#3041 U.K. - U.K.

Rock demands you move forward, but this too-late post-Boston // Genesis // Yes pop-riffage is good fun, with a hint of chin-scratchery as a stale bonus. Buzzy synths find a comfortable home among all the classical guitar and poppity bass and grasping vocals.

Backhanded praise is the only kind left for those late to a style built on newness. England, man. Lines are tight. My head did bob. Democracy among the parts, born of their impressive lineage maybe, makes for a snaky, enchanting listen for those with leftover patience for enchantment 4/5

#3040 Bruford - Feels Good to Me

God help me i kinda like this. the whitest take on jazz rock imaginable. and that's a statement. crashing against nothing, those scattered vocals so cringey, that forced bass pop and this is why we got punk but man, some of them tones really are sweet and dude _can drum. factory metahooks well made 3.5/5

#3039 10LEC6 - Bone Bame

Feels plastic in your mouth. I can't speak to authenticity, but something was lost in the process, leaving a stink of gimmick 2.5/5

#3038 Teenage Bad Girl - Backwash

Does nothing new, does a vast swath of old things well. Not shy with that bandname and pink/teal cover art. But fuckit. Dancable, energetic, weird; drawing on banging hiphop, big dumb house, dreamy French daftpunk driftaway. The big guitars buzzed back into overblown synth territory, dodging every cheap pitfall. Brainshortcircuit distilled, more then the sum of its parts, possibly brilliant 4/5

#3037 Boyscott - Goose Bumps

A tiny Broken Social Scene -- those plinking angularities, that understated lushness. Quietly gorgeous indie rock, so small and thin, a collectively washing-over. So unassuming, light off lakes, wind in leaves, sun through short pine needles, brought to sparkling life 4/5

#3036 Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe

The vaporwave visual aesthetic's tied to its sound, undeniable but hard to pin down. Say, here. Clip art. Incongruity. Geometry. Artificiality. That hazy, disconcerting unease. The music, too slow, melting but melodic. Chopped, overlaid, wrong, inviting you not to mind. The way you remember a time without remembering the details. A feeling smeared across 30 years. Never more clearly on display than on this minor classic. The new psychedelia, the past as anchor to stretch ever-progressing time 3.5/5

#3035 Sparks - In Outer Space

Sparks zag again, back into disco-flecked synthpop, retreating from pop culture into their most intimate album in years. A portrait of insecurity, discomfort with a world built on slickness and grace, bristling at the 80's just as it's getting started. Lucky Me, Lucky You's an understated bit of bittersweetness. I can't shake Boys and Girls in America - that trying, trying.

Musically, Outer Space straddles Heaven and Terminal well enough, but its the return of that restless grasping that carries it 4/5

#3034 Sparks - Angst in My Pants

Sparks find their footing yet again. Russell's toned down the vocal gymnastics, finding a rich, searching sound - the title track and Sherlock Holmes are as soulful as anything Sparks've done. Return-to-form adventurousness and refinements of their latest sounds abound: I Predict would have been perfectly at home as the best song on Big Beat or Whomp. And Moustache is just good Mint Chicks fun.

Some of the pop culture bits fall flat, but mostly Angst's inscrutably great. Shades of Blur at their best. Another baffling data point on the most untrackable career in rock 4/5

#3033 Sparks - Whomp that Sucker

After 9 albums of exploration, Sparks start to spin their wheels, settling into a vaguely campy, arch brand of poppy new-wave. The songs are hook-light and idea-light and borderline annoying, the repetition losing its magic. Outdone in every way by Terminal Jive and Angst 2.5/5

#3032 Thee Oh Sees - Smote Reverser

Oh Sees continue to soldier on in an increasingly barren rock landscape. Not much that's showy*, nothing that's grasping for a larger audience, just a ridiculously assured drive forward, riding that evenkeeled, tight, onward chug//thrash//spasm of guitar, bass, organ, classic Dwyer crooning.

Don't let me undercut. This album is great because the band is great, and this continues Orc's run of no-fat supertight trippy riffage. It's great. More so than most this feels like a sampler for a _blazing live show. It's just that it comes from this hyperprolific lineage (see also Ty and King Gizzard) where you don't notice them. That kid that gets A's all the time and what're you supposed to say with each new report card. Everything you could want from what's left of rock, may it never stop sustaining us 4.5/5

* on the other hand i mean like them drums on the end of Last Peace, say, that makes me apalpitate

#3031 Shirobon - Infinity

Do you want to hear chiptune versions of deadmau5 songs? I agree, the answer is mostly no, but kinda yes maybe? that's more or less the test for this one, ymmv 3.5/5

#3030 PrototypeRaptor - 3-1

Mostly: dubstep sucks and chiptune sucks but somewhere in that venn diagram some roundthehorn switch flips and I rather like this pile of buzzy nonsense. They find some Basement Jaxx indulgent throughline that excuses the crass means to the maximalist ends. Somewhere in the middle I picture this making the nerdier-than-I bob clumsier-than-I at PAX. They have a song called Mode 7, for fuck's sake. Also, PrototypeRaptor. woof. what a name 3.5/5

#3029 Mike Oldfied - Hergest Ridge

If there was any debate about whether Tubular Bells was overrated this settles it - a vastly better album, with more highlights, better flow, and none of the clunky distractions. Tubular Bells is also fine and good - just not a masterpiece so much as arriving at a time and place hungry for a savior. Where Bells chopped sloppily between ideas, Ridge breathes, develops, blossoms, with the hypnosis of ambient achieved through melodies so clean you barely notice their passing.

And its still an indulgent wank. And it's crazy that this topped any country's charts (good trivia there). But better than most if it's what you're in the market for, overflowing with a sense of wonder for the world, riding contours, gasping open into space, a sunrise where you try to suck in the moment and hold it hardened in yourself for later, ideally forever 4.5/5

#3028 Future Teens - Hard Feelings

Self-described bummer pop and there goes my whole take. Big, thin, whole-guitar chords over moaning resignation that finds some spark of hope in giving up. Sharply observed catharsis rock that knows the only way through is down 3.5/5

#3027 Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia Di Un Minuto

I knocked PFM as Genesis wannabes when I heard Photos of Ghosts, but their debut has its own magic. Still some galloping Nice-via-Knifeism, but its own raucous energy too, some real kneechopping synth beauty, and dozens of elegant surprises. This's a band possessed, pulled by unseen forces and pulling you along. Wildly strange and elegant and mysterious, complex without being showy. How prog outta be 4.5/5

#3026 Giorgio Moroder - From Here to Eternity

Wildly ahead of its time, pidgeonholable as disco only because of its era. Absent context, this is techno, electro, dancepunk, or a half dozen other styles it beat to the punch. Kraftwerk's robot rock with dancefloor pacing, as proto-Daft Punk as they come. So primitive and futuristic. Perfect album title. Man those synth buzzes are thick. Brilliant 4.5/5

#3025 Totalled - Demo

Listen / buy here!

Perfectly enjoyable, totally unadventurous indie bar-rock, the kind that sounds fun to play and let the chips fall where they may. The sheer fatness of Memorial Day's riff's a highlight, but there's not a lot else that stands out 3/5

#3024 Mike Oldfied - Tubular Bells

An experimental instrumental album full of strange sounds, remarkably cleanly-realized -- plus a few moments of truly beautiful, ethereal melody. The focus on the sub-song realizations in isolation, stitched together after the fact, is a double-edged sword. Each section feels free of convention, living outside of existing music. And the ones that work, do they work. Italian chef finger kiss.

But they don't flow into eachother especially well, and _woof some of them fall flat. The side-enders, especially, jesus. The naming of the instruments out loud as they come in is not a gimmick that's aged well, and the Sailor Hornpipe outro's a heinous spell-breaker. Classical-aping clunkers infiltrate most of the best stretches.

--

If you're interested in the history of rock at all, this is a real interesting data point. It _dominated the British charts for _years and sold 15 millions albums worldwide and man its a weird record. Assuredly one of the weirdest to make that kind of impact. It speaks to the post-60's hangover we were facing, maybe: all that hope for music and where did it get us?

It's a bit like how people today root for Tiger to best Nicklaus, James over Jordan.

We're all on team this-generation.

We need to have something that shows us the time we're living in is culturally valid -- that _we're culturally valid. And its hard to escape the idea that this album's success came from some variation of that desire, that lifting it up was some collective delusion that affirmed that we were living in the best time yet.

England in particular, still chasing the British-invasion-high of being the center of culture, seemed to _will this into being a _thing. Fast forward to Oasis. The hype cycle there's its own beast.

It's not that Tubular Bells isn't good, it has its moments. But the idea that two 20-plus minute formless sound-collages was must-have for the general music populace anywhere in the Western world, that it broke records reserved for Jackson and the Beatles, is deeply unusual in the history of modern music. A moment when art music was popular. Man that time seems far away.

--

Tubular Bells is super messy, wildly, uneven, and its legend is blown way out of proportion. But there's a real spark of originality there, and in the post-then-now-now, man you can how rare its particular gift was 4/5

#3023 Sparks - Terminal Jive

After their music-hall//stripped-down-rock//disco albums comes Sparks' new wave album. There might not be a band in the history of rock better able to adapt to the styles of the now (the Stones are an underrated also-ran in this category). And as always (Big Beat excepted) they bring a generous dollop of their own style, blending #1iH's disco with their own slinky sensibilities to end up with something synthy and insistent, something between Blondie, U2, ELO - one band I like and two bands I "actually-like" like. Good, lightly strange fun 3.5/5

#3022 Sparks - No. 1 in Heaven

I can't say more sincerely how much I respect Sparks for so thoroughly selling out. Or, more generously, adopting and adapting to the latest technology. Always genre shapeshifters, always chasing the center of the music soul-body, why not get in bed with the hottest dude in the hottest style (Giorgio) and start ruttin.

On a shrinking path, tightening up, cleaning up, Sparks seemed doomed as the 70s wound down.

But Russel gets back in touch with his most falsetto-drenched lothario-struttin self, backed by relentless, writhing pulses. No 1 in Heaven's at once so true to their early bravado and riding still-cresting wave of synths and driving beats. It's them and not-them in blinding fashion, in a way that splinters what the band is. Lesser bands woulda rode their own rut to nowhere, but here's this pulsing, strange piece of new 4/5

#3021 Sparks - Introducing

Undeniably part of the post-magic 2nd-era genre-driven (Beach-Boys-style pop) Sparks. But wildly better than it gets credit for (way better than Big Beat, say), full of classic melodies, arch asides, joyous convergences. Forever Young's a classic, staking a claim to the basic melody way before the better-known song of the same name, and Occupation's got a message various waves of post-punk are still catching up to. Also, I'm pretty sure Big Surprise is about transexual optimism. I honestly can't tell if these guys are meathead shitheads or pre-Queen queer geniuses or both 4/5

#3020 Greensky Bluegrass - Shouted, Written Down and Quoted

In an era of Wagon Wheel and Mumford its easy to be cynical about deep-feeling bluegrass pluck-and-shuffle. These boys get there though, on through to this hard old heart as old as they singing about being, some Josh Ritter bus to the land of feelings 3.5/5

#3019 Alestorm - Sunset on the Golden Age

Gimmicky pirate-thrash for the Dropkick Murphys set, but heck it commits. Wooden Leg's good fuckin fun. I'll bet they're a blast live 3.5/5

#3018 Sparks - Big Beat

Sparks' seventies low point - worse than the underrated Introducing. Soulless, somehow over- and under-produced, a thin, taut swing at stripped down rock that scuffs and polished when it should have left alone. Is there an undercurrent of closeted thrashing running through this? If so, should've committed; if not it's just humorlessly gross about women 2.5/5

#3017 Sparks - Indescrete

The sunset of classic first-era Sparks arc - our protagonist a shadow now. A bridge to the genre-driven second-era Sparks, dropping backwards into full music hall -- so many horns and strings and quirky flourishes.

Propaganda was peak repetition, riding that hypnosis right on the knife's edge of thrilling. There's flashes of that magic here, the relentless chug of Happy Hunting Ground, the drunken swoon of How Are You Getting Home. But it falters, our hero shuddering on loose legs. Most of the songs are thin, goofy jokes boring after the first chorus. A clumsy stumble. Telling that the cover shows the band crashing to earth 3/5

#3016 Nation of Ulysses - Plays Pretty for Baby

All the way around the horn, post-punk sharpness distilled back into punk, classic frayed, rattling DC freakout. Thrilling frisson 4/5

#3015 Overwerk - Canon

Big bendy buzzes and festival-ready bwoms (Toccata), but with those symphonic intros, apocalyptic choruses, giant church bells, you get the sense Overwerk's shooting for something bigger. Maybe making the case he should've gotten Tron soundtrack job over Daft Punk - Create and Canon Pt. 2 could've fit right in. A bit much at times, not sure if it wants to be important or fun, but solid work // nightdrive material.

Bonus points: after a couple dozen failed attempts at Hollow Knight's final-final boss I put this on in the background and took it down lickety split 3.5/5

#3014 Oren Ambarchi - Hubris

Part 2's a shrugging Microphonesey microditty and part 3 descends into artless two-radio cacophany. The only reason to bother is Part 1, with its 20-minute pseudo-accoustic take on ambient progression, metallic twang melting material and time 3/5

#3013 Japan - Adolescent Sex

Skulking, slinky glam slathered in wall-to-wall funk guitars and feisty production flourishes. Wobbly synth leads rub against silky backing vocals - there's a very specific population of music fan you can piss off by pointing out Japan kinda sounds like Steely Dan.

A combination of relentless repetition and surprising divergences make for an insidiously interesting album that might take a few listens to get into 4/5

#3012 Sparks - Propaganda

Storming forward, full of power and retreat, at least as good as the much-acclaimed Kimono. That repetition. Finding some anthem and riding it, it's as bracing as any of Sparks' previous swerves. Utterly confident. From the martial stomp of Reinforcements, to the frantic searching of At Home/Work/Play, to the gallop of Achoo.

--

So confident our protagonist retreats from the public eye, now a reclusive magistrate, no worlds left to conquer, beholden to his own rules alone, and quite indulging, sashaying around his glass-walled home overlooking the ocean.

--

And we can't escape the sense of a concept, of a kidnapping, of control, of conflicting feelings, Stockholm and its inverse. What more perversely glamorous than capturing something glamorous and holding it in your hands?

--

And so nonsense spills anew. There's something in Sparks early output that reaches into your lizard brain and awakens your imagination, that brings you to spin tales, that reminds you that life can be imaginary and beautiful and perverse and what you make it, that your every thought spins a consequence. Inspiring, in all ways good and ill. Absolutely one of the lost bands in all of rock 4.5/5

#3011 Sparks - Kimono My House

This one took me a few. But jesus the swagger. What a lost gem. The pinnacle of mania. Russell's swinging from the chandeliers, and the rest of the band gallops alongside This Town.., Here In Heaven, Equator -- the euphoria. You get this marriage of reckless energy and tight melody startlingly seldom in life, hold on tight to it when you find it. Around now I'm ready to call Sparks the most underappreciated band of the 70s. Where are these songs on classic rock radio? Too strange I suppose. The first four songs make Bowie and Bolan look like stiffs. Worth noting also are the two cd bonus tracks (Barbecutie, Lost and Found), two of the albums biggest earworms, predicting Propaganda. Delights both.

--

Our cult comes up from the underground and their leader storms the staterooms and ballrooms. King of the world, bedding every woman imaginable. Maybe not just women ---- all lost in a hedonistic haze. Our hero hasn't changed, as idealistic as ever, the world rising up to meet his steady standard of euphoric bliss 4.5/5

#3010 Sparks - A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing

A transitional spasm, as Sparks became a band proper, shaking off Rundgrens's minimalism, before they arrived at their fully formed world-conquering sound.

Uneven, but featuring some strutting, blinding glam highlights. The stomp of Beaver O'Lindy's irresistable, and the momentum of Underground/The Louvre's _fucking ____exciting. Jesus. Take that as a single 8 minute song and its one of the best of the 70s.

--

The image of this album is of our skulking dream from S/T, belting his last note from the empty stage, as the pale nobodys emerge from the shadows, drawn by the swaying confidence. France, catacombs, secrecy, redemption, a throwing off of the cloak - this is cult classic music, lurking music of the individual finding its foothold with the few. And you all know what happens after that. Stay tuned 4/5

#3009 DJ Shadow - Live in Manchester: The Mountain Has Fallen Tour

Shadow's got a great sense of pacing. This tour didn't feel especially live, but he still knows how to pull the ebbs and flows, how to wield earned familiarity. A bit too much banter, and not quite enough hitworthy grist to work with, but this is within a stretching reach of Alive XXX7, and that's a high water mark and a half 4/5

#3008 The League Unlimited Orchestra - Love and Dancing

Fuck yes. Strip it down. Dare was great, and this just pulls out the filet, chopping it up, saucing it down. A visionary bit of remixing that's a delight to listen to, fans of Daft Punk and LCD take notice. Gorgeously analog, composed with a DJ's effortless sense of pacing. One of the few important 80's records that you'd listen to in 2018 even if it wasn't homework 4.5/5

#3007 Tess Parks and Anton Newcombe - Right On

Parks' husky, forced-breathy vocals are unbearable. Points for Grunewald, where the guitars step up and pull that trip-hoppin horse into the briars but man Yo La Tengo where La is Exceso Jadeante 2.5/5

#3006 Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel

Absent the rest of the Burrito Brothers, Parsons holds no draw for me. His take on country feels polished and bloodless. Emmylou Harris's reedy voice does nothing for me, but at least this time it sounds like the two are in the same room. A session-musician-sounding whatever 2.5/5

#3005 Richard Betts - Highway Call

Steel guitar's my spirit animal, and nothing this smooth and sweet will ever fall far from my heart. A rambling, swooning piece of stumbledupon heaven, rolling high and low on sweet waves like slowmotion grain in the wind 4/5

#3004 Speedy West - Steel Guitar

An act of pure pedal steel artistry, bordering on showing off, rolling through every sound the beast can make, bending it in every direction there is. Spirited, playful, inventive, effortless; frantic and soothing in turn, consistently good clean fun 4/5

#3003 Buddy Emmons - Steel Guitar Jazz

Does what it says on the tin!

Hard bop going hard, shuffles like country triple time. And the horns and all get their due, democratically. But it's the pedal steel's debut, sounding like it doesn't belong at its own ball, but. . it's hanging. The marriage's never quite comfortable, but its fun to watch em try 3.5/5

#3002 Sneaky Pete Kleinow - Meet Sneaky Pete

This is not the showcase of Pete's (considerable!) talents you're looking for. The backing's pure plastic, the whole sound's breadclip cheap. Clipart country rock, until even the guitar sounds like a cleverly bent synthesizer 2.5/5

#3001 Julie Doiron - Julie Doiron Canta En Espanol, Vol 2

Canadian from France sings in Spanish - its the France that wins. A sultry dream, smoldering like memory and desire and regret, voice right against your cheek in the mix, crackling and overblown, spare guitars close and crisp behind, like a mysterious Microphones (connected by Eric's Trip). Sparse, clear, bracing, quietly gorgeous 3.5/5

#3000 Vive la Void - Vive la Void

Improvised-sounding electronic noodling, without the technical or melodic effort//talent necessary to make it work. Each song's got two parts set on loop, some breathy cooing, and some of the most tuneless, meandering synth leads you've ever heard. Occasionally atmospheric, mostly literally headache-inducing 1.5/5

#2999 Sparks - Sparks

Sparks rules, lots of ink on them incoming in the next couple weeks, I'm sure.

Despite the 5 toughs on the cover, Sparks' debut feels conjured from the imagination, a personal, private grasp at something beautiful. Their glammy, strutting sound's all there from the jump, Russell's manic vocals sliding all around the room. But Todd Rungren's production is so patient and airy; so big and yet so small. The whole album has music hall scope; broad, beautiful gestures echoing off faraway ceilings. But it's a dream of the stage, a rigger stealing a song after hours, an imagined audience held rapt by songs about the opera and the ballet 4/5

#2998 Mord Fustang - All Eyes on Mord Fustang

Wildly danceable near-dubstep, unafraid of big 4s and the occasional build. But with enough rough-edged buzz and textured frisson to keep it exciting, a sneaky retro edge lending cred -- better than most 3.5/5

#2997 Salvia Plath - The Bardo Story

Psychedelic layers and layers, each so thin, each barely there. There's so much space, in the mix, in the structure, between the beats. A spring day in bed under seven silk sheets, each hovering millimeters apart on an invisible breeze. Out of Baltimore, but somehow very Los Angeles, those endless numbered days smoothed out to infinity 3.5/5