The Curious Mystery - Rotting Slowly

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
June 12, 2009
Link
5.7

Oh man, I could really go for some Tex-Mex right about now. New York's mostly meh burrito situation and my still eating 'em all the time anyway aside, when you're a dutiful digital audio consumer, sometimes you've gotta run for the border. Round these parts that usually means Calexico, a Tejano-tinged indie rock group as picturesquely perfect for their fine Tucson, Ariz., as a Saguaro cactus in rosy sunset silhouette. But you can go back as far as you want: If you believe Lester Bangs, Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" begat every punk rock song ever. If you believe fellow critic Chuck Eddy, Babe Ruth's "The Mexican" begat every disco song ever. And if you believe rock, punk, disco, all that stuff exists to be contrary, to take people's expectations and give 'em a good poke in the eyeball-- to the point where it's almost not contrary to be contrary anymore-- then you shouldn't even be surprised. Of course, rock would thrive in the desert. Whadda punk.

The Curious Mystery aren't from the desert. They're from Seattle. Doesn't matter. As soon as Shana Cleveland starts in with that smoky drawl-- "If I go blind/ Hangin' out by a riverside/ Just stay with me"-- we're at the base of a rusty gorge with Cat Power on a Mazzy Star-ry night. (By the time Cleveland breaks off for an enigmatic chuckle, 10 tracks in, you're wondering whether she's really a safe person to stay with alone by a riverside on a night such as this.) Nicolas Gonzalez is a javelina-charmer on electric guitar and homemade Theremin. Add drummer Faustine B. Hudson and bass player Bradford Button, and you've got a four-piece doing unhurried psych-blues, autoharp ghost songs, and Area 51 garage-Americana, with plenty of that old frontier promise. Their debut LP might not be exactly what Kurdt Cobain used to expect from K Records-- you noticed the title's Rotting Slowly, right?-- but the Curious Mystery are well within the spirit of former Come frontwoman Thalia Zedek's unsentimental smolder. And when you get right down to it, who's the bigger outlaw: Calvin Johnson, or some schmo who can't drive just 55? Why is Sammy Hagar the one with his own brand of tequila?

Nobody ever tells the Grand Canyon to get to the damn point, and at times the Curious Mystery's slow-burning expansiveness helps set a nice acid-Western mood. Instrumentals undergo shifts both rhythmic and dynamic, showcasing Gonzalez's stormy leads, while even at Rotting Slowly's most lyrical, on vivid and forceful standout "Black Sand" or the tenderly wasted "Go Forth and Gather", the Curious Mystery are rarely far from Beach House's druggy languour. "You are the type that only moves slowly/ And I am the same," Cleveland murmurs on spindly epic "Outta California". When she isn't singing, though, these cowboy-junkie dirges tend to drift. And watch out for occasional clumsy overseriousness-- on the Gonzalez-sung "Strong Swimmers", with its Sonic Youth dissonance, two people are unlike everybody else in that they can swim, except it turns out they actually can't swim (see, a metaphor can bloom in the desert!). The Curious Mystery have the Southwestern scenery down pretty well. Now they just need to improve the accomodations for us city slickers. A guy can't live on Cabo Wabo alone. ...Or can I?

Various Artists - Kitsuné Maison 7: The Lucky One

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
June 12, 2009
Link
7.3

 

So Kitsuné has an iPhone app now. Some of the groups from previous Kitsuné Maison compilations have started playing live together under the tagline "Kitsuné En Vrai!" ("Kitsuné for Real!"). The influential French dance imprint has even taken to holding promotional contests: Your face could be on the next comp's crazy cover collage! As trend pieces about blogs give way to trend pieces about Twitter, the ragtag style of electronic music most memorably-- if least descriptively-- lumped together as "blog house" has become, almost literally, yesterday's news.

And Kitsuné, after seven of these things, has long since lost its element of surprise. That's sort of what happens when you help launch the careers of Bloc Party, Hot Chip, Simian Mobile Disco, Klaxons, Crystal Castles, and basically every fashionably trashy electro-punk act that isn't Justice. This is good, of course, but ascendancy can breed complacency. One way to look at last year's Kitsuné Maison 6: The Melodic One is as a victim of the series' success, largely playing it safe with glossed-up but less-great takes on the kind of banging rock-meets-dance hybrids these guys have been championing since the first half of the decade. Even so, there were still left turns (a ballad!) and blogworthy newcomers (Heartsrevolution, Ted & Francis).

Kitsuné Maison 7 is a slight but welcome improvement over its predecessor. Bright guitar pop and mellow psych-outs now go with the usual French Touch-ed electro-house thumps. The type of slow and spaced-out disco lately repopularized by Lindstrøm, Studio, and others fields its biggest Kitsuné Maison representation yet. Sure, with 19 tracks (plus a 20-second "encore" break), the album still sometimes errs toward the generically danceable instead of the truly memorable. But the best cuts easily reconfirm the label's ear for promising talent.

Not that you need Kitsuné to tell you Phoenix are fucking awesome, but a remix by L.A. duo Classixx gives Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix's "Lisztomania" a gorgeously pillowy synth-disco framework, sort of like Simian Mobile Disco's "I Believe" or Friendly Fires' "Paris (Aeroplane Remix)". Also graceful is Prins Thomas' "Sneaky Edit" of London folktronica singer/songwriter James Yuill's "This Sweet Love", with its feathery acoustic guitar and house beats suggesting a cosmic disco re-edit of José González-- or Matthew Sweet. Northern Ireland's Two Door Cinema Club open the comp with breezy pop, like a bubblegum Phoenix with Vampire Weekend on chirruping lead guitar. To give you an idea how mellow this disc can be: L.A.'s Heartsrevolution, last seen making croaky basement electro-punk the Crystal Castles way, are back this time with a woozy music-box commencement lullaby (and a neat The Little Prince-inspired video).

Other choice selections include more predictable Kitsuné jams. New York blog darlings the Golden Filter stick to their Glass Candy-glazed nu-disco on "Favorite Things", which happy-birthday-Mr.-Presidents its target demo's turn-ons: "Paris, London, sweet girls, cute boys, vodka, whiskey, cameras, pictures." Nobody on Lookbook.nu listens to Coltrane? And new act Maybb, widely rumored to be an alias for big-time Eurohouse DJ/producer Benny Benassi, hits all the right Daft Punk buttons with "Touring in NY (Short Tour Edit)". Elsewhere, Manchester's Delphic flash promise on a euphoric house remix of their single "Counterpoint", all blinking synths and Underworld-echoing vocals.

Even the inessential tracks are still likely to sound good out, though they're less fun around the house. Chew Lips' "Solo" has the misfortune of sounding like Yeah Yeah Yeahs gone electro-pop in a year when Yeah Yeah Yeahs kind of went electro-pop. And you can tell the one with former Le Tigre members (Men's "Make It Reverse") by the jagged post-punk bass lines, the defiant vocals. French group Chateau Marmont's "Beagle" is space disco in the original 1980s sense, with vocoders and galloping Moroder synths; also not far from the unremembered 80s is Chromeo-plated electro-funk from Beni and "Blue Monday" gloom-marching from La Roux. Other tracks, like We Have Band's "Time After Time", sound like they're trying to do too much: Eastern European spoken-word? "We'll be alone forever," a voice repeats on Crystal Fighters' "Xtatic Truth (Xtra Loud Mix)". Nah, just until Kitsuné starts following us all on Twitter.

Miike Snow - Miike Snow

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
June 11, 2009
Link
5.0

Even the most dependable producers tend to stumble when they step out from behind the curtain. Timbaland's Shock Value sold more than a milli, nothing to sneeze Creatine at, but its distillation of the hip-hop heavyweight's sci-fi primitivism still sounds more like a victory lap than an actual victory. Swizz Beatz had at least one solid artist album in him, but he's no rapper, as the wait for a follow-up underscores. And N.E.R.D.? Um, you've heard those guys' other stuff, right? Pop's biggest producer-to-artist success stories, such as Kanye West, have become exceptions thanks in part to their outsize personalities.

That's where Miike Snow start to fall short. And not just because they briefly cloaked themselves in the whole "ooh we're anonymous, who could we be?" promotional trend that's been sweeping the blogs. True, you expect good things from Swedish producers Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, who as Bloodshy & Avant produced Britney Spear's indie-kid-converting 2004 single "Toxic", among other tracks for the likes of Spears, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Rachel Stevens, and Sugababes. But Scandinavia's recent indie-pop leadership notwithstanding, "Swedish producers" doesn't exactly scream "would be interesting to hear by themselves at album-length." Enter Downtown Recordings production regular Andrew Wyatt, of anthemic New York electro-rockers Fires of Rome (and previously of Black Beetle, with Jeff Buckley cohorts Joan Wasser and Michael Tighe).

Miike Snow is about as exciting as all those biographical details would indicate. The debut album by these producers-turned-trio comes after blog-bait remixes galore, including a nice enough Postal Service-ish Vampire Weekend makeover, but there's little of those fine young Columbians' infectious exuberance here. Biggest surprise? Miike Snow largely trade in brash pop immediacy for low-key, piano-laden melancholy. Decent bummer of a first single "Burial", with its fluttery synths, tricky rhythms, and a couple of those vaguely exotic yelps currently de riguer in commercials for lime-flavored beer, is sort of like crying your eyes out to Phil Collins on a beach. Also like that, it's a bit nonsensical: "This empathy is overrated/ Like a snapshot when you've lost the game." Stop overrating those snapshots, people! The sunny West Coast harmonies of "Faker" and the oceanic calmness of "Sans Soleil" similarly suffice without quite standing out.

Miike Snow are better when they're more starlet-ready, though even then they could use an actual starlet. The thickly textured buzz-strut of "Plastic Jungle" is pretty close to Britney's "Womanizer", but instead of femme-bot purrs there's a whispery guy who wants to "get slain." Whether in the kiddie-pop lilt of opener "Animal", the Field-minding hypnotism of "In Search Of", or the glimmering electro-house thump of "Silvia" and the yearning "A Horse Is Not a Home" (no, not even in this real-estate market), the disc is rarely less than professional-grade. Faint praise, sigh.

So Miike Snow aren't half as potentially infuriating as a Kanye or a Timbaland, but they aren't half as lovable, either. More promisingly, the album's "Black & Blue" splits the difference between Prince and piano-pop, only to underwhelm as a whole. The best track, the one with the Dirty Projectors-like flickering guitars, perfect for summer driving mixes: "Song for No One". Hello, is it me you're looking for?

Axa exit sparks questions for others

News Article
Financial Times
June 7, 2009
Link

Axa Investment Managers is the most recent player to leave the exchange traded funds business, but industry experts say it probably will not be the last.

Axa IM’s withdrawal from EasyETF, its joint venture with BNP Paribas Asset Management, announced last month, comes as others are looking to increase their share of the ETF market. The reasoning behind Axa IM’s decision, however, may have a familiar ring for some existing ETF shops.

Elénore Lesueur at the firm says: “We are convinced our ability to create value for clients will be maximised by refocusing on our active management activities. Maintaining a presence in the trackers market does not correspond to our strategic priorities and would not have constituted a good allocation of our resources.”

EasyETF is the fifth biggest ETF provider in Europe, ranked by assets. As at April 30, it had $151.4bn (£93bn, €107bn) under management in 58 funds, for a 3 per cent market share, according to Barclays Global Investors.

“The impression I got was that [Axa] wanted to be a niche player [in the ETF market] concentrating on the French market and offering products on alternative markets,” says one ETF industry executive speaking on condition of anonymity. “It looks like they’ve taken the business as far as they can and it will be interesting to see the approach taken by BNP – stay niche or become broad market.”

For its part, BNPP AM is “committed” to the ETF arena, says Guillaume Dolisi, head of the EasyETF platform for BNP Paribas.

“It does not really change the overall strategy,” Mr Dolisi says of the Axa IM withdrawal. Rather than decide between niche and broad market products, EasyETF does both, according to Mr Dolisi. It provides the big benchmarks to clients but was also the first to provide access to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, he says. Future plans include products covering agribusiness, waste management and water.

Axa IM’s decision to pull out of the ETF business was not unique, points out Scott Burns, director of ETF analysis at Morningstar. Northern Trust also recently abandoned ETFs in the US to focus on its core strengths.

“A lot of people who don’t really have a robust trading platform or index business, people who aren’t really committed to ETFs, have found that this is a nice business, but it is a bit of a distraction,” Mr Burns says. “There’s a real first-mover advantage.”

Some question how many firms have profitable ETF operations, particularly after the financial crisis.

“Keep in mind that not only are long-term assets still down 30 to 40 per cent from their highs, there are some doubts about the viability of profits from securities lending,” says Ben Poor, director at Cerulli Associates. “After Lehman, there is more concern about counterparty risk, and ethical considerations – particularly for pension funds, but also for fund houses.”

Mr Poor adds that the best buyers for iShares, BGI’s ETF business which is currently up for sale, or any other ETF operation need to have “quality distribution and existing ETF scale”. Management fees for passive products are lower than on the active side, so scale is key. Strategic Insight global consulting head Daniel Enskat divides ETF providers into three groups.

First are traditional ETF providers, index-orientated companies that have a brand based around ETFs. Second, he points to firms such as Pimco, active managers that see a strategic opportunity to use ETFs to enhance their mutual fund businesses. The third group, Mr Enskat says, consists of “companies that have jumped on the bandwagon in the last couple of years, especially in Europe, and are rethinking it now”.

He adds: “Axa is interesting because it’s probably one of the first European firms to say: ‘We looked at this, we did this, we actually established a brand, but we don’t think this is part of who we are at our core’.

“It’s probably a first mover in that direction to withdraw, and that might spur some questions for other companies in Europe as well.”

Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
May 21, 2009
Link
7.5

 

Everybody's dying just to get the disease. Confidential to the celebs in surgical masks: If there's a real pandemic, we're all already born with it. No, not swine flu, bird flu, monkey pox, SARS, or West Nile virus. Not even anthrax, that post-9/11, pre-Iraq War worry most people appeared to forget overnight. The names of the diseases may change, but the panics they generate all represent the same thing: We're gonna die. And we couldn't be more terrified.

It isn't clear whether My Bloody Valentine will get their long-delayed reissues out before the CD dies; if current patterns hold though, Loveless lovers Deerhunter will have released more than enough spaced-out dominance. Many of their songs change drastically from online demo to final incarnation, but Atlanta's noise-pop lightning rods put it all out there. As with Lil Wayne and his workload, it's as if they sense their time here is limited. Please god, nobody mention Ryan Adams.

Although the total output by Deerhunter and various side projects can be uneven, the full band's official Kranky releases have rarely been less than face-melting. Rainwater Cassette Exchange is the fourth Deerhunter-related release on the label since October-- including last year's Microcastle/Weird Era Cont. album pairing plus guitarist Lockett Pundt's recent debut as Lotus Plaza, The Floodlight Collective-- and it's also maybe the slightest to bear the Deerhunter name. Now you hear it, now you don't. What was I just listening to again?

Except, justifiably, Deerhunter have a pretty big name to live up to at this point. And the more you listen to their latest release, the more it rewards you. Rainwater Cassette Exchange is nothing more-- and nothing less-- than five songs, lasting a total of just more than 15 minutes. Ranging from translucent psych-pop to pummeling garage-rock, they're alternately assured and vulnerable, direct and subtle, light and dark. Their repetitions toe the band's usual thin line between hooks and hypnotism. Through it all, we're haunted by disease and, ultimately, our own inevitable death. So many useless bodies.

As the Fluorescent Grey EP was to Cryptograms, so Rainwater Cassette Exchange is to Microcastle. Most of these songs would make sense packaged as a third piece of vinyl alongside Microcastle/Weird Era Cont., though they have less in common with Weird Era's vast sprawl. Like Microcastle, the new EP-- available digitally now, on CD and vinyl June 22-- was recorded with producer Nicolas Vernhes at Brooklyn's Rare Book Room. Also like Microcastle, Rainwater Cassette Exchange shifts between delicate 1960s-pop tunefulness and fist-pumping dopamine surges.

"I wanted Microcastle and Weird Era to be a Fall/Winter record," Bradford Cox once wrote in a blog post that has since been deleted. Among the last sounds you'll hear on the current EP is a child's cry of "trick or treat." Whether it's lilting melodies, some new-and-improved vocal harmonies, or Strokes-cum-Magazine stately clangor, Rainwater Cassette Exchange makes with the treats first. Then, as much as Cox likes to downplay the band's lyrics, you notice the ghostly stuff, the warnings of impending mortality. Autumnal material, yeah, but its bleak truths resonate all the more against the budding spring weather outside.

First, the treats. The title track opens the EP with girl-group sugar that helps the reverb-heavy overdrive go down. "Do-oooh-oooh you believe in love at first sight?" Cox sings, his voice beatific, his lyric Beatles-y ("With a Little Help From My Friends", last verse, first line). Three songs-- "Disappearing Ink", "Famous Last Words", and "Circulation"-- are propulsive garage-rock anthems in the style of Microcastle marquee moment "Nothing Ever Happened". The only other track, the lonesome "Game of Diamonds", started life on Deerhunter's blog, where it was drenched in shoegaze distortion. Here it gets a softer arrangement featuring piano and acoustic guitar-- all the better to hear Cox's uniquely engaging vocals, clear and frail and fricative.

It all sounds so harmless, it's a treat to find out we're actually getting tricked. "Rainwater Cassette Exchange" is sort of like Microcastle's "Agoraphobia", had that song's erotically asphyxiated protagonist already been dead, or its arrangement paradoxically sprightlier. "Famous Last Words" opens with a lyric about "your brother bleeding" on the sidewalk, while a wobbly Theremin adds to the eerie October mood. Despite putting an Everly Brothers-esque vocal duet over distorted guitar lines, "Circulation" is about "bad" circulation, and Cox has a heart condition. "Hands reach for my light when it gets dark," it sounds like he's saying, right before the song veers off into two minutes of bittersweet sound collage around where the live version becomes draped with ethereal vocal loops.

If Rainwater Cassette Exchange sounded evanescent to me on first listens, well, so are we. "Time never meant that much to me," Cox sings on "Game of Diamonds", but that's belied not only by Deerhunter's work ethic, but also by words that Cox's emotionally isolated narrator-- Jens Lekman's "It Was a Strange Time in My Life" comes to mind-- repeats elsewhere in the song: "I've counted every grain of sand." Like, our endless numbered days. When Cox sings about lying drunk on the Bowery, it's hard for me not to think of that night he rambled endlessly and flouted New York's smoking laws at the Bowery Ballroom. That stuff'll kill ya, you know.

So what do you think is gonna happen to us now? Are we gonna get younger, happier, prettier? "Nothing can be changed," goes "Famous Last Words", but that isn't exactly true. Consider "Disappearing Ink" a metaphor for the temporariness of it all, and for what's permanent: "Disappearing ink, but the words still sting." After you play a good song, it's gone in the air, but you can still feel it. After you type something stupid on the internet, you can try to delete it, but you can't take it back. That means you and I are gonna live forever. Now those would be famous last words.

 

Jeffrey Lewis - 'Em Are I

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
May 19, 2009
Link
6.3

Jonathan Richman put out a single called "You Can Have a Cell Phone That's Okay But Not Me" as a bonus 7" with the vinyl edition of last year's Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild. You could make the same criticisms of it that guys like me tend to make of Jeffrey Lewis-- the recording is almost entirely a delivery system for the words, it's hard to imagine anyone listening to it just for the sounds, and his voice mostly sticks to one or two notes-- but it also happens to be one of my favorite tracks of 2008. Music doesn't have to be about pure sound; used to be it was about emotional connection, too.

"I still don't have a cell phone/ But this seashell gets reception," Lewis sings on "To Be Objectified", a surf-splashed meditation from the neurotic New York singer/songwriter's latest album, 'Em Are I. Like Richman, Lewis is a sharp firsthand observer of what passes for urban bohemia, but one who still puts warts-and-all sincerity before hipster chic. It's an approach that can lead to uneven results, including Lewis' grossly misguided 12 Crass Songs covers disc in 2007. If you're reading this far, though, then Lewis (also, incidentally, an accomplished cartoonist) probably has at least a few songs that will resonate with you.

As on 2006's City & Eastern Songs, Lewis' fourth album of original material again connects best through lyrical details. For instance, Lewis describes the way "a rolled sweatshirt makes the window soft" on "Roll Bus Roll", the album's lush, loping ramshackle-folk reverie about having too much past and leaving the city behind. Wesley Willis never had a Greyhound bus ride like this. The garage-rockers aren't far behind, whether Lewis is mustering up an unusual degree of self-confidence on opener "Slogans" ("Everyone you meet is not better than you") or extending a sadomasochistic but evocative relationship metaphor on "Broken Broken Broken Heart". If the arrangements aren't special in their own right, "Well, it's hard to get too bored/ When you pick the right two chords," as Lewis murmurs on "If Life Exists (?)", before discovering that no number of girlfriends will make him happier.

But graveyard hoedown "Whistle Past the Graveyard" almost ruins some relatively droll commentary about the afterlife with bah-ing backing vocals. Barnyard themes also sink the Pearls Before Swine in-joke on "Good Old Pig, Gone to Avalon". Eight-minute jazz-noise freakout "The Upside-Down Cross" eventually gets to lyrics about traveling with various women, but it's not worth the trip; finale "Mini-Theme = Moocher From the Future" mistakes "yesterday to no-terday" for a clever pun. So 'Em Are I is a frontloaded album. But anyone who ever bought a Sebadoh record despite really liking only Lou Barlow's songs should still consider checking it out. (You can prefer Eric Gaffney's songs, that's okay, but not me.)

Graham Coxon - The Spinning Top

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
May 18, 2009
Link
4.7

 

"It was just like college, only it was a nicer guitar and a nicer lunch," Blur bassist Alex James writes at the end of his 2007 memoir. James is describing his first meeting "in a couple of years" with Graham Coxon, the woohooing Britpop survivors' then-estranged guitarist. That passage was yet another reason for dedicated followers of the band to keep betting on a full Blur reunion, now official. It also gives you a pretty good idea what you can expect from Coxon's seventh solo album: same bittersweet bundle of misery, posher palate.

Coxon is not normally a guy you turn to for easy cubicle listening. In Blur, he was the punkish pedal-stomper with the noisy American indie-rock collection and skateboarding hobby. After Parklife turned the group into pop idols, Coxon was the one who reacted with Kurt Cobain-ish dismay. As a solo artist, he has alternated between post-punk squall and folkie plaintiveness starting with 1998's extremely lo-fi Sky Is Too High-- like so many of the records he would've heard on John Peel's radio show, it was self-released. Longtime Blur producer Stephen Street has helped steer Coxon toward more broadly accessible power-pop on recent albums, most successfully 2004's Happiness in Magazines, without ever quite going middle of the road.

The Spinning Top crashes into the median, and it barely budges for almost 70 trudging minutes. Blur are doing what every once-profitable band does these days-- hi, Led Zeppelin!-- and getting back together. Coxon is doing what so many other formerly fun musicians end up doing once they've exhausted their Satan-bestowed allotment of decent melodies and lyrics: Yes, it's some kind of concept album, apparently telling the story of a man's life from birth to death, though you wouldn't necessarily know it. Street produces again, and Robyn Hitchcock is among the guests, but even they can't make up for repetitive, one-dimensional songs-- mostly sleepy folk, occasionally fuzzy psych. If the sound quality is more consistent than in Coxon's rough early work, that just means when he stretches threadbare ideas past the breaking point, he'll be less likely to wake you.

One thing intact: Coxon's guitar-playing. If his nuanced and head-smackingly emotive fretwork with Blur hasn't already convinced you he's among his generation's great guitarists, the sinuous finger-picking on otherwise fairly forgettable first single "Sorrow's Army" should send you back to "This Is a Low", "Sing", or "Bugman" with fresh ears. Coxon recently told Uncut he's a big fan of English folk guitar gods Bert Jansch, Davy Graham, and Martin Carthy, and he's certainly playing in their style here. On "Perfect Love", Coxon's folk-filigreed acoustic figure joins various Indian instruments to back double-tracked doggerel lyrics vaguely reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee". "Tripping Over" is an interminable lullaby, but that electric guitar is sure purdy for the last minute or two.

Listeners who've heard only Coxon's last couple of rockers, including 2006's Love Travels at Illegal Speeds, might not've been aware of his folkie streak, but it's been almost as much of an open secret as the fact Blur were eventually gonna reunite. "I wish I could bring Nick Drake back to life," Coxon sang on his first non-Blur single, "I Wish". At least back then he had enough faith in his own lo-fi vision not actually to bite the late English folkie-- he left that to Beck. It's hard to imagine the Coxon of a decade ago singing phrases like "baybay" over rootsy verses in between ornamented choruses that get all Bryter Layter about the rain (except in jest, a la Blur B-side "Rednecks"). Likewise, opener "Look Into the Light" is nice enough, emphasizing the guitar's droning harmonics, but I can't decide if I just like it because the melody reminds me of Drake's "Cello Song". Joined by upright bass and piano on tracks like "Feel Alright", which is as bland as its title, The Spinning Top comes closer to Van Morrison, specifically Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl. In that case, the slow-motion classical guitar licks on "Far From Everything" are "Beside You" all by its lonesome.

Coxon's main Blur songs, "You're So Great" and "Coffee & TV", could go as long as six minutes without a single wasted note. The Spinning Top keeps spinning its wheels. Second single "In the Morning" sounds like the Beatles' "Blackbird" if it had gone on for eight minutes and if Paul had let George arrange-- not just because Coxon mentions a blackbird, either. "If a diamond hangs in every tree and a life is lost for every leaf can a bird still sing?" he asks. Beats me. Even when the Blur guitarist reminds us that he knows where Syd Barrett lives, as on "Caspian Sea", it's not much more fun than bashing your head against the wall repeating geographical terms until every now and then you see stars. "It's oh so serious/ It's oh so lame," Coxon repeats throughout "If You Want Me", occasionally breaking into Pixies-ish distortion-- serious or not, it is kind of lame.

Blur couldn't really be Blur without Coxon. His guitar helps make Modern Life Is Rubbish modern, keeps 13 from collapsing under its own Donald Duck noises, and steals the show during its one appearance on Think Tank. No Blur without him, either. But it's Damon Albarn who has had the band's most successful solo career, outselling Blur with Gorillaz and going on to even more artistically impressive work with the Good, the Bad & the Queen and then Monkey. James has been writing a weekly newspaper column; drummer Dave Rowntree went into politics. It's probably no coincidence that the song here most worthy of Coxon's past work is called "Humble Man". As James's memoir puts it, Coxon is "brilliantly artistic, but vulnerable." He's still my favorite Blur.

Dananananaykroyd - Hey Everyone!

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
May 14, 2009
Link
7.4

The Denver Westword recently asked Los Campesinos! musical mastermind Tom Campesinos! whether it frustrates him to see reviews that describe his expansively punk-wracked Welsh septet's guitar-and-xylophone pop as "twee." He said it doesn't, explaining, "One of the most important things about any sort of art is an element of humor, and not to take yourself too seriously." Same goes for art appreciation, not that you'd know it most days from us stuffy critics.

Let Marty McFly tell you: The future is heavy. U.S. producer Machine, probably best known for his work with metal musos Lamb of God, has been getting fine work out of bands that make melodic indie rock similar to LC!'s, only... less twee. First up was Birmingham, England's Johnny Foreigner, whose excellent 2008 Waited Up 'Til It Was Light had macho muscle to match its endearing boy-girl singalongs. Now Glaswegian sextet Dananananaykroyd, also under Machine's oversight, follow with another debut liable to unite moshers and librarians. The two aren't mutually exclusive, you know.

On Hey Everyone!, Dananananaykroyd's chopsy dual-drummer approach goes for wrecking-ball guitar leads before fatal LiveJournal entries; your standard, spindly UK indie always meets with something heavier. On "The Greater Than Symbol and the Dash", guitarists Duncan Robertson and David Roy dive from piercing feedback to downers-dosed metal lurch; a pair of cascading drum fills make way for a throat-curdler from the singer (Calum Gunn and co-drummer John Baille Junior share lead duties), who sounds raw and bestial where his peers might come off shrill. "1993" is another scream, splitting time between hardcore thrash and contemplative instrumental passages that recall the 1990s emo likes of Mineral and Sunny Day Real Estate. Throughout, Dananananaykroyd fuck with time signatures the way indie-famouser Glaswegians play with words.

Um, then again, there's really no ignoring that ridiculous band name. Which I'm starting to think is as brilliant as I originally thought it was dumb-- another set of not-really-opposites. On the same song, Dananananaykroyd (thanks, Command-V! And thank you, Elwood Blues!) make a defiant mantra out of a decidedly twee-ass phrase: "Turn your hissy fits into sissy hits." Good advice, that, and it works multiple could-be-hit wonders. With its jagged surge and shouts of "say it!", "Pink Sabbath" is less Ozzy, more Mclusky. "Black Wax" makes room in its beautiful-and-stoned Pavement jangle for dramatic backing vocals and agonized yells; the galloping rhythms and rapidfire guitar hooks of first self-effacing "Totally Bone" and then Beatles-citing finale "Song One Puzzle" had me thinking Modest Mouse until they had me thinking, almost, Mastodon. Sissy hit: anti-pep-rally shoutalongs.

For as awesome as Dananananaykroyd are at blasting the bejesus out of some of my favorite bands-- hey, they can even play their instruments!-- it's less clear what they're all about. Hey Everyone! doesn't wear its heart on its sleeve like sloppier Mclusky-ites Japandroids, doesn't reflect every nuance of its scene with the observational acuity of LC!, isn't Mclusky Do Dallas. But in its own combustive way, it's weirdly memorable. The track that initially drew me in, "Infinity Milk", uses ragged sprawl to set off call-and-response vocals about napalm. "These are the days of our fucking lives," exults "Hey James". We used to dream; now we've learned to stop worrying and love the firebomb.

Art Brut - Art Brut vs. Satan

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
April 21, 2009
Link
7.7

 

Spoiler alert: Art Brut lose. Of course they do. Tramps like former Art Brut tourmates Hold Steady were born to run around wearing baseball jerseys in front of Counting Crows fans (and good for them!). Art Brut were born to lose: How could they ever improve on the clumsy meta-punk rush of their first single, "Formed a Band"? They arrived almost fully formed. They never got to play "Top of the Pops". When they miraculously came up with another 11 songs just about as good-- or, in the case of "Emily Kane", arguably better-- on their brilliant 2005 debut album, Bang Bang Rock & Roll, it only added sting to their inevitable defeat. They were even losers at being losers. I loved them for it.

That's partly why it's so strange now to read reviews that lump Art Brut in with more commercially successful UK bands such as Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand. At live shows, lead not-quite-singer Eddie Argos used to change "I can't stand the sound of the Velvet Underground" to "I can't stand the sound of Gang of Four," and I always assumed his targets were obvious (hint: neither the Velvet Underground nor Gang of Four). Full of fist-pumping but self-mocking bar-punk about obsessive fandom and romantic awkwardness, Bang Bang Rock & Roll was the closest our decade has come to The Modern Lovers. Art Brut's true peers are lyrical music geeks like John Darnielle, Jeffrey Lewis, Jens Lekman, Los Campesinos!, the Tough Alliance, and, most recently, Nodzzz. It's not irony; it's self-aware sincerity.

Good news for people who love losers: Art Brut's third album is on what Kanye might call "some Benjamin Buttons shit." Gone is the slight maturation of their good-- but, sadly, not great-- sophomore album, 2007's It's a Bit Complicated, which tried to win by the attractive-people rules of polished production; the songs were still warm, witty, and alive, but they just didn't have the original's "I've seen her naked-- TWICE!" brashness. Recorded on the fly with fellow Jonathan Richman acolyte Frank Black, Art Brut vs. Satan is a scrappy, romantic, and painfully hilarious return to loserdom. Coldplay will always be more popular. So what? I hate those guys!

Art Brut probably do, too. If they can't topple vague, pasty, barely breathing background rock from the charts, at least they can sing gloriously doomed songs about it. "Cool your warm jets, Brian Eno," Argos jibes on "Slap Dash for No Cash", teasing shiny U2 clones the way he previously skewered vapid post-punk revivalists. Argos champions instead the records where you can hear not only the crack of the singer's voice, or the squeak of the guitarist's fingers, but also (as on a Gorky's Zygotic Mynci B-side, apparently) their parents complaining about the volume-- not because those records are more artistically valid, or more authentic or whatever, but for a more important reason: "Those are the records I like."

Black gets the Art Brut spirit down on record better than anyone has before, with the blazing pop-metal vainglory of Weezer, the scruffy cheekiness of early Rough Trade bands, and lots of enthusiastic backing vocals. Fun for them, fun for us. "Demons Out!" shifts the Smiths' "Panic!" from hanging DJs to denying record buyers suffrage, but don't mistake it for a Death Cab for Cutie-like manifesto against U.S. Auto-Tune pop; more accurately, it's an ideal rebuke against the endless Travis Kooks Kaiser Chiefs Razorlight blandness of UK "science museum" rock. So too "The Replacements", which melds the Mats' "Alex Chilton" and the Brut's "My Little Brother" into a clamorous endorsement of used CDs and deluxe reissues. Extending the prior album's trend toward sacrilegious song titles, "Twist and Shout" may not have you accidentally repeating its off-key la-la-las in public, like the song's narrator, but you'll probably know exactly how he feels. Not that Satan gives a damn about songs that communicate aspects of everyday life with clarity and human charm.

Art Brut remain ever the underdog when they're singing about arrested development and girls, too. "DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake" is a cereal-eaters' song as universal as Jerry Seinfeld, with a nicely echoing bridge, while perfectly sloppy public-transportation anthem "The Passenger" rewrites Iggy Pop from the perspective of a guy who can't drive. "Summer Job", with its Vampire Weekend-whooping intro vocal, is the album's only concession to conventional melody, and its summertime-blues-curing slackerdom could hardly be more enjoyably juvenile. Like a bizarro "Rusted Guns of Milan", "What a Rush" fumbles for morning-after Beatles vs. Stones meaning-- and socks. Add to vocab: "Sober...ish?". Slowing down but not going ballad, "Am I Normal?" is a preview of the kind of shy neurotic who might go on to write "Emily Kane".

Art Brut Vs. Satan begins and ends with a hungover Argos trying to remember what he did the night before. Frantically buzzing opener "Alcoholics Unanimous" finds Argos sending apologetic mass texts; he's been concerned about what he's been up to, and with good reason. On epic finale "Mysterious Bruises", which I didn't even notice was seven minutes until I looked it up later, Argos proclaims: "I fought the floor and the floor won." Satan always wins. The beautiful people and their sycophants will always outnumber lovable losers. But this is a record I like.

Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
April 20, 2009
Link
8.3

 

Once you've communicated what you want to say so many ways, there's always the groove. Not that Super Furry Animals were the ones who needed to get theirs back, exactly. I mean, sure, 2007's Hey Venus! wasn't so much "speaker blowing"-- lead singer Gruff Rhys' advertisement-- as "hey, SFA still don't suck yet." But before that, 2005's Love Kraft was a multi-layered psych-funk-folk-samba epic about love, war, and "no more romantic comedies." Since then, the Welsh quintet's offbeat side projects-- such as Rhys's Delorean-themed Neon Neon partnership with Boom Bip, or keyboardist Cian Ciárán's electronic-leaning Acid Casuals-- have kept the Super Furry faithful well-supplied.

Dark days? Uhh, have you picked up a newspaper lately? Me neither, which I assume is part of the problem. "People that go out and murder people don't read The Wall Street Journal," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told CNN's Wolf Blitzer the other day, on whether the shitty economy added to gun violence. And yet all of a sudden a lot of liberal-arts-damaged hipsters seem to know a hell of a lot about the financial sector. Call it a capital infusion: SFA's ninth album in almost two decades as a band, Dark Days/Light Years, is also their most playful since 2001's Rings Around the World. Full of paradoxes and loving parodies, honeyed psych-pop harmonies and shaggy vamps, it's just the sci-fi groove-rock mindfuck to shake us out of our no-fun times.

First, the grooves: SFA assembled Dark Days/Light Years-- nine years in the making, 40 days in the recording-- largely out of riffs and ideas that for one reason or another had gone unused. The results are as free-wheeling and inspired as the group has sounded in years-- Super-er and Furrier. Heavy blooz schoolgirl-ballers from Grand Funk Railroad to Eric Burdon can keep their puds and their guts squeezed tight into their bellbottoms after opener "Crazy Naked Girls", a three-part song that reclaims wah wah and a whole lotta lovin'. Groove turns to stomp on Ciárán-fronted "Mt.", which places Donovan folk mysticism over glam-rock schaffel.

Then, when the machines groove, it's motorik. The Super Furries meet the ensuing depression with... more wryness. "Let us make the best of a difficult situation," Rhys intones on first single "Inaugural Trams", the album's top stand-alone track. In a utopian universe where it would've been politically feasible for President Obama to announce, upon his inauguration, a plan to reduce emissions ("by 75!") and restore the economy through a public-transportation moon race, "Inaugural Trams"-- with Franz Ferdinand's Nick McCarthy rapping some of the only German words I know that aren't "Kraftwerk" or "hefeweizen"-- would be the summer jam. If "Inaugural Trams" is "the definitive krautrock song about railcars," as New York magazine's Vulture blog wondered recently, it's only in the way Rings Around the World's "Juxtaposed With U" was the definitive Philly soul sexx jam. In other words, it's something else.

And it's not alone. Lester Bangs once recommended a young punk band call their album The Monkees' Greatest Hits; the biggest disappointment here is that the Super Furries didn't make "The Very Best of Neil Diamond" the title track. The song's ancient licks and sweaty percussion might suggest early 00s R&B, or some kind of Eastern thing, but far from it: The chorus of "trust but verify" swipes a favorite Cold War catchphrase of Ronald Reagan. Somewhere before the guitar-gnashing bridge, I guess there's also this narrative about a Neil Diamond tape playing in the aftermath of an apocalypse. (And I'm told you can hear quotes from Vivaldi and Beethoven in Metal Machine Music, too...) Right after "The Very Best of Neil Diamond" takes us to "Sweet Caroline" and back, "Helium Hearts" drops us off in Eden. With perfect hippie-dippie non sequiturs about wedding rings, togetherness, and vegemite, it's probably the closest SFA's latest comes to the swooning, ELO-lite psych-pop of past highlights like 1996's "Something 4 the Weekend".

Just because a band sticks to the old-fashioned idea of an album as a cohesive piece of work doesn't mean it has to get all stuffy about it: Dark Days/Light Years begins with casual chatter and ends, after the "Beat It" meets "Livin' on a Prayer" bass lines and burbling vocal nonsense of Ciárán-penned quasi-instrumental "Pric", with three minutes of droning electronic tones. (SFA have played this kind of prank before, burying career highlights on hidden tracks or non-album singles.) Guitarist Huw Bunford's "White Socks/Flip Flops" makes up in wet synths, blistering guitars, and taut rhythms what it lacks in fashion sense; fuzzed bass-guitar duel "Inconvenience"-- not an Au Pairs cover-- goes from "what the fuck?" to jihad and pirate ships (timely!). Even the least exceptional tracks here, twinned songs "Where Do You Wanna Go?" and "Lliwiau Llachar", still offer raucous drumming and catchy Welsh-language vocals.

Remember when columnists predicted the death of irony after 9/11? Didn't happen, but between the whole everybody-losing-their-jobs thing and having an actual well-meaning grown-up in the White House, deadly seriousness is more of a threat now than ever. At least there's Glenn Beck. In the meantime, Dark Days/Light Years brings some good vibes for everyone "from middle-aged sophisticates to stone-aged reprobates," to borrow a line from the rhythmically restrained, Spoon-like "Moped Eyes". It used to be called "Hot Nuts".

Thieves Like Us - Play Music

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
April 10, 2009
Link
5.6

Sensitive clubbers of the world, unite. Thieves Like Us singer Andy Grier, an American, met keyboardist Björn Berglund and drummer Pontus Berghe, both Swedes, when they all lived in Berlin. The Tron-loving filter-house electro-poppers now call Paris home, and French label Kitsuné picked up their big single, the euphoric but also melancholic downtown-metro ride "Drugs in My Body". Debut album Play Music was variously conceived and created in Berlin, Vienna, New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, and Stockholm.

Finally getting a belated U.S. release, the disc justifies some but not all of its carbon footprint. New Order's 1984 hit "Thieves Like Us" exemplified how those UK synth-pop icons could take something "so uncool"-- like love of tech gadgetry-- and give it a certain expensively wasted glamor. "Drugs in My Body" adapts this strategy for our post-Daft Punk ears. It's hyper-urban strobe-pop, with aching vocals and a tightly coiled Durutti Column sample that could appeal not only to don't-call-it-blog-house LastNightsPartyers, but also to Factory-worshiping indie bedwetters like me. The full album should be an okay soundtrack for a hoverbus tour of some retrofuturistic metropolis, but it's somewhere just outside of track 3 when the Dramamine starts to kick in.

Play Music slows down more often than your Justice Mobile Digitalisms, and when it does it tends to lose some focus. Unfortunately, the horn-haunted nighttime cityscape of "An Easy Tonight" sounds less like the City of Lights than the City That Makes Me Kinda Sleepy; the solid but unremarkable kosmische of "Lady" needs something a little more distinctive alongside its tasteful woundedness. Most of the singing was recorded at home, which helps it sound sincere, but also helps it sound like a specific, time-fixed notion of sincerity (won't anyone just let Ian Curtis rest in peace?). Shoulda-been instrumental "Program of the Second Part" suggests, "Sing along to Suicide."

Of course, smuggling open-hearted vocal frailness into ecstatic electronic dance-pop can still have thrilling results, as New Order showed, and the likes of the Tough Alliance continue to demonstrate. Thieves Like Us are usually best when they're giving us a spoonful of sugar to help the miserabilia go down-- feeling low at a higher tempo on "Your Heart Feels", for example, or daydreaming about David and Angela Bowie on the similarly faster-paced "Miss You". "Drugs in My Body" B-side "Fass" also does all right despite meh meta lyrics about crossing "scene lines." But the second-best thing here actually has to be finale "Sugar and Song", a sure-enough slow breakup ballad that's as depressive as so much good Spiritualized. Although Play Music drags more than I would've hoped, it's still a reasonably lustrous place to be sad now and then-- without drugs in my body, but not without "Drugs in My Body".

The Coathangers - Scramble

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
April 6, 2009
Link
7.2

 

If the only good reason to overturn apple carts is for the fun of it, how 'bout them apples? Like Athens' Pylon before them, all-grrl Atlanta quartet the Coathangers are making sure the revolution will not be such a drag. On a rough 'n' rowdy self-titled 2007 debut via local label Rob's House Records, they swapped "Suck My Left One" for "Nestle in My Boobies", "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" for "Shut the Fuck Up", hating Margaret Thatcher for sympathizing with "Tonya Harding". Word is their ramshackle live shows-- alongside the likes of Deerhunter, Black Lips, Jay Reatard, and, next month, Calvin Johnson-- have included loogies and My Little Pony.  Cue the premature backlash.

The Coathangers keep the back-alley post-punk party going strong on a scratchy, shrieky, foul-mouthed sophomore album, Scramble, their first for Seattle-based Suicide Squeeze. The call-and-response vocals-- split between guitarist Julia Kugel, drummer Stephanie Luke, keyboard player Candice Jones, and Meredith Franco on bass-- are shrill. The politics aren't, even though technically everything-- from their beyond Fucked Up name to their overall fuck-you we're-not-the-Donnas stance-- is kind of political. Nope, the Coathangers aren't ones to let good intentions stand in for a good time.

As with fellow Georgians the B-52s, their best songs play like should-be novelty hits. The Coathanger with the chirpy Snow White voice sings lead on a couple of the catchiest, including upstairs-neighbor rant "Stop Stomp Stompin'" and unrequited-love-at-first-sight song "143", both of which have enough quotidian sloganeering and goofy-but-true detail for UK shouters Art Brut. Pretty sure it's the same band member who threatens to break our "fucking face" on caterwauling garage-rocker "Gettin' Mad and Pumpin' Iron", too. But the Coathangers can also drop the tempo-- slow dancing with a dude who "ain't no sissy" on "Dreamboat", or missing a boy from outer space on keyboard-driven "Sonic You". There's even one for the olds: "Arthritis Sux". There's even one for tUne-YarDs: sloppy sound-effect collage "Bobby Knows Best".

Put together enough novelty hits, and you have a pretty solid album. If off-kilter percussion can't quite overcome the whispery false ending on "Pussywillow", or "Time Passing" gets a little lost up its own indecipherable sci-fi squall, there's always the scuzzy pink frost of "Toomerhead" (he ain't an asshole, he's just sick), or the get-off-my-back hoarseness of "Bury Me". Particularly given the neanderthal sexual politics of much of the current indie music scene-- looking at you, Brooklyn Vegan comments section-- it's good politics when a girl group can declare, as a deeper-voiced Coathanger does on "Cheap Cheap", "You can just go fuck yourself." It's good entertainment when they can make us pretend they're not talking to us-- and that's probably smarter politics, too. As the Long Blondes once sang, you could have both.

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Video / Album Review
ABC News
Link
March 30, 2009

Jeremy Jay - Slow Dance

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 25, 2009
Link
7.7

 

Whenever some idiot convinced you that stuff like crushes and holding hands was dumb, that what you should really care about is getting action, that's when you became an adult and started dying. I think I'm paraphrasing fellow music critic Chuck Eddy here. Remember your first slow dances, seventh or eight grade? For me there was a lot of nervous excitement, plus whatever you call the emotion when you're a clumsy preteen dancing to "The End of the Road" with the girl you like, or "I Swear" with the girl who likes you. I seem to recall high school dances being similarly fraught. Now try to think of the last time you felt something that intensely.

Jeremy Jay, then, must live in Neverland. But is he Peter Pan-- or Michael Jackson? The question gets more interesting on the hiccupy-voiced Paris/L.A. bandleader's second K Records LP. It's the most weirdly mesmerizing in a series of promising single, EP, and full-length releases that includes last year's shadowy, cinematic heart-tugger A Place Where We Could Go. Jay's the type of guy who tours with Deerhunter but covers Madonna just as naturally as Brian Eno. Billed as winter-themed, Slow Dance uses crisp garage-rock and frigid post-punk as a backdrop for romanticized pop fantasy.

"Slow dance" has has basically emerged as its own, resurgent genre these past several years: the cosmic disco of Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, and Todd Terje; the flamenco-inflamed beach trips of Studio, Boat Club, Hatchback, and Windsurf; the after-hours glide of Glass Candy and Chromatics; the sample-based vacations of Quiet Village and Air France. That connection is probably a coincidence. But then again, maybe it isn't. On the first few listens, I noticed the record's minimal yet evocative lyrical repetitions less than its snow-globe-meticulous sound. Jay recorded the album in winter at Olympia's Dub Narcotic Studio, with bassist Derek James, drummer Nick Pahl, and additional guitarist Ilya Malinsky; the early nights and electric lighting of the season are all over the frosty synth-and-guitar surface of opener "We Were There" (a new version of a 2007 single), the slow strums and cold breaths of gorgeously spare "Winter Wonder", and the choked sobs and fingersnaps of piano waltz "Slow Dance 2". "You've got the rhythm," Jay insists on "In This Lonely Town".

That song also captures a vivid scene, maybe the opening of a film: the narrator walking with his peacoat on, seeing fish by the pier, smelling coffee and sweets by the "pizza club." Part of the pleasure of repeat listens is trying to figure out whether Jay is just too innocent to be true-- like, what's he hiding, right? "Giddyup, horsey, giddyup," goes "Gallop"; "Canter, canter, canter," adds the next song, "Canter Canter". And there Jay is, amid the "disco lights" (!) and Drifters-style percussion of "Will You Dance With Me?", resting his head on your shoulders, "melting in your arms tonight." Jay envisions an angelic guitar-strummer illuminated by a disco ball (!!) on "Where Could We Go Tonight?", again raising more questions than answers. In the final seconds of the most urgent-sounding track, "Breaking the Ice", he murmurs almost as an aside: "Should've told you that I love you." You could choose to dismiss it all as kids' stuff. But that's the idiot talking.

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 23, 2009
Link
5.7

 

Nobody got into the Decemberists for the riffs. In other ways, though, the theatrical Portland folk-rockers' noble sojourn into heavy narrative prog-folk was probably always in the stars. Ornately antiquarian diction was their Ziggy Stardust. Ginormous song suites based on world folklore were their deaf, dumb, and blind kid. Yes, they were meant for The Wall.

In an interview with Paste, singing guitarist/songwriter Colin Meloy mentioned that The Hazards of Love was "initially conceived as a musical... but I decided about halfway through my time in France that it wasn't going to work as a stage piece. But it would still work as a rock record, so that's where it ended up." Alas, for all the derring-do of the Decemberists' resolutely un-sold-out (I guess?) fifth album, its failures as a stage piece may explain some of the problems that hamper it as a rock record.

It makes sense that the Decemberists would end up here. A willingness to make their fans put in some work, whether with fancy language or sprawling song suites, has been part of their steez ever since the baroque reveries of 2002 debut Castaways and Cutouts and stagey bookishness of 2003 breakthrough Her Majesty-- both of which still kick pantaloon. After 2004's The Tain EP flashed the first signs of metalhead envy, Picaresque a year later ended the Decemberists' indie years with their most relatable and poppiest album (still my favorite of theirs). Capitol debut The Crane Wife showed no symptoms of what Meloy had termed "major-label sellout-itis".

The Hazards of Love, inspired by UK folkie Anne Briggs' 1966 EP of the same name, has thick stoner-metal sludge and peat-bogged prog-folk arpeggios. Tucker Martine, who mixed The Crane Wife, produces exactly right for the material, focusing on the songs. Multi-instrumentalist Jenny Conlee and bassist Nate Query add several string arrangements. Robyn Hitchcock adds subtle electric guitar textures on an instrumental interlude, and My Morning Jacket's Jim James and the Spinanes' Rebecca Gates are in there somewhere, too. Still, although the album's grandiose narrative about star-crossed lovers William and Margaret-- and the dastardly villains who beset them-- has some nice twists, it's not exactly Andrew Lloyd Webber. Usually here's where I'm supposed to say, "That's OK, you don't have to follow the plot, because the songs stand on their own"-- except, with a few exceptions, they don't, not quite.

It doesn't simplify things that Meloy sings the parts of multiple characters, also including "First Voice" and "The Rake". The blessedly thorough lyric sheet makes advance mp3s like dark infanticide memoir "The Rake's Song" a lot funnier, full of witty wordplay ("I was wedded and it whetted my thirst") and sly foreshadowing ("You think that I would be haunted"-- he will be), but reading isn't the same as listening. Too much work, not enough payoff. (Hmm, imagine that.)

Not that the Decemberists' latest has anywhere near the smugness that haters might wrongly expect-- they sang "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade", calling "all bed wetters", after all. "The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid", in which Meloy's William argues against the Queen to set him free to be with his beloved, has blazing classic-rock riffs and a commanding vocal by My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden. (The reprise is less essential, unless you're still following the plot.) Worden returns on the "The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing", which has blistering dynamic shifts, an organ solo, and plenty of lurching Black Mountain heaviness. Surprisingly, it all sounds like the Decemberists, at least if you've been paying attention over the years.

For the love songs, then, The Hazards of Love puts on some Nashville twang. Pedal steel cries alongside swaying accordion on "Isn't it a Lovely Night?", with a precious post-orgasm (post-Pete & the Pirates?) pun. As the pregnant Margaret, Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark is a welcome pairing for Meloy, smiling with Princess Bride-like serenity through her worries on "Won't Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)"; Meloy's voice is at its vulnerable best on the trembling meadow-makeout ballad "The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)". I can take the undead children chanting on "The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)", but not the watery wedding vows on the drunken finale-- what can I say, I really, really didn't like Titanic.

Enough happens musically on The Hazards of Love that I can still see it being fun for fans in a live setting, especially if you know the lyrics. On disc, though, it's largely missing the catchy choruses and verisimilar emotions that previously served as ballast for the Decemberists' gaudy eccentricities. As a turn toward metal, The Tain EP's smaller portion was more satisfying-- although, as mid-career change-ups go, this is still a fair piece more enjoyable than something like MMJ's Evil Urges.

"Doing The Hazards of Love took a lot out of me," Meloy confides in the press bio. "And I'm definitely curious what will come out now that I've got this out of my system." The Decemberists already released three non-album singles last year, compiled as the Always the Bridesmaid EP; "Sleepless", a lovely orchestral lullaby from the recent Dark Was the Night charity compilation, suggests the Decemberists still have plenty more nautical epics to perform. "I've got nothing to hold onto," Meloy sings. A friend of Bobby McGee's once called that feeling freedom, and it only took a four-and-a-half-minute song.

Live: Morrissey at Bowery Ballroom

Live Review
Village Voice
March 23, 2009
Link

Our unsleepable friend gets the message on an ill-wind (Angela Hogan)

Morrissey
Bowery Ballroom
Saturday, March 21

"I can smell your draft," Morrissey announced upon taking the stage at the Bowery Ballroom, the smallest New York venue the former Smiths emo-crooner has played in easily Googleable internet memory. The 550-capacity Bowery Ballroom is a step down for the Pope of Mope-- last time he was in town, Moz was originally supposed to play Madison Square Garden (but ended up at Hammerstein, post-cancellations); later this week he'll be at Carnegie Hall (and Webster, but y'know). At first, I figured he was making some obsolete quip about our dank Lower East Side hygiene. Four songs in, as a plume of green smoke from the front rows climbed to the rafters, the man's point was unmistakable: "I'm not really used to this smell, and I'm warning you, it could have an interesting effect on me. If I were you, I'd stand back."

Morrissey's superfans mostly took their hero's advice, even though they're notorious huggers. And as for interesting effects, Moz was in his hoped-for charming form, chatting and gesticulating throughout a disappointingly brief 80-minute set. Current album Years of Refusal is the best since 1994's Vauxhall and I, and the evening's songs were just about evenly split between YoR, 2004's You Are the Quarry, older Morrissey solo output, and the Smiths. (2006's Ringleader of the Tormentors wuz robbed.) His longtime backing band, including bolo-tie-rocking guitarist Boz Boorer, gave tunes both new and old a muscular glam-rockabilly crunch. If intimacy was the draw, charisma and showmanship were the rewards. Also: middle-aged male semi-nudity.


Forget the increasingly dignified resonance of that singing voice, how about the sounds Morrissey makes? "Everybody's la-ha-ha-ha-ughing," he hiccuped on Vauxhall's "Billy Budd." "Urrrrghhh!!!!" he bellowed during fiery YAtQ single-as-polemic "Irish Blood, English Heart". On the same album's Nancy Sinatra-covered slow jam (such as it is) "Let Me Kiss You", Moz practically barked like a dog, tossing the first of three shirts into the crowd on the words "you see someone that you physically despise." He growled insults on YoR's midtempo chugger "Sorry Doesn't Help", attacking "fake humility" only a few seconds after brilliantly brushing off creepy but heartfelt fan-worship with: "Is he making fun of me? He will, one day." Backed by upright bass and accordion on "Why Don't You Find Out for Yourself" Morrissey punched the air with a lusty "oooph!"

Then again, Morrissey's voice has arguably never sounded richer than on the new record, and Saturday night's show demonstrated that's no fluke. The 49-year-old performer romped through the endless "don't give me anymore"s on YoR opener "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" with nary a gasp; his pretty a capella intro to lone encore "First of the Gang to Die"--the YAtQ track that is probably his biggest 2000s-era "hit"--showed he can do soft nuance, too. The band's punched-up power chords could start to run together at times, but they helped freshen up Smiths classics like "This Charming Man" (first song of the night) and "Ask". "It's macho military might that will bring us together," Morrissey sang at the end of the latter, changing the lyrics. The star of a stunning "How Soon Is Now?", other than Moz's initial request for a "dead cat" ("I'd like to see if I can swing it"), was a gong, crashing again and again over the effects-washed final chords. Biggest complaint: He didn't play more songs, especially from the new album (especially "It's Not Your Birthday Anymore").

The "possible greatness of any pop artist is in the greatness of their influences," Morrissey declared before early-1990s b-side "The Loop", which suggested a few of the singer's own influences with its bright guitar twang and shuffling rhythm. Videos featuring Moz heroes--including early UK rock'n'roller Vince Taylor and the New York Dolls--were projected onto the curtain after a solid if uninventive opening set of post-Arctic Monkeys Britrock by Manchester's the Courteneers. And Morrissey dedicated "Seasick, Yet Still Docked"-- a slow, self-lacerating number from 1992's Your Arsenal-- to classic gangster-movie actors Billy Hallop, George Raft, and "all the great performers of the Bowery-- all of which you have obviously forgotten." Hey man, a $75 ticket price-- before Ticketmaster and/or scalper surcharges-- doesn't guarantee connoisseurship.

No one makes melodramatic self-mockery more appealing. "I'm the type who just can't be loved," Morrissey murmured at one point. Later, after introducing the band, he contemplated aloud: "Who am I? Well, that is a question that many have died trying to answer. I can only be identified on a slab, by the scars of pain." The shtick's not all self-mockery, either: "In a few days we'll be in a slightly posher part of town, so obviously none of you will be there. Nice meeting you."--Marc Hogan

Morrissey plays Webster Hall, Wednesday, March 25, and Carnegie Hall, Thursday, March 26.

Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 20, 2009
Link
6.8

 












It'll be a shame if Lockett Pundt's solo debut gets lost in all the light and heat coming from his main band. But it won't be surprising. In a rare interview, the shy Deerhunter-er told blog BBQCHICKENROBOT that he started recording his album at the beginning of 2007. Since then, Deerhunter has released Cryptograms, the Fluorescent Grey EP, and last year's Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.; lead singer Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound has released Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, plus a staggering number of mp3s, mixes, and non-album tracks. At shows, Pundt can be seen strumming wordlessly, staring toward his effects pedals.

And yet the sole figure behind Lotus Plaza has had a huge-- and all too often unacknowledged-- role in establishing Deerhunter's hallucinatory sound. The Atlanta band's chaotic 2005 debut, Deerhunter aka Turn It Up Faggot, gets kind of a bad rap, no doubt in part because Cox disavowed the thing. But it shows that Deerhunter didn't turn into the shoegaze-drenched dreamweavers we know and love until after Pundt joined. Pundt wrote the music for some of Deerhunter's most indelible songs-- "Strange Lights", "Like New"-- and made his singing debut on Microcastle. The Atlas Sound album, which features Pundt's guitar on "Cold as Ice", is dedicated to him.

So that the first Lotus Plaza album, The Floodlight Collective, is a hazy bedroom reverie shouldn't surprise listeners accustomed to other Deerhunter-related projects, the hypnotic solo work of Panda Bear, the lonesome longing of Jeremy Jay, or to a lesser extent the introverted homemade racket of Wavves and Dum Dum Girls. Produced by Brian Foote of Nudge, the album submerges plaintive vocals in layer after reverb-washed cloud layer of ethereal guitar atmospherics, achieving a woozy and sometimes barely intelligible prettiness. That can best be heard on tracks like the tambourine-jangling "Whiteout"-- its gentle melody gaining force on repeat listens-- or the squealing, Quickspace-esque rocker "What Grows?" (it does, an abstract Yo La Tengo). Pundt plays all instruments, except for Cox's turn on Factory-ready drums for the sweet dream pop of "Different Mirrors"; a bouncy Supremes beat gives way to outer-space Roy Orbison on "Quicksand". The krautrock pulse and piano-dripping radiance of seven-minute centerpiece "Antoine" sound like a Stereolab disciple starting to come into his own.

As with bashful Blur guitarist Graham Coxon on his own solo debut more than a decade ago, Pundt at times lets his diffidence get the best of him. For all the subtle detail in a track like the mournful, pitch-shifted "Sunday Night"-- which vaguely recalls Atlas Sound's "Bite Marks" in its nostalgic main riff-- with Pundt's melodic and conceptual strengths so submerged, the album can begin to run together. That's probably the point: From the washed-out cover art to the few discernible lyrics, The Floodlight Collective is obsessed with the indistinctness of memory, the dazzlement of bright lights. Opener "Red Oak Way", maybe Pundt's "Hazel St.", longs for "sunny Saturdays watching cartoons in the living room," warm rays shining through the windowpane. So The Floodlight Collective is a mostly elegant listen, and one whose failings are part of its theme: Like a vague recollection, it's still a little hard to hold onto after it's over-- pretty albeit somewhat ephemeral. Memory knows before knowing remembers, sure, but too much light makes the baby go blind.

White Lies - To Lose My Life...

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 16, 2009
Link
4.0














Two months after Ian Curtis died, Bono stopped by the desk of Factory Records founder Tony Wilson and said something like, "Now he's gone, I promise you I'll do it for him." At least that's what Wilson later told critic Simon Reynolds. U2 soldiered on without Joy Divison's gothy glamor, and of course Bono wasn't the only one carrying an unforgettable fire for Curtis. Then and since, a long list of bands have tried fusing U2's stadium-size grandiosity with Joy Division's bleak foreboding. Sometimes they're Radiohead, sometimes they're Interpol, and sometimes they're White Lies.

The most relevant current comparison is probably Glasvegas, another UK band groomed early on for success, only to release a disappointingly ponderous debut album. Except where Glasvegas' roots in girl-group, JAMC, and early Creation bands amounted to an Exciting New Direction in the beleaguered British indie scene, White Lies have been striking the usual post-punk moves ever since a pair of Stephen Street-produced singles in 2006, back when they were called Fear of Flying. White Lies' debut To Lose My Life... recently entered the UK charts at #1 and combines prose-purple darkness with rafters-shooting arena rock. It's better than Elefant, worse than the Stills, nearly on par with Editors-- which in the English rock press these days assures descriptors like "classic" and "masterpiece."

Produced by Ed Buller (Pulp, Suede) and Max Dingel (the Killers, Glasvegas), and boasting melodramatic accompaniment by a 20-piece orchestra, To Lose My Life... can't be faulted in terms of tightness or radio-ready polish. If you liked the new Oasis and U2 records, never bought Turn on the Bright Lights, and tend to ignore clumsy lyrics, you might enjoy raising your beer to this album just fine. Hell, the hummable Cars-esque new wave at the bridge of dour opening track "Death" is just what you needed if you're willing to forget "Just What I Needed". But White Lies know beer is really more for staring at glumly: "Everything has got to be love or death," singer/guitarist Harry McVeigh declares.

Why not both? "Let's grow old together and die at the same time," the title track urges, certainly not the last time someone will rewrite the Smiths' "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" by way of the Modern Lovers' "Dignified and Old", crank up the bombast, and leave out all pathos, personality, and charm. White Lies' flirtations with mortality certainly don't help their drab tunes. "If you tell me to jump then I'll die," goes the galloping "E.S.T."; "As you said goodbye, I almost died," the weepy "Nothing to Give" adds. But their rote cheerlessness suggests no such emotional intensity. As McVeigh sings on POW-invoking sub-Joshua Tree ballad "Fifty on Our Foreheads", "All we heard was lies about the truth." Right, as opposed to the other kind of lies.

White Lies could even get away with a little heavy-handed somberness if anything of their own (other than unintentional humor) shone through their reconstituted gloom-rock. A little less death, a little more love-- of creativity, of life in all its urgent particulars rather than just the hand-me-down cliches that stand in for them-- would go a long way. Take "Unfinished Business", where gothic organs, Interpol-like phrasing, and a jarring James Bond allusion convey little other than that White Lies own a few critically acclaimed records and probably know who Roger Moore is. "Love and death are always on my mind," the Stills sang back in 2003. In other words, White Lies are boring and stuff.

Say Hi - Oohs and Aahs

Video / Album Review
ABC News
Link
March 9, 2009

The Boy Least Likely To - The Law of the Playground

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 5, 2009
Link
7.5














Childhood isn't kids' stuff. Like Tom Cruise, or life in Hobbes' state of nature, it can be nasty, brutish, and short. Language that would make Rahm Emanuel or a "South Park" writer blush. Intolerance enough to have Rush Limbaugh sound like Gandhi. A mini shock'n'awe campaign of child-on-insect violence. And, every now and then, brief glimpses of nudity. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

UK twee-poppers the Boy Least Likely To didn't disappear after 2005 debut The Best Party Ever reclaimed the schoolyard. But their vividly imagined mix of whimsy and melancholy has attracted a magic-threatening share of the spotlight. A steady drip of TV, film, and retail licensing for single "Be Gentle With Me", originally released in 2003, culminated (so far) with a Coca-Cola commercial during this year's Academy Awards broadcast. At the same time, in a world where Noah and the Whale exist, hipper-than-thou tastes have shifted back toward harsher, rougher sounds, or else impossibly perfect Auto-Tune chart-pop.

Boy will be Boy. Delayed by record-label collapse, sophomore album The Law of the Playground evokes a nostalgia that has as much to do with those innocently optimistic days before financial meltdown, fake celebrity Twitter posts, and Hipster Runoff as with lazy summers. This still isn't kids music. But TBLLT's child's-eye perspective on English anorak pop, sunny West Coast harmonies, Belle and Sebastian-y folk, country, and soul, is now certifiably... theirs, just theirs. Dexys Midnight Runners-like strings join banjo, recorder, handclaps, synths, and glockenspiel. If the enchantment has weakened a smidge, the craft-- and the extreme cuteness-- sure haven't. TBLLT have covered both George Michael and the Field Mice; their own best songs combine the former's chart-conquering populism with the latter's practically mind-expanding wimpiness. "I've got puppy powers," TBLLT lyrical and vocal half Jof Owen murmurs on current single "Every Goliath Has Its David", as multi-instrumentalist/composer Pete Hobbs wields birthday-party orchestration like a giant-killing slingshot.

Yet whether on gung-ho opener "Saddle Up", or self-pep-talk "When Life Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade", fear and neurosis almost always undermine the cheery arrangements. It's an old move, not just for these guys, but on advance download-only single "I Box Up All the Butterflies", with its twang and "When I'm Sixty-Four" oompah, TBLLT give gnawing insecurity a welcome charm. After "the birds and the bees" beset Owen when he's being entomologically cruel, dude reaches a koan-like understanding on acoustic ballad "The Worm Forgives the Plough", itself halfway between Sarah Records indie and Weezer's Pinkerton "Butterfly". Harmonica- and glockenspiel-led "Stringing Up Conkers" juxtaposes grown-up body image problems with... shoving pencils up your nose.

Self-referentiality adds to The Law of the Playground 's sense of déjà vu even as it lets the band try new angles on familiar themes. "The Boy Least Likely To Is a Machine" is a sad scientist's-workshop concept-song... sort of their "Dr. Carter"; brassy swooner "The Boy with Two Hearts" could be the duo's autobiography (with its accompanying anxieties) or a love song (with its accompanying anxieties); "The Nature of the Boy Least Likely To" slows down and stretches out, fighting the same demons as The Best Party Ever 's "The Battle of the Boy Least Likely To".

An old Calvin & Hobbes Sunday strip has been making the rounds again lately. Calvin tries to sell Susie Derkins lemonade, overcharges her because of "demand" for an exorbitant salary, uses sludge water to cut costs, goes to mom for a bailout when Susie won't buy. As strong and unusual as The Law of the Playground is, especially out of step in 2009, it never quite feels as inspired, as fraught with conflicted beauty, as past songs "Paper Cuts" or "Be Gentle With Me" or "Monsters". But that doesn't mean melody, harmony, and earnest self-expression of the funny pathos of being human are any less relevant this year than they were in 2005. "I'm still as stupid as I was before," Owen sings on poignant finale "A Fairytale Ending".

Shrag - Shrag

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 3, 2009
Link
7.4















During the first wave of UK indie, Gang of Four wrote anti-love songs while bands like the Slits, the Raincoats, and X-Ray Spex rejected not only romance but also traditional femininity. In the Britpop 1990s, Blur snarkily claimed to see no difference between "Girls and Boys", and Elastica made sexual demystification a lot more fun ("You could call me a car lover/ 'Cause I love it in a motor"). Brighton's Shrag are a sharp up-and-coming poppy post-punk band smearing their own dark lip gloss on sex and gender. But you can always tell deep down they're looking for real, vital connection.

They find it in more ways than one on their self-titled debut album, which mostly pulls together songs released on mp3 and 7" going back to 2006, when "Don't Speak"-ably stinging breakup ballad "Hopelessly Wasted" made a few waves. More often the three-girl, two-boy guitar-synth rioters are more bellicose-- hitting the giddy stratospheres of early Long Blondes singles (minus the glamour) while tremblingly shouting down a cheating lover on spiky-riffed "Lost Dog", or holding a "long term grudge" on fast, still-furious "Long Term Monster". Shoplifting is hard on the unrepentantly unruly "Intelligent Theft", but bratty MySpace-quote pop sounds easy. The most divisive track is likely to be Kate Nash-conversational "Talk to the Left", a bare electro-punk update on awkward sex jams ("Did he really say, 'Baby, now I'm heading south?'") from the Au Pairs' "Come Again" to Art Brut's "Rusted Guns of Milan". "Cupboard Love" should get basement crowds belting out requests for W-2 information. You just haven't earned it yet, baby.

Like many of us in our increasingly autistic age, Shrag seek not just physical connections, but to participate in shared culture-- the essence of the English DIY movement. Even when they're talking about their bodies, Shrag use the language of fans. Love Is All-ish sax spree "Pregnancy Scene" is the best petulant protest against all our friends growing up and having babies since the Boy Least Likely To's "Monsters"; the only previously unreleased non-instrumental, "New Favourites", obsesses over a clique-changing best mate like she's a once-favorite band; "Mark E. Smith" is the indie kid's "Would you do that if Barack Obama was watching?". My absolute favorite song here, "Forty Five 45s", is a beautifully crafted, basically one-chord wonder sung by a narrator who'd notice every nuance in the mixtapes you give her and then be really fucking pissed when you take off with all her mp3s except Jeff Buckley. You could've at least left the Los Campesinos! zine.

Only connect? Not hardly: "Different Glue" grapples with groping strangers who will make you glad you stayed at home tonight. "Women get hassled at gigs if they're not with a bloke," Gang of Four's Jon King told critic Greil Marcus in 1980. The name Shrag, sort of a nice onomatopoeia for the younger group's tough-talking shambling, is also an actual English word that's obsolete. King's statement isn't-- neither is a good fanmade antidote to pop music that's some dying conglomerate's idea of how much self-expression you can handle. Things aren't perfect, but we've come a long way.

Malajube - Labyrinthes

Album Reviews
Pitchfork
March 2, 2009
Link
6.4














"Malajube's music is labyrinthine," Pitchfork's Brian Howe wrote by way of praising the French Montreal band's breakout sophomore album, Trompe-l'Oeil, in 2006. With their city then under the indie rock microscope, Malajube (still say it MAL-a-zhoob) scanned as yet more ramshackle hyper-pop, language less a barrier than a Dungen-esque point of difference-- when it counted, say on the hook to commercial-bait standout "Montréal -40°C", these inaugural Polaris Music Prize nominees sounded no more francophone than, I dunno, Electric Light Orchestra. Media hype now gone home, Malajube up the labyrinthine stakes on Labyrinthes, daring re-entry. It's not for the faint of heart-- or the fain to double back.

How do you say "gone all prog" en français? The change is as much context as content-- multipart Trompe mini-epics "La Monogamie" and "Le Crabe" already were reminiscent of contemporaries such as Mew-- but jarring structural changes are the norm on Labyrinthes, suggesting Malajube's former "progressive emo jam band" MySpace descriptor may have been more apt than absurd. Six-minute opener "Ursuline" boldly announces the new approach-- and, if you understand the submerged lyrics (or read the interviews), the Catholicism/mortality-minded lyrical themes-- as blistering guitar solos, chopsy drumming, and portentous chants descend upon a placid piano intro, leaving only church bells in their wake. Juxtapositions juice a couple of the best songs: "Casablanca", which veers from hazy Tropicália-tinged pop to a fleet-fingered guitar coda, and "333", all gallops and screeches and echoes except when its inner "Dust in the Wind" breaks out.

Where Malajube fall flat, it's not due to complexity, but grim reality: Comedy rarely translates well. Jerry Lewis, anyone? "It's good to have humor in music too," drummer Francis Mineau, lead singer Julien Mineau's brother, told the National Post. The most immediately accessible tracks here-- spiky video selection "Porté Disparu", with its Ed Wood-worthy synth line, or the harmony- and piano-driven "Luna"-- translate as light-hearted whether you know that "Les Collemboles" refers to eating bugs someday or just like to hum along with its call-and-response chorus. The more sinister "Le Tout-Puissant" and "Cristobald" convey instrumental prowess and grandiosity, sure, but I could use a pie in the face (OK, the closing growls almost count). So although Labyrinthes further establishes Malajube as French Canadians worth following, this time you may not make it far enough to save your brother from the Goblin King.