#825 Squarehead - Yeah Nothing

Check it out here!

Delightfully bouncy power-pop, full of insistent backbeats, restless bass rummaging, and plenty of good, solid Weezer-via-Surfer-Blood guitar crunch. There's enough variation to keep it interesting, with enough simplicity to keep it easy to listen to: that perfect balance that made me fall in love with, well, Surfer Blood. Some of the later songs get a bit watery; The Abandoned Sea sounds like a lost Rilo Kiley Blake-penned B-Side, but even that launches with a crackle into a fiery coda at the last minute.

Also, they're a taut, relentless kind of fun on stage. If they happen to come to your town consider them recommended there too 4/5

#824 VA - OKX: A tribute to OK Computer

Listen here!

Ok, I understand that OK Computer is a modern day Sgt. Pepper's by now, and that covering its songs with any outwardly apparent effort to improve upon them is likely just to leave you waxy and scorned for your high-falutin' highfliyin'. So you, the covering artist, seek an escape route; your instinct is just to do something different. It's not better, but at least I provided some new twist!

Unfortunately, on this particular tribute, the main twist seems to be to drop half the instruments, shave off a dozen or two BPMs, and to lay down skeletal take after skeletal take, resulting in a desolate, largely tuneless album. Also, strangely, one almost completely bereft of guitars, as if everyone wanted to stay ahead of the curve by sounding like Radiohead a couple of years later. Slaraffenland, covering Paranoid Android, is the worst offender, wilting at the challenge of the song, leaking out a meandering, bloodless half-take. Elsewhere, the covers of Let Down, Karma Police and Climbing up the Walls are skim milk versions, putting on only the barest twists, sounding undisasterous and unadventurous.

On the upside?

1. Subterranean Homesick Alien is what I wish the rest of the album had been, grabbing the highway driving theme by the horns and taking it to a new level, pumping the beat up to a full-blown reflector-tick motorik.

2. That Tourist version is one of the tribute's only injections of fun, sounding wholly new and somehow in the spirit of the original, breaking up the endgame malaise that always struck me as a bit overmuch on OK Computer as a bonus.

3. That's possibly the best possible cover of Fitter, Happier you can do, sounding snarky and spontaneous and full of little flourishes. Seriously, how else do you even do that song that would be half as good as this?


And sometimes on an album like this, when the original is so unassailable, all you can hope for is a couple of hits. And at least this is a tribute, you know, made by people who actually wanted to pay tribute, or at least had heard the songs before, ever. Still, as a decontextualized actual listen? Eh, for my part, I'm not likely to slog through it ever again 2.5/5

#823 Sid Hemphill - The Devil's Dream: Alan Lomax's 1942 Library of Congress Recordings

A truly remarkable, fascinating document, sounding more raw, real, and of a singular moment than just about any other roots record, making your Leadbelly and Blind Lemon Jefferson collections sound downright overproduced by comparison.

Largely percussionless but for the odd yelp and stomp, writhing under a sweaty sheet of tape hiss, the music wheels in and out of place like a dying rooster, and feels about as fleeting. Hemphill was all of 65 by 1942, and fully blind besides, when Alan Lomax ventured to his home in Mississippi to put these songs to disc.

I don't know exactly where or how they set up, but the music inspires the mind to wonder: the guitars droning like countless mosquitos, like heat itself, a stray rush of drums in the 4th act coming on like a sudden storm. This record captures a moment, and that moment's flickering, gasping musicianship is the reason to listen.

To be frank, the music isn't pretty, and it isn't fun. But its the vehicle to that moment and its energy, and everyone with any kind of interest in music ought to experience it at least once 4/5

#822 Krill - Alam No Hris

Listen here! Also, go see em at the Great Scott on April 15th!

It's with a certain endearing innocence that Krill's Jonah Furman winds his every frustration in mid-aughts indie-underground-revival crunch and wings it out the door without a thought. One after another, the songs pour out of the band effortlessly, guitars delivering every chiming note with a guileless kiss of dissonance, while Furman yelps ragged and reeling, like a young, scared Alec Ounsworth. Even the surreal vignettes about kissable dog paws and hairy baseballs seem more conjured than composed, and the result is strangely endeading. The tinny production, flat mix, and over repetitive songwriting prevent it from really getting traction as Rock and Roll, but you'll be tempted to love it anyway 3/5

#821 VA - Stroked: A Tribute to Is This It

Listen here, with notes!

The subject of what a cover song should be could span pages and pages and posts and posts in its own right, but I think it mostly boils down to this:

Does the cover expand on the spirit of the original?

There's two parts there: expand, and spirit of the original. A rote recreation fails on the first count, and if you're abandoning the later, well, at the extreme end, you get something like the legendary Aphex Twin Lemonheads remix exercise.

This album fails on that latter count damn near that badly. You can tell something is up circa track 2 when a murky song sharing the occasional lyric with a Strokes song lurches by in an altogether different key, tone, tempo, instrumentation, and, well, spirit. This disinterest continues intermittently, and culminates in the disappointing (if unsurprising) piss-taking Heems cover of NYC cops, which completely skips the song as a point of musical inspiration and uses its theme as an excuse to launch into an otherwise unrelated anti-police-violence rap manifesto.

It turns out that whole thing was doomed to be a fiasco from the beginning: read those notes at the link above and look at people saying things like "I'd never really heard this song before yesterday". Is it any wonder you failed to capture anything about it when you randomly wove a couple of its elements into some hastily assembled B-Side-quality composition in your usual style? That's fucking insane, what a clusterfuck of execution from an organizational standpoint. Note also the reoccurrence of the phrase "when I was given this song to cover". Contrast that to (spoiler alert) the same online rag's sister project to have artists cover OK Computer, where the oft-repeated phrase in the writups is "we asked for this song because...".

All things considered, this a surprisingly compelling, listen in spite of itself, and its a shame that the overall mismanagement undercuts the thoughtful contributions of the likes of Owen Pallett, but look, if people don't even give a shit about the songs they're covering you're not going to get expansions of the spirit of anything, except maybe the spirits of a dozen or so wallets. Is it too late to call this 11 Mixes for Cash? 2.5/5

#820 DJ Koze - Amygdala

I think an email I wrote to Orion sums this up as well as I'm ever gonna:

--

I think music ran out of notes. Everyone's moving towards these weird, slurred, dissonant half-melodies where every tone is dragged kicking and screaming into some post-note cranny so that it will sound alien enough to grab the attention of jaded twentysomethings. From dubsteb to witch house to whatever the fuck oneohtrix point never is doing, for the most part its wankery for its own sake.

But maybe we've moved past that phase in any artistic innovation where we have to just get over the hump of doing it for its own sake and can start actually using it skillfully, because there's a lot of the same sludgy tricks on this DJ Koze album Amygdala. I don't know that you'd actually like it - its a bit druggier and drudgier and sludgier than things I hear you hearing, but I'm weirdly compelled by it and have nowhere else to turn. It mostly pulls off a really nice balance, sounding dense and otherworldly, but also downright listenable - pretty and toetappy in turn, just enough of a housy beat to run a thread through it. Nices Wolkchen is a track that mostly sums it up, starting off sounding slurred and overblown, starting off like its going to be an experimental noise wank, and then straightforward techno, and then ending up something else, melting into a graceful little space, with that warm, buzzy bass tone and cymbal taps and vocal squiggles rising and falling tactfully from 2:09 to 2:56, simmering all the way down to a 4/4 click, setting up easygoing expectation, before flickering just barely back into place. Its an artful piece of songwriting, actually. Someone bothered to build something instead of just looping a knob twiddle or two. It legitimately doesn't feel like someone just starting and stopping loops in protools or whatever, either, it doesn't sound made, which is something I love in art in all media, and a conversation unto itself. Homesick is weirdly enjoyable too.

I think I mostly mention it because its superficially something I should hate, but I kind of like, which is always compelling.

[send]

--

oh, god Das Wort definitely should have been my secondary mention: that song is delightfully strange, especially in the second half, which just veers off into a few leftfield directions that aaaaalmost make sense without making any sense

[send]

--

Which is to say: 4.5/5

#819 Legowelt - The Paranormal Soul

A richly textured electronic album that alternates between techno squirelliness and housey insistence - I hear echoes of the Model 500 and the Cybotron I was just listening to all up in this, combining spacy ambience, headbobbable beats, and squonky cool into something that's greater than the sum of its parts. A sprawling, complex, surprisingly fun listen 4/5

#818 Shearwater - Animal Joy

Warbling grasps for the infinite that take ample pages from the mid-00's indie rock book of clever textures, evoking the likes of Spoon, Band of Horses and yes, former Meiburg / Sheff collaboration Okkervil River, in turn. Tension is the name of the game, built and built and then simultaneously released and regenerated, supplying the impression of release while providing little relief, allowing the song's stresses to intertwine with your life's again and again and thereby become familiar, and thereby lead the charge outward.

Musically, this is more upbeat, more driving and just plain more fun than the OR stuff, but that was a sound that was really at its best when its baring its heart. Here, at most, you are invited to bare yours, and have it pumped for you via pounding, woolen electricty.

The band themselves feel insulated, preaching from on high, reaching for 80's populist art-rock uplift, but somehow detached, undermining our ability to follow skyward 3/5

#817 Model 500 - Deep Space

o.g. techno that trades in minimal beats and melodies that repeat and repeat and repeat, stretching way on out to trancy extremes, evolving organically, sounding governed by cosmic forces rather than the endorphic demands of throbbing humans. And that's the key here: Juan Atkins is so familiar with these tools, and uses them in such a primal way, that the music manages to sound outside the hand of man. Which, you know, if you're trying to make music about and of deep space, is probably a good start. There is a sense of movement here, but on a hyper-glacial scale beyond ready observation.

Which is to say, it works as abstract achievement, as artistic move, journeying at its own pace, outlining techniques and angles by unseen design. The problem is it seems to have only a passing interest in actually being listened to, in deigning to meet the needs of we throbbing humans, some of whom want to be soothed or moved or made to feel the ways we like to feel. It's lonely here on earth, and out in space its worse. Don't make it worse, Atkins! 3/5

#816 Mantronix - Mantronix: The Album

This is the coolest lame rap album you've ever heard. Straight out of 80's electro futurism, the beats are pure casiotone boom bap, the raps slipping into oversimple nursery rhyme end-of-line-ism on the regular, the subject matter the most basic brand of golden age bluster. And yet it's just got that something special to it, just enough bent angles, funky breaks, and surprise entrances to keep it fresh.

Also, add another landmark on my journey to accidentally discover all the samples from Where It's At in their natural habitat (this time the central "two turntables and a microphone hook"). Fun shit 3.5/5

#815 Cybotron - Clear

Suppose Kraftwerk just cracked? Say the icy exterior and constant composure split, and a slightly damaged funk monster crawled out, lurching like a DC villain across bladerunner lightcycle cityscapes. What if, like an 80's Bowie character, it reached for hipness and acceptance, maybe even joy. It strove to show us all the way, but was too strange to live, too weird to thrive, with a clicky clockwork 808 pulse and a proto daftpunk vocorder heart, it just melted away, sentimental and unknowable, halfremembered in beerlight memorial 3.5/5

#814 Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms

Brothers in Arms starts off so promisingly, leading you to exclaim "these guys are so underrated!" again and again. So Far Away simmers with post-punk frustration and endless repetition, and Money for Nothing is even better than you realized, perfectly mixed, with synths and buzzy guitars perfectly paired, running for a hypnotically perfect 8 minutes plus.

Walk of Life is honest to god pop, joyous and effective, and you assume its just a detour to bristly, if straightforward, art rock. What will you be stewing about next, you unholy lovechildren of Graham Parker and Donald Fagan?

But the train never gets back on the tracks: the repetition that built tension before now just runs in place, sluffing off calories, accomplishing little, everything sounding watery, the 80's flourishes that tarted up the previous songs coming on like an addiction, dragging the sound into muddy mediocrity. You can just watch the album melt, each track watered down by a sax solo or mopey sentiment, like the band just got tired, like it got a glimpse of the good life somewhere around Walk of Life and went straight* 3/5

*no pun intended. I swear to god. It just came out that way.

#813 Graham Parker - Squeezing Out Sparks

More fun, more brash, more angular, more assured than his debut, Squeezing out Sparks is a good, soft-edged, T-shirt cannon blast of punk-esque new wave, evoking Nick Lowe and predicting Elvis Costello by a handful of years. I still don't see all this anger that people attribute to Graham, but we're living in a post-Cobain, post-Mathers, post-Pink Eye world; we're pretty tough to unnerve, us 2013 folks.

Absent that sense of danger, the songs read a little bit flat, often sounding a dozen or so BPM short, but its all perfectly enjoyable, full of brash hooks and simple pleasures 3.5/5

#812 Bob Marley and the Wailers - Catch a Fire

Full disclosure, I think reggae is fuckin booooooring. How many ways can you go ummp-ba! ummp-ba! endlessly? Maybe everyone just wanted to sound like Bob Marley, and specifically chose the most basic blueprint to draw from. However it happened, I know of no other scene that's so innovation-averse.

Except, I have to confess, this is actually a much richer, more enjoyable, more musically and emotionally diverse album than you might expect given what filters itself into the pseudo-mainstream. The backbones is painfully samey, but each song carries some kind of interesting rhythmic, melodic, or tonal twist that keeps it interesting. And, maybe most importantly, while it is legitimately soothing, it also dares to make an impact, even at the risk of harshing your buzz.

Still not my scene, but I'm glad I forced myself to bother - far better than expected 3.5/5

#811 Derek and the Dominoes - Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs

If you ask me, Eric Clapton's a wildly talented, largely uninteresting guitar player and singer. Which is probably sacrilege. But I sense that Cream/Yardbirds worship is more muso-driven than actually borne of any particular enjoyment of the actual resulting tunes.

Here Clapton's skills are put to far more pop purposes, retaining flecks of bluesey structure and jammy indulgence, while being more listenable, tuneful and enjoyable than anything else he put out. The title track in particular soars through its extended outro, and the cover of Little Wing features one of the sweetest, richest guitar sounds I've ever heard, just ever.

The only downside is the singing, which wings thin and on into ridiculous in places, sounding a bit like a band your dad's friends formed in their 40's, hey, that's not what you came for, now is it?

Purists would probably prefer Clapton's harder stuff, but, you know, fuck those guys 4/5

#810 Cream - Fresh Cream

A wooly, dense combination of British blues revivalism and proto-San Francisco sound psychedelia. Repetition is employed liberally, creating spaces for Clapton's riffage and the occasional knotty Ginger Baker drum fill. Clapton's guitar work lives up to its reputation, but the album itself occupies a strange middle ground: for my money, I'd rather just have a cleaner blues rock sound, or a more fun psychadelic sound. As it is, this is heavy in too many contradictory ways, tipping over into leaden 3.5/5

#809 Uhiah Heep - Demons and Wizards

God damn yall are good at naming albums.

Hey boys, how can we can we convey that this album combines demon-obsessed metal with wizard-obsessed prog? I've got it!

On the prog side, this has all the hallmarks: the funky meters, the organ drones, the start-stop angularism, the inventive song structures, and yes, the ridiculous themes. Doubletime on that. There's song called Rainbow Demon. It's about a Rainbow Demon. But its also downright enjoyable as prog goes, hooky and melodic, with light-metal guitar lines and orchestral accessibility straight out of Queen or ELO.

As pop metal riffage its a bit too weird. As pure prog its a bit watered down. But if you get past the ridiculousness of it all, it's music that's enjoyable and interesting and inventive and surprising and fun. There's something you can't say about very many prog albums 4/5

#808 Armin van Buuren - A State of Trance 2008

Word is this is a topnotch trance album.

What do I know about trance? Why am I even doing this?

Well, it goes on for 2 and a half hours, all the transitions are smooth, the mood changes imperceptibly, not a single moment is out of place, the DJ tricks flawlessly executed and unflashy, and most importantly I was exactly the right amount of distracted while working. Heck, I pretty much got exactly what I came for, and I suspect familiarity would help breed even greater appreciation. Sounds like a keeper to me.

The only downside is the ending, which seems abrupt and anticlimactic - strange for a set that has setting the right mood as its greatest strength. How do you drop the ball on that?? That's a surprisingly big knock in my book, but the preceding 140 minutes are pretty good, so I guess I'll give 'im a break 4/5

#807 Phosphorescent - Muchacho

Maybe its just the recent passing of Jason Molina that makes this album sound like the ghost of Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co., with that weary, night-worn wistfulness and hope and dread. Matthew Houck's sound is much more dense, much prettier, with much more of that ethereal Bon Iver gossamer insulation, but there's something of the soul there.

On the other hand, Molina's work worked because it was direct and unafraid and exposed; this album, meanwhile, cloaks itself in so many layers as to make itself altogether inaccessible. Consider the seemingly spare introduction to A Charm / A Blade, where the simple sentiment is tripled and reverbed, while guitars, horns, strings and more lurk in the background. It's a rich sound, but when the simplest moments run 7 sounds deep, plus production tricks, that's a lot of weight to move. How can I know myself, how can I find your universal message, when you're so unwilling to give it to me straight, when the sound hides from itself within itself. The result is too much of a muchness, overdone and overblown past any hint of sincerity. Pretty though, if that's what you're in the market for 3/5

#806 Heems - Nehru Jackets Mixtape

Das Racist are some of the finest rappers around, bringing an endless, free-associative style of hip hop flecked with offhandedly brilliant arty commentary. Here, Heems frees himself from his partner's grasp, and from the weight of being Das Racist, and its a double edged sword.

Absent the need to make big statements, and alongside mixtape-appropriate simple, single-loop noisy production, Heems can just rap. He can rap and rap and rap, unimpeded and forever, free associating between all subjects imaginable in all cultural crannies, making leaps beyond reason that seem completely reasonable in retrospect, and it's deeply impressive, and his reputation as one of those truly unstoppable MC's is cemented.

But absent Das Racist's carefully curated showmanship and overarching themes, eventually the variation becomes noise. I understand the ragtag, offhanded appeal of a mixtape, of demonstrating prowess by duration, and I'm guessing this is an even better stoner album than your average Das Racist release, but as a normal album, listened to under normal circumstances, this would have benefited from being half as long, or at least focused in any way 3.5/5

#805 College - Teenage Color EP

So I get that you guys are into 80's revival, specifically of halcyon John Hughes youth, but did you need to call yourselves College, call your EP "Teenage Color", and put a picture of a teenage in 80's colors on the cover? A little on the nose, don't you think?

This gets the benefit of the doubt for coming out in 2008, before M83 had really thoroughly mined out this space. And frankly they've got a more raw, analog aesthetic than many similar acts. But it's just too simple, too by the numbers to be all that interesting. You can just see the blueprint showing though, as arpeggio is joined by synth string washes, is joined by repeated synth stabs, all atop relentless Casiotone beats, with only the barest knob-turning to create movement.

Repetition is great, but let's not overdo it, ok? At every point on this album you're a little aware that you've been listening to these same notes for 4 minutes, and they're all notes you heard 20 years ago besides 3/5

#804 VA - Hotline Miami Soundtrack

Listen here!

Hotline Miami is possibly a masterpiece of a game, with graphics and gameplay straight out of 80's games, senseless ultraviolence straight out of 80's movies, and a warped electro soundtrack straight out of 80's music. Well, not straight out, the various artists on this soundtrack certainly take their liberties, adding huge beats that benefit from a couple decades of sonic wisdom, or sludgy, dubby bends courtesy of '10's trends. The former fare far better, feeling as vibrant and alive as a dude in an animal mask on a senseless killing spree, while the latter feel as depraved and miserable as a dude in an animal mask on a senseless killing spree. M.O.O.N. and Sun Araw's contributions in particular leave you feeling blasted and blazed and hungover and dead, for better or worse.

Accordingly, the effect is mixed, and your appreciation may vary based on your tolerance for ragged, drug - ed sludge. Its the experience a series of hazy, whiplash highs and lows, which while unpleasant, is maybe an achievement unto itself. Certainly worth a listen for anyone who wants to hear what the 80's have sounded like if you were living them, and living them hard 3.5/5

#803 Pragnus - Eric Left Riverton

[embargoed for now at artist's request - will fill in when it's released!]

#802 Steely Dan - Aja

Smooth was always a good word for Steely Dan, but it's not enough word, just not smooth enough a word for Aja, which is, I don't know, smoooooth. Italics. Everything is draped in travel-channel-safe exotic, songs stretching out silkily, every element on point, in balance, melodies pretty and easy-going. You can settle in, lean back, watch the songs go by, a dim smile on your face, with no surprises, while disaffected themes drift by disaffectedly.

I can't help but admire something that does something this hard, but their earlier albums are more angular, more invested, and more fun 3.5/5

#801 Michael Jackson - Off the Wall

I listened to a lot of Michael Jackson as a kid, in the car, on the radio, on MTV; dude was tough to miss. Darndest thing though, heard all kinds of Thriller, all kinds of Bad, never listened to Off the Wall all the way through.

It's worth doing - the singles are good, but they and the other tracks combine into an electrifying whole, bristling with effortless, overflowing energy. Jackson's a heck of a performer and a peerless singer at the top of his game, but its the production that really brings it home: the crisp disco beats, the funk guitar, and those crackling horn runs, those perfect Quincy Jones horns are the icing.

A fun, intricate album, a legitimate classic 5/5

#800 The Velvet Underground - Loaded

The Velvet Underground goes pop! Here's an album of surprisingly pretty, oftentimes catchy, approachably-cool jaunts,  sounding not unlike Lou Reed's finest solo moments.

The repetition, that endless repetition, that was at the heart of arty-era Velvets is still alive and well, but this time it's the foundation of approachable anthems with trancy headspaces and singalong choruses. Mostly gone are the dissonance and song structure perversions that made the band so revolutionary, and the result is less exciting, less unique, but perfectly solid,  an engaging album full of slightly offkilter rock ramblers 4/5

#799 Courters - Courters

Go listen! See you in 6 minutes.

Fun-filled aggression abounds, with little touches like surging backing vocals and xylonphone pings offsetting the thrashing, suggesting promise behind the menace. Meanwhile the actual songs weave agreeable, unexpected angles into the garage rock blueprint. As with the just-reviewed Huge Face, this is an exciting, if crushingly brief, taste of Boston rock promise. More, guys! 4/5

#798 Huge Face - Huge Face

Go listen!

On their debut EP, Huge Face serve up a mean slice of bouncy, perfect-chord indie pop, wielding Pavement dissonance, Los Campesinos joyousness, and the occasional brat-punk bop. Each song strikes a balance between propulsive chug and freefall soaring, all gut-punching bass and skyward guitars, with nothing but vocals in between, an F16 over rolling hills, Airbag gone pop. The fast songs are the finest, but even the anthems find ways to get off the ground, with Break the Hearts of Summer's gorgeous soaring vocal/guitar lines whipped into wobbly Martsh-ian helixes, while Jenny, Please marries Pinkerton longing to Rilo Kiley-clean guitars. Promising stuff, curious to see if they've got more than an EP's worth of material of this quality (I say, still haunted by the unfulfilled promise of the likes of Young Liars, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and A Lesson in Crime) 4.5/5

#797 The Clash - The Clash

Among the big three punk progenitors, The Clash fall in the middle, raging and engaging more than Ramones, dodging the Sex Pistols' shitfaced nihilism, lodging squarely between the snarl and the sneer. That middle-ground role is the most clear on the band's debut, one of the hookiest, most exciting albums of the era. In fact, while London Calling is undeniably a finer, more ambitious achievement, this just might be a better album when you get down to the actual listening, bearing rougher edges and a more vibrant sense of the unpredictable.

Contentious swipes like that aside, know that the blueprint for pop-minded punk, from Buzzcocks to Blink-182, was laid here 4.5/5

#796 Super_Collider - Head On

Before Jamie Lidell made his name as a glitchy soul crooner, he and Cristian Vogel made this hyper-glitchy, vaguely-soulful, generally-fucked funk record.

There's a careful balancing act at the heart of their debut, as Vogel and Lidell seek conflicting aims: impressing intellectually with boundary-blasting bitwise breakdowns, and moving body and soul with funk soul brotherhoods. Mostly, the IDM fuckery succeeds in crushing listenabile songs into experimental nothingness. But when the hooks survive the assault, the result is some truly original, exciting batshit noise-pop, as on the silky, tapeloop nanobeat opener Cut the Phone, and the James.Brownbot raveup Take Me Home. , Play the whole disc when you want your EDM to cut a rug, pluck out the highlights for your weirdest parties with your weirdest friends to dance weirdly to 4/5

#795 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedos

What's the point of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? There's barely a memorable instrumental line on this whole ((curiously) well-regarded) album, with most of the melodic duties falling to a Petty himself, a singer best distinguished by wielding a nasal drone marginally better than Bob Dylan's. There's no genuine swagger, no legitimate toughness, nothing really exciting or vibrant about it past the first track, just perfectly ok songs about girls, solid songs about girls, at best, performed ably and sung poorly. I don't see the draw 2.5/5

#794 Ramones - Rocket to Russia

Early in their career, Ramones struck a careful balance, rousing themselves from their debut's proto-Strokesian pre-post-punk disinterest, slowly arriving at something more melodic, more engaged, but still defiant, still cool. There's still no rage, little shouting, negligible guitar acrobatics, but the band still churns out economically-executed minimal hooks. Most importantly, the pacing is excellent, as the album's 14 short double-timers shift gears just often enough to keep you on your toes over the course of its perfectly punk half hour running time 4/5

#793 Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II

II is the sound of a 60's record collection left out in the sun, the bass bleeding, the guitars bending, the vocals blending into one another and in an out of the mix. It follows Unknown Mortal Orchestra's trajectory away from from pop, running deeper, dubbier, more inflected than ever before.

The warped sound isn't altogether out of line with Ruban Nielson's Mint Chicks background, but the spastic fun of that band has, by now, been thoroughly shed, replaced with the deeply woolen, stoned aesthetic that's so in these days. The textures are intricate and explorable, but I can't help but feel like these songs would be more fun if they would just sober up and be themselves instead of stumbling their way through my earphones 3/5

#792 Tiger Trap - Tiger Trap

A hidden gem of 90's indie pop perfection, mining The Pixies' catchiest moments (especially that skitterey Debaser breakbeat) and forging them into proto-girl-group revival gold. The lyrics are simple and sweet, the melodies unassailable, everything decidedly pretty and nice, and a damn lot of fun besides, predicting Sleater-Kinney's poppiest moments, and pretty much everything by Vivian Girls.

The trick wears thin by the end, like so manny catchy 90's records, but its a delightful slice of saccharin along the way 4/5

#791 Toy Love - Live at the Gluepot 1980

New Zealand's punk scene might be one of the most underappreciated in the Western world. Here one of its progenitors rip through a incendiary set, with frontman Chris Knox alternating searing rage,  flippant disdain, and seemingly-accidental bouts of showmanship.

The band nails the balance of sloppy couldn'tgiveafuckism and technical mastery, banging out a hooky, rollicking suite of 25 thrashers, stompers, and boppers, the whole tangled lot of plummeting earthward, threatening to break apart at any moment, trailing melody and musicianship in beerlight contrails 4.5/5

#790 Slayer - South of Heaven

Sometimes you need to rage, and you're really, thoroughly, definitely bored with Reign in Blood. I guess in that case you could be forgiven for going to this album, but its undeniably an overslick shadow of its legendary predecessor. Sure, the guitars are ear-burningly fast, the beats are frantic and dense, and the subject matter is decidedly twisted and heavy, but the production strips away the magic. The guitars in particular are cleaner and more precise, but lack that wild edge. The vocals fare even worse, especially when Araya tries to jam rhymes into place: he sounds like a man, not like the force of nature that rampaged over Reign in Blood.

And that's the heart of the problem: this just sounds like an album, transcending nothing in particular, leaving hints of ridiculousness clinging to a band along the way. When you're a band striving to have your message of menace taken deadly seriously, those are the kinds of hints that can break the spell 3/5

#789 Jason Forrest - The Everything

Man, yall are making it to easy for me, what with these album titles that damn near perfectly sum up their contents. On Shamelessly Exciting, Jason Forrest tried to outdo his own underappreciated, pre-Girl Talk-mashup masterpiece The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post-Disco Crash. And on some level he succeeded: the followup was more manic, more intricate, and, yeah, more exciting. But it still, somehow, wasn't any fun. It read as pure music, dropping so much of the cultural subtext and music nerd nods that made TUSOTP1979DC such a treat.

In that sense, The Everything is a return to form. The densely-sampled music is intricate and listenable, but the real draw is that wizened burble of themes just out of reach is back, as you don't just listen closer, but listen harder, engage your brain, and try to navigate Forrest's cultural labyrinth, as songs evoke eras, styles, moods, and scenes. For those who seek specific baubles, there are treasures to be found: Link Wray rumbles, art rock nods, even a fleeting sample from The Waiting Room, an obscure 70's-era Genesis instrumental interlude. Even on the paths not taken, breadcrumbs wind off and tantalize.

There's something slightly empty about it all, but it carries the promise of negative space. Like a house that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, its artifice belies its unknowability,and yet you're driven to try 4/5

#788 David Bowie - The Next Day

Bowie, man, you sound tired. I know, you're pretty old, but even the lighter moments on this album sound dragged from hungover bedcovers. It's adventurous, sure, lurching with new wave angles and skittered beats and retro-eno textures, but most of it just sounds so laboured, not least because Bowie is 66 goddamn years old and has spent most of those living like a rockstar. Plus, the impression of weariness sure is deepened by that beatdown of that closer, man.

Let's talk album theory for a second. The second most important song on an album is the last: it determiness the note it ends on, figuratively and literally both. It sets the tone that's left in your mouth, it's the song that's freshest in your memory when you finish hearing an album for the first time, barring a mythical instant-earworm somewhere along the way. You gotta pick that one! This is half of why Radiohead's best albums are so transcendental - dudes know how to end a motherfuckin album. Heat, though, is just a crusher of a song, just a dreary slab of misery. It's a bold move, but casts a pall over everything that came before, shading the crannies along the way.

You think Bowie's aware of his own mortality? Fuck yes he is. This is everything short of Johnny Cash pleading with god for more time. To his credit, Bowie seems to be more interested in baring his actual self than gilding his death mask, and if Bowie were to die tomorrow this would be a Basement On a Hill-level final statement, but I guess we couldn't help but hope for something that sounds more vital. The opener is a great, promising kick, and Dirty Boys has an appropriately filthy sax solo that gets the blood running, but then its a bit of a nightworn desert out there, with only the sprightly Dancing Out in Space as an oasis.

As I've said before, Bowie can't win. This time it's because he's winding down, and he can't be true to himself without taking you down with him. I love you Bowie, I just wish I could love your albums a bit more easily (great album cover though, by the way, goddamn brilliant) 3/5

#787 The Men - New Moon

The Men's previous album, Open Your Heart, was one of last year's best. A twisty betrayer of expectations, it came on like a fist before blooming into layer after layer, winding through style after style, and ending up somewhere inward and strange.

By 2013 the cat is out of the bag - guess our boys will have to one-up themselves huh?

You could do that. But instead, New Moon is a reboot, with all the raw energy of an early live show, the kind of racket made by hungry lads who've never cut an album, each flaying their hearts out just to get a chance. The guitars are overstrummed, the drums a bit too busy, the vocals ragged, the whole pacing just a step too fast, tripping just ahead of itself, bathing the entire sound in prickly tension. This is isn't the kind of thing you put out after an album as well-composed as Open Your Heart. It's a conundrum.

It's also pretty goddamn good, full of that signature busy, buzzy Men guitar texture, some hooky, unpredictable songwriting, and yes, that relentless spirit, balancing post-punk repetition against punk-punk fury at every turn. You might miss that perfect pacing, that Open Your Heart magic. But heck, you know, its like, if you're doing a magic show, and you do your best trick, and then you're out of tricks, just wade into the crowd and punch someone in the face. There's more than one way to give the people their money's worth 4/5

#786 Sam & Dave - Hold On, I'm Comin'

These are two cool dudes, belting out tales of wanting and taking and getting, sounding like they really care without sounding like they're really trying. It's a neat trick, all backed by brisky, funky Stax backbeats and horns, hooky and hitched with a thrilling, ragged edge, like a couple of laid-back James Browns.

Also, add this to the list of albums where the cover sums it up: Sam and Dave are slow but unrushed, suited up and cool, even in a cartoon turtle wonderland.

Whatever it is you need, they know when you need it and that's exactly when you'll get it 4/5

#785 Waxahatchee - American Weekend

Just a girl and her guitar, so close, with such claustrophobic cranny reverb she must be in your actual head, singing and strumming pulsing in your skull. How else could her words enter your brain unimpeded? The chords are plain and plainly played, no fretwork fireworks to speak of, just Katie Crutchfield's voice and words out there alone, and they're up for the responsibility, full of lo-fi tunefulness, finding grace in the uncomfortable details and truths 3.5/5

#784 Black Moth Super Rainbow - Cobra Juicy

Saccharine, slippery pop built on big basslines and big bass beats, slathered in synthy wobble and autotune croon. Fun and weird and annoying and sweet and crammed up in your joy slits, it sounds like its batshit cover art looks. But as with any good tooth-rotter, what starts off delightful soon loses its thrill. This is good mix fodder, maybe all-the-way-through fun for just the right kind of party, but otherwise the sound is too one note to sustain a complete album. This'd have made a gem of an EP 3.5/5

#783 Orbital - Wonky

Orbital always seemed like kind of a wanky crew, as electronic music goes. Better for armchair chinscratchery than full on ravinout, an intellectual exercise in big beat dancable electronica, better for arms-down writhing than arms-up banging.

Here they're largely wearing daddy's clothes again, but pulling it off, like some viral youtube littlekid in daddy's suit dance video sensation, hitting on house, techno, and even a little dubstep, but with analog class and art-rock angles. A surprisingly heart-filled, foot-fueled record for a generally heady band 4/5

#782 My Bloody Valentine - mbv

You should probably take away my indie card because outside of Sometimes I never though Loveless was all that great. I mean, it wasn't Soft Bulletin-overrated, but the dissonance always bothered me more than it blew me away.

For better or worse, I like this album a lot better. The structure winds mysteriously within songs and unknowably across them, and the layers and layers and layers of guitar noise are as intricate and brutish as ever. In particular, the crushingly heavy last few tracks bring power far beyond anything the band's done before, and you could get lost in the crackling details of Only Tomorrow for hours.

It's intriguing, unknowable, decidedly a MBV album, without being a retread. I'm curious about it even now, even as I'm not sure I want to brave its jaw-clenching dissonance and relentless pressure, even as I can't remember a note off of it I want to hear them all 4/5

#781 David Bowie - Reality

I kinda feel bad for David Bowie.

1) This album isn't that great.
2) The persona here is a man dragging on, getting old, pushing, but needing to push harder and harder
3) As a kid, he got popped in the face so hard it BROKE HIS EYE.

I mean, the album's ok, giving off a slinky late-Iggy sheen, with plenty of Low-era bent-pop Enosifications. Reality-Bowie stalks the streets watching it whip by, half-present like Ballard's ghost. Sinatra at his darkest he evokes the darkness, like Donald Fagan at his best he evokes emptiness, crafting angular metalic curve from sound and vision.

But the execution is just clumsy, with kitchen sink production and rough transitions tainting some of the faster songs, and molasses lethargy plaguing the slower. Even the cool isn't quite pulled off; the instrumentation in particular sounds grasping, overmixed, overclose, as if in your face muttering I still got it. Tell me I don't!

Maybe the real reason I feel bad for Bowie is that he can't out-Bowie himself anymore. If this had been some anonymous old man who put this out it would be an underground classic, but its David Motherfuckin Bowie, and we can't help but see this ghost and remember the man 3/5

#780 Autre Ne Veut - Anxiety

Singing is so...boring. These days, a single vocal track is just a building block for piling vocal towers to the sky, a yarn for sonic sweaters of impossible richness and warmth, an acorn promising explosion into roots and branches and sounds beyond mankinds making. These days everyone's autotuned, bent and blasted, and rerereredubbed, whether by technology or just curious choices of composition. Problem is, motherfuckers don't know when to stop. TV on the Radio's neo-barbarshop barrage lent every track on Young Liars heft, but the band fell into leaden murk on every full-length thereafter. Dirty Projectors tipped from exhilarating to grating in the span of about songs. And don't even get me started on whatever it is Crystal Castles is doing.

Here though, we seem to have turned some kind of corner, as Autre Ne Veut has managed to make an album that truly plays with the voice, that is wildly playful in its use of effects and layers and sounds, an album that legitimately turns human voices into autonomous digital beasties and lets them run wild on the record. This is vocal fuckery off-leash, managing to make a skeletal, crystaline mystery that maintains warmth and accessibility, a sound that you're neither smothered nor alienated by. A subtle trick that, a trick made of tricks, all woven over bassy, glitchy R&B landscapes the buck and roil at the whim of some unseen elder god. This is a frustratingly unknowable pop-not-pop record of fractal complexity; that it's mostly listenable while being largely inscrutable is an achievement 4/5