Ah, romance! The world may be falling apart but that doesn’t mean people still can’t find time for love, reconciliation and maybe even a bright and hopeful future. There’s a definite brink-of-disaster underpinning to many of the releases under scrutiny this month, and such underlying tension can only mean one thing: Great artistic rewards for the studious listener. So listen up and enjoy – because who knows when that sky’s finally going to fall?

+ Arctic Monkeys: Favourite Worst Nightmare
+ Battles: Mirrored
+ Björk: Volta
+ Cornelius: Sensuous
+ The Field: From Here We Go Sublime
+ The National: Boxer
+ Patrick Wolf: The Magic Position

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Wilco: Sky Blue Sky
Nonesuch, 2007
Rating: 4.4

Musically, Sky Blue Sky, Wilco’s sixth studio release, is organic and liberated-sounding; lyrically, it continues to explore the themes of alienation and ambiguous communication that have concerned chief lyricist/singer Jeff Tweedy throughout the malleable band’s hurly-burly history. That Sky Blue Sky is among the most sonically unified sets in the Wilco catalog is a credit to the current lineup, born out of the touring players supporting 2004’s uneven A Ghost Is Born. Guitarist Nels Cline and utility man Pat Sansone especially shine throughout Sky Blue Sky, adding funkily emboldened touches to the folksy foundation on which the bulk of these songs rest.

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Maturity is the theme for this month’s batch of albums, be it artists who’ve progressed, regressed, or simply stayed in a rut.

Quick links are provided for those who’d rather get right to a particular review.

+ Andrew Bird: Armchair Apocrypha
+ Bright Eyes: Cassadaga
+ Fountains of Wayne: Traffic and Weather
+ Grinderman: Grinderman
+ Rickie Lee Jones: The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard
+ Kings of Leon: Because of the Times
+ Panda Bear: Person Pitch

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(Editor’s note: Today we debut a new feature, in which our senior critic Laurence Station catches us up on the new releases he’s been absorbing over the past month. Take it away, L.S. …)

This month it’s all about protest music (with an Amon Tobin chaser). Whether disaffected by conditions on the homefront (as Jay Farrar appears to be) or taking a more abstract expressionist take on the woeful state of worldly affairs (the suitably named Low), artists are venting their collective spleens and we’re rating their misery.

+ Son Volt: The Search
+ Low: Drums and Guns
+ LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
+ Ted Leo / The Pharmacists: Living With the Living
+ Amon Tobin: Foley Room

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Modest Mouse: We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
Epic, 2007
Rating: 3.9

“Florida,” off of Modest Mouse’s new We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, is the natural complement to “Float On” from the band’s 2004 commercial breakthrough Good News For People Who Love Bad News. The latter song was a crossover hit, a minor-key pop song that differs from much of the rest of the band’s music in its upbeat theme. The newer work is more pessimistic — Isaac Brock singing of his inability to leave his past – yet ramps up the poppiness with an ooh-ah chorus, slick production and yet another powerful guitar hook. The track is certainly not completely radio-friendly, given Brock’s unrepentantly abrasive vocals and a shoegazing bridge, but you can’t say the band isn’t trying. And while it isn’t the lead single, the song is a nice approximation of the album as a whole: generally accessible, but not plying the top 40 crowd for favors.  (more…)

RJD2: The Third Hand
XL, 2007
Rating: 2.7

I saw RJD2 spin two summers ago. It was a formative experience, compelling proof that being a good DJ or crate-digging hip-hop instrumentalist takes more than buying some records, installing Pro Tools on your computer and spending a few Saturdays mixing. The man danced between four turntables and a box of records, building eighteen-minute collages of samples culled from a variety of tracks; it was a weird fusion of visual and aural performance, and a compelling argument for turntablism as the successor to jazz.

Despite being just months after the release of Since We Last Spoke, RJD2’s last outing, there were two events that night that foreshadowed The Third Hand. The first came during a set break, when RJ told the crowd in all sincerity that he couldn’t believe we were choosing to see him instead of the Gin Blossoms, who were playing at another venue. The second came at the end of the set, when a fan asked the DJ what he was listening to at the time. The answer: Odyssey and Oracle, the seminal ’60s pop album by the Zombies. (more…)

Arcade Fire: Neon Bible
Merge, 2007
Rating: 4.0

Given last year’s obsession with the Killers’ attempts to channel Bruce Springsteen, it’s strange that the Canadian band Arcade Fire manages to do so infinitely better with “Keep The Car Running” from its new album, Neon Bible. Over a driving beat and pounding keyboard, Win Butler sings out a caution that “They don’t know where and they don’t know when … But it’s coming, keep the car running!” It’s a peculiarly grand idiom, one of immense fears and opposition, one that Springsteen used to good effect on “The Ballad of Thunder Road,” and that sits at the heart of Arcade Fire’s sophomore release. (more…)

Explosions In The Sky: All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
Temporary Residence, 2007
Rating: 3.8

The bread and butter of the genre known as post-rock is the loud-soft dynamic, or rather the instantaneous shift from one volume to the other. There have been many post-rock bands, all of which have carved their own niches within the genre, yet this one characteristic ties them together. Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Mogwai, Slint, Sigur Ros, Do Make Say Think, et al., have all periodically whipped out this trick to make an emotional point. It’s one of the great flags of the genre, a clue for those who are uncertain of just what they are hearing. (more…)

Lucinda Williams: West
Lost Highway, 2007
Rating: 3.8

Lucinda Williams isn’t an artist likely to be accused of not singing from the heart. She seems physically incapable of phoning in a performance. Her life is inextricably wrapped up in her art. Relationships, triumphs, disappointments — it all comes pouring out in her songs. Even the buffed-clean production of West, her eighth studio release, can’t completely sand the jagged emotional textures from Williams’ wounded soul of a voice. Co-producer Hal Willner seems determined to craft an adult-contemporary-friendly work despite the pointedly barbed edges of Williams’ words. It’s a tug-of-war that creates a negative tension, pulling West in opposite directions and dampening the album’s cumulative impact. (more…)

The Shins: Wincing the Night Away
Sub Pop, 2007
Rating: 3.5

Gem(s): “Red Rabbits”
Why: Classic Shins ebullient mope-rock. Note the well-executed melodic shifts, rising to an emotional peak and then hitting the rewind button.

Keeper(s): “Sleeping Lessons,” “Phantom Limb,” “Turn on Me”
Why: Opener “Lessons” evolves from the watery musings of a chronic insomniac to a satisfyingly meaty rocker, proving the Shins more than capable of shifting their patented sound without sacrificing the group’s core identity. “Limb” marries pointed observations on social martyrdom with wonderful harmonies, and “Turn on Me” showcases the same lithe bounce and spit found on earlier releases, which helps it stand out from the overly labored sound dominating this release.

Not So Much: “Spilt Needles”
Why: Imagine a Shins cover band taking a stab at an original, Shins-inspired tune. This could be it, lacking the masterful hooks of lead singer/writer James Mercer and the sprightly punch of the group’s rhythm section. Call it a B-side someone couldn’t bear to see excised from the final track list.

Pithy Summation: The appealing nursery-rhyme surrealism (cooked geese, red rabbits and a dodo’s conundrum) commenting on real-life issues (primarily of the broken-hearted variety) are ably represented on the Shins’ third long-player. But the hooks are much more muted than on the band’s debut Oh, Inverted World, and overall Wincing the Night Away assumes a less assertive stance than sophomore standout Chutes Too Narrow. Call it the sound of a band hitting the big time a little too self-consciously wary of their strengths (those imminently replayable hooks and cozy harmonies), forcing their less accomplished skills (the Shins aren’t exactly Radiohead when it comes to exploiting all the recording studio has to offer) to the fore.