked many bands into an unfettered success is Permalight's biggest triumph, and the listening experience is just as enticing a treat for the listener. More than anything else, though, Permalight stands out as a life-affirming testament to the human spirit, a collection of songs that come off as just so incredibly happy, so godda** upbeat, that it's impossible not to fall in love with it, with everything.

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Teenie pop quandary, March 12, 2010

By 

A. Whalen "Car Buff, Gamer, Reader, Music Fan... (Raleigh, NC, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Permalight (MP3 Download)

The Shins really went the same route with Wincing the Night Away; more of an electronic gumball pop album that seems to be about 75% mainstream pop/rock and 25% Shins. Same with Permalight. Starts OK and really fizzles out as you go through. I can barely bring myself to finish listening to the entire album. Some of these tracks are just mystifying - and not in a good way, but rather in the way that you wonder "why bother?". Now for the compulsory "I liked these guys before they were cool"; I did, my wife and I watched them opening for Shins in Norfolk about 6 years ago and bought their album afterwards (which they signed). Great, great stuff. I'm not a naysayer for Rogue Wave. Just liked the quirky instrumentals and vocals and totally absorbing rhythms earlier on a little better. You can take this with a grain of salt; the true Rogue Wave fan is nevertheless compelled to buy this album, for completeness if for no other reason! :)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Permalight - Overexposed., October 4, 2010

By 

bb - See all my reviews

This review is from: Permalight (Audio CD)

Permalight seemed too monochromatic when I first listened. Sure, "Solitary Gun" is a chugging kind of catchy, but really none of these songs stay with you. There's a thin line between filler and real content--and that's what makes Permalight so tricky: these are all good songs, no clunker. But They all straddle the line of merely good filler.

Aside from that, Rogue Wave seems to have indulged a little more of their anglophilia (you'll catch a whiff of a faux-Brit accent throughout). "Good Morning," like a lot of the album, sees RW drifting toward electro-funk with a weird 80s freak-robot-spook bridge, but the classic hooks are there. It's new for them (in a drum machine kind of way) but it works. Think of Asleep At Heaven's Gate's "Phonytown," extending its interests.

"Stars and Stripes" is Wave elvolving, but in a suitible and natural way, as in it doesn't sound contrived or forced. But the title cut is more electro-stomp 80s, which is all fine and good, but when you realize that that's the indie vogue right now, and that Rogue Wave have kind of abandoned their established (sometimes haunting) indie sound to chase it, it lets you down.

The album starts strong (I like all the first six, regardless of artistic integrity), but drifts a little from there. "Fear Itself" is unconvincing, but still musically interesting, and very catchy. The next few songs, though, reach for pop success but don't feel as rewarding as some of their previous work.

Still, Permalight closes on a strong note. "I'll Never Leave You" is softer, a throwback to old school Rogue Wave, and "You Have Boarded" is heavily vocally distorted (in a good way) British Invasion with a nice guitar lick. And then the micro-cut "All That Remains" rushes in with acoustic guitars and a born-again chorus; a fitting and quirky closer.

Overall, if you follow Rogue Wave in from Out of the Shadow, Publish My Love, and Asleep at Heaven's Gate, you may be let down. These are all solid tunes but nothing catches you quite like "Endgame," "Perfect," "Manna," or the rediculously catchy hit "Lake Michigan." It seems that RW was frustrated at never striking crosssover indie gold and Permalight could be readymade to that end. If you like the current indie retro New Wave environment, give it a try. And if you're a long time fan you should still pick it up. Just know Permalight is not transcendant.