The Pains have never been shy about wearing their hearts on their sleeves; their love for John Hughes and "Kurt Cobain's Cardigan" is always present. For their sophomore disc, the tweesters recruited Smashing Pumpkins producer Flood and My Bloody Valentine mixer Alan Moulder. It's a union made in Gen X heaven, and the result is a more robust and streamlined sound, with a solid rhythm section that keeps the jangly, dreamy guitars and keyboards afloat. Kip Berman and Peggy Wang's harmonies make you want to curl up with that shy guy/gal from English class and watch Winona Ryder in her prime.
First, Robert Plant regained his shamanistic rock muse on the global-tripping Mighty Rearranger. Then he cut Raising Sand, a sublime duets set with Alison Krauss. Here, Plant takes a dark detour with Patty Griffin and guitarist Buddy Miller. This covers set is many shades of swamp noir, with songs by Townes Van Zandt, Richard Thompson, indie slowcore specialists Low and obscure R&B rockers. The results are deep, moving and brooding, with a sense of dread seeping into even the most joyous songs. Still taking notes on American music, Robert Plant reflects something very jarring back at us.
This pairing makes total sense: Both Brian Burton (aka Danger Mouse) and the Shins' James Mercer have an uncanny ability for packaging perfect little pop songs, big diamonds in petite boxes that hit just the right pleasure points. On their debut, they give us two fat gems right from the get-go with "The High Road" and "Vaporize." From there, Burton finds drama in every nuance: woozy orchestral flourishes, rickety static, spaghetti-western horns, beats that melt on impact. These effects allow Mercer's lullaby croons to find more places to fly -- even to a funky falsetto on "The Ghost Inside."
Where Person Pitch's magic came in its colorful explosion of weirdo loops and layers, Tomboy's is felt in the spaces between, where black holes endlessly vibrate with echoes and reverb. Meanwhile, Panda Bear sounds like he's chanting down a well whose bottom houses a church of Beach Boy bliss. "Tomboy" and "Afterburner" gallop along like a speeding train, yet Noah Lennox's mantras stay simple and focused throughout the album: "Know you can count on me," he intones; then, "so they say practice makes perfect" -- advice he seems to heed through the hypnotizing sounds of repetition.
There's an anxious energy powering Dear Science, and it's incredibly infectious. Apparent from the first grating guitar riff on "Halfway Home," it flows through "Crying"'s bassy/falsetto interplay and "Dancing Choose"'s fast, flippant flows that can contend with R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World ..." The restless vigor turns upbeat with "Golden Age," which could be a New Age mantra if it weren't for all the moonwalk-able beats, and on "Red Dress," a funky, big-band thrill ride. TVOTR may still allow the gloom to lurk, but this time around, they're having more fun with it.
"These are my famous last words!" screams Dave Grohl at the outset of Wasting Light, the Foos' seventh album. If it's true, he's going out with a helluva bang. Recorded in Grohl's garage using only analog gear (how rock is that) and produced by Butch Vig, the record sees the band at its heaviest ("White Limo") and even its blues-iest ("I Should Have Known"), but the Foos' classic soft-to-thunderous builds are still very much in play. Grohl seems especially mesmerized by "the end" -- of life, of Earth, of bad relations -- yet at album's end he confesses with manic zeal, "I never want to die!"
For the band that launched a thousand "angulars" among music critics, naming an album Angles is almost too coy. But while spiky Strokesian counterpoint abounds (see, the ringing, mirrored guitars of "Under Cover"), the band has at least one other titular meaning up its sleeve. Its fourth album zips around the parameters of post-punk, casting the band's sound in a range of new angles: electro-pop beats, vaudevillian whimsy, even proggish drama. The result is a polished, if at times overworked, sense of theatricality and experimentation that suits a band at this stage in its career.
"The Great Pan is Dead" is one of those openers that's impossible to make it past. Featuring one of singer Wesley Eisold's most confident vocal performances to date, it's a wall-of-sound art-pop anthem whose punch recalls Eno's "Needles in the Camel's Eye." When you do get around to listening to the rest of the album it won't disappoint. Cold Cave know their classic synth-pop inside and out and dump all that knowledge into a collection of songs that is finely layered and really quite cherry, which is a strange thing to say, considering Cold Cave got their start trading in doom and gloom.
Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince just couldn't stay away from each other. Since 2008's Midnight Boom, Mosshart may have had a dalliance with Jack White, but 2011's Blood Pressures sees the duo back in fine form, if not somewhat tamed. Hince even throws out a soulful ballad with "Wild Charms," Mosshart with "The Last Goodbye." But don't get us wrong, The Kills still sound like they're trapped in a grimy basement loving/hating the sight of one another -- "I love you, just not the way you want," Mosshart grumbles over grating drum machine beats and guitar licks that slither and grind.
The Kills have learned the secret recipe for making ultimate hipster jams: Mix together snotty punk-funk and electroclash drum machinery and smear it all over massive guitar rock a la the White Stripes. As with previous albums, Midnight Boom, the duo's third, grooves with a swagger courtesy of cofounder Alison "VV" Mosshart. A super-cute Floridian, she brings a southern-fried attitude (think Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux) to a kind of dance-rock that's typically dominated by Brits.
It's a bummer that everything PB&J does is inevitably compared to that one whistle-happy hit. You know the one. It's fantastic fun, but so are a lot of the Swedes' deeper cuts, and Gimme Some has no shortage of that feel-good spirit. Clap-alongs, sing-alongs and conga lines (see "Dig a Little Deeper") all seem encouraged, but so is full-blown sarcasm ("Before you break my heart, I'm going to break your nose and sing about it"). And that juxtaposition embodies PB&J's charm, whether it's lit through jangly guitars ("May Seem Macabre"), garage-rock beats ("Lies") or cowbell ("Second Chance").
On 2008's Dear Science, TV on the Radio predicted a "Golden Age comin' round." The follow-up is even more optimistic. One word keeps biting at singer Tunde Adebimpe's tongue: love. He questions, battles and ultimately embraces that four-letter word here, from "Second Song" to "You" to "Will Do." But this wouldn't be TVOTR without some apocalyptic musings; the avant-garde Brooklynites even invent a doom-laden dance craze, the "No Future Shock." Still, love conquers all. "If the world all falls apart/ How am I going to keep your heart?" Adebimpe wonders; by song's end, he's certain he will.
Since most Pearl Jam fans know Vs. and Vitalogy inside and out, the real treats in this box set are the bonus tracks. An embryonic demo of "Better Man" -- as well as the rarities "Hold On" and "Crazy Mary," a Victoria Williams cover -- all speak to Pearl Jam's overlooked folk leanings. Disc three is a concert recording from the spring of '94. The band strikes a balance between the introspective material found on Vs. and the audience's desire to stage dive to older hits ("Even Flow," "Once"); with special guest Mark Arm of Mudhoney, the band tears into The Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer."
Since coming together in 2003, Crystal Stilts have garnered more than a few comparisons to Joy Division and Crispy Ambulance. There's no doubt these post-punk prophets of gloom exert an influence. But on In Love With Oblivion the group -- sharp stylists, with a knack for moody sonic candy -- also exudes a gothic-garage vibe that calls to mind early Cramps and 45 Grave. With its droning organ, sci-fi effects and monotone croon, "Alien Rivers" is a great example of this style. Another one is "Prometheus At Large," which closes out the album with reverb jangle and a chug-a-lug groove.
This follow-up EP to Broken Bells' acclaimed debut gives hope that the pairing between Brian Burton and James Mercer was not just a one-off fling. Most of the tracks here seem almost heavy compared to anything on Broken Bells. "Meyrin Fields" gradually intensifies as Mercer's coos dodge lasers from another planet; "Windows" is an ominous guitar stomper; "An Easy Life" swirls like a tilt-a-whirl, distorted vocals included; and "Heartless Empire" sounds like Mercer hiding out in a cave as a UFO lands. In other words, Broken Bells remain one of indie pop's more out-there duos.
Low's slow-burn appeal has certainly not gone unnoticed; in fact, Robert Plant covered two of the band's tracks on 2010's Band of Joy. With C'mon, their ninth full-length, the Minnesotans ease into their slowcore seduction as comfortably as a goose down comforter on a Duluth winter day. Recognizing their role as somber soothers, they add hints of jangling banjo on "Witches" and lap steel drones on "Done" and "Nothing But Heart" to help amplify the sleepy, sensual vibe -- even when they're feeling a tad cynical: "All you guys out there trying to act like Al Green, you all are weak."
The title of the Mexico City band's third album, which means "Far. Not That Far," is an evocative description of the band's sound. Lejos is crafted of swirling currents of sound that dance and twirl around each other. Shimmering synths and crisp beats are softened by a vintage fuzziness. The occasional horn duets with guitars that range from plaintive to penetrating. And over it all soars Lo Blondo's ghostly, gorgeous vocals (just listen to her hoot over the organ on "Un Ano Quebrado"). It is at once otherworldly and familiar, eerie and comforting, far and not that far.
