Shakethrus: 2003 - Shaking Through.net: Music: Reviews

M. Ward: Transfiguration of Vincent
Merge, 2003
Rating: 4.0
The greatest change, or transfiguration, on Matt Ward’s third album, Transfiguration of Vincent, is the Portland, Oregon-based artist’s take on David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” Stripping away the melodrama and reducing the familiar '80s hit to a moody plea for comfort at the terminal end of a broken relationship, Ward makes the song his; as he does with just about every form of music he interprets. Ward expands on (and smoothes the rough edges of) the back-road folk-blues fusion of 2001’s impressive End of Amnesia, offering stronger hooks and richer lyrical imagery. The catchy, shimmering guitar work of “Outta My Head” and the deliriously inventive “Helicopter,” in which a man runs up a fire escape to save his baby from a “mess this world has made,” swings and moves with an energy the remainder of the album is hard-pressed to sustain. Other highlights include the woozy, wonderfully off-kilter “Sad, Sad Song” and “A Voice at the End of the Line,” a tender, gloomy-faced ballad that wouldn’t have sounded out of place during the early days of the Kennedy administration. Ward has a knack for taking timeworn melodies and infusing them with a wit and honesty that have little chance of ever sounding dated.

The Fiery Furnaces: Gallowsbird's Bark
Rough Trade, 2003
Rating: 3.5
The Beatles' intentionally slapdash White Album contained fully fleshed out, classic songs ("Dear Prudence," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps") and wildly silly sketches seemingly tossed off between the real takes ("The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill," "Rocky Raccoon"). Imagine an entire album of nothing but first run-through Rocky Raccoons and The Fiery Furnaces' debut, Gallowsbird's Bark, justifies its existence. There's a fresh, willy-nilly playfulness to the sixteen songs (most of them under three minutes), as if brother-sister duo Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger were unknowingly taped while jamming together one night in the family den. There's not much diversity in the arrangements, banged out primarily on piano and guitar, but the pair's exuberance proves infectious. "Up in the North" and "Worry Worry" hit closest to the center mark, while "Bow Wow" is a little too reliant on coy, childlike rhymes ("Down in the dumps / Me and the seagulls we were looking for lumps") to leave a favorable impression. Gallowsbird's Bark possesses a stripped-down, almost primitive musical spirit and some clever wordplay regarding Eleanor's European travels. The Fiery Furnaces are a curious twosome, and it'll be interesting to hear what they conjure up next.

Jay Farrar: Terroir Blues
Act/Resist, 2003
Rating: 3.0
If Sebastopol was Jay Farrar's attempt at experimenting with the structure and ideas of his music, Terroir Blues is a slight retreat to the sturdy, wood-carved, acoustic-based numbers that were his bread and butter in Son Volt. Of course, there's Sebastopol residue here (in the form of the six-part "Space Junk" noise loops scattered across the disc) and more than a little indulgence (four tracks get reprised). Despite some fine moments (the quietly impassioned "Heart on the Ground" and "Fool King's Crown," an interesting exercise in remote vocal distortion technique), what holds Terroir Blues back is the lack of a sense of revelry in the joy of creating music, or at the very least, a hint of spontaneity. There's a preordained seriousness here, undoubtedly influenced by the passing of Farrar's father during the writing of the songs, which makes for a taxing slog. Lacking the surliness of "Damn Shame" or the keen-eyed acidity of "Barstow," two of Sebastopol's standout cuts, Terroir Blues gets bogged down in a spot few listeners will endure inhabiting for long.

Jim Lauderdale & Donna the Buffalo: Wait Til Spring
Dualtone / Skycrunch Records, 2003
Rating: 3.6
The pairing of stylistically restless troubadour Jim Lauderdale with folk-rock jam-band Donna the Buffalo proves mostly successful on Wait Til Spring. Genre-hopping from bluesy roots-rock (the opening title track) to breezy retro numbers ("Holding Back"'s distinct surf-rock vibe; the synchronized harmonizing on "Ginger Peach"), Wait Til Spring covers a lot of ground, held together by Lauderdale's consistently strong songwriting ("Listen to her ride the clouds / Flashing through the silence / Showing us that she's around") and Donna the Buffalo's tight musicianship ("This World Is Getting Mean" features some masterfully restrained guitar lines). The clunkers are real doozies, though: The tepid blue-eyed soul of "Slow Motion Trouble" sounds like Van Morrison on an off-off day, while the blandly arranged "Awake Now" could be a reject from an America recording session circa 1972. Lauderdale's willingness to explore as many musical styles as possible may not be the most financially secure move he could make, but it's pretty obvious that's the least of his concerns. Here's hoping he never kicks his heels up on the ottoman of his many laurels.

Wilco: More Like the Moon [EP]
Self-released, 2003
Rating: 3.0
Available as a free download on the band's website (providing you have a copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in your computer's CD drive), More Like the Moon is a twenty-odd minute, six-song collection of what sound like works in progress. Not entirely a palette cleanser (too short) nor an assemblage of tunes too out of sync with the vibe of recent efforts, Moon is mostly a treat for fans who've bought the album (sorry, file-traders) before the band's next full-length arrives. Points of interest: Foxtrot's "Kamera" gets a correct spelling, and a less successful reworking, as "Camera", all swirling keyboards and fuzzy overcast buzz muzzling the vocal mix. "Handshake Drugs" is a meandering guitar ditty, with a shaggy-dog beat and some harmless piano bosh for window dressing. "Woodgrain" is half-formed solo Tweedy lethargy, an insomniac-at-three-a.m. acoustic sketch that sounds like it was tossed off sitting at the kitchen table. The closing title track offers the impressive couplet "Collapsing galaxies / Feathered with falling stars." More Like the Moon can't quite clear its celestial inspiration. For legitimate owners of Foxtrot, however, you really can't beat the asking price.

December 27, 2003

Kinky: Atlas
Nettwerk Records, 2003
Rating: 3.5
While many attempts have been made to encapsulate Kinky's sound in a compact term ("Nuevo-Latino," "Worldbeat-Funk"), it's easier to think of the Mexican fivesome's second full-length record as the kick-ass soundtrack to one of those killer video games that can only be played on consoles you can't afford. In that vein, it comes as no surprise to learn that the band has given Moby a run for his money when it comes to providing background music to "cutting-edge" commercials. Fortunately, as anyone familiar with the band's 2002 self-titled debut can attest, Kinky's indescribable sound holds up just as well over an entire disc. With Atlas, the band has managed to take a step forward by adding elements of electronica and trance that barely registered on its previous effort. Especially notable is the decision to record several songs in English, including aggressive stomps like "Airport Feelings" and "My God is So Quiet." Atlas does a good job of capturing the energy of the band's spontaneous live show, much of which is provided by infectious, Latin-tinged percussion. If you choose not to familiarize yourself with Atlas, rest assured that there are many folks on Madison Avenue who are currently plotting to ensure that you become acquainted with the band regardless.

December 24, 2003

Explosions in the Sky: The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
Temporary Residence, 2003
Rating: 3.8
If 2001's Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever occupied the murky no-man's-land between life and death, then The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, Explosions in the Sky's follow up, emphatically chooses life over death. The evocatively titled opener "First Breath After Coma" and the bracingly affirmative closer "Your Hand in Mine" imply a sense of optimism that the darker Those Who Tell the Truth did not. Utilizing the same straightforward dual guitar, bass and drums approach as before, the Austin quartet doesn't elevate its sound so much as refine the basic "one ringing note mushrooming into a thunderous crescendo" template. There's nothing here on par with Truth's "Have You Passed Through This Night?" and its aptly chosen dialogue sampling from Terrence Malick's poetic, war-as-folly epic The Thin Red Line. But Earth does brighten the brooding sturm und drang skies, revealing a band not driven by a dark muse to the point of repetitive parody. Explosions in the Sky might be in a holding pattern, stylistically speaking, but there are lot worse patterns the band could be working from.

December 18, 2003

Kelis: Tasty
Arista/Star, 2003
Rating: 4.0
After releasing an ear-grabbing debut (Kaleidoscope) and a less successful follow-up (Wanderland), Kelis goes for the top of the charts with Tasty, far and away her most radio-friendly album to date. The Harlem-born urban R&B artist, who's exhibited a penchant for multicolored hairstyles and progressive, edgy production (courtesy of her collaborations with the Neptunes), reins in her wilder impulses in favor of more obvious hooks and tried and true retro-soul beats. Kelis plays her strongest hand with the trio of songs that open the album: "Trick Me," with its aggressive beat and assertive guitar work; "Milkshake," with its sexually-charged piledriver rhythm and fantastic use of an "order-up" counter bell; and "Keep It Down," a tip of the cap to old school hip-hop and big-crunch production. The middle third, by contrast, drags Tasty down a few notches: "Protect My Heart" is a surprisingly bland Neptunes-powered production, while "Glow" and "Sugar Honey Iced Tea" (another Neptunes cut) drain the album's energy with slow-poured, smoothed-over soul numbers that seems ill-placed amongst the wealth of high-energy tracks surrounding them. But Kelis pulls it out in the clutch, finishing strong with the warm beat and effortless flow of "Rolling Through the Hood" and the suggestively erotic "Stick Up." Tasty might not be her most flavorful release, but it should accomplish exactly what it sets out to do: Up her profile.

December 16, 2003

Al Green: I Can't Stop
Blue Note, 2003
Rating: 4.0
I Can't Stop is being hailed as a comeback, both for Al Green and for the swaggering, joyful soul music he made with producer Willie Mitchell in the early '70s. And for the most part it is, an album lovingly swaddled in the vintage production touches, including organ swells and gorgeously harmonious backup singers, that marked such Hi Records hallmarks as Green's high-water mark, 1972's beautiful Let's Stay Together. Green can't be said to have ever really left the Southern-fried soul with which he made his bones, having attempted returns with Mitchell in the '80s and '90s. But I Can't Stop comes the closest he's ever come to recapturing both the sound and the spirit of his artistic heyday. "I Can't Stop," "I'd Still Choose You" and "I've Been Waitin' on You" (not to be confused with "You," "I've Been Thinkin' About You" or "My Problem is You") bristle with Green's contagious exuberance, goosed with hip-swaying horns and agreeable melodies. The earnest ballad "Rainin' In My Heart" flirts aggressively with cliché, but its understated musical buoyancy carries it through, and by the time Green nails the weathered urgency of "Not Tonight," it's long forgotten. Given how long it's been since Green and Mitchell worked so well together, I Can't Stop is impressively consistent: There's not a sub-par song in the bunch. And if there aren't exactly any timeless gems, either, that's certainly forgivable; the punchy horns in "Play to Win" and "I'd Still Choose You," Green's elated falsetto -- all of these moments make for a bouncy, head-bopping nostalgia trip. I Can't Stop isn't as flat-out uplifting (or, frankly, anywhere near as sexy) as his classic early albums. But it's such a likable record, a return to form if not entirely function, that such minor quibbles are rendered irrelevant.

December 12, 2003

Barenaked Ladies: Everything to Everyone
Reprise, 2003
Rating: 3.4
On the basis of incessantly quirky, cavity-inducing songs like the breakout hit "One Week," it's tempting to dismiss Canada's Barenaked Ladies as an arena-filling band of jokey lightweights. To be sure, Everything to Everyone certainly packs in the humorous moments that were largely lacking from the group's last album, 2000's Maroon. But it also shows principal songwriters Steven Page and Ed Robertson reflecting on weightier topics related to the band's double-edged popularity. On the opening "Celebrity," Page paints a not-too-subtle picture of a nameless star coming to grips with an emptiness inside and a disconnect from humanity, while Robertson uses "Testing, 1, 2, 3" to slightly tweak the band's most recognizable sound: "Kinda like the last time / With a bunch of really fast rhymes / If I shed the irony / Would everybody cheer me? / If I acted less like me / Would I be in the clear?" Even the single "Another Postcard" is a wry wink at that aforementioned formula, taking the rapid-rhyme verse and sung chorus approach to its goofy extreme with a ridiculous song about chimpanzee stationery. "Shopping" is a semi-snide crack at consumer culture, while the ballad "War on Drugs" breaks the prevailing mood with a somber meditation on suicide and despair, among other things. Otherwise, Everyone (note the intended irony of the title) sticks to the Ladies' familiar pop-rock model, although "For You" breezes along on an O, Brother vibe. The album shows that Barenaked Ladies have little desire to discard their whimsical side, although it makes a good case that they're also not going to let themselves be defined by it without a fight.

December 11, 2003

Jonny Greenwood: Bodysong
EMI, 2003
Rating: 4.0
With the soundtrack to Bodysong, Simon Pummell's cycle-of-life film collage (which uses snippets of footage from a century of cinema to track the breadth of human experience), Radiohead multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood manages to create sounds that follow the film's basic structure (conception, birth, growing up, growing old, dying) without falling into the trap of obvious sonic signifiers (say, a newborn-sounding violin's wail or death-rattle percussion). Instead, Greenwood makes a collage of his own, using digital samples, a little guitar, and the talents of the Emperor String Quartet to flesh out an evocative, rather than literal, musical journey from womb to grave. "Moon Trills" employs delicate piano and aching strings to suggest life's creation, followed by the more sterile, electronic "Moon Mall." "Trench" features clipped, percussive beats, whereas the polyrhythmic "Convergence" is less restrained in its drum work. Fans of Radiohead's "National Anthem" will appreciate the free-ranging horns on "Splitter," while the closing "Tehellet," drenched in morose strings and bolstered by a moody rhythm section, closes the cycle in appropriately grim fashion. Certainly, Greenwood's songs are best heard in the proper context of Pummell's film. But they bear a distinctive enough stamp to stand sturdily alongside the work he's created with his more famous day job.

December 08, 2003

Elvis Costello: North
Deutsche Grammophon, 2003
Rating: 4.0
Not as self-consciously academic as 1993's The Juliet Letters, and far more in the spirit of the loose, effortlessly graceful pop of 1998's Burt Bacharach collaboration Painted from Memory, Elvis Costello's North is the anti-When I Was Cruel. There are no ringing guitars, no vitriolic anthems. Imagine sitting in an airport lounge, waiting out a delay, or in an upscale club: one of those dark, smoky, members-only joints. In the background, playing to no one in particular, is a man at a piano, serving up one slow, bourbon-poured ballad of love and loss after another. You spend the entire evening chatting with friends or staring at a muted television screen, but the following morning you can't get the music out of your head; it's managed to seep into your subconscious, impeccably played and meaningful without calling needless attention to itself. Granted, North is more than Costello at a piano; there are strings and horns bolstering these eleven tracks. But the mood is intimate, personal and unapologetically sappy. Costello opens with heartbreak ("You Left Me In The Dark") and closes with a ray of hope ("I'm In The Mood Again"). The seamless flow from dark to light is almost too faultless: North moves with an inevitable constancy, and could have perhaps benefited from one or two more upbeat tracks. But such consistency is certainly a forgivable flaw, especially when it's done as elegantly and earnestly as presented here.

December 05, 2003

Robert Wyatt: Cuckooland
Hannibal, 2003
Rating: 4.0
Robert Wyatt opens Cuckooland by stating "Faith may not be such a bad thing;" this from a man who's been a paraplegic since 1973, when he fell out a window during a party in London and busted his spine. Rather than vanish from the music scene (and considering that his bread and butter was as a drummer, such a retreat would have been perfectly understandable), Wyatt instead refocused his energies on string and brass instruments and, critically, perfected the distinctive, wounded falsetto that has become the focal point of his subsequent releases. Cuckooland, like Wyatt's work with the Soft Machine and his solo releases, is drenched in jazz ideas, motifs and arrangements. From the slow, sighing horns on opener "Just A Bit" to the shuffling bossa nova rhythms behind the DeMoraes and Jobim classic "Insensatez," Wyatt's love of the mutability and freedom of the form permeates the album. His left of center politics are hard to miss, as well. "Lullaby for Hamza" deals with the psychological damage wrought on children born around the time of the first Gulf War, while "Foreign Accents" is a moody litany of atrocities and human rights violations. Cuckooland's sixteen compositions are evenly divided by approximately thirty seconds of silence (certainly, the Second World War's Thirty Seconds over Tokyo comes to mind). Cuckooland doesn't entirely reconcile its drowsy, smoky jazz numbers with Wyatt's fiery polemics, but it does showcase the artist's interests and passions as well as any release since Rock Bottom, Wyatt's initial work after his tragic accident.

December 05, 2003

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci: Sleep/Holiday
Sanctuary, 2003
Rating: 3.7
Despite label shakeups and cash flow issues, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci soldiers on, crafting a unique brand of folk-pop that thankfully eschews ephemeral trends in favor of time-proven melodies and heartfelt delivery. Sleep/Holiday presents a fairly balanced mixture of slow and mid-tempo numbers staggered across its twelve tracks. The closest the Welsh band gets to actually rocking out is on "Mow The Lawn," a chugging near-burner undermined by a nagging, too-formal violin, which regrettably detracts from the otherwise stripped-down, no-frills delivery. While nothing here surpasses the infectious, sing-along pop elegance of "Let Those Blue Skies" from 2001's How I Long to Feel That Summer in My Heart, "Eyes Of Green, Green, Green" achieves a graceful beauty that reinforces just how good Gorky's is at taking simple melodies and infusing them with a warmth and weight that belie such humble origins. "Only Takes A Night" incorporates some much-needed, guitar-powered brawn to the primarily piano- and string-based arrangements. Overall, Sleep/Holiday finds Gorky's sticking to its idiosyncratic pop guns, and in doing so makes one hope the band handles future adversity with similar grace and care.

December 02, 2003

Counting Crows: Films About Ghosts: The Best Of
Geffen, 2003
Rating: 3.8
Counting Crows have released but four studio albums. Thus, a Best Of retrospective might seem a bit premature. However, the band has been around ten years and has never been particularly album-oriented, so a summation of the group's brightest moments seems appropriate. Films About Ghosts fits the bill to a T, as it covers all the most familiar hits ("Round Here," "Mr. Jones," "A Long December"). It also does a nice job of including some of the best songs the band's ever recorded (the infectiously shambolic "Hanginaround" and the tortuously introspective "Anna Begins"), though attentive fans may quibble about the absence of "A Murder of One" and "Daylight Fading." Curiously, there's no rhyme or reason to the sequencing. Chronologically, running from the non-album 1991 demo "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)" through the so-so new track "She Don't Want Nobody Near" would have worked fine. That approach would have displayed the band's progression from aping heavyweight classic rock influences (The Band, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, et al) to making genuinely affecting, more personalized music (the rambling "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" and the piano-based ballad "Holiday in Spain"). The random jumble presented here proves jarring, especially when a solid but hardly revelatory cover of the Grateful Dead classic "Friend of the Devil" appears in between Crows originals. Not only does its inclusion break the flow; it's also somewhat incongruous to hear the singles-focused Crows cover a stridently AOR, non-radio darling of a group. For the casual fan or neophyte, however, Films About Ghosts covers all the basics, providing all the Crows most of them will ever need.

November 28, 2003

Jet: Get Born
Elektra/Asylum, 2003
Rating: 3.3
Know all those trying-to-be-cool rock and roll kids, the ones that are keeping the vintage T-shirt stores in business? Next time you see one wearing headphones, listen for the strains of Jet's debut CD, Get Born. The Australian four-piece has burst into the mainstream thanks to a sense of style (with their skinny jeans and AC/DC shirts, they could be poster boys for the retro-70s look), and, more importantly, a killer lead track. You'd have to be living under a rock to have not heard "Are You Gonna Be My Girl," which has saturated alternative radio (it's also the soundtrack to those ubiquitous IPod commercials). Like the rest of Get Born, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" is incredibly derivative, yet nonetheless effective: Think of it as Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" with better lyrics. Although the disc's dominant vibe teeters between Strokes/White Stripes garage-rock and Stooges-style punk swagger, other tracks -- like standouts "Rollover DJ" and "Take It or Leave It" -- evoke the Stones and AC/DC (singer Nic Cester smokes a lot of cigarettes -- and sounds like it). Jaded listeners will discard the band as a laughable knock-off, even as younger listeners declare Jet the coolest thing in town and head straight to their parents' basement in search of Led Zeppelin tour shirts. Nevertheless, there's no denying the disc's unbridled energy, and those who pine for a return to the booze-fueled days of '70s rock must find immense pleasure in Get Born's finer moments.

November 28, 2003

Travis: 12 Memories
Sony, 2003
Rating: 2.7
Warning! Britpop analogy alert! Travis's 12 Memories makes Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head sound like OK Computer. Now, don't take that too literally; it's just that any article about or review of Travis must mention all their Britpop brethren (we'll save Elbow, Starsailor and Oasis for another time). Fans of the Scottish foursome will be disappointed with 12 Memories, which plays like a wimpy, distant cousin to Good Feeling, the band's incendiary 1997 debut; gone is the grit and humor of such Britpop classics like "All I Want to Do is Rock" and "Good Feeling"). And for those who favor The Man Who, the band's ultra-melodic follow-up, there's very little here to remind them of such singalong anthems as "Why Does it Always Rain on Me?," "Turn" or "Driftwood." So is there anything worthwhile about 12 Memories? Well, with songs like "The Beautiful Occupation" and "Peace the Fuck Out," it earns the distinction of being one of the first major-label Britpop discs to discuss the war in Iraq. (Through his sardonic song titles and all-white suits, frontman Fran Healy leaves no doubt about which side of the fence he's staked out). Somewhat surprisingly, the two "protest" tracks are among the disc's strongest, matching worthy melodies with clever lyrics ("You don't need an invitation / to drop in upon a nation"). The other standout track, "Re-Offender," comes closest to mirroring the magic of "Why Does it Always Rain on Me?," still the band's signature tune. A straightforward look at domestic abuse, it's the disc's catchiest tune, and a worthy lead single. Unfortunately, the rest of 12 Memories is utterly forgettable, and far too dull for a band once known for the cheekiness of tracks like "U-16 Girls."

November 27, 2003

The Handsome Family: Singing Bones
Carrot Top, 2003
Rating: 4.0
On "24-Hour Store," Brett and Rennie Sparks, returning with their sixth Handsome Family release, imagine supernatural beings occupying the same space as oblivious late night shoppers. Par for the course for the husband-wife duo, who've spent their career imagining the fantastic lurking just outside our peripheral vision. "The Bottomless Hole" is literally about a man who just has to know how deep his refuse pit goes, only to tumble endlessly, wondering when (if ever) he'll find out. The grim mood and countrified sound of Singing Bones doesn't differ dramatically from the past few Handsome Family albums (though pedal steel and bowed saw have been added to the mix). Brett Sparks' sonorous baritone adds unshakable veracity to Rennie's carefully plotted words. The Albuquerque-based couple has carved a unique niche in the American musical landscape, and they believe, deeply, in the world extrapolated therein: a place where multiple planes of reality intersect, myths have three-dimensional weight, and the night becomes a window into the spectral houses of all those who've crossed over to the other side.

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November 27, 2003

Sufjan Stevens: Michigan
Asthmatic Kitty/Sounds Familyre, 2003
Rating: 3.8
Sufjan Stevens was born in 1975. He's now 28 and, with the release of Michigan, the multi-instrumentalist embarks on the ambitious quest to release an album a year for all 50 united states. Presuming he completes this project in 2052, with the release of, say, Hawaii, Stevens will be 77 years old. Can he do it? Certainly. The trick will be whether he can keep up the same level of emotional heft and familiarity with which he addresses his home state on the project's first release. If nothing else, Stevens has created an impassioned love letter to the Great Lake State. Tackling recession casualties ("Flint," "Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head"), geographic features ("Tahquamenon Falls"), and personal tales of heartbreak ("Romulus"), Stevens exhibits a keen pop sensibility as he fleshes out the characteristics and hardships of those living on the Northern and Southern Peninsulas. Oboes, electric organs, glockenspiels and sleigh bells decorate the material, and the musical touches make one pine for an all-instrumental version of the album. Sadly, Stevens is a far stronger arranger and composer than a lyricist at this point in his career. While he exhibits moments of artful insight, as with "The Upper Peninsula" and its examination of a shattered family ("I've seen my wife in K-mart / In strange ideas, we live apart"), there are far too many clumsy moments like "Forget loss and perfect avocation / If it drops or stays in convocation" (from "All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!"). Nonetheless, Michigan is a promising start, and one looks forward to the lyrical insights Stevens might bring to bear on other states.

November 25, 2003

The Beatles: Let It Be... Naked
Capitol, 2003
Rating: 3.5
Imagine Get Back, the Beatles album bridging the chaotic sprawl of the White Album with their peerless studio achievement Abbey Road. Imagine Get Back doing just what its title indicates, harkening to a hungry Liverpool quartet mimicking American rock and blues standards. Sadly, Get Back never happened. The abortive sessions, brought on by internal tensions within the band and the folly of allowing the creative process to be filmed under such a dark cloud, thwarted any attempt to get back to something resembling the group's early days. After all the success, excess, and global expectations to elevate basic rock to high art each time out, it seems almost naïve to imagine the Beatles hoping they could recapture the feeling of the late 1950s. The cynical antithesis of Get Back is Let It Be, a fractured, hurly burly collection that never received the band's official stamp of approval. Let It Be... Naked claims to be the album the band intended, but it's simply yet another guess at what Get Back might have sounded like. "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" have been excised in favor of "Don't Let Me Down;" Phil Spector's overbaked post-production tweaking (which came about while the producer was working with John Lennon on various solo projects) has been scrubbed clean from "Across the Universe," "The Long and Winding Road" and "I Me Mine." Thankfully, the wonderful Lennon/McCartney duet "Two of Us" remains. (Unfortunately, Lennon's cheeky closing line "I hope we passed the audition" missed the cut.) Let It Be, in both this format and the original, is not so much an album as a collection of fragments and brilliant solo creations fighting to be heard above the clamor of a band disintegrating. The casual fan could do just as well building his own sequence from the 1970 original, Naked and the third Anthology disc. Better yet, we should all call it a day and simply let it be.

November 25, 2003

Sun Kil Moon: Ghosts of the Great Highway
Jetset Records, 2003
Rating: 4.0
Businesses, from retail outlets to casual dining restaurants, often change their facades in order to curtail the perception that they've grown stale or become complacent. A makeover is a great panacea for jumpstarting flagging sales or simply recapturing notoriously fickle consumer interest. Singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek understands this concept. His band Red House Painters spent the '90s releasing moody, introspective rock albums that moved a consistently decent number of units. Kozelek produced a few solo releases as the millennium turned and now brings back the full band concept with Sun Kil Moon. Red House Painters drummer Anthony Koutsos joins him, as do American Music Club's Tim Mooney (also on drums) and former Black Lab Seattle bassist Geoff Stanfield. Basically, the name may have changed, but the musical bill of fare remains the same: Ghosts of the Great Highway is propelled by excellent songwriting, rich, heartfelt vocals, and solid musicianship. "Glenn Tipton" wrestles with everything from who's the better Judas Priest guitarist (though one can't overlook the fact that the song's not called "K.K. Downing") to a woman who ran a donut shop and died unexpectedly. "Carry Me Ohio" explores youthful memories and forlorn romantic regrets. "Salvador Sanchez" and "Pancho Villa" are the same song, both about champion boxers who died young: the first played as a fuzzed-out, low-flying guitar burner, the second emphasizing understated acoustics and elegant strings. The epic "Duk Koo Kim" (named after another boxer who died tragically) stands out via Portuguese guitar and some stylish xylophone work. Tracks like "Last Tide" and "Floating" shine less brightly, but Ghosts is nonetheless one of Kozelek's strongest collections, trading off between melancholy soul searchers and fiery, roughhewn rockers in a balanced but never contrived manner.

November 24, 2003

The Flaming Lips: Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell [EP]
Warner Bros., 2003
Rating: 3.8
Just in time for the holidays, the Flaming Lips return with an EP that includes four new songs and a trio of fair-to-middling remixes. No one's going to buy this thirty-minute collection for the modified Yoshimi tracks: The title song gets the digitized makeover twice. Jason Bentley's "Ego In Acceleration" version is a chill-out take on the Lips' more passionate original, while Blow-Up's recasting proves a more effective, pulse-driven affair that captures the urgency in Wayne Coyne's voice. Jimmy (Dntel, The Postal Service) Tamborello's "Do You Realize??," driven by toy piano and Spartan techno beats, falls flat, especially when compared to Scott Hardkiss' more creative, cosmically-warped version that appeared earlier this year on the Fight Test EP. But Ego Tripping isn't just a rehash EP: It opens with three of the four new cuts, linked by title and theme to the sun. The dark, piano-based "Assassination Of The Sun" ("Now this horrible machine churns out pain instead of love") casts the orb as a menacing, oppressive force beating down on us hapless humans. "I'm A Fly In A Sunbeam" provides an instrumental bridge, with bright horns breaking through an overcast electronic mix, leading into the more hopeful "Sunship Balloons," which follows a pair of lovers taking the titular vessel into the heart of the sun -- or at the very least, enjoying great sex. On the hopeful closer "A Change At Christmas (Say It Isn't So)," Coyne sings in a lower register, but still offers his childlike view of humanity putting aside its differences and living in harmony. Near the end he asks, "Tell me I'm not just a dreamer?" Sorry, Wayne: That's exactly what you are, and Ego Tripping thankfully provides little hint you'll ever wake up and see the world any differently.

November 24, 2003

The Books: The Lemon of Pink
Tomlab, 2003
Rating: 4.1
The Books' follow-up to 2002's Thought for Food finds the collaborative duo of Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto further refining their collage-structured, electro-acoustic aesthetic. Where Thought for Food was created over a long period of time, with the duo working from different locations, The Lemon of Pink came together within months under one roof. The end result is, not surprisingly, far more cohesive. The appropriate tick-tock percussive rhythm of "Take Time" merges seamlessly with the cuckoo clock samples woven into "Don't Even Sing About It." Likewise, "S Is For Evrysing" closes with a fractured selection from the Lord's Prayer that ties in nicely with the phonetic lessons sampled on the brief "Explanation Mark." Other highlights include the Gandhi-sampling "There Is No There" and the opening title track. While The Lemon of Pink might not sport individual tracks as strong as Thought's "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again" or "All Bad Ends All," it's nonetheless a stronger effort overall, revealing a band growing in confidence with the application of its ideas.

November 06, 2003

Sarah McLachlan: Afterglow
Arista, 2003
Rating: 3.5
Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan has hardly been coasting since her last studio album, 1997's multiplatinum Surfacing. She married her drummer, Ashwin Sood; spearheaded the female-empowered alt-rock festival Lilith Fair; lost her mother to cancer, and had her first child. Afterglow, then, seems an apt title, given the hectic jumble of triumphant and tragic events over the past six years. And McLachlan certainly appears in a reflective mood, commenting on post-9-11 global strife ("World on Fire," with its earnest plea "Stay close to me while the sky is falling") and yearning for the comfort of a loved one in the face of personal tragedy ("Push"). Longtime producer Pierre Marchand does his usual buff-and-polish routine on these mostly subdued piano-based compositions, and while there's nothing approaching the memorable hook of Solace's "Into the Fire" or the stalking menace underlying Fumbling Towards Ecstasy's "Possession," Afterglow stays true to McLachlan's impeccably designed songcraft and keen sense of melody.

November 05, 2003

Blue Epic: Love & Hate [EP]
Empathic/TVT, 2003
Rating: 3.0
Birmingham, Alabama's Blue Epic surges with post-adolescent yearning on its debut EP Love & Hate, and that longing is for more than the usual peace, love and understanding. Over the course of the disc's five tracks, the earnest quartet strains to find a place for itself in the great stylistic ether, doggedly affecting an indie-rock stance belied by broad, mainstream-courting gestures. That's another thing Blue Epic yearns desperately for: acceptance. Jangly guitars are stacked like cordwood; melodies waver between verbose emoting and anthemic accessibility. And throughout, singer Phillip Roberson swings for the radio-friendly fences with a vocal timbre that strives to favorably recall Jeff Buckley. This approach makes for decent listening on the rocking "Time to Borrow" and the bracing "Underwater" (the EP's standout), which resonates with traces of James and Gene Loves Jezebel (traces of layered New Wave also echo throughout "Roses") . It works less well on a flinch-inducing cover of Neil Young's "A Man Needs a Maid," which sounds like Starsailor or Remy Zero trying to assert some as yet-unearned rock muscle. Love & Hate is about as original as its title suggests. But if its scrabble for identity lacks inspiration, its glossy finish sparkles enough to suggest that the brass ring of mainstream success isn't entirely out of this young band's reach.

November 05, 2003

The Dismemberment Plan: A People's History of The Dismemberment Plan
DeSoto, 2003
Rating: 3.0
The idea of a remix compilation/competition, in which members of the now-defunct Dismemberment Plan offer the band's music for friends and fans to deconstruct and rework, sounds like a fantastic concept. The downside is that, no matter which entries get picked for inclusion on A People's History of The Dismemberment Plan, it's virtually impossible to offer a consistent, smooth-flowing reinterpretation of the D.C. quartet's already eclectic and exuberantly experimental pop-rock vision. If this was Dntel's History of The Dismemberment Plan, for example, with Jimmy Tamborello bringing in guest artists to help him rework the Plan's catalogue, it could be judged as a unified whole. The best one can do with A People's History is select the most interesting or creative remixes, and there are a few. Cynyc's "Following Through" stretches out the Change track, adding an invigorating breakbeat behind singer Travis Morrison's elongated vocals. Erik Gundel seamlessly inserts the acoustic guitar part from "The Faces "Ooh La La" behind the Plan’s “Superpowers," taking an already wistful song and making it even more poignant. Unfortunately, however, there are more duds here than triumphs. The reworking of "Time Bomb" by ASCDI lamely overemphasizes the ticking beat from the original, and Deadverse's menacing, unnecessarily heavy-handed "Automatic" sounds like a reject from a failed Massive Attack record. A People's History is more a novelty than an essential addition to the Dismemberment Plan legacy. Hopefully a collection of rarities and unreleased material will be forthcoming, adding a proper exclamation point to the tale of one of the most exciting and innovative bands of the '90s.

November 04, 2003

Guided by Voices: Best of Guided by Voices: Human Amusement at Hourly Rates
Matador, 2003
Rating: 4.3
Want to learn how that Sequence Function works on your CD/MP3 player? That's easy: Become a Guided by Voices fan and you'll learn that skill as a simple survival instinct. The band, after all, and specifically leader Robert Pollard, is notorious for sprinkling masterful pop gems amongst a collection of semiprecious stones. The idea, then, of a generous, budget-priced, 32-track compilation that collects nothing but the band's peak singles seems custom-fit to the label-hopping indie-rock veterans' mixed bag of a catalogue. The problem lies in figuring out which 32 songs to choose from. The mid-'90s peak collaborations of Pollard and onetime guitarist Tobin Sprout (Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes) are most heavily represented, with four tracks each. But even that seems a few tracks too sparse. Sure, essential efforts like "Tractor Rape Chain" and "Hit" are here, but whose skewed rationale excised "Gold Star for Robot Boy" and "Weed King" from the final mix? Especially when 1999's career low point Do the Collapse gets two selections ("Surgical Focus," fair enough, but who felt the insipid "Things I Will Keep" had to be represented?). Work dating back to 1987's Devil Between My Toes reveals what a keen ear Pollard possessed, even then, for melody, despite their less-than-pristine recording fidelity. For diehards, there's the Hardcore UFOs box set (which includes this disc, only with the tracks running in chronological order). Casual fans and the more cost-conscious, however, will be (mostly) satisfied with this appropriately off-kilter, near-definitive overview.

November 04, 2003

Aesop Rock: Bazooka Tooth
Definitive Jux, 2003
Rating: 4.1
In interviews, New Yorker Ian Bravitz claims the title for his latest Aesop Rock album, Bazooka Tooth, is exactly what it describes: a person with a molar-mounted cannon, ready to "blow shit up." And while many listeners prefer to dig deep for additional meaning in Bravitz's complex, fifty-cent worded, historical name-checking art raps than the artist ever intended, there is indeed more to Bazooka Tooth than its goofy title image. Bravitz's greatest strength is his wildly imaginative, at times willfully outlandish wordplay; he's simply the Human Thesaurus of modern rappers. And he's usually got a beef, as evidenced by the gritty slice-of-life narrative "6B Panorama" from 2000's Float, and essentially every track on 2001's breakout Labor Days. In this case, Bazooka Tooth is Bravitz's reaction to the world of celebrity and fame (of which he’s achieved a modest, but still appreciable, degree). "Easy" opens with "Cameras or guns / One of y'all's gonna shoot me to death," while "Limelighter" finds Bravitz claiming he's "Out to kill the video star." By contrast, the sharp, relentless "We're Famous" finds the artist celebrating his perceived place in the hip-hop hierarchy, taking pot shots (along with guest El-P) at less-talented pretenders. Blockhead, whose inventive, elegant production work complemented Bravitz's unapologetically gruff delivery in the past, takes a back seat here, and the beats (mostly by Bravitz himself) are dense, multilayered and confrontational: a sledgehammer to Blockhead's paint brush. Regardless of his less than subtle studio technique, Bravitz remains one of the most resourceful and bracing artists in his field, and that alone merits his fifth release a solid recommendation.

November 04, 2003

Peaches: Fatherfucker
Beggars XL, 2003
Rating: 2.0
Fatherfucker, the successor to 2000's The Teaches of Peaches, inverts the aggressively raunchy energy of its predecessor. Where Teaches was brash, Fatherfucker is dim; where Teaches was shocking in its gender-bending, sexually charged language, Fatherfucker is bland, repetitive and obvious in its attempts to turn standard conventions upside down. Teaches' opener "Fuck the Pain Away" had a memorable hook and a danceable beat; Fatherfucker's icebreaker "I Don't Give a Fuck" merely repeats its title phrase over a sample of Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation," to less energizing effect. Peaches just doesn't seem to be having as much fun provoking her listeners this time out. Which isn't to imply that she isn't having fun, because she certainly does, as when desiccated proto-punk/ad pitchman Iggy Pop shows up for the mercifully short "Kick It." (This meeting of pathological attention-seekers contains the following exchange: Iggy: "I heard you like kinky shit." Peaches: "That just depends on who I'm with." Iggy: "What is it, S&M or some kinda toy?" Peaches: "Like you said, search and destroy.") "I'm the Kinda" trades on the rap couplet "Knockin' you out like Rocky Balboa / Drown you in a flood deeper than Noah." (Note to Peaches: Noah built the ark, honey; he wasn't the water.) Fatherfucker is the sound of an artist either out of fresh ideas, or truly following the mantra of her opening track. Whatever the case, it appears Peaches used up her entire lesson plan on her far superior debut.

November 03, 2003

Thea Gilmore: Avalanche
Compass, 2003
Rating: 3.7
Impressively, English-born singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore, not yet 24, already has five albums to her credit. Working with producer Nigel Stonier throughout her still-nascent career, Gilmore has steadily improved her craft with each successive release. Fortunately for her development, if not pocketbook, there's been no major breakthrough critical or commercial release derailing her maturation process; she's been able to grow in relative obscurity, immune from hyper-scrutinized articles and dating-game tabloid nonsense. Which leads us to Avalanche, her most polished, least turbulent work to date. There's nothing here approaching the incendiary power of her 1998 debut Burning Dorothy, particularly "Militia Sister" ("You fucked your way in / You can fuck your way out"), or possessing the raw spontaneity of last year's Songs from the Gutter. "Heads Will Roll," with its Dylan-esque social-commentary raps ("Absolution.com delivers with a little bit of luck"), or the anti-commercial "Mainstream" -- these are as riled up as Avalanche gets. "Rags And Bones," with its quasi-electronic production tics, and the catchy strum-and-thrush "Have You Heard" shine here, while the bland "Juliet (Keep That In Mind)" and sedate "Pirate Moon" are particularly uninspired offerings. Where Gilmore goes from here -- whether she fumbles toward safe, MOR, Sarah McLachlan fare, or mines emotional wounds with the intensity of Polly Jean Harvey, is anyone's guess. But Avalanche is far closer to the former, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, there's more than enough promise and talent here to warrant keeping tabs on where Gilmore ventures next.

October 31, 2003

Ryan Adams: Rock N Roll
Lost Highway, 2003
Rating: 4.0
Rock N Roll (yes, we know it's spelled backwards on the disc, but we don't feel like indulging), Ryan Adams' fourth official solo release, opens with the confident "This Is It," a deliberately coarse assault of manic guitar solos and hook-laden lyrics. It's Adams' approximation of garage rock, and as such, it betters just about anything his friends in The Strokes have committed to date (and makes one wish for Adams' rumored song-for-song rerecording of Is This It). Rather than stay in one vein, however, Adams runs through a variety of trends, as he did with '70s rock and soul on 2001's Gold. He out-Golds Gold's style-hopping frenzy by far, however, spanning decades, continents and different modes of the difficult-to-pin-down beast called Rock. It's an undeniably audacious display, like the music geek with the awesome vinyl collection showing off the vastness and depth of his music knowledge in hopes of scoring with the hot chick. "Shallow" pays a debt to '90s Brit rock; "1974" is also British, but of the sleazier,'70s Stonesy variety. The slick, slippery "So Alive" finds Adams successfully utilizing a higher register '80s croon (think Ultravox as fronted by a less morose Morrissey), while Paul Westerberg fans will appreciate the gritty "Do Miss America." Adams even apes himself (circa Whiskeytown) with the lonesome, countryish "Wish You Were Here." Though Rock N Roll contains 14 Adams originals, it’s essentially a stylistic covers record, and a damn fine one at that. Those hoping to hear the more sensitive, mopey, and artistic side of Adams will have to content themselves with the bifurcated follow-up Love Is Hell.

October 31, 2003

Joe Henry: Tiny Voices
Anti-, 2003
Rating: 3.8
Listening to Joe Henry's Tiny Voices is like being in a smoky jazz club well past midnight, stuck with a brokenhearted drunk lamenting what went wrong with his life. Joe Henry is the drunk, and the house band backing him just happens to contain some of the finest players in the game (percussionist Jay Bellerose, guitarist Chris Bruce, Don Byron on clarinet and sax, bassist Jennifer Condos, trumpeter Ron Miles, and pianists Dave Palmer and Patrick Warren). Tiny Voices is a heavier sounding album than 2001's Scar, as Henry delves even deeper into the urban mythology of the wasted, emotionally crippled yet brilliantly gifted jazz vocalist. The main problem is that unlike, say, Billie Holiday, Joe Henry is more a faithful mimic than the genuine article. His suffering is speckled with all the right detail, but the pain never feels authentic so much as scrupulously studied and perfectly replicated. "I remember when love was something I craved / But I settled for less and the comfort it gave," he confesses on the slow, meditative "Animal Skin." Similar grim proclamations about coming up just short in the game of love and life abound. On the weary, resigned "Flag," Henry states "Love's just a mirror for a thief," and opines "Life is for the living," on the smooth, warm "Flesh and Blood." Throughout, Henry's backing band bristles and shines, even during the multitude of subdued downturns. The challenge with Tiny Voices is finding the stamina to slog through innumerable hangdog tales, while hoping Henry takes a bathroom break and the band returns for a wordlessly exquisite encore.

October 30, 2003

Constantines: Shine a Light
Sub Pop, 2003
Rating: 3.5
Buzz-building Canadian rock quintet The Constantines follow-up their modestly distributed 2001 self-titled debut with the more musically adventurous, if still lyrically average, Shine a Light. The disc can be approximately dissected thusly: a more fuzz-rock, heavy-distortion first half, and a straight-ahead, classic-rocking second side. Vocalist Bry Webb's husky growl ideally suits the forceful rhythms and odd time signatures the band explores on "Insectivora" and the title track. At times, the band's easy-out rhyme schemes detract from the inventive sound ("Nighttime/Anytime (It's Alright)" with its chorus of the same, and "Summertime is our time" from "Scoundrel Babes"). The closing "Sub-Domestic" finds Webb in sing-speak mode over a stripped-down, marching drumbeat and crunchy bass, and shows off the Constantines' ability to turn down the volume and still execute at a compelling level. Though trite lyrics too often undermine strong instrumentation, Shine a Light is a promising sophomore effort from a group that clearly has the chops to blaze even brighter -- providing overexposure doesn't burn them out first.

October 29, 2003

Do Make Say Think: Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn
Constellation, 2003
Rating: 4.1
While not exactly nine songs of unbridled joy divided into three movements as the title indicates, Toronto sextet Do Make Say Think (DMST) offers its most exuberantly loud and celebratory release thus far. Veering closer to labelmates Godspeed You! Black Emperor's patented quiet/loud/even louder territory (sans the politically charged screeds), DMST manages to retain its dub/jazzy identity amidst all the crashing excess and bombast. "Auberge Le Mouton Noir" is a particularly strong showcase of tight guitar-bass-percussion interplay, while the intricate "Ontario Plates" shifts from moody jazz into brighter sonic territory, with swaggering horns and ferociously clanging cymbals. "Horns Of A Rabbit" melds backwards guitars with Dave Mitchell’s and James Payment’s violent percussion, with Charles Spearin’s steady bass tying the whole thing together. The fleeting "It's Gonna Rain," complete with drizzly effects, doesn't have much to contribute, and the sad-horned lament, "107 Reasons Why" offers the sole contradiction to the overall mood and title declaration. Winter Hymn is one of the year's memorable, noteworthy listens, and DMST's finest effort overall, as the group finally lives up to the all action verbs in its blustery moniker.

October 29, 2003

Dressy Bessy: Dressy Bessy
Kindercore, 2003
Rating: 3.8
Is Dressy Bessy still Dressy Bessy when the Denver, Colorado quartet's lyrical content moves beyond bubblegum anthems and the guitars ring a little more discordantly? Is this the same band, preciously named after a popular doll, whose music elicits thoughts of pizza parties, sleepovers and kids dancing around a cheap plastic record player spinning old 45s? Well, the easy answer is, yes, of course it is. We still hear Tammy Ealom's familiar, sprightly vocals, guitarist John Hill's sharp hooks and the crisp rhythm section of bassist Rob Greene and drummer Darren Albert. And on cuts like the short, peppy "New Song (From Me to You)" and exuberantly up-tempo "Better Luck," there's no doubt Dressy Bessy hasn't completely abandoned its love of '60s psychedelic pop, or its debt to '80s twee-pop pioneers Talulah Gosh. But there's a definite sense of regret in Ealom's voice on "This May Hurt (A Little)," which concerns two friends drifting apart, and Hill's surprisingly use of angular, inharmonious chords on "Georgie Blue," indicating a more mature, creatively restless group. "Girl, You Shout!" which sounds like a fun girl-rock call-to-arms, contains the biting line "It's not the first time in your life / You'll find that your mother / she's let you down," while "Hey May" finds Ealom asking, "What are you going to do / When the world turns in on you?" Dressy Bessy's darkest record yet is also its strongest, if only because there's a little more grit and tears mixed into the familiar, rapidly-approaching-stale sunshine-and-happiness mix.

October 29, 2003

Nina Nastasia: Run to Ruin
Touch & Go, 2003
Rating: 4.2
Run to Ruin, singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia's latest release, contains half as many songs, and runs a quarter of an hour less, than last year's critically celebrated The Blackened Air. But you're not likely to hear a weightier thirty-minute album. Run to Ruin is a spaciously played, elegant creation in which every note counts. Recorded live and containing very little post-production polish from producer Steve Albini, Ruin mines similar themes of loss, betrayal, and the generally gloomy disposition that colored Blackened Air, but the mood here is more urbane than Blackened Air's countrified feel: there's no footloose "All for You." Rather, Nastasia, backed by dramatic strings and doom-hearkening percussion, explores the burden of kept secrets ("We Never Talked"), irreconcilably strained relationships ("You Her and Me") and the nakedly honest observations of a performing artist ("Superstar"). What keeps Nastasia from succumbing to grotesque melodrama is the razor-like incisiveness she brings to her lyrics -- the lost souls exhibited here are not mere caricatures. Run to Ruin is a window into a world filled with regret, madness and suicide, and its power comes from Nastasia never once pandering to her audience. This is one artist who emphatically means every carefully chosen word she utters.

Yo La Tengo: Today Is the Day [EP]
Matador, 2003
Rating: 4.2
Yo La Tengo gets symmetry. The indie-rock trio opens Today Is the Day with a revamped, considerably revved-up version of the title track that appeared earlier this year on Summer Sun; later, it fittingly ends this six-song collection with a reworking of "Cherry Chapstick" (from And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out), transforming it from an upbeat winding guitar ditty into a winsome, slow-plucked dirge. In between, the venerated critical darlings offer outtakes from Summer Sun and the obligatory cover song. "Outsmartener" recalls some of the freer compositions that defined the trio's experimental Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo. "Styles of the Times" is a grinding rocker fueled by Ira Kaplan's punk affectations, while the instrumental "Dr. Crash" reflects the trio's groovier moments, courtesy of deep bass and penetrating guitar lines. Fans of the all covers Fakebook should enjoy Georgia Hubley's delicate, acoustic interpretation of folk legend Bert Jansch's "Needle of Death," even if she doesn't deviate too far from the original. In short, Today is the Day covers a lot of stylistic ground, and does so, impressively, in less than twenty-five minutes. As such, this handsomely eclectic collection merits inclusion as an essential addition to Yo La Tengo's richly diverse catalogue.

Stereolab: Instant 0 in the Universe [EP]
Elektra/Asylum, 2003
Rating: 3.8
Having successfully synthesized bossa nova, electronica, French pop and space-age lounge influences into a singular, brilliantly creative mélange with 1996’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Stereolab’s greatest challenge lay in figuring out what to do next. The band's post-Ketchup work has veered between refining its patented pop-gumbo template (Dots and Loops) and a tendency toward indulgent overkill (Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night). In short, the second half of Stereolab's career has been dogged by the nagging question: Where does the band go from here? Instant 0 in the Universe offers a glimpse of the answer. It's the band's first release since the tragic death of singer Mary Hansen last year, but, rather than the thud of a band in mourning, Instant 0 finds Stereolab upbeat and sounding more vibrant than it has in years. From the bright, bouncy "...Sudden Stars" to the insistent, pumping beat powering "Mass Riff," it's obvious that Stereolab has recommitted itself to exploring the intricacies of a sound it's mastered to the point of redundancy from a fresh, inviting perceptive. While there's certainly nothing remotely groundbreaking here, the music nonetheless sounds substantive and alive. One would be hard-pressed to find a better tribute to a fallen member than that.

Throwing Muses: Throwing Muses
4AD, 2003
Rating: 4.0
"I'm so mad I could spit," Kristin Hersh rails on “Solar Dip,” from Throwing Muses' self-titled reunion album, and her anger is welcome indeed. It's a pleasant surprise to hear just how vital and intense the Muses sound after such a long layoff (the group disbanded following 1996's Limbo, with Hersh devoting more time to her solo career and growing family). Bassist Bernard Georges and drummer David Narcizo provide an urgent, wildly tempo-shifting rhythm section that perfectly complements Hersh's jagged, idiosyncratic guitar style and fiery vocal delivery. Toss in backing vocals (on select tracks) by long-departed original member Tanya Donelly, and Throwing Muses, the 2003 incarnation, sounds as close as it ever has to the pre-House Tornado lineup some sixteen years back. The key, obviously, is singer-songwriter Hersh, and her uncanny ability to transmute mundane domestic details about late night visits to Wal-Mart and arguments with her husband into combustible, elementally charged touchstones of sonic therapy. "You quit making mistakes / I might not leave / You quit making mistakes / I might just stay," she threatens on "Speed and Sleep," and there's something in the way she couches the words that indicates this woman is deadly serious. Such moments make this the most energetic Muses record since the band's initial self-titled debut, from the rising fury of "Mercury" to the rocking closer "Flying," in which Hersh lays out what one imagines could be her attitude toward her bandmates: "This place is fascinating when you're here / But when you're not, it's not / But if I'd known leaving every home would get me here / I would've gone sooner." Throwing Muses, and the music world at large, are the better for her having decided to stick around.

Clearlake: Cedars
Domino, 2003
Rating: 3.3
On Cedars, British rock quartet Clearlake retains the theatrically dour outlook of its debut, Lido, bringing in ex-Cocteau Twins bassist Simon Raymonde as producer to conjure a warmer, friendlier sound. Thus, a slate of tracks with glum lyrics dwarfed by anthemic, big-dumb power chords. "Wonder If the Snow Will Settle" offers a steady yet effectively theatrical drum beat to offset the pensive cynicism felt by singer Jason Pegg. Elsewhere, sound and lyrics reconcile nicely on "Just Off the Coast," its rough, bluesy riff meshing tightly with Pegg's tale of distance and hoped-for reconciliation. Unfortunately, when Clearlake misses the mark, it does so widely. "It's All Too Much" offers second-rate, Pablo Honey-period Radiohead histrionics while "Treat Yourself With Kindness" traffics in over-baked melodrama, which betrays the album's resolutely downbeat mood. Cedars is the sound of a young band still struggling to figure out what it wants to be and, more importantly, how such an identity will ultimately come to define its sound. There's enough promise exhibited here to warrant future attention; call it an endorsement of Clearlake's heretofore-nonexistent breakthrough release.

Dido: Life For Rent
Arista, 2003
Rating: 2.5
Yawn. After a few spins of Life For Rent, Dido's follow-up to her multi-platinum 1999 debut No Angel, it becomes clear that no new ground's being broken. Worse, the London beauty has left behind the trip-hop effects that made her previous disc such a pleasant surprise, in favor of more straightforward story-songs. Lacking its predecessor's edgy tone, Life For Rent offers up one bland, polite tune after another, with such Lillith-ian titles as "Don't Leave Home" and "This Land is Mine." The melodic opener "White Flag," the CD's strongest tune (as well as-surprise-the lead single), comes closest to re-creating the magic of "Here With Me," the debut single that propelled Dido's unexpected success. It's followed by "Stoned," a good four-minute song trapped in an exhaustive six-minute track (why the one-minute instrumental intro?). Still, the two opening tracks don't make up for such rubbish as "Mary's in India," in which Dido attempts to explain how she stole her friend's man, but ends up coming off as an excruciatingly self-indulgent storyteller. Fans of Dido's clear and distinctive voice won't be disappointed (that, at least, remains as unmistakable as ever). But they're not likely to be thrilled, either.

Sting: Sacred Love
A&M, 2003
Rating: 3.5
Cynics will view Sacred Love, Sting's first collection of new material since 1999's Brand New Day, as another attempt to appeal to the MOR crowd by using a slew of guest artists in order to appear worldly and soulful. Conversely, more generous listeners will applaud his continued use of guest artists to produce the sort of worldly, soulful music that's rarely heard on Adult Contemporary radio anymore. Anyway you slice it, Sacred Love, with its sitar solos ("The Book of My Life"), African grooves ("Never Coming Home"), and heavy subject matter -- the current war on terrorism is discussed on several tracks -- is Sting's most adventurous disc as a solo artist. Mary J. Blige is wisely enlisted on the gospel foray "Whenever I Say Your Name." Lead single "Send Your Love"'s Moroccan picks up where "Desert Rose," Brand New Day's wildly successful single (and the theme for a much-ridiculed Jaguar commercial), left off, and "This War" comes out of nowhere to deliver some genuine, nerve-rattling rock (thanks mostly to Dominic Miller's guitar). All of which is wrapped up in pristine engineering (the album was produced in 5.1 Surround Sound), making Sacred Love as much of a headphone record as it is a hopeful launching pad for slick Top 40 hits.

October 24, 2003

Van Morrison: What's Wrong With This Picture?
Blue Note, 2003
Rating: 4.1
In the title track of "What's Wrong With This Picture?," Van Morrison offers an easygoing dismissal of those who expect him to be the same restlessly questing, blue-eyed Celtic troubadour of old. Claiming to have "left all that jive behind," he then proceeds to work out a cracking jazz and blues jones that moves effortlessly from that leisurely-paced opener to the lively "Whinin Boy Moan" and the rambling, slow-poured, "Too Many Myths." "Meaning Of Loneliness," the album's highlight, finds Morrison skillfully name-checking philosophical heavyweights Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche and Hesse without making it sound pretentious, unlike his shout-out to William Blake on Veedon Fleece. How does he do this? Mainly because he's older and wiser now, claiming "if you think too deeply you're gonna end up in distress," and pointedly noting "fame and fortune never brought anyone happiness." Van Morrison, mere mortal, may try a tad too hard to distance himself from Van Morrison, larger-than-life music legend ("Just because they call me a celebrity / That does not make it true / Because I don't believe in the myth, people / So why should you?"). Nonetheless, it's nice to see that the fire still burns within this veteran performer's belly. This is one picture Morrison can proudly hang beside his best work.

October 23, 2003

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Greendale
Reprise, 2003
Rating: 2.4
What is there to say about Greendale, Neil Young's ambitious concept album and film project? Just two things: One, it's better than Are You Passionate? And two, unless you're a diehard fan of Young's more rambling, adventurous material, you should probably skip it. Concept pieces are always a crapshoot, and when they work, it's usually because of the unique ferocity of their ideas, or the risk-taking scope of the music. On the former count, Greendale certainly has plenty of ferocity, but it's hardly distinctive: Young's nomadic narrative requires its own Cliffs Notes, and the lack of cohesion or focus (which Young pretty much cops to in the liner notes) give the record less heft than the irate rambling of your neighborhood curmudgeon. Which wouldn't be as critical if Greendale had more to offer on the latter point. Hail To The Thief, however, this ain't. Heck, it's not even Trans. Having ill-advisedly gone for a one-guitar approach, Young all but neuters the trademarked ragged glory of Crazy Horse, whose rhythm section gamely trudges along behind him through a series of numbingly similar shuffles, the most grating of which ("Double E") is further hobbled by a singular lack of melody. For a brief, shining moment toward the middle, the unexpectedly poignant "Bandit" offers a glimmer of hope, a ray of light through the gristly murk. But Greendale ends much as it begins, with a shambling gait through a thorny, one-dimensional landscape devoid of distinction.

October 23, 2003

Basement Jaxx: Kish Kash
Astralwerks, 2003
Rating: 4.0
With Kish Kash, Brixton, South London duo Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton mostly eschew the relentlessly pumping 4/4 beats and Prince-worshipping shenanigans that colored their 1999 debut Remedy, as well as 2000'a attention-getting follow-up Rooty. Kish Kash is a downbeat, surprisingly ruminative affair, less concerned with dance-floor breakouts than the inevitable post-party comedown. The BellRays' Lisa Kekaula sets the tone early on the opening "Good Luck": "Tell me, is life just a playground?" "Lucky Star" features an audacious collision of Dizzee Rascal's rapid-rap delivery and Bulgarian strings and more familiar skittering House beats, but even here the lyrics speak to just about anyplace save the club: "I was born in the court of pocketless / I want to stand judge to put money on trial." "Supersonic," spotlighting 65-year-old singer Totlyn Jackson, is the closest Basement Jaxx comes to its past efforts: manic, unpredictable and loose, it energizes the entire set. Less successful is "Plug It In", in which J.C. (N'Sync) Chasez's feather light, falsetto vocals fall flat against the frantic, rave-like backdrop. Contrasted against those numbers, "Living Room" and the mellow Meshell Ndegeocello closer "Feels Like Home" only reinforce the duo's retreat from the disco -- a brief respite, or maybe a deeper commentary on a scene that's grown stale since their last night out.

October 23, 2003

The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow
Sub Pop, 2003
Rating: 3.8
The Shins' eagerly awaited second release finds them setting a darker tone than that of their 2001 cult-hit debut, Oh, Inverted World. Maybe the moodier, less-upbeat vibe has something to do with the band's move from the drier, sunnier climes of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the colder, wetter, alt-rock haven-of-the-moment Portland, Oregon. Regardless, Chutes finds guitarist/vocalist James Mercer less concerned with crafting the great hooks that defined Inverted ("Caring Is Creepy," "New Slang"), and more obsessed with interior drama ("We shared some information we might not recover from") and the bleak state of the world ("I don't look back much as a rule / And all this way before murder was cool"). Other than the winding guitar peals and lively rhythm that powers "Kissing the Lipless," Chutes' strongest moments are pensive and understated. The cautionary, reflective "Young Pilgrims" ties Mercer's words to an appropriately subdued pluck-and-strum arrangement, while "Gone For Good" relies on restrained pedal steel and a high-lonesome twang to carry off its tale of loss and regret. "Turn a Square," a generic, bouncing pop-rock number, overwhelms Mercer's clever, if obtuse, wordplay ("I react like it's 1805 / Swim to the poles just to find the right satellite"); it's the sole dud. Contrary to expectations, Chutes Too Narrow proves the Shins have more on their minds than singing the perfect harmony or writing the ultimate couplet, and it's that deeper sense of introspection that makes it a keeper.