Caribou - Andorra (2007)

4.0 ★/8.0 - 8.9

Like most musical artists, Daniel Snaith aims to use sound to express emotions. But coming from a genre that's known for it's disregard of humanity (IDM) and possessing a songwriting style that's appropriate for such a background, this has to be quite the challenge. The disconnect between the title of his last album and the sounds within only further proves that. If Daniel had any sincerity with titling his debut as Caribou, The Milk of Human Kindness, it was completely lost on the album's contents; sterile, Krautrock-rooted jamming and genre-hopping nods to record geeks.

The sound of his follow-up however, suggests that maybe the two album names just got mixed up on Daniel's cutting room floor. There's far more "human milk," so to speak, on the first two tracks of Andorra than on the entirety of its prequel. Admittedly, tracks like "Sundialing" and "Niobe" are still tightly constructed with precise, unforgiving rhythms and intensely satisfying build-ups, and electronics still form the basis for most of these songs (See the brilliantly sampled and looped "doo doo doos" of "She's The One"). But whereas the debut came off as mechanical and unforgiving, Andorra's sun soaked glory manages to express something much more than the sum of it's precise polyrhythms and calculated constructs.

Or perhaps it's much less, because if you trek through it's computer driven dense noodling looking for the source of it's humanity, you'll overlook that Andorra is just a plain fun record, filled with Zombies-style sunshine pop, soaring choruses and outlooks as simple as "love is nice". Maybe that's why it works. It sounds as if Daniel came to terms with what he could and couldn't express with his style, and made a rational compromise; to perfectly match his superficial backdrops with equally superficial emotions, crafting an album that's bursting with signs of organic growth and moments of beautiful grace. Read more...

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine (1989)

4.5 ★/9.0 - 9.9

Since day one, Trent Reznor has always been a better producer and songwriter than a front-man and performer. His background in theater clumsily translated into a career plagued by an unhealthy fixation on melodrama. Even Reznor's biggest supporters have probably always had a hard time defending the most frequent criticism of Nine Inch Nails, and especially Pretty Hate Machine: the abysmal lyrics. Usually, skeptics of the landmark industrial-crossover album will avoid dealing with any of the music (mainly because it's near-perfect), and instead whip out a list of the lyrical-sheet's biggest offenders, which falls to the floor and consists of at least one line on every single track; "how can you treat me like this, after you taught me how to kiss", "slipping on the tears you've made me cry", "grey would be the color, if I had a heart", "I still dream of lips I never should have never kissed" (Reznor seems to have a 3'rd graders obsession with kissing), and a host of other "cat-in-the-hat-delivered-by-an-angsty-leather-clad-teenage-goth-isms" are inherent in Reznor's delivery, making all his brooding and shouting feel a little cartoonish. As a matter of fact, on "Something I Can Never Have", where his voice is front-and-center, driving the entire minimalist ballad, it almost becomes too much to handle, and when you realize that Reznor would go on to craft much more subtle and affecting ballads thereafter ("Hurt", "Another Version of The Truth", "Lights in The Sky"), this song becomes an enormous, overlong pitfall disrupting the otherwise flawless sequencing of everything else. Of course, to like Nine Inch Nails at all, you have to embrace the infantile nature of Reznor's poetry, but even after doing so, Pretty Hate Machine can never quite rise above a near-masterpiece because of that steaming pile of failure in the center.

But Pretty Hate Machine is still a 'near-masterpiece'. The usage of keyboards, electronics and digital noise exhibited in almost every moment of the album are what make it one of the high points of 80's production, and while that means that listening to the album today makes it feel a little dated, like most of keyboard-heavy music from the decade, it doesn't change the fact that, for its time, this fusion of industrial, pop and dance was unique and breathtaking. The first 3 lead-off tracks and singles all exhibit brilliant hooks on the surface, urban polyrhythms under the exterior, and generally brilliant composition, while the electro-punk of "Sin", dramatic changes of "That's What I Get" and punchy slap-bass driving the infectious grooves of "Sanctified" and "The Only Time" push the album into classic status.

Over time, Reznor's studio wizardry would proceed to evolve and get even better in some ways, while his over-the-top delivery would stick around and fester. But no matter what changes he would proceed through (or avoid), whether for good (Year Zero) or bad (The Fragile), the Nine Inch Nails moniker would never achieve quite the same muscularity and consistency it captured here. Read more...

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love (2009)

4.5 ★/9.0 - 9.9

Now this is the way that artists should do things; an organic evolution with a constant slope and none of that inconsistent ducking and playing around with genres and style variations that almost every band seems to go through at some point in their career. The Decemberists are too professional for that. They had been hinting at something like Hazards of Love for almost a decade, with each new chapter in their discography taking things slightly deeper, at a pace of change that has been so gradual and delicate that it hardly feels like there's been a change at all. The move from their early-period Neutral Milk Hotel-isms to the multi-suite songs of their mid-period career never once felt self-conscious, and their next leap into straight-ahead prog on The Tain and The Crane Wife was equally level-headed. Every step felt like a goal, and the following step forward would only serve to reveal the last stage as transitional. But now we finally arrive at an end-point - A full length, full fledged Rock Opera. Of course, there still might be something beyond this. Perhaps this is just yet another a step to something even bigger (if such a beast of an album is even possible). But for now that hardly matters, because the resulting LP is a joy to listen to. The band was once just sitting in the shadow of Jeff Magnum's fully realized folk project, but now they've stepped out of it and offered a sprawling near-masterpiece of their own, that even stands toe to toe with In The Aeroplane Over The Sea at a handful of moments.

Those moments include the beautiful title track, the jagged and chilling lead single, "The Rake Song", which describes, in horrifying detail, mass infanticide, and the beautifully grandioise finger picking of "Margaret in Captivity". More brilliance crops up in "Won't Want For Love", "Repaid" and "The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing", which all take sensational cues from Black Sabbath, lurching and overflowing with ravaged distortion that perfectly matches the anger of Meloy's various characters at key moments, and both versions of "The Wanting Comes In Waves," housing one of the album's greatest hooks (second only to the spine-tingling chorus of the passionate and fiery "Annan Water").

But before the end of this review, apologies must be made for the NMH references, because it's a tad misleading. There's nothing "indie" about The Hazards of Love. This is pure Prog, without any compromises, and when it does give in, as on the conventional structure and corny ending of the last track, the album falters. The best thing about Colin Meloy's songwriting is how its simplicity and immediacy allows all the complimentary jamming, charming instrumentation and storytelling prowess to come naturally, and the first 16 tracks deliver that in spades, creating a fun catalog of Now That's What I Call 70's Prog that deserves to be replayed and memorized note by note, line by line, like all the best Rock Operas. Read more...

Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover (2007)

3.5 ★/7.0 - 7.9

When it comes to Wolf Parade, Spencer Krug has made the band for me and not just because of the absolutely perfect song that is "I'll Believe in Anything". His style of songwriting is just more dense. Boeckner is the brute of the band and Spencer Krug is the poet. This is even clearer when you compare Boeckner's band, The Handsome Furs to Krug's band, Sunset Rubdown. Whereas the former band's album from this same year is the sound of simple pleasures (hooks and synths, oh boy!), Krug takes the high-art route.

Lyrically, he's clearly a storyteller of the highest order, in full control of his densely packed imagination, singing of fantastic worlds inhabited by aristocrats, royalty, magicians and tricksters. Disturbingly cryptic imagery surround each songs' brief stretches of beautifully yearning sincerity, forming a dense labyrinth of lines that will have you reading deeply into the lyrics sheet in ways that few, besides Jeff Magnum perhaps, inspire one to do. But furthermore, unlike the sometimes underwhelming Shut Up I Am Dreaming, the compositions here soundtrack the unpredictability of his freakshow-theater lines perfectly. These songs are ragged yet enormous, spiraling, inspiring, and stunning in their ability to balance intimacy with power. A full minute of trash can percussion, spinning layers of a capella vocals and some of Krugs' most vulgar phrasings unexpectedly erupts into a melody that never leaves your head on "The Courtesans Have Sung". "Stallion" casually creaks and cackles disturbingly under it's woozy piano and dissonant guitar riffs, while "Trumpet, Trumpet, Toot!" basically ascends for 5 minutes straight. But "Magic Vs. Midas" is where the breaths really get taken away. Coming after the sensational rocket-car guitars and feverishly anthemic passages of "The Mending of The Gown", the song is perfect; a comfortably settled series of delicate metaphors, acoustic pickings and charmingly ramshackle crescendos, all held together by some of the greatest poetry of the decade. It's genuinely tragic that the song writing gets just a tad too obtuse in parts of the album's second half. Had Krug treated some of the later slow tracks and transitions ("Setting Vs. Rising", "Child-Heart Losers", sections of "Colt Stands Up, Grows Horns") with the same memorable craft as his centerpieces, this could have been something really special, perhaps even surpassing Wolf Parade's last big release. As it stands though, Random Spirit Lover still contains some of the most magical moments you can find in indie rock today. Read more...

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! (2009)

3.0 ★/6.0 - 6.9

It's almost too obvious that The Yeah Yeah Yeahs should never have gotten as big as they did after Fever To Tell. The problem is that Karen O and company have always sounded best when you could hear their filthy NYC garage background (see the early EPs). Nick Zinner's monstrous razor-blade guitar, Brian Chase's precise yet minimalist drumset and Karen O's desperate shrieks captured a sound that was positively vital at the time. On their debut LP, emotive tracks like "Maps" and "Y Control" worked because they were the exceptions and therefore managed to deepen the bands signature cacophony. But instead of using that as a stepping stone, they foolishly made it a blueprint and stumbled into a field that was dominated by countless bands already. Show Your Bones was Alternative Radio 101; as inoffensive and utterly lifeless as it could possibly be without actually being bad.

So that's why it might be hard to shake off the feeling of disappointment from It's Blitz. Even if their song-craft has improved from their last effort, the bottom line is that they're still stumbling in the wrong field for them and it couldn't be more obvious since they're now messing with Electro Pop and New Wave. Ultimately, the best thing to take away from It's Blitz is that, with a mastermind as consistently brilliant as David Sitek behind the board, they could easily get back on track at any time. His noisy, mind-blowing studio magic tricks are what make The Yeah Yeah Yeahs unambitious vision on It's Blitz worth hearing. The dangerously radiating laser beam synths on "Zero", the noisy wall of majestically towering sound on "Skeletons", the backwards yawning on "Soft Shock", the staccato horns coming in at the end of "Hysteric" and the twin fluttering guitars on dance-punk beast, "Dragon Queen", all seem to benefit from the cues they take from last years' major album of the year, Dear Science. But therein lies the problem. Ultimately, this is just a watered down version of Dear Science. Whenever Sitek steps back to let the front-people do their thing, The Yeah Yeahs Yeahs hardly distinguish themselves. Sure, they've got an ear for a hook or two, and Karen O still sounds great, but a braver band wouldn't waste their time dramatizing new age stinkers like "Heads Will Roll" or "Little Shadow", grandstanding on the overlong "Runaway" or dulling up the already-dull "Dull Life" with a series of power chords The Offspring wouldn't mind using. The band deserves credit for trying something new, as well as crafting an album that feels fully formed, but once you strip away the gloss and sheen from the highlights, this is a hollow indie-lite affair. Read more...

Red Light Company - Fine Fascination (2009)

4.0 ★/8.0 - 8.9

There's no denying it; Youth is wasted on the young. Of course, many would beg to differ with various, perhaps legitimate, arguments. Acne, raging hormones, drama, high school, living with the parents, locker room antics and regularly following regrettable fads in order to "fit in", are all things that we, as adults, are probably glad to have gotten out of the way early. But then there's that intangible spark of idealistic longing that, over time, through the pain of responsibility, hardens into cynicism. The absence of that is a little more tragic, and Fine Fascination fulfills the very basic need to relive those past glories and optimistic times. The album is utterly charming for the way it perfectly captures the nature of youth, complete with sneering boyish vocals, hopeful crescendos, and a musical slant towards immediate pleasures; soul-affirming, arena-rock gestures and pop hooks. Seeing as how Los Campesinos! and, to a certain extent, Frightened Rabbit, beat them to the punch last year, the album will probably be extensively criticized for lack of originality. Quoted from the lines of one of the exuberant centerpieces, "The Architect", Red Light Company can mimic and deliver, but they don't really know how. Still, they only fail in the endearing way that most teens usually do; earnestly reaching for the stars, without the slightest clue about how far away they actually are. Fine Fascination still triumphs as a consistently satisfying 40 minutes of wistfulness, from the jagged bar rock of "Words Of Spectacular" to the rumbling bass, space and explosive climax of "When Everyone is Everybody Else". Whip out your lighters, warm up your air guitar skills and prepare for some quality nostalgia. Read more...

MF Doom - Born Like This (2009)

4.5 ★/9.0 - 9.9

Daniel Dumille truly is a villain. After almost four years of terrorizing his fans with inactivity and rumors of imposters on stage at his shows, he finally drops an album self-described as "encapsulating but surpassing all of his previous work", and it turns out to be nothing more than a glorified compilation! But wait, since when did calling something a compilation become a criticism? Don't compilations benefit from being able to take the absolute best of an artist's career and tie them into a single listening experience? Green Day's major compilation album, International Superhits remains their most acclaimed album, even better than what many may consider their masterpiece, Dookie. Similarly, Born Like This triumphs as a simple collection of some of Doom's best ideas in the past 4 years of dormancy.

Certainly though, the villain has had albums with much better beats than this. There's not quite a "Rap Snitch Knishes" on Born Like This nor anything that compares to the better half of King Geedorah's Take Me To Your Leader (although a handful of tracks get pretty close, such as "Still Dope," featuring a typically vicious performance by Empress Stahhr), but Doom makes up for the lack of an obvious centerpiece with simple consistency. From start to finish, there's barely any weak tracks. "Gazillion Ear" is as fascinating as J Dilla ever got, featuring a puzzling side step into lush spirals of middle-eastern synths, "Cellz" perfectly traverses the tightrope between silly and terrifying and "Absolutely" finds Madlib toying with a beautifully relaxing drone, and getting mouths watering for a true Madvillainy sequel. Initially, a couple of the Jake One produced tracks appear to be low points, such as "Microwave Mayo" or "More Rhymin," but over time they become simple pleasures; understated, catchy and functioning as essential transition tracks with subtle intricacies that move the album forward. Besides, Jake One more than pays his dues in terms of immediacy with his instant classic single, "Ballskin," as well as the subterranean, pounding "Rap Ambush".

Yes, some of these tracks have been used before. Yes, the snare that's been added to the otherwise brilliant Ghostface collaboration, "Angelz," couldn't be more distracting. And yes, "Bumpy's Message" is completely pointless. But all of the inconsistencies, random inclusions, and hodgepodge elements are what makes it so definitively Doom. Such arbitrary recklessness has always been an essential part of the Dumille persona and to criticize any single album of his for that haphazard quality is to miss his point of his "villain" aesthetic. If you disconnect yourself from any preconceived notions of what should go into a perfectly constructed album, then Born Like This quickly reveals itself to be one of Dumille's many shining moments; a brilliant epilogue to one of the most prolific and rewarding careers in hip hop today. Read more...

Clipse - Lord Willin' (2002)

3.5 ★/7.0 - 7.9

The Neptunes have been beat geniuses since they jumped on the scene, but the next big step in staking a truly significant piece of the global producers pie, is always to get behind the board of an entire album from start to finish. Sure enough, in 2002, riding on the hype of songs by Jay-Z, Mystikal, Britney Spears and countless others, they contributed all of their talents to the debut of Clipse, even going as far as to make their own record label for its release. However, as a first chapter, it's a little disjointed. On Lord Willin, The Neptunes signature style is still miles ahead of the copycats it once inspired, but when stretched across the course of a full album, the mainstream cliches it's mired in becomes a little too obvious, especially on overtly exhibitionist tracks like "Ego" or "Gangsta Lean". Of course, the Neptunes' missteps with those tracks might have been forgivable if rappers, Malice and Pusha T, didn't swagger their obnoxious gangsterisms so boisterously. Discordantly delivered choruses like "Don't let cha ego trick yo ass, cause this muthafuckin tech will get yo ass" completely eclipse Pharrell and Chad's consistent sense of high quality production, exposing their attachment to the genres' stereotypes and making the listening experience a little mundane.

Still, whenever the MC duo reigns in their "in-your-face" attitude, their incessant boasting and one-dimensional, gritty tales of drug dealing actually showcase some serious wit. What Malice and Pusha T seem to overlook is that their voices already sound menacing as hell without even trying. When they make any further effort to increase the rage, it's just sounds over the top. Thankfully, they don't resort to those extreme gestures too often, allowing The Neptunes to generate their usual gorgeous strut-offs ("Ma, I Don't Love Her"), easy going smoke-offs ("Virginia"), a lush urban anthem ("I'm Not You") and a bunch of tracks that are quite enjoyable, despite the lack of replay value. Plus, there's the unstoppable singles, featuring two of the greatest beats the Neptunes have ever put to tape. "When The Last Time" is a refreshing slice of limb-jerking, inner-city tension, although it definitely boasts a hook of some sort, even if the squawking synths would sound positively dissonant if isolated. But there's no easy way into "Grindin", a song that needs to be heard at max volume, cruising in a car with heavy bass sub-wafers and all the windows rolled down. The beat is a skeleton without any flesh; subterranean mouth pops kick in for the chorus, but otherwise it gets by with nothing but hand claps, finger snaps and shutting metallic doors. It's a song that was clearly made to consume, cause chaos and inspire rebellion. Pump the stereo and submit yourself to the insanity. Read more...

New Found Glory - Not Without A Fight (2009)

2.5 ★/5.0 - 5.9

It might be hard to admit, but most of the tracks on New Found Glory's self titled album and their follow up, Sticks And Stones are extremely catchy, accomplished pop punk, with hooks and chainsaw guitar riffs that appeal just as much to fans of Journey and power-pop as much as they would to teenage mallrats and fangirls making the transition from boy bands to "real" music. And because of those endlessly replayable arena rock anthems, I will openly admit to counting New Found Glory among a mental list of bands whose releases I keep up with. There's also all the fond memories of reckless youthful abandon that I associate with those albums. I grew up listening to interchangeable, dumb, trashy pop-punk like this and while there are so many reasons to hate it, I find myself coming back to it time and time again for the nostalgia.

Ordinarily, at this point in the review, I would explain in what way this tangent about the bands' earlier works is relevant to their newest release. Unfortunately, that wasn't my intention. The fact is, there is nothing to talk about with this album. It's just the same old shit, with a quarter of the vitality the band once had. They were once dependably second rate, but now they're more like fourth or fifth. I was just ranting about their old material, because when faced with music this redundant, boring and predictable, the only thing I can do is curl up into my bubble of security and struggle to recall a time when pop-punk was everything to me. Expect to do the same when your fondest memories of the past get shat all over by the depressing reality of the present. Read more...

The Jesus Lizard - Liar (1992)

4.0 ★/8.0 - 8.9

David Yow hates you. You probably didn't do anything to him, but rest-assured, he's already plotting to do horrific things to you and your dog. He's the kind of guy you don't want to run into on the street. He's the raving lunatic you see in the back of the bus, muttering expletives and twitching. He's the infected from 28 Days Later, coughing up blood and violently reaching for the nearest life form to savagely murder. And on Liar he treats everyone like they've just spit in his face. From the moment the album begins with the vicious "Boilermaker", he plows down the front door in a violent flurry of raving nonsense. Hard to stomach? You bet. But for the abrasive brutality conjured up throughout this album, his voice is perfect.

Liar is military in it's execution and relentlessness. It hits harder and more precisely than it's predecessor, resembling a sniper rifle, rather than the widespread shotgun-like chaos of Goat. In other words, The Jesus Lizard and their style of staccato insanity have never been tighter. Tracks like the pummeling "Art Of Self Defense" and "Boilermaker", with it's gattling gun style guitar breaks, define manic and driving. There's also the interesting stylistic variations that Goat was known for, such as "Rope", a frantic rodeo in hell; "Whirl", a dizzying trip through a demented circus funhouse; and "Puss", which is practically a pop song. But Liar doesn't quite match the brilliance of Goat because it seems to trail off near the end. "Zachariah" is an admirable attempt at slowing down that falls flat and "Dancing Naked Ladies" starts off nicely, but feels disappointing when it doesn't go anywhere. Still, it's The Jesus Lizard's angriest release and one of their best. If you need a soundtrack for going on a killing spree, this is it. Read more...