Album Review: Sondre Lerche — “Heartbeat Radio”

Norwegian pop phenom Sondre Lerche is often compared to Burt Bacharach for his melodic, jazz-inflected compositions and silk-smooth vocals. Unfortunately, Lerche shares another trait with Bacharach: He kind of sucks as a lyricist. Throughout Heartbeat Radio, Lerche drops cringe-worthy lines and trots out D.O.A. clichés (“Is it hot in here, or is it just me?” rears its head) that distract from his indisputable talent as a composer and arranger. Following his flirtation with straight-up rock on Phantom Punch, Heartbeat is Lerche’s big, romantic, orchestral-pop record. Sugary melodies stack up on countermelodies (and counter-countermelodies — check out the dizzying string coda on “Good Luck” and the diet disco-funk of “I Cannot Let You Go”), but in many cases the flourishes fall just short of moving or memorable. While more technically accomplished, Heartbeat’s pleasantly vanilla vibe feels like a step backward from Punch, on which the songs were pumped up with energy and badly needed tension.

Album Review: The Antlers — “Hospice”

Hospice is the best record this year that I have absolutely no desire to revisit anytime soon. Brooklyn’s Antlers have crafted an impressively assured album with beauty oozing from every moody track, recalling the crystalline ambience of Sigur Rós one second (“Kettering”) and a sleepier Arcade Fire the next (“Two”). But the concept behind this concept album — a man witnessing his loved one painfully die of bone cancer — is really fucking depressing. Frontman Peter Silberman scripts a crushingly bleak mortality play, packed with upsetting details like “shining children’s heads” and “hundreds of thousands of hospital beds.” It’s heavy stuff, but occasionally the music buoys the subject matter like a fleeting happy memory. Besides, Silberman warns us up front how the story ends, singing, “I didn’t believe them/ When they told me that there was no saving you.”

Album Review: Julian Plenti — “Julian Plenti is … Skyscraper”

Spoiler alert: Julian Plenti is really the alter ego of Paul Banks, well-dressed frontman for one of rock’s most polarizing bands, Interpol (opinions range from “Best band ever!” to “Hey, is this a Joy Division b-side?”). Banks’s nom de plume proves to be totally pointless: Instead of crafting a new style that requires listeners to distance themselves from his main gig, Skyscraper mostly just sounds like Interpol with a less talented rhythm section. Make fun of Interpol’s Carlos D all you like (and you should — dude wears a fashion gun holster), but his bass lines are more memorable than all of Skyscraper. A few flashes of inspiration — the understated piano on “No Chance Survival,” Sgt. Pepper’s horns on “Unwind,” and the haunting, acoustic “On the Esplanade” — are noteworthy, but the rest of the album showcases Banks’s worst traits: monotony and bad puns (see: “Fly as You Might”). At least he didn’t grow a soul patch (RIP Chris Gaines).

Work Doodles: Canine Edition

“Why can’t we be friends?”

Album Review: Japandroids — “Post-Nothing”

Canadian duo Japandroids* are concerned with only two things: guitars and girls (and not necessarily in that order). Their much-hyped full-length debut, Post-Nothing, is a brief, blistering set of low-fi garage that transcends its carport origins by replacing cock-rock swagger with puppy-dog charm. Brian King (guitar) and David Prowse (drums, no relation to Darth Vader) play their respective instruments like they’re in a much bigger band, with Prowse’s syncopated beats punching holes in King’s solid brick walls of noise. Drunk on amplifier fuzz, the guys sprint through relationship stages like oversexed teenagers, covering infatuation (“Wet Hair”), commitment (album highlight “Sovereignty”), and the inevitable post-split depression (epic closer “I Quit Girls”) in a little more than 30 minutes. Despite the unhappy ending, King and Prowse know better than to waste their time slamming the fairer sex. Rock-cliché misogyny just doesn’t suit them — Japandroids are programmed to love.

*We already have a Japanther. What’s next? Japancake? Japancreas?
Japanderson Cooper?

Album Review: YACHT — “See Mystery Lights”

For fans of the Blow — the Khaela Maricich/Jona Bechtolt electro-pop collab that produced the sublime, sensitive Paper Television — Bechtolt’s current project, YACHT, can feel like a consolation prize. For kids who just want to shake their asses, though, See Mystery Lights is the real winner, packed with irrepressible beats that will soundtrack countless dark, sweat-soaked dance floors. Bechtolt and vocalist Claire L. Evans (who always sounds too cool at best, and bored at worst) mash up post-punk riffs (“It’s Boring/You Can Live Anywhere You Want”), Afropop (“Ring the Bell”), and pure bubblegum (“Psychic City”), among other genres, into a catchy — if not always coherent — whole. While Bechtolt’s production skills are unquestionable, lyrics range from clever (“I’m in love with a ripper”) to confused (“Be careful with the downloading / Read the comments”). No matter how fun YACHT can be, they mostly make me miss the Blow — if only because Maricich gave your brain something to do while your ass was moving.

Afrika Bambaataa

Album Review: Spoon — “Got Nuffin” EP

Spoon is officially a “comfort food” band. Whether you spin early effort A Series of Sneaks or commercial breakthrough Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, you pretty much know what you’re going to get: Singer Britt Daniel’s raspy, lovelorn musings, Jim Eno’s methodical, musical drumming, and whoever’s playing bass at the time staying out of the way. Sure, there have been small variations in the ingredients, but why screw with a winning recipe?

It’s been two years since Ga⁵ pushed Spoon into the mainstream, so it’s no surprise that raving Spoon-atics (myself included) salivated Pavlovian-style over news of the surprise EP, Got Nuffin. While calling the four tracks an EP is stretching it (“Tweakers” and its remix are essentially unfinished, fuzzed-out drum loops), the title track is an instant classic, a stripped-down minor-key stomper that’s surprisingly life-affirming (“I’ve got nothin’ to lose but darkness and shadows,” Daniel croaks). Meanwhile, “Stroke Their Brains” is a bouncy, reverb-crazy mad-science experiment, with Daniel as the creature on the operating table. Consider our brains stroked, and our appetites whetted for the next satisfying entrée.

Album Review: Discovery — “LP”

Discovery — an electronic R&B side project consisting of Vampire Weekend keyboardist (and spell-check nightmare) Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot’s Wes Miles — has a few strikes against its imaginatively titled, Auto-Tune-heavy debut right off the bat: 1. Most side projects tend to suck; 2. They don’t do themselves any favors by taking their name from a Daft Punk record; 3. Jay-Z has recently declared Auto-Tune dead, and you don’t argue with Jay-Z; and 4. Discovery poorly covers the Jackson 5’s best-ever song, “I Want You Back” (too soon, guys). To be fair, the duo began working on LP four years ago, back when the King of Pop was still (sort of) alive and T-Pain didn’t even own a top hat. Intended as a summer soundtrack, LP barely works on that level — no amount of chopping, screwing, or cameos by über-talented Angel Deradoorian (of Dirty Projectors fame) can salvage the record’s slight songwriting or influence-groping (“Swing Tree” is essentially a rip-off of Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love”). LP is worth trotting out at your next hipster barbecue, but play it early — and save the Daft Punk, Jay-Z, and J5 for when you really want to start the party.