The Blasters (2012)

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 09:22:14 -0500

Review by: Sam C. Mac

What made rockabilly revivalists the Blasters one of the greatest bands to ever play rock 'n' roll was the perfect pairing of the brothers Alvin: Dave brought blue-collar prose and white-hot licks, while Phil supplied a jittery vocal that electrified every word his sibling wrote and every note he played. When Dave left after 1985's solid but commercially unsuccessful Hard Line, Phil, drummer Bill Bateman and bass player John Bazz wisely decided to call it a day. Years later, though, the Blasters reunited, Dave and all, for a series of reunion gigs and a twofer of live sets, Trouble Bound (2002) and Live: Going Home (2004). Had that line-up stayed on to record the studio albums to come, there's no telling what kind of material might've resulted. Instead, Dave split again to focus on his solo career (his most recent record, Eleven Eleven, is one of his best, though still no scratch on the Blasters at their peak), and Phil's new version of the band—with Keith Wyatt on guitar, Jerry Angel on drums, and Bazz returning on bass—booked a long-awaited studio date. First came the 2004 warm-up 4-11-44, and now, eight years later we get its follow-up, Fun on Saturday Night.

The results from these new Blasters are dispiriting, to put it mildly. Though Phil can still do a better Gene Vincent vamp than anyone who's ever lived or ever will, some serious wear has set in on those pipes—and deprived of the distinctive songs Dave wrote for him, the Blasters are crippled. To his credit, Phil only attempts to write one song here, the creepy/awkward domestic violence saga "Breath of My Love," featuring lines like "Does the law let me beat her/When she's holding a knife to my throat?" Underpinned by cheesy doo-wop backing vocals that comment on the action, it aims for Greek chorus but stalls at barbershop quartet. There's more to the narrative than in many classics of the Blasters' mid-'80s heyday, but Dave always came up with devilish details: "I sit up smoking wiping the ashes off the bed/Think about what you told me and what I never said," from 1983's "Leaving," still seems a more vividly contemptuous couplet than anything involving a knife. Phil's cover choices aren't too inspired either: He duets with X's Exene Cervenka on a thoroughly rote take of the Johnny Cash/June Carter classic "Jackson" and blusters through substandard roots rock like "Well Oh Well" and "Rock My Blues Away."

Surprisingly, it's Phil's take on James Brown's "Please Please Please" that may be the highlight. Indulging what's left of his voice's signature wail takes the heat off the lack in Phil's lyrics elsewhere, and it's nice to find he still has it in him to deliver a showcase as convincing as this one. But Fun on Saturday Night's low points are just embarrassing. With a Spanish accent in both the guitar and Phil's vocal, the new Blasters redo the old Blasters' "Marie Marie" (now "Maria Maria," natch) as a soggy Mexican waltz, and it's about as perfect an encapsulation as any of how far this once-great band has fallen. The unit can still pull together a decent performance, like their take on the blues standard "Love Me With a Feeling," which proves Wyatt's guitar has plenty of punch. Still, at this point, I kind of just wish Phil would draw on the same wisdom he did back in the day and recognize that it's time to let the legacy lie.

Rihanna (2012)

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:05:20 -0500

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Unapologetic is Rihanna's fourth-annual Thanksgiving-week release, but I wouldn't recommend playing it for anyone while they’re scarfing down turkey and stuffing this holiday. It's a queasy dish that face-plants listeners into the pop starlet's dirty laundry, then scolds them for it—a slipshod effort that complements an uneven batch of schizo songs with a muddled message from their creator. While the plush pop of her fifth album, Loud (2010), and the sexual assertiveness of her sixth, Talk That Talk (2011), put some needed distance not only between Riri and the tabloid nightmare of her domestic-abuse incident with ex-asshole Chris Brown, but also Rated R (2009)—the dark, divisive album birthed in its aftermath—her latest doubles back and offers a discomfiting mix of defensiveness and needless self-vindication, incriminating anyone who dared criticize the choices Rihanna's made in the last few years.

In theory, this could work: Dogging young female celebrities that don't play to an expected role-model archetype is some bullshit that deserves a counterargument. But Rihanna's lack of self-awareness proves fatal. Though Unapologetic's bitchy climax, "Nobody's Business"—the second duet to come out of the Brown/Rihanna reunion in the last year—is blessedly lighter on oral-sex metaphors than that "Birthday Cake" remix the two unleashed just after Talk That Talk's release, it's just as crass—and also frustratingly hypocritical. The two tangled former(?) lovers trade vague verses about their sex life (including a blood-curdling return-to-the-scene-of-the-crime car hook-up, with Brown disgustingly teasing out the word "Lexus" with that serpent tongue of his), then bark at us for having the audacity to listen. If one got the slightest inkling that the hypocrisy was being winked at, even a little, one could almost dig the way The-Dream and Carlos McKinney's production credibly cribs from Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," though even then it'd be hard to swallow DOA lyrics like "we can become love's persona."

But let's backtrack a bit. Before Unapologetic's last third lets loose a procession of confused, tabloid-baiting confessionals, the opening stretch builds on the beat-wise streak that characterized Talk That Talk. Opener "Fresh Off the Runway" recalls the abrasiveness, if not the vulnerability, of Rated R, and for a moment the record seems stronger than its defensive title suggests. Lead single "Diamonds" breaks through that hard armor with a serviceable and shimmery mid-tempo (a bone for her Euro listeners), but the rest of side one entrenches itself in confidence and swagger, hinging on production work from Mike Will ("Pour It Up") and Future ("Loveeeeeee Song," which also features the rapper's gleefully auto-tuned croak), both functioning as R&B pseudo-answer-songs to some of 2012's biggest hip-hop hits (like the Will-produced "Bandz a Make Her Dance"). The biggest "aw, shit" moment comes on "Jump," though, when Rihanna interpolates Ginuwine's masterpiece "Pony," furthering the gender role-reversal games that made snatches of Talk That Talk so unexpectedly playful. The signature burp of Timbaland's classic production work is down-pitched and evolved into a huge galloping dubstep wallop, and Rihanna's chilly read of the song's filthy proposition adds a creepiness that distinguishes it from the original.

But it's around the time Rihanna starts trotting out all but reheated David Guetta collabs barely worthy of bonus-track status that her strong resolve on this album begins to fall apart. Side two of Unapologetic is the most scattershot run of songs she's transmuted into an official release to date. The twofer "Love Without Tragedy/Mother Mary," for instance, is musically lovely, and despite a couple predictable dud turns of phrase ("'cause even forever ain't forever," ugh; not to mention the umpteen millionth mention of Marilyn Monroe by a pop star in 2012), it features some of the most affecting lyrics of Rihanna's career—particularly this couplet: "But I'm from the left side of an island/Never thought this many people would even know my name." That's a refreshingly personal sentiment from an artist who, for all her bluster about private life, doesn't often let us glimpse her feelings quite so specifically. The problem with cuts like this one, and to a lesser extent the beat-less raga "No Love Allowed" and the airy, ambient "Get It Over With" (as in, "you keep thunderin'/why don't you just fuckin' rain?"), is that they're all backloaded on the album like the aimless, halfhearted genre experiments they are.

Loud had similar issues with pace and cohesion, but no Rihanna album, not even the pandering tropical fetishism of her first two, has ever felt quite this unformed. Even more distressing is the way the latter tracks—everything from 10 to 14—dwell on Rihanna's feelings toward an incident that by her own decree "ain't nobody's business." I don't know if Rihanna and Brown have, as has been rumored, actually rekindled their love affair or if they're just giving it a go as friends, and obviously I don't need to. What I do know is that a song like "No Love Allowed," even just through the sentiment of the title, is disturbing for its implication that the violence perpetrated by the lover in the song ("you knocked me to the floor") isn't as negative a force as the peer pressure that encourages the narrator to get away from the bastard.

Rated R still stands as Rihanna's best album: one of the most sonically distinctive, cohesive and thorny pop albums of the last decade, and a crucial moment for Rihanna's evolution into an icon. But it wasn't its popularity that necessarily secured her such a high profile: It was her willingness to bravely let us share in the emotional tumult of a haunting trauma, deepening our understanding of her and where her art was coming from. It should be encouraging that Rihanna would return to this narrative after a couple comparably inconsequential subsequent records. But now that she has, it's frustrating to find her spending so much time vehemently rejecting others' characterization of that narrative since she doesn't seem to have a coherent understanding of it herself. If nothing else, Unapologetic is almost humbling: a document of a woman heading in too many directions at once, all the while cursing the spotlight that shines so brightly on every mistake she makes. That's a tough story to tell, and if she's intent on telling it well and at album-length, it might take more than her usual one-a-year turnaround to get it right.

Bob Dylan (2012)

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:20:32 -0400

Bob Dylan's latest album, Tempest, his 57th to date (counting live albums and Columbia's Bootleg series), is as comfortable as an old shoe, and for all the right reasons. It's not like there's no surprises: he's as inscrutable as ever, at one point offering the 14-minute title song about the Titanic, a sea shanty that's as much about the movie as the original trusty disaster. But somehow the album remains afloat (and I say that as a known despiser of sea chanteys). There's other lengthy disaster songs on here too, all sung in Dylan's current, hard-won groggy-went-a'courtin' croak. As always, Bob dares us to hate him, and the list of dusky and questionable ingredients could easily lead to big time suckitude. So how is it that the end result is so delightful, especially after so many rides on this particular merry go round?

Magic and wizardry is about all I can venture, though it bears mentioning that this band he's been playing with the last decade or so is possibly his best ever, and it's not like he hasn't played with some fairly passable bands before. The sure-handed air of confidence he’s brought to everything he’s been doing lately helps some too—you don't often get to hear people who know exactly what they're doing as much as this guy. Even when he's just sawed off a big limb he's gone way out on, you know he'll have a happy landing—he's gotten to be sort of the Wily Coyote of American song. And man, when everything's working, you just can't beat him. Tempest's opening track, “Duquesne Whistle," is such an occasion: starts off like an old '78, and then kicks in with an easygoing groove that's just pure freedom. You could listen to it all day. “Listen to that Duquesne whistle blowin'”—sounds great! Who knows what he's singing about, and who cares? It's like a rickety old freight train on a velvet pillow. It's not the lyric, it's the gorgeous sound of the words the old bastard's singing over that percolating, chugging little rhythm section and that great guitar riff. Perfection. And co-written by Robert Hunter?! What th'?

I don't care about lyrics that much; I just care about a great line every now and then that rises out of the muck to tickle my imagination while I revel in the sound and in the feel, and if there's actual ideas in there, something different and somehow intriguing, well, at this point that verges on the miraculous. I'm really more of a melody guy, and it sort of seems like on his last few albums, elder Bob has developed a growing respect for melody, something he's rarely been any slouch at to begin with. Actually, that's a dumb thing to say; he's always written amazing melodies. It's just that lately, as a singer, he sticks closer to the bare bones of the melody—he's singing simpler, and letting the melody do the work. And god, how do you explain that voice, that phrasing? To be getting as much out of the pipes he's got left is fascinating in itself, and you get the usual plethora of interesting choices (most of the best ones possibly dictated by the writing) plus an increasingly large dollop of discipline and even reserve, which at this point sometimes feels like another insidious trick to maintain the mystery inherent in all things Bob-ish.

The songs are a really strong, strangely coherent bunch—it all sounds like the same guy on the same day. For the most part, the album starts with its best cut, “Duquesne Whistle," and then a whole bunch of other great ones, generally going slowly downhill, reaching its nadir on the title track which, again, still isn't half bad for a sea shanty. I mean even that one doesn't make me want to kill myself or anything. Even surrounded by other really long dirges—the one that follows it, for instance, “Roll On,” which is really gorgeous... I don't know, the album sort of drifts off, but for some reason it just completely works. The whole thing. You can totally listen to the whole damn thing multiple times. Crazy, man. Could easily be one of his best; it's my favorite since Love and Theft. High praise. Love it, makes no sense—magic.

Review by: Thurston Kelp

The xx (2012)

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:17:20 -0400

In a year dominated by genre experimentation from the likes of the Flaming Lips, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear and the Dirty Projectors, the xx’s 2009 debut was a welcome bid at simplicity. There was something comforting and nostalgic in the barebones beats by Jamie Smith (now Jamie xx) and the weary bedroom-pop vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim. Now, three years later, the xx return with Coexist, an album as immediately familiar as their debut, yet decorated with small, sometimes imperceptible changes that coalesce into a more confident execution of their dub-pop aesthetic.

Coexist begins warm and gentle, a reverb-laden descending guitar line anchoring the near-empty arrangement of “Angels” before rumbling bass drums and snapping rim shots fill out some of the dead space. One thing is clear from the outset, and has remained clear since the xx first gained attention for their song “Crystalised” in 2009: Croft is integral to each and every track the xx creates. She’s an immense talent, a vocalist who can flaunt an otherworldly range and an ear for hooks all while using her hushed tones to convey both urgency and intimacy. The sparse arrangements, the towering, empty cathedrals of “Reunion” and “Chained,” are bolstered by her endlessly evocative vocal turns.

That’s not to downplay the role of Jamie xx’s production or Sims’s own vocals; the xx is surely a collaborative effort, and Coexist feels like the outcome of shared experience. In fact, some of the record’s best tracks stand out because of the interplay between Sims and Croft. The aforementioned “Chained,” with its muted, driving bass line and ethereal atmospherics, comes to life when the two vocalists explore the different sides of a broken relationship. Calls of “Is it something you miss?” and “Did I hold too tight?” pulse with the poignancy of crippling dependency and low self-confidence. The role of the two vocalists cannot be overstated, especially considering that Coexist strips down the R&B influences of the band’s debut album, forcing Croft and Sims to convey most of the emotional weight of the record.

While Coexist does occasionally slip into the dangerous territory of sameness, the sheer dedication to atmosphere allows the band to sidestep derivativeness. The slow-burning piano build of penultimate track “Swept Away” and the relatively upbeat kit work on “Tides” keep things engaging while Croft and Sims anchor the emotional core. Perhaps even more so than their debut, the xx sound like a veteran project, one devoted to the precise execution of a specific creative vision. Jamie xx is clearly indebted to the forefathers of UK dubstep, but rather than revel in the 2-step and breakbeat beginnings of that genre, he pares down its obvious elements in favor of the more ignored, nuanced corners of the genre.

There are shades of Burial and Beach House here, but that’s as far as the comparisons should go; the xx are crafting their own brand of atmospheric dub. While Coexist may initially sound like the group is retreating from the aesthetic that made their debut album so beloved, the unabashed introspection and confidence throughout makes it the purest, most devastating distillation of their creative vision yet.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Dirty Projectors (2012)

Tue, 4 Sep 2012 07:48:04 -0400

Perhaps inevitably, Dirty Projectors’ career path has begun to resemble one of frontman David Longstreth’s signature snaking guitar lines: all hard rights, jagged lefts and whiplash pivots, the group has never been content to stay in one place long enough to quite get a handle on where they might go next. But beginning around 2005's ambitious The Getty Address, when they first started to garner significant critical and popular attention, they’ve been taking these restless steps in the public eye.

To their credit, audiences have been mostly willing to go along wherever Longstreth's led them: whether with a concept record about Don Henley or an album-length reinterpretation of Black Flag’s Damaged, Dirty Projectors have proven they're still one of the weirder bands to gain a foothold in the popular indie consciousness. And in 2009, the payoff: Bitte Orca, the band’s pop-leaning flirtation with a wide, suddenly willing audience that found perhaps the most impressive middle ground possible between structure, melody, and Longstreth’s ever-skewed takes on R&B, West African and prog-steeped genres.

Following up a breakthrough of such scale with a comparatively modest effort, then, is simultaneously the safest and most unexpected thing they could have done, and their sixth album, Swing Lo Magellan, is the sound of a band reconciling many of their strengths, hitting easy but satisfying targets while hopefully gathering inspiration for another major work in the future. None of which is to suggest that small scale triumphs are any less pleasurable for the listener or vital for the artist. Swing Lo is one of the year’s most instantly and easily enjoyable records, which, for a band such as Dirty Projectors is a kind of progress in and of itself, though this particular step happens to be less forward than sideways.

That said, two things distinguish Swing Lo from its predecessor to a significant enough degree that it justifies these twelve tracks as an individual statement of its own value. For one, the sound of the album is particularly mellow, almost folk-y at times, a laid-back, acoustic-based series of confessionals. The latter designation nods to the record’s second major feature, that of Longstreth’s newly human, universally identifiable songwriting tact. Never the most emotionally forthcoming songwriter, Longstreth has spent the majority of his career reconstructing historical narratives or stringing together images both vivid and mundane, but with a voice that lent immediacy to even the most obtuse or negligible details. Swing Lo Magellan, on the other hand, finds Longstreth offering consistently intimate musings on love, life, and camaraderie. Truth be told, it’s a perfect fit for the music, and as perhaps our first glimpse into Longstreth the man, it’s a revealing and occasionally touching document.

The comparatively serene vibe isn’t immediately apparent. “Offspring Are Blank” opens things as angularly as ever, escalating and dive-bombing between verse and chorus in a manner that could have come off any previous Projectors record. But there’s an atmosphere of tension and internal struggle here that the band continues to cultivate through the next two tracks, “About to Die” and the excellent lead single “Gun Has No Trigger.” This opening volley—one of the best in the band’s catalogue—plays like a stumble from the basement to the back porch, settling into a groove by the record’s middle half, wherein they put their feet up for a series of campfire singalongs (the title track), paeans to personal survival (“Just from Chevron”), and lovelorn ditties (“Dance for You”). That right there sums the first side of the record, smartly constructed and sequenced while working as its own standalone statement of sorts, slowly arcing as it brings Longstreth and company down to a more personal, identifiable level.

From here the band struggles to keep the momentum. Of course, they’re behind the eight ball from the jump dropping in a five-plus minute dirge (“Maybe That Was It”)—power chords having never really been this band’s strong suit—as they should be attempting to rebuild energy as we move into the album’s second half. But they rebound quickly with the great one-two punch of “Impregnable Question” and “See What She Seeing,” the former a highlight of the entire record with its gently intertwined harmonies and indelibly romantic refrain (“What’s mine is yours/In happiness and in strife/You’re my love/And I want you my life”), while the latter brings back the dynamic touch of the first few tracks, allowing Longstreth to wail away with wordless interjections as the band circles him with playfully tripping percussion.

That loose vibe plays out for the remainder of Swing Lo Magellan, not so much climaxing as tossing around ideas (“Unto Caesar”) before cutting the tape on a handful of sessions that feel surprisingly and in a certain sense commendably low stakes. There’s a reasonable chance we won’t see Longstreth in this mode again, so probably best to savor what is a refreshing stop in his always fascinating artistic odyssey.

Review by: Jordan Cronk

Jessie Ware (2012)

Tue, 4 Sep 2012 07:46:55 -0400

It’s a career arc we’ve seen before: the immensely talented backup singer toils away for years, occasionally tours supporting stars no more talented than they—who just happened to catch their break first—and finally, gets a shot at a statement of their own. So familiar is Jessie Ware’s story that her rise to prominence in the indie R&B circles over the last year could almost seem contrived by a major label. In any case, this is a natural and versatile talent. On RackNRuin’s “Soundclash,” Ware rose above the frantic breakbeat arrangement and showed off a voice that falls somewhere between Sade and Whitney Houston. While her career so far has consisted mainly of guest spots on EDM tracks from SBTRKT, she trades in the dance floor for the bedroom on her debut LP, Devotion, a strikingly intimate collection of torch songs that never quite falls into the always-looming deathtrap of rose-colored nostalgia.

Ware manages to create an atmosphere that takes the slowburn aesthetic of ‘60s soul and R&B and fuses it with a hazy, modern, lo-fi production, a la the Weeknd or even Clams Casino. The result is a mellow, engrossing set of tunes that, despite the sometimes trivial nature of its lyricism—tropes of love lost, love unrequited, and love generally misplaced all make an appearance here. While the lyric sheet may stumble into bland universality every now and then, there’s still something personal here, which works in Devotion’s favor. When Ware sings “You used to feel so close to me/Everything happened so easily” during the title track's opening minutes, the throwaway, cookie-cutter couplet is transformed into something heavy by the way Ware barely adds affectation to her vocal delivery, while chiming, chopped guitars and swirling, subtle synth lines create a sultry atmosphere that adds to the longing.

On “Still Love Me,” she asks, “Will you treat me like you know you should?,” once again sounding disinterested in the answer, or prepared for disappointment. Even when Ware's wallowing in a hopeless romance, the production steers away from the misanthropic. “Still Love Me” boasts a wonderfully jittery base of synths and processed hi-hats and toms; its sparse arrangement allows Ware to run wild vocally even if she chooses to remain relatively restrained. “Sweet Talk" draws somewhat on Stevie Wonder's work, creating a barebones riff out of echoing electric piano, while “Night Light” builds underground club vibes off live cello/violin, resulting in one of Ware’s most pop-friendly and seductive cuts.

Occasionally, though, Devotion suffers from its aesthetic, the hazy bedroom production at odds with Ware’s obvious range and ambition. This is especially true on the tedious “110%,” with its horribly misplaced male vocal sample, and the lackluster thematic retread “No to Love.” Devotion is at its worst when Ware seems disconnected from her subject matter, when couplets come across as line readings rather than extensions of an emotion. But even when the album threatens to fall into moments of complacency and sameness—which it certainly does throughout—Ware pulls out undeniably earworm-y hooks to draw the listener back in. “Wildest Moments” builds off of gut-punch bass drums and bouncy piano while Ware spins a tale of mutual but destructive dependence, getting at the heart of the strange allure of damaging relationships. Then there’s the penultimate track “Taking in Water,” the whole arrangement swelling, ebbing, and flowing along with Ware’s evocative vocal take.

It’s in these tracks, as well as in “Sweet Talk” and the title song, that we see what Devotion could have been. Ultimately, this is a record that too often takes a universal route to songwriting, and though there are moments of personal awareness, Ware’s general indifference vocally does little to hold the album together as a whole. Thus, Devotion is a promising, sometimes impressive, debut record that chooses to leave too much to the imagination when it should be revealing the depths of talent this artist offers.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Henry Threadgill & Zooid (2012)

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 11:59:11 -0400

For decades, Henry Threadgill's been at the forefront of improvised music. But following the disbanding of his Very Very Circus group, certainly one of the key jazz ensembles of the 1990s and a more than worthy successor to its leader’s classic Sextet, Threadgill succumbed to a long period of sporadic productivity, forming several short lived groups (Where’s Your Cup, Make a Move) and releasing no work as a leader between '96 and 2001; just an ultra-rare vinyl-only live record between '01 and '08. Part of the problem, no doubt, had to do with his being dropped from Columbia, a major label that showed a brief vogue for signing the most adventurous jazz performers on the scene (in addition to Threadgill, their roster included the likes of balls-out blower David S. Ware) before trimming their lists of anything the least bit naughty. Either way, Threadgill, a vital performer, composer and leader since his early days on the ‘60s Chicago scene, seemed to be consigned to the bargin bin of history—or at least the local record store—his albums left to be picked over by savvy music fans as relics of the past.

In 2008, however, the great multi-instrumentalist revived his Zooid group that he had formed earlier in the decade, but left inactive for the last five years, with a slightly tweaked lineup. The (separate) releases of the two volumes of This Brings Us To that year signaled his resurgence on the jazz scene with a new brand of funky chamber music that, while interesting in its own right, sounded somewhat arid compared to Threadgill’s previous triumphs. As reconstituted for this pair of albums, the group was a stripped down version of the awesome two guitar, two tuba lineup of Very Very Circus, with many of the idiosyncratic aspects of that group eliminated in favor of a more conventional outfit. Stomu Takeishi’s bass guitar took over the tubas’ rhythmic role (VVC featured no bass) and Liberty Ellman’s more subdued guitar strumming replaced the mind-warping pairing of Brandon Ross and Masujaa's electric axework. Still, the records managed to maintain a funky swing that was distinctively Threadgillian.

By now, Zooid is a regular, established part of the contemporary improvised music landscape and begs comparison only with its own work. By this standard, Tomorrow Sunny/The Revelry, Spp is marginally more interesting than its overly chamber-y predecessors even if, despite the return of cello to the lineup, the group’s latest doesn’t evince a terribly different sound than the one it conjured up on the last two records. Zooid offers up a more insistently rhythmic exercise than other Threadgill groups with its tuba/cello/bass/drums axis providing a dense bed of pulse on which to lay melodic textures. These instruments sometimes push at the boundaries of rhythmic function (with this many rhythm players, some can stray from their prescribed purpose), but they always cohere just fine, sometimes too easily. It’s all about the rhythm on this record; despite some fine solos, the front line (mostly just Threadgill’s alto sax and flutes) is more about adding color than running the show. Sometimes the melody is barely even stated, as on the title track in which Threadgill’s flute's reading of the theme is over before it registers. Themes here are often just little shards of melody poking out of the rhythmic mix.

But Tomorrow Sunny is also an album of moments, a somewhat inconsistent record with some great solos and some inventive displays of propulsive rhythm alternating with less inspired and more enervated material. Most notable among these solos is the leader’s alto sax statement on the album’s highlight, the endlessly propulsive, ten-and-a-half-minute “Ambient Pressure Thereby.” After a cello solo, Threadgill enters, tentatively at first, offering up clipped little bursts of sound. As the little spurts become more and more frequent, the soloist strings them together as lines of punctuated melody. But even at his most aggressive, Threadgill leaves plenty of space; under no pressure to fill every second with sound, he picks his moments, keeping things off kilter by alternating his acerbic squawks with silence, or at least the noise of the dense rhythmic chug coursing underneath. Ellman follows with a solo of his own and it’s a fine piece of work, but, coming after the leader’s statement, it sounds anti-climactic.

As does the album’s two-part closer that follows ‘Ambient Pressure,’ a collage of shifting duets that feels somewhat devoid of inspiration. But there are several such lulls on the record. Essentially, when Threadgill keeps things swinging, he usually does okay. His experiments in a more contained chamber music seem far less interesting, despite conjuring up some pleasing textures on the brief “So Pleased, No Clue.” The sequencing of that track, though, as a sort of prelude to the moody, downbeat “See the Blackbird Now” is unfortunate as it halts the momentum established by the first two tracks, both appealingly funky if not revelatory, and drains some of the gutsy force from the otherwise excellent ‘Blackbird,’ a track marked by Threadgill’s mournful alto flute solo and some fine work (both arco and pizzicato) by cellist Christopher Hoffman. But that’s the way Tomorrow Sunny operates; it builds to something exciting only to confound that excitement with the introduction of some slighter material. If it only occasionally hits the highs of some of his past triumphs, that may be a factor of Zooid not ranking among his most inspired ensembles, but Threadgill’s latest shows that he’s got plenty of good musical ideas left. On the evidence of Tomorrow Sunny/The Revelry, Spp, there’s no reason to doubt that he can continue to develop them for years, in more interesting groupings that revive their leader’s long-established penchant for taking what would seem like head-shaking arrangements of various instruments and musicians and somehow making it all come unexpectedly, delightfully together.

Review by: Andrew Schenker

Cheryl (2012)

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 11:32:53 -0400

Now officially a mononymous artist, Cheryl Cole's joined the ranks of Madonna, Cher, and, er, Tiffany, in doing away with a surname, preserving the (admittedly lofty) icon status she has with the tabloid press, and skirting a return to her less glamorous maiden name of Tweedy. Cheryl’s well-publicized divorce from footballer Ashley Cole formed the inspiration for her debut album, 3 Words, which featured four of her writing credits, and which sold just under a million copies in the UK. Her sophomore album, Messy Little Raindrops, like the debut, received a mixed response from critics, but came giftwrapped with a killer lead single in “Promise This.” Although neither of Cole’s previous efforts are entirely successful, they showed her ability to regale us with the trials of love we know she’s experienced, never more so than when she riffed “You’re gonna catch me” over the spindly-thin strings of “Parachute.”

So why is it that A Million Lights lacks the genuine emotion of her first two records? For an artist not exactly blessed with a large vocal range it shouldn’t be an issue that her latest release features precious little artistic involvement from the singer besides, well, singing, since most of her work with origin girl group Girls Aloud comes from a factory wondrously manufacturing candy-cane pop. But still, having formed an early circle of trusted collaborators (the uppermost of which is close friend Will.I.Am), this culmination in a trilogy of tentative steps into the spotlight feels like a misguided veritable leap. The Black Eyed Peas mainstay’s sole contribution to this project is a dance-beat trademark in duet “Craziest Things”—the kind of throwaway track you’d imagine being earmarked as a much later single, if that.

Elsewhere, many of this album's emotional beats are diluted by the extraneous influence of producers Alex Da Kid, Pantha, and Jim Beanz. A Million Lights generally hopscotches through various failed ideas, embarrassing tracks like “Sexy Den a Mutha,” one of the clumsiest attempts to integrate urban into a dance-pop formula in recent memory, while “Ghetto Baby,” an intriguing, lovesick Lana Del Rey-penned track in which Cheryl purrs, “I know you’re sick boy/I wanna get the flu,” is similarly mishandled in its messy chorus. Opener “Under the Sun” bops to languorous effect, while the painfully simplistic tales of self-reflection in “Girl in the Mirror” won’t be winning Cheryl any prizes for 'Metaphor of the Year.’ Calvin Harris-helmed lead single “Call My Name” perhaps best depicts Cole’s disillusionment with the media’s celebrity fascination, offering the lyric “You got me confused by the way I change.” But its charm's buried beneath a painfully desperate attempt to pander to the dancefloor.

The places this album shows the most promise are stripped back: “Screw You,” an amusing ditty about feeling stupid in love, and “Love Killer,” an ironic ode to somebody who doesn’t deserve it. The pinnacle, though, comes in the form of semantic-sure “Mechanics of the Heart,” a clinical plea to her beau which features a hook the Saturdays would kill for. Sadly, that’s all that really clicks on A Million Lights, which continually leaves Cheryl feeling disconnected from the material, and her listeners equally puzzled as to what it is she's trying to achieve. There’s much to admire in an artist who—as Cheryl's done—publicly states intent to broaden their musical horizons, but worryingly Cheryl doesn’t seem to recognize the strengths of her previous work. There isn’t a ton of strength to speak of at all on A Million Lights; more experimental for sure, but often a decrepit and lifeless specimen of DOA pop.

Review by: Calum Reed

Usher (2012)

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 15:55:54 -0400

Usher Raymond IV is the prime example of an artist who should be trying his very best to tune out all this talk about the premium placed on authenticity in contemporary pop music. That line of thinking has done the R&B veteran few favors. In the last three-to-five years, Usher's rise in commercial success has been roughly equivalent to his decline in critical favor, and that formula is easy enough to sort out: As he takes his music beyond its R&B roots, it's had a broader and blander appeal. But the worst Usher material during this period can't solely be attributed to the numbing nosedive he's taken into the din of euro-trash dance music. Usher’s personal problems of late have had an even worse impact on his art.

Raymond v. Raymond, Usher's sixth studio album, released just months after finalizing his divorce from ex-wife Temeka Foster, was ravaged by critics. The smug "Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home)" and the pandering "Lil Freak" and "OMG," with its canned croak of a Will.I.Am hook, rank among Usher's worst singles ever, but the real nadir of Raymond is buried deep into its hour-long sprawl, acting as an antithesis to the rest of the album's shallow good-times posturing. That song, "Papers," detailed the deteriorating relationship between Usher and Foster, and it was clearly intended to give the album a greater depth. But the song is an utter failure; it's unforgivably dull, lyrically littered with meaningless cliches like "I give my heart, turn my back" and "we fight like dogs"…and it took four people to write.

So taking us inside his pain just wasn't a good look for Ursh. Not every pop star coping with separation should be expected to translate their breakup angst into a Here, My Dear or a Sea Change. Usher's inability, perhaps even his secret unwillingness, to engage those emotions does not make him a lesser artist. Maybe that seems obvious, but in an era where most R&B up-and-comers thrive on their backstories and bloodletting, on lyrics that read like diary entries, it's easy for the critical set to overlook a populist treasure like Usher. But this megastar's strengths never wavered; throughout even the worst of his career—spanning, roughly, Raymond v. Raymond and its atrocious follow-up EP, Versus—he could still sing circles around most any other contemporary artists in his genre. And his populism—the ability, for good and ill, to deliver that monster hook, keeping any number of his singles radio relevant for months—has sustained his presence through what will likely be viewed as a transitional period.

Early word on Looking 4 Myself, Usher's seventh studio album, suggested things might be different this time. That title, arguably even more ponderous than his schizophrenic previous one (not to mention, y'know, the stupid numerical substitution in there for no discernible reason), created cause for concern, as did all the talk of "revolutionary pop" he's been spouting to the press, a term he's used before and one that never made any sense to begin with. But then there was "Climax." The first single from Looking 4 Myself, albeit released before the album even had a title, it's produced by indie godhead Diplo, a far cry from the typical crop of reliable Top 40 engineers Usher often limits himself to working with, and it represents a deliberate and purposeful downshift from the ecstatic noise of Raymond and Versus.

Nothing in Usher’s canon compares to “Climax.” His previous slow-jam bests, "Can U Handle It?" and bitter anti-ballad "Burn," from 2004's minor classic Confessions, never hinted at anything this accomplished; he hasn't even tried to grok the slow ones since at least 2008's half-grasped Here I Stand. And yet, "Climax" gets everything right: Diplo's circular beat, ever shying away from the titular promise of release; classical composer Nico Muhly's colorful strings, darting in and out of the atmospheric mix; the lyrics, which abstract but never obfuscate emotion; and especially Usher's vocals, oscillating between the most expressive falsetto he's ever put to record and the tearful tone of a spurned loverman. It's the best kind of Usher song—the power is in the visceral appeal of carefully calibrated music and the voice of a singer largely without peer. In that sense, it's also the best kind of pop song.

No one could ever sustain what "Climax" is for a full album, but Looking 4 Myself meets a more achievable goal: It finds several other fresh sonic environs for the renewed focus and urgency of Usher's vocal, while doubling back to genres he's already covered and topping those previous efforts every single time. It doesn't really matter whether this is "revolutionary pop" or not; as long as Usher thinks that's what he's doing, he's giving it his all. That's key because, while Looking 4 Myself's Max Martin-produced second single, "Scream," may have disappointed many—it disillusioned anyone expecting an album of songs like "Climax," and it sounded similar to the dreck on Usher's last few albums—it's still an improvement, and it's better-performed than any of its like-sounding predecessors. The mechanical "Ooh baby baby" pre-chorus hook is doubtlessly lazy, but that anxious quiver in Usher's voice shows he put in work, and it makes the ramp-up to an explosive chorus more tense. Martin likewise steps it up; where he provided Usher's obviously phoned-in Versus single, "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love," with only the most generic strobe-synths, his work on "Scream" is akin to the more sculpted material he gifted Britney Spears's career-best album, last year's Femme Fatale—albeit with quite a bit more low-end.

In any case, "Scream," the second track on Looking 4 Myself, is only meant as a familiar starting point, at least in the context of this album—a way to ease us into all the new things Usher's trying here. Like the album's table-setting Will.I.Am opener, "Can't Stop Won't Stop" (the low point here according to most accounts, though its tinny appropriation of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl," and its title's cheeky allusion to my favorite Michael Jackson song, make it kind of charming), "Scream" proves Usher is refusing to disregard the last years of his career, a period which has helped him reach beyond the urban audience he had locked down by the turn of the century and become the major pop star he is today. Looking 4 Myself doesn't intend to retreat from any of that; instead, it emerges from the big restart button that is "Climax" (slotted in at track 3) with a series of uniformly excellent genre experiments.

The Danja-produced "I Care for U" is all dubstep, its harried bass wubs pulverizing an increasingly desperate Usher, who sings the song's titular refrain like he's trying to convince himself more than his significant other. The following song is also a Danja production, but it couldn't sound more different; counterpointing the romantic discord of "Climax"/"I Care for U," "Show Me" is a cathartic anthem, albeit one breezier and more playful than anything Usher's recorded in a while, with a vaguely house-y pulse, some tinkling piano and eventually even handclaps and samples of an enthusiastic crowd. It's the kind of song that feels more like a balm for pain than a denial of it, and one of this album's best.

From here, things keep escalating, getting more audacious and unexpected. "Twisted" is a full-on Motown vamp; its producer, Pharell, topping basically everything he's done with his production brand the Neptunes since at least the mid-Aughts. Pharrell also drops in for one of those short raps his contract seems to demand, and somehow it doesn't create the dissonance you'd expect of a rap verse on a retro-leaning song; the clever intertwining of a distinctly old hat music with modern production touches like synths, anonymous chopped-up vocal samples and cavernous low-end, keep "Twisted" from becoming a museum piece. And Usher's several euphoric, wordless vocal hooks don't hurt either.

More impressive is the Salaam Remi soul-banger "Sins of My Father," which digs even deeper into musical history, drawing on blues traditions for its narrative of a man whose love life becomes victim to inherited karma. The lyrical turn on this one's among Usher's best ever: "It's the sins of my father/He left a debt to his son/To pay the girl who's a mother/Collector won't let me run." But the real draw is the death-rattle instrumental, a deep bass groove with lots of ethereal voices and shakers and, eventually, a swirl of cinematic strings. The song sounds like it materialized out of the fog of some Louisiana bayou.

That one comes damn close to matching "Climax," albeit in the most drastically different way Usher could possibly manage, but it could never be a single. For that, Usher recruits plus-size hip-hop icon Rick Ross, and the two come up with the slinky rap-R&B smash "Lemme See." The result is the sexiest song on Looking 4 Myself, thanks to Ursh's melismatic falsetto and his "take my shirt off" taunt, and the silliest, thanks to Ross being Ross ("the sex is so explosive" and "you with a big boy so we do the big things" being my two favorite quotables). It's not, however—surprisingly—the most explicit song here.

That distinction goes to album centerpiece "Dive," which could be described as filthy if it weren't also so unerringly lovely. Looking 4 Myself's two least ambitious producers, Rico Love and Jim Jonsin, handle production, which is so barely there that it doesn't much matter (only a lightly stuttering beat, some gurgling electronics Sígur Rós would probably nod in approval of, and the occasional flurry of strings). What draws attention most is Usher's not-even-really-innuendo lyrics, which rack up ambiguous water imagery for a solid minute before one line ("I see the walls are looking like they might precipitate"—which happens to be part of the chorus) leaves no doubt as to what Usher's on about here. "Dive" recalls Prince at his most unabashedly carnal, but it's so light and airy that it tends to resemble nothing so much as late-'90s slow-jam R&B, especially one of the genre's biggest stars of that era: Usher.

Much like Beyoncé's deeply underrated 4, the best pop album of last year, Looking 4 Myself is a courageous bid to incorporate the genres and styles of various admired forbearers into a contemporary context. Usher, like Beyoncé, is in his 30s now; in pop, that means he's basically an elder statesman. It also means he's faced with the reality of impending irrelevance, the point when quick cash-ins on trends aren't going to cut it, not if he wants a place of distinction in the pop pantheon. Looking 4 Myself is as strong a reaction to that fear as we could hope for; nearly every song crackles with creativity, passion, and craftsmanship, with hooks that could make anything here a hit in one time or another. It was never going to be the blockbuster other Usher albums have been; and if he didn't know that, shame on him. But like 4, time will benefit it: Long after DJs stop falling in love with this club cut and that club cut, some curious mind will find Looking 4 Myself and know there was more to Usher than ephemera.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Nas (2012)

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 15:53:04 -0400

Nasir Jones has come a long way from writing kites to prison inmates and being in a New York state of mind. The legendary emcee's tenth release, Life is Good, is complacent and lazy, a far cry from the hungry state he found himself in during the Illmatic, Stillmatic, or more recently, even the Hip Hop Is Dead sessions. Good quickly became one of the year's most promising releases on the strength of a trio of acclaimed songs ("Nasty," "The Don," "Cherry Wine"), but its approach to what seemed at least an admirable concept is often misguided. Most material here has a similar structure: describe tribulations endured during childhood, devote half a verse to memories of struggle as a young adult, and cap it off with a binge of materialistic references and anecdotes. For a project called Life Is Good, a formula that takes us from the ghetto to "sippin' and chillin'" should work, but Nas's lyricism is too self-satisfied.

Only "Daughters" (a track not without some questionable gender politics), seems to focus on the more personal "goods" in Nas's life—family, responsibility, parenting—and it usually strikes a more resonant and empathetic cord. It's certainly an improvement over most other areas of Life Is Good, which tend to scan as egotistical; a good chunk of it even wallows in bitchiness over Nas's highly publicized divorce from R&B singer Kelis. "Reach Out," "Stay," "Bye Baby," and "Roses" all directly address Nas's less than amiable split from his ex-wife, while a subtext of his bitterness creeps into "Daughters" and "Summer on Smash." Sadly, most of these tracks just don't have much substance anyway; only the haunting "Roses," one of the album's very best songs, attempts to get at something deeper; Nas spins a vivid portrayal of a man trying to save his relationship, setting it against the album's most stark, darkly beautiful instrumental. Other tracks leave one wondering if this record was even meant for Nas's fans, or if it was actually meant for Kelis, to spitefully prove to her that Nas's life is fine and well without her.

Thankfully, at least Life Is Good sounds pretty great; the production is consistently sharp, highlighted by boom-bap drums, organs and piano. "Summer On Smash" is a head-nodder, charged by Swizz Beatz's trademark skittering electronics, and "Accident Murderers" is a focused assault that finds Nas and featured rapper Rick Ross trading some epic verses on the damning effects of senseless violence in the hood, all over wailing organ and a high-energy beat. The aforementioned "Roses," "Daughers," "The Don" and "Cherry Wine" round out the highlights, the latter featuring a moving chorus-hook from the late Amy Winehouse, with sparking guitar lines and a slowed-down take on the amen break.

But these are exceptions; mostly, Nas just hammers home that, currently, he leads a pretty damn good life. If that was the intent, then the disc is a success. However, Good is an artistic disappointment from one of hip hop's true innovators. The superior eighteen track 'deluxe edition' (which houses several of the album's best cuts, including "Nasty" and "Roses") runs too long, and by the midpoint, feels repetitive and played-out; there's little to be found in the back half that's missing from the first, and the same could be said of the first quarter as it relates to the second. Sure, there are gems—"The Don" sees Nas at his very best, ferociously attacking a boom-bap beat the late Heavy D left behind for him. But the highlights of Life Is Good only barely even out the lazy malaise that plague the rest of this disappointing project.

Review by: Chris Colao

Fiona Apple (2012)

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:01:38 -0400

Can it really have been fifteen years since a tense, ponytailed Fiona Apple—mere days from officially exiting teendom—unaccountably ruffled mainstream media feathers by accepting her Best New Artist prize at the MTV Video Music Awards with the wholly reasonable declaration that celebrity culture is “bullshit”? Well, it can and it can’t. Apple’s slow-loris work ethic, resulting in a mere quartet of narratively unified albums, would imply a shorter burst of creativity in most artists—and her decision to burden the fourth of these with an inscrutable grad-school verse of a title, just as she did 1999’s sophomore set When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts… (no, I’m not going to look up the rest), suggests a kind of wilful rejection of maturity. The similarly ellipsis-fated The Idler Wheel… is, like all her work, speckled with striking, ornately affected lyrical turns of phrase that prove the title no red herring: devotees can pore over such admissions as “My ills are reticulate/My woes are granular” in the searing self-diagnosis “Left Alone,” while skeptics can justifiably wonder if even she knows what they mean. If nothing else—and it is plenty, plenty else—Fiona Apple’s fourth and most fine-cut album is triumphant evidence that precociousness is something even 34-year-old women needn’t grow out of.

Still, for every moment on Idler Wheel where Apple appears to be the same spiny, studiously unhappy headcase she ever was—“I’m a tulip in a cup/I stand no chance of growing up,” she even remarks of herself in the aching post-mortem love song “Valentine”—there’s another to remind us that, while a whole generation of angry young adults has been born since her 1996 debut, Tidal, she’s done some growing up herself. With apologies to Kirk van Houten, Fiona Apple could never be accused of borrowing a feeling, but where she once sounded possessed by alternating surges of rancor and longing, she’s wearily in possession of them here: they certainly haven’t gone away, and Idler Wheel is as acidly heartsore as anything Apple has recorded, but she knows herself better these days, and her songwriting is a little more creased for it. Crucially, the seven-year gap—the longest of her recording career—that followed 2005’s more controversially delayed Extraordinary Machine hasn’t arrested the inward direction of blame initiated on that album, as she takes ever more responsibility for her romantic and psychological shortfalls. The aforementioned “Left Alone,” arguably the centerpiece of the album, with its predatory piano line circling the trapeze-swing falsetto of her vocal, continues the work of 2005’s similarly faux-jaunty “Get Him Back” in calling herself out on her own barriers to intimacy: “How can I ask anyone to love me/When all I do is beg to be left alone?” she sighs resignedly. In 2012, Fiona Apple still thinks the world is bullshit; the difference is she can now admit she is too.

If that suggests Idler Wheel is a bleak or uninviting listen, it shouldn’t. Her increased capacity for self-recognition makes for her most blithely witty album to date, her confidence occasionally bubbling into untempered sensual joy. “Nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key,” she acknowledges on “Werewolf,” playfully standing up for the solemn bulk of her oeuvre, but also wrong-footing us ahead of the album’s unexpectedly ecstatic finale, as the closing one-two of “Anything We Want” and “Hot Knife” find Apple luxuriating in unafraid, unironic amorousness. The latter is particularly startling, driving home its spare, inelegant carnal metaphor (“If I’m butter, then he’s a hot knife”) over layer upon layer of staggered vocals and airy-insistent tympany percussion, until a veritable phalanx of Fionas are pledging their devotion to a man miraculously capable of making the scowling songstress, in her words, “get feisty.” (One hopes he’s not the same poor bastard she damns for “the hot piss that comes from your mouth every time you address me” in the spitting, self-explanatory “Regret.” Don’t worry, she hasn’t gone entirely soft on us.)

So besotted is Apple with words and their permutations that it’s all too easy to zero in on her lyrics, but her thirtysomething calm—albeit of a passive-aggressive sort—is as evident in the musical construction of Idler Wheel as in its poetry. It’s perhaps the quietest album of her career, but also the most sonically disquieting, upending the beige conventions of all-acoustic instrumentation with eerie percussive textures and snatches of outer-world noise. These include the muffled industrial clatter that opens the magnificent maybe-breakup ballad “Jonathan,” its zithering background hum keeping the song nervily off-balance even as the more lushly wistful piano-led arrangement goes widescreen.

For an album of such tightly coiled, densely articulated feeling, the sheer extent of yawing aural space in Idler Wheel is quite remarkable: the final sound appears to be the happy, if disconcerting, medium she was trying to locate in the protracted recording and re-recording of Extraordinary Machine, where she wound up largely ditching longtime collaborator Jon Brion’s trademark carnivalesque Tin Pan Alley curlicues for the more muscled, abrasive pop beats of Eminem cohort Mike Elizondo. Unlike that outwardly hooky album, there’s precious little on the more shyly seductive Idler Wheel that sounds even notionally like a single, though conversely, the combination of its blue-moon timing and skew-whiff warmth has somehow landed the singer the first Top Five Album of her career on the US charts: you can, it seems, make people love you by playing hard to get. The 19-year-old Fiona Apple would doubtless be very pleased to hear that; what she’d make of her sad, frisky, lovely fourth album, a demonstration both of how much and how little she’s grown, is harder to determine.

Review by: Guy Lodge

Frank Ocean (2012)

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:55:53 -0400

It’s tempting for critics and audiences alike to pore over Frank Ocean’s debut looking for personal biographic details, to read Channel Orange as a heartfelt diary entry that can act as a counterpart to Ocean’s recent Tumblr post about his bisexuality. While using real life stories as contextual grounds for understanding this record is by no means a useless endeavor, part of what makes Channel Orange so special is that, removed from Frank Ocean's narrative as a rising indie R&B star whose sexuality has been a focus of the media, the record stands as a singular piece of art that speaks for itself. It has genre predecessors and obvious influences—more than once, Ocean plainly channels Stevie Wonder—but it’s hardly a retread. Ocean presents a fragmented R&B; his songs are equal parts modern and postmodern, abstract and wholly conventional—and it’s in that balance that he finds something special.

Despite its nearly hour-long runtime, Channel Orange floats by gradually, creating a haze of insecurity, regret, and establishing consequences. “Sweet Life” and “Super Rich Kids” operate as two sides of the same coin; where the former bounces along with a cheery electric keyboard line and funky bass, creating a contrast between form and content as the lyrics muse on the real world repercussions of privilege and materialism, the latter matches the earlier song's languid flow with the cynicism of its titular characters. When Odd Future compatriot Earl Sweatshirt shows up to deliver a verse, his normally fierce delivery is reined in, not so much pessimistic as disengaged. The Roots-esque “Crack Rock,” with its soulful organ and brushed cymbals, is a tale of class distinction, evocative enough to call attention to social hierarchies without resorting to soapbox preaching. Ocean strikes an integral balance between poignant critique and more universal themes throughout Channel Orange, and the spread solidifies him as a masterful storyteller. The themes and narratives here are familiar, but Ocean explores them with such detail and nuance that even the most tired tropes and musings are enlivened.

As Channel Orange moves along, Ocean begins to parse out differences between disengagement and disillusion, singing of those not just trapped by their social status and resigned to their fate, but also those people who recognize their circumstances as a product of their life choices. “Bad Religion” works in the form of a confessional, the panning organ and string section emphasizing this and giving Ocean a relatively minimal, unobtrusive base to exorcise his personal demons (or, rather, those of the character he portrays). The brilliant “Forrest Gump” internalizes those insecurities, and again pines for love that might never be returned. The various neurosis of love are a central theme of Channel Orange, and nowhere is that more clear than on the dazzling “Thinkin’ Bout You,” which captures the pained regret of one young lover. When Ocean delivers the hook—“I’ve been thinkin’ bout you/Do you think about me still?/Or do you not think so far head?/Cause I’ve been thinkin' bout forever”—in a staggering falsetto, we get the devastations of longing and inevitability. The narrator's love is unrequited, but he wonders if the memories he cherishes were shared experiences or merely rosy, romantic nostalgia?

Just because Ocean largely navigates and reframes the familiar here doesn’t mean he avoids his more experimental tendencies. The 10-minute “Pyramids” runs the gamut from club-ready banger to sultry slow-jam, showing off Ocean’s dynamic range as a songwriter and vocalist. Then there’s the heady atmospherics of “Pilot Jones,” where Ocean explores the dangers of familiarity and comfort in a relationship while juxtaposing it with the helplessness of substance abuse. Despite the variety of stories and lives presented on Channel Orange, Ocean manages to keep it all coiled into a cohesive whole, even when he invites guests into his storytelling world. John Mayer’s modest appearance on “White” seems inconsequential, but he adds significant atmosphere that also acts as a harbinger for the guitar leads on “Forrest Gump” and “Pink Matter.” On the latter track, André 3000 delivers a typically tongue-twisted verse and nails it; and just like Earl, he transforms his flow to fit the theme of that particular song.

All this suggests Channel Orange is a heavy record, one filled, even, with misanthropy. And while it does revel in missed opportunities, unrequited love and other unpredictable forces, this is still a record steeped in optimism. Ocean takes the distorted American dream he presented on his mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra, and adds significant weight. There’s a lot of inevitability, but also the chance for escape—escape that comes in the form of memories, of new experiences and the lessons life teaches us. Channel Orange is monumental; its lyrical nuances and rich sonic details deepen our understanding of its shy creator.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Japandroids (2012)

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:48:55 -0400

Let me reiterate one very important thing straightaway: this album is called Celebration Rock. Not that you, the listener, were approaching this thing expecting any sort of intellectual epiphanies. After all, this is a band whose debut's thesis was, essentially, “Let’s get to France/So we can French kiss some French girls”—or, rather, that’s exactly what it was. Vancouver drums-and-guitar duo Japandroids exploded unexpectedly from the Great White North a few years back with an album of absolutely zero pretension and of a single-minded goal: to get fists pumping and bodies perspiring. Obviously, it was called Post-Nothing. As awesome as the results were, however, it’s not exactly a formula built for the long haul. Which is why Celebration Rock feels like such a triumph: Here’s a band doing exactly what they love and, thankfully, what they do best for 35 straight minutes—and all without apology.

Nothing about Japandroids should work. I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time over the years trying to convince myself that these guys are opportunistic everydudes tapping a market with so little life left that they can’t help but feel unique. Their lyrics, as mentioned, are so ridiculously trivial that you can’t help coming away from the experience feeling something like a road scholar. In short, they play against everything I think art should be striving to achieve. And yet their pull is undeniable, their energy infectious and second-to-none, even in a year of noteworthy indie- and garage-rock. Is what they do important? I’m not sure if I have an answer to that. But if creating music that makes me feel invincible, like I can grow wings and save the world—and in turn, that the world is actually worth saving—then yes, Japandroids are important and Celebration Rock is their vital monument to life itself.

After being blown away in my chair a bit listening to Celebration Rock, I went back and listened to Post-Nothing again to compare. Not many gave Japandroids credit at the time, but Post-Nothing is an impressively dynamic record, slightly rougher around the edges but confident enough to toss around some tricky rhythms and vary the tempo to maintain some semblance of pace. It wouldn’t seem to be a wise move, then, but Celebration Rock mostly forgoes both those characteristics, opting instead for a balls-out rush of intensity that rarely lets up or changes trajectory. There were moments on Post-Nothing that felt like Brian King and Davis Prowse simply couldn’t keep their stamina up. Granted, this resulted in a great slow-burn love song like “Crazy/Forever” and a tumbling confessional like closer “I Quit Girls.” Here, it’s less a trade-off than a reconciliation. The band’s overriding themes—drinking, girls, growing up; lamenting the results of drinking, girls, growing up—are folded seamlessly into their headlong rush instead of individuated as obligation to specific structural or tempo-dictated rules.

Luckily, theirs is a cyclical plight. They may have quit girls as Post-Nothing came to a close, but their back at it on Celebration Rock opener “The Nights of Wine and Roses”: “Long lit up tonight and still drinking/Don’t we have anything to live for?,” King asks, before answering swiftly, “Well of course we do/But until they come true/We’re drinking”—because, well, what better way to get over a girl than to get drunk and go prowling for another one? Japandroids make music that is almost embarrassingly sincere, and it wouldn’t translate nearly as well if we all hadn’t experienced similar feelings or taken part in equally questionable activities growing up. Of course, it helps when you can put your message across via a series of increasingly infectious anthems. It reads like the dumbest thing ever penned, but I challenge anyone not to have a beer raised in a toast by the time King and Prowse scream in unison, “We yell like hell to the heavens!,” as the first track climaxes.

And from there it’s straight fire. “Evil’s Sway” and “Fire’s Highway” tear forth with choruses built for stadiums ten-times the size of the clubs these guys are still confined to; the latter introduces the album’s main theme, aging (“She’ll kiss away your gypsy fears/And turn some restless nights to restless years”), with a naively youthful vigor, while the former features the most intrinsically awesome “Oh yeah!/All right!” hook you’ve heard since arms-folded indie posturing became the new blind-rage slam-dancing. And only on an album like this would a faithful cover of the Gun Club’s “For the Love of Ivy” play like a respite from the surrounding intensity. It’s the only song here I wouldn’t classify as out-and-out great, but even it works as a transition into the album’s somehow even more effective back half.

Indeed, side two is essentially perfect. “Adrenaline Nightshift” begins with a proclamation—“Hitchhiked to hell and back/Riding the wind”—and proceeds to careen as if carried by just such natural phenomena between a life experienced and a future unwritten. It’s another unapologetic burner, and it makes one acutely aware of the tight rope these guys continually walk. Maintaining momentum is a difficult task when you rarely slow up, but the last three songs on Celebration Rock are the three best songs Japandroids have ever written. “Younger Us” is the entire Japandroids experience in three-and-half minutes flat: searing guitar lead, reckless percussion, and a nostalgic streak so sincere (“Gimme that night you were already in bed/Said ‘fuck it’ got up to drink with me instead”) that one can’t help but be swept up in the testosterone-fueled abandon. Meanwhile, “The House That Heaven Built” finds King getting more realistic than ever before about the opposite sex and coming away stronger for his efforts. The song’s chorus—“When they love you and they will/Tell them all they’ll love in my shadow/And if they try and slow you down/Tell them all to go to hell”—is all pent-up frustration and over-compensated aggression. It’s also one of the most inspiring moments 2012 has given us.

Finally, there’s closer “Continuous Thunder,” a noticeably mature dissection of a relationship when compared with the band’s previous not-so-fine farewell. “If I had all the answers/And you had the body you wanted/Would we love with a legendary fire?,” King ponders over boiling distortion and rumbling percussion. It’s a universal sentiment, and in that sense no different than what these guys have always trafficked in. But it’s also a sharper, more exacting indictment of human folly and the expectations we foist upon each other. So in the end—and this is what I feel is the biggest take away from the album—Celebration Rock is not simply a celebration of music, though it does accomplish this feat with overwhelming passion. This is an album that celebrates our finite existences and our shared experiences. More than most music of its kind, it preaches that there’s always something to live for, some everyday experience worth persevering life’s ills for, even as we take most of these pleasures for granted. So is it important? Again, I’ m not sure—I’ll get back to you when my feet touch the ground.

Review by: Jordan Japandroids

Death Grips (2012)

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:12:13 -0400

The cover of Death Grips’ The Money Store doesn’t so much hint at what’s stored inside—its crudely detailed S&M sketch bluntly states the record will be punishing, weird and pleasurable. Those with weak composure are best to turn away from Death Grips; Zach Hill and Andy Morin indulge every firing creative synapse in their skulls in an attempt to severely fuck up your own. And even if Hill and Morin did settle for less, one has the feeling that vocalist Stefan Burnett (aka. MC Ride) would have none of it; his yelled, screamed and hooted raps punctuate every feverish arrangement. The group's 2011 mixtape Exmilitary was gloriously schizophrenic and unapologetic with its classic samples (Black Flag, Pink Floyd and Link Wray, to name a few); it was a promising avant-rap fever dream that was generally overshadowed by Shabazz Palaces’ massive takeover of the underground. With The Money Store, Death Grips won’t be making any moves into the relative mainstream a la the Palaceer Lazaro, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t delivered one of the meanest, dirtiest hip-hop game-changers in quite some time.

Death Grips' disc is the equivalent of joy riding with a coked-out Jason Statham—narcotics-fueled recklessness leaving us constantly pushing that imaginary brake pedal in the passenger's seat. The group intends to make you uncomfortable, to challenge listener expectations, but the reward is a liberating experience that triggers significant physical response. “Get Got” fires right out of the gate on all cylinders, and with manic intensity, echoing processed snares and toms and Ride’s rapid-fire vocals, whirring arpeggio synths crowding any empty space left by the percussion. “Lost Boys” boils to life as if rising from the pits of a rave in Hell, with strangely mutated hi-hats and snares and an insistent, mechanical grind mixed in the foreground. Burnett’s menacing repetition of “It’s such a long way down” furthers the feeling of descent into a mad underworld. While the sonic ADD approach to arrangement fills the background, the singer/rapper delivers his non-sequiturs with a furious disregard for syllabic consistency. On “Hustle Bones,” overtop synths and pads and what sounds like revving engines, Burnett spits a verse that would be chaotic if it weren’t so precise: “That hot lick a shot/Never not strapped/With a glock tongue cocked/Run it back/That knock a cop off/Unconscious molotov.” It takes more than a few spins (and a handy lyric sheet) to penetrate each verse, and though most of the lyrics are collectively incoherent, their commitment to pure anarchy, and the occasional pseudo-political statement, is a true embodiment of the postmodern fragmentation of culture The Money Store is clearly a product of.

The record really ramps up, with machine-gun hi-hats, dissonant, overbearing synths and Burnett’s deeper-than-ever growl, on “Double Helix,” an anxiety-inducing track with tolling bells, reverb-laden percussion, wobbly bass and warped vocal samples that further alienate in their odd application. “System Blower” likewise has so many unfamiliar and randomly applied glitches and foreign sounds that it might as well be the soundtrack to that nightmare you might have about a trip to the dentist turned sinister. But nothing here gets inside you more than “Blackjack,” its pulsing bass sounding as if it's literally reverberating from inside your chest cavity. It’s all relentless, which doesn't mean it isn't melodic. The lead synth line of “The Cage” will work its way into your subconscious while “I’ve Seen Footage” finds its rhythm and melody in a steady backbeat and processed guitars. By the time closing track “Hacker” rolls around, its array of sonic elements converging around a chorus that sees Burnett hollering, “I’m in your area,” we understand what a precise thesis statement it actually is. The Money Store is all about being in your area, and if it makes you uncomfortable, too fucking bad, you’re coming along for the ride anyway. One can struggle against the chaos or embrace it, but the latter is a hell of a lot more fun.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Melanie Fiona (2012)

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:00:06 -0400

The '80s revival in popular music is decidedly on the outs—long live the '90s revival. You can hear this all over, in the deafening applause for the reemergence of a once-divisive Fiona Apple, and in rockists' fetishization of indie-rock's golden era. But the most welcome callback, to me at least, is a renewed interest in late-'90s R&B. Brandy's recent activity is a great signifier of all this; after years of dwindling sales (and a frankly egregious "Dancing with the Stars" snub, but that's another thing entirely), the former teen icon is looking to reboot with her first album since 2008's Human. Following suit, many of the micro-divas she sired (Monica, Cassie, Ashanti) are also returning from dormancy and/or irrelevance. Hell, going back further, TLC, once R&B/hip-hop's golden girl group, are set to tour this year—though with a hologram of the late Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes, lest we forget we're still living in 2012.

This pervasive R&B nostalgia hasn't even been limited to the mainstream; it's crossed all the most guarded borders in music. Events of the past year and change hinted at a resurgence of substantial magnitude, with octave-jumping crooners like the Weeknd's Abel Tesfaye and LA rap-punk collective Odd Future's resident song-genius Frank Ocean enjoying much acclaim from folks who probably can't tell their Bilals from their Babyfaces. But those R&B hotshots couched their jams in soupy sonics that gave snobs an excuse to like the earnest soul singers at their centers. In contrast, there's little precedent for the indie world embracing urban-aiming hits like Usher's "Climax" and Cassie's "King of Hearts." The love shown to these veterans' slippery slow jams would leave one to think that those ever-vigilant tastemakers would be even more accommodating toward the relative outliers of contemporary R&B.

Melanie Fiona is one of those outliers. The retro-minded Canadian singer made waves back in the summer of 2009 with her debut full-length on Universal Motown, The Bridge, a didactic exercise in stitching eye-rollingly obvious old school soul and R&B samples to contemporary pop and hip-hop aesthetics. Thankfully, Fiona's spent the last three years in the lab retooling her sound; The MF Life, her slightly-delayed sophomore LP, ditches the chintzy sampling and puts in its place a richly produced genre pastiche. It's a record very much in line with the last two from her also underrated peer, Jazmine Sullivan: vocally impressive, enormously emotive, eclectic but never forced, and entirely radio-ready.

The most surprising example of all this is the lurching power-ballad "4 AM." Released as the second single, in September of last year, the track was slept on for months before finally gaining traction as the sleeper hit it always deserved to be, and creeping into the lower reaches of the Billboard's Hot 100 chart. It's a distinctive and powerful piece of candid pop, centering on an internal monologue that seethes with a doubt and frustration identifiable to anyone who's ever waited up late for a lover's call. But its drum'n'bass atmospherics are far from representative of The MF Life as a whole; most every other song on this record, in fact, serves as a better barometer of the thing's sound, including its 12 remaining standard edition tracks and its four additional deluxe ones, each of which is a stone-cold keeper.

"4 AM" is thoroughly modern R&B, but Fiona's tastes elsewhere still often tend toward older iterations of the genre, just as they did on The Bridge. Motown's a major touchstone on tracks like "Rock Paper Scissors" (a deluxe standout) and "Bones"; both draw heavily on hallmarks of '60s and '70s soul, with harmonized backing vocals and Muscle Shoals brass. The latter, a wrenchingly lovesick plea for extreme corporeal devotion, slow-burns through its pain: "You make my heart hurt/You make my love burn," Fiona moans in her deep husk of a voice, pouring over her yearning and sorrow. "Break Down These Walls" goes for more or less the same formula, mixing shades of Gospel and a psychedelic guitar break for good measure, while "Wrong Side of a Love Song" vacillates between its minimal backing of guitar and strings and full-on Phil Spector immensity, with a belted chorus that swims in reverb.

While the few highlights of The Bridge tended to create some needed distance between Fiona and her cheesy retro fetishism, the success of a song on The MF Life seems directly proportional to the musical lineage it taps into, leaving the more contemporary offerings here to pale slightly by comparison. I'm referring specifically to a trio of pandering artist features, all clearly invited aboard simply to bolster the album's sales potential: John Legend, B.o.B., and the bosun himself, T-Pain, who gets an unnecessary rebuttal to "4 AM's" righteous feminist screed on its sequel, "6 AM" (the original was already a much needed counterpoint to a whole mess of drunken, transgression-guilted boys-rap rants). Thankfully, these guest appearances are all so featherweight as to barely detract from the record's appeal.

The breezy B.o.B.-featuring third single, "Change the Record," is built around a central metaphor so paper-thin stupid—the "records" aren't really records, duh—it's almost charming, and the John Legend cut, "L.O.V.E.," is at least buoyant and enjoyable enough while it lasts. These aren't really missteps so much as step-downs, and with all the jilted bloodletting of songs like "Wrong Side of a Love Song" and "Gone and Never Coming Back" predominating, the few moments of levity may have been needed. This tonal compromise does further remove The MF Life from more easily pigeonholed music of this '90s R&B craze, but Fiona is so over the whole musical necrophilia thing—she's transcended the failure of The Bridge with an understanding that her music's better off untethered to any trend-of-the-moment.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Prince Royce (2012)

Mon, 14 May 2012 06:02:01 -0400

It's no secret amongst those whose job it is to pay attention to such things that R&B's a big deal in 2012. In the US, the genre's presence is being felt on charts and on blogs, eking out newfound space in what's been a predominately dance pop-dominated mainstream and, thanks to some savvy beat scientists, even earning the admiration of tastemakers. Fragments of R&B have been working their way into satellite genres like hip-hop and pop with more prominence and frequency than we've seen since the halcyon days of the late '90s/early 2000s. And what's more, the trend may not be a regionally specific one. Korean pop's meteoric rise to relevance—the influence of which rests heavily with the oveure of one Timothy "Timbaland" Mosley, R&B's greatest innovator of the last two decades—provides evidence of what could be diagnosed as a global discontent toward the synthetic, smoothed-over club music that's become so popular in the digital age, a growing desire to gravitate back toward rhythm, blues and soul.

Latin music should fit into this nicely, right? Too bad its current poster-boy, Pitbull, is such a clown and its two most successful 'veterans' (Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias) have increasingly homogenized with age. But there are pockets of forward-thinking musicians—niche among Americans and even natively not as famous as, say, Korea's popstar elite—looking to bridge culture and genre within Latin music. Dominican-American heartthrob Prince Royce falls (roughly) into this category; his fan-base is modest enough that I can follow him on Twitter without enduring a deluge of retweets…and his talents are substantial enough to make me rueful I don't have to endure a deluge of his fans' retweets. The 22-year-old, born Geoffrey Royce Rojas, is a New York City native working primarily in bachata, which is a kind of Dominican variation on merengue, appealing to a relative novice like myself for its polyrhythmic drums and bolero guitars—likening it to any number of African and Cuban styles. Royce apparently had more trad-R&B crooner aspirations at one time, but he nearly fetishized the bachata ethos on his 2010 self-titled debut, earning particular recognition for a bachata-ized cover of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me."

Prince Royce's instrumentals all stuck to the standard 3/4 tempo of bolero and featured a rigid ensemble of electric guitars and bongos, with an generous helping of sugary, synthesized strings. But the record still deserved to be earmarked for a few reasons. For one thing, Royce's clear vocal tone served as a needed antidote to the nasally whine of rappers-turned-singers-for-the-hell-of-it (I'm looking at you, Aubrey), as did his formidable falsetto. Even more promising was Royce's nascent gift for melding two forms of music seemingly made for each other—the rhythmic slow-jam potential of bachata and the vocal pyrotechnics of his urban/R&B influences. He hadn't quite put all that together on Prince Royce, and if some of the pieces are still missing—and some of his instincts still downright rotten—on follow-up Phase II, the record is still a marked improvement in a career deserving of our continued attention.

Lead single "Las cosas pequeñas" brought the first signs of a sharpening craft, its deeper low-end range, ever-nimble percussion and unabashedly sentimental strings expanding the canvas of Royce's music. Its sweetly optimistic lyrics (the title translates to "the small things") also lend newfound levity to a formula that perhaps leaned a bit too heavily on bachata's standards of romanticized misery the first time out. If nothing else on Phase II quite tops it, the album's opener (at least, after a largely spoken-word "Prelude") "Incondicional," comes close enough. The song introduces mariachi horns to Royce's palette, and it features the singer's best vocal to date: more hushed and resolute, he's able to sell the intense emotions of unconditional and unflagging love. "Incondicional" also sets a purposeful tone of genre juggling that pervades throughout Phase II, though the record's success doesn't necessarily depend on that innovation. A few tracks here are clearly reaching for crossover appeal, and that's not such a bad thing at all. Second single "Addicted" is a straight-laced, seemingly slight acoustic-R&B ballad; its title suggests an irksome stalker syndrome but its lyrics ("let's rent a movie tonight"; "my schedule is yours today"—it's one of a few tracks sung in English) are so refreshingly…accommodating? One could likewise snark about its similarity to any given Jack Johnson lullaby, but the mixing's too good for that dismissal: the organic earnestness of fingers on a fretboard is offset by an arrangement that builds in intensity, weaving in more synthetic strings and double-tracked vocals as it progresses.

Were every attempt at a crossover here as alchemically satisfying and dynamic as "Addicted," there would be few problems to speak of. But Royce still can't resist the painfully awkward (and lyrically just awful) club track. We got two on the debut; Phase II thankfully features just one, half sung in Spanish and half in English. "It's My Time" is by-the-numbers squiggly euro-trash, a lapse in taste that's a bit jarring, but there's a semi-decent hook and the song arrives after some 30 solid minutes of assured musicianship, tacked onto the very end of Phase II, which makes it easier to ignore. (In fact, one could skip the last two tracks of this album and find themselves with a much more satisfying listen.) On the whole, Phase II is neither free of the missteps that marred Prince Royce nor that record's slightly grating repetition. But the areas of improvement are heartening, and at its best, the record represents what may become a meaningful development in the ever-evolving trajectory of R&B in the new century.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Jack White (2012)

Tue, 8 May 2012 12:30:00 -0400

A recent piece in The New York Times clarified what we’ve all known since the White Stripes first debuted their candy-colored vision of the blues: Jack White is the Willy Wonka of the music industry. It’s a comparison that’s become all the more substantial in recent years as Jack's started Third Man Records and devoted himself to releasing singles with the likes of Insane Clown Posse, dressing his employees in matching colors, and releasing his own single literally out into the stratosphere, via balloons. White is equipped with an inherent fidgetiness, an incessant need to challenge ideas of image, identity, distribution, and recording practice. White has long been a divisive figure, lauded by many as an ambassador of analog and a restorer of rock’s musical traditions and roots but also criticized for his dictator-ish creative vision and prolific work ethic, as well as his reliance on a perceived gimmickry. His debut solo record, Blunderbuss, is a slight peek behind all those many curtains—and it holds the potential to free White from scrutiny over the superficial, returning critical focus back to his music.

Though Blunderbuss is unmistakably a Jack White album, it bears no significant resemblance to any of his other projects. While the fuzzy, plasticized guitar solos, reminiscent of some of the White Stripes' material, are here, there’s little in the way of the manic blues riffs that defined those early Stripes records. Instead, White has crafted a true solo record, one that sounds both instantly familiar and completely idiosyncratic. On “Sixteen Saltines” he lays on the distortion for a guttural stop-and-start guitar rhythm, punctuated by vocal yelps and a wonderfully sloppy guitar solo to close out the track. His take on Little Willie John’s much-covered “I’m Shakin’” is equally blazing, the signature gritty guitar riff complemented by White’s distorted voice, handclaps, and some honey-sweet gospel backing vocals. While those two tracks may be the most welcome to Stripes fans, it’s the tracks that move away from the blues formula that truly elevate Blunderbuss to a stunning level of consistency and genre exploration.

On “Trash Tongue Talker,” White employs honky-tonk piano, a cyclical melody, and a vocal take that feels fresh off the floor. It’s on selections like this one where the analog recording techniques that White so strictly adheres to really shine through; you feel the whole band in the arrangement all at once, the energy of the room pouring through the headphones as if by osmosis. “I Guess I Should Go to Sleep,” with its country backing vocals and rhythms, is another piano-centric track that comes alive due to the production elements—one of this record’s particular strengths. The song paints a vivid picture of the writing process, of collaboration and improvisation, that’s infectious in its seemingly effortlessness execution. Still, despite all the analog love, there are some wonderful studio and equipment tricks that add nuanced layers to the tracks here. On “Freedom at 21,” the drums seem to be processed through some sort of delay or tape loop, giving it a strobe-like effect, while White pans his vocals to one side and the guitar riff to the other. These are small moments, but they provide endearing instances of shifting frameworks and subverted expectations that work in favor of an album’s longevity. It helps that White, consistently underrated as a songwriter, knows how to construct a pop song inside and out. “Love Interruption” is addictive in its simplicity, pitch shifts, and clear electric keyboards. His jittery, prosaic vocal delivery on “Hypocritical Kiss” leads the way into the descending piano chords that signal the shift into each verse. Then there’s the back-and-forth motion of the title track’s melody, underscored by weeping pedal steel and strings—a particularly apt moment of form merging with content.

At the heart of all these hooks, experiments, and concise freak-outs is a lyric sheet achingly personal, but employing the image-obfuscation White revels in. Context is always dangerous when wrapped in problematic notions of authorial intent, but the dissolution of White’s marriage and his most popular band in such close chronological succession has undoubtedly crept into the lyrics. “Love Interruption” is straightforward in its desires and frustrations, railing against the burden of responsibility in romantic relationships while recognizing that the tension, the propensity for implosion and self-destruction, is part of the appeal. As is typical with White, he undercuts his emotional revelations with purposely-cheery arrangements, meant to distract from (or enforce?) the core narrative. “Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy” contains the most devastating couplets yet it utilizes the most jovial arrangement. Overtop plucked mandolin, strummed acoustic guitar and delicate piano, White sounds clear, happy, and focused as he delivers stinging verses that point to the faltering of his profession/personal relationship with ex-wife Meg. “And you’ll be watching me girl/Taking over the world/Let the stripes unfurl,” he sings, a moment made all the more powerful due to its relative concealment within the arrangement.

It’s these lines, which reference existential purpose and the unstable nature of creative and romantic relationships, that can be easy to miss on one spin. But at their best they sink into the listener’s consciousness, allowing them to revisit the album again and again and continue to find something new to latch onto. Blunderbuss is a treasure trove of confident and consistent songwriting with an emotional core that reveals itself slowly yet resonates deeply. Even more than that, it feels like the tip of the proverbial iceberg. White's only hinting at significant creative depth on Blunderbuss, a promising sign of things to come from a man rooted in tradition but burdened/blessed with a modern, restless soul.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Santigold (2012)

Tue, 8 May 2012 12:18:50 -0400

Master of My Make-Believe, the latest album released under eclectic indie personality Santi White's stage-name Santigold (and the first since her debut, 2008's Santogold), opens with the revving alarm-call of "GO!." It's an exhilarating introduction, but it covers just about all this thing has to offer in one tidy track. Indeed, you could checkout right here. If not, track two ("Disparate Youth," which is also the buzz single you've likely already heard) is plenty worthwhile. Taken together, these two span the full breadth of Make-Believe, and also function as its peak. "GO!" jaunts merrily through its synthesized oompah-pah rhythm headlong into a yelping new-wave chorus (with much extra yelping courtesy of Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O), revisiting and improving on the Santogold standout "Say Aha." "Disparate Youth," then, covers the downbeat side of things; Santi digs deep into dub, and dunks her purring back-up vocals into deep reverb. It's an impressive commencement, much like that of Santi's debut, where the ska-inflected spy guitar-chime of "You'll Find a Way" (which drew on Santi's work with her former punk band Stiffed) came hot on the heels of the molasses-thick but indelibly catchy sleeper hit "L.E.S. Artistes." But that spirit of experimentation lingered over the remainder of Santogold, which set out bin-diving into skronk, reggae fusion, electronica, pop, hip-hop, rock, even a bit of alt-country before it was through. In stark contrast, Make-Believe stagnates early and never again regains that element of surprise.

The intent of this is clearly Cohesion, but everything's so fussily manicured that it becomes lugubrious. And a dirge-y twofer toward the beginning grinds things further to a joyless halt: "God from the Machine" features chugging surf guitars smothered by clackity-clack percussion and oceans of overdub, while "Fame"—a chintzy approximation of riskier stuff off M.I.A.'s Maya, even jacking her influence's vocal cadence and phrasing ("hustle" this, "hustle" that) on the hook—is alternately shrill and bombastic. The back half of Make-Believe is likewise littered with duds. "Pirate in the Water" recalls the slightest moments of Gorillaz's Plastic Beach and "Look at These Hoes" is an undercooked hip-hop workout that scribbles little electronica doodles into its margins. Santi only momentarily finds her footing in the mid-section of the record, with the spookily atmospheric "This Isn't Our Parade"; despite an excess of ADD-addled percussion hammering away in the background, the song works, largely because it does one thing well that precious little else here manages. Santi again interpolates someone else's recognizable sound—in this case, Fever Ray's—but she does so with a firmer understanding of the things she can do to build on it. Her expressive baritone brings melancholy to the island-inflected beat, a tone which Karin Anderrsson's pinched and pitch-corrected warble hasn't ever captured in her Fever Ray output. Even here, though, the meaning behind the titular lyric isn't far removed from the cliché it's just a few tweaks short of becoming. This has always been an issue—Santigold just doesn't have much of anything interesting to say. Her debut was restless and tuneful and this made its shallowness more excusable. This hollow monument to an arrogantly hermetic craft is too alienating to be granted the same courtesy.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Spiritualized (2012)

Tue, 8 May 2012 11:42:22 -0400

Spiritualized's music has been so good for so long that it can be easy to overlook when it has been genuinely, unequivocally great. Save for the canonized monument that is 1997's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating Space, the Spiritualized catalogue tends to get lumped into a recursive mass of drones, hymnals, and orchestrations, bigger than any individual release—let alone any one song—could hope to contain. This perspective, though not entirely misplaced, undercuts the more obvious strides that leader Jason Peirce has made over the last two decades: His transition from the volatile synergy of his former band, Spacemen 3, into the minimally tranquil confines of Laser Guided Melodies; the harmonization of that same white light/white heat dichotomy with Spiritualized’s live album Fucked Up Inside; to, eventually, the mostly orchestral pageantry of Let It Come Down. Peirce’s awe in the face of life’s everyday manifestations has grown forth simultaneously with an ambition that has, in the wake of Ladies and Gentlemen, threatened to collapse everything from his songwriting (the gospel overload of Amazing Grace) to his physical well-being (documented painfully on Songs in A&E). In short, I didn’t think Peirce could possibly have it in him anymore, whether that’s mentally, physically, or psychologically. But Spiritualized’s seventh album, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, is, against all odds, the grand reconciliation of all that is powerful, frustrating, and ultimately transcendent in Jason Peirce's work.

Peirce has a well-documented history with abuse (Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To, a Spacemen 3 demos collection, not-so-subtly disclosed this). But there’s a long line of musicians who have utilized addiction to fuel creativity without much consequence, and Peirce was able to parlay his vices into some of the most invigorating music of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. More recently, however, his transgressions have taken a noticeable toll, and not just on his artistic output. Peirce was reduced to life-threatening levels of pneumonia while recording Songs in A&E, and in the years since that album’s release he was struck—perhaps unrelatedely, but who can say at this point—with a degenerative liver disease. For this, he underwent eight months of chemotherapy, during the mixing of Sweet Heart. What’s incredible about the results, particularly in the wake of the flat-line ruminations of A&E, is the way Peirce’s typically heartbroken lullabies, death-rattle invocations, and defeatist parables can, in this context, sound so triumphant. It’s been years since Spiritualized evidenced such natural—as opposed to coaxed, often chorally—verve, Peirce’ s incendiary space-rock explorations yielding something grand yet pointedly intimate, a song cycle as turbulent as it is serene, as personal as it is paradoxically inspiring.

After a brief introductory segue which nods toward the album cover’s baffled allusion to the effects of Peirce’s medicinal stupor, advance nine-minute single “Hey Jane” tears forth with a pre-Summer of Love rock ‘n’ roll snarl, motorik rhythm, and stabbing guitar chords, as Peirce invokes the name of one of rock’s oldest unattainable females only to shun her (“Hey Jane, when you gonna die?”) for more spiritually fulfilling relationships. His is a cyclical, masochistic kind of emotional sacrifice—a “Falling in Love to Make Music to Break Up To,” or some such pattern of pain by way of satisfaction. Peirce is a conflicted narrator, but really, what could be more relatable than blindly putting yourself so far out there that you risk everything that’s even remotely important to you? “In our haste to find a little more from life/We didn’t notice that we’d died,” Peirce nonchalantly offers on centerpiece “Headin’ for the Top Now,” as a boiling cauldron of feedback, piano, and percussion threaten to make good on his proclamation. But of course he keeps up the pursuit (as we all tend to do), and on the absolutely heartrending “Freedom,” sighs as if in second person, “Freedom is yours if you want it/You just don’t know what you need/Made up my mind to leave you behind/You just don't know what you feel.”

It would come off as all too depressing if the ache of anxiety in Peirce’s voice didn’t hint at more intriguing future possibilities. In the meantime, however, he continues to find himself reduced to appreciating the transient moments, the in-between times when your heart is once again open to the possibilities afforded by space and perspective. Yet as in life, the latter continually gets in the way. On the swooning “Too Late,” Peirce drops wisdom that he’s no doubt accumulated over the years, sighing that “It’s too late/There’s something I’ve learned/Love lights the flame when there’s hearts it can burn.” Later, over jutting strings, he tells the title character of “Mary” how she’s better off avoiding issues of the heart (“Mary, take your big red heart and turn around/They’ll make you insane”) only to set the insignificance of certain such circumstances into stark relief on the following track, “Life Is a Problem,” nakedly confessing, "I won't get to heaven/I won't be coming home/I will not see my mother again/'Cause I'm lost and I'm gone and this life is too long and my willpower's never too strong."

Eventually, however, the pain leads to numbness and the numbness leads to resignation, and as the album ends with “So Long You Pretty Thing”—one of the single greatest Spiritualized songs, period—the journey feels as if it has come full circle. Throughout, Peirce continues his career-long conflation of religious and emotional states of atonement, and across the slow-build intro of “So Long You Pretty Thing” it seems as if he’ll once again end things on a dire note, crying out, “Help me Lord/Help me Jesus/‘Cause I'm hurting inside.” But soon enough the clouds part, as if the second coming has commenced, and every implication of the band’s name comes flooding forth atop a refrain as emotionally draining as it is soulful and uplifting: “So long you pretty thing, God save your little soul/The music that you played so hard ain't on your radio/And all your dreams of diamond rings, and all that rock 'n' roll can bring you/Sail on, so long.” For an artist who has spent a good deal of his career wallowing in the merciless waters of the strung-out, and who, just a couple minutes prior, admits, “I got no reason to believe in anything,” the sentiment somehow transcends the limited purview of our collective experience. Without fail, each and every time it comes to an end, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, in its own self-contained, purgatorial fashion, has helped me believe anew—believe in the essence of love, of friendship, and of art. This is music that proves there is life beyond the present, hope after the fall.

Review by: Jordan Cronk

Nicki Minaj (2012)

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:19:34 -0400

Rumbling low-end and a sample that sounds like a baby bird chirp, or someone slipping on a banana peel, all but consume Nicki Minaj's frantic, shapeshifting vocal on "Stupid Hoe," the capper of this Trinidad-born, Queens-raised rapper's sophomore album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. When it all fades to black, Minaj is left alone, slathered in reverb, snarling an intended boast: "I am the female Weezy." Well, Nicki, that's a loaded sentiment. Never mind the reductive gender politics of an on-the-rise female rapper comparing herself to her male boss; instead, let's focus on the fact that the name "Weezy," one of many affectionate shorthands referring to Young Money label-head Lil Wayne, carries less cache today than it did during the mid-to-late-aughts, his mixtape-crushing heyday.

Wayne himself wouldn't deny this; recent interviews find him denouncing his once fervently espoused claim to the title of "Best Rapper Alive," gesturing instead to a number of hungry newcomers. Wayne's appetite for rapping hasn't really been the same since the year he spent at Rikers and the eight(!) root canals that delayed that sentence One gets the sense he’ll never be the same; he's clearly more concerned with fostering the stable of up-and-comers he's signed to his Young Money imprint. And among that freshman class of talents, Nicki Minaj does indeed seem to be the most apparent heir to his crown.

This whole "I am the next __" thing is nothing new for rap anyway. Four short years ago, Dwayne "Lil Wayne" Carter shared a track with that other Carter in a torch-passing ceremony on his best—and most 'Wayne-like'—album. Hip-hop has proven time and again that you can draw your own identity in the shadow of your senior, and Minaj, like Wayne (and unlike her overcompensating, nominally talented label-mate Drake) is a bracing rapper who possesses both a command of technique and an intriguing public persona, allowing her to stand out in an increasingly crowded field of what have questionably been dubbed the "femecees." Worst you can say about her is the exact inverse of the best you can say about the production-obsessive perfectionist Drake: Her instincts don't always inspire confidence.

That Nicki would compare herself to Wayne just as irrelevance begins to creep in around her boss and mentor of the past few years makes all kinds of sense. This is someone who's just released a fearlessly indulgent, hour-plus expression of herself as an artist, in all its many, multi-character dimensions. Nicki surely equates her new album with Wayne's career-shaping, game-changing classic Tha Carter III. Unfortunately, the second installment in her Pink Friday series sometimes appears to have a good deal more in common with the series burnout that was Wayne's post-Rikers follow-up, Tha Carter IV.

And like Tha Carter IV, this all sounds solid the first few listens. After the whacky, Grammy-debuting opener, "Roman Holiday"—which name-checks but bears no feasible resemblance to the sappy '60s Audrey Hepburn comedy, and features an impromptu rendition of "O Come All Ye Faithful" (whatever)—things get serious with four (or five, depending on your tolerance for Weezy wheezing the hook of the album's title track) heavy hip-hop bangers, infused with just enough Nicki-branded weirdness (the nonsensical innuendo of "Come On a Cone," the "suck a big dick" taunt of "I Am Your Leader") and the best beats Young Money can buy (courtesy of rising wunderkinds like Hit-Boy and Kenoe).

The standout among these is the meme-baiting "Beez in the Trap," a minimalist, southern-flavored ear-worm that sounds like the kind of thing the Neptunes should be cooking up for the new Clipse record of my dreams. Hit-Boy's ping-pong-balls-in-an-echo-chamber and squelching bass provide the perfect backdrop for a pair of razor-sharp bragging verses from Minaj and a comic-relief one from T-Pain 2.0, 2 Chainz. By a small margin, it's the best track on Roman Reloaded, but it's not, as some stodgy rap purists insist, evidence that Minaj should stick to rap and abandon her purely pop pursuits altogether.

Those asking for such a record do so at the risk of getting more songs like "Sex in the Lounge," yet another attempt to emulate Wayne by roping in Bobby Valentino (now Bobby V, because why not). The nondescript crooner lent nothing more than needed to Wayne's Carter III standout "Mrs. Officer," in much the same way a cheesy Jamie Foxx-as-Ray-Charles hook assisted Kanye West's "Golddigger." For those tracks, the concept was the attraction; a bigger personalty than Foxx or Bobby would only detract from the ringleader's doing the brilliant things they do. Minaj's contribution to "Sex in the Lounge" is nothing less than the worst verse on the album that isn't Wayne's on the very same song. ("Get the pussy wetter than a dirty sewer" is something I cannot unhear. Ever.) Bobby's hook, meanwhile, goes like this: "Sex in the lounge/I Can't believe this is happening to me, girl." All that's missing is a humblebrag hashtag. If R&B sleaze is among Nicki's affinities than pop is far from her worst impulse.

That sentiment goes out to everyone trying to divide this album's quality straight down the lines of genre. Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded certainly invites our recognition of its identity crisis in a number of ways, including the schism between Nicki and her Slim Shady-esque evil alter-ego, Roman Zolanski, and the clean split of the sequencing: nine tracks that lean considerably more toward urban strands of hip-hop and R&B, followed by nine of contemporary dance-pop. But this division does not also equate to success/failure. The problem with the formula isn't one of compromise—it's that it feels like a formula.

Nicki's greatly underrated debut, the original Pink Friday, skewed more toward pop and caused her knee-jerk scorn from those who (understandably, I guess) view her as perhaps the rapper with the single most potential out of all her peers, male and female. But Pink Friday was a very good pop record, and the half of Roman Reloaded molded in its likeness is also pretty good. There's no "Super Bass" here, but the quartet of RedOne productions that kicks things off is uniformly solid, catchy, crowd-pleasing pop. "Starships" is the single of the moment, but "Pound the Alarm," "Whip It," and to a slightly lesser degree "Automatic" could all have taken its place in the upper reaches of the Hot 100—and probably will, in two-month-or-so intervals throughout the rest of the year. These are just as decadent and naughty as her rap songs, executed with the same level of craft and with just enough of her own personality in them to transcend the comparisons to contemporaries like Rihanna and Beyoncé they'll inevitably invite.

So permit Nicki the genre-jumping because she's proven her mettle, her versatility. What's less proven is her ability to self-edit and organize the material she amasses. The standard Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is a whopping 19 tracks, while the deluxe tacks on three more (inessential, all). The duds, of which there are several, are tied to no genre collectively; they're united more by an overall lack of inspiration. "Young Forever" deserves the dismissal its title begs for; "Champion" piles on verses from Nas, Drake, and Young Jeezy, suffocating Nicki's relatively poignant and completely unrelated one about overcoming street adversity; "Marilyn Monroe" finds a massive ego showing itself a bit too brashly; and "Right by Your Side" features Chris Brown (seriously, self-respecting female artists, quit that).

Tha Carter III had its indulgences too, and its duds. But no song on that record inspired the yawns some of Minaj's do here—or worse, the cringes (that tuneless vocal take on "Fire Burns" is sub-demo level stuff). Nicki's talents are too varied to limit her genre focus, but her thematic interests are too limited to accommodate a collection this dense. And when stretched out across a whole record, her weirdness and theatricality reveals itself as more surface (funny-voiced irreverence) than substantive. Nicki's not Wayne, and her artistic identity isn't quite compelling enough yet to sustain this much exposure to it.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

The Shins (2012)

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:18:12 -0400

If you'd somehow managed to avoid hearing any Shins releases following 2001's Oh, Inverted World, then I suppose the band's latest might come as something of a shock to you. But for the great majority of us who've followed James Mercer's trajectory throughout his career—with the Shins and in his recent Danger Mouse collaboration Broken Bells—this latest effort shouldn't register as unexpected in the least. That's not meant as a knock on the music itself―Mercer remains an inspired and ambitious songwriter―it's just that, though it would be absurd to say Port of Morrow is the exact product you would expect him to come up with in 2012, it still kinda feels like exactly that. Fortunately, measured growth mixed with moderate experimentation is an approach that's served the Shins frontman well before, and this ten-song collection, though not any sort of revelation, is an enjoyable next step.

Much has been made of Mercer working primarily with producer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin, and right from the start of the album we're given an example of how far this partnership occasionally distances these songs from previous Shins efforts. Opener “The Rifle's Spiral” is perhaps the most muscular track in the band's discography, a densely swirling number with a propulsive beat and layer upon layer of outlandish effects. The song essentially defines the more experimental, difficult side of Port of Morrow while “Simple Song,” the second track, establishes the other extreme, with what might be the most radio-friendly pop tune the songsmith has ever attached his name to. Together these two songs seem to evidence Mercer moving past the sonic adventurousness on the band's under-appreciated 2007 release, Wincing the Night Away, while still using it as something of a blueprint. In fact, it's easy to hear “The Rifle's Spiral” as a leaner, meaner version of the previous record's “Sea Legs,” and “Simple Song” as an unapologetically sunny update on the bitter “Turn On Me.”  The remainder of Port of Morrow's tunes generally fall within those two extremes: that of the woozy ballad or punchy pop-rocker, and the more familiar folk-pop meanderings. Reminders of Mercer's unique melodic sensibility and sharp wit are plentiful too, though filtered through what seems to be a cheerier disposition this time. Even at its strangest and most densely produced, like on the oddly soulful chorus of “40 Mark Strasse,” this record can hardly suppress the noteworthy elements that make Mercer so identifiable. Granted, the songsmith's written better material on each of the previous Shins albums, but there's enough inspiration here to provide for satisfying highlights, depending on when you felt the band was at its best during the past decade. I'd suggest that the infinitely uplifting “Simple Song” is the finest of the bunch and an example of when Mercer sounds most confident and impassioned.  Not everything works on Port of Morrow (the title track especially feels flat), and due to that slightly uneven nature it’s hard not to wonder how much of an impact this fourth Shins record will make, given the excellence of the three that preceded it. But there’s also something satisfying about listening to an artist be ambitious without losing sight of his greatest strengths. What’s clear is that Mercer isn’t running short on ideas and he’s rarely sounded more determined to express them—which means that, whenever he hits on one that works, the results feel more than worth the five-year wait. Whatever band or project he chooses to work with next, Mercer has given us enough reason to look forward to it.

Review by: Chris Nowling

Dr. John (2012)

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:14:57 -0400

Dr. John has long been a strange voice in the landscape of American music. His vision of the nation, and particularly his New Orleans home, is one built on an amalgamation of mysticism, soulfulness, tension, and celebration. Whether immersed in the revelry of Mardi Gras, channeling the spirit of Louisiana native Leadbelly, or exploring the murky depths of swamp-rock, John has always favored a kaleidoscopic vision of Americana, an array of cultures, opinions, races, and religions all working their way into his music. There’s spirituality and humanity at work in his recent output, an added sense of purpose undoubtedly tied to the political and physical devastation of New Orleans. And that vigor and urgency is in full form on his latest offering, Locked Down. With some guitar and production assistance from the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, this 71-year-old legend sounds like a man who’s weathered just about everything life and god can throw at him, and emerged with a renewed creative vision.

It’s appropriate that the cover art for Locked Down shows Dr. John at his most mystical and shamanistic; this is a record filled with songs emitting the dark aura of weird séances and heady, deep grooves. The opening and title track employs a massive bass line, “Chain Gang”-esque grunts, and soulful backing vocals, kicking the record off with an appropriately reckless abandon. Slight evidence of keys and distorted electric guitars fill-out the background, but it's John’s vocals that take center stage. As a matter of fact, his gravelly, bluesy tone shares a lot of similar qualities found in Auerbach’s, which allows for a great level of comfort in this mix. Though it’s fruitless (and reductive) to pigeonhole the record into a specific genre, much of it revels in the earliest swamp blues that John helped bring from Louisiana to the mainstream, paving the way for classic rock acts like Creedence Clearwater Revival. Though that sound is steeped in ancestry, the production and arrangements here are clearly a product of modernity, as well as Auerbach’s vision. “Getaway” kicks off with bouncy electric keyboards before getting lost in a big mix of chunky guitar and furious percussion—a blistering, substantial track that explodes in a cathartic, grungy guitar solo, adding tremendous weight and a sense of pace to the album’s mid-section.

Elsewhere, Dr. John sounds right at home amongst New Orleans-style brass numbers. On the grimy “Revolution,” overtop a prominent, low end-mixed horn section, the singer laments the current state of politics and activism, evoking the constitution whilst speaking out against “religious delusions.” One of the album’s many standouts, the groovy, dirty “Big Shot,” employs stop-and-start electric guitar, an ear-worm chorus filled once again with gospel backing vocals, and a ridiculously catchy two-note woodwind hook for good measure. “Ain’t never was/Never gonna be/‘Nother big shot like me/Yeah, I’m the big shot” John growls in a welcome moment of bravado, coupled with the New Orleans funeral march style that he’s most comfortable working with. In contrast, “You Lie” is pure funk and blues, the reverb-laden guitars bouncing around the arrangement as staccato horns fill in all the empty spaces, and the husky vocal take fighting for room in the sonic space—an appropriate stylistic choice in a song about the overwhelming power of lies and deception and the consequences to be wrought in the afterlife.

Despite all the fire and brimstone, Locked Down closes on a note of beauty and optimism. The penultimate cut “My Children, My Angels” finds John’s mesmerizing work on the keys mixed front and center, the electric keyboard’s reverb providing great warmth to a track that explores the shared responsibility and rewards of love and interdependence. “Tell me ‘bout your desires right now/Don’t trip on loose wires/I’ll show you how” he instructs, the double-tracked vocals bolstering the feeling of spiritual guidance and providence. The closer “God’s Sure Good” follows through on its predecessors theme, with an upbeat guitar riff and a heavy dose of organ anchoring the tale of redemption and forgiveness. When a gospel choir comes in on the chorus, repeating the title refrain, even the most anti-theological of us can’t help but feel renewed. That’s what the gospel of Dr. John achieves, and he and his band do so on Locked Down with tremendous consistency. They can take the most divisive, personally constructed feelings and convey them as a common denominator of humanity. John may paint a grim picture at times, but by album’s end, optimism's crept into our souls and it ain’t lettin’ go.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Vijay Iyer Trio (2012)

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:25:57 -0400

On the title track to his latest album, Accelerando, jazz pianist Vijay Iyer conducts an intensely wrought exercise in dynamics, sputtering jagged edges of notes from his piano which seem to both push forward rhythmically and simultaneously retard the pace. The piece is less than three minutes long, but it’s so perfectly poised between motion (per the title, the tempo continually accelerates) and stasis and so brimful of productive tension that it registers as a real high-wire act, one Iyer and his rhythm section (longtime bassist Stephen Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore) sustain wonderfully, exhaustingly. Though “Accelerando” is finally one of the album’s minor tracks, it stands as a highly concentrated illustration of one of the record’s chief achievements: It tracks the mastery that the trio has achieved over tricky iterations of tempo and rhythm and the tensions they manage to buildup without ever losing control. A more extended example of the group’s dynamic comes on the album’s second track, “Optimism,” a seven-and-a-half minute pocket epic in which the trio takes Iyer’s irrepressible composition, revs it up, slows it down, takes it to an almost impossible level of intensity and then brings it to a final simmer. In its masterful buildup and breakdown, it recalls one of the key recordings in the Iyer canon, “Because of Guns/Hey Joe Redux,” from his 2003 masterpiece Blood Sutra.

At that time, Iyer, still working primarily in a quartet setting with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, was just beginning to experiment with the reinterpretation of pop songs. With 2009’s skillful if overly showy Historicity, the first record in his current trio format, Iyer introduced a range of pop songs to his repertoire, setting M.I.A. and Michael Jackson against jazz classics by the likes of Andrew Hill and a selection of his own compositions. The idea was to draw a continuum in the history of American music, but the programming seemed at times too self-consciously diverse. With Accelerando, Iyer repeats the strategy, but here the efforts seem more appealingly modest and the selections more intuitive. Henry Threadgill’s great “Little Pocket Size Demons” can stand side-by-side with ‘70s funk band Heatwave’s “The Star of a Story,” but in the context of the record—which also features five original compositions—the choices make sense. While the Heatwave song, full of lovely, shimmering piano passages that prove Iyer’s style to be much more than knotty rhythms and off-kilter melodies, is undoubtedly one of the album’s highlights, it’s only a prelude to the greater pleasures of the follow-up track, the trio’s nearly ten-minute tribute to/deconstruction of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.”

While Iyer had previously tackled that composition as the lead track on his 2010 solo record, here he enlists his rhythm section to take the piece further out than before. What’s great about the recording on Accelerando is that even as the pianist seems determined to pick apart the tune and take it to near cacophonous levels of abstraction, he’s equally reverent toward the composition. He plays the theme over and over as someone who’s not only spent a lot of time thinking about how the dynamics of the song operate, but as a genuine fan. The piece also functions as yet another study in the rhythmic tension this group is capable of generating. When, after three-and-a-half minutes of a relatively straightforward reading, Iyer starts to deconstruct the tune into fascinating shards of broken non-melody, Gilmore and Crump seem so intuitively locked into what the leader is doing that the piece maintains perfect coherence. When, three minutes later, the theme returns, as lovely and plainspoken as ever, it’s with an awed sense of relief at how Iyer and his group managed to return so effortlessly from seeming chaos to comforting order. It’s an act repeated more or less with success on Accelerando’s 11 cuts, but even if nothing can quite measure up to “Human Nature,” there are few songs on the record that don’t illustrate the Vijay Iyer Trio’s masterful sense of control, their hard-won cohesiveness, and—perhaps somewhat surprisingly, given the potentially academic nature of the project—their sly sense of playfulness.

Review by: Andrew Schenker

Madonna (2012)

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:21:39 -0400

"I want so badly to be good." So says Madonna Louise Ciccone in her by-now familiarly glassy Anglo-American accent (apparently among the acquisitions she got to keep in her divorce settlement with faux-Cockney filmmaker Guy Ritchie) at the outset of her twelfth studio album, the none-too-subtly titled MDNA. It's the closing line of an archly delivered prayer, backed with suitably portentous digi-strings, in which she repents for past crimes against God, a kitsch pomposity blatantly reaching for the rosary-whore salad days of 1989's Like a Prayer even as it rather disingenuously apologizes for them. If this pledge carries a whiff of ambiguity, it's similarly difficult to discern whether the "good" to which she aspires is a moral, professional or artistic qualification; perhaps this simple statement is less a Dear Santa address to Him on high than an assurance to fans that she's still on her game as an entertainer.

She's given us no shortage of reasons to doubt the latter commitment: her last LP, 2008's Neptunes-and-Timbaland-steered urban cash-in Hard Candy, was dated before it even hit shelves, and received as such, while her most recent foray into filmmaking, last year's nutso Nazi-sympathizer romance "W.E," was laughed off the festival circuit. (The Neptunes and Timbaland might have brightened that one up, ironically enough.) And the track hushed orison segues into doesn't exactly make good on her words, either to God or her audience: produced by Italian house monsters Benny and Alle Benassi, "Girl Gone Wild" is an undistinguished addition to the swelling playlist of bubble-headed paeans to The Floor, its computer-generated lyrics about girls wanting to have fun and DJs playing favorite songs complement thick Euro-trash beats. She doesn't want that badly to be good—not when there are easy hits to be had.

This opening gambit would appear to announce—as if the album's oh-so-naughty Ecstasy reference weren't warning enough—that MDNA will opt for that time-honored strategy of re-juicing idling pop diva careers: the full-bore club album. It's worked for everyone from Cher to Kelis to Kylie to, well, Madonna, who performed this exact trick only two albums ago, when 2005's Confessions On a Dance Floor, an elegant neo-disco thumper masterminded by Stuart Price, effectively masked the critical and commercial stain of 2003's plastically political American Life. You'd expect the 53-year-old Queen of Pop to know better than to get caught in such a loop, even if she lost her much-vaunted capacity for reinvention around the same time she gained that accent, but she comes perilously close to doing so here. MDNA is front-loaded with grinding, chilly club fodder from a larger-than-usual cabal of electronic mixologists, including Martin Solveig, the Demolition Crew and the aforementioned Benassis—one can only presume she beat David Guetta off with a taser and one of Wallis Simpson's brooches. They do a proficient enough job of circling Madonna, as though she were a reluctant homing pigeon, round to the sleek dance-bitch stage she effectively built before superficially awed Eve Harringtons like Lady Gaga, Robyn, Rihanna and latter-day Britney colonized it with harder metallic beats and more abstract irony.

The skittering keyboards and industrial synths of bored-infatuated whirl "I'm Addicted" and the steady, brooding bass of revenge fantasy "Gang Bang" (a stupidly trolling title, perhaps intended to deflect justifiable sonic comparisons with the Audio Bullys' UK smash remix of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)") compress the singer's already svelte voice to the point of interchangeability; the tracks are pretty pristine in themselves, but however one mentally places Guy Ritchie in the crosshairs of "Gang Bang," the sense of humor and force of personality that drove Confessions is scarcely in evidence here. MDNA is too self-conscious and self-admiring to sully its under-lit cool with a dayglo ABBA sample—a shame, since one senses Madonna might be overestimating the icy sternness of her younger competitors. (What one wouldn't give here for even a flash of the girlish lyrical euphoria of Rihanna's "We Found Love," for example.) It's one of a few worrying symptoms that this is club music by someone no longer interested or invested in club culture: the insipid, Solveig-produced "Turn Up the Radio" (do kids even listen to the radio anymore?) is one in itself.

It's almost a relief, then, when pop regains control midway through, even if its attack is spearheaded by the toe-curlingly titled lead single "Give Me All Your Luvin,'" a jangly, surf guitar-flecked nothing focus-grouped into oblivion. Winkingly retro (if not for the lady herself) Toni Basil cheers, check; guest spots from not one but two eccentric-but-Top-40-approved female rappers, check; and for-Pete's-sake dubstep breakdown, check. It was a short-lived chart botherer so perkily inoffensive that it only took M.I.A. raising a middle finger at Madonna's SuperBowl performance to divert everyone's attention from the track, but it's also one of precious few instances on the album where Madonna at least seems to be having fun. (You'd expect to say the same of "Gang Bang," where she gets to shriek "Die, bitch!" at an unnamed ex, but even this plainly Gaga-referencing theatre routine is approached too much like homework.)

Whatever thin charms 'All Your Luvin'" possesses aren't repeated on "Superstar," built on a fuzzed ‘90s-style guitar riff that not even Smash Mouth want back and burdened with perilously carbon-dating lyrics ("You're Mike Jordan/you're my superstar"... really?). So it's left to the featuring MVP, ubiquitous hip-hop munchkin Nicki Minaj, to reassert MDNA's pop smarts with another pithy guest verse on the infectiously strutting society kiss-off "I Don't Give A"—an uninventive earworm that's effectively a PG slant on Robyn's "Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do," but still the most radio-ready thing on the album. (American Life and Hard Candy, it seems, still haven't managed to warn Madonna off speak-rapping. Wincingly naff reference to "tweetin' in an elevator" aside, she gets by here more on attitude than delivery; still, Minaj can't help seeming charitable-to-patronizing as she simpers "There's only one queen, and that's Madonna," mere seconds after vocally handing Her Madgesty's ass to her on a plate.)

The final third of MDNA is given over to the most eagerly anticipated collaboration of the entire endeavor: Madonna’s reunion with British glass-pop architect William Orbit, whose brittle, ornately minimal helming of 1998's Ray of Light gave the star both her most drastic stylistic overhaul and fully realized album to date. Orbit could hardly be expected to work similar wonders here, given his reduced presence and proximity to sonically opposed beat thugs like the Benassis, but even treating his contributions in isolation, the magic is gone: "I'm a Sinner" is a clever mid-tempo semi-confessional, following up on the opening prayer with a spiraling, gently blasphemous chorus, but is still closer in construction to the disposability of "Beautiful Stranger" than anything on Ray of Light; meanwhile, there's nothing his routinely stylish, now pleasantly dated arsenal of flutey electro fillips can do to leaven ballads as turgidly composed as "W.E." soundtrack cut "Masterpiece," a song so thematically watery and lyrically banal ("If you were the Mona Lisa, you'd be hanging in the Louvre," she sings ruminatively) it could hardly fail to win a Golden Globe.

Together with the quasi-religious lyrics scattered throughout and the headlong discotheque dive concentrated at the beginning, Orbit's presence suggests Madonna hasn't exactly been careless in assembling this album, even if it sounds offhand and lacking cohesion: with her recording career officially 30 years old this year, and MDNA her first album on a new label, Madonna’s taken stock of her discography and tried to reassemble some of its aesthetic highlights in a single, celebratory package. But albums like Like a Prayer, Ray of Light and Confessions On a Dance Floor were never meant to come out of the same creative, cultural or even business context; they were sensibly-spaced markers of a life and career in process, and as insistently as MDNA has been sold to us as The Divorce Album, bar a few snippy one-liners to that specific effect, it's the songs that feel divorced here—whether from real life, real feeling or just from each other. Madonna's smart enough to realize that she's the most binding element on the album, but that means an off-putting amount of self-aggrandizing brand promotion crops up throughout, from the effectively eponymous title (repeated as a bouncy chant at the end of one track) to Minaj and M.I.A.'s cheerleader-like exhortations to "L.U.V. Madonna!" You can't slather your own name over your own work to such an extent without inviting some suspicion of insecurity; Madonna may want so badly to be good, but perhaps what she wants even worse is just to be.

Review by: Guy Lodge

The Magnetic Fields (2012)

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:18:32 -0400

On the one hand, you’ve got to hand it to Stephin Merritt; in a noble effort to keep his band, the Magnetic Fields, interesting in the wake of their landmark 69 Love Songs, he’s imposed a series of aesthetic restraints on his material, with the hope of unifying each release while ultimately diversifying his catalogue. On the other hand, these conceptual conceits have more often than not thwarted Merritt’s more freewheeling impulses, while boxing each successive record into a specific sound which Merritt hasn’t always been able to transcend. Which isn’t to say he hasn’t produced some wonderful music—2008's Distortion married the titular effect to many of Merritt’s most agile melodies, while otherwise forgettable efforts such as 2004's self-satisfied i and 2010's acoustic-based Realism still turned up some of his most ingratiating standalone tunes. But the fact remains that there hasn’t been an essential Magnetic Fields record in well over a decade now.

On the surface at least, Love at the Bottom of the Sea seems to represent a concerted effort on the part of Merritt to re-embrace what made the Magnetic Fields so exciting in the ‘90s, while dropping the conceptual shticks and simply playing to his skill for creating endearing pop music. Which is what makes the finished product so curious. Everything Merritt touches at this point sounds like the Magnetic Fields, but Love at the Bottom of the Sea sounds especially like the Magnetic Fields as we’ve come to know them. Hell, it sounds almost exactly like what fans have been clamoring for ever since Merritt felt the need to self-impose stylistic barriers on his band. It’s hard to quantify things like spirit and, even more so, feel, but while the band’s tenth album certainly sounds the part, it just as often comes up feeling hollow or, worse yet, tired, from a thematic vantage. In other words, this is comfort food Magnetic Fields: sweet, sometimes tart, but fleeting—and even, on occasion, downright stale.

The talking point of the album is, of course, the return of the synthesizer, the Magnetic Fields' weapon of choice throughout the ‘90s and one they became so identified with that Merritt was all but forced to set it aside for the last three albums. So the mood of the record is a welcome return to cheeky, left-field synthetics, but for his part Merritt seems uninterested in mining any sort of topic he hasn’t turned over constantly in the past decade. One needn’t hear a note of the music to construct a general thematic outline of songs like “Born for Love,” “The Only Boy in Town,” and “Goin’ Back to the Country,” three titles I’m shocked to find Merritt hadn’t utilized until now. There’s a part of me that feels like this may be an unreasonable complaint, like any of us should expect more out of Merritt at this point, a man who’s built a career soundtracking the plights of the loneliest amongst us. Then again, what made The Charm of the Highway Strip and 69 Love Songs so transcendent was Merritt’s ability to take conceptualized lyrics and filter them through an array of unique arrangements and instrumentation. When Love at the Bottom of the Sea doesn’t sound nostalgic it simply sounds busy, and with little gravity imparted via Merritt’s songwriting, many of the tracks are left to spin giddily for two minutes with little consequence.

Merritt has too much melodic acumen, however, to not score some inedible hits. “Andrew in Drag” is arguably the best, funniest, and most memorable single he’s released since the late ‘90s, working off inflammatory content to somehow produce pop music digestible to the masses. Meanwhile, bookending the track list are two tunes which ably update the extremes of the 69 Love Songs template: With its New Order-nodding synth lead and deadpan vocal courtesy of Shirley Simms, “God Wants Us to Wait” takes its abstinence theme to identifiable lengths, while “All She Cares About Is Mariachi” finds Merritt pining for a disinterested lover through a lens at once humorous and tragic. But between these highlights lie a series of unfortunate stylistic digressions (the annoying, anti-dance number “Infatuation (With Your Gyration)”; the awkward waltz of “My Husband's Pied-a-Terre”) and just plain forgettable synth-pop exercises (“The Machine in Your Hand”; “The Horrible Party”) which all exist in better forms on prior Magnetic Fields records. And save for late album gem “Quick!,” even the highlights sadly lack emotional heft, the aforementioned intangible which so elevates the best Magnetic Fields material from negligible pop to meaningful spiritual resource.

It may very well be beyond Merritt to put out a truly bad record at this point in his career, his melodic sensibility and restless nature precluding any kind of grand scale disaster. For better or worse, he couldn’t sound like anything other than himself if he tried, which ultimately may be Love at the Bottom of the Sea’s most notable shortcoming. There’s a distinct lack of vitality and necessity permeating these tunes, and while it’s nice to hear Merritt return to a sound that helped define an entire subset of indie-pop, one can’t help but feel like Merritt could write a majority of these songs in his sleep. Granted, one man’s wheelhouse is another’s divine inspiration, but until Merritt ups the stakes beyond quick change aesthetic routines, we’re bound to be left with facsimiles of the Magnetic Fields of yore, all brightly accented and instantly recognizable, but only intermittently satisfying.

Review by: Jordan Cronk

Odd Future (2012)

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:24:26 -0400

The Odd Future crew is at a crossroads. While some of the initial hype surrounding them has faded—resulting in increasingly unsympathetic (or at least disinterested) attention from online outlets that used to praise them as the next Wu-Tang—there are many fans and critics who remain devoted. Some are waiting in anticipation to see what the return of Earl Sweatshirt means; others just want a new album from Odd Future main-man Tyler, the Creator. While The OF Tape, Vol. 2 will likely satiate the thirst of those ready to ingest anything from the OF camp, there’s an inconsistency here that suggests the collective has certain outliers who don't entirely fit with the overall shared creative vision.

A compilation such as this allows for each individual artist in the collective to get their voice—and for some, their beats—heard, but it also serves as a reminder of where the group’s strengths lie. One might very well be able to listen to, say, Goblin, then turn around and spin Purple Naked Ladies—these are two separate, singular visions at work. On this record, however, everyone in OF brushes shoulders with each other, and though the camaraderie is occasionally inventive, it mostly serves to highlight the instability of a group whose most successful members cast very long shadows over everyone else.

It’s no surprise that the strongest moments here come from Tyler, Mellowhype or Hodgy Beats, and Frank Ocean, in sum featured on about two-thirds of the 18 tracks. Tyler and Hodgy rip it up on “NY (Ned Flander),” their slick rhymes tumbling over typically eerie fuzzy synths and piano. Hodgy delivers a characteristically agile but sinister flow, while Tyler revels in syllabic release, punctuating every couplet with an aggressive stop. The two work in similar fashion on “P,” where dissonant, pitched-down synths build a tense, ominous undercurrent, with Tyler and Hodgy talking blowjobs, blunts, Casey Anthony, and Common. This commingling of aesthetic professionalism, pop-culture irreverence, and improvisation is what's made Odd Future—and particularly Goblin—such a success. Though slammed as childish, misogynistic, and rebellious, there’s always been something truly thoughtful and uncomfortably honest about Odd Future’s best work: The introspective emotionality of “Bastard,” the everyday mundane nature of “Luper,” and the racial tensions of NWA callback “Fuck the Police.”

It’s this tension between the critical, analytical, and satirical OF and their more playfully mean-spirited side that—though successful elsewhere—never quite takes off here. Tracks from the Internet, Mike G, Domo Genesis, even some of Left Brain’s normally reliable beats, wither in comparison to stronger, more confident pieces from the three figureheads. Domo’s “Doms” has a stellar, bass-heavy foundation, but it's a dud in terms of flow and lyrics, while Mike G’s “F0rest Green” is an underwhelming approximation of the OF aesthetic. Left Brain provides the processed horns and descending synth lines, but it’s little more than a throwaway bedroom track, despite its undeniably earworm-y refrain and hook. “Ya Know,” the lone offering from OF's neo-soul duo the Internet, is a mess of whirring synths and electronic blips, an early-album indicator there might be a developing schism in the OF family.

One can’t help but ponder the future of this collective as a whole. Tyler, Hodgy, and Frank (and certainly Earl, now that he's back from self-imposed exile) continue to bask in their deserved spotlight, but The OF Tape, Vol. 2 is as much an affirmation of the group’s staying power as it suggests an inevitable fallout for the less ambitious players. One listen to the 10-minute closer, “Oldie,” which features every member of OF in a laid-back, simple tradeoff of verses, is welcome in its playfulness, but it's irrefutably overstuffed, enough to suggest that the democracy of this hip-hop collective can’t survive when so dominated by a few charismatic leaders so obviously meant for totalitarian creative control.

Still, this record works as a decent collection of all that's compelling about OF’s heavy hitters. Ocean delivers a gorgeously sparse, soulful track with “White,” and contributes contrasting moments of sultriness to “Analog 2” and “Snow White.” “We Got Bitches” is all bad-boy bravado, an infectious evocation of Waka Flocka-posturing and loud, processed trumpets, while “50” employs the typical machine-gun-snares and strained vocals of Mellowhype, aiming for the gut and hitting its target.

When the entire collective hits their mark, which it does about half the time here, it serves as a great reminder that these kids—and they are still kids—have a creative vision worth investing in. They have a refreshing aggression and sonic aesthetic that works because of their big personalities and their unwillingness to compromise, even in the face of critical derision and monumental hype. The OF Tape, Vol. 2 is nothing if not a purposeful reminder that Odd Future is a force to be reckoned with, that they have staying power beyond the knee-jerk disposability of their Internet hype and backlash.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

La Sera (2012)

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:22:12 -0400

With lo-fi girl group Vivian Girls splintering into numerous other acts, it would be wrong to call La Sera, the name under which bassist Katy Goodman records her dreamy laid-back solo work, a "side project." Since 2009, most of Goodman's output has been under the La Sera moniker, including a steady stream of singles and a charming debut in 2011. Now, Goodman's crafted the first great soundtrack to the summer with sophomore album Sees the Light, a playful but deeply evocative set of tunes keyed to the sly wordplay of that title. Where La Sera’s debut reveled in softer tones and mild-mannered lyricism, Sees the Light embraces the harsh, fuzzy sonics of Goodman's work with Vivian Girls. First single “Please Be My Third Eye” employs the band's familiarly heavy doses of distortion and some driving kit work, underscored by a cyclical guitar line. Sequenced near the beginning the album, the track sets a momentum—and a thematic preoccupation with motion—sustained over the 30-minute runtime.

Instead of channeling the beach-and-booze feel of summer, Goodman pillages the romantic cliché that comes to mind with the changing of the seasons, the grey mornings that turn to sun-soaked afternoons, dispelling months of winter hibernation. Postmodern irony springs up like weeds threatening to wind their way into this ideal foundation, but Goodman pulls off her idyllic vision, and allows us to get swept up in its message of romantic renewal. On “Break My Heart,” Goodman accepts her own responsibility and the ultimate futility of her romance: “I've been bad, but I know you don't have proof/Leave me now, I've got nothing else to lose.” The track moves along with a sweet, innocent jangle that’s dangerously alluring in the face of the self-pitying but strangely knowing lyrical content. The gentle but straightforward refrain of “I Can’t Keep You in My Mind” is assured in its introspective analysis, a short, sweet, and menacing three-minute pop song, and “I’m Alone” is one of the few tracks here to use an acoustic guitar—lightly finger-picked, and providing a tender contrast to the downtrodden lyricism.

There are times when Sees the Light’s lyric sheet threatens to become too misanthropic, but Goodman manages to subtly avoid Eighth Grade poetry pitfalls, her airy, sometimes monotone vocals adding a welcome nonchalance and disillusion; the themes hit home, but they’re not so self-serious as to warrant eye-rolls. Part of the reason Sees the Light succeeds so consistently is that it never veers off its course. The initial electric guitar chimes and marching bass-drum of opener “Love That’s Gone” put us in the headspace of understanding where this story might go. “You’re holding on/To love that’s gone/And I’ll be gone/Just as soon,” Goodman sings, with barely a hint of remorse; rather, she has a conclusive understanding that, like the summer months, these fleeting relationships have expiration dates.

Goodman challenges the inevitable consequences of her choices on “Drive On,” a chugging, sinister song evoking a “Thelma and Louise”-type fate. “How Far We’ve Come Now” presents a wall of distorted guitars and colliding overtones, exploding in a stellar moment of catharsis, the penultimate escalation before the inevitable descending action of closer “Don’t Stay.” Over a sparse arrangement, Goodman again takes responsibility for a past mistake, acknowledging that no matter how many times she’s tried to flee, summer always comes around again, and despite those old mistakes, there’s reassurance in the cyclicality of it all. In a final moment of possible freedom, Goodman admits that, “Once I see you/Look at me/I feel the pull inside/To leave.” It’s a wonderfully crafted conclusion to a record that balances its aggressive tone with tenuous optimism, counterbalancing its devastation with comforting reassurance.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Perfume Genius (2012)

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:18:33 -0400

When Elvis Presley cut “Heartbreak Hotel” for RCA Victor in 1956, few involved in the recording process thought the song had any potential as a hit. By most accounts, the song was thought to be too slow, too melancholic and, most pressingly, too fake. When Elvis dropped into that low, barely audible warble, it was viewed at the time by label executives as an exaggerated, farcical exploration of sadness that audiences surely couldn’t relate to. But relate they did, and “Heartbreak Hotel” remains one of Elvis’s defining hits. That same sense of exaggerated depression is present throughout Perfume Genius’s sophomore release, Put Your Back N 2 It. Not nearly as playful as its title, Mike Hadreas, the man behind the moniker, has produced a record of staggering emotional resonance and beauty.

Hadreas’s simple, go-to formula: slight piano, heavy doses of reverb, and layered harmonies. The results: a little James Blake mixed with a touch of Bon Iver, though possibly sadder than either. On opener “Awol Marine,” Hadreas builds to a mild post-rock crescendo, the earthy piano and hollow vocal getting swept up in increasingly piercing guitar tones and white noise. It’s an appropriate beginning, as much of the lyrical content and sonic form suggests Hadreas getting swallowed up by an overbearing force, one both external and internal, and whether it be sorrow, mourning, or self-loathing. This is a record filled with moments that feel like redemption or renewed confidence, but the gloomy arrangements suggest that these statements aren’t positive affirmations but rather an acceptance of one’s own despair and inadequacy. On “No Tear,” Hadreas employs a “Hallelujah”-esque piano-led arrangement while proclaiming, “I will carry on with grace.” As before, it’s a misnomer of assuredness, Hadreas’s warbling voice signifying that carrying on unscathed is easier said than done.

The brave face perseveres on “Normal Song,” a gorgeous waltz with sparse acoustic guitar and atmospherics that touches on the shocking finality of mortality and the light we can hope to see at the end of it all. There’s a theme of cyclicality—of continued abuse and abandon—that pervades Put Your Back N 2 It, adding a haunting inevitability to each track’s exploration of darkness. On “Dark Parts,” Hadreas hints at the unbearable weight of child abuse and the futility of faith to release the pressure; a driving piano rhythm builds tension to the mid-track moment of catharsis, centering on heavy kit work and a pulsing electric guitar. “I will take the dark part of your heart/Into my heart,” he concludes in a couplet that defines the record’s continued theme of bearing the heavy burden of experience.

On the album’s closing track, “Sister Song,” Hadreas laments the insecurity of relying on others and the responsibility that must be exchanged in such a relationship. “Drive on, drive on/My special one/Don’t stop ’til you know you’re gone,” he sings, a small and possibly finite moment of escape that revels in the ironic company of the individual. It’s a slight, possibly insignificant moment of relief, but for the listener, it’s a satisfying and hopeful conclusion to a dark, depressing journey. There are moments of unbearable weight, sadness, and mystery that threaten to bog down Put Your Back N 2 It, but Hadreas’s infusion of personal angst, artistry, and existential exaggeration make for a rewarding, intensely emotional listen, and result in one of the finest singer-songwriter records so far this year.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

The Men (2012)

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:47:02 -0400

It may be premature to call it a trend, but Brooklyn-based band the Men have recently begun utilizing album titles as extensions of their narrative. Or so it would seem. While it’s just as likely coincidental—both 2011's Leave Home and their latest, Open Your Heart, can be read as traditionally delineated titles too—I can’t help but feel like they exist as artist/audience discourse rather than as admonitions. The Men's debut for Sacred Bones felt in many ways like a spiritual rebirth, and while they didn’t literally transplant themselves from their Brooklyn home, they nonetheless left the confines of localized, self-released obscurity for national distribution and wider consideration. Open Your Heart is an even more direct decree—and again, not a suggestion toward artistic agreement but rather a curt announcement of the potential effect this record will have on you, the listener. This is a confident, some might say cocky, edict coming from what can occasionally feel like a punk band with identity issues. But it’s consistently impressive how coyly the Men tug at the heartstrings across this record’s expansive sonic terrain.

Is it a matter of toning things down a bit? Party, perhaps, but this shortsighted reading would only account for one facet of the band’s zeroed-in, cupid’s arrow attack-and-release. That they’ve mostly dropped the hardcore wallop and sludge guitar bludgeoning of Leave Home is certainly notable, but this seeming regression yields a more textured, intricately outlined dual-arcing song cycle of considerable depth. It’s less a loss of muscle than a redistribution of power, and an uncommonly patient exercise in rock band dynamics and melodic compression. So, yes, the album represents yet another in the band’s ever-multiplying array of sonic personas, but it plays especially well in light of Leave Home, as the two records work as a kind of perfectly symmetrical inverse of one another: the rowdy travelogue of the debut a visceral dispatch of new life experiences to Open Your Heart’s potent blend of the anthemic and the emotionally and melodically acute. This is still a band careening between styles, seemingly with no brakes, but with an arm outstretched and a foundation in the humane, the Men have fully grown to embody the various implications of their moniker, maturing without buckling to foisted expectations while gilding the extremes of their aesthetic without sacrificing the dangerous energy of their youth.

A more nominally appropriate opener than “Turn It Around” one couldn’t conceive of; the Men come out like Leave Home’s closer “Night Landing” simply engaged another cylinder in their engine. The track’s a streamlined display of the Men’s vigor and compositional prowess, and that’s before it climaxes in a particularly pummeling surge of percussion, one last rush of instrumental fury prefacing the point when a lesser band would reign in the excess. Nope, not these guys: “Animal” follows in due course, its lacerating guitar texture and feral vocal turn from co-lead singer Nick Chiericozzi effectively bridging the gap between the carnal and the cerebral. This is the Men essentially being boys for the whiplash intro to their first “mature” record, but the album’s unique range quickly opens out to us with “Country Song” and “Oscillation,” two loosely structured jams—both of which hint at their title’s sonic connotations but mostly work to subvert just such assumptions—that remind us of this band’s disregard for anything as recognizable as traditional verse-chorus-verse construction. Indeed, that would imply vocal parts and melodies in agreeable quantities and at expected intervals. Open Your Heart moves through extended instrumental sequences in a manner similar to the Men’s prior work, but with an effortless stride that manifests naturally via the communicative ebb and flow of the players.

Open Your Heart’s B-side—and the designation is right there on the cover, so there’s no reason to consider this in any manner aside from two distinct cycles—is slightly less unfettered. Then again, it also represents the single best run of tunes the band's yet sequenced, and plays as a bracing, three-dimensional rebuttal to anyone still skeptical of their songwriting acumen. One-upping side A’s twofer opening gauntlet, the title track and “Candy” bring the melodies hard—and in completely different sonic settings—evidencing the inventiveness these guys currently have at their disposal. The title track offsets its playful singsong hook and confessional plea with off-key vocals and a full-tilt flurry of interlocking guitars and reckless percussion. It can sound at times like some dude singing his heart out in the shower to his favorite rock band, further emphasizing the base identification these guys offer up to anyone with a willing ear. The heart of the record, however, lies with “Candy,” a Replacements-worthy slide guitar ballad with a chorus so nakedly honest (“When I hear the radio playing/I don’t care that it’s not me"), resigned yet totally content, that it can’t help but turn from endearing to inspirational.

It’s only March, of course, but 2012 is already shaping up to be the year indie-rock reasserts itself amidst a near ironic influx of synthetic artistic caricatures. The aesthetic rebirth of Cloud Nothings, the reunion of Guided by Voices, the “cyber-punk” exhortations of Pop.1280, the anticipated upcoming return of Japandroids—they've all contributed to this burst of fresh air in their own unique way, proving that guitars (and in the case of the Men in particular, those inhuman drums as well) still have plenty to say over a half-century on from the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. Their album titles may disclose certain impetuses behind each record’s creation, but like all worthwhile rock bands they mostly let their instruments—and in some cases, such as “Please Don’t Go Away” and “Presence,” wordless harmonies—do the talking. In the end, what’s great and most intriguing about the experience of Open Your Heart, though, is the palpable sense that these guys aren’t even close to tapping the limits of their potential and will no doubt do so someday soon. I can see it now, circa 2014: The Men announce new album, Save Rock Music.

Review by: Jordan Cronk

Tindersticks (2012)

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 09:44:09 -0500

What better way to signify the return-to-form of eclectic Nottingham art-pop ensemble Tindersticks than to kick off their ninth proper studio set—marking the first release of their career's third decade—with "Chocolate," a spoken-word showcase from one of the band's few remaining original members, David Boulter? Tindersticks have gone through a few lineup kerfuffles since their classic 1993 debut, but the most recent one (around 2003) resulted in a stripping down of their sound that's resulted in some of the group’s most frustratingly lackluster output. Meanwhile, lounge lizard leading man Stuart Staples has been refining his work as a soundtrack artist for the great French filmmaker Claire Denis—chronicled to great success on last year's essential compilation, Claire Denis Film Scores (1996-2009)—and it turns out that work's low-key ambiance most informs the lush midnight-hour vibe of The Something Rain.

If Falling Down a Mountain, Tinderstsicks' last studio LP, taught Staples anything, it was that his band are at their best on record when they function like a band, not the solo bedroom project of a mopey Morrissey disciple. Rain takes that to heart from the jump, with "Chocolate" immediately harkening back to the group's salad days of methodically mounting chamber-pop, only this time Boulter takes on the narrator roll once often filled by Staples (on droll discography highlights like "My Sister" and "Cherry Blossoms"). Boulter's vocal presence comes as a shock: Another male hasn't taken lead on the mic since violinist Dickon Hinchliffe left following the band's underrated 2004 album, Waiting for the Moon. Because since that time, it's really been the Stuart Staples show, with the prolific frontman claiming close to sole authorship of both 2010's Falling Down a Mountain and 2008's dud The Hungry Saw (give or take a few instrumentals credited to Boulter, and one given to second-gen. bass player Dan McKinna).

On The Something Rain, Staples has a solo credit on only three of the album's nine tracks, a clear signifier that this is a collaborative effort the likes of which we haven't seen from Tindersticks in close to a decade. And if this all sounds like silly statistics, be assured the change as audible too, with swaggering soul-belters like "This Fire of Autumn" and the Caribbean-influenced (remember when they used to do that?) "Slippin' Shoes" popping out of the speakers like nothing this group's recorded in ages, save for maybe the deceptively bold, free-jazzy lead-off track from Falling Down a Mountain. You have to wade through a couple understated pieces at the top of the new album to get to the more juiced-up and soulful struts that follow, but even these slow ones come infused with a compositional sense the band's recent output just hasn't been able to boast. The first two songs' dense arrangements (particularly the power-chords and Rhodes piano on "Show Me Everything") lend weight to their purposeful, lengthy builds.

The really worthwhile material, though, lurks on The Something Rain's slinky, sprawling second side, which also gives Tindersticks' lengthy list of session musicians a welcome workout. Lead single "Medicine" offers up one of Staples's most expressive vocals, his sickly, mantra-like delivery a perfect fit for the death-haunted lyrics. "It's medicine you want/It's medicine you need," the singer all-but-whispers, leaning into his trademark staccato whine, and the arrangement really cooks too, with seedy sound effects worming their way around eerie strains of saxophone and cello from part-timers Terry Edwards and Andy Nice, respectively. The piece carries quite a bit of the moody, pensive melancholia that resonated in Staples's brilliantly minimalist score for Denis's vampire-sex cautionary tale "Trouble Every Day," albeit fuller, structured like the mini-symphonies these guys once packaged in bulk.

This all amounts to a supremely satisfying set after a decade of diminishing returns from Staples and crew, reaffirming the band's status as being just about the best at whatever it is you want to call what they do. ("Chamber-pop" was never really inclusive enough, was it?) The "gradual rebuilding" they themselves have said has been taking place finally seems in full effect, and one hopes their sound only keeps getting bigger and more bold from here. Because, as rich and accomplished as the music on The Something Rain is, it never musters the scope of Tindersticks' early run of records—especially the two self-titled double-LPs they put out in '93 and '95. Despite that fact, this is their most substantial set in a while, and it should give Tindersticks the confidence to test their mettle on another double, which signs say would just slay.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Bruce Springsteen (2012)

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 09:41:10 -0500

It’s been 28 years since the Boss released Born in the USA, an album that skewered Reagan-era policies and their inevitable consequences on an already beat-down lower/middle-class economy. Gone were the days of reckless, youthful abandon epitomized by Born to Run; these kids, who grew up thinking a ‘59 Chevy was their ticket out of suburbia, were now stuck working factory jobs, if lucky enough to be employed at all. A life spent pursuing the American dream promised to them had led to the shackles of work, politics, family, and responsibility—one might say inevitable realities. Born in the USA was one of Springsteen’s biggest hits for two reasons: It featured his sound at its most accessible, filled with jangly guitars, warm synths, and snapping drums, and it struck a chord with the disillusioned, something he’d only hinted at on previous records like Nebraska and Darkness on the Edge of Town. Springsteen's latest, Wrecking Ball, is in many ways a redux of Born in the USA, hoping to situate itself as a similar voice of protest and middle-class anger directed at the inexplicable wealth gap in the United States.

This theme couldn’t be more obvious than on opening track “We Take Care of Our Own,” where, overtop a steady kick drum, melodic strings, and a wall of electric guitars, Bruce informs us he’s been “knocking on the door that holds the throne” and “stumbling on good hearts turned to stone.” The whole song is filled with similarly banal attempts at piercing political statements—times have changed, but apparently the recipe for a lackluster, formulaic protest song remains the same. “Death to My Hometown,” a folk-stomper with a Celtic twist, finds Bruce’s gravelly voice lamenting the demise of the small-town way of life—of the simple face-to-face relationships, the family-run corner stores, and the prosperity brought on by keeping jobs in America’s backyard—while the album's title track revels in the same pandering nostalgia, with lyrics meant to evoke a sense of universal communion, but that fall far short due to the weight of the song's clichéd heavy-handedness, and its ever-blatant, leaden thematic conceit.

This all sounds familiar because it is: The Springsteen Guide to Songwriting contains four chapters that outline the interlocking criteria of a certain kind of Boss song. Chapter One: Welcome to 'A Small Town.' Chapter Two: These are the People of 'A Small Town.' Chapter Three: Introduction of the 'Rock and Hard Place' Situation That Burdens the People of 'A Small Town.' And Chapter Four: The Freedom or Continued Restraint That Results from the Struggle to Remove the People of 'A Small Town' from the 'Rock and Hard Place' Situation That Burdens Them. Springsteen and his E Street Band have been pillaging this formula since their formation, and to great success in the early ‘70s and ‘80s. (Hell, even Lucky Town, contender for worst album cover of all time, had some great songwriting moments.) But by now Springsteen's Voice of the Working Class routine is getting tired, veering into territories of the distasteful and disingenuous in its blunt representation of disillusionment in contemporary America.

Springsteen's continued lyrical complacency, more suited for the campaign trail than the cross-country arena tour these days, is a shame in this context because musically, the Boss hasn’t sounded close to this good since 2002’s The Rising. “Easy Money” is flagrant in its back-porch, country slide-guitar appropriation and results in one of the album’s finest cuts. “Jack of All Trades” evokes Civil War pageantry, and even though the lyric sheet is once again underwhelming in its broad caricatures, it at least meshes with the downtrodden aura of defeat and helplessness the arrangement strives to convey.

But it's “This Depression” that may be the only unqualified success on Wrecking Ball. At first the song seems to be yet another one tackling the disparity of wealth distribution in a Post-Katrina, Post-Mortgage Crisis America. But it can crucially also be read as a veiled farewell to the E Street Band's late tenor saxophonist Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, whose final recorded work with the group appears on this record. The arrangement is sparse, with hints of droning guitars, angelic backing vocals, and restrained kit work, allowing Springsteen’s emotional poignancy to hit home, without the unnecessary instrumental bombast. “Baby, I’ve been low/But never this low/I’ve had my faith shaken/But never hopeless,” he sings, the simplicity of the four lines never once detracting from the heaviness of the message they send. For a man who’s always been the voice for the masses he’s now struggling to find the words to accurately convey the thoughts and emotions that are closest to him. Honesty may be a problematic criterion by which to critique music, but there’s something undeniably raw, naked, and uncomfortable about this heartbroken confessional that is, unfortunately, an emotional anomaly on Wrecking Ball.

That said, there is undoubtedly something admirable at the heart of this record, whether that be its good-intentioned call-to-arms or its willingness to work-in different influences (the soulful, hip-hop feel of “Rocky Ground”; the “Ring of Fire”-mariachi bits on closer “We Are Alive”; and the touches of Irish-folk and scattered electronics that crop up elsewhere). As was affirmed by recent appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where the Boss brought unparalleled levels of energy to the stage with every single song he performed, Wrecking Ball clearly packs a punchy, gutsy, and raucous set of tunes. Springsteen sounds reinvigorated, ready to step out from behind the glossy production of some of his most recent releases and once again raise some hell, but Wrecking Ball is too bogged down by its paint-by-numbers lyricism, and it fails to engage in any significant discourse about class struggle and economic disparity, a discourse he’s explored with perspicacious nuance elsewhere all throughout his career.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Estelle (2012)

Tue, 6 Mar 2012 09:37:46 -0500

Estelle is a London-born emcee and pop singer who's ping-ponged between U.S. and U.K. chart-chasing pursuits since around the time of her U.K.-only 2004 debut, The 18th Day. That album's pair of socially-conscious singles, "1980" and "Free," both performed well enough that her then-label, V2, had some expectations for the forthcoming debut—which subsequently hit the charts at number 35, hung there, and soon after resulted in the termination of Estelle's contract. R&B lothario John Legend, having already produced two tracks for 18th Day, soon got wind of Estelle's situation and signed her to his boutique L.A.-based Atlantic subsidiary, Homeschool. Legend then recruited an all-star lineup of well-tested hit-makers (from Will.I.Am and Wyclef Jean to Mark Ronson and Swizz Beatz) to produce tracks for her next project, and four years later, in 2008, Estelle and her collaborators came up with Shine, an immaculately polished sophomore effort filled with many potential singles ready for market.

Not nearly as hip hop-heavy as her debut, Shine nonetheless evidenced improvement. The 12-song set had precious few misfires, and it yielded two devilishly catchy singles—the euro-trash, Kanye West-featuring "American Boy" and the brassy, sassy "Wait a Minute (Just a Touch)," which chopped and screwed a sample of Screamin' Jay Hawkins's "I Put a Spell on You." Estelle's mush-mouth meshed well with the chunky beats—influenced by locked-groove neo-soul to dancehall, even some Motown—and the way she switched-up her sugary chorus flow and her thickly-accented rapping suggested considerable mainstream potential. But Shine didn't have a hot launch in its native U.S.; instead, it caught fire back in the U.K., where "American Boy" spent four weeks at number one. Eventually, the States followed suit, pushing the song into the top 10 and insuring its status as Estelle's most successful (and grossly overplayed) to date. Shine likewise earned due recognition, landing on a few year-end lists and getting shortlisted for the 2008 Mercury Prize, calibrating high expectations for the eventual follow-up.

But the period that’s elapsed between the release of Shine and Estelle's several-times-delayed new one, All of Me, is a tad longer than ideal; it's hard for any pop-star to hold court when they only release an album every four years. Thankfully, the gap has proved Estelle a careful curator of her own work: The stuff that didn't make the final version here—for instance, the David Guetta-produced false-starter single "Freak"—were smart cuts. More admirable still, the title of this new record seemed to suggest something personal, closer in spirit to the introspective 18th Day (which dealt with the near-death experience Estelle's mother endured during childbirth, among other heavy things) than the crowd-pleasing hit-machine that is Shine. All of Me's biggest gambit, a series of spoken-word interludes, testimonials casually addressing love and family matters (with a beat, thank god), also seemed to support this.

That's a neat idea, pretty clearly indebted to what's always seemed Estelle's intended benchmark, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, but a series of spliced together soundbites from other, anonymous sources doesn't quite accomplish the feat of self-expression Estelle may have intended. And the parts of All of Me on which Estelle does assert herself—y'know, the songs—trade in even broader declarations of love found and lost than those on Shine. No one would mistake them for confessionals, and some are just too cute to stomach (even Colbie Caillat might've winced at the bland self-psyching of "Wonderful Life"), but most are feel-goodery-as-balm, the kind of songs Estelle sells exceedingly well. "Back to Love" weights its big, euphoric chorus against sharply-bowed strings and the pulse of vaguely ominous synths, belying the lyrics' comforting sense of contentment, and a handful of evenly distributed, slippery mid-tempo jams find root in the sounds of new-wave and disco. Rapper Rick Ross lends his paranoid bark to the stately "Break My Heart," Janelle Monáe does her James Brown-sans-Y-chromosome vamping all over the somersaulting soul of "Do My Thing," and it all sounds expensive as hell.

These hooks are enough to overlook the gimmicky self-help in the misjudged (and unreasonably plentiful) interludes, but a few proper songs are duds too. Blame my nose-thumbing on his toxic cultural presence at this moment, but even taking that out of the equation the Chris Brown feature on "International (Serious)" carries his usual stink of joyless nasal whining, and the track's club-ready 808s and blaring horns feel at odds with the neighboring cuts' soulful production. Stuttering rap showcase "Speak Ya Mind" isn't as off-putting, but it so blatantly rips off (some, more charitable than myself, might say "samples") Adina Howard's already twice-covered (most memorably by the Sugababes) 1995 R&B hit "Freak Like Me" on the chorus melody that Estelle's formidable switch-hitter rap-singing get a bit overshadowed. Plenty of tracks here could and should get airplay, and Estelle's vocal is improving. But just listen to an early hit like "1980," with its uncompromising account of growing up "in a four bedroom house" with "no heat," "boiling a big pot of water to take a bath”—hard not to wish she'd vocalize some of the same riveting authority over the beats she once couldn't afford.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Cloud Nothings (2012)

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:09:10 -0500

Attack on Memory may be the second official Cloud Nothings full-length, but it’s easier and more accurate to recognize it as an artistic rebirth. When pressed to take his one-man indie-rock bedroom project on the road last year, Dylan Baldi recruited an ad-hoc live band; apparently sensing potential in their on-stage energy, something lying dormant in his songs sprung anew. Invigorated by and confident in their camaraderie, the reconstituted Cloud Nothings approached former Big Black/Shellac frontman Steve Albini to bottle the lightning they had stumbled upon. And it’s that immediacy which defines Attack on Memory, a spiritual commencement down once familiar sonic byways but one which now feels almost alien amidst a synth-addled, emotionally ambiguous independent music landscape.

Opener “No Future/No Past” aptly defines the experience: Attack on Memory feels timeless—in as much as it could have emerged at almost any point during the preceding 30-year indie-rock continuum—but it also plays as resolutely current, as if the bracing energy of the band is being conjured before your ears, in real time, with each successive spin. This is indie-rock in the present tense, joining a lineage of similarly exhilarating, of-the-moment acts whose functionality transcends trend-spotting and calendar year considerations, acts such as Superchunk, Wipers, Sunny Day Real Estate, Walt Mink, Rites of Spring, Jawbreaker, and Archers of Loaf. But in the case of Cloud Nothings Mk 2, it’s not enough to simply point at aesthetic influence—at this point it’s assumed that record collections are anchored by the classics. More importantly, across the tight, chiseled 33-minute advance of Attack on Memory, Baldi’s songwriting consistently evidences a tangible personality, lunging forth with grandly therapeutic exhortations, intimately detailed scenes of personal indictment, and throat-shredding displays of self-conscious comeuppance. Some people used to call this emo.

It’s that easily identifiable persona which ultimately resonates deepest, and it’s to the band’s credit that they sought the services of Mr. Albini, who, per tradition, leaves his collaborators uncommonly exposed and vulnerable, close-mic’ing Baldi’s vocals while freeing them from the reverb used as a crutch on past Cloud Nothings recordings. The results are immediately apparent in the triumphant build of the somehow simultaneously compact and epic “No Future/No Past,” which escalates methodically, slowly adding riffs and fills to its gathering piano and bass melody before Baldi ignites the band into a mantra-like pronouncement of the titular epithet. This thesis statement soon yields to an even bolder employment of the ideal with “Wasted Days,” an expansive, nine-minute Youth of America-nodding onslaught of circular guitar motifs and headlong percussion. The lyrics are stripped, basic admissions: “I know my life’s not gonna change”; “I thought I would be more than this”; “Getting tired of living ‘til I die.” But amidst the churning maelstrom, Baldi imbues these adolescent trappings with real sentiment, selling universal feelings as if he’s the only one in the world to ever feel useless.

And the straight pop moves have made the transition in tact as well. “Fall In” is one of the year’s most immediate, anthemic sing-a-longs, filling a void that Oxford Collapse left free for the taking after splitting a couple years back, while “Stay Useless” vividly captures that lonely feeling of youthful transience, the ever-fluctuating insouciance that imbues the most negligible but seemingly vital moments of teenage life. When Baldi’s voice stretches to reach a range he only wished he had with his final declaration of “I need tiii-I-ime,” you’ll know instantly if this stuff is hardwired into your DNA or simply juvenilalia given an amplifier. It’s a similar approach he takes to much more intense lengths on “No Sentiment,” the album’s heaviest and most throughly enervated track. Atop an appropriately thundering low-end march, Baldi throws down a proud, liberating manifesto: “No nostalgia/No sentiment/We’re over it now/We were over it then/We forget what you do/We don’t care what we lose.” It would play as strictly ignorant if Baldi didn’t sound so self-consciously secure with this attitude—or if the band didn’t provoke Baldi with such a powerful, engulfing instrumental bedlam.

The final two tracks, however, are what have kept me returning to Attack on Memory so consistently over the last couple months. Both “Our Plans” and “Cut You” are the record’s most melodically and thematically complex songs, and after the more turbulent waters that the preceding two tracks swim in, they work as a cognizant reestablishment of interpersonal and potentially physical consequence. The former is one of the few times on this record that we find Baldi looking past the immediacy of the moment, however tentatively, and there’s a tinge of foreboding as he sings, “No one knows our plans for us/It won’t be long.” The latter, meanwhile, is easily the most outwardly emotional track of the set, and one that skirts perilously close to blood-letting over-commitment (“Can he be as mean as me?/Can he cut you in your sleep?”). It probably wouldn’t work anywhere else on Attack on Memory, and any more tracks like it would simply offer too much disclosure, but on the final track the couplet jabs with a bitterness and entitlement anyone who’s ever experienced just a tinge of jealousy can identify with.

Most importantly, moments like these lend Attack on Memory a critical sense of repercussion. Not only have Cloud Nothings and Albini paired the band’s sound down to its most essential elements, but Baldi's brought an equal urgency and earnest, palpable strain of growing confidence as a songwriter. It’s all unexpectedly added up to a band now greater than the sum of its constituent parts and, more excitingly for listeners burnt out on obfuscation and ambiguity, the year’s first great indie-rock record.

Review by: Jordan Cronk

Sleigh Bells (2012)

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:07:48 -0500

Treats, the 2010 debut album from Sleigh Bells, caught on with a fresh-faced crowd hungry for something to come along and seismically shift the norm of the mild-mannered indie music landscape. It’s unabashed appropriation of late ‘90s rap-metal and ‘80s tinged hair metal spoke to the postmodern consumption and regurgitation of images, trends, and fashions while also touting some serious riffage. There was something raw and grating about their debut that seemed to breathe new life into multiple tired and cliché genres. Treats was “fuck the hegemony” music for the white, middle-class suburban kids who, ironically, were also eating up everything Vampire Weekend put out.

A lot of the in-your-face brashness of Treats is inexplicably left behind on Sleigh Bells sophomore release, Reign of Terror. Sure, we get titles like “True Shred Guitar,” “Crush,” and “Road to Hell,” but in between their breakout success and touring with Diplo, Sleigh Bells lost some of their bite. “True Shred Guitar” is a promising start, with its live stadium intro and heavily distorted power chords showing off the same anthemic noise of their previous album. “Born to Lose,” the album’s strongest track, follows with similar reward, a screeching guitar providing the noisy introduction, grounded by an infectious and menacing machine gun burst of processed snares and toms. Alexis Krauss delivers her nihilistic tale of suicide with an unaffected, mild falsetto, the contrast between form and subject matter creating an unsettling mesh of glossy pop hooks and a dark, introspective exploration of angst. “Leader of the Pack,” another standout, uses explosive, compressed percussion and spiking guitars to add necessary dread to what can be seen as a pseudo-sequel to the Shangri-Las original of the same name.

Most of the fun ends there though. For the rest, Sleigh Bells fluctuate between tired attempts at more melodic sensibilities while transforming into a sad imitation of themselves. If Treats was the sonic realization of a postmodern world filled with fleeting images, instant commentary, and club culture angst, then Reign of Terror is the glorified, messy pastiche, the next step in the cannibalistic cycle where every trend and fresh start devolves into a parody of itself. “Comeback Kid” tries to hit the same high as “Born to Lose,” but its relatively mellow vocal take and dreamy refrain fail to hit the mark. “End of the Line” unfolds with a similar structure and melody as Treats’ “Rill Rill,” but the restrained approach to the arrangement (not to mention lack of a Funkadelic sample or anything comparatively memorable) and Krauss’s warped vocal turn it into a complacent nonstarter. Though some restraint could be a welcome addition to Sleigh Bells’ arsenal of studio and live show tricks, there’s little on Reign of Terror to suggest the band has much capability in exploring nuance and subtlety. Yet they try to force it, cramming gentle pop hooks into their hyper-compressed aesthetic, resulting in a style that doesn’t suit the band’s once aggressive approach to songwriting and composition.

What’s left by album’s end is a messy, incoherent, and only occasionally entertaining collection of new material that’s misguided in its attempt to lean towards the more accessible hook, rather than simply embracing their discordant tendencies. Whereas Treats was a fresh, albeit scattered, jolt of power—like swallowing three packages of Pop Rocks then chugging a two liter bottle of Coke—Reign of Terror is the crash that comes after the sugar high—restrained, tired, and filled with regret.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Gretchen Peters (2012)

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:04:32 -0500

While not much of a name herself, Gretchen Peters sure has written for some: Patty Loveless, Martina McBribe, Trisha Yearwood, and plenty of other country mainstays have her to thank for some of their most vivid story-songs. Born in Bronxville, New York, but based in Nashville for much of her career like so many uncommonly gifted wordsmiths, Peters first struck out on her own in 1996, recording her underwhelming debut as a solo artist, a chintzy pop album most notable for its title track ("The Secret Life"), which would be turned into a major country hit by Faith Hill some years later. The last two decades have brought over a half-dozen more solo albums in Peters's name, but it wasn't until 2007's lengthy Burnt Toast and Offerings that she began to mine the appropriate sonic template for her distinctive song-craft. That album's density of production techniques, heavy subject matter, and, unfortunately, stubborn refusal of accessibility sometimes made it a chore. But with standouts like the sparse, sweetly melodic opener "Ghost" and the gorgeous "Jezebel," a showcase for character-specific songwriting at its most affecting, Peters seemed to be developing a personality worth parsing.

Hello Cruel World arrives at an even richer distillation of that established formula, emphasizing a southern gothic style of country-inflected Americana far removed from the studio gloss of her early work—and just enough from the rustic sound of Burnt Toast. The first-person narration she emphasized on that album does persist here, but it's used less to communicate the intricacies of internalized conflict than to share the dark curiosities observed in the surrounding world. In other words, this record is populated by some of the most character-driven pieces Peters has ever penned for herself: The stone-hearted male lover rhapsodized over in "The Matador" (replete with sighing accordion, a gently picked acoustic guitar, and Spanish-accented shakers) finds his boozing female counterpart in the jazzy vamp "Camille" (co-written by '80s starlet Suzy Boggus and the brilliant Matraca Berg, another Nashville treasure known more for the hits she's written for others than the ones she's sung herself). And the album's title-track gracefully establishes the melancholic/determined dynamic that flows through the rest of the record, its cavalcade of self-wallowing ("I'm damaged goods") balanced out by a purposeful arrangement—the sassy strut of an electric guitar, sharply struck keys, and string parts Jon Brion could've wrote.

The people who populate Hello Cruel World are on the ropes in life, if not on the outs entirely, but they're given such resolve in Peters's achingly emotive voice that their stories inspire. The best example of this is "Woman on the Wheel," the most uptempo thing I can recollect Peters recording, finding a sweet-spot in the space between alt-country and chugging adult-contemporary rock. The song brilliantly transmutes the trials of circus performers as metaphor for the mixed blessings Peters has grappled with in her industry, as well the relative anonymity of her recognition, though none of this ever comes off cynical or self-important (wise move giving it the hardest guitars and drums on the album). Nowhere else does this album kick out the jams, but the slow ones reward in their way too: They possess narrative acuity ("Idlewild" can be likened to the best location-specific work of Lucinda Williams) or uncharacteristically ear-wormy melodies ("Natural Disaster," a deceptively bouncy song relating personal to environmental duress), and more often than not, both at once. Even the most subdued songs here offer the thrill and catharsis of meeting challenges head on, affirming the strength of one's convictions in the process. Peters has always done this, and Hello Cruel World represents the bounty of her constant dedication.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Lana Del Rey (2012)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:43:10 -0500

What do you do with a problem like Lana Del Rey? It's tempting to review the reams of repugnant criticism written about this lightning rod artist, rather than the music itself, and a bit necessary too: Lana's accelerated rise has been a kind of cultural phenomenon of the moment, refracting all that's wrong with music criticism, and the prominent sexual biases in the media more generally. These things need to be recognized and engaged with for any writing on Lana Del Rey to be relevant in the least.

Lana is a unique figure in contemporary pop music; her loopy songs, mini string-drenched melodramas of fame and fall, are filtered through skittering hip-hop beats and sung in a slippery, amateur vocal betraying a fondness for the theatrical, while adopting more cadences than Nicki Minaj. Every one of these idiosyncrasies make Lana a prime target for ridicule—as does her naïve public persona, either an accurate reflection of the artist or of the character(s) to whom she's giving voice. Her songs promote this attitude, their coquettish delinquency playing up a classicist dichotomy of good girl/bad boy attraction, leaning into cliché with a willful numbness. There's a theme to this, and it registers with our basest, most adolescent fears, desires, and vices. That level of engagement doesn't require a lot of intellectual agency to be compelling, and the guilty-pleasure divisiveness of this music, coupled with several sloppy television appearances exposing Lana's very limited vocal range, has prompted investigation, the need for fans to understand more about the young woman behind this austere, full-lipped visage.

Here's what the sleuths found: Those lips of Lana's? They weren't so full back in 2009, when the then-unknown was playing gigs in Williamsburg under real name Lizzy Grant, an incarnation which yielded an album posted and subsequently pulled from iTunes when it failed to catch fire. Even more insipidly gossipy? Lana's billing as an 'independent' artist was likely a big old fib; major label money seems to have had this girl's back for a while, and the indie kids, quick to adopt her as their own, swooning for viral twosome "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans," balked predictably at the realization they'd been duped.

And sure, you attempt something as calculating as Lana pulled, you best be ready for the backlash. What you shouldn't have to expect is the kind of whore complex that's colored much of this outrage. The fixation on Lana's image, on her fucking collagen injections, is troubling, not just because it's patently absurd for anyone, in 2012, to be offended by an artist tweaking her image for sake of marketability, but because of the blatantly sexist overtones of these objections. The expectations burdening this peculiar chanteuse hit on a very unique set of contradictions, one where the unfair demands we place on women—be sexy but not slutty, be fun but not dumb—meet the elitist criterion of the typical indie music fan, who tends to prize authenticity as the ultimate measure of quality. What's often lost in all this is acknowledgment of the territory Lana actually occupies, and not coincidentally, most excels in.

Lana is through-and-through a pop artist, and her new album, Born to Die, delivers very successfully as a send-up of popular culture in an accessible package, self-aware enough to engage with its own frivolity, tuneful enough to keep it afloat even when it's not as clever as it probably thinks it's being. Its twenty-five-year-old auteur is strikingly fresh, if not exactly virtuosic in any sense, which is still more than can be said of quite a lot of pop stars well deserving of their place in the pantheon.

The opening gambit of Born to Die, from the deliciously self-referential title track to the singular "Video Games," and on through the final moments of the big, brash "National Anthem," is about as strong as anything I'll hear this year, assured in its craft and its vision, packed with odd but evocative quotables and a complex take on femininity rarely spotlighted in popular music. "Off to the Races" alone—a mercurial May-December romance—throws so many things at us, musically and lyrically, but remains a completely coherent story, grounded by a rich, endless stream of images and character details. Even its one seemingly egregious couplet ("Light of my life/Fire of my loins") is also kind of funny.

And funny is key here. You can take these big, swooning songs, like "National Anthem," wherein the narrator insists her boyfriend pledge allegiance to her like a union jack, as deadeningly self-serious, or you can recognize the levity, the buoyancy of these half-giggled, decadent love songs. These are the kinds of tunes Lana understands and sells; sometimes, almost unpredictably, she'll nail something like the hushed, weirdly affecting melancholy of "Video Games," but usually it's the more restrained songs that get a bit lost, drowning in a dense production wonderland of strings and beats and overdubs.

"Dark Paradise" is one of these latter efforts, its gorgeously baroque arrangement and Lana's compellingly bleak lyrics trampled on by a misjudged four-to-the-floor beat. "Carmen" is another offender, if an interesting one: Lana's most complicated melody needed more room to breathe than all the whooping synths allow for, and the vocal being so buried in the mix doesn't help things either. The production on Born to Die's second side suffocates more often than it empowers, but a trio of highlights overcomes this asphyxia. "Radio" is Lana's catchiest song, and her sexiest ("pick me up and take me like a vitamin" might be her hottest lyric to date); "Million Dollar Man" is a dead-ringer for Fiona Apple, at her most vaudevillian camp; and the unexpectedly poignant slow-burn of "This Is What Makes Us Girls" positions itself as a nice thesis, and a hangover resulting from the record's many excesses.

The worst that can really be said of Born to Die is that it's too eager to please, which is a weird thing to get from an album arriving amidst such controversy. But the takeaway should be that Lana is an exceptionally distinctive songwriter, a uniquely feminine voice ready to indulge a whole range of impulses to get at the sadness, humor, and curiosity that draws her to her themes. If all the hate surrounding Born to Die leads to it becoming a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy for its author, well, that would be a real shame—and honestly, it would say even more about us than it does about her.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Sharon Van Etten (2012)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:41:51 -0500

It’s all too tempting to read Sharon Van Etten’s young discography as an autobiographical arc of love, love lost, acceptance, and, eventually, redemption. There’s a piercing poignancy to much of her lyricism on 2009’s Because I Was in Love, offset by the more robust arrangements on her sophomore release Epic, that makes her work particularly ripe for mythologizing. Though autobiographical context can never be removed (and, arguably, shouldn’t be) from the critical evaluation of a given work, there’s something to be said about the way Tramp works as an insular piece of music, separated from all the historiography. Stripped of the myth, it’s a heavy, focused record that sees Van Etten emerging from her singer-songwriter confines with a renewed sense of purpose and an invigorating creative vision.

Opener “Warsaw” kicks things off with jangly rhythm guitar, gritty harmonics, and a punchy, bass drum-heavy foundation. “I want to be over you/I want to show you” Van Etten croons, signaling the aforementioned redemption. She sheds the more melodramatic delivery of her earlier records for a pronounced mumble-and-snarl vocal take, embodying the scorned and the aggressive, blues-tinged songstress all in one. It’s when Van Etten pushes her boundaries—vocally, sonically—that Tramp is at its best. “Serpents” slithers into being with a calm but unnerving wall of drone, Van Etten’s layered vocals and harmonies eventually rising above the grungy din. Again, she hits home with a pointed barb aimed at the insecurities that come with letting one’s guard down: “You enjoy sucking on dreams/So I will fall asleep/With someone other than you.” “I Was a Child” is menacing in its laborious sonic crawl, the reverb-heavy guitars and sparse percussive never reaching an understand consensus, made all the more present by Van Etten’s neglect of any hook or significant chorus. Instead, it plays like a freewheeling sermon, a moment of purging in the form of an improvisational poem.

Much of Tramp revels in what resembles a post-rock influence, building momentum from simple riffs and a few chord changes before exploding into crescendos filled with harmonies, crashing percussion, and more than a few stellar guitar solos. “All I Can” shuffles without much dynamism, but allows Van Etten to show off her vocal acrobatics, swirling, dipping, and diving through the track. And though much of this record benefits from Van Etten’s move toward a fusion of garage-rock, blues, and a more polished incarnation of her established indie-rock formula, the more subtle moments are equally enticing. “We Are Fine” is evocative in its use of piano, tambourine, and strings, complemented by a wonderful guest spot from Beirut’s Zach Condon—his deep voice adding another layer to Van Etten’s careful harmonic structure. And album closer “Joke or a Lie” suggests, thematically, the optimism of a fresh start: Heady atmospherics hum in the background while a gently picked acoustic guitar provides the occasional sense of rhythm and melody, Van Etten’s voice ringing out with a calm resilience, an acceptance that despite the rough seas that have come before, there might be peaceful waters ahead.

There’s a tension at work on Tramp that's been hinted at, but never fully explored on each of this artist's strong previous albums. Van Etten has often wanted for the honesty that comes with being an introspective singer-songwriter, but without all the genre trappings that burden such a label, and on that score Tramp is her finest work to date, successfully excavating and reconciling the complexities brought on by mining a personal history without delving into maudlin and clichéd tropes. Instead of being a laundry list of tracks about the emancipation that eventually follows a period of broken heartedness, Tramp is an existential journey more about examining one’s own faults, misconceptions, and preconceptions—not wallowing in self-pity. It’s a remarkable record that knows when to shred, when to cry, and when to just say “fuck it” and indulge in one’s own sense of self-empowerment.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

The Big Pink (2012)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:39:15 -0500

Though the Big Pink's 2009 debut, A Brief History of Love, failed to make a lasting impression, it was difficult to deny the appeal of its monster lead single, “Dominos.” With a song as ubiquitous as that, a band doesn’t need a great album to have a big year. But that’s not to say the group’s first effort was a complete wash; the thickly layered guitar, drum, and synthesizer attack from newcomers Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell couldn't entirely sustain an album of mediocre songs, but there were moments of inspiration throughout, and the duo’s towering confidence won them fervent support, along with plenty of criticism—either way, people were paying attention. A couple years later, and with only a vague foundation, it would take at least another hit single to catch our interest again. Unfortunately, with Future This, the Big Pink effectively squanders an opportunity to solidify their career, leaving listeners with a mostly unexceptional rock album that contains too few ideas to make a splash in 2012. The duo still deals in equal parts earnestness and volume, but somehow Future This is remarkably flat in spite of the bombast. The hopeful “Stay Gold” makes a serviceable, if unremarkable opener, but it just goes through the band's previously established motions, while “Hit the Ground (Superman)” starts promisingly, then falls flat with a chorus that becomes nearly unbearable by the second pass. Despite the handful of interesting bits and pieces here—the dark, pulsing beat of “Give It Up” or the messy distortion and incessant drums that propel “1313”—almost nothing coalesces into a song substantive enough to stay in your head for very long. More often than not, however, it’s the lyrics that undermine any potential these tunes might've had—an uninspired roll call of cliches and stupidly grand declarations that you might let slide for a song or two, but not when they’re shouted at you for 45 minutes. What's most frustrating about Future This is the Big Pink’s seeming inability to recognize their own strengths, or perhaps just their refusal to play to them. The duo have smoothed over the rougher edges of their sound, pushed the vocals front and center, and found many blandly uplifting lyrical motifs to indulge—essentially removing every element that made them even slightly interesting to start with. At best this is a step back from A Brief History of Love; but it’s probably more accurate to say Future This is a noisy, needlessly complicated mess. A few competently executed tunes surely aren’t enough to prevent this album from wearing out its welcome well before its 10 songs are through—Furze and Cordell will have their work cut out for them if they hope to return to the spotlight with effort number three.

Review by: Chris Nowling

Kathleen Edwards (2012)

Wed, 8 Feb 2012 03:04:47 -0500

For the last ten years, peaking with 2008's Asking for Flowers, Kathleen Edwards has been closing in on the album of her life. Her 2003 debut Failer and 2005's Back to Me—and the earlier, rare EP better than both—showcased a songwriter with a still-developing voice and shades of a whole range of greats (Lucinda Williams, Neil Young, even a bit of Roseanne Cash). This was someone who might be primed to be alt-country's Next Big Thing, if she could hone in on a specific thing. Flowers, then, was a step in a promising direction: Edwards's first album of any substantial weight, with a handful of standouts that evolved beyond her soft-spoken folk formula. The years since brought slow-burn acclaim and anticipation for an eventual follow-up, time Edwards has spent refining new material in a live setting.

One of these shows, an intimate little beach bar gig I caught in the summer of 2009, transcended the expectations usually afforded contemporary americana: Edwards pushed her limited vocal range into the red and her band kept the energy high, breaking only for the requisite, sparingly deployed slow song. In performance, each of the new ones, slow and otherwise, seemed a keeper: the ebbing, bluesy "Mint," the economical pop of "Sidecar," and especially "Going to Hell," its narrative touching on the outlaw attraction Edwards nursed on a pair of strong album openers ("Six O'Clock News," "In State"), trading tired literalism for a more playful ambiguity. If she could channel all the verve and cleverness of that memorable set into the next record, I thought then, she'd really have something.

But quite a lot's changed for Edwards since that summer—she's divorced one collaborator and taken up with another. The ex is Back to Me producer Colin Cripps, who may also be the Canadian to whom the lead-off track on her new album, Voyageur, is addressed. The song's called "Empty Threat," but that might be a lie; its catchy taunt of a chorus ("I'm moving to America") finds adversary in the counterpoint of that titular refrain, and the way Edwards growls the long, nagging vowel. The singer is playing it a bit coy here; she's spent an awful lot of time in America over the last year, at some point involving herself both professionally and romantically with Justin Vernon, the man behind Indiedome's beloved Bon Iver project. There's no way of knowing exactly what chunk of Voyageur can be blamed on the co-producer credit Vernon's been given (shared, for the first time, with Kathleen). In fact, Edwards herself stressed her desire to have someone "fuck her shit up," and Vernon's done right by that request.

These two artists' styles don't jibe at all. Flowers was more produced than either of the albums that came before it, a departure of a kind, but it still focused foremost on lyrics; the few phrases one can make out through Vernon's fogged-over songs are frequently terrible. Edwards's previous albums, and her modest touring efforts, have built steadily on a relationship with a core group of musicians who've been able to give her delicate songs shape and definition; Voyageur is all about atmosphere, something that smacks of an insecure songwriter turning to sonics as a crutch. The minor tragedy in all this is that the album happens to also consist of some of the best songs Edwards has ever written—songs often reduced to wet noodle variations of their live-lier counterparts. On that score, "Going to Hell" is the worst offender, an up-tempo rocker in performance, here a wispy whisper of a song. Maybe that isn't quite as tragic to those who've never been exposed to the hard-hitting original, but consider that this downshift doesn't even make sense: the chorus lyric, "I'm going to hell/In a basket I made," should be anthemic, it should be shouted with indignation; instead, we get bicycle horns and Bon Iver moans.

"Going to Hell" is, regardless of the form its taken, still one of Edwards's most sharply written songs. That means it's a far cry better than this album's absolute nadir. Wallowing in bathos, "For the Record" is Voyageur at its most over-determined and dirge-y, seven plodding minutes of polite mid-tempo progression and the tritest lyrical turns ("For the record/I only wanted to sing songs"), with various allusions to crosses and dying. The church organ that bleeds in about halfway through should confirm how embarrassingly self-serious Voyageur's trying to be—and if not, the lack of any kind of climax over the song's dull duration will. (At least the penultimate track of Asking for Flowers, "Goodnight, California," builds.) Edwards's slow ones can be captivating—and I adore "House Full of Empty Rooms," as delicate as her singing's ever been on record—but the cluster distributed pretty much evenly throughout here near-uniformly forgoes a rhythm track, and constantly stalls any sense of pace.

Edwards, the songwriter, comes through well enough on Voyageur, and what she's seemed to have picked up from Vernon isn't entirely detrimental to her development as a record-maker (the pop-gloss on "Sidecar," and especially "Change the Sheets," suit both songs impeccably). The issue is all the songs given much more than they need, and the handful that aren't as good as the rest to begin with. A good four years' wait between albums shouldn't result in something this tentative, this wholly unmemorable.

Review by: Sam C. Mac

Guided by Voices (2012)

Wed, 8 Feb 2012 02:41:16 -0500

Exactly seven years passed between the date of Guided by Voices' last show (New Year’s Eve, 2004) and the January 1st, 2012 release of their reunion album, Let’s Go Eat the Factory. During that time, GBV leader and man of a thousand songs Robert Pollard released approximately 95 albums either on his own or with new bands and past collaborators, the individual details of which I doubt even Pollard recalls. So forgive me if GBVs reunion feels…not exactly anticlimactic—I saw the band perform late last year for the very first time and it was one of the great festival experiences of my life—but certainly inevitable in relation to the rate of Pollard’s continued output. That’s not to take away from the importance of this reformation; it is, after all, a reunion of the band’s “classic line-up,” the one responsible for a string of the best indie-rock albums of the mid-‘90s, from roughly 1992's Propeller to 1996's studio debut Under the Bushes Under the Stars. So just to reiterate: Out of Pollard’s dozens upon dozens of interim releases, I listened to maybe four and, perhaps more tellingly, don’t feel like I missed all that much. Let’s Go Eat the Factory, by contrast, was one of my most anticipated records of the new year.

In light of all this, the new Guided by Voices album arrived and satisfied in the manner I more or less assumed it always would. After all, when you put two of the greatest guitar-pop songwriters of all time in a room together—those two being Pollard and his band’s not-so-secret weapon Tobin Sprout—magic’s bound to materialize one way or another. But if we’re being honest, the songs on here own don’t threaten to shake the GBV canon in any significant way. What this record does feature, however, that much of Pollard’s recent work—and the twilight era of the last GBV incarnation—doesn’t, are the intangibles: The energy, the drunken camaraderie, the shorthand interplay and the charmingly amateurish chops that only these five can muster when forced to co-exist. It may seem incidental, but it’s enough to put over a handful of Factory’s 21 tracks that don’t otherwise leave much of an impression.

The album also nicely retains the collage-like structuring that those mid-‘90s records made such a virtue of: Songs range from 35 seconds to over four minutes and, as always, length doesn’t precipitate quality or disclose a lack of ideas. Highlights are generously if haphazardly spread throughout, the lo-fi touch and scattershot sequencing revealing a spiritual connection to the band’s roots even as theirs feels like the most natural, unpretentious artistic process imaginable. So if it sounds like Pollard could write most of these songs in his sleep, well, he probably did. But you know what? If it took this group of guys at this particular moment in time to flesh out and animate stuff like lead single “The Unsinkable Fats Domino” or the goofily ingratiating “Doughnut for a Snowman” or the purely anthemic “God Loves Us,” then not only was it worth the wait but it also bodes well for future bouts of inspiration (this being GBV, they already have a second reunion record scheduled for March of this year).

Two very different characteristics, however, help Factory stick out from its predecessors, and each toward different qualitative ends. For one thing, this is GBVs most experimental album in quite a while—possibly ever, but most certainly with this line-up. Droning string parts, dissonant breakdowns, and a comparatively patient approach toward integrating these elements into their little kicks-worthy indie-rock mark this as a surprisingly exhausting listen at barely over 41 minutes. Some of it works, most of it doesn’t, but it evidences a band with more on their mind than nostalgia. More importantly, scattered amidst these digressions and Pollard’s typically cheeky British Invasion poses are a handful of Tobin Sprout’s best songs to date. Traditionally a sneakily unassuming foil to Pollard’s more demonstrative antics, Sprout steps out with perhaps the record’s most melodic tracks; “Spiderfighter,” “Who Invented the Sun,” “Waves,” and “The Things That Never Need” are alternately sprawling, tight, complex, and modest, and together they add a dimension that no other incarnation of GBV could ever hope to match.

So if Factory’s ultimately an album more for the devout fans than the curious ones (and to the curious, if you’ve read this far: go buy a copy of Bee Thousand and then burn the rest of your record collection—it won’t be needed), it’s also an encouraging sign that Pollard’s inspiration is still capable of being temporarily bottled and packaged for those who’ve shined on through his deluge of solo and collaborative material. Above all else, you just can’t replicate the energy that these five guys can produce when given a bottle of brown liquor, a 4-track, and a live mic. All their messy tangents and blinding fits of inspiration may have inevitably made it onto Let’s Go Eat the Factory, but in all its inconsistent glory, it’s truer to the spirit of Guided by Voices than anything bearing the name since this line-up’s original dissolution. And by those standards, it’s not only satisfying, but a small scale success.

Review by: Jordan Cronk

Gonjasufi (2012)

Wed, 8 Feb 2012 02:38:44 -0500

Though he may not be generating the same amount of hype and interest, Sumach Ecks (aka Gonjasufi) has as much mythology in his backstory as blogger-friendly personalities Tyler, the Creator and Lana Del Rey combined. Ecks’s eclectic past as a DJ, rapper, and yoga instructor all manage to inform the chaotic universe of his music—and the hints of reggae, blues, dub, jungle, electronica, and countless other genres all converged (with a little help from the Gaslamp Killer and Flying Lotus) on his excellent 201o debut, A Sufi and a Killer. This year’s Mu.Zz.Le, a brief, 10-song mini-LP, continues in a similar tradition of whacked-out, R&B-tinged psychedelia, and though it may not be a hefty offering, there’s plenty to satisfy newcomers and those yearning for as much mystical Gonja material as they can get. It's noticeably more atmospheric than its predecessor, reveling in a deep bass, gloomy sound with a heavy dose of tape-hiss and ghostly feedback. “Feedin’ Birds” is sparse in its production and arrangement, with scattered percussion, a simple two-chord guitar progression, and Ecks’ raspy vocal, which serves as layered instruments more than conveyor of lyrical poignancy. “Rubberband” is similar, though with a more kinetic feel; the elasticity and sinewy nature of the piece the sonic manifestation of the track’s title. Ecks pushes his heavy, trip-hop drums right to the very front of the mix, overloading the low-end, hiding its descending Casio line in the background while muffling the vocal take.

Unlike Gonjasufi's debut, where sonic deterioration never overwhelmed melodic sensibility, Mu.Zz.Le takes great pride in creating dissonance, in breaking down structures and shifting rhythms. And while the head-bobbing familiarity of a track like “Kowboyz & Indians” or the joyful Beatles-esque piano of “She Gone” from A Sufi and a Killer are surely missed, it doesn’t take away from the ultimate artistic vision concretely in place here. In its brief 24-minute runtime, this record manages to twist, churn and eventually mutate generic expectations with a confident swagger. The breakbeat drums and found-sound samples throughout “Nikels and Dimes” warp the deceivingly simple R&B track into an ethereal, chilling musing on poverty, while “Skin” wobbles within the traditional improvisational dub style of King Tubby. Ecks, like a Tribe Called Quest and others before them, consistently shows that he has an ear for blending his deep bass rhythms in a long line of African aural traditions with a more modern focus on sonic corrosion. As a result, Mu.Zz.Le manages to sound both futuristic and wholly primal all at once, evoking a guttural rawness alongside its trippy, psychedelic headspace. While last year’s 9th Inning EP was a mostly forgettable resurfacing of Gonjasufi’s pre-debut recordings, this mini-album serves as a distinct encapsulation of Ecks’s kaleidoscopic vision of past and present influences, while serving to push that same vision forward into new and consistently innovative territories.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

The Roots (2011)

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:47:10 -0500

Undun, the latest from hip-hop legends the Roots, is the group's most complex, effortless, and frankly greatest disc to date. It tells the tale of fictional Redford Stephens, counterclockwise—beginning with his death and leading to his tipping point, all the while examining the various socioeconomic issues that face much of society. The album's ten proper songs are followed by a stunning four-track instrumental coda. The vocal portion kicks off with the hymn-like "Dun" and "Sleep," riding an emotional crescendo (again, backwards) from resigned regret to desperate frenzy. Like the Roots' previous album, How I Got Over, each track blends seamlessly into the next: the slow, soulful "Sleep" and "Make My" lead to the pained frustration of "One Time" and "Kool On," which then engender the anger and anguish of "The OtherSide" and "Stomp." And the hopeless, trapped cries of "Lighthouse," "I Remember" and "Tip the Scale" intuitively carry us into Undun's instrumental epilogue, and Redford's eulogy. When it's all said and done we're taken from Redford's physical death to the moment that ensured his demise, all with the deft assurance of a band at their best. And the Roots really have never done it better, mixing and matching soul, funk, hip-hop and rock. Questlove's drums are the backbone as usual, complimented by harmonic piano and guitar work that ranges from pensive to electrifying. Production-wise, the album peaks with the trio of "Kool On," "The OtherSide," and "Stomp," highlighting between them a haunting gospel sample and raw, rhythmic energy. Principle emcee Black Thought's storytelling skills rival those of Kool G Rap, and his imagery is like that of a brilliant novelist. Through his guidance the listener becomes immersed in the world of Redford; the tribulations of the ghetto are painted vividly by this great emcee. The features are strong as well, but outside Big K.R.I.T., whose moving take on materialism on "Make My" ("In the world of night terrors, it's hard to dream/They yellin', 'Cash rules everything'") is a major highlight, no one outshines Thought. In a year dominated by diluted hip-hop—top selling records include a codeine-addled pop album and a glorified R&B one—Undun humbles the game.

Review by: Chris Colao

Miranda Lambert (2011)

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:45:52 -0500

It's been a fallback line on the mainstream country circuit for a while now that Miranda Lambert is essentially the evil twin of "American Idol" sweetheart Carrie Underwood. Born precisely eight months apart, the singers are possessed of the same blonde kewpie-doll features, the same reality-television background (Lambert came third on the genre-specific 'Idol' knockoff "Nashville Star," proving once more that the public can be trusted to buy commercial artists, but not find them), and the same robust vocal approach, all surface similarities that Lambert punches through with strident imperfections: her arms tattooed with six-shooter guns where Underwood's are draped with Vuitton handbags, her faintly nasal voice twangily running into emotional crevices where Underwood's proficiently ticks off the octaves. Lambert's carved the same feisty-heartland-chick persona that Underwood's handlers settled on for her malleable image, but with more Method intensity and fewer Jesus songs. This is a woman who titled her second album Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in the first person, and wasn't being cute.

The cover art of Lambert's fourth album, the regrettably titled Four the Record, would appear to be the conclusive punchline in the Carrie/Miranda (where are Samantha and Charlotte?) parallel. Standing nonchalantly beside a burning sports car in the desert, the singer appears to be slyly referencing Underwood's tame woman-scorned crossover hit "Before He Cheats": "Carrie may take a Louisville slugger to your windscreen," her stern expression seems to say, "but I'll set your car on fire with you inside it." It's that combination of deranged conviction and self-assured wit that has made Lambert, across three superbly scabrous albums, the most compelling performer in contemporary country music.

So it's a surprise to find that the album inside this bolshy sleeve is actually Lambert's most well-behaved and least purposeful to date. As expertly produced and winningly delivered on a track-by-track basis as its predecessors, it's nonetheless the first where her personality feels tempered, workshopped even, as it covers a disparate range of country subgenres from glossy pop balladry to rootsy back-porch jamming. In fine voice and often loopily charismatic in spite of herself, she slots gamely into any of these molds, but the sense is one of tests being passed rather than creative urges being exercised: if the goal of Four the Record is to establish Lambert as the all-purpose queen of country, and no longer her rebellious little sister (recently given the side project of Lambert's kicky, retro-leaning girl group Pistol Annie), it's a ruthlessly successful record.

Not coincidentally, Four the Record is the Miranda Lambert album the singer had the least hand in writing herself. Fewer than half the tracks here are Lambert compositions, and if her tunesmiths and cover versions alike have been judiciously chosen—it's an album rich in warm melodies and cocky hooks—we've lost the consistency and specificity of feeling that made Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and, most recently, Revolution near-concept albums. Her writers sometimes work hard at channeling her trademark spiky sensibility: opening track "All Kinds of Kinds" spits in the face of red-state America with its blasé observations of pill-popping moms and cross-dressing congressmen (one wonders what her gay-baiting hubby Blake Shelton makes of that), while the frenetic kiss-off "Mama's Broken Heart" embraces her earthy, been-around charms, but they've calculated everything but her singularity. Let your mind wander, and she sounds a tad like the Dixie Chicks, a smidge like playful, '90s-era Sheryl Crow—on the squawky, guitar-licked strut of "Fine Tune," she even does a damn fine Karen O—but it's still on her own songs that she sounds most securely, and most infectiously, like herself.

When Lambert hits that groove, however, she's matchless. Lead single "Baggage Claim" is a slick but ferocious Nashville stomp, as propulsive and ill-tempered as "Gunpowder and Lead" or "Kerosene," and proudly indulging her taste as a lyricist for affectingly blunt metaphor. (The "baggage" isn't just on the airport carousel, geddit?) "Safe" is a swooping mid-tempo ballad that blows up her scratched yodel to widescreen proportions over contrastingly tingly soft-rock orchestrations; it's a perfect example of radio-ready formatting amplifying her idiosyncrasies rather than masking them. A handful of cuts this unreservedly addictive are more than enough to compensate for amiable but minor-key filler like the jaunty Loretta Lynn knockoff "Easy Living" or outright aberrations like "Better in the Long Run," a doleful, overwrought power duet with Shelton that part of me is convinced was recorded last year, and better, by Kelly Clarkson and Jason Aldean. (It'll doubtless sell like deep-fried hotcakes.)

Too immaculate in its craftsmanship and appealing in its replay value to count as a disappointment, Four the Record is nonetheless a puzzle from an artist whose critical and commercial standing after her third album needed no fine-tuning—one would say it represented a compromise if there was any clear sense of the audience she had to compromise for. This kind of all-bases-covered, all-options-open genre cherry-picking is the kind of tactic taken by record companies launching a new country artist, not maintaining one of the industry's brightest lights: that sparkly doppelgänger Carrie Underwood would still love to make a record this crisp and cool, but this one appears to offer her, and everyone else, a step-by-step set of instructions. Unlike her first three albums, the motifs running through Lambert's latest aren't her cockeyed humor or boozy Southern rancor, but her dedication to rangy songcraft (her own or otherwise) and ever-deepening vocal prowess. It's a worthy shift, but it also makes four very good records out of Four the Record, where one would gladly do.

Review by: Guy Lodge

The Black Keys (2011)

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:44:29 -0500

Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are the hard-working rockers that could. With a modest beginning ten years ago and a steady rise to both critical acclaim and, eventually, mainstream popularity (not to mention Grammy awards), you could almost consider the Black Keys the musical manifestation of the American dream. Their determination and consistency make them easy to root for, but more importantly, they're making rock-'n'-roll that people actually listen to. Perhaps that doesn't mean much to everyone, but consider, for a moment, the bands currently occupying space on the Billboard Top 200 Chart that even remotely resemble rock music: Nickleback, Coldplay, and…Florence + the Machine, maybe? While you could argue that Jack White helps the cause by continuing to release records through his various projects, the point that popular rock-'n'-roll is scarce these days is all too easy to make. I give that context not as an excuse to continue my tradition of heaping praise upon the Black Keys, but to offer an estimation that the band's latest record, El Camino, is the perfect rock-'n'-roll album for 2011.

The Black Keys' last two albums, 2008's Attack & Release and last year's Brothers, sought to broaden the duo's focus and prove their versatility. And they did. Now Auerbach and Carney have given us a record that leaves behind those ambitions and sets its sights firmly on blending their former blues stomp with enormously entertaining, radio-friendly tunes. That's not to say El Camino rocks any less than their previous material; on the contrary, it's their hardest-hitting effort in some time. But the new approach gives the Black Keys—and rock-'n'-roll in general—a chance to really compete on a mainstream level. The Black Keys have made plenty of accessible songs over the past decade, but here they stick with the likes of the more upbeat cuts from Brothers (“Howlin' for You”; “Tighten Up”) and do away with the darker, drowsier numbers (“Too Afraid to Love You”; “Ten Cent Pistol”) from the same. The result is an explosive 38 minutes of deliriously uninhibited, occasionally silly, and consistently excellent songs.

Far be it from me to insist the band was overtly inspired by securing future commercial success, but it's hard not to imagine in-studio discussions between Auerbach, Carney, and producer Danger Mouse to determine if it were possible to stuff more hooks into tunes already bursting with them. As it stands, El Camino may be the catchiest album I've heard all year across any genre, and it only occasionally feels overdone. Each fiery guitar line makes your heart pump faster and each drum riff makes your body move instinctively, and together the two elements are sensational. Rarely have the duo sounded tighter, especially on blazing lead single “Lonely Boy” and the sleazy rave-up “Run Right Back,” with Danger Mouse filling in the gaps with just enough of his now-familiar production flourishes to keep things sounding thoroughly modern despite the band's still-retro leanings. I'll admit to sometimes missing the subtler and bluesier material that always worked its way into previous Black Keys albums, but outrageous moments like the big, sexy chorus of “Gold On the Ceiling” or the Zeppelin-esque back half of “Little Black Submarines” that explodes after a quiet acoustic opening make such thoughts fleeting.

In place of the aforementioned slow-burning numbers that Auerbach previously relied on a few times per album, we get surprisingly funky cuts like “Sister” and “Stop Stop,” which find the duo perfectly comfortable with a classic but currently vogue dance-rock vibe (well, at least as much as you could describe a Black Keys in those terms). “Sister" is particularly stunning, with thumping low-end and ample swagger, the like of which, say, Adam Levine and company can only dream of. It's moments like this that will bother long-time fan who worries too much about this band losing touch with their blues roots, and that will thrill those who can appreciate that these two rockers have no interest in making more carbon copies of Rubber Factory. And why should they when they have the talent and intelligence to make a record that can appeal to the masses without pandering to them? Whatever El Camino signifies in the progression of the Black Keys, it's an album that means great things for the future of a genre that they and others have championed for some time, without gaining much ground. So whether you see El Camino as a victory lap after last year's success, a bid for mainstream attention, or just an excuse to make party-rock anthems, this is a great rock-'n'-roll album and 2011 certainly needed one.

Review by: Chris Nowling

Tom Waits (2011)

Fri, 9 Dec 2011 10:05:23 -0500

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard a whole album of new material from Tom Waits, the artist that commands a rabid following spanning generations. But that’s not to say he hasn’t been busy: he compiled the gloriously inclusive three-disc set Orphans back in 2006, and has acted in a number of films, since his last 'proper' album in 2004 (Real Gone). He even delivered a monstrous hip-hop verse on N.A.S.A.’s “Spacious Thoughts.” With that spectrum of artistic asides in mind, many critics and fans will classify Bad As Me as a comfortable return-to-form for Waits, mostly because the brief nature of these tracks hark back to his early days as a beatnik crooner. To do so would be to deny the significant shape shifting of Waits’s career, however; Bad As Me isn’t so much a nostalgic look at the past as it is a concise amalgamation of everything Waits represents as an artist, performer, and storied songwriter.

Bad As Me listens like scattered, scribbled pages read aloud from Waits’s notebook, jumping into tight narratives before quickly changing pace and moving on to the next fleeting fable of romance, mortality and perpetual motion. Once again Waits collaborates on songwriting and production with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, while a handful of guests (Keith Richards, Marc Ribot and David Hidalgo) flit in and out of tracks, only subtly making their presence known before the next cut kicks in. It’s appropriate that all these players play their small parts in the arc of Bad As Me and never linger, adding to the road trip, coming-and-going vibe of this brisk record. On the manic opener “Chicago,” Waits is ready to flee the urban and familial decay surrounding him, barking “We won’t have to say goodbye/If we all go/Maybe things will be better/In Chicago,” hammering the point home by wailing “all aboard!” at track's end. “Face to the Highway” is gentler, but equally ominous: an understated electric lead and sparse percussion create a hollow space for Waits’s musings on responsibility and trust in relationships.

Though Bad As Me is particularly heavy on weepers—from the gorgeous acoustic ballad “Last Leaf” to “Kiss Me,” a deliberate extension of “I Never Talk to Strangers,” his 1977 duet with Bette Midler—there are plenty of dirty rockers to go around. The title track moves at a menacing lurch, and Waits is at the top of his game vocally; he howls in deathly falsetto, then plummets into a grisly growl, all in the span of a few phrases. A seductive one-note banjo line anchors “Raised Right Men," and a piercing organ punctuates the tale's mischievous characters, "Gunplay Maxwell" and "Ice Pick Ed Newcomb." Just when Waits reaches his most threatening on “Hell Broke Luce,” which plays like a crowded prison chant—all handclaps, grungy guitars and military-march percussion—he reels it back in with the longing atmosphere of “New Year’s Eve”: “I didn’t plan to come back/I had only a few things/Two hundred dollars/And my records in a brown paper sack,” he recites. It's redemption as only Waits knows it.

While there may not be a whole lot of surprises to entice old fans on Bad As Me, Waits sounds better, musically and vocally, than he has in years. Some of his releases have been known to stray into uncharted territory (with mixed results), and there’s so comforting feeling in knowing Waits is in total control here. For 45 minutes, we can hand ourselves over to a true musical legend and know that our time won’t be wasted. Bad As Me is as confident, concise and compelling as Waits records come.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Thee Oh Sees (2011)

Fri, 9 Dec 2011 10:03:47 -0500

It seems with every new record we get from Thee Oh Sees, things get bigger and better. As they grow in size (they’ve added a second drummer, the awesomely-named Lars Finberg), they continue to push their sound in new directions. Earlier this year saw Castlemania, a breezy, jangly piece of psychedelia that sounded like some early Who recordings run through an old, busted amp. It was a concise, spontaneous record that showed the more melodic side of the band. With their second LP of 2011, Carrion Crawler/The Dream, John Dwyer and company throwout most of the pop-tinged melodies and focus on wreaking as much havoc as possible on their respective instruments. Where Castlemania succeeded by blazing through two-minute cuts of pop psychedelia, this new record revels in extended, fuzzed-out jams—while still managing to achieve the same sense of briskness. Opener “Carrion Crawler” starts with gentle guitars, but quickly explodes into an overdriven, Stooges-esque jam, complete with funky bass line, lazy harmonies and manic guitar solos. The same can be said for the other half-title track, “The Dream,” which chugs along with menacing authority, the joined falsettos of Dwyer and Brigid Dawson providing a striking complement to the off-the-rails rhythm. These two tracks, at six and seven minutes respectively, cue the pacing of the entire record; it’s a frenzied pace that’s prepared to grab you by the balls and not let go. Th0ugh the occasional track can come across as sounding too same-y, there’s enough depth and sonic exploration here to make this one of the finest records Thee Oh Sees have yet cut. “Contraption/Soul Desert,” especially, is a standout, complete with bass-heavy guitar runs and Syd Barrett-inspired vocal yelps. By employing two drummers, this record sounds denser than anything else in their catalog. There’s a sense of claustrophobia on these tracks that builds significant tension and restlessness, allowing for the hysterical guitar solos to act as moments of catharsis. Though it may be heavier and more distorted than Castlemania, there’s an equally infectious efficiency at work here. The band switches between overdriven garage rock epics to more restrained ‘60s psychedelia workout. In many ways, this record shows off the band’s instrumental ability, focusing on song structure and tempo changes instead of the neat pop craft of Castlemania. It's a record of seeming contradictions: it’s loud, but always controlled, frenzied but totally focused. With Carrion Crawler/The Dream, Thee Oh Sees deliver one of the finest genre entries of 2011 and another strikingly consistent entry in their rapidly growing discography.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

David Lynch (2011)

Fri, 9 Dec 2011 09:52:22 -0500

There are certainly a lot of loaded expectations that come with listening to a David Lynch album. This is one of the finest and maddest directors of all time; films like "Mulholland Dr." and "Lost Highway" play with ideas of shifting time, space and identity, creating an unsettling sense of existential dread that lingers like a dark cloud. It would be easy then to go into Lynch’s debut record expecting something radical, something so far out of left field that it remains totally inaccessible. It’s the sidestepping of those expectations, drawn from Lynch’s films, which makes Crazy Clown Time a bit of a pleasant surprise, however; in fact this is, by Lynchian standards, a restrained piece of pop art. It’s that moderation that makes the album a relatively rewarding listen, but also a slight disappointment.

Though Lynch takes a back seat to Karen O on opener “Pinky’s Dream,” a track with copious amounts of ominous reverb and dissonant chords, he takes full control of the set from thereon out. The majority of Crazy Clown Time is infused with a strange but compelling mix of blues and dubstep (seriously), creating a fragmented, shattered vision of American music, where the traditional meets the modern. “So Glad” is menacing in its downtempo nature; Lynch repeats the phrase “I’m so glad you’re gone” atop start-stop guitars that ring out in an eerily empty chasm of space. “Noah’s Ark” has a similar feel, but revels much more in electronic flourishes, with a glitchy drumbeat driving behind the whispered vocals. “I Know” takes this pseudo-industrial approach even further, as Lynch’s vocals are mutated above a steady backbeat, once again shifting the tone of the record through the implication of an unstable persona. Though the record can occasionally sound a little same-y, the dirty, mutilated form of the electronic-infused blues that Lynch presents is suitably deft in balancing the alien with the familiar. He may not always have a lot to say, but there sure are a lot of interesting ideas floating around here.

The downtempo atmosphere creates tension, a feeling transferred from his numerous films, but some of the lengthier tracks drag the whole record down. “These Are My Friends” could be interesting as a satire of sentimental balladry, but it’s delivered with such monotony that pulling any meaning from it is deemed impossible; we’re just left with an empty, repetitive four-chord structure. Meanwhile, “Strange and Unproductive Thinking” is just that, a seven-and-a-half minute existential diatribe that doesn’t work nearly as well as the whacked-out free-associative lyricism in the equally lengthy “Crazy Clown Time.” All that's good in this set, in fact, is present in that title-track: it’s frightening, strange, compelling, and experimental, taking the traditional song structure and pumping it full of abstract elements, creating an erotic, dangerous and eccentric atmosphere to luxuriate in. Crazy Clown Time is partly what you would expect from Lynch, and though some may have wanted something slightly more abstract, this is a record that benefits from its relative sense of restraint and focus. It’s the musical equivalent of a neo-noir film; all dissonance, tremolo, shady characters and bad intentions. For a debut record from a 65-year old avant-garde director, Crazy Clown Time is both surprisingly assured and satisfying.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

St. Vincent (2011)

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 19:24:40 -0400

Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) is often described as a multi-instrumentalist and a singer-songwriter, but the latter is only technically accurate: the term singer-songwriter emphasizes the voice as not only a unique instrument but a totally separate entity, and a song’s most prominent element—it ought to be a force to be reckoned with, an extension of the musician’s soul, infinitely more malleable and earthly than all other instruments. Not all singer-songwriters push their voices this way, but the best ones do.

Clark’s voice is by no means deficient; it’s light and ethereal, and it has a knack for pulling off that whimsical lilt common among contemporary female jazz vocalists (as on the last two songs of debut solo album Marry Me). Where Clark fails as a vocalist is in her reticence, her too-perfect sense of control and restraint. She’s built her cred on Kate Bush comparisons, but those don’t stand: Clark doesn’t really howl (the one exception being a slight gasp taken halfway through Marry Me's “The Apocalypse Song”).

Clark’s impassivity is kind of the point. She’s one of those rare talents whose brilliance lies in the structure and complexity of her compositions rather than the bending and twisting of her vocal. Her voice is part and parcel of something greater; it’s there to tease us with recondite lyrics that oscillate between unabashed sentiment (mostly about bad relationships and an earnest, sometimes desperate desire for respect and self-esteem) and a cryptic lack of details about whom, what, and why. It doesn’t matter if she’s allegedly singing about depression or borrowing lines from Marilyn Monroe’s journal; the lyrics only hint at emotion so that the story cannot be told, gaps cannot be filled, only fragments remain. (“Surgeon,” with its chorus of “Best, finest surgeon/Come cut me open,” can be interpreted differently or not at all; frustration and anger resonate even without any vocal mannerisms to back it up.)

Perhaps it’s unfair to dismiss a female solo musician based on the supposed quality or importance of her vocals when the same demands are rarely made of a male musician (e.g. Sufjan Stevens is technically a singer-songwriter; we love him not for his boring voice but for his grandiose, over-elaborate symphony arrangements). To be an acclaimed female singer-songwriter among the indie set the performer must do something “interesting” or “quirky” vocally—those who do tend to be regarded as tepid, middlebrow, generally uninteresting. It’s important to note that plenty of St. Vincent admirers adore Clark for her voice and believe it to be something rather special. But I've always heard someone who probably has a great range, sturdy pipes and the creativity to experiment with her voice; why she doesn’t is beyond me.

Strange Mercy continues St. Vincent’s progression of refinement and reliance on synths that sound like frogs (if frogs were melodic). The crunchy, thrashy staccato-punch rhythms that occasionally veer out of control on older songs like “Actor Out of Work” resurface throughout Strange Mercy, and they here become Clark’s weapon of choice, particularly on Eric Rohmer-inspired opener “Chloe in the Afternoon.” St. Vincent matches the rhythmic urgency of her instruments on smoother track “Surgeon” with her vocals, which actually demonstrate a fleeting attempt at vocal experimentation, right near the end of the track when she gets all high-pitched. A hyena St. Vincent is not. She has increasingly perfected the ability to sync her voice with the rest of her song in a way that’s beautiful and incredibly subtle. Clarity and precision are clearly her strong suits, but these aren’t qualities which lend themselves well to the excitement of experimentation.

It's significant that this is the first of St.Vincent’s album covers not to feature Clark’s beautiful face; Strange Mercy instead depicts a gaping mouth suffocated by what appears to be a shit-ton of Elmers glue, as if she's disappearing into herself, or working on a very expensive arts-and-crafts project. As Clark’s lyrics become increasingly cryptic, her songs more refined and perfect, it makes me wonder just how immaculate her music must become before the church of St. Vincent starts to question itself; fans in search of relatable flaws in her music, the stuff that makes us all human. Probably never. She’s not called St. Vincent for nothing.

Review by: Tina Hassannia

Neon Indian (2011)

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 19:23:16 -0400

If in 2009 you were relying on the Internet as a harbinger of new music trends, then surely you were hip to chillwave, toted by the blogosphere as The Next Big Thing. A cabal of twenty-somethings fiddled with knobs in their bedrooms (not as dirty as it sounds) and produced homespun vibes of mellow electronica equally beach- and club-ready. There were two records at the forefront of all this: Washed Out’s Life of Leisure and Neon Indian’s Psychic Chasms. Both artists behind those trippy monikers (Ernest Greene and Alan Palomo, respectively) were touted as the next generation of electronic innovators. But in 2011, comparisons between the two are quickly wearing thin.

Earlier this year, Ernest Greene released his proper album-length debut as Washed Out, Within and Without, a sleepy, complacent set that might have singlehandedly killed any momentum chillwave had going for it. On the other hand, you have Neon Indian’s sophomore outing, Era Extraña, which shows that Palomo has a unique and ambitious vision that extends beyond the confines imposed by of-the-moment genre tags. In fact, Era Extraña could be seen as Palomo’s way of distancing himself from the genre with which people were so quick to associate him. Instead of laying on warm, dreamy synths, he turns up the distortion and drones like a giddy electronica version of Thurston Moore.

“The Blindside Kiss” is all fuzzed-out power chords and mutated vocals, with Palomo barreling forward ecstatically, propelled by an ambitious sense of abandon Psychic Chasms never really hinted at. “Era Extraña,” though more wistful, relies on a heavy bass line for its motion, injecting a little punk rock into the shimmering ‘80s vibes. And on tracks such as “Future Sick” and “Fallout,” Palomo shows he can adopt vintage without pointlessly retracing the steps of his predecessors. “Fallout,” with its bouncy synths, reverb-laden processed drumbeats, and Palomo’s deep drawl, suggests the Smiths as seen through a European techno lens—and amidst all the noise and sonics, there’s an intimacy hinted at but never flaunted. But no one track here is better than “Polish Girl,” an immediately earworm-y pop song with more than a few electronic flourishes to sustain its basic chord structure. It’s a song that takes everything Neon Indian does well—a reliable melody, catchy Casio beats, and off-kilter synth touches—and packages it into a tidy, infectious four minutes.

Though Era Extraña certainly elevates Neon Indian above the crowd of chillwave artists he emerged from in 2009, it is a record that finds Palomo still finding his footing. Songs like “Halogen (I Could Be a Shadow)” and “Suns Irrupt” are only modest sketches next to the ambitions of “Polish Girl” or the wonderfully schizophrenic experiment “Hex Girlfriend.” There’s work to be done here, but for now, Palomo has laid the groundwork for a sound we may not have heard yet. This is a record that sounds both futuristic and nostalgic; more importantly though, the atmosphere of giddy experimentation is as infectious as it is promising. With Era Extraña, Neon Indian looks to a future worth anticipating.

Review by: Kyle Fowle

Real Estate (2011)

Fri, 4 Nov 2011 19:18:03 -0400

I’ve spent a fair amount of time spilling digital ink and exceeding word counts in deriding the most notorious chillwave records since the genre’s inception in or around 2009. We’ve been told for a few years now how the genre that evokes picturesque beaches on mild afternoons would finally makes its big splash and whisk us away to sunnier pastures of laidback indie rock. I found very little faith in the appointment of Best Coast and Washed Out as the demigods of this emerging genre; the latter's Within and Without is a monotonous bore, while Best Coast’s 2010 debut at least has the hooks, but is sunk by the insipid imagery inherent in pseudo-slacker lyricism. Enter Real Estate, with sophomore album Days, a mature, engrossing and hypnotically melodic record that shows a confidence and depth no other chillwaver has yet managed. Despite the lo-fi leanings of each band members' respective side projects (Matthew Mondanile records as Ducktails and Etienne Duguay as Predator Vision), Days is as slick as production quality comes. On album opener “Easy,” the strummed chords seem to meld into the main guitar line, yet remain distinct enough to subtly work the melody into your brain. “Municipality” revels in the same sheen, working in gentle backing vocals to create a pristine, atmospheric depth. All comes to a head on closing jam “All the Same,” as the chugging rhythm drops out halfway through, leaving room for a gorgeous, tempo-shifting coda that hammers home Real Estate's production and arrangement instincts. Days is an album with a rich underlying aesthetic, but even that would be for naught were Real Estate to trade in the mediocre, imitative surf-pop so indicative of this genre. Luckily, the ease with which they establish a sonic atmosphere extends to their pop sensibilities: The album may lack a true standout (though you could make significant arguments for either “Green Aisles” or “All the Same”), these are songs that feel comfortable and familiar. It’s not that they're derivative, but rather that Real Estate composes each track—from vocal harmonies down to the subtle percussive inflections—with an effortless confidence that makes every song easy to get lost in. It’s due to these subtle inflections, these moments of nuance, that Days really shines. The 12-string guitar on “Green Aisles” is a lovely touch, as is the unexpected but propulsive guitar solo. And Jackson Pollis inconspicuously shifts his drumming patterns on “Out of Tune” as Mondanile creates a swirling cloud of guitar riffs and harmonics. It’s in these small moments that we realize Days is one of those rare rock records that manages to construct a sturdy, immersive atmosphere while remaining totally unassuming and free of pretense.

Review by: Kyle Fowle