Reviews

WilcoBlue Sky BlueNonesuchLove him or hate him, Jeff Tweedy is one hell of a hell of a songwriter. After alienating many fans with his avant-garde-fused masterpieces, he switches currents again, writing an album of straight-ahead 1970s singer-songwriter rock. Avoiding the hippie granola of the ’70s LA mellow-mafia, BSB’s rock/pop should make them superstars. Trevor McLarencategories: […]

Death Cab for CutiePlans (Atlantic) Death Cab for Cutie hasn’t made its best record. The lush Transatlanticism (2003) — the mainstream score that landed this new deal with Atlantic — came close. Closer still was 2001’s The Photo Album, tinged with more anger than usual and coiled up under tight production. As for individual song […]

BlackaliciousThe Craft(Anti-)From beat and word one of this record, you know something special is going on. No time is wasted on an intro or skit. No, “World of Vibrations” steps out with a big kick drum and thick piano chords to propel Gift of Gab’s message that, yes, something special is happening here. The impact […]

Woodhands Woodhands Independent There seems to be a new/old music in the air, released by an electronic-savvy generation whose sound is derived from an army of one-person bands creating in the school of hiding-in-their-basement-making-genius-noise. Presently based in Paris, with day trips gigging in Berlin and Belgium, Woodhands was formerly based in Vancouver and is programmer […]

OK GoOh No CapitolThere are those albums that need time to grow on you, and the ones that leave you humming their hooks well into the night. There are also those albums you love the moment you hear them and then that love quickly erodes into boredom and disinterest. Chicago’s OK Go means well with […]

Shout Out LoudsHowl Howl Gaff Gaff(Capitol)With their album released by Capitol Records, Shout Out Louds has been put in the undesirable position of being delivered as the next, next big thing. The bet is that with North America crushing harder on The Arcade Fire than a 11- year-old girl on Corey Haim in 1988, the […]

Four TetEverything Ecstatic(Domino)Initial reaction to Four Tet will ride on how you feel about machines. UK laptop maestro Kieran Hebden cleverly fuses mechanical and seemingly random elements to snare even the ear that associates beeps and buzzes with the call to drudgery. His achievement is showing how far it can go. The frenzied machine beats […]

The DarknessOne Way Ticket to Hell…And Back(Atlantic)The new album begins slowly with a gothic chant followed by a pan flute intro. Just as you are wondering whether you bought the proper CD — the sound of coke-snorting, guitar, a mighty cowbell. And the ROCK begins. Justin Hawkins remains the reincarnation of Freddy Mercury, hitting bum-squeezing […]

VariousChristmas Remixed 2(Six Degrees)A surprise among the Chrismukkah cash grabs of last season was Six Degrees’ first Christmas Remixed disc, one that bridged the gap between kids and their parents by combining old, Burl Ives-style holiday renditions with new, Dan the Automator-style beats. Volume 2 is less interesting from a remix perspective — the requisite […]

ClearlakeAmber(Domino)Clearlake is among the brilliant new guitar bands out of the UK, including British Sea Power and Idlewind. They have come to save a world trapped under the bloated corpses of warhorses like Oasis. Hailing from the English sea town of Hove, Clearlake follows in the steps of Blur and Pulp, but is far more […]

SpoonGimme Fiction (Merge)It begins with the channelling of T. Rex. This is Spoon’s latest full-length release — the last was Kill the Moonlight — and Gimme Fiction arrives three years later as a pleasant surprise. They did not blow it. Among the din of many bands’ outright theft of 1980s post-punk, goth and new wave, […]