KWCW

I love Spencer Krug. He’s the keyboardist and one of the vocalists from Wolf Parade, and other Canadian bands named after various animals, like Frog Eyes and Swan Lake. His “solo” band – not named after an animal – is called Sunset Rubdown. Their last album, “Shut Up I Am Dreaming,” feels like a kid manically scribbling outside of the lines in a coloring book. But overall, the album sounded like a Wolf Parade side project instead of something all of its own. Their newest album, “Random Spirit Lover,” makes the coloring book come alive, and it sounds like a crazy carnival with weird antics happening in each circus tent and in every booth of the midway. Don’t like carnivals? Neither do I, but it’s just what comes to mind, but that doesn’t mean that this album isn’t amazing, because it is, and I think it’s one of the year’s best. We finally hear Sunset Rubdown become something extremely different than Wolf Parade.

“The Mending of the Gown” starts up the album with a song that sounds like chickens running around with their heads cut off in fast-forward, riding trapeze all over a circus tent. The album continues to explore polar emotions with melodramatic explosions and with hidden melodies and quiet contemplation. Whenever there is a pause in a song, it is there for the emphasis of Krug’s lyrics, which keep getting better with each record. The lyrics are a lot more narrative this time around, and the narrative is a place for Krug to explore his lyrics. Krug has an effect to make what he says sound profound. In “Winged/Wicked Things,” Krug’s lyrics stand out when he shouts “Chaos is yours and chaos is mine / And chaos is love and they say love is blind”. It’s so simple but very powerful.

“Up On Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days” is one of the best songs on the album that builds up in Arcade Fire sing-along fashion, and transitions into “The Courtesan Has Sung.” Bouncing and echoing vocals and yelps build up to a melody that recalls the theme from Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” – it sends shivers down my spine. The instrumentation on the album is amazing, bombastic, and dizzying at times, and Krug’s keyboard skills are still the anchor to this band, but the other band members get to show off their skills too with great guitar parts and haunting background vocals.

Sunset Rubdown has become more than just a side project of Krug’s, and has become a complete entity with its own sound filled with the eccentricities that Krug brings to all of his bands, but more amplified. If you haven’t heard of Sunset Rubdown and just think of a massage parlor when you hear “Sunset Rubdown,” buy this record and you will no longer think of fragranced oils, crystals, rocks and other things, because “Random Spirit Lover” is one of the year’s best.

Grade: A

-Matt Coleman

Despite being a walking advertisement for how smoking can ruin a beautiful voice, Joni Mitchell can still write a damn good song. For “Shine,” she has tackled the heavy subjects of genocide and the growing war on the environment, even revamping her classic anti-DDT anthem “Big Yellow Taxi” for a 2007 audience. As in all of Mitchell’s later work, jazz is a major influence (“One Week Last Summer”), but she’s still at her best when she picks up an acoustic guitar and sings from her heart (“This Place”). I can forgive her for destroying her vocal cords, because her music still makes me miss California and still makes me want to save the world.
Grade: B
-Katie Presley

On her fifth solo album, New York singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia gives full billing to longtime drummer Jim White, a contributor since 2003’s “Run to Ruin.” However, for the first time, White, also a member of Nick Cave’ Bad Seeds and the Dirty Three, among others, feels like a major collaborator, making himself a part of both the songwriting process and the performance of these songs.
Compared to her earlier full band arrangements, “You Follow Me” is nearly skeletal, reduced to guitar, vocals, and White’s drum kit. They are further accented by Steve Albini’s production, which makes the album’s minimal instrumentation strikingly rich. Though Nastasia has two of the three instruments in use, neither she nor White allow each other total control over any track. When White could fall into the background, he unpredictably erupts into flurries of percussion, almost always when Nastasia is at her loudest and her most commanding, like on “In the Evening” or “I Come After You.”
While singer-songwriters playing guitar are often annoyingly dull, this collaboration elevates an already compelling songwriter into new territory, turning songs about conversations into hauntingly spare, full-on musical conversations as well. The results are both difficult and rewarding.
Grade: B
Andrew Hall

“I like all music… But country.”

You’ve heard it. Meeting that new girl, maybe.

“What kind of music do you like?” you ask.
“All music but country,” she replies, and giggles. Maybe your friends say it. Maybe you say it. All music but country. Pop. Opera. Throat singing. Noise rock. Avant-garde radio warbles. But not country. Well, none of you can say it any more. Deer Tick has dropped 14 tracks of whoop-ass on country-haters everywhere, an incredible hammer of reclamation smashing downward on a genre now known for NASCAR, trucks and cowboy hats. Singer/songwriter John McCauley must have smoked Marlboro a new corporate headquarters to get his voice to the perfect level of grit that gives such life to his songs of betrayed love, stymied love, unrequited love, love, man, love, and plenty of it. Underneath, the music is powered by guitar, drums, and whatever else, a living, kicking muscle.
Grade: B+
-Graham Trail

St. Vincent is the performing name of 24-year-old multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark, who is now making her solo debut after backing up such acts as The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens. On “Marry Me,” Clark surrounds her dexterous guitar work and quaint, angular soprano with keyboards, horn sections, children’s choirs, Moog, and strings to create a quirky and charming blend of singer/songwriter, wartime jazz/blues, and indie pop that is all her own. While her subject matter rarely strays from the standard love and heartbreak, Clark’s jesting wordplay and stately grace give her intricate arrangements a certain polish that keeps them above the mushy.
Grade: B+
-James Truitt

The fourth album from Montreal-based band Stars is extremely satisfying. It is less heartbreaking than anything they’ve done in the past. Problem: I love heartbreaking. However, this album is catchy and I also love to dance when I walk. The instruments, as always, are beautiful. One could easily listen to this album several times without listening to the lyrics and be entertained. After those first listens, however, the lyrics reveal themselves to be poignant and accessible. Another classic Stars move put to use on “In Our Bedroom”: the appearance of dialogue from movies or elsewhere, which adds a shot of pure human-ness into your listening experience. Heartbreaking? Not so much. Delicious? Absolutely.
Grade: A-
-Katie Presley

Sharing a spot on the loaded Anticon roster, Telephone Jim Jesus (a.k.a. George Chadwick) sounds a lot like some of his contemporaries. This is not a bad thing. He makes dense, experimental hip-hop, brimming with crunchy drums and synthesized atmospherics. On “Anywhere Out of the Everything,” TJJ has succeeded in creating a dark and brooding collection of songs that reflect his displacement from home and lonely travels of the world. On the song “Dice Raw,” he enlists the lyrical bombast of Pedestrian and Why? that makes you wonder what other collaborative magic he’s capable of. At times straightforward and at others, avant-garde, “Anywhere Out of the Everything” manages to stay fresh start to finish.
Grade: B+
-Kyle Gilkeson

The Two Gallants newest effort − a 5 song EP/mini-album − represents the quieter, softer side of the group and centers on scenes from a break-up. For some 2Gs fans, the softer side of the band might fall short. On “All Your Faithless Loyalties,” originally released in 2005 on a Hurricane Katrina benefit CD and re-written for this EP, the changes − most noteworthy is the use of a simple verse-chorus structure − don’t work. That being said, the rest of the record is good. The 2Gs’ lyrical prowess, combined with the band’s staple of melodic drums and rolling guitar, never really disappoints. “Seems Like Home To Me” is a perfect example of the best side of the band, only slightly softer. “Linger On,” another good track, proves that the band can play well with a pianist. All in all, 2Gs fans will accept this record, newcomers will have an easy introduction into the band, and everyone will hope their upcoming full-length is more like previous albums than “The Scenery of Farewell.”
Grade: B
-Grant Margeson

Opting out of both the “life sucks, everybody hates me” negativism of legendary turn-of-the-century ‘80s hardcore revivalists Tear It Up, as well as the obtuse weirdness of current old-school kings Fucked Up, Double Negative play breakneck, lo-fi hardcore with a profound sense of excitement and energy. Leads squiggle like old Black Flag, and thrash beats Infest the entire 10-or-so-minute album, but the whole thing feels fun and refreshing instead of oppressive or bummed. Which makes sense, considering a double negative is actually a positive. Whoa!
Grade: B+
-Alex Frank

On their fourth album, Austin sextet Okkervil River move onward from the world of 2005’s Black Sheep Boy, abandoning their familiar territory of unrequited love and extended-length epics. They’ve even gone so far as to embrace traditional pop structures, now sounding more like a rock and roll band than they ever did before. Despite this, singer-songwriter Will Sheff’s words have become denser, more intriguing, and are still every bit as powerful as they were on the band’s previous releases, exploring the worlds of celebrity, pop culture, and the blur between fiction and autobiography with a remarkable attention to detail.

The album opens fittingly with the sound of a projector spinning into action, leading into the first single, “Our Life is Not a Movie Or Maybe.” Sheff moves quickly through dozens of words to make his case that everyday life really just isn’t that interesting: “It’s just a life story, so there’s no climax,” he sings as he tears through film scenes, quickly zooming out as the band erupts into shouting, feedback, and cacophony without sounding alienating. It shows that they’ve discovered how to condense the power of their epics into something brief and almost radio-friendly without losing anything in the process.

Sheff’s obsessions dominate much of the material. “Unless It’s Kicks” explores the life of the touring band and the importance of fiction, as he explains the plight of the writer (whose own life couldn’t possibly be that compelling), the band (”midlevel,” “driving too long”), and “the ghost of some rock and roll fan” (who doesn’t know her idols at all). “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene” cleverly explores the effects of seeing their own songs in the background on television without doing any advertising. Instead, the song hits hard with its dense, fast-moving descriptions and almost anthemic chorus, complete with girl-group harmonies.

“Plus Ones” plays with the idea of adding an additional integer to about a dozen other pop songs, making it quite possibly the only one to successfully reference ? and the Mysterians, David Bowie, the Zombies, and the Crests, among others, in under four minutes. “You Can’t Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man” returns to the story of a band, now washed up and not all that friendly: “And you look your age - which is thirty-seven, by the way, and not twenty-eight,” the rock and roll fan shouts back as the song ends in both pissed-off arguing and an upbeat horn outro. It’s a strange, yet powerful combination, much like the album closer, “John Allyn Smith Sails,” which narrates the suicide of poet John Berryman before becoming a warped reinterpretation of the traditional “Sloop John B,” sitting comfortably as the last twisted joke in an album full of them.

Many thought Black Sheep Boy was an unrepeatable high for Okkervil River, but The Stage Names proves that the band is still improving rapidly. It’s hard not to expect the followup to this album to be both completely different and even better.

Grade: A

-Andrew Hall