Sigur Rós
Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
EMI/XL Recordings
originally published July 16, 2008
Listening to Sigur Rós has the effect of staring at the sun: awe-inspiring yet equally terrifying in its radiant beauty. The album’s translation, “With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly,” captures its optimism while contrasting with the ominous tendency of previous works. Bordering on the arctic circle, Sigur Rós’ native Iceland is known for its unusually lengthy summer days and equally barren winters - a sentiment the band has tended to embody within the extremities of its music. “Festival” explodes into a frenzied fanfare, but only after Jónsi Birgisson’s reverb-laden soliloquy, and even the album’s more despairing moments are uplifted by glimmers of hope.
The first half of the album gleams with the rising sun of a celebratory new year as “Gobbledigook” jolts with tribal percussion and syncopated acoustic guitar alongside Jónsi’s childlike melody. Progressing further, the album cuts back on London Sinfonietta outbursts as it gradually slows to the band’s familiar enigmatic sound, complete with violin-bowed guitar swells. The whole affair ends on a fragile moment, sung, unexpectedly, in English - a risky maneuver for a band that has created its following by shrouding itself in obscurity. Though fans needn’t worry, as lyrics to “All Alright” are still relatively indistinguishable in Jónsi’s cooing falsetto.
It’s telling that each successive Sigur Rós album has matured to become more light-hearted in light of receiving such worldwide reverence. Med Sud is the group’s first album recorded away from home, and it displays all the energy of a band eager to continue exploring its limitless potential.
Broken Letters
Sing the Burning Alphabet
Bent Rail Foundation
originally published July 16, 2008
Broken Letters is comprised of former members of the band Plate Six, a group known for its dissonant music, unconventional time signatures, and bellowed melodies. However, members David Hickox and Brad Davis significantly have matured since those days, and their debut full-length album, Sing the Burning Alphabet, showcases the duo’s newfound confidence. In fact, the album quite possibly is the group’s most solid collection of material to date.
Hickox has grown into a songwriter in the tradition of Jason Molina, and fans of Magnolia Electric Co. quickly will recognize the similarities between the two men. However, the music of Broken Letters can be distinguished from Molina’s: Broken Letters are a tighter unit, a two-piece band that has been playing together for decades. The songs on Sing the Burning Alphabet are moodier and sparser than are the bulk of Molina’s songs. Also, Hickox plays the guitar uniquely, fluidly oscillating between picked notes and broken chords in a manner that befits the subject matter of many of his songs.
Sing the Burning Alphabet is like one long exhale of breath from a master songwriter, and the songs are compact units that form a cohesive album in the truest sense of the word. Though Hickox holds his vocal melodies close, the songs on the album are dynamical and not repetitive. On Sing the Burning Alphabet, Broken Letters string together bruised and broken words and chords to describe the bleak and rural landscape of the American soul.
Al Green
Lay It Down
Blue Note
originally published July 16, 2008
The iron simply couldn’t be hotter for a legend like Al Green to be reborn. R&B has gone so wayward that it’s currently having to retrace its steps back to the soul of the ‘60s and ‘70s in order to properly re-calibrate (enter: neo-soul). Furthermore, building creative bridges to prominent young followers of the tradition, as he’s done on Lay It Down, is a smart synergistic maneuver. Besides featuring the voices of new-school hotshots like John Legend, Corinne Bailey Rae and Anthony Hamilton, the album was co-produced by celebrated Roots drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson.
The all-star cast of young players lovingly interprets the sound of Green’s prime ‘70s-era, while he simply does what he does. And, man, is it sweet. Few soul voices have ever been able to juggle finesse, guts and depth like Green’s does, and it’s a trick that’s still astoundingly intact. The warm production is respectful without being nostalgic. The music simmers with a touch of modern vibrancy, but it’s classic through and through. Without apology or hesitation, this record is a glorious block of old-school Southern soul butter. Highlights include the sensual, pillowed burn of “Lay It Down,” the supple smolder of “Just for Me” and the lithe breezes of “No One Like You.”
Lay It Down may not be the next level, but it’s an authentic return to form that sounds vital and real in today’s musical landscape. More than anything, it’s a sterling lesson in fundamentals that comforts like an old lover.
Harvey Milk
Life…The Best Game in Town
Hydra Head
originally published July 16, 2008
Angrily perched atop some desolate crag at the edge of the world, the God of Rock squatted and defecated. Calling his creation Harvey Milk, He then sent it into the world to perform the kind of slow, heavy and uncompromising music that would perfectly mimic the process of the band’s own creation. Servile flatterers to its death, Harvey Milk now has returned with the latest in its string of stinky tributes: Life…The Best Game in Town. And, oh, dang is it good.
In many ways, Life… is a perfect mixture of Harvey Milk’s disparate styles: the painfully slow, drum-accented, sludge-rock of its early days and the fast-and-loose classic-rock leanings of the band’s latter recordings. The guitar riffs on Life… further prove that Harvey Milk is the new Led Zeppelin (however, singer Creston’s primal howl makes Robert Plant’s vocals sound like the shrieking of a fig-displaying dandy).
For anyone not lucky enough to see Harvey Milk perform at the 40 Watt in June, Life… is the next best thing. Sure, the music is not for everyone, and it’s probably not the kind of music you’d play on a first date (unless your date is into things that are both loud and awesome), but at the very least, the songs on Life… are unique offerings from one of the most idiosyncratic artists of the '90s. Help cool the God of Rock’s irritable bowel syndrome, and give this hometown band’s collection of anthems a listen.
All The Saints
Fire on Corridor X
Killer Pimp
originally published July 16, 2008
What a fantastic provenance: All the Saints are an Atlanta band on a Boston label. Those are the two finest and most diametrically opposed cities in America. One is sprawling; the other is compact. One is hot; the other is cold. Atlanta tears down and paves over its history every 15 years while Boston invented that damn thing called history and can’t escape from it. All the Saints’ debut record, recorded in one town and promulgated by the other, reflects each city’s attitude towards the past.
You can say that rock and roll is moribund, that it’s impossible for purveyors of this hidebound art form to not pointlessly dredge up the past. All the Saints and I would say you’re a fool. Well, I can’t speak for them, but I can assume. This band knows its history well enough to take what it should and then damn the rest. All the Saints also know you can’t just regurgitate what’s done been 'gurgitated and weld that knowledge of the past to a forward-thinking artistic sentiment that’s resulted in one hell of a fine record. Fire on Corridor X suffuses the sluggish heft of Black Sabbath with ambient atmospherics both raw and sublime, murky and pristine. It’s like if Dead Meadow made a shoegazer record, or if Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was actually any good at all. This band does right by both towns, if you ask me.
The M's
Real Close Ones
Polyvinyl
originally published July 16, 2008
Somewhere between the hypersexual strut of David Bowie and the laconic crawl of Pavement lie The M’s, and on their latest album, Real Close Ones, they tiptoe through the tulips with listeners to a wonderful land full of song sketches, lazy playing that never feels haphazard, and smart songwriting that feels effortless.
Throughout Real Close Ones’ 13 tracks, the band manages to blend Bowie’s spacey come hither vibe with the hilariously homely and stoned routine that Pavement rode to a legion of fans’ hearts years ago. The result works, especially on “Impossible View” and the hilarious, hummable and all-too-true “Get Your Shit Together,” which is the perfect combination of the devil-may-care rock and roll ethos and the buttoned-up and uptight smirk of indie rock. There may be more adeptly written and performed songs released this year, but none will ring as true through a haze of ramshackle guitars and drums that just barely keep the time.
Real Close Ones is hardly a perfect album. Sometimes the melodies aren’t distinguishable from track to track, but it’s overall a satisfying listen that keeps unfolding itself to reveal gems where you once thought were only duds. After four listens, the album’s closer “How Could You” is turning into a slow burning soul-infused torch song for the man-purse carrying bespectacled vinyl junkie in all of us; and after all, isn’t that the sign of a great rock and roll album?
Chromeo
Fancy Footwork: Deluxe Edition
Vice
originally published July 16, 2008
Oh, the things hipsters embrace in the name of fashion. With dated keyboards, robotic voices, synthesized vocal stabs and sax solos, Chromeo’s neon bag is a by-the-numbers reconstruction of the electro-pop and funk-lite of the ‘80s for the sake of a stylish goof. Beyond the charismatic veneer of pushing ironic post-modernism to the max, however, its allure is but a fleeting dalliance. This expanded version of the 2007 album Fancy Footwork (featuring bonus tracks, remixes and videos) does little to refresh the Montreal duo’s regressive schtick.
The bonus disc reprises three songs from its debut album She’s in Control (“Needy Girl,” “Rage!” and “You’re So Gangsta”), which only reaffirm the limited shelf-life of its hustle. The largely unremarkable remixes don’t exactly ride in to save the day, either. They either protract things with only minor tweaks (Lifelike’s remix of “Needy Girl”) or just drain them of blood altogether with anemic house treatments (Crookers’ remix of “Fancy Footwork,” Playgroup’s remix of “You’re So Gangsta”). Most seem to be created on auto-pilot, simply beefing up the groove and inserting a stock buildup here and a boilerplate breakdown there (Laidback Luke’s remix of “Fancy Footwork”). Few actually push the boundaries and make the songs their own, as any self-respecting remix should do.
The two exceptions are the viscid plasticity of MSTRKRFT’s remix of “Tenderoni” and the paranoid acid-techno buzz of DFA’s remix of “Destination Overdrive.” Otherwise, it’s a collection for devout completists only.
Wooden Shjips
Volume 1
Holy Mountain
originally published July 16, 2008
Ah, here's where it all began. A collection of the earliest vinyl singles by the ascending kings of the West Coast psychedelic scene, this Volume 1 finds Wooden Shjips at its youngest, loosest and most inspired. A few of these singles were limited pressings, or given away by the band in exchange for a nice letter, so it's nice to see them all collected on one plastic Frisbee.
These singles find Wooden Shjips digging deep, into Hawkwind, into Can, into fellow Bay Areans currently missing in action, Comets on Fire. The tracks offer a singular fuzzed-out (often feedbacking) guitar riff, standing over a locked bass groove, with the Japanese's trademark echo vocals haunting the proceedings. Simple organ phrases dot the landscape. The self-titled album released last year devolved into a slimy Doors tribute, but here the San Francisco foursome is/was as mysterious and obscure as its name conjures.
The collection is only six tracks, over in what seems to be an extended bong hit, but this stuff is as memorable as it is enthralling. “Dance, California” would probably inspire just that, if you could still find a club that would play its piercing riff, the kind the Velvets would lock onto live when the pills kicked in. A 2007 live tribute to the 1967 Summer of Love rides that groove as hazy trumpets dance in and out. Here's hoping they continue to mine their influences deeper and deeper and keep turning coal into shimmering diamonds.
The Ting Tings
We Started Nothing
Columbia
originally published July 16, 2008
This debut album by the Manchester alt-pop duo is just crowded with hooky devices. Sass? Check. Bop? Uh-huh. Brit-girl cheek? You bet. In fact, it’s all a bit too suspiciously ingratiating. Clearly, it’s designed for instant appeal. However, a deeper listen to the record reveals little to support its attention-grabbing façade. Even shallow pop music can be done well. But in the absence of depth, there better be some watertight melodies for the ship to float. Songs that hold the attention hostage without satisfying the heart will only annoy.
Despite a zeal for cutesy hooks, their melodic ability ultimately proves thin. The Ting Tings seem willing to do anything to charm, mimicking the likes of The Pipettes, Lily Allen, Teagan & Sara, among countless others. Anything, that is, except for write solid songs. This lack of melodic precision makes the album play like a soulless crib sheet. Though they throw a whole lot against the wall by indiscriminately mining the past few decades of pop music, very little of it sticks.
The lone exception is “That’s Not My Name,” which moves along at a bouncy Toni Basil gallop only to swell into a sonic tsunami by the end. Unfortunately, the preponderance of the album instead resembles dead-end songs like “Impacilla Carpisung,” an anemic number marked by silly, elementary raps that unfortunately channel Fergie. The Ting Tings’ tack is immediate but far from lasting, degrading into simple-minded transparency all too quickly.
Lil Wayne
Tha Carter III
Universal
originally published July 16, 2008
The most eagerly anticipated hip-hop album of 2007 finally arrived in the second quarter of 2008, and it's worth every minute of the wait. Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III is a 16-track collection of varied tiers of pathos, rap aesthetic and serotonin highs. Always remaining collected, the New Orleans rapper airs moods of anger, sadness, joy, paranoia and so many others, all backed by sublime, but never outrageous beats.
Over the past two years, the self-proclaimed “best rapper alive” has been releasing increasingly brilliant and bizarre mixtapes showcasing wordplay that's totally out of left field and so very drug-fueled. The rabbit hole was deep and with no exit. On C3, the oddity is mostly toned down, but some remains. There's “Mrs. Officer,” in which Lil Wayne imagines himself dating a female cop while keeping up his criminal behaviors, there's Wayne as an ET in “Phone Home,” and there's Wayne as a rap therapist, scheduling appointments with rapper clients falling off their game in “Dr. Carter.”
The production isn't strictly Southern nor geared toward club songs, either. C3 features beats from Kanye West, The Alchemist, Swizz Beatz and David Banner. Even the normally nauseating T-Pain provides a tasteful hook for “Got Money.” There's everything from uplifting soul to psychedelia to electro-pop.
It's not even a minute into Tha Carter III that Lil Wayne elicits a truism to other rappers: “You can't get on my level/ You will need a space shuttle, or a ladder that's forever.” Everyone else should consider giving up.
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