#1350 Mister Heavenly - Out of Love

If you're familiar with Man Man and Nick Diamonds circa Islands then this sounds more or less like you'd expect, a fully formed Venn intersection of the respective dudes' styles, packed with stompy tunefulness, herkyjerk ramble, and a slightly mad swooning, crooning swoop. It probably falls more on the Diamonds side of things, mostly pretty with Honus Honus bringing a ragged, Seussian scuffle and the occaisional scuzzy guitar edge.

Largely unadventurous once the basic premise is laid out, this is right catchy in its small way, benefiting from repeat listenings to wear grooves worthy of its "doom wop" pedigree 3.5/5

#1349 Gilberto Gil - Expresso 2222

"Hey Caetano, what'd you do during your exile?" Gilberto asked over the clink of ice in balmy 1972. "Wow, that's pretty...you know, that's real nice. That's barely boring at all. Hey, totally unrelated, I gotta go make an album that sounds nothing like that"

Expresso is all hopped up and its on the express. It is not a river. It is going places, and fast. It is made of all kinds of different cars, and they go 2 2 2 2 when they're gone its all over and you watch them whip around the hill.

By 1972 the distorted guitars have fallen away, and nothing here is wildly, wildly inventive, but it bounces off things at delightful angles, full of ideas, of arcs of change in tempo in tone, pumping the brakes, popping up the front tire over the whoops. Doesn't quite rock, doesn't quite soothe, but it's a fun, skittering little record full of moments of small excitement and beauty 4/5

#1348 Caetano Veloso - Transa

Light, loose, lazy Tropicalia with Caetano crooning repetitive phrases over top of repetitive rhythmic melodies that evolve only slowly. More jazz, more blues, than rock: there're no screaming guitars, no blurting horns, this is all river wandering by, always the same river, always a different river, going by, not going anywhere.

It's useful as hypnotic backing, but not altogether interesting, it burbles and flows, for better or worse or neither 3/5

#1347 Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

Well, first of all, there's a backstory and a half here.

Strange that actual arsonists and murderers and suicide kings still resort to goblin voice. You'd think if you were actually as bad as you want me to think you are you wouldn't need to like, do a voice.

Those double-triple-infinity drums are the nexus, and the guitars and your pulse and the spiraling, dying universe get pulled to pieces trying to keep up. It all whips into a relentless, exhausting nightmare hurricane, with that razor-thin mix that I loved on Thorns (which features some guys who worked on this). Pure texture, with only the occasional bassline to carve a path. Those bass-outlined moments are the actual highlights, glimers of a dark rainbow in the oilslick abyss. Its exhausting for the uninitiated, but it also seems like something you ought to hear once, just to hear the soundtrack to some of the most actual sick fucks to ever make music making music 3/5

#1346 King Creosote - From Scotland With Love

Patient, spare little songs built on the wing of Kenny Anderson's lilting Scottish croon. Drums heartbeat alongside the barest twinkles of piano and accordion and guitar and whatever else is on hand, all so that croon can twang and wing through the reeds. And despite being a blueprint for a castle to house my hatred of the singer-songwriter the towers crow with a sound I can't but praise.

This is small and fragile and beautiful, packed with nostalgia of the half remembered - its faded postcard cover saying it all.

There are stretches that drag, and upbeat bouncers like Largs seem out of place (put there maybe to prevent even more dragging?) but if you can slow your pulse to match it, and find your way to the heartbreaking 1-2 of For One Night Only and Bluebell, Cockleshell, well, there's soul to spare here. An album for few times and perfect for those 4/5

#1345 Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends

Propulsive, angular punk rock with plenty of shouting and moments of soaring beauty. Too clever and hooky to work as brick-fist spinetapping, too nasty to be altogether enjoyable for its duration, this stakes out an impressive perimeter in the smart/dumb no-man's land that'll appeal to fans of particular eras of Pavement, Single Frame, and Fugazi 3.5/5

#1344 Radio Control - Should We?!

Listen!

Still love these guys, pure propulsive guitar/drum motoring, full of charisma and clatter. The mix is a little thin and I miss Hot Audio's ohshitcantstopohshit mania but it's still a hookin' kickin' little record from my favorite Boston two piece 3.5/5

#1343 Faces - Long Player

Mostly identical to its just-mentioned contemporary Rod Stewart solo album, with those raspy vocals way up front, everything simmering with patience over basic bar rock backing. The only real standout is the live cover of I Feel So Good that really does manage to rock, convincing you that maybe their live legend had some truth to it. The much-vaunted cover of Maybe I'm Amazed is inspiring only here and there. Still a better track record than the rest of this oversimple, trudgy album 2.5/5

#1342 Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story

Basically a Faces album with Rod Stewart's name on it, this 1971 album's perfectly passable, rollicking Americana, with highlights including the romping opening and the beautiful, twinkling Mandolin Wind. Covers of Dylan, Elvis, and Amazing Grace fare less well, putting too much emphasis on Stewart's underwhelming rasp. Totally competent, but whether you like this ultimately falls to your ability to get behind Rod Stewart - he's a lot better than you'd think if you'd only heard his soppy modern stuff, but I can't say I'd pick him to front my band 3/5

#1341 Lindstrom - Six Cups of Rebel

Touches of Orbital on this scattered album from my new favorite space disco superstar. You can hear Lindstrom trying to expand his sound, but he overreaches, each song stretching a simple idea too thin and never quite arriving anywhere with it. There's not even good album flow, and the whole thing just ends abruptly.

It feels rushed, incomplete, like Lindstrom tried out a bunch of new stuff and said "this is hard, and I can't make it work, I'm going back to what I know (see Smalhans)" and then just kicked what he had out as an album 2.5/5

#1340 Wilson Pickett - The Exciting Wilson Pickett

Best known as the In the Midnight Hour guy, Pickett's got a great, rough-edged voice, full of James Brown grit and Otis Redding roundness. Popping backing from an all-star Atlantic crew makes this a sunny, cracking good time 4/5

#1339 Willie Nelson - Red-Headed Stranger

I'd dismissed Nelson as a hippie folknik, but this is outlaw country through and through, full of frontier justice and lifelong sorrow. The backing's spare as a desert night, leaving just that reedy tenor, swooping like and oldtimed icecream scoop, drawing every note round and full as the moon.

Those big pure notes also did call up childhood memories of the You Were Always On My Mind tape my mom used to play in the car - ugh. Recommended, assuming you're not likewise encumbered 3.5/5

#1338 Lindstom - Smalhans

Whatever this guy's doing, it's magic, and it's working. Some combination of disco beats tuned to the pulse, infinite Shepard Scale tricks, and plain old kaleidoscopic production layers makes for a sound that you can't get ahold of, but that will hypnotize you into mellowed out stargate bliss. Like, you know, a version of that scene that's not terrifying. Like a fun version, with dancing.

Toes will tap, heads will bob, you might be prompted to outright smile. This takes all the spaciest parts of the recent (excellent) Todd Terge album* and does them even better. Highly recommended for fans of hooky, cool electronic music 4.5/5

* edit: turns out Terge mixed and edited this. well that explains that then

#1337 Grass Widow - Internal Logic

Better than most reverbey ladysinging kinda indie bands, with a little bit of that hard-edged New Order bass and general post-punk propulsion. The best bits are the ones where things are a little too fast, where the wheels wobble on the shoulder (Advice, esp), and the interplay of the singers spins ribbons, but the whole thing sounds a bit samey by the end, chimey chime, thrubby thrub, bum shitcha, bum schitcha, never feeling like it's really sticking its neck out 3/5

#1336 Coachwhips - Double Death

The same basic Coachwhips formula is in place: 1-2 minute songs that go blam, blam! blam, blam! and then BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM, with slightly different combinations of locked-in, shredded fuselage guitar riffs, ringing organs, and megaphone barking from Dwyer. Double Death's even more savage than usual though: less hooks, more relentless Doors-in-a-supersonic-garbage-disposal agony, with the sense that the whole thing was recorded in one blistering, sweat-soaked hour. Punishing, physically hard to listen to, but thrilling in its fearless recapturing of garage rock fuckyou 3.5/5

#1335 Leadbelly - Take This Hammer

Doesn't come a lot more legit than this, pure pre-roots, packed with character and pathos and grit and soul, just those huge full vocals with a spare jaunt of guitar as the only backing. The recordings breathe, the performances surge with nuance, the collection itself ambles around with uncanny life.

The highlights are the tracks that put Leadbelly himself front and center. The big ole choruses of agreement swoop with haunting flow, but there's nothing to compare to that desperate man at the heart of it all. It's not easy listening, it works its way in and becomes your experience, but if you're willing to meet it halfway you'll find yourself in a strange, powerful place indeed 3.5/5

#1334 John Coltrane - The Cats

Synchronized hooks set the stage, but quickly give way to horn and piano lines that kink and writhe like restless eels over beats that lean insistent into the current. The music's ever-scheming for your attention, this is no background music, no act of mood, this is slow-motion lightning that demands to be heard unfold, rewarding of attempts to unpack its lines 3.5/5

#1333 Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise

Minimal techno ambiance plus glitchy details, with lots and lots of bells and chimes allowed to run over eachother to create little harmonic knots. It's too busy and dissonant to work as ambient, not quite complex enough to be interesting, too empty of melody to be exciting - one for you chinscratchers, maybe 2.5/5

#1332 The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta

Keep trying to get into The Police. Can't. There's something too arch, too arms-length, too half-clever, everything you could not like about REM and Spoon, with a dollop of reggae and Sting's reedy little tinge besides. The instrumentals and other little reaches for art rock pique interest, but you spend most of the album waiting for something sincere or exciting to happen and nothing ever does 2/5

#1331 Pretenders - Pretenders II

The picture of a softmore slump - this retreads everything their bracing debut succeeded at and comes up a pale imitation. There's little surprise, little heart, the jagged edges replaced with fuzzy shimmers, the lyrics sanded down, all the edge and sexiness feeling put on. Shit, they even named it Pretenders II.

This is what I was expecting from the Pretenders when their first album pleasantly surprised me - it's a shame that pendulum had to swing back so fast. If this was their only album they'd done I could faintly recommend it, but I can't see any point to when its predecessor outdoes it so thoroughly 2.5/5

#1330 Elvis Presley - From Elvis in Memphis

Never was much of an Elvis guy, little overslick. But that big round perfect swagger works well as hell here, with the grit of man and the chorus of the heavens and infernal horns whipping you through soulful gospel-flecked blues and rock and roll, with flashes of outlaw country and brash Americana that call up the best moments of Exile.

Elvis lacks the everyman charm of say, a Gene Vincent, but here he reaches for something more than man and I'll be damned if he doesn't find it, this is soothing, exciting, bold stuff that I keep going back to 4.5/5

#1329 Etta James - At Last

The star here is James's voice, really is something special, full of fury and grace and power subtle and otherwise, a platinum arrow, a diamond train, a silken Gundam. It'll sooth what aches you like the blues should, though those soppy strings are sure laid on thick - you can see the hole where the jazzy, understated class they stole used to be 3.5/5

#1328 Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing At Baxter's

You gotta admire how much this thing commits to the whole psychedelic thing - there's barely a concession to be found. Which isn't to say that it's unlistenable, but it serpents all about itself, down holes and around foliage and disappears and doesn't necessarily come back to find you. The rhythms lose eachother, the chords seem incidental, it's sloppy and accidental - but charming in its distant way for it. If we're gonna make a rock record a trip, let's fucking go for it, and whoever's up for it can come along and the rest won't get a backwards look 3.5/5

#1327 Hospitality - Trouble

Pure indie pretty-with-girl-singer, all atmosphere and angles, Broadcast with less overt electonic fuckery, a little bit of Spoon minimalism, all with occasional hitch and twist, sounding like the less-experimental side of Radiohead circa Hail to the Thief.

Which is to say, not all *that* experimental, but it's just pretty enough, just interesting enough, making a right turn to itself just often enough, that it's a damned solid listen if you're into this kind of thing, heck, even if you're as burned out on this kind of thing as I am 3.5/5

#1326 Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

William's twangy coo-and-yelp, detail-musing over brushy Americana backing - it's almost awful. It's just this side of Sheryl Crow, one step away from a county Alanis Morrisset, and yet it just barely works. Where others of the kind feel performative, I buy this.

The songs're still pop, lockstep verse-chorus, the voice over-inflected in places, but there's a crack of gravel, a sweep of sky that makes it worth hearing even if it couldn't be farther from your wheelhouse 3/5

#1325 Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power

Speaking of SFA: never did give this album a fair shake despite loving their first 4 or so.

I just got done talking about how I see the late-Beach Boys resemblance, and that's even more true here: this is all vague washes of vocal harmony and reverb and just-left-of-center chords, but other than Golden Retriever, there's barely a note on this that rocks and about zero that will stick with you. It's pretty, but it's watercolor, no edges, no particular nerve, sure to disappoint anyone who fell in love with their splintering creativity circa Radiator / Guerrilla 2.5/5

#1324 The Beach Boys - Sunflower

I never got it when people said Super Furry Animals sound like the Beach Boys, but it's here: those harmonies, that cushioney production, that wriggling experimentalism.

There's subtle diversity all throughout Sunflower, throwbacks with varying reach, sounding like The Creation in places, with touches of R&B revival - it's no wonder it fared better in England than stateside. When it veers away from rock and roll though, it falters - too-late gestures like Add Some Music To Your Day, Tears in the Morning, and Cool Cool Water just sound cloying and dopey and out of touch, breaking up any kind of atmosphere. Just wasn't made for these times 3/5

#1323 Grisalappalisa - Ali

For Icelanders, these guys sure do a mean impression of a Krautrock band, that motoric, those sweet squonky horns, that general wild experimentalism, a song called Kraut I G for fuck's sake. If you're into that whole scene, these guys are doing it better than anyone else today, this is propulsive, hypnotic, maniacal stuff, with hints of Man Man's meltdowns and Menomena's automatically derived, uncanny song structures.

The whole thing kind of goes out with a whimper, without any particular arc to it - but then again, I don't understand a word of it. Maybe it's an epic tale! 3.5/5

#1322 Toots and the Maytals - Funky Kingston

Proof that not all reggae has to sound exactly the same as itself, this works in funk touches, psychedelic rock gestures, and dashes of actual excitement, especially on the brilliant title track. And for my money, philistine that I am, I'd take Toots's raspy cry over Marley's moan anyday.

Still, it's reggae, so there's about zero changes in beat, tempo, or dynamics on the entire album (other than on that title track). There's nothing here that dares snap you out of the long moment, so get yourself in the right state of mind 3/5

#1321 Miami Horror - Illumination

These guys claim prog rock influences, but that's interview talk that grossly outsteps what's on the disc.

What's on the disc is bouncy 80's revivalism with flashes of house beats and guitars, which is to say: the same thing as a lot of bands these days, mining Air airiness and Ratatat buzz, sounding like a Cut Copy b-side often, reaching past "indie rock" and "pop" as signposts seldom. It's fine. Pretty, sunny, but this has all been done to death twice by now 2.5/5

#1320 United Nations - United Nations

Word is that this is some kind of joke band, but I don't see it. Maybe somewhere deep in the screamed shitstorm of words there's some cute message, I have other things to do. The band's anonymity and flak from the actual UN seems completely overblown, pure publicity stunt.

So what we're left with is the music, which is actualy pretty solid at face value, shitkicking hardcore tipping into black metal unintelligibility, with endless sheets of guitar noise and drum bursts, Single Frame turned to 11, with moments of graceful melody.

If there's a joke here, it wasn't well make - whatever happened instead's actually pretty fucking exciting 3.5/5

#1319 Pretenders - Pretenders

If you haven't heard this one it might surprise you - I was expecting something much more straightforward, some real eh oh let's go kinda punk, real straightforward, real safe.

What I found was was a lot nastier, jagged with rough edges, whiplash start-stops, stuttered little "IDontGiveAFucks", Blondie somewhere past Hanging on the Telephone. Chrissie Hynde sounds like a chick who'd fuck you or cut you or both in either order, her vice silky and knotted, while the guitars slash and circle like sharks.

It's a genuinely exciting album, don't know how I missed it up till now 4.5/5

#1318 Linda Ronstadt - Heart Like a Wheel

The centerpiece is Ronstadt's voice, strong with a quaver that doesn't bother me as much as that kind of thing usually does. Modern ladies just take this kind of thing too damn far.

Beyond that it's all very sweet country atmosphere, full of strings and slides and plucks a-plenty, chord changes in just the right places, kicking up its heels a bit on the second side. It works for me. It's just so goddamned pretty, I can't help it. Soothes my soul 4/5

#1317 Akron/Family - Akron/Family

Existential, experimental, spare, bracing freak-folk, Animal Collective gone The Microphones. This tackles the smallness of us all, the beauty in the small moments, working up from small tunnels with intricate devices with small purposes, music bristling with the washes of forgotten days, the clicks and squiggles of shiny memory moments.

It's a masterpiece in the PT Anderson mold - grasping for so much, getting there with meticulousness and ugliness and beauty, exhausting in its delivery, a once-and-never again kind of thing for most 3.5/5

#1316 Eric Clapton - Slowhand

Clapton goes folksy, songs about small moments, landing somewhere between Paul Simon and Tom Petty. There's guitar craftsmanship, but other than on the 9 minute The Core, it's all very small and fireworks-free. There's a touch of blues grit here and there, but mostly it just sounds watered down.

Don't have much use for more agreeable songs about girls 2.5/5

#1315 John Talabot - Fin

Elliptical clippy beats and under morose surges and chords, it's atmospheric, but like a room packed with clove smokers, a little sickly, a little unpleasant. There's too little motion in the songs, everything hanging in hazy clouds 2/5

#1314 Herbert - Part 6

The first of this EP's 4 songs is a bit of a red herring, a steady, icy beat and soaring, trancy vocals over top. It's dancable, almost pop.

But the remainder is pure minimalism, brutally chopped and rechopped single word samples looped on and on, borderline glitch, minimalism with arcs, strangely brilliant in its listenability, fracturing loops vocal, semi-vocal, and otherwise against the woodgrain and laying out the strips into a latice that works despite itself.

3.5/5

#1313 The Chambers Brothers - The Time Has Come

This incredible record was sitting at the bottom of the rock and roll family tree when it got unceremoniously yanked skyward, hitting every branch on the way up, bending back blues, gospel, hillbilly music and R&B, singing up with soul, disappearing into the psychedelic vortex that is that bonkers 11-minute near-title-track.

The singing runs 3+ deep and hits every note just so, with plenty of rollicking bop and deep feeling heart along the way, a thrill for any fan of rock history that wants to see all its ancestors woven together and thrust into the 60's in full bloom 4.5/5

#1312 Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Nanda Collection

All bounce, all beat, all chiming little vocal chirps, a computer-generated cartoon with color set to 11, rendered as sound. As much as its bwants-bwants-bwants-bwants at the core, it's never boring, with so many Pollackian slashes that it reads as neon, chaotic perfection, all cycling fractal renders.

Honestly? I think its fucking brilliant, even as its pop as pop as pop, slathered in Japanese autotuned angles, it manages to glisten with so much electric energy, so many laser-popped crystal facets, that you can't possibly dismiss it 4/5

#1311 Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse

Still got a lot of that Bathory goblin voice on here, but this is a richer, more sweeping take on black metal, full of backing washes of chords and choral whines. It thrashes batshit fast, sure, but it's less of a knifefight and more of a blood-soaked campaign of brooding revenge, cackled like skyward lightning from moon-cracked chasms, generating unease more than outright anxiety. Powerful stuff, if still not exactly my cup of tea 3/5

#1310 Ray Charles - The Genius of Ray Charles

What can you say? Dude can sing, with all the swing you can muster, all the natural talent nature can manage, swooping over top of 6 big band rompers and 6 string-soaked ballads. It's understatedly masterful stuff, with no crushing moments, just a rock solid professionalism, pure soul, pure getting it, utterly effortless 4/5

#1309 Chicago - Chicago Transit Authority

You know what? I liked this album. I liked it a hell of a lot.

Bigole shouting, some bigole horn riffs, some jammy flourishes, all over a populist classic/soft rock backbone with just a little bit of the old psychedelic sclerosis.

These guys are showmen, they get you on board with that intro and they take you somewhere - it's a right well-named album.

There's nothing you can reasonably hate about this and plenty plenty to love 4/5

#1308 OOIOO - Feather Float

No big surprise that OOIOO come from Boredom's drummer Yoshimi P-We - it has all the motorik-and-then-the-kitchen-sink beatmaking that the motherband thrashed in.

The best tracks are the ones that ride that Kraftwerk onandonandonandon, though a couple of those are spoiled by overprominent oversimple little sample punctuations.

There's some of that machine consistency, but then there's huge gashes and slashes of "other", plenty of shouty breakdowns, plenty of rockist moments, plenty of polyrhythm mindarangers, left turns within left turns within left turns, pre-post-Deerhoof screeeeeeeeeeee's.

Not quite listenable consistently enough to strongly recommend, it's a bonkers technicolor trainride with just enough direction to keep the whole thing on its bouncy, sweverevering little track 3.5/5

#1307 Pond (Germany) - Transponder

Spotify recommended this, probably on accident, confusing it for one of 8 other bands named Pond.

It's more classically-inclined electronica without any particular soul, sounding very well crafted, sounding written on fucking paper first. Fuckthat. It's not helped by the clumsily executed "Twin Towers Tragedy" nor the (jesus) electronic version of select Pictures at an Exhibition segments.

This is what happens when you try to make music something it's not. Electronic music is not classical music. It is not prog rock.

This is a calculated, clumsy, perfectly fine, totally empty album.

Just when I thought I could trust you, Spotify 2/5

#1306 Ted Leo and The Pharmacists - Shake the Sheets

Well fuck, I don't know.

It's a Ted Leo album, so obviously it's a hooky little motherfucker, full of shouty little exaltations at the basics of 20somethigish white existence.

That sounds backhanded, but do know that it does rule. It's punchy as fuck, full of that live energy that makes his live show one that "you haven't seen him live have you what the fuck get your ass to songkick and when he's within 100 miles get your shit on down".

Leo's a bonkers good songwriter, and here he's at his most raucous, the album full of wonderfully raw edges, Spoon without the giveashit, full of understately FUCKYES Chris Wilson drum moments, only undermined by the fact that it sounds as good as several of this other also-pretty-fucking-good albums, just lacking one of those whatthefuck killers like Timorous Me. Still, still, god, have you not listened to Ted Leo? Start here, good a place as any 4/5