BUZZ BANDS

No easy comparison

Sierra Swan has a smoky voice and strong piano chops, but she falls far from the Fiona Apple tree.

June 22, 2006

Lyrical confessions

How appropriate Sierra Swan's album is titled "Ladyland." With its lyrical subterfuge and musical subtleties, the 27-year-old's debut, released May 23 on Interscope, puts her in rarefied company with female singer-songwriters who make frank confessionals their stock in trade — so rarefied, it turns out, that the occasional wag has questioned her originality.

"There are a lot of girl-and-the-piano comparisons," Swan says, shading her voice with some of the bite that stamps her songs. "It happens that I was born with a low voice and I play the piano. Fiona Apple has a deep voice and plays the piano. Of course, only Fiona Apple is allowed to do that.... Yet a million guys with raspy voices play the guitar and nobody ever questions their person."

Swan challenges the double standards that arise in relationships too, and such entanglements make ready fodder for the songs on "Ladyland." "The ones I write about — let's say there was a lot of turmoil involved," she says. "Good thing I knew how to write; I let the anger come out there instead of poisoning anybody in the middle of the night."

Liaisons these days are noticeably brighter, says the daughter of veteran guitar-slinger Billy Swan. She's dating Billy Corgan, and the personal and professional anguish of three years ago — her mother died around the same time the singer was dropped by Atlantic Records — has passed. Swan gives much of the credit to mentor and "Ladyland" producer Linda Perry.

"She cares a lot about people," says Swan, who performs tonight at the Troubadour. "She gave me the freedom to do the record I wanted to do. And she was a shoulder to lean on."

Drawn to the dark side

The Black Angels seem to have emerged from a place underground where the earth swells with psych-rock that is dense and bleak, haunting and transfixing. Actually, the sextet is from Austin, Texas. And to them, dark is beautiful.

"I don't think it's intentional that we try to be dark," singer Alex Maas says, "but sometimes the darker, evil-sounding stuff just sounds pretty to us."

On a visit to L.A. early this year, the group — with Christian Bland, Jennifer Raines, Stephanie Bailey, Kyle Hunt and Nate Ryan — demonstrated a mastery of the drone dynamic. Their debut, "Passover," reveals surprising songcraft.

"There are six of us, so that makes for a pretty large musical background," Maas says. "We listen to everything from old country to Kool Keith; that's bound to affect what we create."

The Black Angels play Friday at Alex's Bar in Long Beach and Saturday at the Troubadour.

Fast forward

Touts: East Coast psych-rockers Hopewell, making the rounds this week in L.A., delivered a scorching set Monday at the Echo (where they helped Languis close out its residency), far outstripping what you might have heard on last year's "Hopewell & the Birds of Appetite." They play tonight at Spaceland (in front of the hard-luck but rockin' British quintet the Duke Spirit), Friday at Alex's Bar in Long Beach and Saturday at the Scene in Glendale.... About the Duke Spirit: The band originally was slated to open for Snow Patrol this week before that group postponed its shows because of singer Gary Lightbody's voice problems. That, after the band's equipment was stolen a couple weeks before Coachella on its first trip to the U.S.... "Push the Heart," the deliciously ethereal album by L.A.'s Devics, came out in March, and the band plays behind it Friday at the Troubadour.

Shouts: Just when you thought the Cold War Kids couldn't get any hotter, somebody forgot to turn on the air conditioning Friday night at the Echo. Perfectly coupled on tour with the cacophonous Tapes 'n Tapes, the still-unsigned L.A. quartet threw down a slab of Bayou blues-meets-indie rock, then adjourned to the merch table, where vinyl pressings of their recent "Up in Rags" and "With Our Wallets Full" EPs sold briskly, along with bassist-graphic artist Matt Maust's striking posters.... Speaking of unsigned, Foreign Born, opening for Giant Drag, helped break in the new sound system (bring earplugs) at the Silverlake Lounge on Tuesday. Foreign Born's full-length debut is being mixed; meanwhile, the band has a new four-song EP, "Loud Times of the Valley," that features a cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Waitin' Around to Die." ... Illinois quartet the Forecast impressed at the Knitting Factory on Monday, only to arrive in Las Vegas the next day to find their appointed venue closed.



Recommended downloads

Hear Sierra Swan's "The Ladder" at www.myspace.com/sierraswan

Download the Black Angels' "The First Vietnamese War" at www.theblackangels.com/downloads.php

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