Weezer - Raditude

Not even a year and a half ago, Weezer's overwhelmingly fantastic self-titled comeback release signaled a new era for the group, one that would see them holding nothing back and embracing every not necessarily tasteful ambition burning in the back of their collective head. Weezer was a mission statement, an epiphany, a grand declaration of enlightenment, the sound of a band simply not giving a fuck and choosing to indulge their wildest pop dreams regardless of what grouchy critics and fans might have preferred.

And as I hoped I would be able to say a year and a half later while initially freaking out over them, the freshness of "Heart Songs" and "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" has not faded one bit, yet sadly that of the group's penchant for the unpredictable has. Not much, though. While every announcement of a Lil Wayne guest appearance or zany promotional event or absurd cover choice no longer seems so "wtf????" but more "Oh, there goes Weezer just bein' Weezer," one cannot deny that they're at least trying to outdo themselves in the ridiculousness department. It's to Weezer's credit that these head scratching idiosyncrasies come across so naturally rather than as forced. When naysayers bemoan the fact that "The Weezer that I once knew and loved has been dead for years and they are not coming back any time soon," the victory is on the group's side, as they sound more content and settled into their identity as a band than ever before. The disappointment that many a Blue Album/Pinkerton fan feels no longer arises from having to deal with what they see as the band's failure to produce anything more than a soulless, watered down, bastardized, highly impersonal approximation of what made those albums so enjoyable, but rather from the complete lack of common ground shared between the sensibilities and tastes of these two parties.

And for those who by some unfathomable miracle continue to be consistently pleased by whatever directions the group chooses to take with its career... well, Raditude is, at the very least, ear candy of the most delicious order. Did somebody mention "parties"? Because this album certainly is one! After spending 2008 laying their ambitions for wild 'n crazy good times on the line, Raditude sees Weezer standing by its word and following through with those ambitions. Naturally, the album comes across as considerably less purposeful and audacious than last year's eponymous release. It more closely resembles, say, Long Player exhibit A in what will hopefully be a string of albums that, while presenting the listener with an adventurous batch of successful and/or failed modern pop explorations every time around (as Raditude further proves this era of Weezer to be all about), will inevitably find Weezer assuming the role of "hit factory," the newly embraced "songs about hot chicks and hanging out with your bros" vibe allowing them to knock out compositions in their sleep. This is exactly the sort of carefree, breezy quality that runs through these ten songs, resulting in Weezer's most blatantly summer friendly pop album since 2001's Weezer.

While the slightness of the album as a whole is an essential part of its singular identity within the band's discography, I can't help but feel that the promise of its first four tracks contrasted with the combination of redundancy and occasionally misguided experimentation in the second half builds up to a listening experience that is possibly even more schizophrenic than the style hopping of their self-titled red album. Make no mistake, there is a sense of cohesion running through these songs. Just glance down the tracklisting... "Let It All Hang Out," "Love Is The Answer," "Can't Stop Partying," "The Girl Got Hot." Even when the message of a song like "Can't Stop Partying" is more layered than it seems, the musical and lyrical positivity remains, as if everything in life should resemble a dog flying through the air or a band of 40 year olds titling an album "Raditude."

The four song opening run of "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To"'s high energy stomp, "I'm Your Daddy"'s anthemic new wave, "The Girl Got Hot"'s beer chugging frat rock explosion, and "Can't Stop Partying"'s general wtf-ness is a fine, fine way to let this record barrel out of the gates. However, just as you think Weezer is running amok from corner to corner of the pop music spectrum, they bring in the All-American Rejects' songwriting talents to remind you that not even half a decade ago, they were filling up albums with (what many listeners could not see as anything more than) indistinguishable mid-tempo guitar rock songs. The track "Put Me Back Together" is actually quite good, sporting a chorus that brings to mind the AAR's stronger hits. But it's nevertheless a sign of things being steered back towards more normal territory. "Tripping Down The Freeway," for instance, is built upon the same "Keep Fishin'" recalling drumbeat as "The Girl Got Hot," while the placement of the hooky "Let It All Hang Out" next to the similar but comparatively hookless "In The Mall" finds the former being short-changed on the first few listens. On last year's Weezer, "Dreamin'" was an anomaly on the album for sounding so similar to their more "classic" big guitar pop stylings of the past, yet this handful of Raditude tracks only creates a tension between the group's newfound adventurousness and their default "signature sound." However, even a straightforward rocker like "In The Mall" manages to squeeze in an atmospheric feedback/synth/mall PA system/heavenly chiming guitar chord break, not to mention the heavily treated guitar solo that follows, one of multiple surprising lead guitar parts to pop up throughout the album.

The one song that's really bound to fuck with the listenership is "Love Is The Answer." Sadly, for a song that includes some wicked sitar, Indian woman guest vocals, and yet another balls out guitar solo, it doesn't exactly do a whole lot. Eastern new age cock rock built around mantra-like repetition? Maybe they should leave that one behind permanently. Still, most of these criticisms are stemming from speculation about Weezer's future. Whatever I said about the "Keep Fishin'" drumbeat... forget it. It was nitpicking. Each of this album's ten tracks is a wonderfully singular entity unto itself. While my own sensibilities drive me to hope that Weezer still has much further to sink into total pop insanity and that this album will turn out to be a minor step in an even more unexpected process of evolution for the group, as a snapshot of this process, Raditude is the kind of weirdly perfect half hour pop record that every mainstream pop/rock act should be striving to make. Leave it to Weezer to possess the right amounts of experience, ambition, and humility to know just where to aim.

Rating: 9.3/10 on the Pitchfork Media scale.

Download Link: Vampire Weekend - Contra [2010]... great record.

Yoko Ono - Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band

The missing piece of a highly cacophonous puzzle. Ever wonder why John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band necessitated that title or why he's on the cover with a woman who doesn't really do anything? The answers could very well be "Why not?" and "Because she followed him everywhere," but you're not about to get off that easy, no, sir!

The fact of the matter is that like John Lennon the human being, his first solo outing was not without a complement, a soulmate, a pretentious naked Asian female, and to John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, the similarly titled Yoko Ono/Plastic Band was conceived to be all of those things.

While the Plastic Ono Band could only be described as a loosely knit collective of whatever musicians were willing to put up with these "artists" at any given point in time, history will remember them for that month long period in 1970 (and a bit of time during '71, but that's another review altogether!) when the POB truly was one of the great minimalist noise rock powerhouses this side of the Velvet Underground. Who can deny Klaus Voormann's thumping basswork, Mandingo Starr's bare bones basic yet highly singular drumming style, and John Lennon channeling future child star Steve Albini with some of the filthiest angular guitar strangulations this side of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain? We're all familiar with the driving power of such propulsive bangers as "Well Well Well" and "I Found Out" and sometimes you have to wish Lennon would have followed these by then splendidly refined avant-garde impulses and hooked up with Can or Suicide or something instead of cranking out rockabilly covers and syrupy muzak for the rest of his solo career.

Luckily, it's not just his critically jizzed upon solo debut that features the 1970 era POB's primal raw doggin'. First, the cover. As we all know, John's album features him leaning back on Yoko, symbolizing that he is relaxed and content to release an album of self-absorbed whining laid over plodding cock rock grooves. The cover of Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, on the other hand, features Yoko sucking off John through a fiery portal to Hell located in the back of her head. Recorded during the same sessions as Lennon's album (I think?), the music on Yoko's record is a similarly stripped down, rackety interpretation of rock 'n roll. Rather than actual "songs," however, the tracks here are all born from an extended improv session where the drums and bass lay down any number of one chord grooves over which Yoko's caterwauling vocals and Lennon's manic slide guitar compete for dominant shrillness.

Yoko does a lot of crazy shit here... making her voice wobble like somebody is shaking her, squawking like a demented ostrich, and oftentimes combining these two approaches. Side two opener "AOS," recorded with Ornette Coleman's quartet, contains her most violently throat mangling screams, although the first half provides the listener with more subdued sounds that are much appreciated. The rest of the record's musical accompaniment is largely made up of the POB's rock based slide guitar heavy jamming, although "Touch Me" and "Paper Shoes" take things into spacier territory, emphasized by the echo used on the latter's vocal track. Neither Yoko or her backing musicians are as graceful as Linda Sharrock and husband Sonny's group on Black Woman, nor does she go to the extremes of Ono disciples such as Adris Hoyos (Harry Pussy) or Maja Ratkje, but perhaps the more primitive rock approach combined with an occasionally patience testing fetish for the Japanese hetai vocal style makes the combination of low art (?) and high art (??!!!) elements all the more effective. A fascinating work from a fascinating and misunderstood artist! Buy it and challenge yourself for once.

Rating: Good if you dig some free jazz bullshit.

Download Link: "Touch Me"... no thanks, Yoko! XD

The-Dream - Love vs. Money

Hey, it's 13 more good songs. The man himself says that Love vs. Money is "like the first album on crack," and I've never done crack, but if it means more synths, more lyrics about fucking, and more guest appearances by your famous friends Lil Jon, Mariah Carey, and Kayne West, the first rapper with a Benz and a backpack... well, fuck. Buy me some. Everything you liked about Love Hate has been amplified to widescreen technicolor proportions, guys. Too many classixx on that wonderfully flowing album length listening experience for this one to surpass it, but I'm more likely to cherrypick favorites from LvsM rather than plow all the way through from start to finish, which inevitably results in having to hear at least 80% of these tracks out of order no matter what. How many more total jams is this guy gonna be able to effortlessly pull out of his ass? He's a radio killa and an R&B guerilla, clearly. Album is just a bag of candy colored tricks. Epic multipart drama with those two title tracks, the soothing slow burner dot gif balladry of "Fancy," stuffing "Take You Home 2 My Mama" with hooks, hooks, hooks galore, closing everything out with a dumb song about girls' butts... every song has at least one good part and then usually a bunch of other ones. If you've been dismissing this one as an overrated product of hipster tokenism, maybe you're right. It's a fucking sick collection of songs, though. Album of the Year until Raditude drops.

Rating: 9.1/10

Download Link: Fenix TX - "Katie W."... great song that was in my Mediafire account.

LEAK OF THE CENTURY



Vampire Weekend - Contra

No review for this one! That's YOUR job! We now khow much you're anticipating this modern classic, so you be the critic. Write a brief review in our comments section and maybe one of our writers will offer you some constructive feedback. Happy listening!

Rating: You tell us!

Download Link: Vampire Weekend - Contra [2010]

antioch arrow - germs of masochism

this is a maelstrom of unapologetic sexuality and angst ridden ferocity

these kids play fast n loose
this is the new wave of androgyny and a poison kissoff to the rules

the cover turned me gay

inspirational verse: "love put a curse on me" this isnt just for kids anymore


RIYL: suede, jill sobule

31G 2003

Flux of Pink Indians - Strive To Survive Causing Least Suffering Possible

Back in my high school days I ran with many members of the "Chicago punk rock scene." They all liked this band a lot and some of them would flip out when I'd talk about Crass, like this shit is somehow superior in every way. Considering how likely most people are to have horrible taste in pretty much everything, it's not surprising that this particular group of people would prefer a band that is basically Crass minus everything that's interesting about that band. The anarchy is there and so are the goofy shouted British guy vocals, but nah, there's nothing memorable here. Sounds like any number of bands could crank out 50 albums of this stuff and have it all be of about equal quality. Although, if you're some hardcore punk guy whose tastes are determined by how innocuously music manages to fit into its given genre, then GET ON THIS!!!

Rating: Average.

Download Link: "Digital Love"... now here's some real shit that slays.

The-Dream - Love Hate

Before Terius Nash had become the indie rock web forum icon that most of the nation knows and loves him as, he released a little heard solo album that only a select few white people really flipped out over. But let me tell you, those folks had the right idea because this is one solid pop LP by one solid guy who makes good music. All the songs are dope as hell especially the singles but you only have to listen to everything after "Falsetto" a few times before it all stops completely running together. Even if you can't remember anything but the choruses from "Purple Kisses," "Playin' In Her Hair," and "Luv Songs," you can still get a kick out of the awesome production which has a lot of pianos (maybe?) and vocal layering and shit. Opener "Shawty Is Da Shit" is just downright heavenly like the first time you shroomed to Person Pitch. Of the main attractions here, "Fast Car" might be the most unrelentlessly hooky but the success with which The-Dream manages to pull off what is more or less a shameless update of "Little Red Corvette" is still ripe for immersing one's self in. And you gotta love how he seamlessly merges that certified banger with the foreboding drama of "Nikki" when you're not looking and doesn't even stop there because it's only setting the stage for the arms-stretched-towards-the-sky climax of "She Needs My Love." Side two has "Mama," which is pretty but pretty BORING, too. I like the Rihanna song. The weaksauce guitar solo in "Falsetto" sounds like shit but other than that this is a really good album.

Rating: 9.2/10

Download Link: "I Luv Your Girl"... you thought I wasn't gonna mention this one didn't you, haha. Just crank it.

City of Caterpillar - City of Caterpillar

Yo, doggs, it's the screamo post-rock revolution from seven years ago. Nine minute songs with some real Godspeed/Mogwai bullshit where they play pleasant quiet parts that are really easy to write if you play the guitar with your fingers and then enhance the drama of those parts with parts that are louder. This is real hardcore, though, so the production sounds like a shiny old asshole and the vocals have that great semi-retarded thing going for them that makes me never listen to the Heroin discography CD that I bought. These are multi-part epics that sound like someone dipped them in poop so even the quiet parts just blur together with the face pummeling anger stuff. Imagine a band as ridiculous and hilarious as Antioch Arrow or Angel Hair trying to play epic black metal and you'll be imagining music that is incredibly ugly and impossible to sit through, i.e. this album. I just find this kind of classic real deal emotion rock to be super fascinating because it's like a filthy incompetent version of actual music.

If you're a hot teen and know a lot of fagz who won't shut up about Explosions In The Sky you gotta sit them down with this authentic boogie rock LP by City Of Caterpillars, full of str8 bangers to lick puss to. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Rating: ?

Download Link: the first song

David Sylvian - Manafon

Not far into the second half of Christian Fennesz's 2004 full length solo release Venice, there's a song called "Transit" that might be the only truly startling moment on an album that sounds much like an artist playing to his strengths without bothering with too many surprises. The track is like any of the other works that make Venice into a sonically engaging yet unassumingly cohesive listening experience (not a bad thing), further displaying Fennesz's skill for combining the lovely with the soul draining via his trademark combination of electronics and processed guitar.

But there's one aspect of "Transit" that goes out of its way to be more memorable than whatever the fuck "The Point of It All," "City of Light," and "Circassian" may or may not have going for them: David Sylvian contributes a guest vocal performance. He has a pleasant enough voice, a sort of dystopian croon that is weathered and classy enough to fit the ultra-serious "modern-day ambient electroacoustic composer" vibe of Venice. There's some enjoyable multi-tracking here and there. The melody is about as interesting as one being shaped around a 1-2 chord drone piece can be... the lyrics, same. Something about asking you to follow him as he says goodbye to Europe. Sounds like he needed some lyrics and wrote them and sang them and that's just how things were gonna be. And why not, really. Good for him.

Do Sylvian's vocal contributions fit? One could say that they're simply too inoffensive not to. Which brings us to a more important question: Couldn't we have just done without these largely useless vocals that feel so arbitrarily tacked on and unnecessary? Why not sit Sylvian down in front of a laptop and have him spew forth some faux poetic bullshit via some spontaneous "too free and stream-of-consciousness to ever become interesting at all" melodies that are so disjointed you can barely even call the damn things "melodies" over Christian Fennesz's entire recorded output?

As evidenced by the few pieces of David Sylvian's post-Japan career that I've managed to come in contact with, he seems to have built up an identity as some kind of avant-garde hanger-on, forcing his boring as all fuck vocal stylings over perfectly decent slices of modern composition and improvisation that would be even more listenable were they to remain untouched. He did it on "Transit," he did it on Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence," he probably does it all over the contributions of Derek Bailey and Christian Fennesz found on Blemish, and oh, boy, does he just go all out on Manafon, an album that you will probably see in the Wire's top 10 of 2009 and that happens to not be good at all.

Here's the premise: gather together a who's who of heavy-hitters from the history of electroacoustic improvisation, throw Evan Parker in there because he's a good dude who "gets it," record everybody fucking around, overdub some shitty on-the-spot and out-the-ass "improvised" vocal line because it's truer to the nature of the music that way, and hey, who's gonna be naive enough to try and create anything resembling a song out of this plinkety plonkety racket, anyway?

Big surprise that the result ends up being one gigantic snooze. Don't blame the musicians, though, who all tend to be fine when in other contexts and even turn out some choice moments throughout Manafon. No, the blame belongs squarely on Sylvian for thinking this was ever an idea worth pursuing. For constantly being the central focus of these improvisations, Sylvian's vocal talents appear to be more limited than a danged woodblock. The monotonous drone of a voice that he picks as his primary "instrument" for this potential super session is simply dull, dull, dull. There are vocalists in existence who are able to create forward thinking experimental music that straddles the lines between modern composition, avant-garde jazz, and assorted pop elements. However, Sylvian's voice is not ripe enough with the kind of heartbreaking depth that might have allowed Robert Wyatt, Mark Hollis, or Scott Walker to affectively carry this "material" (which would have been done so mainly by not bothering with it in the first place), and if he's capable of the kind of tonal/emotional range that Carla Bozulich and Nick Cave seem to have in spades, he doesn't even attempt to show it here. As a matter of fact, that voice manages to damage any positive view one could have of the potentially enjoyable instrumental performances, emphasizing all that is joyless and unrewardingly patience testing about EAI. This is made all the more tragic by the knowledge that over half a decade ago two of the performers here, Keith Rowe and John Tilbury, recorded the two hour long Duos For Doris, a mammoth work of devastating emotional resonance inspired by the death of Tilbury's mother, an album that was about three times as long as Manafon with roughly a seventh of the musicians yet somehow resulted in an album about ten times as powerful.

If I can't have the dry humor of Kevin Drumm to act as an anchor for my enjoyment of noise, there needs to be something there to latch onto. Something other than boring David Sylvian boringly shitting out pretentious babble that's just fucking boring, which like that Magic I.D. album last year is the kind of wholly empty bottom of the barrel chin stroking crap that only the most joyless IHMers and Erstwhile Records devotees imaginable could possibly see any value in.

Rating: Awful, awful shit.

Download Link: Vampire Weekend - "Horchata"

Akron/Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free

When we last left our bearded heroes, they were in quite the pickle: coping with the loss of one of their leading members right as they were about to get into touring mode for their recently completed roots prog tour de force Love Is Simple. Did they panic and go into hiding, trying to make sense of what their future could possibly hold? Fuck no! Knowing that singer/guitarist Ryan Vanderhoof's absence would surely burrow a gaping hole into the live potential of their demanding new compositions, they instead called up four other hairy young men to ensure that every night spent onstage would be not just a concert, but a party that no one in attendance (or at least this reviewer) would ever forget.

Yet even through all the carefree smiles and fun, a sense of uncertainty loomed large over the touring ensemble's three core members. They'd managed to save their own asses this time, but where to once the party inevitably winds to a close and all the guests go home? Would they forge ahead, following whatever inspiration happens to materialize from their newfound situation, or would they let such a devastating blow shatter everything they'd built up over the past half decade?

Perhaps if the band wasn't so used to tearing up the rulebook every time it came time to pull together a new album length statement, the prospect of starting over may have been a tad more daunting. As much as many so-called fans might still secretly long for one, a rehash of the 2005 self-titled release would have been impossible due to how much they had already mined from such a fertile aesthetic. Perhaps if the album had been anything less than a masterpiece there would have been some room for refinement, more leftover ideas waiting to be uncovered and polished. But this was not the case then, and nor is it now. And so for the third time in a row (not counting an excellent half of a split LP and a "mini-album," jesus, this band!), they've dropped a jawdropping monstrosity out of nowhere, doing things that we previously had no idea they had in them.

Well... kind of. It depends on who you ask, really. To many listeners, "they're still drowning in a mess of unfinished ideas and grating hippy nonsense!" But let's put this one under the microscope and see if we can make it seem notable within the context of Akron/Family's long strange trip, if not that of modern independent rock music in general.

Determination, persistence, and creativity are essential qualities that a band must have when overcoming an obstacle as seemingly crippling as the loss of a crucial member. When life takes away a few of your lemons, you can still make lemonade... just not as much. Or it might just taste worse if you fuck up by not compensating with the amount of water. The human mind is not a lemon, though. When life takes away one of the guys who contributes ideas to your records, it's not taking away the ideas that you will have in the future and it's certainly not taking away the ideas that the situation created by the now former member's departure allows you to come up with and probably wouldn't have occurred to you if you hadn't thrust into that exact situation. Public Image Ltd. did it when bassist/essential component Jah Wobble left, saying, "Fuck bass, we're just going to experiment with percussion," turning out Flowers of Romance, a unique record in their catalog that is great for entirely different reasons than their earlier work with Wobble as a member. Likewise, when Jimmy McCulloch and Joe English left Wings, the core trio of Denny Laine, Linda McCartney, and the guy whose name everyone always forgets soldiered on to create London Town, their most focused and studio exploiting album length statement since the last time they found themselves pared down to the trio format.

While the title of the trio effort that ended up coming out of that "last time" declared the group to be a "Band On The Run," the things that the members of Wings were on the run from most certainly did not include "their ability to come up with spectacular songs." And I am happy to report that the same can be said of the new three piece edition of Akron/Family and its first officially released studio material. Like PiL and Wings before them, the three piece configuration of A/F finds the group exploring the possibilities of the studio environment in ways the A/F that was more set on "being a band" never got to.

From the homemade "kitchen sink aesthetic" approach that characterized their folky debut recording, to the extended group freakouts found on later releases, there has always been an emphasis on the organic, either through the ensemble dynamic or the more intimate "guy playing an acoustic and whispering" tracks that got them lumped in with many of the "freak folk" boom's heaviest (and most irritating) hitters (yet earned the group tragically less acclaim than any of them.) Of course, there were a number of curious sonic embellishments found throughout that first record, and the analogue recording triumph that is Andrew Weiss's production job on Love Is Simple is essentially a more meticulously tinkered with reimagining of the kind of raw overdubless full band showoffery found on their side of Split LP.

Simply put, they now sound bigger than ever. Bigger than three men should be able to sound. While the group has moved beyond songwriting as a vehicle for showcasing its splendid handle on group interaction, the jams remain. When the nearly eight minute "Gravelly Mountains Of The Moon" decides to just collapse into a chaotic mess of freeform noise before breaking off into a distantly recorded group vocal mantra complete with clapping and wailing saxophone sirens, taking the groove higher and higher, and then right at the peak bringing the listener down for a brief final section that is only vocals and piano... well, you get the sense that if this band's naysayers were ever right to call them "indulgent," hearing them more committed to piling sound upon sound over their multipart epics than ever could possibly justify such criticisms.

That noisy abandon is noisier and more a product of studio experimentation than ever before. In some places, it works remarkably well, like in the heavens parting interlude in "Sun Will Shine (Warmth of The Sunship Version)," which is just such a mind-huggingly lovely wash of ambient noise that you'd think you were listening to Tim Hecker or Fennesz or some crap. In other places, like on the tossed off "MBF," the "throwing shit at a wall" approach can feel a bit tedious. Obviously one can't say no to the A+ Steve Howe riffing in the song's opening, but shortly it turns into the guys seeing how much obnoxious noise they can make with a synthesizer while the drummer bangs out some ploddingly guttural floor tom heavy pattern. Before you know it, they're trying on some punishing noise for size, complete with tortured "David Yow at 1:06 in 'Monkey Trick'" screaming.

Brutal? A little bit, I suppose. As is, it just doesn't sound seamlessly integrated into their sound or refreshing due to placement within some unexpected context. The sense that they're only halfway towards reaching whatever it is they're going for isn't just present in the noisefuck explosions, however. "River," "Creatures," and "Many Ghosts" find the group crafting songs that resemble straightforward indie pop more than anything else in their catalog, and not even in the "Yes trying to play a Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 medley" way that made "I've Got Some Friends" such a strangely satisfying would-be hit single in an alternate universe. These songs don't jerk back and forth between sections, but instead stick with rhythms that feel less like any kind of classic rock throwback and more like something groovier and more eclectic. The crawling neo-dub 311 style beatz on "Creatures" were previously relegated to throwaway interludes like the one that closes out "Ed Is Portal," but here it gets a whole song. Sporting a distorted keyboard line and some tasteful horn overdubs, the song contains multiple vocal melodies that are handled with varying degrees of success. The honest attempts at writing pop melodies in this song and "River" feel underwhelmingly simplistic if not just plain lazy, displaying a sing-songiness that is more suited to children's music than the kind of well-crafted potential singles that I might feel like listening to ever. "Many Ghosts" comes closest with its enjoyable minor key melody that climaxes multiple glorious times when the song breaks for some twinklingly sighing harmonies.

The more "produced like a rock album" approach to recording its music that Akron/Family takes on Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free suits these kinds of songs well, however flawed they may be. It displays an evolution in sound and approach that I would not have predicted but that I am eager to see unfold. They still sound most at home on the two back to back country-tinged folk numbers, "Set 'Em Free" and "The Alps & Their Orange Evergreen," which ironically seem to be jammed most awkwardly into the album's more in-the-red than usual production. Elsewhere, the new sound works more naturally with the compositions, like on the galloping opener "Everyone Is Guilty." There the newfound sonic qualities help the neck leaping angular guitar licks achieve an extra thorny quality, doing wonders to enhance a groove that already sounds like Remain In Light remixed by vikings. If the new edition of Akron/Family is capable of moments like this as well as many of the equally successful or even the not all that successful ideas scattered throughout this LP's exhilaratingly schizophrenic 49 minutes, I can say at least one thing about Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free that I've said about every single thing this band was released: as much as this music excites me, I'm even more excited to imagine where they could possibly go next.

Rating: As we approach the end of the decade and look back at how critical opinion has determined many of our favorite (or not so favorite) bands' legacies, I can't help but feel that the underrating of Akron/Family has been one of the consensus's greatest oversights in recent years. To be a fan of this group is to be treated to consistency and a refusal to repeat itself. There are honestly very few indie rock bands these days that please me on the levels that A/F do. A wide array of classic influences and an acute understanding of what elements to pull from them, remarkable tightness as an ensemble that makes listening to their recordings just as stimulating as witnessing them live, perfect ability to utilize their avant-garde ambitions in a way that only enhances their forward thinking songcraft... the only group that even comes close for me is Deerhoof. Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free wasn't "the album that finally broke them," but why shouldn't it have been? It's singular enough within their catalog that one could easily argue that it blows away everything else they've done. They can appropriate African rhythms like the Dirty Projectors, spew out obnoxious rackety bullshit like Animal Collective, and probably do whatever the hell Grizzly Bear does. Is it because they smile too much? Is the noise-making a little too genuine? Is everybody just done with beards? Kind of a shame, really, because this is art rock that isn't afraid of anything, that could give half a fuck about embarrassing itself. Maybe it's really just terrible, but I haven't listened to any new music more this year, although The-Dream, DJ Quik & Kurupt, and Neil Young's album about his car come close.

Fuck everything that's not The Beatles.

Download Link: "Many Ghosts"... a fine little interestingly produced pop song. Not much else on the album sounds like it, though. Whatever.

The Strong Boys Club

i started writing this after this only hearing one song. i was gonna say that it's great and that leif can get fucked. he was right though. i think he said it sucked? check out the first song "Woe is Me, I Feel So Sadly For You" it's my favorite

ill write more afte ri drink this

what is the right font to use comment and tell me

RATING: anybody could write these

Tuxedomoon - Half Mute

With Brian Eno busy riding the nuts of every no wave band he could get his hands on, it's easy to believe that the first generation of post-punk bands were all slumming it in the same loft in New York City. Au Contraire mon frère! Open your ears to the sounds of Tuxedomoon, San Francisco's hottest new band since Chome and The Dead Kennedys.

Much like their kindred spirits and occasional rivals The Eagles, Tuxedomoon appreciated the finer things in life. You won't find them tearing apart perfectly good guitars or ripping their clothes to shreds, unlike their fellow Artforum readers on the east coast. Their wicked choons were infected by haunted lounge music, cool jazz and scrappy socal punk... a sound that suited them better to a life of playing high-class European festivals, French cabarets and art galleries. These guys wouldn't be caught dead riding in a conversion van to a gig, a fact which wrote them out of Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life and relegated them to the snobby margins of 80's indie rock. Pretty sure they could care less as they sip down bottles of 1975 Lafleur on the balcony of the Castello Del Nero while getting handjobs from farm-maidens summoned from the Tuscan valleys below, their tender hands stained a dark red from years of working in the fields. The thousands... no, millions of Canaiolo grapes they plucked from the vines, one by one, all under the unforgiving eyes of their father and his cruel, lecherous hired hands, in the hopes that one day a gentle man would rescue them from their life of sweat and toil. An artist, a visionary, a man with a boiling passion for life whose only remaining desire in the world would be to give all his love to just one woman...

Half-Mute was their first album, released in 1980 after a couple of EPs. When California governor Ronald Reagan was presented with a sealed copy by a supporter during a routine stop on his Presidential campaign, many onlookers recall seeing him overcome by emotion, eventually retreating into his tour bus for several hours before returning to his scheduled appearances, shaking hands and kissing babies, but visibly shaken.

Rating:

Download: the whole album

Nerf Herder - Nerf Herder

Much like how everybody will eventually come to their senses regarding use of the terms "bloghouse" and "shitgaze," the notion that "geek rock" could ever have been seen as a legitimate genre of music hopefully now stands as a regrettable embarrassment to anyone who ever celebrated such a worthless non-culture of awful bedwetting taste. Ever since the guy from Weezer wore glasses and said pop culture references and had the bassist who invented the MOOG synthesizer, the public would never have to worry about the post-grunge landscape lacking in its share of real dorky shit like Ben Folds Five and Where Is My Mind: A Tribute To The Pixies. I dunno if sad ugly kids these days have their lives changed by Motion City Soundtrack videos or not, but believe it or not there was a time when Superdrag literally ruled the earth/used bins like the gods they were.

Put down that Ozma CD for one forkin' second, though! Back in the glory days of 1996, there was one band that put every last one of its fellow Buzz Bin titans to shame. Not only is their name an obscure reference to The Empire Strikes Back, their only sort of hit single an ode to the recorded output of David Lee Roth era Van Halen, and their most widely heard song the instrumental theme music to Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Nerf Herder possessed a raw pop-punk awkwardness that only made their "nerd" shtick seem more genuine, which works wonders towards helping their pretty basic power pop musical stylings to not devolve into dull repetitiveness over the course of a half hour long album.

That particular album is the band's self-titled debut and it sports some wholly non-descript playing and arrangements, as well as a handful of fairly horrendous CD packaging decisions. Singer Parry Gripp sounds and looks like your dad but doesn't let that stop him from rocking out, a philosophy that would be rode to the bank by Craig Finn a decade later (plug both gentlemen into Google Image Search and try to understand what I mean here.) Surely you gathered as much from exposure to the alternative rock classic "Van Halen," but does the rest of the album measure up to those heights?

Incredibly, yes. While displaying much of the Cars and Cheap Trick worship that Weezer made no attempts to hide on their debut LP, there's a primitiveness in their sound that brings to mind the more tolerable Lookout! Records acts such as the Mr. T Experience and Screeching Weasel. And like the MTX, Nerf Herder can't say no to a sickeningly catchy melody to carry their songs about girls and being a social outcast, even if it means disgracing whatever punk credentials they probably never even had in the first place. While no other song is a nonstop barrage of references like "Van Halen," Rush manages to get a shoutout in "Golfshirt," while the legendary middle section of "Nosering Girl" includes a virtual grocery list of vegan food items. Even a tragic love story such as "Diana" manages to include the line "She sat on his face and the rest is history!" and namedrop the band's drummer. Don't dismiss it as "joke rock," this was the alternative era when bands still took chances.

Rating: Balls out all killer no filler 10/10 classic.

Download Link: "Sorry"... the underappreciated second single. Catchy chorus, hysterical lyrics, a video starring Mark Hamill... this is what music is all about.

Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans

Really just the most boring shit.

Listen to Shallow and delete the other two.

Not much more advice I can offer on this subject, sorry.

Rating:

Download Link:

Harry Pussy - In An Emergency You Can Shit On A Puerto Rican Whore

If there's one thing that Miami noise rock legends Harry Pussy understood better than any of their envelope pushing peers from the always controversial "'90s grunge scene," it's that there's nothing more punk than defecating on minorities. And that is exactly what Adris, Bill, and possibly nobody else do on this delightfully brief Long Player from 1993.

20 excessively brutal minutes of free jazz bullshit. "Harry Pussy" is a funny name for a band and "Fuckology" is a funny title for a song and while honorary avant noiselords Peter Brötzmann and Iannis Xenakis deserve every ounce of the sort of serious music beard stroking bestowed upon them over the years, sometimes you just gotta let loose and revel in the ridiculousness of shaping one's musical identity around creating such a purposely unholy racket, not to mention knowing that somebody somewhere is actually going to want to listen to it.

And who says you need to have jazz chops or a written philosophy in order to dick around like this and not have everybody assume you're full of shit? Like Whitehouse, Big Black, and that other "pussy" band before them, Harry Pussy puts an admirable amount of effort into making every aspect of their music's presentation as over the top and abrasive as possible. There are "songs" here, sure, but all they do is sort this lo-fi diarrhea spewage into digestible 2-3 minute long portions. The cymbals are bashed as if there's nothing in the world that sounds better than cymbals. The guitarist seems to be strangling out some sort of minor key melodic lines here and there but mostly just ends up making a mess that's somewhere between Lick My Decals Off, Baby and that video from the CD of The Ascension. And the vocals... well, they're a bunch of god awful shrieking. Spastic freakouts are interrupted by melancholy slow parts. The ugliest Kraftwerk cover ever gets played. The woman behind the drum kit apologizes for knocking a glass over. And my god, if it isn't all simply free noise nirvana.

Sometimes there just isn't much like treating yourself to a good ol' assault on the ears. It's why we have D.R.I. and early Napalm Death and it's why In An Emergency You Can Shit On A Puerto Rican Whore is able to do its job so efficiently. This is confrontational freeform noise rock performed with as much joyous energy as you're going to find in music. I can only imagine how special a band this willfully cacophonous sounded during the mid '90s, especially one that managed to not get sucked into the trappings of (occasionally entertaining) hyperactive Gravity Records scenester nonsense. Even after their influence has burrowed a labyrinthine network of tunnels throughout the underground, Harry Pussy remains fresh, original, seminal. So do Couch and Arab On Radar. AIDs Wolf and Eat Skull, not so much. There's a point where tuneless garbage actually becomes tuneless garbage and it's downright unacceptable. Only settle for the finest!

Rating: Filth!

Download Link: "1986"... a str8 banger.

Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall

In the year 2009, Jay Reatard turning out an album of 12 well-produced guitar pop songs is a more audacious move than most anyone is going to realize. This isn't to say that the era of the solid pop/rock Long Player is long dead, that three decades ago it was just plain easier for artists to make that perfect four note hook materialize out of nowhere using the simplest yet most unfathomably infectious combination of musical elements because all the good ideas hadn't been used up yet. Remember just how fucking hard an instant classic song like "Nightmares" managed to dispel any such notions during that special period of your life spent between the quiet late 2006 release of Blood Visions and the realization that half the reason you didn't end up with every one of those Matador 7"s was due to every subsequent new song's ability to make you care less and less.

It's just that after hearing where the man was going with the more blatantly "pop" leanings of his 2008 output... well, there's the strange thing about the arc of Mr. Reatard's solo career thus far. Handy descriptors such as "more accessible" and "less noisy" and "constantly refined pop craftsmanship" aren't so handy when dealing with a songsmith whose startlingly brilliant solo debut LP was such a headspinning blast through some of the most refreshingly tuneful punk/pop/whatever-the-fuck songs anyone has managed to come up with this decade. Throw in "Let It All Go," "Hammer I Miss You," and the glorious "I Know A Place" and you'll be forgiven for spending that year and a half naively thinking, "How the hell could whatever this superhuman genius machine comes up with next not be such a triumph of devastating catchiness that it actually manages to claw its way up the charts and into the hearts of millions?"

In light of the soul-crushing reality illuminated by the Matador singles, Watch Me Fall should have seemed inevitable. What other choice did Jay have, really? Was he going to somehow not put out an LP of two and a half minute long songs that manage to retain his previous work's garagey punch while peeling back some of the fuzz to make way for a greater emphasis on his much talked about Flying Nun fascination?

Therein lies the somewhat disappointing news. Jay cleaned up his sound, included more songs that actually approach the four minute mark and less that barely scratch 120 seconds, sang lines that may have previously been filtered through throat mangling shouts... yet despite such streamlining, Watch Me Fall isn't the sort of concise power pop record demanded of a less vicious Reatard. His pop smarts were as firmly in place as they could possibly have been circa "My Shadow" and "Oh It's Such A Shame," so of course those previous achievements are going to be difficult to transcend, let alone come close to matching. Even with many easy to detect differences, the new material is far less of a 180° turn from Blood Visions than it needs to be for Jay to have a second start to finish classic on his hands, a defined second chapter in his solo career.

Such a criticism wouldn't even be valid unless the album didn't feel like an artistically purgatorial mess. While the production sports more listenability than one would expect from anything described as "one man garage punk circa 2009" and every song contains at least one borderline anthemic hook, it's not exactly The Cars in terms of the kind of absurdly consistent melody surpluses that an album like this should aspire towards. While I am of the opinion that Mr. Reatard's earlier work stood out so much due to its ability to strike the perfect balance between screaming abrasiveness and pop songcraft of the sugariest order, I have no problem with him attempting to smooth out the more razor sharp edges. There are a number of moments on Watch Me Fall where Reatard seems well-equipped for a bright power pop future. "My Reality" updates the "Hammer I Miss You" verses so that they can happily coexist with a chorus that is all chiming guitars and stomping bass drum rhythm, you'd swear you were listening to an actually not terribly boring R.E.M. song (well, not really, but what else are you going to compare a song with "chiming guitars" to.) "Rotten Mind" finds Jay giving a vocal performance in what sounds like the ordinary range of his speaking voice, bringing out a melodicism within the track worthy of the first couple Wire albums. While the pacing and sequencing of the tracks isn't quite as perfect as on Jay's first album, the anxious multipart rush of "Hang Them All" into the surprisingly sweet sounding (yet with enough triumphant bombast in the wordless chorus to make it a choice closing number) "There Is No Sun" makes for a skillfully presented conclusion, while opener "It Ain't Gonna Save Me" storms right out of the gate, announcing that the new Jay Reatard Long Player has been completed and you're hearing it, damnit.

While those songs all rock efficiently, the album's most troublesome spots come when Jay doesn't reign in his more abrasive tendencies. In the context of this album, the verses of "Faking It" don't quite fit, seeming like an attempt to force the stop-start racket of "I See You Standing There" and "Puppet Man" into a place where they have no business being. Likewise, the chorus of "Men of Steel" contains a bit too much Blank Dogs-esque ugliness for my tastes, not to mention an instrumental breakdown that just has me longing for the brilliant you'd-swear-somebody-had-just-thrown-on-a-Slowdive-record outro of "Oh It's Such a Shame." And I'm not sure what the hell is going on in the verses of "Nothing Now," but it's simply not enjoyable to listen to (even if it does sound like the album cover, for better or for worse (well, the latter, sadly.)) Occasionally, I can't help but feel that Jay's conscious decision to follow his Tall Dwarfs/Clean muse by making the poppier moments as blatantly melodic as possible results in certain songs being more twee than I can personally handle, particularly the midtempo keyboard driven "I'm Watching You." Yet there is a sense that Jay is testing the waters in terms of how far he can really take his bubblegum ambitions... how much fuzz he can strip away and what the best way to go about doing so is. We can only hope that he lives to craft another album or two. The mix of good and less good ideas here only makes me eager to hear what Watch Me Fall is serving as a transition towards.

Rating: I've said a lot of negative things here, but really, Jay Reatard is still the reigning king of this sort of bratty garage pop. He might have a goofy voice and maybe the songs would get on the radio if they were just a bit slower, but this stuff is still some of the only modern pop/rock music worth listening to. It isn't just a bunch of lo-fi bullshit that all runs together. There's a great deal of care and skill put into these songs and while Watch Me Fall isn't the sort of perfect album that came into my life at just the right time like Blood Visions was, Jay Reatard's confidence and commitment to songcraft remains unparalleled during the second half of the '00s (except by The-Dream (that was a joke, but it's probably true.)) Seriously, what are you going to do, listen to the fucking Smith Westerns? I've played this album more in the past two days than anything else I've heard during the first seven and a half months of 2009. It's good.

Download Link: "Rotten Mind"... awfully good song.

Underworld - Pearl's Girl

Underworld's run between Dubnobasswithmyheadman and Beacoup Fish is some of my favorite music of the 90s. To this, you may cross your arms and type out a resounding "LOL!" with your toes as you breathe a contented sigh that your evening plans -- perhaps taking in the afterparty of the Diplo/Major Lazer/Dam Funk show and then getting a few chicks there to take you in, just another ordinary night -- don't involve any music so stale, nostalgic, or inextricably bound to such rockist traditions as Britpop or 90's alt. rock radio. You're a young turk and if you're in a generous mood, maybe you'll toss us a few tantalizing Tweets throughout the night so we can vicariously join you in your adventures as we sit at home playing Wipeout XL. So why am I wasting your time with this shit? We'll get to that soon.

I'd go to bat for the surprisingly-dismissed A Hundred Days Off from 2002, but I won't push my luck and will settle for summarizing the five juiciest years of their career within this paragraph. From 1994 to 1999, three great albums, two of which Allmusic gives the perfect 5-star Crash and Rollover rating to (Stephen Thomas Erlewine himself personally blessing Second Toughest In the Infants). Dubnobasswithmyheadman peeled away the shitty INXS-isms of the band's previous work and fused their synthpop stylings onto scraps of techno and acid left over the fallout of the UK rave scene. Must have been ridiculous to hear this in 1994! These dark soundscapes were stepped up into rolling electrofunk floorburners in Second Toughest In the Infants, when they struck it rich with the non-album single "Born Slippy." If their fans were once a future-obsessed or introspective group (no idea if this was the case or not, tbh), their ranks were now swollen with an up and coming new generation of chavs digging their larger-than-life sounds. Beacoup Fish arrived in 1999, riding the final waves of the electronica boom and producing what was probably their last radio hit in "Push Upstairs." This aerobics anthem would mark the end of their success in the United States, as follow-up albums failed to yield any radio-friendly unit shifters. Adding insult to injury, the existence of the blockbuster 2003 movie displaced the group's very existence from the minds of most Americans, who would eventually come to hear the name "Underworld" and only think of Kate Beckinsale in leather. Well into 2009, a quick Google search confirms this is still the case.

In between those albums, though, the band released a few really great EPs. The various Born Slippy discs being the most coveted and best known, comprising some great remixes -- something about these feel so much more natural and uncontrived than the "look at all the interesting friends we have/artists we can summon with a mere wave of our hand" that Nine Inch Nails began to employ at around the same time, a big selling point that Animal Collective smartly picked up on as their cult has grown in recent years -- and solid b-sides and alternate takes that make a lot of their album tracks sound like the throwaways. Pearl's Girl is heavy on these tracks, more than an hour of the hottest jams that might have flown "under the radar" for most fans. Still not convinced? If you like Pavement, Clouddead, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, or those William Burroughs "cut-ups" or whatever they're called, then just imagine their lyrics set to a throbbing techno beat! If you enjoy the sound/repetition of certain words together more than their actual meaning, then Underworld has what you want, when you want it!

My copy came with a card you could mail in to get a Wax Trax! catalog. Spoofing advertisements or making subversive commercials was a hot trend in 90s electronic music. So was using the image of the "random Asian guy," as seen in the Pearl's Girl CD tray.

Rating:

Download: "Cherry Pie"

The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

I've never heard this album all the way through, so let's get down to it and see what I've been missing, shall we?

1. "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" - As if this two-hour epic wasn't imposing enough as it is -- six charting hits, millions of copies sold, all inside a jumbo-size 2xCD case almost too big to fit in the little cubby hole beneath my car's CD player -- this beast of an album opens with an instrumental prelude, the calm before the storm, if you will. Brace yourselves, this stirring overture orders. It's going to be a bumpy ride!

2. "Tonight, Tonight" -- I've been back and forth on this song for years. I always enjoyed The Smashing Pumpkins most when they played feedback-drenched freakouts like "Rhinoceros," "Cherub Rock," or "Frail and Bedazzled." Being the American answer to My Bloody Valentine, Ride, or Chapterhouse would never have made them MTV superstars but up until this point it was almost possible to believe that they could actually have it both ways. The stirring strings of the CSO quickly closed the door on those hopes, and the high-concept award-winning video put to bed the days of blurry and layered Creation-flavoured clips. I know it's the second track on the album, but you might as well consider it the opener, and as such it does a fine job of shitting down the throats of everyone who thought they knew what to expect from "Da Pumpkuns," as they were fondly called all across Chicagoland. Great song. I used to cringe at its earnestness whenever it would come on the radio but in the context of the album it might make sense. That's something that kids in the post-CD age will never understand!

I put this on in the car and my girlfriend said it sounded like "Final Fantasy music." Like a theme for some scene with an airship taking off. Pretty much OTM.

3. "Jellybelly" -- That summer you and your friends first got cars, the last day of school, that first hour after you walked down the halls and out the doors, piling in the backseat and driving off towards... did it really matter where? Memories...

4. "Zero" -- I've heard this song hundreds of times but never realized how short it really was. Say whatever you will about this band writing pompous, bloated songs, but this gets right down to business and doesn't waste a bar. I should be sick of this overplayed hit by now but instead its revealing itself as one of the juiciest cuts of modern rock the 90s had to offer, a song I'm perfectly content to forever associate with my formative years. I was pretty comfortable with this realization and I feel it's the first of many passages into old age to come.

5. "Here is No Why" -- I guess this is okay. Definitely a Smashing Pumkpins song. Some of these lyrics are definitely suspect and I wonder how well I'm going to last down the stretch if there's more of this to come, which there certainly will be. This is coming from someone who owns almost the whole Placebo catalog, btw. You heard me right. Got any poppers? No? Anyway, kind of an MBV-ripoff of a song title but it's too bad that's all they seemed to be stealing from them at this point in their career. Some days I really love this song. Others it gives me a terrific headache. Who knows why?

6. "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" -- The lead single from the album and one of the most unflinchingly fiece documents of adolescent angst ever cut to tape. "What do I get for my pain?" Billy Corgan asks us. Nearly a decade and a half later and our generation still doesn't have an answer!

7. "To Forgive" -- I really dig this. Laid-back, mellow, MC&tIS's slow burner if there ever was one. This should have been a summer album and this should have been the soundtrack for kids with nothing to do and nowhere to go and 90-degree afternoons. Too bad the album dropped one week before Halloween, 1995. Fitting for the Pumpkins, you say with a smile? Not when you had Gish and Siamese Dream coming out in May and July and would find Adore hitting the streets in June. What could be even more fitting? Billy walking ontstage at a Tinted Windows concert with an acoustic guitar in hand, taking to Taylor Hansen's microphone (too stunned by his boyhood idol's sudden appearance to make a move) and singing an unaccompanied rendition of this song, changing the lyrics to "I forget to forget, you are what's important" as he sets his (everlasting) gaze on James's surprised and clearly touched face. Their future embrace is just the beginning of one comeback that the world never expected.

8. "An Ode To No One" -- Some websites list this song as "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)" but either that's incorrect or my copy is the special Family Edition of the album. Anyway, this song is a real "Fuck You" to the listener! You always hear millennial nu-metal bands getting the bulk of the blame for trends in over-compression of rock music, but maybe you need to go back a few years beyond that to get to the roots of the modern "loudness war". I always enjoyed the angsty catharsis of the average Smashing Pumpkins song, especially after a run of Matchbox 20/Counting Crows/Dave Matthews Band songs on the radio, but this is a little too much. What a mess this song is, and at 5 minutes it's a pretty exhausting experience. But hey, if it's too loud then you're too old! Right?

9. "Love" -- I was really hoping for a break from the last song's racket but this is more of the same, except with handclaps. Billy's not as angry this time but all the instruments are mixed into a horrible clusterfuck a la Gravity Kills/Stabbing Westward. They got this sound right on "Pug" a few years later, but was it too late? Anyway, they probably could have left this song on the shelves and released a great single-length LP (I'm hardly the first person to have considered this). And then people hearing these new b-sides would say, "If that's what they cut out, what they left in must be pure gold!"

10. "Cupid de Locke" -- Now this is what I was hoping for, a gentle return to their shoegaze-y roots. Something about this still isn't right. Why do they have to record the bass so loud? Arrrg! Maybe there's a few alternate versions in the archives just waiting to see the light, I know the real fans have been clamoring for them for years.

11. "Galapogos" -- This is really lovely. Or at least I thought so when I first started to write this entry a few weeks ago. I don't remember what it sounds like now. What I do know is that after Mellon Collie was released, Dave Pajo was on the other side of town helping to put the finishing touches on a Tortoise track of the same name, but secretly longing to finally rock out in ways his bandmates would never allow. Maybe he heard this album and knew he'd found his calling at last? Six years later, he'd finally get his wish. But wishes are a funny thing. Sometimes you get what you asked for, but it's never quite what you expect!

12. "Muzzle" -- The single that everyone forgets about, but the secret weapon of side one? They probably could have wrapped up the album after this, but wait, there's more than an hour's worth of music to come! Corgan's lyrics never got more personal than this, so if you loved Blinking With Fists then this song is definitely worth another look, especially if you want to know the real B.C.

13. "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" -- I love the creamy intro of this song, which got my hopes up that it might be all-instrumental. No such luck, but it's not a total loss. I wanted to write about how great it was of Billy to write a tribute to Selena, slain by one of her fans during MC&tIS's recording sessions in the spring of 1995. A quick Google search reveals I'm not the only person to point this out, turning my clever discovery into a running joke.

14. "Take Me Down" -- I used to hear "Be Strong Now" every day when I worked at Kohl's in high school. This was always one the highlight of my day, after which it was all downhill as I swept floors, collected used plastic hangers from registers, and carted out boxes of unassembled particleboard furniture to customers. So, yeah. I'm a big James Iha fan. A nice come down to the end of side one. Here's where I hope for even more Iha songs on side two, all the while knowing that's less likely than a Corgan duet with Stephen Malkmus.

15. "Where Boys Fear to Tread" -- Another instrumental song might get disc two off to a good start, and for the first minute it sounds like that's what we're gonna get. But like Prince Herbert, Billy just can't help himself.

16. "Bodies" –- Whoa, who put a Deftones song on here?

17. "Thirty-Three" –- Not a big fan of this song. What else is there to say, really?

18. "In the Arms of Sleep" -– Woah, who put a Calexico song on here?

19. "1979" -– I have a copy of the single for this in my closet. It belonged to my brother and was one of the only CDs he owned in the '90s that wasn't a bass CD, film soundtrack or some kind of Cash Money / No Limit gangsta rap album. I stole his Westside Connections CD and sold it for cash at the used store in 1998. I later found this in our parents' basement before they moved. I pinched from his collection from years at my own discretion but this was in retaliation for the years of unpunished thievery he committed against me as we grew up. Following our grandmother's death, I took the last pack of cigarettes from her purse, intending to one day ceremonially smoke them as a tribute to her legacy. I kept them in my desk drawer for a matter of mere days before they went missing, surely wasted on him and his white trash friends as they listened to Master P or The Offspring in the back of someone's car. But therein lies the irony: "1979" was an homage to teenage hedonism, so idyllically portrayed in the iconic video, and who else lived that life more naturally and completely than my brother? Once again, it looks like the joke's on me. Shit!

20. "Tales of a Scorched Earth" –- This is just awful. Really losing my will to review the rest of this album. Are there people who listen to this all the way through? Here's where I usually get off, and I think that's what I'm gonna do now.

"Through the Eyes of Ruby" is nice enough, and I'm a sucker for album-closing lullabies like "Farewell and Goodnight," but otherwise... what else can you say about this album? Wait for the 15th anniversary reissue next year and the critical reassessment of its place in the canon, sure to be a fiery discussion if there ever was one.

Rating: It's 1995 (the girls are just friends).


Download: "Myxomatosis" (live)

Robert Palmer - Pressure Drop

And so we conclude our three day long stretch of Robert Palmer reviews with this 1975 effort. Five years before the blockbuster hard rock of Riptide, Palmer was laying down the quirky yet awfully suave new wave of Clues, and now going back five years before that album brings us to Pressure Drop... and there's nary a synthesizer to be found.

Thought you were finished dealing with Hall & Oates namedrops popping up in Robert Palmer album reviews? Think again! Palmer spends a decent chunk of this album not far from the kind of Philly soul worshiping white person R&B that most certainly was Daryl and John's bag at the time. After all, this was the year of what many refer to as The Silver Album, the fourth H&O full length that steered them away from their fortunately brief hard rock fling and back towards groovier pastures. During the first two seconds of "Back In My Arms" (of which Palmer isn't asking how that feels, HINT, HINT), we are already confronted with three electric piano notes and a wonderfully syrupy string section that makes one wonder why Palmer wasn't ever granted a guest appearance on Yacht Rock. By the time the chorus hits, you'd swear that this was a great lost Abandoned Luncheonette reject.

Of course, one mustn't neglect the album's title... not just an homage to the Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack, but an indicator of where Palmer's musical head was at the time, aside from living up to the classy expectations built up by the album cover. There is a title track here and it is a cover of the Toots & The Maytals classic, a reggae classic that Palmer simply wails on! The surprisingly competent handling of non-white musical stylings doesn't stop there, however. Songs like "Work To Make It Work," "Trouble," and "Fine Time" possess an impressively genuine funkiness that was likely aided considerably by the presence of Little Feat as the backing band for this album. Why didn't Daryl and John think of that one???!

In 1975, Robert Palmer wore dopeass suits and could be treated to the sight of a woman's ass were he to glance over his shoulder at any given moment in time, especially the one captured on this album cover. With enough grasp on melody to make his poppier numbers irresistible and an ability to make his attempts at grittier, funkier soul sounds come across as not totally pussyish... well, he was good at music, I guess. Maybe you can find this shit on vinyl in a dollar bin somewhere. Probably a heck of a lot more exciting than Tarkus or Grand Funk Railroad.

Rating: RIP

Download Link: "Back In My Arms"... song is sunroof top, diggin' the scene. And you will be, too.

Robert Palmer - Clues

When Robert Palmer suffered a fatal heart attack in September of the year 2003, pop music critics Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot from Sound Opinions, The World's Only Rock 'n Roll Talk Show, were there to give Palmer his due as a man whose work contained more true artistic merit than much of his audience has ever been aware of.

Exhibit A: "Johnny & Mary," a tragic tale of tattered romance set to a driving drum beat and an occasionally minimalist synth arrangement. Oh, the such great heights that this slice of catchy new wave pop manages to soar to. It's no wonder that those pied pipers Placebo were inspired to initiate a full-scale reevaluation of Palmer's entire recorded output. Guess you missed the boat by a few months, Jim and Greg. Thanks for playing!

Palmer doesn't exactly spend the rest of Clues wildly shitting out his very own McCartney II, but there are nevertheless a number of surprises that make this a more eclectic and subversive listen than one might expect. Witness opener "Looking For Clues," where a herky jerky keyboard/muted guitar/something riff provides the basis for an upbeat soul pop number full of octave vocal doublings and 4 second staccato synth jab breaks. In fact, you'd swear it was... something off of McCartney II. If it didn't sound like a finished song made by a relatively stable human being, I mean. Chris Frantz is credited with "bass drum."

Elsewhere you have Gary Numan guesting on a cover of his own song, a radio ready rendition of the Beatles' "Not A Second Time" with a ridiculous synth solo in the middle, and several originals that are just fine, really. A stylistically dynamic 31 minutes. Idiosyncratic production all around, plus the joy of hearing a soulful pop craftsman launching this usually pretty dorky Devo/Kraftwerk/Squeeze pussy music into slightly unexpected territory.

Rating: It's no Voices. Still, another really, really enjoyable album from Robert Palmer.

Download Link: "Looking For Clues"... can you imagine somebody in 1980 throwing this shit on after Dirty Mind? Kind of?

Robert Palmer - Riptide

BERNARD EDWARDS TAKIN' SHIT TO THE NEXT LEVEL AS EXPECTED

ROB LOOKS LIKE A SQUARE BUT THESE ARE SOME TIGHT GROOVES

PERFECTLY SATISFYING 35 MINUTE LISTENING EXPERIENCE TO BUILD AROUND THE ALREADY FAMILIAR "ADDICTED TO LOVE"

"HYPERACTIVE" IS HALL & OATES ALBUM TRACK WORTHY, NOT QUITE DRY ENOUGH TO BE ROBOTICALLY FUNKY IN THAT NEW WAVVES WAY BUT STILL SOME SOLID SOUL POP AND THE PERFECT LOST '80S CLASSIC TO ORDER TAKEOUT TO WHILE CELEBRATING YOUR VICTORY ON A VH1 GAME SHOW

DISTORTED GUITARS KEEP THESE FUNKY R&B ROOTED PARTY JAMS SQUARELY IN BLARING ROCK TERRITORY

LISTEN TO THAT DISSONANT INSANITY ON "FLESH WOUND," IT'S LIKE THE ROBERT FRIPP PRODUCED DARYL HALL SOLO ALBUM OR AALIYAH'S "WHAT IF" THAT GETS CALLED "AN R&B KING CRIMSON" IN HER S/T'S WIKIPEDIA ENTRY

"DISCIPLINE OF LOVE" WHAT A BANGER TO GET EVERYBODY WORKED UP AND THEN PULL EVERYTHING BACK DOWN WITH A BRIEF COMEDOWN THAT REPRISES THE TITLE TRACK BUT NEVERTHELESS, I CAN'T SAY THAT ANY OF THESE 35 MINUTES ARE PARTICULARLY WASTED

ENOUGH VARIATION THROUGHOUT A PERFECTLY BEARABLE RUNNING TIME, NOT A MISSTEP TO BE FOUND, PALMER'S ENERGY NEVER LETS UP... GONNA GO RIGHT AHEAD AND DECLARE THIS TO BE A SOLID LONG PLAYER

Rating: It's gonna give you a really, really good time. Who's gonna say no to that?

Download Link: "Hyperactive"

Pajo - Scream With Me

Former Zwan member records a full length album of unplugged Misfits covers. And that's it. Always slow, always gentle acoustic fingerpicking, always vocals done in a near whisper. Over in 25 minutes. A no bullshit description of a no bullshit recording.

Because we're dealing with the songbook of what is surely one of the ten or so greatest pop/rock oriented acts of all time, of course these melodies are going to be a bit of a challenge to sabotage completely. Even when clouded in a stubbornly consistent mood that remains unshakable throughout the album's duration, the timeless brilliance of "Hybrid Moments," "Teenagers From Mars," and "Where Eagles Dare" never ceases to shine through in all its aurally pornographic glory.

The "substance" part of the equation is so strong that it keeps Pajo from wandering too far up the ass of the "style" part, to the point where there's just nothing bad a person can really say about a release like this. Certainly the arrangements found in these interpretations could not be much more radically different sounding when compared with their source material, yet how likely would it be for a full-on compositional reconstruction of these songs to not suck ass? There's no need for Pajo to go all Mark Kozelek on us here. Scream With Me is a celebration of the Misfits' knack for tunefulness, for which the group's original lineup remains the finest in the whole pop-punk business. To alter that aspect of the songs would be eschewing their most noteworthy attributes.

Yes, "a no bullshit recording," indeed. Straightforwardness is key here. In his fingerpicking patterns, Pajo is going for something a tad more unassuming than Bert Jansch or the aforementioned Mark Kozelek. Arranged and laid down to tape on a whim? Perhaps. But lovingly so. That "alone in a bedroom with a 4 track at 3 A.M. trying not to wake the neighbors" vibe is in full swing, tape hiss and all. This shit is so scaled down that it makes Weed Forestin sound like Sandinista!, so surprisingly infectious once you get past the crude presentation that it makes Blue Corpse sound like White Box Requiem, and so refusing to show any musical variation whatsoever that it makes White Box Requiem sound like Blue Corpse.

Every song selected is a classic of the highest order, no question there. More than half the tracks are A+ highlights pulled from the undeniable Static Age release, after all. However, is a little something from Earth A.D. too much to ask? Not saying that this should be any longer or that I personally feel the need to replace any one of these perfectly acceptable cover versions, but could he have at least thrown in that album's poppiest, most coverable (in this context) track? "Bloodfeast"? The str8est of str8 bangers?

Guess I'll hold out for the outtakes EP. Maybe we'll be treated to some Famous Monsters jams (just kidding, man, what a crazy thing to say but I said it anyway.)

Rating: Very, very enjoyable. IMHO.

Download Link: "Hybrid Moments"... I lied, there are some slight yet fairly obvious melodic alterations made here. He's such a cutie, though.

The Grateful Dead - American Beauty

Wrapping up our final day of painting my brother's apartment, my dad finally took some initiative in selecting what music we would be enjoying as we touched up door frames and vacuumed blinds. Rather than apathetically settle for the hideously mediocre 2007 Steve Earle album that happened to be in the CD player (which I endured twice this past week, let me tell you) or have to sit through my picks from the iTunes library (Alice Cooper - Killer, Nilsson Schmilsson, disc one of Nuggets, Rumours for the umpteenth time, multiple Steely Dan recordings), the man took some initiative and selected some old dad favorites from the plentiful CD shelf.

First up was Blood On The Tracks by Boobs Dylan, an album that my dad owns an LP copy of and is unlistenable dreck of the lowest order. Next in the queue was the Grateful Dead's American Beauty. The same CD issue of the album that he has owned for the past 15 years, at that. So I suppose that adds an extra layer to the sense of familiarity.

Let me tell you about the Grateful Dead. They are an easy to dismiss musical group. I'm not going to go on and on about just why so many discerning music listeners feel that committing themselves to the cult and oeuvre of the Dead is not a task worth pursuing. I will say, however, that a major reason for said dismissal is the jams and the very idea that anyone could ever give a shit about singling out which one of fifty live versions of "Dark Star" truly takes the cake. Especially when the jams aren't even much to write home about, anyway. They don't possess the fluid elegance demanded by the most engaging jazz music. They're not heavy. They're not noisy. They're not "hypnotic." The grooves... fuck 'em. Listen to Miles Davis or Crazy Horse or microhouse or something. Not this mindlessly meandering b.s.!

But, oh, I love the jams. I understand the Dead's motivations there. Give me a guitar and I'll just go, go, go with some endless modal one-chord faux jazz crap soloing. It's a blast. You can't blame Jerbear & Friends for constructing a musical empire that allows them to step out in public and effortlessly dick around for hours... hell, years, really. And the survivors are still going at it while their dipshit fans are still too stoned to realize how boring it all is.

Regardless of how much investment I truly have in the opinions expressed thus far (I enjoy the Live/Dead recording and a Dick's Picks release or two, no lies), they at least give you some idea of the sort of vitriol that gets commonly spewed at this band and everything they've ever stood for. And so we set out to find a release of theirs that challenges our preconceptions, perhaps an album that captures the Dead focusing their songwriting in such a way that their compositional skills don't get lost in a web of the very most unbearable "experimental tendencies"?

American Beauty is not that album.

"Friend of The Devil," "Sugar Magnolia," "Truckin'"... these are the radio classics. And they've earned that reputation by being catchy little devils. The rest? Not so much. You see, the thing about the Dead is that the playing just isn't particularly interesting or anything more than the most by-numbers folk rock. The other thing is that aside from Jerry Garcia's feel good vocal tones, they were all terrible fucking singers with the ugliest of voices (play Music From Big Pink and then follow that up with anything Bob Weir ever sang... embarrassing, to say the least.) They can't harmonize with the folky grace of Crosby, Stills & Nash, nor do they have the humility or pop ambitions to overcome their own incompetence like the Guess Who did. The other thing is that Seb Hunter's rambling overly "poetic" lyrics sound particularly awkward being forced out of the mouths of these awful singers (including the somewhat not awful Jerry himself) and into their coma inducing shit songs. Which brings me to the inarguable fact that their songs pretty much suck. The opening lines of "Box of Rain" feel classic, sure, but the rest of the song goes nowhere and does nothing while going there. "Brokedown Palace" sounds like Wilco at their very worst. "Attics of My Life." So much slow garbage here. These songs are four, five, six minutes long. No excuse for that at all!

I started this review 24 hours ago and blew a whole day putting off finishing it. I have a headache that's lasted since late afternoon and really just need to go to sleep. I don't care about this album or "exposing the Dead's bullshit once and for all!" and wish I hadn't written so many paragraphs before getting to that last one where I ended up not really having much to say. This music is boring and this band, even when the songs are somewhat decent, always manages to fuck up at least one crucial aspect that reminds you that they were really just a miserable travesty all along. And not a very entertaining one. Not on this album, anyway.

Rating: Average.

Download Link: