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By Rudy Klapper, January 25, 2012 10:00 am

Nada Surf – The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy

Barsuk 2012

Rating: 6/10

It’s a bit counterintuitive, but early 40-somethings Nada Surf seem to be growing less and less jaded and cynical as the years wind by. They were big once, properly alternative-rock-radio big with 1996’s snarky hit “Popular,” and the only place it got them was the one-hit wonder section in your local FYE’s bargain bin. That is so often the problem with novelty hits, which the spoken-word, eminently contemptuous “Popular” obviously was, and Nada Surf have since made a career out of being the most earnest band in indie. In the hands of another group a painfully wide-eyed title like The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy would likely be the setup to a contradictory punch line – under the direction of the same band who named a song “Always Love” without a hint of artifice, it’s just another example of the kind of unfeigned sincerity these aging optimists do so well.

For most of The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy, Nada Surf are a blur of high-energy power chords and a hard-charging rhythm section in bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliot that plays in a remarkable lockstep with each other. Aside from first single “When I Was Young,” which slows things down to focus on predictably cringe-inducing lyrical nostalgia, everything is tight and focused, polished clean and dashed with a healthy bit of punk-influenced crunch courtesy of producer Chris Shaw. Vocalist Matthew Caws still has that flawless alto that gives his vocals an eternally youthful vigor, and Shaw’s work in focusing the mix on his inimitable voice while maintaining a strong focus on the power of Caws’ guitar gives The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy a pleasantly gutsy live feel. It’s the right call for an album that is filled to the brim with enthusiastic statements like “it’s never too late for teenage dreams” and other assorted feel-good credos. Caws may be approaching middle age, but he has rarely sounded as conflicted and/or hopelessly romantic as he does here, one minute lamenting the expectations of youth on “When I Was Young” and the next sounding utterly pleased at the results on “Teenage Dreams” – “sometimes I ask the wrong questions, but I get the right answers.”

It’s par for the course for Caws, who has made a career out of that ageless yelp and a decision to not worry too much about what he’s saying, instead focusing on how he says it. Caws’ energy is infectious – it’s impossible not to sing along with the sweet clichés he leaves hovering over raucous tunes like “Clear Eye Clouded Mind” or “No Snow on the Mountain.” Even when he’s wallowing in sap, you still get the feeling that he honestly just wants to let you know how he’s feeling, as directly and artlessly as possible. For all of “When I Was Young’s” oppressive sentimentality and cloying acoustic vibe, when Caws sings, “when I was young, I didn’t know if I was better off asleep or up / now I’ve grown up, I wonder what was that world I was dreaming of,” his frankness is enough to tug at the heartstrings of even the most jaded 9-to-5ers. Caws’ shock at the end of the album that he “can’t believe the future’s happening to me” is another likely touchstone for Nada Surf fans, particularly those who have stuck with the band for the long haul and are likely approaching that age where “Popular” is as anachronistic to them as the rest of those cloudy teenage years. Luckily for them, Nada Surf is proof that growing old doesn’t have to be full of regrets and missed opportunities – if their career arc proves anything, it’s that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself. They have kept going largely on an indefatigable attitude and a firm grasp of the finer points of the three-minute pop song, and few bands can regularly write the kind of hooks that The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy builds itself around. Improbable but true; as these ten mostly filler-free tracks prove, Nada Surf only look to be growing more confident in their old age.

Nada Surf – “Clear Eye Clouded Mind”

See larger image The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy (Audio CD) List Price: $13.99 USD New From: $8.68 In Stock Used from: $7.99 In Stock Release date January 24, 2012.

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By Robin Smith, January 19, 2012 10:00 am

Guided By Voices – Let’s Go Eat The Factory

Guided By Voices Inc. 2012

Rating: 3/10

In a decade or two of very awesome ideas in indie rock, one of the best also has the least to do with music. It’s chronicled in the to-do list of Stephen Malkmus, and if it turns out that he doesn’t have one, I’m fairly sure these are the bullet-points: firstly, write some music. There’s no outlet better for a guy who still speaks in riddles after all these years. Secondly, don’t release another Pavement album. The live reunion, yes, that’s inevitable for such a legendary band, but Malkmus recognises his riddles are no longer Crooked Rain riddles, not by a long way: you have to write as if you don’t really care about writing to make “Range Life,” backhanded even if it was immaculately crafted. His lack of temptation to do it again- to be the casual genius only unlocked by Pavement- is kinda commendable in my eyes. He’s not arguing against how much he bloody well was Pavement. He’s just aware there’s no need to assert that anymore, because, well, being one thing doesn’t necessarily mean being it forever.

Robert Pollard is not Stephen Malkmus, sadly.

I’m not bringing this up to start a band vs. band argument, especially as Guided by Voices occupy that favourite band hall of fame in my sweet little head. But as far as reunions go, here’s one that shouldn’t have happened, and here’s the exact reason Stephen Malkmus got it right. Robert Pollard has billed Let’s Go Eat The Factory as a reunion album, a new era straight from the old era, one that brings the ‘classic line-up’ back together like a doting indie commune. What it is in reality, however, is far from that beautiful hippy image: this is just another moment of self-indulgence from a man with too much of his own stuff going on in his life anyway, all of it music. This is an album that marginalizes its most exciting aspect, the return of Pollard’s long-time companion Tobin Sprout, and ignores the return of old friends Mitch Mitchell and Greg Demos entirely. This isn’t a reunion album anymore than tacking the name on with four different guys would be. Rather, it’s Pollard’s declaration that this band is, through it all, his own. And god, what a mistake that is.

Because you have to wonder what happened to tear apart Pollard and Sprout here, why exactly their connection has gone so wrong. It’s not a partnership anymore, and I guess that’s another thing on this long list of inevitabilities I don’t want to face. That’s all Guided By Voices really are on this record- a band of crappy lists, a competing arena for a Pollard counting wins off of songs. It’s a game only Uncle Bob is playing, of course, and whatever little flag of jangle-pop pride Sprout is proudly waving on Let’s Go Eat The Factory is burnt to a crisp by the misguided leadership of his friend the jock. It’s a record in which Pollard trades personalities with himself obsessively, back and forth between the days when he was obnoxious as hell- the award goes to any number of his solo records- and those where he was just plain tedious. Sprout will remember fewer of those days than the line-up that informed Pollard’s late GBV records, of course, and so with him having a firm grasp on one of the band’s records for the first time in years, he shows up his dull and blocky counterpart a hundred times over.

In fact, for ten tiny minutes, Sprout finds a way to kick the ass out of Let’s Go Eat The Factory. He still has a Peter Gabriel quality (which, fittingly, would make Pollard Phil Collins in this particular Greek tragedy) that gets him to making a track as creepy and nostalgia-manipulative as “Old Bones.” He can also still write the odd R.E.M. throwback track- the advantage here being that these are consequentially worthy GBV throwbacks- and so “Waves” propels ever forward like a sweet, twee moment amidst the joylessness of Robert Pollard’s falling over and getting up again. Those ten minutes are a welcome distraction, but they’re hampered regardless by the time Pollard spends on Let’s Go Eat The Factory stumbling over himself. He starts doing it literally enough by the time “Cyclone Utilities” has bumped by, but the dents in the road Pollard prides himself in are no longer the warped fantasies they were. I guess, really, it’s as simple as it not being 1993 anymore. “Go Rolling Home” and “The Room Taking Shape,” are typical GBV snippet songs, dedicated to using the hook once lest it be overused. It’s only that the hook doesn’t emerge for those thirty seconds, and as I get all clingy over indie rock for the umpteenth time, I just wish I could be moved by this.

As he stumbles from place to place thirty seconds at a time, I can’t help but feel Pollard is to blame for the devastating, non tear-jerker, non-anything of an album Let’s Go Eat The Factory ends up being. It looks into endless possibilities and takes twenty-one left turns in all, moving unexplained from eerie spoken word to dissonant piano play, and yet it plays out so predictable that Mitchell and Demos- surely innocent parties in all of this- are probably wondering when “Chicken Blows” is going to crack up the room. To be this predictable while moving with such stylistic abandon seems impossible. Hell, it was Guided By Voices who made it seem impossible in the first place; who could be boring with so much going on? On Let’s Go Eat The Factory, each stylistic move feels like a cheap gimmick, something Pollard would give over to an unexciting, unsurprising solo album. “The Big Hat and Toy Show” might sound like nothing else on Let’s Go Eat The Factory, but that does not make its inclusion worthy or daring. It makes the album feel like it was made in the dark with no understanding of how Bee Thousand got moody or how Alien Lanes embraced its flaws. Instead, the mood is uninterested and the flaw is shitty basslines.

I’m aware, of course, that Let’s Go Eat The Factory will be awesome and explainable to other GBV nerds, or if it isn’t- which is more likely- it won’t matter anyway. You can’t tarnish a legacy set in stone on its own merits (or in this band’s world, on quirks), a fact that Pollard has well enough proved without this record. I hated Space City Kicks, but it didn’t detract from my belief that Pollard is some brand of mad-scientist genius. And so all this might not speak with as much praise to Malkmus’ decision, because he might have fun with another Pavement record. That’s all Pollard is doing at the end of all this, even if it just seems like one ridiculous tease to the rest of us: to get the gang back together, to release your cult indie band’s first record in eight years, all of it for belly laughs aplenty. The LP comeback of Guided By Voices makes no difference, it won’t make any difference in the summer, and so it’s not on the scale of music’s biggest mistakes. It’s not a Metal Machine Music, but only because it’s too unremarkable. It’s not Chelsea Girl ruined by flutes, because Pollard wanted all those awful guitar noises. Here, instead, is a bad album not doomed to be one in history. It’s just a sludgy, grumpy record from a band who once knew pop music needed whimsy. Is it the classic line-up’s fault they aren’t all that classic anymore? Mainly, it’s just Pollard’s, Pollard with his grump on, stomping angrily on the status quo as Sprout outshines him in his ten minute segment. How dull, Bob. What a boring record, and what an indie mistake.

Guided By Voices – “Waves”

See larger image Let's Go Eat the Factory (Audio CD) List Price: $19.98 USD New From: $12.25 In Stock Used from: $23.90 In Stock Release date January 17, 2012.

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By Rudy Klapper, December 5, 2011 10:00 am

The Black Keys – El Camino

Nonesuch 2011

Rating: 7/10

The Black Keys indulge on a clever little bit of wordplay on their newest album, juxtaposing the image of a vehicle with the words “El Camino,” simultaneously connecting an album of virile, red-blooded rock with that rugged, high-horsepower Chevrolet pick-up. Of course, El Camino has nothing to do with the car; the minivan on the cover is the car that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney originally toured around in, and “El Camino” is simply Spanish for “the road.” It effectively paints their seventh album in two lights: a very pertinent description of the record’s sound and a commentary on how far the Black Keys have come as a band since that minivan. Make no mistake – El Camino is a victory lap through and through, reveling in the tight rock classicism of its creators and lurching through all the many tales of women scorned and cheers lifted.

After last year’s unexpected critical and commercial smash in Brothers, the Black Keys could have easily coasted off the returns for a couple years, milked the festival circuit, and just reaped the benefits of finally making it to the top after years of being unfairly lumped in as the White Stripes’ little brothers. Instead, they recruit Danger Mouse, who produced the ubiquitous “Tighten Up,” and kick out another taut set of pop-rock tunes, nearly all of which could stand toe to toe with “Tighten Up” in a quest to give publishing companies worldwide early Christmas presents. Take “Lonely Boy,” whose fuzzed-out guitar lick and romping drums buttress a chorus absolutely primal in its catchiness. Although I prefer the off-kilter rhythm of “Tighten Up,” “Lonely Boy” is, simply put, the Black Keys doing what they were put on Earth to do – turning the amps up to 11 and paying homage to a brand of shit-kicking rock ‘n roll that took subtlety to a nice seafood dinner and never called her again. Throughout El Camino the influences change, but the Black Keys personality dominates. The ‘sunny harmonizing on the ‘60s California rock of “Dead And Gone;” the Cheap Trick-esque power-pop of “Sister;” the fist-pumping cock rock on “Gold On The Ceiling;” it’s still quintessential Black Keys, yet distilled down to a fiery, primitive essence. Workmanlike guitar rock with a melodic punch, featuring lyrics about industrious prostitutes and the joys of being your own man – this is the Black Keys at their core, and it’s both inherently vital and incredibly simple.

It’s shorter than Brothers, but it’s also almost too easy to digest in one sitting – the record’s unerring trajectory leads to some monotony at the tail end of things, and it lacks the layers that made Brothers such a rewarding listen. Even when “Little Black Submarines” promises a breather, with its lovely acoustic campfire vibe and a progression reminiscent of “Stairway to Heaven,” it’s just a fake-out before the massive drum fills and ragged guitar riff railroad any nuance out of the picture. Some might say this is a celebration of the Black Keys’ accomplishments, them throwing a party the only way they know how; others could see it as a disappointment after the adventurous sonic palette of Brothers and the ambitious, surprisingly potent Blakroc collaboration from 2009. I’m content to consider it their pat on their own back, a triumph of visceral over cerebral, all drum kicks to the gut and one-fingered salutes with rockabilly chords. Blues, garage, classic – call it what you want, but at its heart the sound remains the same. Is that trebly guitar solo at the end of “Nova Star” necessary? Hell no, but it sure sounds awesome. El Camino is the draft beer and greasy burger you stop to get after knocking boots in the backroom of some sawdust-filled dive bar. Down and dirty, it grooves by on soulful power chords and Carney’s relentless hammering of his kit. Have too much, and you might get a little sick of it all. Have just enough, though, and man, is there anything better in the world than the best kind of junk food?

The Black Keys – “Gold On The Ceiling”

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By Robin Smith, November 16, 2011 10:00 am

Atlas Sound – Parallax

4AD Records 2011

Rating: 6/10

Bradford Cox is more comfortable with the lights off. Parallax is proof of that; on the cover of Logos he was pictured faceless, but here he’s in the dark. It feels like a big statement to make- here is a man and his microphone, literally clutching to music- but it also seems like a resoundingly ambiguous one: is this image of Cox stepping out of the shadow, shedding the discomfort that’s put weight on songs like “Agoraphobia,” or is he hiding in it?

For all the ambiguity, Parallax feels like another hiding place. He circulates the happy piano notes of “Te Amo” as some whacky detour from the horrible conversation he is having with himself. Talk about misdirection: “you’re always down.” In a way, “Te Amo” is much like the angriest of Bob Dylan songs, a “Positively Fourth Street” or “Rolling Stone,” in how much of a contradiction it is. Like those songs, it’s practically glowing, the noises moving in a dreamy, euphoric sequence but the lyrics out of step, their delivery chilling and hell, even the distracting album artwork putting the lights out.

The fact that Cox can make a song like this is a testament to how intriguing his career is. Deerhunter could lend themselves Strokes comparisons and little else if it weren’t for the way Cox writes music as conflict. It’s hard to remember Halcyon Digest, a year on, in the way I thought of it then; thinking it was a ‘celebration’ sums up how easy it is to forget the depth in any of Cox’s Deerhunter songs, no matter how comfortable they feel as pop songs. “Coronado” was another one that glowed, but behind the slick sax solos there was a confused man of so many questions and so few answers. That’s the kind of thing that draws you in to the “catchy” Microcastle and Halcyon Digest- the little conflicts- and so how can we not be drawn into the dark spaces in Parallax?

And I certainly am drawn to Parallax. I find it impossible to stop coming back to “Te Amo” and its bittersweet flips of the coin, but at the same time I’m completely intrigued by how impossible Cox makes it to grasp at his intentions on “Modern Aquatic Nightsongs.” The difference, though, is split: “Te Amo” is a working pop song, but I’m not sure Cox wants that so much this time around. Logos had a melodic bent and exciting features that made every adoring indie fan giddy (Panda Bear, say no more), but Parallax is made in some sort of endless vacuum of nothing but Cox.

As a result, it might feel more like a proper album, and maybe even the “comfortable” album we’ve been waiting for Cox to make. But this is only an album in how impossible it is to appreciate out of its context. No “Angel is Broken,” no point in the comedown that follows it in “Terra Incognita.” As for the comfort Cox may have finally found in Parallax, he only finds it in the obscure, the impossible to describe, and the ever-moving. Parallax never stays in one place for too long, regardless of how pretty it remains throughout its entire run. There is no revealing the world behind “Praying Man” or “Parallax” in the same way “Coronado” revealed more than simply a pop genius. Instead, Parallax comes with its own set of intentions, and few of them feel for us.

And for that reason, that lack of inclusion, there’s no rating I can find to do Parallax justice. It feels like a wholly unique masterpiece in ways, perhaps because it is simply impossible to shut off- there’s no turning away from this aching, mysterious music, and even the most basic tracks feel justified by the ominous things happening around the corners. But coming off the open Halcyon Digest, Bradford Cox has turned sharply on his heels for a different type of honesty. And by no means think that because Cox obscures himself he must be disingenuous. That’s never been his problem. But Parallax, unrealised masterpiece or not, sounds like the man in his bedroom with a thousand songs to leave unexplained.

Atlas Sound – “Te Amo”

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By Robin Smith, November 1, 2011 10:00 am

Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto

Parlophone 2011

Rating: 8/10

Mylo Xyloto is perfectly designed to blow up in your face. Eleven proper songs, all named after the biggest and the best, like landmarks tumbling side by side: holy lands, flames, princesses, waterfalls and uh, Charlie Brown? Each song hits some sort of ridiculous climactic hotspot that seemed impossible the second before it happened. Just listen to “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall” the moment the drums kick in for real. It seems completely implausible that a song that started so big could become any bigger. It sounds like the exact Coldplay song that you want to get made over and over again, and for Mylo Xyloto, it finally gets made. It’s Coldplay at heart. Nothing strung together by flimsy concepts; no X axis and no Y axis, no violent Spanish conquests. It’s just huge.

In that sense, the record feels like “Fix You” eleven times, exploding from all sides. There’s something about that song that can easily hit at the gut, and it’s more about when that moment comes in than how, the organ-like sounds shuffling off stage for a climax made glorious by Will Champion’s drum-kit. On Mylo Xyloto, however, Coldplay don’t dedicate much time wondering when their songs will hit their glorious peaks, for this time they appear confidently boisterous, at large when they go in and larger when the drumbeat kicks. It’s a powerful thing, hearing a band this way, so it’s a moment such as “U.F.O.” that kills the record’s infinite momentum, putting a band that seems energized at all corners into a state of contemplation too reserved for the bright colours they’re splashing their graffiti with. Mylo Xyloto was not a record made by a subdued band, and so when this acoustic number creeps in- along with the restrictively controlled beats of “Up in Flames”- it feels like too much thought and not enough waterfall.

To hell with the contemplation; what makes this record so good is the complete abandonment of making Coldplay a leftfield band. Viva La Vida might have had us begging them to take us back- our very own Adam Downer complimented Coldplay for their ‘balls’, and later their guts- but Mylo Xyloto completely refuses the listener a moment alone with their brain in that way. There’s no time to be surprised by any experimental balls when “Hurts Like Heaven” strikes full force, no time to ponder where Eno weighs in on this one. Interludes aside, every song is designed to bash you over the head rather than to let you use it. Mylo Xyloto is a big, broad album, with songs founded on themes no less than the greatest conceivable. And who doesn’t fall for that Coldplay? I mean, it hurts like heaven? It’s us against the world? This is a Coldplay in their very own world. It’s huge and relentless, and they’re wrapped up in it.

It makes perfect sense, too, that they’re so wrapped up in it. Chris Martin can sing that every teardrop is a waterfall on any track he likes, and so when those lyrics come on “Paradise” for the first time, it doesn’t feel one bit phony. If anything, the lyrics flow; just as Arcade Fire could engross every song on The Suburbs in its theme- the same words for the same problems- Martin’s newest record (and first since his favourite band’s third) is a successfully didactic and direct body of work. The lyrical themes that circulate like a broken record on Mylo Xyloto may be the first poetic success of Martin’s; on any other Coldplay record, it might be hard to take a line like “you use your heart like a weapon / and it hurts like heaven” into the gut, but Mylo Xyloto isn’t trying to get under the surface. It’s just searching for the biggest reaction and the most fantastic feeling. Everything Martin says here, whether or not he says it over and over again, is justified by how every song on Mylo Xyloto pushes the same buttons. Every song aims to make a waterfall of a teardrop, so why can’t he say it over and over again?

It’s kind of great how at ease I find myself with a Coldplay that can be this repetitive and use the same trick a hundred times over. To hear Rihanna’s absolutely stunning performance on “Princess of China” isn’t a surprise because it simply bolsters the style Coldplay are playing with on this record. Her spot amplifies a song to heights it wasn’t already at, and that’s what Mylo Xyloto seeks in every move it makes forward. This is a Coldplay that wants to build and build to a point like “Fix You” over and over again, a Chris Martin who only cites influence in ideas as ambitious as graffiti and The Wire. The results don’t have to be the same as those things, and so it’s hard to get caught up in the trippy, colourful artwork that the record tries to reflect. Instead, we just bask in “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall,” a song splitting at the sides, huge from start to finish. “Turn the music up!” is Chris Martin’s command on Mylo Xyloto, and it’s probably the only lyric he’ll ever get us nodding to.

Coldplay – “Charlie Brown”

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By Rudy Klapper, October 20, 2011 10:00 am

Justice – Audio, Video, Disco

Elektra 2011

Rating: 4/10

Certainly, there’s something to be said for stepping outside your comfort zone. The list of promotional tag lines for the much-anticipated new Justice album Audio, Video, Disco is long, and not entirely without merit: “Playing by their own rules!”; “Breaking boundaries!”; “Escaping from the niche of electronic music!”; “Hey, it’s not Cross 2!” I made that last one up, but it’s perhaps the finest point of logic for Audio, Video, Disco’s rather illogical artistic direction. Justice could have made anything after 2007’s commercial smash Cross and it likely would have sold well, but it quickly became apparent that the French duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay didn’t want to make Cross 2. That’s an admirable goal, and when “Civilization” aired in a fantastic A.D.I.D.A.S. commercial a few months back, their stadium ambitions seemed fairly well placed. The pair’s love for classic rock is well documented, both in their music and their penchant for living the clichéd rock star lifestyle, and an attempt to combine that trademark Ed Banger electro sound with whammy pedals and power chords should have been interesting, right? Unfortunately, there comes a point about a minute into Audio, Video, Disco where you realize that Justice have already veered far off the well-worn track of tribute and straight into leather-chapped parody.

If there’s an analogy for Audio, Video, Disco in recent music, Lil Wayne’s Rebirth comes closest. Much as that ill-advised genre experiment took everything bad about contemporary rock ‘n roll and turned it into a sneering caricature of modern radio rock, Audio, Video, Disco takes all the clichés of ‘70s arena rock and turns it into an unending sequence of bad decisions. “Horsepower” isn’t the epic, fist-pumping arena rock of the Who in their heyday or Bon Jovi’s best moments, as Augé and Rosnay would have you believe – it’s the epic, fist-pumping-while-laughing-at-them histrionics of Spinal Tap and that Bon Jovi cover band that played at your uncle’s third wedding. Yet there’s hints of greatness here, of transforming the hard-edged electro aesthetic of Cross into the grimy, chunky riffs of their idols. Mixing electro and rock doesn’t have to be such a Frankensteinian proposition – “Helix” effectively supplants the duo’s undeniable funk into an air guitar-worthy buildup worthy of a rave, and “Horsepower,” for all its posturing and unnecessary orchestral peacocking, is still pretty badass.

Sadly, too much of Audio, Video, Disco either comes off as so totally inauthentic that it’s hard to take Justice’s worshipping of their idols as serious, or its themes just stay flat in neutral. “Brianvision” spends the entirety of its three minutes revolving around an electric guitar line that never goes anywhere, as if the band had just discovered the instrument and were content to see how many different times they could play the same motif. “Parade” apes the stomp of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” but climaxes with a wordless chorus that begs for lighters to be waved ineffectually in the air. The mindless strut of “Canon” gives more credence to the idea that Europe always absorbs the worst traits of American popular music, in this case disposable cock rock and a ridiculous keyboard solo that Peter Gabriel would blush at. “Newlands,” meanwhile, with its “Won’t Get Fooled Again” intro riff and shameless ripping from the Boston, Foreigner et al. playbook, simply seems to ensure that Justice would prefer to emulate the golden age of stadium rock in the same way that Jersey Shore prefers to honor the Italian culture.

Justice would have you believe that they are pushing the boundaries of their genre, opening up the club floor to testosterone-fueled rock anthems and bringing back disco to the masses. Audio, Video, Disco, however, is tilted far too heavily on the side of musty, herpes-infected rock tropes to really revolutionize anything, and the traces of Justice’s old sound are barely noticeable. In looking away from the production booth and electro in favor of live instruments and rock glory, Justice have ironically substituted artifice for authenticity and hackneyed stereotypes for genuine feeling. Cross will never be considered the most original album, but its undeniable immediacy and energy were irrefutable. Audio, Video, Disco has neither creativity nor moxie, except in the sense that Justice is damn determined to give homage to the worst excesses of macho rock posturing. For a band that predicated their success on being in touch with the newest trends, this is a death sentence.

Justice – “Horsepower”

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By Rudy Klapper, October 18, 2011 10:00 am

M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

Mute 2011

Rating: 9/10

There’s a point a little more than a fourth of the way into Anthony Gonzalez’ latest art-pop manifesto where it all starts to make sense. The day-glo synths, the cavalcade of gated drums and chintzy keyboards, the near-slavish devotion to ‘80s pop tropes – it’s not just flattery, not merely a homage meant to evoke the sounds of the past that 2008’s Saturdays=Youth satisfactorily accomplished. It’s fitting that it’s not Gonzalez who lays out Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’s mission, but a young child. “Do you want to play with me? / We can be a whole group of friends,” the child asks on “Raconte – Moi Une Histoire,” and it doesn’t matter whether this kid is male or female, where he is from or what her intentions are. “We would be hundreds, thousands, millions / the biggest group of friends the world has ever seen / jumping and laughing forever / it would be great, right?”  It’s an undoubtedly immature statement, but that’s what makes it so perfect. By stripping away the concerns of adults, of age and background and history, it becomes primal and universal: love and hope. Has there ever been a better argument for music?

A cynic would see this as cheesy, much like Gonzalez’s musical influences, or suggest a clever metaphor for drug use (or a blunt one – “blue becomes red and red becomes blue / and your mommy suddenly becomes your daddy / and everything looks like a giant cupcake.” Kids – aren’t they just the darndest?). Those people are missing the point. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is a classic bedroom pop record, but not for its Breakfast Club-inspired musical scenery, nor for its confessional attitude. It’s bedroom pop in the sense that it’s constantly dreaming – of a better time, of a better world, of a better place where that group of a million friends jumping and laughing forever isn’t so ridiculous. It’s a tribute to the music of Gonzalez’ youth that still sounds fresh and vital in ways that its own inspirations never did. It’s a celebration of that same youth and that state of mind, a wide-eyed look at what could be. Most of all, it’s Gonzalez’s imagination run wild, and in that respect, it is a colossal achievement.

Could Gonzalez have trimmed the fat down a little? The double-album conceit is almost never necessary, and Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is no exception. The various interludes are some of the most interesting bits of music on the record, but their length is what does them in. Given Gonzalez’s seemingly effortless way of creating a pop hook out of nothing, it would have been fascinating to see the sketches of “Train To Pluton” or “Another Wave From You” develop further. Instead, they’re simply teases: beautiful, gorgeous ones at that, but still unnecessary to the overall arc of the album. The 22-song length is intimidating, and Gonzalez never gives you a chance to catch your breath – pop anthem after pop anthem is the order of the day here, massive multi-tracked walls of sound and spacey synths that stretch on into fields of reverb. Occasionally there is a comedown; the lovely minor-key “Splendor” comes to mind, so oddly placed between “Another Wave From You”’s cascading build-up and the upbeat guitar pop of “Year One, One UFO;” and “Wait,” where an acoustic guitar does more for the song than any of Gonzalez’s surging keyboards. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is, quite frankly, a titanic record, and Gonzalez would have it no other way.

It has to be, of course. If Saturdays=Youth was M83’s take on the ‘80s, all those wonderful spoken word bits recalling the best of ‘80s schlock and the synths the best of that era’s vapidity and material glamor, then Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is the ‘80s. At times here, Gonzalez sounds almost like a relic – his yelp recalls Peter Gabriel, and his penchant for bombastic choruses and bigger, better hooks emphasizes the best of soon-forgotten ‘80s pop music. The sequence that kicks off the album, from “Intro” to “Reunion,” is some of the best pop music ever made, ‘00s or ‘80s or otherwise. The saxophone that closes out epic first single “Midnight City” would have to be considered intentionally ironic if anyone other than M83 had included it – here, it just sounds so damn right. Elsewhere, it’s the little things that pop out at you, even over the walls of sparkling production that Gonzalez has so meticulously crafted – the funky bass that propels “Claudia Lewis;” the effervescent keyboard line that weaves its way over the top of “Steve McQueen”’s noise pop; the way Gonzalez, never the most powerful of vocalists, holds his own on a duet with Zola Jesus on “Intro.”

Yes, for all the gloss and layers of sound thrown onto track after track here, sometimes to excess, M83 have done this before. Saturdays=Youth was just as brilliant in its conceptual execution and in its painstakingly detailed production work. What separates Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming from that record and the rest of M83’s catalog is in its consistency, something that a double album would seem to make impossible. Yet every song here hits close to home, to the record’s goal of celebrating the past by creating music that resonates so perfectly in the present. Few people could so totally ape the sounds of a bygone (not to mention much-maligned) era and come out with something that sounds so pulse-poundingly fresh as Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. In its execution, the record is near flawless, an essential distillation of the sounds of Gonzalez’s youth, nostalgia and melancholy and happiness all mixed up into a sparkling pop stew. In its spirit, it’s incredibly heartening, the musical equivalent of inspiring people to think back on their past, their childhood, that one moment where playing together as one wasn’t such a laughable notion. It’s hopeful and heartbreaking all at once. You don’t have to have lived through the ‘80s to appreciate Gonzalez’s aim – you just have to have lived.

M83 – “Reunion”

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By Rudy Klapper, October 12, 2011 11:00 am

Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire

PAX AM 2011

Rating: 7/10

The best part about being a Ryan Adams fan is that there’s really something for everyone. Do you like populist ‘70s-styled rock ‘n roll, like 2001’s Gold, or do you prefer the tears-in-your-beer country reminiscent of Haggard and Emmylou Harris, in which case Jacksonville City Nights is one of the best you’ll ever hear? Or maybe you like depressing alt-rock akin to Elliott Smith (Love Is Hell), with a side dish of adult contemporary pop rock (Easy Tiger)? It’s easy to be frustrated with Ryan Adams, because he’s just as often to drop a dud as he is to release a brilliant pastiche of past styles. Then again, it’s easy to love him, because if you don’t like his newest release you can just wait a few months to hear another one. That’s why Ashes & Fire could be one of the most “anticipated” Adams albums in years, simply because it’s his first new material since 2007’s Easy Tiger, not counting last year’s requisite demos collection and the “sci-fi metal” concept of Orion that I’d sooner forget existed. The words that attach themselves to Ashes & Fire, consequently, are just those I would never have connected with Adams: tired, restrained, meditative . . . fucking at ease.

If there’s a touchstone for Ashes & Fire in Adams’ discography, it’s in the album that put Adams on the map, at least critically: Heartbreaker, specifically the acoustic parts of that superb record. Gone is that sparkling electric guitar tone that Adams’ has marked every record with since Rock N Roll, gone is the excellent Cardinals backing band, and gone is Adams’ anguished yelp. The songs here center on Adams’ acoustic technique and liberal use of keyboards, exploring the space between them while Adams sings about true love and miserable love. In that respect, nothing’s changed; the best Adams songs are those that reflect on messy breakups and the darker places he’s traveled, like the gorgeous tale of addiction “Lucky Now” and opener “Dirty Rain,” where Adams’ tragic nostalgia is in fine form. Elsewhere, Adams’ is tripped up by occasionally overwhelming amounts of sap (“Come Home”) or unbecoming schmaltz (“I Love You But I Don’t Know What To Say,” a song one-upped only by its own title in terms of clichés).

For an album heavily predicated on Adams’ historically hit-or-miss songwriting, Ashes & Fire is surprisingly steady. Whether it’s the Meniere’s disease that very well could have ended his career or his recent marriage (to Mandy Moore! If I had a celebrity marriage pool in 2001 that would have been dead last), Adams has a noticeably better appreciation for the intricacies of songwriting. Adams’ other largely acoustic effort, 2005’s 29, suffered from a general sense of malaise and engendered boredom rather than interest. Ashes & Fire, however, is nothing really new in the Ryan Adams catalog, but the sequencing and occasional creative flairs make all the difference. Here, Adams fleshes things out with a tentative hand – the guitar solo that closes out “Do I Wait,” the campfire drumming coupled with moody strings on “Rocks” – and is the better for it. “Chains of Love” could very well have been a full-fledged rocker, but Adams understands that more is not always necessary, and is left with one of the finest melodies on the record. Adams has always been a great songwriter at heart, but he’s always preferred to shoot himself in the foot rather than focus his energies in one place. Ashes & Fire is not his best record. It’s dragged down near the end by a sameness that is hard to avoid in an album composed strictly of acoustic, mid tempo alt-country tunes, and his lyrics can be unfortunately maudlin. Yet, two decades and thirteen albums into his career, it shows a newfound sort of maturity that proves that Adams is not necessarily the living example of “if you fling enough shit onto a wall, some will stick.” Let’s just hope he doesn’t follow this up with a rock opera.

Ryan Adams – “Do I Wait”

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By Rudy Klapper, September 29, 2011 10:00 am

Wilco – The Whole Love

ANTI 2011

Rating: 9/10

It would have been so easy for Wilco to just fade away. No one would have begrudged them any; Yankee Hotel Foxtrot still engenders enough goodwill in the music community ten years after its release that if Jeff Tweedy decided to spend the rest of his years writing paeans to fatherhood and singing sweet, insubstantial love songs with Feist, everyone would simply nod their heads and go along with it. But what Wilco has always done best is growth, from Being There’s epic expansion of classic Americana to the unapologetic power pop of Summerteeth to A Ghost Is Born’s startling abrasive rock classicism. Through it all the constant was Tweedy, suffering through a recurring painkiller medication and the woes of growing old, his biting lyricism continually well tempered with fine melodies culled from the best folk tradition, from Cash to Young to Bragg. That’s why it was so weird to see the band settle into such a droll tedium starting with 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, like the band had decided writing about midlife crises wasn’t enough and that maybe they should start living one as well. Wilco (The Album) showed that all the cries of putting this aging band out to pasture were a bit premature, but even that album was more a celebration of past successes, a victory lap of the things Wilco did best, like their updated “Via Chicago” rendition in “Bull Black Nova.” It was all well and good, but for a band as continually predicated on evolution as Wilco, it now feels depressingly stagnant.

As a first single, “I Might” was disturbingly coy; for all the lyrics about parental discord and setting children on fire, it was fairly rote late-period Wilco. That is to say, boring and not particularly memorable. In the context of The Whole Love, however, it’s one hell of a red herring. It’s the most conventional song on here, an old-fashioned rock ‘n roll respite cleverly placed after the delightfully unconventional opener “Art of Almost.” That is the song that sets out the mission statement of The Whole Love – an unassumingly complicated drumbeat propelling a foggy atmosphere of discordant electronics and haunting strings, Tweedy himself practically a ghost in the background, all the elements swirling around each other without falling apart. It’s a harkening back to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot territory, at least until Nels Cline rips in with a guitar solo that stretches the song to nearly seven and a half minutes and serves notice that this is not the same Wilco that made that seminal 2001 release. It’s the biggest mark Cline has made since joining the band, and the only tragedy is it’s taken them three albums to finally realize this incarnation of Wilco’s potential.

It’s hard to pinpoint just what The Whole Love does best. There’s hints of Summerteeth-esque pop bliss on crunchy guitar numbers like “Dawned On Me,” where Tweedy’s charmingly imperfect voice gives the chorus all the pizazz it needs. The countrified ballad “Open Mind” finds Tweedy at his most confessional, the campfire vibe recalling Uncle Tupelo and the lyrics Tweedy’s most unashamedly direct. “Capitol City” is a bit more ill advised, a disposable little vaudeville exercise that sounds like a Beatles outtake circa Sgt. Pepper’s, but what still captivates is just how damn well crafted it is. Mikael Jorgensen’s jaunty keyboard, Cline’s lilting pedal steel, Glenn Kotche’s waste-not/want-not drumming (the man is brilliant in giving even the wispiest rhythm a very real substance and gravity): it’s all greater than the sum of its parts. That is perhaps the enduring lesson of The Whole Love; for all of Tweedy’s evocative songwriting and pained, autobiographical stories, Wilco is a band, first and foremost. More so than perhaps any other album in Wilco’s catalog, The Whole Love succeeds because the band isn’t evolving exponentially or diving headfirst into musical waters unknown. For all its weirdness, “Art of Almost” isn’t exactly indicative of what’s to come, per se. It’s how the band members interact on “Art of Almost” and “Capitol City” and the deceptively simple title track that makes The Whole Love such an improvement over lackluster previous outings. There’s so much going on here that even the most straightforward of tracks has a subversive flair about them that an initial listen might not catch. The buzz saw lower-end distortion in the otherwise sunny “I Might” and the understated bass rhythm from “Rising Red Lung” are just two examples, and the fact that they both involve John Stirratt is no coincidence – he is the unsung hero of The Whole Love. But it’s more than any one man’s contribution, more than Tweedy’s forlorn vocals, more than Cline’s elegant guitar licks, more than Kotche’s economical drumming. It’s Wilco the whole band, a unification of talents so seamless you wonder why every Wilco album doesn’t come out so brilliantly (and so effortlessly) put together.

Perhaps nothing encapsulates what makes Wilco such a special band at this stage of their career than closer “One Sunday Morning (A Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend).” It’s not a song that reinvents the wheel; stylistically it would feel just as home on 1995 debut A.M. as it does here. It picks a destination and it sets out for it, riding the back of an irresistibly simple fingerpicked motif and a syncopated hi-hat. “This is how I’ll tell it / Oh, but it’s long,” Tweedy sings, and he isn’t kidding; at just a hair over twelve minutes, it’s one of the longest in Wilco’s catalog. But it never feels that way, despite the song’s unerring consistency. Embellished by strings and piano, it stays its course and gradually dissipates over a long outro, but the experience is timeless. For twelve minutes Wilco isn’t some institutional rock group, testing the outer boundaries of pop and creating something new and exciting. This is a song in the great American tradition of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, painting a picture of old dust roads and melancholy sunsets, Tweedy bemoaning at the end “bless my mind, I miss being told how to love / what I learned without knowing / how much more I owe than I can give.” It’s a celebration of the art of storytelling, a tradition and a template that Wilco have always been deeply indebted to. That’s what The Whole Love is all about, telling a story and sticking to it, crafting a mix of sound and lyrics that best symbolizes the music that beats under American highways and floats around American campfires. Wilco have had their peaks and valleys, but they have never sounded as confident as they do on The Whole Love. For a band with eight studio albums and coming up on eighteen years running, I can’t think of anything more impressive.

Wilco – “Whole Love”

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By Rudy Klapper, September 27, 2011 10:00 am

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Hysterical

Red General Catalog 2011

Rating: 5/10

“Same Mistake” almost had me believing again. The four-on-the-floor, hi-hat-happy beat, the fact that Alec Ounsworth no longer sounds like the bastardized child of David Byrne and the sound a junkyard cat makes in heat, the irresistible melody. It’s a great song, in the vein of “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth” and “Is this Love,” songs that captured the offbeat quirkiness that originally endeared CYHSY to the early blogosphere. 2007’s Some Loud Thunder’s critical and commercial misstep was turning that lovable wackiness into something obtuse and increasingly insular, easy to appreciate for what the band was doing but hard to actually like. Ounsworth’s affected off-key yelp had become annoying and the songs prickly and divergent, fleeing from that pop framework that grounded Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and turned it into such a frenetic, unexpected ball of happily nervous energy. Four years and one “indefinite” hiatus later and it’s a bit odd to process Hysterical, given that the scene CYHSY grew out of has largely passed on or morphed into something altogether new. For all its problems, Some Loud Thunder had a definite identity; Hysterical, sadly, has none.

Hysterical sounds great. The production emphasizes sparkly guitars and trebly reverb courtesy of seasoned vet John Congleton (St. Vincent, Modest Mouse, many more), and Ounsworth’s vocal inflections resemble more a controlled burn and less Dan Bejar on methamphetamines.  He’s matured, and so has the band – gone are the pointless attempts to scare away listeners with an abrasive opening track a la “Clap Your Hands!” Things are tight, controlled; the title track gallops along a foreboding synth line and a relentless rhythm, while the snappy footwork and crystal-clear cymbals on “Same Mistake” could almost be called martial. The fact that Ounsworth can pen a credible ballad like “In A Motel” that places the focus on his voice and pull it off is something that would have been laughed off on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. And all of it, of course, sounds like something you’ve already heard before.

There’s shades of the Killers, on the jittery “Maniac” and “Misspent Youth;” a tinge of Two Door Cinema Club on the rote post-punk “Ketamine and Ecstasy;” any number of replaceable bands on any number of 4/4, vaguely dance-inflected tracks here with shiny hooks and shiner guitar tones (“Yesterday, Never,” “The Witness’s Dull Surprise,” “Same Mistake”… you get the idea). It gives Hysterical an uncomfortable aura of sameness, something previously foreign to a CYHSY record. That same excited feeling I got when I first heard “Same Mistake,” the one that reminded me of “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth’s” sugar-high of a melody, faded quickly when song after song failed to distinguish itself from any number of middle-of-the-road, vaguely new-wave-influenced bands. The fact that a ragged, two-and-a-half-minute guitar solo that appears out of nowhere the otherwise routine “Into Your Alien Arms” can qualify as a surprise on a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah record is a bit sad.

Only on closer “Adam’s Plane” do CYHSY even approach the measured mix between weird and accessible that made their debut such a gratifying mix of edginess and heartfelt charm. It takes them seven minutes of fiddling around with rattling pianos, random tonal shifts and a pleasantly throwback Ounsworth vocal performance/howl to compensate for the straightforward indie of the previous eleven songs. It’s an afterthought, one that is as out of place in the context of Hysterical as Hysterical is in the context of CYHSY’s discography. For a band that once never failed to make an impression, be it positive or nauseating, the fact that the best Hysterical can muster is indifference is simply disappointing.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – “In A Motel”

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By Rudy Klapper, September 21, 2011 10:00 am

Mister Heavenly – Out Of Love

Sub Pop 2011

Rating: 8/10

Supergroups more often than not leave me feeling like the disconsolate patsy on the cover of this album, the lifeless hope of what could have been lying facedown in the dirt while I weep tears of disappointment because of it. This is a bit dramatic, but isn’t that what supergroups promise? Drama, bigger, better things, the logical conclusion that follows from the infallible mathematical equation that if you add great things together you get something greater. Of course, it rarely works out that way, so generally you won’t see me actually crying into my arm when Kanye and Jay-Z’s last album isn’t the best thing since, uh, Kanye’s last album. It doesn’t help when musicians tag their new projects with utterly meaningless descriptions like “doom-wop” that guarantee I will look at it and cringe. The problem with Nick Thorburn née Diamonds of the Unicorns and more recently Islands is that the man just doesn’t care. Off-kilter indie, Neil Young-flavored folk, goofy hip-hop – Thorburn has slept with them all, and the results have not always been pretty. Thorburn’s dipped his stick into so many cans that his own identity and talents have become tawdry tricks, unfocused and haphazard.

It’s no surprise then to realize that Mister Heavenly succeeds because it adds that crucial element that Thorburn has previously lacked: an equal creative force to bounce off of.  Ryan Kattner, the ivory-pounding face of experimental rock outfit Man Man, is probably one of the few musicians in indie who could stand up to Thorburn’s particular shade of weird, and he’s not just some piano in the background. Kattner is what gives Out Of Love its flair, a distinct character that could very well make Mister Heavenly more of a regular concern. His rugged howl is the perfect counterpoint to Thorburn’s nasally whine, the kind of oil and vinegar pairing that gives much of Out Of Love its bite. Musically the two are right in sync; Kattner’s piano playing is much more reserved than his work in Man Man, with an emphasis on pounded chords and a two-step, barroom beat, while Thorburn’s warm guitar tones take inspiration from classic surf melodies and Kattner’s own vocal inflections.

For a project ostensibly looking to the past for inspiration, it’s amazing how original these songs sound. Short and simple, Out Of Love has the requisite “doo-wahs” and forlorn lyrics about (what else?) love and heartbreak, and the key to every tune is a dyed-in-the-wool pop melody. But the difference is in Kattner’s unusually dark lyrics, words belied by his relentlessly chipper vocal delivery, in the sparkling production that makes every electric guitar lick shine and the keys sing, in drummer Joe Plummer’s superb drumming and the sturdy backbone it provides. Plummer, who’s already working overtime as a member of the Shins and Modest Mouse, brings the kind of solid rhythm work that would go unnoticed if it wasn’t for the endless variety he brings, from the complicated backbeat to “Pineapple Girl” to the thunderous stomp on “Bronx Sniper.” Combine that with Thorburn and Kattner’s chameleonic styles and you’re left with a record where the listener never really knows what’s coming next. The best part? You can’t wait to find out.

Where Out Of Love rises from mere pastiche to a genuinely well-crafted statement is in the songwriting. ‘50s-style vocal harmonies set to the true story of the pen-pal relationship between Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and a ten-year-old American girl, with Thorburn and Kattner trading off playful verses, is just the right kind of weird that makes Out Of Love so gratifying. “Bronx Sniper” sounds like a more aggressive version of Spoon, but when Kattner roars in with a serrated howl after Thorburn intones “no one gets out of here alive” and Plummer bangs the living shit out of his set, it’s a catharsis so pure it doesn’t need any fancy made-up genre descriptions other than fucking rock ‘n roll. That’s not even mentioning the old school AM-radio replications like the jazzy, anthemic “Charlyne” and the note-perfect Brill Building pop of “Diddy Eyes,” songs that sound timeless and thoroughly evocative without being lifeless clones.

And then Mister Heavenly goes out on their inaugural tour with fucking Michael Cera on bass. It’s hard to say with a stunt like that whether Mister Heavenly is going to remain more than just Nick Thorburn’s passing fancy, but Out Of Love has more than enough juice for a sequel. Just enough with the gimmicks already.

Mister Heavenly – “Charlyne”

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By Robin Smith, September 13, 2011 10:00 am

St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

4AD 2011

Rating: 9/10

Since Annie Clark is such a one for contradictions, how about this one? Strange Mercy is, at the same time, her most shocking and most unsurprising record. I mean, it’s like she put the thing through a blender, but of course it’s like she put it through a blender. Who are we talking about? This is St. Vincent’s career, which has thus far has developed into a glowing success without daring adhere to the normal structure of indie pop. It’s much more sinister than that- Actor, as she put it herself, was influenced by fairy tales, but only in the wholly ***ed-up, completely backwards Hans Christian Andersen way that fairy tales get told. That’s what made “Black Rainbow” sound as if she was travelling the Yellow Brick Road backwards, arriving at the hurricane for her final scene. So yes, it’s shocking to hear her send the structure of a song a little awol, to watch as she twists a purdy scene into a terrifying one (“What Me Worry,” my goodness), but don’t tell me you aren’t waiting for Strange Mercy to hit that sludgy, disastrous moment.

I guess St. Vincent likes the little disasters as much as we do. I found myself doing a fair amount of eye-rolling the first time I played Strange Mercy, because you’re not waiting for long. In fact, Strange Mercy self-destructs within seconds; “Chloe In the Afternoon” is deliberately off-centre, its swampy guitar work giving more texture than melody (that’s a guitar?!) and Clark flat-out refusing to resolve her voice with the song’s rhythm, putting her words a literal second or two early, or maybe late. It’s hard to tell when the song ends sounding so completely whole. You can be just as well astonished by the same trick played on “Northern Lights,” where she pulls back the song, ready to thrust into full gear, for a kind of non-solo in which her guitar simply circulates a disgusting noise for a little while before releasing the song for a climax played straight. It’s one of those on-paper things, really: these little noises should be nothing more than plain ugly diversions from otherwise irresistible pop songs, but thrown into the middle of a song as simple as “Northern Lights,” doesn’t that sludgy patch sound sort of assured? It’s like a signature, that squiggly, atonal moment of nothing, whether it stands out as surreally as it does here, or whether it marks the heavy chorus of “Cheerleader.”

Even if Strange Mercy is like a blender with its top blown off, it’s undeniable how convincing St. Vincent has become. Actor was produced to be almost suffocating, and as a result had songs that felt compressed in sound and time. Her third record feels like an attempt to remould Actor with all the space in the world. It continues to merge together two atmospheres, one eerie and the other distinctly vintage, and as a result songs like “Surgeon” ooze with the confidence of a musician who knows her own game. The intro of “Surgeon” echoes Nancy Sinatra’s ‘60s Bond tune, “You Only Live Twice,” but is only there long enough for the song to become too warped for this pleasant nostalgia (“best find a surgeon / come cut me open”). It’s a testament to Clark’s songwriting skills how we are forced to note both of these atmospheres colliding.

For a record that’s so deliberately messy, it’s nice to note that Strange Mercy says that nothing’s so cut up it can’t be fixed. “Strange Mercy,” the record’s title track, is as scattered as the record itself, the drum beat a little out of the way, but it feels like one of the most sincere pieces of music in St. Vincent’s short career. It’s devoid of any theatrics and awarded more space than she has given to any other song, only indulging a climax for seconds where a lesser musician would need minutes. The song reaches, of course, the moment it has to reach- it has to be contradictory, as unsettling as it is beautiful- but I like to think there’s no line in Clark’s career that can be as brilliantly sweet as this one. “If I ever meet the dirty policeman who roughed you up / I don’t know what.” Not that it even ends up meaning anything, but it acts as a summation of what Strange Mercy is concerned with- both the shocking and the comforting, always at the same time, always nothing less than beautiful, even if things have to get a little ugly.

St. Vincent – “Cheerleader”