#1083 Wavves - Afraid of Heights

By now Wavves's discarded most of the scrappiness that made Nathan Williams a readymade Pitchfork darling circa '08. Gone are the drone-on experiments, the shitcan production, and most of the frantic guitarwork, now Wavves takes its cues from the similarly-themed Surfer Blood, making tuneful, swooping crunchrock in the Weezer* vein, with streaks of Green Day sneering and Unicorns seeking. It's a perfectly pretty, fun little album, but much of the personality's been airbrushed out, the lyrics reduced to generalisms like "I'll always be on my own!" and "everything is my fault!".

Every once in a while Wavves peeks out from behind the mask, say on the frenetic clap-clap streaking of Beat Me Up, on the whirring frenzy of Lunge Forward, but for the most part it sounds designed to capitalize on some bizarre sweet spot of twentysomethings who think Weezer hasn't been good since the Red Album 3/5

*Williams is a self-professed Weezer fan and he really goes too far on the title track that swerves cringeworthily close with its "woke up, found Jesus" line

#1082 Death - For All the World To See

No, these guys aren't the lost first punk band*, but they are a band that made a wildly fun, inventive, hard-rocking album in the vein of the the MC5 and the Stooges (and, retroactively, Bad Brains). It's a legitimate lost gem of rock and roll.

If you haven't heard the hype, well you're in for a treat. Short version: three black brothers banged out 7 kickass rockandroll songs in the mid 70's, did a tiny run of a single single, and disappeared for decades. And now we have those 7 songs on an album and they're goddamn great, full of insights, riffs, swerves, and just straight up killer instincts about how to use rock to pump people's blood. Brilliant, proto-punk full of life and spontaneity, finely aged and righteously ready to enjoy today 4.5/5

* here's the easy argument against that storyline: is punk about playing loud and fast or about rejecting traditional notions of musicianship and quality in rock and roll? If it's the former, the Stooges and MC5 did everything Death did first, and they're the first punk bands. If its the latter, then these guys don't qualify, and the Ramones and Sex Pistols retain the crown: these guys are decidedly trying to make good music. And they succeed! There's nothing fundamental these guys did first, they just happen to be super fucking good at making vaguely punk-flavored music, and they were completely unknown until recently. And isn't that enough as a storyline goes?

#1081 Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel III

You get the sense that Gabriel listens to his own records, that they represent some kind of therapy for him, some externalization and disarming of his deepest apprehensions. They're listenable, and by his 3rd self-titled solo album downright pop in places, but there's something about their particular tone that feels bent inward to scratch itches the artist can't reach any other way.

Here its Eno-via-Low atmospherics, Springsteenian bombast (check that sax solo on Family Snapshot), and Casiotone twilight backbone, all shuffled together into paranoid themes, even the brightest moments greased with desperation and concern. It's an interesting artifact, bristling with subtle ideas and psychological crannies, but not really any fun as pop and not quite able to commit to pure concept. You can take a listen, but it isn't for you 3.5/5

#1080 Heart - Dreamboat Annie

The "lady Zeppelin" thing really does hold: its not just the spot-on-similar vocals and guitar touches (see Soul of the Sea (!)), its the overall scope of the songs, full of grasps at the infinite and crunches into the details via songs long and tall and broad.

But, while nothing on here is Black Dog-thunderous in terms of riffage, Heart bests the boys in plenty of other ways. The tonal and rhythmic cleverness of Magic Man is stunning, the frenzy of Crazy on You is unmatched, and the overall tone is massively more personal and approachable. This is music made by people for people, not just an abstract monument to the gods of rock, listenable, peaceful, exciting, and fun in ways 70's classic rock seldom was 4/5

#1079 Aphrodite's Child - 666

It's fitting that 666 recounts the book of revelations: Aphrodite's Child is more religion than band, aiming for nothing less than the elevation of humanity, utterly committed to its own convictions, off and running on a grandiose, mad musical crusade, defying song structure, length, tone, and all other yardsticks of good taste, taking proggy rock excess back to basics and up to the heavens all at once.

Along the way there are some legitimately beautiful passages, some catchy riffs, some engaging experiments, all aswim in some truly pretentious scope that vastly outreaches its grasp. The result is a difficult, occasionally boring, but mostly rewarding listen. If you're the type who can tolerate some self-important, somber spoken word, some aimless dronescapes, and monumental conviction to an artsy vision, this is a Babeling pile of tower worth a topple from 3.5/5

#1078 Feed Me - Calimari Tuesday

Feed Me's still tops at wielding the meaty squonk of dubstep while (Electric Mountain aside) avoiding huge drops and general brofisty bullshit, and he shows off a lot of tricks here. Some of it works: the clipped cutting of Short Skirt, the casiotone brass and breakdown on Ophelia, Orion's sweeping expectation-defying scope. But its all pretty bloodless, more Orbital than I'd like, and far too infested with trancy female vocals. Orbital's actually a good point of reference: this doesn't commit to bangers (Short Skirt and Chinchilla aside), and doesn't quite pull off chinscratching intricacy, and ends up being a vaguely homeless album of "work music".

Feed Me's managed to keep outside the box in a genre that's already died Dancepunk-fast. Good job knowing what not to do, and good job on the still-untouched Big Adventure, now he's just gotta decide what he is gonna do that's going to get him to the next level 3/5

#1077 The Mamas and The Papas - If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears

Get yer harmonies here! Get em by the dozens! Each guar en tee'd to have at least 3 voices in both genders! Why have one person singing when you could have 2, 3, even 4? Why have a mama when you could have mamas? Why have a mamas when you could have mamas and papas? Listen to this demo of the MnP technique, harmonies shooting high and low, fast and slow, all over folky songs ranging from trippy to psychedelic!

Frankly, the whole thing's is so forced, so slathered in singing and singing and look at all of the singing we're singing that it's impossible to salvage the songs themselves, steak drowning in sauce. I'm not even sure there's steak down there. It's damn near unlistenable 1.5/5