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).

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.

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: Wilco — “Wilco (The Album)”

It’s ironic that as the U.S. collectively shits the bed, Wilco — the band that built a career on articulating modern American angst — hasn’t sounded this upbeat in a decade. Coupled with the feather-light Sky Blue Sky, Wilcologists may call this the group’s “rose period.” You could also call it what it is: frontman Jeff Tweedy is pretty much through making grand statements in favor of jamming out with his band. Unfortunately, said jams — and (The Album) as a whole — just can’t compete with their best work.

Things get off to a promising start with the deliciously meta “Wilco (The Song),” and the epic “One Wing” and murder-fantasy “Bull Black Nova” are obvious highlights. But not even a Feist cameo can save the pleasant-but-limp “You and I,” and the rest of the album kills time between catchy dad-rock (scolding lyrics like “Come on, children, you’re acting like children” are, like, the definition of dad-rock) and songs that are good-enough yet ultimately forgettable. The band that once successfully tried breaking our hearts with cross-genre experiments has seemingly settled for a smoother road, but at least Tweedy — who famously struggled with panic attacks and pill addiction — sounds happy. The guys in Wilco are no longer killing themselves to reinvent the wheel; they’re simply content to enjoy the rest of the ride.

(Read my 2007 review of Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky after the jump.)

Album Review: Regina Spektor — “far”

Since being “discovered” by the Strokes in the early 2000s, Regina
Spektor’s been polishing her act for the mainstream. The end result is far, a surprisingly dull record featuring almost none of the playfully whacked, creative gusto that was, up until now, her trademark. The rough edges Spektor once proudly flaunted have been sanded down by no less than four (!) producers, and while there’s an occasional bright spot (the moody “Genius Next Door,” the bouyant “The Calculation”), much of the record resorts to the kind of preachy pop treacle she used to be the antithesis of. (She does mimic a dolphin during “Folding Chair,” but it just doesn’t feel the same. Sigh.)

Music bloggers roasted Spektor when her Begin to Hope track “Fidelity” made an appearance on scrubs-opera Grey’s Anatomy, but at the time I wrote it off as a happy convergence of art and commerce. But far sounds too much like rom-com fishing. Note to ReSpekt: if you don’t want people to think you’re writing songs for Grey’s, don’t start one with “No one laughs at God in a hospital.”

Album Review: Dirty Projectors — “Bitte Orca”

Bitte Orca is a strange creature. The Dirty Projectors’ newest is like some kind of awkward yet beautiful bird, seemingly incapable of flight due to its Frankensteinian anatomy (displaced rhythms, off-kilter guitar picking, stretched-out vocal harmonies, and then there’s frontman/zookeeper Dave Longstreth’s voice — so pinched and trembling it sounds like affectation). And yet, the album soars anyway, high on its own joyful weirdness. It helps that, unlike previous (even weirder) DP releases, Orca finds Longstreth turning his plethora of musical ideas into actual songs before hitting “record” — handclappy opener “Cannibal Resource” and pseudo-dance-rocker “Stillness Is the Move” even have sections that resemble choruses. Exquisite acoustic ballad “Two Doves” courts convention even harder but is a much-appreciated (and flat-out lovely) mid-album breather before Longstreth looses his menagerie again. Obtuse yet oddly inviting, Bitte Orca may be tough to catch up to — even after repeat listens — but it’s a fun chase anyway.

Album Review: Grizzly Bear — “Veckatimest”

From the first jazzy chords of kinetic album opener “Southern Point,” Grizzly Bear has a spring in its step — the kind of sly self-possession that signals the group knows something you don’t (and not just the proper pronunciation of Veckatimest). Their confidence isn’t unfounded: This isn’t just the Brooklyn band’s finest record to date; it’s one of the top releases of the year. Co-frontmen Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen have proven to be students of the Lennon/McCartney tradition, with Rossen providing the album’s sharpest moments (“While You Wait for the Others”) and Droste providing the sweetest (“Cheerleader” and the heart-stoppingly gorgeous “Foreground”). The biggest surprise: “Two Weeks” is going to be the pop song of the summer, coasting on Chris Bear’s tasteful, propulsive drumming and four-part doo-wop harmony so bright it could part clouds. This isn’t just GB’s “pop” record, though — the careful sonic textures that colored Yellow House are back, and better. Rather, Veckatimest is the sound of a young group realizing and building on its potential, stretching out in all directions at once without stretching itself too thin.

Album Review: St. Vincent — “Actor”

Pixie dream girl Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) cornered the market on delicate, too-cute indie-pop with her debut, Marry Me. Actor, however, trades wide-eyed naïveté for jaded maturity, as Clark — who once penned a tune called “What Me Worry?” — now frets about being saved from what she wants and waking up the neighbors with shouting matches. Looks like the honeymoon is over.

Actor is a huge leap forward for Clark, who simultaneously focuses her songwriting while expanding her lush orchestral arrangements. Horns swoon and strings swoop prettily throughout, but just when things get too precious, Clark bitch-slaps her whammy bar over fuzzed-out, syncopated saxophone blurts that sound like Maceo Parker having a panic attack (check out the brilliant kiss-off stomp of “Actor Out of Work” and “Marrow”). Despite all the dark, gorgeous noise, Clark’s bewitching vocals and vivid lyrics still take top billing. In “The Party,” she paints an elegant, convincing portrait of after-hours love over unusually stripped-down piano and drums: “I sit transfixed by a hole in your T-shirt / I’ve said much too much, and they’re trying to sweep up.” It’s one of the album’s only understated moments, but Clark lends it as much drama as she does her lovingly bent Hollywood arrangements. Actor is undoubtedly one of the year’s best so far, and deserves a standing ovation.

Album Review: Metric — “Fantasies”

Emily Haines should probably go in for a chest X-ray. According to Fantasies opener “Help I’m Alive,” she can hear her heart “beating like a hammer” — a possible symptom of cardio-related illness. We can safely rule out arrhythmia, however, because Metric pounds out a lock-step rhythmic groove that is impossible to deny — even when their sterile, radio-ready riffs don’t hit as hard as Haines’s plaintive lyrics. (Exception: the soaring, majestic chorus of “Sick Muse” is quite possibly the cure for clinical depression.)

While Haines kicks her bandmates’ asses on rockers like “Gold Guns Girls” and “Satellite Mind,” she’s more effective when she doesn’t have to work so hard to be heard. On “Collect Call,” the rhythm section cools off, giving lines like “keep me closer / I’m a lazy dancer / When you move, I move with you” room to resonate.