#1019 Prins Thomas - Prins Thomas 2

Prins's brand of endless electronica is back, but it's shed that krauty churn that once made it so exciting. Housey 4's have overtaken the motorik 3's, and the propulsive bass has been replaced by a more static, synthy imposter. This is slow-shifting, icy, trancy stuff, better for sitting and bobbing than tilting through the night, lacking much of the offkilter heartbeat that made Thomas's debut so special 3/5

#1018 Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II

Nirvana's unplugged nods notwithstanding, these guys are grossly underappreciated as influences on grunge and early indie: that raw guitar, that ragged vocal, those batshit lyrical turns, those stylistic dabblings, that general sense of strain; you can hear the spine laid bone by bone, from Pavement to Nirvana and right on through to The Men. And it's not just guitar crunch, it's little country touches and pretty instrumental interludes and adventurous detours that keep the listening experience exciting and unpredictable, recasting the excesses of hardcore punk and Sonic Youth experimentalism downright listenable. A thoroughly enjoyable, borderline brilliant album that was startlingly ahead of its time 4.5/5

#1017 Arthur Alexander - You Better Move On

On this album of lovelorn, country-flecked soulful pop, Alexander croons over longing and loss and a touch of what's in between. His voice is round and silky and bowling ball bold, and while the production and songwriting blend in with the Spectorism of the time, his long list of coverers and alleged admirers lends credence to his talents. He's been cited as a secret influence on the likes of The Beatles and The Stones, and yet its all pretty waterey to the modern ear, lacking any particular poetry or punch 3/5

#1016 Ulcerate - Vermis

A crashing clatter of guitars and drums and roaring that arches and crashes like waves, all a singular force, details whipping like whitecaps subservient to the ship-crushing surge of the song's overarching lurch. Taking it in at a soft-focus listen is an experience, as you're pushed and pulled, notes themselves impacting subconsciously.

As batshit, doomy, post-thrash goes, its more exciting than most, but it's decidedly not my scene 3/5

#1015 Potty Mouth - Hell Bent

Blunt instrument indie pop-punk, all garagey chug and nasal vocals sneering across heartfelt frustration. Start-stops and bass drops provide low-level swerves, but it's an album so simple and unassuming, so compressed in the mix, that it doesn't make much of an impression, a quiet weird kid in the back of the class 3/5

#1014 CVRCHES - The Bones of What You Believe

It's obvious why these folks are the new hotness: start with daydream-ready, mewling cute-girl vocals straight out of pop proper; add every trick M83 ever used to circumvent reason and trigger pining for a collectively-invented romantic 80's innocence. Indie kids get momentary escape from their vacantly effortless lives. Profit.

It almost works, but it doesn't even make any effort to hide the strings. It's all baldly manipulative, so brazenly pushing the right buttons: cue doubledup synth loop, trigger synth tom breakdown, insert guitar solo, overlay male vocal counterpoint copied straight out of Cut Copy. It's a seven layer dip of 80's re-re-revival horseshit. These are old tricks in 2013, every last one of them, and doing them with a girl singing doesn't pass for innovation and doesn't keep it from sounding stale 2.5/5

#1013 Coachwhips - Peanut Butter and Jelly

Thoroughly relentless and dissonant, banging along at relentless speed, integrating more clash and clatter and noise and less distinct punishing guitar lines than their earlier stuff; this is, yes, a Coachwhips album. This is the sound being taken as far as it can go and still make songs, the kind of creative thrashing needed to stay vital and evolve into something as vital as Thee Oh Sees years later - kick punch flail - out in 20 minutes - peace 3.5/5

#1012 MGMT - MGMT

I was among the few who appreciated Congratulations, finding it more interesting as a whole than the non-single filler that clogged MGMT's debut. But here the boys have gone a step too far, gone pure sheer sheets of color, flickering in the wind, pretty and formless.

There are no songs here. Voices quaver out from pillow forts, drums beat over blanket mounds, and languid puffs of pure production waft in the air without forming into anything with any point, purpose, or direction 2.5/5

#1011 Islands - A Sleep And A Forgetting

At least Islands had the decency to let us down easy. From Return to the Sea's inevitably-disappointing-but-surprisingly-solid post-Unicorns effort, to Arm's Way's great-first-five / awful-last-seven hyper-frontloaded comedown, to Vapours' crap-but-for-the-title track barely-thereism, to here.

We knew this was coming.

At last we've arrived at the inevitable endpoint of our trajectory: from a half-album, to a quarter album, to a twelth album, to a non-album: a waterey lump of crooners without a single memorable moment.

It's over and I felt nothing at all. At least it didn't hurt. 2/5

#1010 Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive!

You almost had me, Frampton. You almost convinced me that this was a modest gem unfairly dismissed by the rock smugagencia, some second cousin of Countdown to Ecstasy, some estranged nephew of Fragile, with enough "hey, that actually kind of rocks" moments to crack my assumptions. But then you sucked. And then you sucked again. From Winds of Change to Baby to I Love Your Way, and most of what comes between, this is a mopey, reedy, waterey slurry of songs 2.5/5

#1009 Jacuzzi Boys - Jacuzzi Boys

Breathy, reverbey, distant cool: at its best Jacuzzi Boys' latest is chugchug rock and roll dotted with streaks and flourishes, all slow-motion spin-art. When they slow down (the damp late-Shinsing of Dust) or try to find a 3rd gear (the blandly noisy Rubble, crippled by an unconvincing chorus), it doesn't suit them. If you're going to keep us at arms length, lounging behind all the echo and smoke, you're not going to get the benefit of the doubt. You're going to have to be perfect. You're going to have to be very, very cool. Sometimes the Boys pull it off, but not often enough to recommend this album with any vigor 3/5

#1008 Factory Floor - Factory Floor

You can hear those DFA post-dancepunk clipclop beats a mile away. Here they are, back again, the vocals a bit more twisted, the song lengths a bit more varied, but the basic blueprint wholly intact: the knobtwiddle synth loops, the casiotone drum samples, the elliptical headphase. It's perfectly listenable, a modest tweak of a well-worn sound, a honing of the feel that inspires bristles on occasion (dig those bare, brazen synths on Fall Back, the hissy clips on How You Say), but surely DFA's got the guts to cast its line a bit farther afield than this in two thousand and thirteen? 3.5/5

#1007 The So So Glos - Blowout

Blowout spends about 30 seconds worshiping the 90's before it shatters into the 00's, exploding kaleidoscopic and crashing through a hall of mirrors of bratty poppunk, Japandroids soaring, hothotheat post-ska, Devo-via-Polysics spazism, Futureheads-via-Dananananakroyd shitkicking couldntgiveafuck, with a blownout snare kick popping the whole thing off careening, and closing Lost Weekend, bookending those tracks as a killer four-part opening epic disguised as 4 songs, before the title track's blunt instrument raveup shatters any shell of pretension. On and on it goes, gone before it's here, pure reflection building memories out of memories, grasping for the now and the now and the now 4/5

#1006 Guided by Voices - The Bears for Lunch

Guided by Voices, all cleaned up: studio-quality sound and normal song lengths abound. There's still some hooky moments here, but for every She Lives in an Airport, there's two Hangover Childs, just churning in place with nowhere to go, hanging out for a couple minutes past their welcome and then ending with a whimper. The production makes for some interesting textures, and most of the songs are built on buzz like tiny Lo La Tengos, but there's little excitement in the moment and little that you'll remember once its over 2.5/5

#1005 Electric Light Orchestra - The Electric Light Orchestra

ELO's first album's overtly symphonic, brimming, positively slathered, in strings and horns, sometimes consisting of nothing but for minutes at a time. Along the way are lyrics that are appropriately grand in scale, with deliveries to match. The sound is alien and eternal, the chords not quite familiar, the pacing not quite sensical, everything a bit uncanny and grand in a way that beckons onward without quite ever letting you get comfortable, will o the wisps over hills. A strange, mad first effort from a band that's hard to ever get your head around 3.5/5

#1004 The Last Hard Men - The Last Hard Men (2001 version)

A collaboration between the Pumpkins' drummer, Skid Row's singer, The Breeders' guitar player (Kelley, not Kim), and The Frogs' guitar player (Jimmy, not Dennis). Which is a supergroup in the sense that Robin, Kato, Bat-Mite and Captain Marvel would be a super-squad, featuring the most famous member of B-list bands and the second-most famous member of some A-list bands. The result is more or less exactly what you'd expect: disjointed, uninspired, and bloated.

Songs alternate from disappointing Flemion-penned wisps of 90's alt rock to not-unexpectedly mediocre Breeders outtakes, with some kinda fun, weird covers that don't do enough justify the album's existence. The "interview" sections string a fun, spooky thread through the album, but in the long term its likely just 5 extra taps of the skip button.

The main appeal is how disarmingly sloppy it all is, sounding like the folks just showed up in the studio for a few days and halfheartedly banged out some songs, cause, why not? I might even recommend hearing it once? But its a middling recommendation at best 2.5/5

#1003 Coachwhips - Bangers vs. Fuckers

Don't be fooled by the title: this isn't an album where some songs are Bangers and some are Fuckers: every song's a Banger and a Fucker, and each one's fighting itself. If Get Yer Body Next Ta Mine was John Dwyer's pre-Thee-Oh-Sees sound as a raw iron ingot, this is that ingot tempered into a crude blade and jammed earward again and again, the sound honed into pure garagey aggression with little art or remorse. It's relentless, exciting, exhausting, and at least a little admirable for its pure focus on the task at hand 4/5

#1002 Lemuria - The Distance Is So Big

A pretty, hooky boy-girl indie rock band. Heard of those? This's prettier and hookier than most though, with brisk pacing, some gorgeous harmonies, and a meatier guitar tone than usual, elevating this past Matt and Kim territory and on up to a less-self-important version of early New Pornographers. Every time you try to dismiss it, it justifies itself, with some clever turn or hook, keeping em coming until you have to admit they do what they do good 4/5

#1001 Kandodo - k2o

Utterly spare, atmospheric post-rock that drones onward like comatose Explosions in the Sky, like sedated Godspeed, like the opening moments of any operatic 20-minute guitar instrumental stretched outward themselves for 20 minutes, building towards no climax nor any expectation of one. Guitar paeans melt as they form, and then loop and overlay, backed by only the most basic beats, creating senses of texture and time more akin to Brian Eno or Pop than rock.

As music of this kind goes, it's good if unexceptional. The closing Swim Into the Sun, in particular, is effective at creating a headspace and then letting it fall away, leaving nothing. Music for long journeys, in cars or otherwise 3.5/5

#1000 Coachwhips - Get Yer Body Next Ta Mine

Surprise 1000! Over the last couple months I found 5 (five!) albums* that I'd heard and forgotten to list and only recovered and reviewed retroactively via the magic of my last.fm scrobbling. Numbers be all fucked - some day I might try to write a script to fix em.

So. Coachwhips.

My obsession with Thee Oh Sees has been pretty well documented on this blog, so what to do having finally caught up with their torrent of output? Get cracking on John Dwyer's earlier bands!

The same basic Oh Sees parts are in place: organ drones, garagey thrash, staccato bullhorn screeds, and general start-stop guitar madness. These are parts stripped from the Chevy though: there's no dissonant vocals, no K-records tininess, no extended jams, just unadorned 2-minute garage-punk glory. This is a nascent, thrashing version of the beast that would devour worlds, just pure revival of the 60's finest moments, and its a thrilling, exhausting listen 4/5

* Specifically:
525a The Frogs - It's Only Right and Natural
526a Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
526b The Frogs - Bananimals (sorry Frogs!)
618a Feed Me - Feed Me's Escape from Electric Mountain
921a The Rolling Stones - Between the Buttons

#994 Pink Frost - Sundowning

Heavy late 90's guitars! Not dead! Piled one on another on another, lined up end to end to forge an endless riff backbone that the occasional breakdown or doubledown can branch from.

I've read comparisons to early Smashing Pumpkins, but I'd take this one more step down the chain and go with the Pumpkins-aping Silversun Pickups*: there's a singlemindedness to the guitars and the writhing sentiment: Pink Frost found a sound they like and apply it with furious diligence, but haven't really probed its boundaries with any particular eagerness. Find a riff! Repeat! Repeat! Take a break from it! Bring it back! Bury some vocals under there saying nothing in particular and hope that riff's enough!

I like overlayered guitars; I even like these particular riffs; but its not enough to particularly keep my interest. We'll see what their next one brings: can they find kaleidoscopic new places to go with their guitar talents? Are they the Silversun Pickups or The Smashing Pumkins? 3/5

* or even Oceania-era Smashing Pumkins, when they'd kind of given up on doing anything especially interesting

#993 Electric Light Orchestra - The Night the Light Went on in Long Beach

Reverence for the past is part and parcel of prog, but normally it's all the way to the way back: some grasp at classical music's unassailable legitimacy. This live album's got reverence, but first and foremost for rock's origins, complete with a Jerry Lee Lewis cover, a Beatles cover, and a Chuck Berry cover (the nose-thumbing Roll Over Beethoven). But then, also In the Hall of the Mountain King, Orange Blossom Special, and a full on violin solo. All told, only about half of the album's songs are originals, making for a kaliedescopic musical experience, all expertly performed, all strangely brewed, all in defiance that genre matters all that much, positing that rock raucousness and classical intricacy can stand on equal footing.

The resulting actual listen, mission statement aside, is uneven, disjointed, and reasonably exciting despite it, with the proggy originals providing a squirrelly backbone. You're not sure ELO even really knew what they were doing, but the flailing's a heck of a thing to hear 3.5/5