#407 Spank Rock - Everything is Boring and Everyone is a Fucking Liar

Loved YoYoYoYoYo, have been waiting on this one for a while.

The basic Spank Rock formula remains unchanged: ferocious rapping, ferociously filthy lyrics, equally filthy production. The song structures are unpredictable, the sampling erratic, the beats and sub-bass drones are hot-dog-reconstituted: processed, bad for you, disgusting, unrecognizable, delicious.

Here though, things are lighter, more deft, more agile. SR's debut squarely focused on blowing your mind, punching you in the gut and generally making you squirm, aggressively eschewing headbobbabiness and dancability. Now, believe it or not, there's real positive energy underneath the music. EiBaEiaFL revels in the filth instead of wallowing, a street fight elevated to mud wrestling elevated to one hell of a party. There's more space between the drones, more room in the mix for the vocals, faster, more traditional beats, and some joyously insane vocal samples tossed all over everything.

Paradoxically, the enthusiasm behind it all actually makes the album more unseemly in places. It's one thing when the rapper seems to grimace along with you, but here all the mapcap lines about fame, sex, and self-hating narcissism are cast off rooftops on oilslick rainbows.

YYYYY's singular adventurousness and general ability to take things too far will always be legendary, but here we have the spank rock sound tuned to actually be listenable, for better or for worse. I guess it depends on what you're looking for 4/5

You might like this if: You want some of the nastiest rap around that will still make you want to move your ass.

#406 Wavves - Life Sux

I have mixed feelings about Wavves, with a couple great songs per album, and a lot of noisy filler, a listening experience that is charmingly sunburned and wasted, or messy and tuneless, depending on your mood.

Here though, the sudden garage superstar proves that he's got hooks that can stand on their own, rather than relying on lo-fi soft-focus to get by, bursting with Beulah-huge splendor (with better vocals) and GBV-worthy vocal melodies. And the actual lyrics are curiously charming, twisty and off-kilter. Little touches of production mastery abound (the stomach-dropping kickin from the chorus of standout I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl, the frayed guitar ambiance under Best Coast oohs on Nodding Off).

The last couple of songs lose some of the energy, getting into that sludgier territory that the first couple albums kept slipping into, TV Luv Song being too repetitive, and the Animal Collective-aping Mickey Mouse being just too, well, Animal Collectivey. But framed in an EP, these missteps are easier to forgive as experiments, and you can focus on the bits that stick in your joy-craw. Worth keeping an eye on this guy, who continues to show an uncommon balance of solid songwriting chops, spastic adventurousness and burnt charm 4/5

You might like this if: You like noisy, punk-dusted, post-grunge, with a lo fi edge, lo fi cred, and a dollop of sloppy experimentation.

#405 Justice - Audio, Video, Disco

New Justice!

Its slippery why this album isn't any good.

Cross was a great, unashamedly rockist album, taking the lessons Daft Punk learned about repetition, texture and swerves to macro levels. Where techno-techno seduces you to move, Cross was a gun in your back, demanding you dance.

Here, the rock sound is even more obvious, with more vocals and a lot more actual guitars. In fact, they've shot right past rock into prog rock: the concepts are bigger, the structures fancier, the instrumentation more adventurous. That all sounds like a good thing if you like prog (and I do), but if your whole schtick is to move shake asses and thrash heads, you're taking a big chance by sounding like music that, traditionally, is more for stroking bears and furrowing brows. The pace is inexcusably ponderous on songs like Parade and Ohio and the vocals are weird, thin and superfluous. The whole thing feels drained out and amateurish compared to the blunt force of their debut.

The long bright spot is Canon, which finds a way to use prog for good instead of neutrality, channeling the tension, organs and buzzsaw guitar of Genesis's The Knife. But mostly, no, this isn't a way I'm interested in seeing Justice taking things, with ambition that doesn't lead anywhere it's music should be going 2.5/5

You might like this if: There's a tough sweet spot here. Do you want noisy, maximalist techno, but want it to sometimes mellow out and stretch and meander? Here's your best bet.

#404 M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

Always worth hearing the new M83.

The rap on M83 is that their sound is "big". Alternately "huge". It's kind of a cliche, but one well-earned, from the juggernaut that was their debut to the massive timewise longing of their later stuff, the sounds have been loud, dense, layered, complex and ever-changing.

But here the M83 sound expands, not just upward, but outward, benefiting from a double-length runtime to play with and a reduced reliance on the 80's for nostalgic heft. The album sprawls instead of towering, we're given distant thunderheads with time to loom and roll over plains incomprehensible in scope. There's a sense of movement throughout, aided by little palette-cleansing interludes that pepper the 22 tracks, serving as montages and ellipses around journeys over days. The track titles drive this home subliminally, evoking transport, places, the passage of time, the singularity of the moment.

This all comes together best, this new outwardly blasting M83, in the early Where the Boats Go/Wait/Raconte-Moi Une Histoire sequence, where the ridiculous, twee-toeing child-voiced musings on frogs and universal love somehow succeed, thanks to the space you've passed to get there, not to mention the perfectly executed Lemon Jelly ambience that surrounds it. Then the Train to Pluton lets you off easy, sweeping you to the next vista maglev smooth.

The overall effect is strangely listenable for being so epic. Much like an 8 hour drive, by virtue of the zenlike acceptance needed to embark on it at all, can seem more managable than a 2 hour errand-driven hassle, the commitment, the promise, the lack of demands that submitting implies, can be freeing.

The sounds are not groundbreakingly new, but their composition is honed to a laser edge. This feels like the culmination of M83, I don't know where he goes next. There's nothing stunningly new here, but the craft earns it the low end of a 4.5/5

You might like this if: You've got an hour+ to get lost in synths, and want to get taken for a pretty good ride.

#403 Jorge Ben - Africa Brasil

I'm not exactly sure how I came across this one, though I liked his previous Tropicalia-era stuff, and enjoyed Gil e Jorge, which came out just before this.

At its best, this is a pretty glorious, sun-drenched slice of something, with Portuguese crooning, skittery beats, bursts of guitar and organ prickling caipirinha cool, with the finest moments underscored by choruses of girls aaah-ing and la-la-ing. It's all Tarantino-ready groovy, with just enough exotic edge.

My main complaint is the goddamn cuica, with its HOO-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo HOO! Hoo! chirping intruding high in the mix on far too many songs. I know that its part of the samba sound and all, but man, I do not like that noise. On this album in particular it sounds like some kid playing with his toy on the track: it's not well-integrated, not in agreement with the tone of the song, decidedly superfluous, and often downright annoying. Honestly, it made plenty of tracks on here auto-skips for me going forward.

I know, I know, that's like complaining about guitars on a rock and roll song, but I'm sorry, I do not fucking like it. Where does that leave me? For the un-cuica-encumbered tracks, this is a hit. For the rest, its a miss, leading to an unsatisfying compromise landing roughly at 3/5

You might like this if: you like groovy, gorgeous, sunny tunes, and don't mind a sea of cuica cheeps.

#402 Booker T and the MG's - Green Onions

Hittin' all the missed hits of the 60's.

There are lots of places you might have heard the title track, so now you know who does that song. The rest of the album follows roughly the same model, with a shuffly beat, strutting bass and the guitar and organ taking turns taking the lead over top. Some of them are thrillingly fast, some ballad-slow, but its all instrumental, and the lineup never changes, the sound of the instruments never changes, the production approach never changes. It's consistent and steady and holistic, which is strange compared to everything modern I've been listening to (the Neon Indian album seemed compelled to wiggle every piece around after every track just to keep you interested), but it leads to a good groove you can settle into. It reminds me of driving around Laguna with John, listening to The Meters, who have a similar sound, if a slightly different, funkier, MO.

I dig it. I like the overall flow of the album and I love that organ sound. Great work music, if nothing else, soothing and energizing all at once 4/5

You might like this if: you like a soulful rock organ, and want it to move you and serenade you over waving, rolling rhythms.

#401 Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life

Loved David Comes to Life, figured I'd check out its predecessor.

Man, what an interesting progression between these two albums. Where David Comes to Life was single-mindedly relentless, this album is by comparison much bigger, much more ambitious, more varied and wild and wooly. It's pretty great.

Obviously there's plenty of Pink Eyes's gutteral shouting, and underneath the kind of pretty, noisy guitar work you'd expect given DCtL, but here things are monsterously ambitious for a band that sounds, at first blush, like such a blunt instrument. The arc of the album is a rant against God and religion and the wall of disillusionment that clever kids raised Christian seem to hit. Or something, after a listen or two, I can't say I've caught every throat-propelled syllable, but there's plenty of rage, spitting disdain, and furious disappointment directed generally skyward.

The variety of the songs is pretty amazing here too. The whole epic kicks off with a flute solo, and later sprightly congas, three-and-a-half-minute ambient pieces, and electronic beebles take their turns putting odd angles on the juggernaut's lapel. The backing vocals are great flourishes too, from chanting, to pretty-girls-make-graves-style shrieking, to the chiming indie gorgeous of album highlight Black Albino Bones.

Its kind of backwards. You'd expect the straightforward relentless beating album to come out first, followed by the extravagant, adventurous epic. But Fucked Up has actually gotten less and less adventurous as time has gone on. In this case, I don't know that David Comes to Life represents a regression so much as it represents a honing of the craft, a lessened reliance on gimmicks and the nerve to actually do something harder, longer, and more focused. If DCtL was hardcore, endless krautrock (do a shot), this album is swerving hardcore prog: both albums are daring, both are challenging, both are strange conflations of brute force and laser precision. Taken outside of the continuum of the band's history, they stand as epic companion pieces, taking on huge themes in a huge way 4.5/5

You might like this if: you like hard punk guitars and caveman shouting, but also like pretty guitars, complex structures and epic themes. The center of that venn diagram doesn't describe many people I know, but if you fit the bill, don't miss this one.

#400 Howlin' Wolf - Howlin' Wolf

Another one from my run through 60's albums of note I'd not heard, my semi-systematic attempt to hear every album of note ever.

Here's another foundational blues album, and I found it a lot more listenable than Robert Johnson's similarly-timed album. Here the vocals are much richer and more imposing, the songs more structured, with some downright enjoyable rustle and bounce, creak and craw, sounding expert, sounding refined without sounding polished. Where the Johnson album was all about the man, his guitar, and his virtuoso skill therewith, here there is a full band, a full sound, and a full song. And maybe this makes me a blues philistine, but I like all that stuff. This is rich and listenable by comparison, and draws a more obvious line to plenty of later music, from Stones/Kinks Americana eras, to The White Stripes, The Black Keys and Tom Waits decades later.

Taken on its own, I don't know that its quite my cup of tea, but I dig it. It deepens the night, enriches the day, spirit creeping out and blooming. 3.5/5

You might like this if: you want some gritty guitar, some ragged vocals, some history lessons, and want to ease into something downright accessible before getting to the really early, really hardcore foundational blues.