Criticize This!

ALBUM REVIEW: The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

The Raconteurs
Consolers of the Lonely
Third Man, 2008
**** out of 5

Many successful musicians have what could politely be called follies; vanity projects which have the faithful shaking their heads ruefully and hoping for the next proper release to arrive all the sooner. Some of the more notable examples of this leave-of-senses taking include both of Lou Barlow’s Sebadoh side projects, Folk Implosion and Sentridoh. As well, we have Bill Wyman’s classic WTF moment with Je Suis Un Rock Star? And finally, any solo project by a member of The Who could be considered the grandest of follies, especially those releases featuring the atonal singing of patented exploding drummer Keith Moon.

So when The Raconteurs made their appearance a couple of years back with 2006’s Broken Boy Soldiers, it looked pretty much like just another piece of ego trippin’. Jack White, by now a global colossus with the dynamic duo White Stripes, teamed up with his old mucker Brendan Benson and a rust-belt rhythm section to get some kicks laying down Detroit rock city riffs. This allowed White to escape the relentless glare of the spotlight while simultaneously letting him pretend to be “one of the gang”, which is something he doesn’t get when it’s just him and a silent, lead-footed drummer out there on the nation’s stages.

DVD REVIEW: Robyn Hitchcock - Sex, Food, Death…and Insects

If Robyn Hitchcock is an unknown entity to you, a title like Sex, Food, Death…and Insects may read like the ramblings of an idiot or LSD casualty - at the very least, a fetishist of some sort. But Hitchcock is no idiot. Rather, much like the film director of the same last name, he is an auteur - albeit a musical one - of sorts. As far back as his days with The Soft Boys, which first hit the scene in the mid-‘70s, Hitchcock has sung about such things as sex and death, and in the most peculiarly way; as though he were some kind of alien that had just encountered such subject matter for the first time. Thus, all self-respecting alternative rock fans need to be aware of Hitchcock. He’s the spiritual link between pre-punk power-pop days and Flaming Lips modern weirdness.

Loosely revolving around the recording of Hitchcock’s Olé! Tarantula CD, this Sundance Channel original primarily focuses on Hitchcock’s songwriting prowess, as it also includes a few of the famous admirers that helped him make the disc. Peter Buck, REM’s guitarist, is perhaps Hitchcock’s highest profile fan. He is seen on screen performing with his friend, as well as attempting to explain the artist’s unique appeal. But understanding Hitchcock’s appeal is a little like explaining why some folks like black licorice. Scott McCaughey (REM, Minus 5), Chris Ballew (Presidents Of The USA), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin – yep, one of those old-sters), Nick Lowe, Gillian Welch, and David Rawlings are also along for the quirky ride.

ALBUM REVIEW: Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple

Gnarls Barkley
The Odd Couple
Atlantic, 2008
**** out of five

As Sly Stone, the original paranoid funk soul brother, once sang, “Heard ya missed me, well I’m back”. And may I say, what finer way to return to the CT! fold as your faithful music scribe than to dissertate on The Odd Couple, a fine, fine new album by psychosoulenoids Gnarls Barkley? Once upon a time it could have been said that debut album, 2006’s St. Elsewhere was an unbeatable corker of a record; all creepy dread masked by sing-along choruses and catchy hooks. Hell, that summer, it was hard to get the cheery institutionalization of Crazy out of your head, let alone off your radio. It was freakin’ everywhere, as only one song each summer can be.

Thus, it seemed improbable, or at least unlikely, that we’d see anything more from the always entertainingly garbed Gnarls Barkley that could hold a candle to Crazy. You know, Mr. Flash, meet Mr. Pan etc etc.

How wrong we were. The Odd Couple, while not, as I had hoped, an homage to Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, is in fact a superior album to St. Elsewhere in almost every way. The title alone speaks volumes about Gnarls Barkley’s love of twisted, fractured soul.

ALBUM REVIEW: The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

The Mountain Goats
Heretic Pride
4AD, 2008
*** out of five

John Darnielle, leader of The Mountain Goats, has been operating under the radar for so long now, that it seems almost inevitable that Heretic Pride will continue his tradition of releasing albums that people should listen to but mostly don’t. Unbelievably, Heretic Pride is The Mountain Goats’ fifteenth or sixteenth album in the past seventeen years, depending on whose history you believe. Obviously, Darnielle has an impressive body of work, but then again quantity is no substitute for quality. So does Heretic Pride measure up? In some ways, it’s the Goats’ finest work, but in somehow it lacks the overarching themes and unity of career highlight, 2002’s Tallahassee.

The recording quality is The Mountain Goats’ best yet: it’s clean and uncluttered while being embellished with tasteful instrumentation. The cellos swoop and glide over songs like In the Craters of the Moon, and strings quietly support many of the other songs. More than most other Goats recordings, Heretic Pride rocks an unconventional, almost Waterboys-like vibe, both in the acoustic moods of the Irish rockers’ Fisherman’s Blues and the rockier Dream Harder. In fact, the way Darnielle phrases songs like Lovecraft in Brooklyn is uncannily similar to Mike Scott’s intonation.

ALBUM REVIEW: El Guincho - Alegranza!

El Guincho
Alegranza!
Discoteca Océano; 2007
** out of five

When a person reviews an album, it’s generally assumed that he’s at least trying to be objective. Of course, the word objectivity is a complete misnomer, because really, there’s no more subjective an opinion than the so-called objective reviewers. Music can suffer particularly from this subjective objectivity, because music fulfills so many functions on so many levels that the reviewers particular viewpoint may be missing the intention of the artist in question. Why am I saying this? Because I really didn’t enjoy Alegranza!, the new record from Barcelona’s El Guincho, much at all. So little did I enjoy Alegranza! that it was a real struggle getting through it. If it had been up to me, I would probably have accorded it no stars whatsoever and been done with it.

But my heart isn’t actually two sizes too small, and cloaking myself in the guise of objectivity, I have to weigh the following facts and scenarios:

ALBUM REVIEW: Stephen Malkmus - Real Emotional Trash

Stephen Malkmus
Real Emotional Trash
Matador, 2008
**** out of five

After almost a decade of solo releases both good (Stephen Malkmus, Face the Truth) and not as good (Pig Lib), Stephen Malkmus has finally released an album that stands apace with the seemingly overwhelming legacy of Pavement. With Real Emotional Trash, the Ess-Dog has unleashed a rock mongrel than spins just as righteously as pretty much anything he did with the Stockton CA indie-icons.

Real Emotional Trash achieves this status primarily by accepting that sounding a bit like Pavement is not a crime for that band’s founding member and chief song-writer. The pop sounds of the eponymous debut, and the largely acoustic Face the Music were brilliantly accomplished set pieces, but really, it’s all about the man. With his exceptional lyrical skills and musicianship, whatever Stephen Malkmus wants to try is likely to come out a winner, or at least, worth a listen.

ALBUM REVIEW: Black Mountain - In the Future

Black Mountain
In the Future
Stormy High, 2008
** out of five

In today’s fragmented pop world, there are so many nooks and crannies that a person with a brain and some skills with his chosen tools can mine almost any musical legacy and have it seem fresh appealing to a specific audience. Thus it is with Black Mountain, a Vancouver band whose roots lay in the indie punk roots of their previous incarnation, Jerk With a Bomb.

What a funny old world. Head Mountaineer Stephen McBean must have had some kind of Damascene conversion on his way to practice one day, because instead of yer typical Canuck indie-ethos, Black Mountain trades in the bombast that marked the heavy rock from the seventies. All the touchstones are here: Deep Purple, Zeppelin, Spiders From Mars-era Bowie, Floyd. In the Future, Black Mountain’s second disc, covers no new ground, but further explores the largely forgotten musical detritus of a few decades back.

ALBUM REVIEW: MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

MGMT
Oracular Spectacular
Columbia, 2008
*** out of 5

Like fellow travelers The Evangelicals, MGMT (pronounced The Management) are also purveyors of ear-bendingly twisted pop hooks, amping up melody and mood with deep growling keys and left-field curves. Their latest, Oracular Spectacular, seems to be further proof that 2008 is shaping up to be a fantastically savvy year. Really, I must remember to be more conservative with the old asterisks: the bar seems to have risen to a level that only the finest Fosbury flop could make it over.

True, a sonic link to The Evangelicals (whose Evening Descends was my first must-hear of ought eight) may not be immediately obvious to those who put on Oracular Spectacular for the first time, and I’m totally charitable enough to suggest that MGMT’s muse veers more into cosmic sleazoid funk territory than a wide-screen cinematic ramble. However, consider if you will the following facts, and I think you’ll agree with me that we’ve stumbled on an obvious and disturbing conspiracy.

ALBUM REVIEW: Evangelicals - The Evening Descends

Evangelicals
The Evening Descends
Dead Oceans, 2008
**** out of five

Sometimes I feel as though I’ve been a little liberal with the stars. By this, I mean that I accorded each of my previous two reviews with four overly-generous stars, when in fact they probably each deserved a solid three. Oh well, hindsight’s 20-20, because The Evening Descends is the best thing I’ve heard thus far in ought-eight, and certainly the best thing I’ve ever heard from a group hailing from Norman, Oklahoma.

The Evening Descends is a big, rambling and ambitious album from a group that doesn’t have a home page or a Wikipedia entry. It encompasses psychedelic pop, glam rock, and a twisted pop ethos that hears an unexpected harmony, or maybe an abrupt change in tempo or instrumentation without compromising the sense of the tune. Essentially we’re treated to a mid-west palette of psychedelic pop not a million miles removed from The Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips.

ALBUM REVIEW: Fluorescent Grey - Gaseous Opal Orbs

Fluorescent Grey
Gaseous Opal Orbs
Record Label Records, 2008
**** out of 5

With Gaseous Opal Orbs, Fluorescent Grey takes a seemingly tired genre like IDM (intelligent dance music), and injects some freshness into it. The IDM scene was founded about fifteen years ago by artists such as Autechre, Future Sound of London and Aphex Twin. It’s essentially a form of dance music made using contrasting and found sounds, and it arguably peaked with 1995’s I Care Because You Do. The term “dance music” must be applied only in the loosest sense, because much of it is jerky and arrhythmic: not very danceable at all. Still, it’s an interesting proposition, and artists who push the boundaries are to be commended and cherished.