The Game

Doctor’s Advocate

Geffen

originally published December 6, 2006

If you think hip hop is just about beats and hooks, then you’re probably one of the millions of people who bought or downloaded The Documentary, The Game’s 2005 debut. Fair enough: in purely musical terms, it was an undeniable album, lavishly produced and imminently danceable but also intricately layered and well-crafted. But Game’s rhymes were far from memorable - his frequently voiced reverence for hip hop classics like The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die and mentor Dr. Dre’s The Chronic wore thin quickly. Listening to The Documentary was like chatting with your most frustrating music-nerd friend - you know, the guy who rambles on so long about the latest awesome album he bought that his human qualities begin to evaporate.

Much has changed in The Game’s life over the last 20 or so months, though: he’s left G-Unit, switched labels, and lost touch with Dre. And, as Doctor’s Advocate testifies, he’s developed into a more confident rapper. In the Hi Tek-produced slow roller “Ol’ English,” Game finally acknowledges the line between reality and art: “This is life / Stop watchin’ that Boyz N the Hood shit.” His delivery has also matured considerably. “Too Much” is exemplary of Game’s improved flow: he drops and adds syllables without working against the beat and repeats phrases without sounding mechanical.

Less graceful but equally as impressive is his performance in the title cut. Here Game petitions for reconciliation with Dre in wavering, mournful cries. Listening to the song, it’s hard not to feel the sickly blend of amusement and discomfort that arises from hearing a dude drunk-dial his ex. That tune, like the rest of Doctor’s Advocate, suggests that estrangement was exactly what our protagonist needed to up his, um, game.

Phillip Buchan

Various Artists

Plague Songs

4AD / Artangel

originally published December 6, 2006

Themed compilations - especially those that double as soundtracks for high-minded art films, and super-especially those whose themes are Biblical - are always a mixed bag, and Plague Songs is no exception. Commissioned by British organization Artangel for a city-wide piece of performance art called The Margate Exodus this past September, Plague Songs is a collection of 10 songs based on the 10 plagues of Egypt, each written and performed by a different artist, most of the critically-acclaimed-but-little-selling variety. And if you think you know what it sounds like when funtime Charlies like Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson and Scott Walker record songs about flies, dead livestock and darkness, well… you’re probably right on the money.

Plague Songs opens with the tedious “Blood” by British rapper Klashnekoff, with a murky piano-and-guitar beat right out of a Tricky album circa 1999 and reworked Biblical quotes (“Hallowed be thy name / Thy kingdom is in flames”) so heavy with import they become parody. Cody ChesnuTT seems similarly weighed down by the seriousness of the matter, turning in a surprisingly lifeless, funkless “Boils” despite some pretty awesome marching-band horns. Eno (with Robert Wyatt, doing his best buzzing-fly impression), Anderson and Walker do their respective things, with solid if unspectacular results. Walker’s “Darkness” is the best, an almost a cappella meditation on slavery and commerce that finds him trading lines, in his lugubrious baritone, with a shrieking choir; when their voices drop out, leaving only a tambourine, the titular state is almost tangible.

The album’s highlights are the songs that sound like songs and not like art projects, the ones that have some fun with the concept, or that find something personal in the plague. Stephin Merritt’s “The Meaning of Lice” is a bouncy, disco-fabulous theological puzzle, and Imogen Heap’s “Glittering Cloud” is an epic dancefloor mantra that doesn’t even mention locusts, its ostensible subject. The album closes with Rufus Wainwright’s lovely “Katonah,” an elegy for his dead friend and not all the dead firstborn of Egypt. Listening to Plague Songs is a bit like being Pharaoh - it’s all halfway impressive but unconvincing, until the last one finally breaks through your defenses.

Gardner Linn

Portastatic

Be Still Please

Merge

originally published December 6, 2006

I have no idea how a person could deliberately hate Mac McCaughan. I’ve never found a shred of evidence that would cause me to view him with any kind of incredulity. His most recent offering with long-running project Portastatic, Be Still Please, does nothing to change this.

For some reason, critics and the blogosphere aristocracy keep telling McCaughan that his records sound like simple college rock. That term does nothing to describe Portastatic’s latest. In fact, McCaughan gives a candid shout-out to former nay-sayers in the track “Your Blanks”: (“All my songs used to end the same way/ Everything is going to be okay/ You fuckers make that impossible to say”). This is a bit rousing for anyone that has heard or read more than two words about Portastatic. Basically, if McCaughan got a dollar every time the terms “college rock” and “side project” were used to describe his band, he could start a really kickass record label.

Be Still Please just sounds like straightforward pop rock - the result of rock’s natural evolution, plus addictive melodies. The Chapel Hill quartet doesn’t cover new ground, but it offers insightful and often-comedic lyrics paired with excellent pop-rock instrumentation. Be Still Please is just a refreshing collection of real music. Further, it’s Portastatic’s best offering to date - incorporating strings and other ornate parts without sounding awkward this time around.

Case in point: the third track off the album, “I’m in Love (With Arthur Dove),” is a fun vintage number that starts with fab-fourish vocal harmonies and a fuzzy melodic guitar line. It makes you forget about all of the new wave shit on your iPod, and remember that you like rock and roll (assuming, of course, that you are a human being and enjoy rock and roll). While not all of the songs on the disc adhere as easily to a rock-and-roll model, they all maintain some sort of fundamental quality of sincerity; I guess that’s what ties everything on this record together, brutal sincerity.

“Getting Saved” is an excellent example of the skillful incorporation of strings that sounded a bit awkward in Portastatic's past efforts. Strings, piano and beefy lead guitar complement each other well, and these tracks sound less congested than previous attempts. “Sour Shores,” the album’s lead-off, also incorporates strings well, and frankly, the chorus is a fucking blast to blare in the car.

Be Still Please reflects a real band not trying to be cool or with it, but instead sounding exactly as it wants to. Pretentiousness is completely absent. The modesty comes through in the music. In a Brandon Flowers era, McCaughan & Co. are total saints.

Ian Wheeler

The Beatles

Love

EMI / Capitol

originally published December 6, 2006

In 2006, reviewing a Beatles album seems as anachronous as arguing about evolution. But Love, the soundtrack to a Cirque du Soleil show, consists of Beatles songs taken from the studio tapes and reworked by "Sir" George Martin, like mashups, or a mix. But sadly, it comes off as subservient to the show rather than a freestanding (and novel) musical entity. In a mashup, bits of music are used as the foundations of a new song, and in a mix, songs run together seamlessly in illuminating ways, but on Love, noises and shards are the transitions, breaking up the action with ambiance so the Cirque folk can change costumes, and the songs rarely become something new.

It's especially disappointing given the moments that do work. The unaccompanied vocals of "Because" precede five different songs crescendoing into "Get Back;" the radio noises ending "I Am the Walrus" segue into crowd noise from Shea Stadium; "I Want You" and "Helter Skelter" play simultaneously; and "Within You Without You" rides the evergreen "Tomorrow Never Knows" beat. All these things work, heightening or altering the originals.

But mainly it's like this: the finger-picking of "Blackbird" becomes the finger-picking of "Yesterday," and wow, but then… well, it's just "Yesterday," playing through, and in 2006, hearing "Yesterday" again is boring. If this were just another Beatles compilation, it'd be no great sin, but with the kind of recombinant pop that Love could be, context is everything. Audiophiles will appreciate the remastering - this is the best-sounding Beatles CD ever, especially "A Day in the Life" - but everyone else will be underwhelmed.

Michael Barthel

Summerbirds In The Cellar

With The Hands Of The Hunter It All Becomes Dead

Slow January

originally published December 6, 2006

There is a fine line between thoughtfulness and calculation and I’m not entirely sure which activity plays a larger role on this album. On one hand, Summerbirds in the Cellar has done a masterful job of sequencing this record but, on the other hand, has produced an album whose cover art forces one to visit the band's website to even find out who the members are. However, the former is much more important when considering the actual craftsmanship of the band. The latter is simply an irritant.

Having sent the Floridian-soon-to-be-Athenian band perform a few times, this album was a surprise for me. There’s a lethargy present here that isn’t a component of the live show. It’s not so much that the songs feel forced but that one is left to assume these guys either have a specific vision for the recorded versions of their songs or they feel less free to cut loose in the studio. Or both.

I’ll lay down some easy touch-points: U2, Radiohead, Joy Division and New Order, and also contemporaries of the band such as Maserati. But, I sincerely mean these only as influences as Summerbirds is far from a copycat band.

With The Hands Of The Hunter It All Becomes Dead sets up an emotional distance between the band and the listener very similar to Radiohead’s OK Computer. Even if one can relate, somewhat, to the lyrics, there can only be a feeling of similarity - never of camaraderie.

Musically, though, it seems like Summerbirds has achieved only half of what the members set out to do. For example, “Hold The Wolf” builds from a solid, anticipatory verse melody to a truly uplifting chorus. The switch from sequenced drums in the verse to live drums in the chorus is an important decision, too, and adds depth to the already memorable melody. But this is the fourth song on a 10-song album; the most compelling song on the record is unfortunately buried.

I can’t say yet how often I’ll return to this album, but I know that the listens I have given it, accompanied by winter weather and early evenings, have provided the soft, melancholy comfort I've always been a sucker for.

Gordon Lamb

Summerbirds in the Cellar is playing at Tasty World on Saturday, Dec. 9.

The Lookyloos

You're Looking Very Beautiful Man

Lather

originally published December 6, 2006

Looky-loo: In strip-teasing, a customer who likes to watch the show but does not tip or pay for private sessions. California's The Lookyloos, despite an outdatedly sexist name, have churned out a solid album full of cathartic glee. You're Looking Very Beautiful Man, the band's second album, is quite possibly one of the most perfectly crafted records to come out of the gate this year.

Dreamy and melodic, the Lookyloos have melded wide-eyed guitar pop with schoolgirl lyrics and bouncy rhythms. Each track is sung with such dynamic emotion, it's hard not to recall some unrequited love or long forgotten wistful memories of good times with friends while listening. But the imagery isn't in the lyrics, it's in the music, the simple ambience created by steady drums, chiming guitars and whimsical soundscapes. It's hard to ignore the influence of bands like The Byrds and Pavement, which is truly apparent on tracks like "Nobody Sends Black Flowers" and "Incommunicado."

But You're Looking Very Beautiful Man is far from sounding antiquated. Instead, the album is more like waking up in a dream, and realizing that the best part of the past can be remembering it. There's only one track that doesn't bring it to the table, but hey, nine out of 10 ain't half bad.

Charley Lee

Chimp Beams

Menina

Concent Productions

originally published December 6, 2006

What happens when three Japanese kids from the right side of Brooklyn, with a predilection for Massive Attack and My Bloody Valentine, get together? Chimp Beams, that's what. This highly praised second album offers up groovy, cannabis-laced electronic dub for the mainstream to groove to. Menina proves that form follows function, in that the the album's instrumentation is predicated on its intended purpose: getting people to mellow the fuck out.

Using breakbeats, drums, flutes, melodica, vibraphones, psychedelic samples and guitars, and mixing combinations of jazz, rock, trip-hop, soul and ethnic music from who can tell where, Menina sets sail on a trance-filled space adventure. That being said, Chimp Beams is not what you want to hear in a noisy club, despite its obvious dance-club appeal. The complex arrangements and melodic beats warrant an up-close-and-personal experience.

Second track "Brooklyn Dub" alone is a masterpiece, but honestly, every track on here could function as a hit single. It's no small wonder why the band's EP sold out so quickly. Three songs on Menina, including the title track, are actually new mixes made especially for the U.S. release, so if you can track down the Japanese release, it's a necessity as well.

Charley Lee

Ho-Ag

The Word From Pluto

Hello Sir

originally published December 6, 2006

The streets of Boston are replete with rotaries, those annoying traffic circles that can easily confuse motorists bred on the straightforward roads of Georgia. Boston-based Ho-Ag is sort of the musical equivalent of plowing into one of those damn circles blind-folded and with earplugs in. The band's songs eventually wind up following a circular pattern, even if getting there is very often messy and indirect.

The Word From Pluto, Ho-Ag's second full-length, and first on Athens label Hello Sir Records, is the most analytical of jams. It tries hard to look all smart and shit, but deep down it just wants to get drunk and jump around 'til the inevitable intestinal upheaval. The smart/ dumb dynamic comes natural, as the five Ho-Agronomists are stalwart Devo fans, known for Halloween-time Devo cover shows. Despite this, Devo isn't as obvious an analogue as more contemporary groups, like Les Savy Fav and Brainiac, who also paid fealty to Devo. Like those bands, Ho-Ag plays mutant disco-punk that focuses primarily upon the second half of that equation, creating crazed rock and roll with keyboards rupturing out alongside frantic guitar U-turns and unpredictable rhythms. Often the songs twitch spastically like the those of the Contortions, only without James Chance's calamitous sax. Fortunately, Ho-Ag possesses the skills and right-mindedness to make this potentially obnoxious concoction work.

The early one-two punch of "Under the Maps" and "Lemon Juice or Vinegar" stands out among the handful of highlights. The former packs six or seven hooks into one delightfully unctuous wallop, whereas the latter features a slow burn into echoey madness. They're the best of the fine lot on The Word From Pluto, and proof that Ho-Ag can succeed where far too many others have failed.

Garrett Martin