#1065 Band of Skulls - Sweet Sour

When the hell would you listen to this? Who would you even recommend this to?

The first track comes out fist-immediate and you're jazzed and jammed, and then everything gets all whispy and dripped in cooing girls and twisted up in forced little harmonies with their intricately planned little entrances. I'm all for branching out, but this sounds like the worst mixtape your brother ever gave you, an album that jackknifes between punk couldntgiveafuck and we-can-do-it community theater effortfest. It's so jarring as a listen that even its best moments (that opening song, the gorgeous little closer) get lost in the chop 2.5/5

#1064 Jagwar Ma - Howlin

A bristly-bright record of samply, housey indie electronica. There's shades of Manitoba and even Surrender-era Chemical Brothers here, but the songs are a bit more apt to shift, to evolve out from under themselves, making for a complex album that's moreinteresting, but that sacrifices a certain hypnotic purity to get there. Becky, Yorkey vocals sometimes intrude (the songs would be better served speaking for themselves) and the pacing drags on the second half, but its an enjoyable little curiosity of beats, melodies, and swishes in between 3.5/5

#1063 Fuzz - Fuzz

Ty Segall finds a way to put out more records than anyone, and his work with this band doesn't fall far from the tree. The sound is richer, the brattiness dialed down, and the songs focused on big, thick, buzzy acid rock riffage, but underneath there's that signature Segall sense of melody, unpredictability, and plain old rock power. Guitars are the focus, but don't miss that rollicking bass that gives the best riffs a killer one-two punch. A powerfully listenable, occasionally thrilling album for any lover of Black Dog-style pure riffs 4.5/5

#1062 The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request

A psychedelic record wrapped in psychedelia, reaching as deeply into the idea of being psychedelic as an album can. That kind of record. After an intro that leaves no mystery as the the album's preferences on the state of your mind, its a swirl of songs that sweep and wash, and after its over you won't remember a single melodic moment, not a single line of lyric, just a memory of sensuality and Jesus and a lot of sitar and such.

The sound is rich and the conceptual commitment is admirable, there's something unconvincing about the music. On reflection it seems like a record about psychedelia, showing all the things it can do, without really doing any of them well, inspired by the greats of the 60's but not altogether inspired 2.5/5

#1061 Ted Lucas - Ted Lucas

A quiet, thoughtful set of Plain and Sane and Simple Melodies, right out the opening track's title. Lucas is Nick Drake for the fairly happy, for the slightly weary, for those who want soothing rather than wallowing. Elemental tuneful tunes with minimal accompaniment, some with only tape crackle for a rhythm section, open like empty streets on crisp mornings. The second side focuses on two longer live tracks, meditative and meandering, with flecks of American Blues and Eastern mystery, acting as an echo of the simple whisps that came before. One of the most plain, pretty, truly folk records around 4/5

#1060 Jim Sullivan - UFO

Rolling bass, washes of strings, skitterey drums and then, over top: Sullivan's unstoppable voice. This is singer-songwriter music with a little muscle. This guy could have been a blues shouter if he'd wanted, but instead he makes lush, effortless, folk-flecked pop rock; Nick Drake without the wispy wistfulness, Van Morrison without all the overexertion. There's nothing altogether original here, nothing that will move you to to tears, but its a hearty soundtrack for dark, lonely nights 3.5/5

#1059 Dillard and Clark - The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard and Clark

A lush, intricate, harmonious country rock record that goes down smooth as a well-worn quip on a hot summer's night. The vocals are creaky and weathered, rolling over every gravelpock and hopeful weedy upshoot, then swooping into lensflare sunshine forever. Plucky, textured, rich, absolutely undeniably pleasant music 4/5

#1058 Silver Apples - Contact

On their second album, Silver Apples made the leap: they turned their buzzy, blowing oscillations, their loopy, droney degredations of pop, into actual songs. They went from experimentation to realization in one year, and while the world did a lot of catching up from 1968 to 1969, the Apples aren't running on pure originality on this album: these are hooky, strange rock songs that actually rock, all underpinned by those revolutionary, masterful, primitive synthesizer cycles. You and I is unbeatable with full pre-TKOL skitterey menace, and I Have Known Love is goddamned beautiful, a tragically, completely overlooked masterpiece of trippy 60's pop. A legitimate hidden gem for lovers of strange, inventive, unexpectedly catchy rock and roll 4.5/5

#1057 Silver Apples - Silver Apples

It's all about the actual quality in the listening. Being the first to do X with Y instrument only earns you some historical-value bonus bump on your base does-it-rock score on this blog. But jesus christ, these guys were first, a full on minimalist, looping, electronic, drone, post-rock, found-sound salvo in 19fucking68. Analog electronic tones pulse in earthy mathy cycles, skitterey drums prick structure, and psychedelic, dissonant harmonies weave patterns over top. There's nary a chorus, little movement or structure or movement, everything happening according to its own, truly strange devices. This is Can, this is Atticus Ross, this is The King of Limbs. 1968. Goddamn.

It's not altogether listenable, too strange, too off, too disinterested in the listener to be much fun; its not quite cool; it's just barely good. But its fucking fascinating to hear something this different, and it's a historical value bump with some real force: something this alien could only have been created by leaping wholly outside the approaches of the moment. This is an album that could only happen because there was no roadmap, grinning with thorns and bristles from a ravenous romp through the untracked 3.5/5

#1056 Hot Molasses - Machinery Making Animal

Listen here!

A quick hit of rollicking good indie rock fun, with Los Campesinos brattiness alongside decidedly Mass Romantic poppy richness, and a little Jenny Lewis prickle and croon. They're a tight little band with some whip-quick ideas, deft guitar work, good instincts and one of the strongest female singers in Boston. Eager to hear a fulllength (and their set as part of an unfuckingbeatable lineup at TT's on the 4th: Hot Molasses, Dying Falls, Peachpit, and Vundabar. Good god, Boston) 3.5/5

#1055 The Troggs - Trogglodynamite

Cover songs were the bread and butter of the early British rock era, but there's a right way and a wrong way. These are the kind of covers that make you say, before you know that they're covers, wow this song is really ripping off Bo Diddley / Chuck Berry: the kind of covers that don't exactly put their own stamp on things. Even the originals are pretty pale, like the singsong Small Faces-lite of No. 10 Downing Street. A strangely bloodless, by-the-numbers collection of early garagey rock songs - you'd be better off mining the sources 2.5/5

#1054 Dananananakroyd - There is a Way

Dananananakroyd cinch up their sound on their second album, weaponizing their formless exuberance into a sharpened slice of spastic, mathy post-punk, with some Future of the Left sneering, some Dismemberment Plan vulnerability, some Go Team propulsiveness, and a touch of straight up jagged disco guitarwork. It's less fun than Hey Everyone!, with nothing approaching the joy of Some Dresses (though Reboot might be a grower), but its a tighter, better album - worth a listen if you're into tight-wound, angular rock 3.5/5

#1053 Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

An album of lovers under white comforters, all silky motion and suggestion and shudder and curve, with dramatic lurches on the bookended strangeness of The Ledge and Tusk. A beautiful, understated epic that seeps in subconscious, softening any moment of beauty, spiking it with curious power. Settle in for long walks and nights without purpose and let it unfold at its own pace 4.5/5

#1052 The Blank Tapes - Vacation

Things start off promisingly enough - Uh-Oh's a bright, funky little opener, but then the album unfolds to reveal a band short on ideas trying to make a diverse album. The route to diverse involves some trite ideas ("Double Rainbow", a song about "a ringing in my ear" called Earring), some thin concepts (general plumbing of Oh No, Oh My! reediness, limp riffing on Tropicalia via Beck on Brazilia), and plenty of songs that show their hand in the first 8 bars and then have nowhere much to go, but keep going for 3 and a half minutes because, songs. And do I count 3 songs that mention rainbows on the first side alone? Ok, ok! Very sunny! But it's all Island in the Sun, a lukewarm drive past scenery painted on a backdrop downtown 2.5/5

#1051 Team Spirit - Live at the Knitting Factory

Why the hell would you release this? This is the kind of performance that leaves you telling people "but they're not that good live" for months afterwards, why would you put it out there for everyone to hear?

This EP's a reordered run through the 5 tracks on Team Spirit's debut EP, and it's a clumsy set, played too fast: guitar solos are half-there; lines are delivered like a checklist, the singer struggling too hard to keep up to bother putting any particular feeling or nuance in them; the whole thing gives the impression of a band that considered playing these things live an afterthought. Completely missable, even for fans of their thrilling debut 1.5/5

#1050 Monster Rally - Return to Paradise

More of Monster Rally's slurry, blurry minimalist electronica, twisting a few languid samples and beats around eachother to make little time-diluted spaces. This works better than his previous stuff, with better hooks, more inventive angles, and more evocative kaleidoscopic tropical soundscapes. Still, this too minimal to really engage with, every song packing to go to someplace it never sets off for. More damningly, it isn't pleasant enough to really disappear in, everything a little detuned and warped, a little uncanny and wobbled. Whether that's an artifact of imperfection or a grasp at evoking some stoned state hardly matters: there aren't any songs here and it works too inconsistently to work as an album 2.5/5

#1049 The Circle Jerks - Group Sex

Everything classic punk should be: straightforward, fast, hooky, dumb, clever, spiteful of all things in an early 80's California with plenty of things worth directing spite at. Songs in and out in a minute or two, album over in 25 or so, no fat, no frills, noisy, nasty fun 3.5/5

#1048 Thee Oh Sees - Help

One of the limp Oh Sees releases, too much tuneless crooning, meandering chugging, art rock grasping somehow combined with lazy songwriting. The guitar tones are solid and fuzzy and nuzzly and ragged as ever, but there's little of the drive and melody and rage that marks their best stuff 2.5/5

#1047 Daedelus - Denies the Day's Demise

A more consistently-paced, ethereal, subconscious take on the Daedelus sound, fitting for the loose Nemo's Dream theme. Telling that only the opening track has a real crisp central vocal sample to grab onto, and then its all chopped beats and strings and washes and sounds. Agreeable, but considerably less exciting than his later, more diverse stuff 3/5

#1046 Arcade Fire - Reflektor

Aren't we due for another disco bubble to burst? Daft Punk and Arcade Fire aren't exactly the Bee Gees, but they're your-dad's-heard-of-em big, and they've had two of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year, both indebted to disco, nicking its fundamental backbeat and icy cool without providing any particular dancability. At least the short-lived dancepunk thing of 10 years ago knew to emphasize energy over trappings. This is like post-dancepunk. ugh.

Like RAM, Reflektor is a bloated, compelling, frustrating listen; aloof and hollow and majestic. It's important. Professorial. The kind of album that would have statues of mythological people on the cover. The kind of thing a band with a show dress code would put out. When the big beats kick in on Here Comes the Night Time, you're expected to dance. And you'll want to! Its a great moment! But it feels like a directive more than an invitation, one many from the magistrates of rock.

When Butler mutters "do you like rock and roll music...?" at the start of Normal Person it feels like a taunt. What kicks off next is the only great song on the album, a thrilling stomper full of offkilter guitar lines, a slinky Bowie-worthy verse or three, and even a Blur-worthy skitterey kickout. It's one of the few moments when you feel like you're listening to a rock and roll band instead of a dissertation on rock and roll. "I don't know if I do..." Butler demures. Well no wonder.

Musically the album's overloaded and unfocused, but sure, so was Funeral and I liked that one just fine. And frustratingly, as a whole, its a pretty epic listen that will hold your interest for an hour or so. But there's no songs on it (Normal Person excepted), no heart, no voice you'd want to hear. It all goes back to the "would you want to be in this band?" test. Good god I bet this is a miserable joyless tour going on right about now, just look at the stage patter that drips from the opening of that one good track. Look. These guys put a fake live intro on one of their songs and intentionally made it sound like they didn't even want to be there. Maybe that tells you everything you need to know right there 3/5

#1045 Moon Duo - Circles

Repetitive clipclip beats keep time as the rolling bass and big guitar washes and muttered vocals roll in. This goes beyond Strokes / Interpol NYC post-punk and into a dampened Big Black territory, motoring along like listenable Velvets via Jesus and Mary Chain via A Place to Bury Strangers (see especially Sparks), but with some of that Roadrunner endless runner running. An exercise in repetition and atmosphere that never really takes any big chances, but ends up being an agreeable, trancy listen 3.5/5

#1044 The Outsiders (Dutch) - Outsiders

The Dutch band, not the British or American Outsiders, who banged out galloping, stuttering, Stonesey rock in the late 60's.

There's a strange little stunt at the heart of this album. The first side's a rollicking set of live songs packed impotent Roky Erickson mania; everything's a dozen BMP too fast and tense and falling all over itself, and it kind of just slips through your fingers, only occaisionally striking sparks. Woah, these guys were kinda loose, frantic motherfuckers live , you reckon.

So you flip the disc and the studio side's got the exact same problem: everything a 35th beat behind itself and under itself and the band's wheels feel like they're coming off, and new wheels are appearing from some secret compartment, and coming off, and some other compartment opens and wheels, gone, constantly, for 2 and a half minutes at a time. Is this a choice? You Won't Listen's as prescient of punk as the 60's got, Don't You Cry can't seem to keep up with itself, and its all, a bit off.

It's intriguing shit - their tense, batshit approach to tempos is either the thing that keeps them from being any good or the only thing making them great, and damned if I can figure out which. Skip the live side's thin mix and check out the studio side that'll clench your grimace into a smile 3.5/5

#1043 Todd Terry - Resolutions

Pretty fundamental stuff from the breakbeat innovator: the big bass, the looping synths, the one big vocal sample and those skitterey breaky beats, hard hitting-stuff that augers the Chemical Brothers. Each song sticks to its guns, works its samples over, drops in, drops out, punches the right beats, and solid pacing puts up a good albumwide listening. Some tracks overextend their samples (Merdahrah! Merdahrah! Merdahrah! Merdahrah! Merdahrah! Merdahrah! Merdahrah!), but the occaisional guest rapping and toasting keeps it from getting too predictable. Pretty good shit 3.5/5

#1042 The Range - Nonfiction

Evoking the emotive instrumental hip-hop of the late 90's, the melodic minimalism of footwork, and the lush perfection of Darkside's latest, this is strangely affecting stuff. Each song deconstructs a single sample as its backbone, chopping it into useable parts to plant seeds and nurture micro-scale nostalgia, while squiggled beats and gloaming synth evolutions outline the contours. There's nothing here that happens only once, and nothing quite happens twice. Look at Jamie, a cut that crafts the impression of a full fledged song out of strikingly few seconds of actual sounds, hyperchorus with the impression of movement, a hip hop Praise You.

That minimalism's nothing new, but its rare to see it packed into forms with so much emotional heft, all of the weight and space and majesty of an M83 track circa Dead Cities built from nothing but echoes, carefully generated, redirected, and rendered solid 4/5