Weekly Whiskey Episode 11 (For Realz)

Well, it finally worked. Hope it was worth all the trouble! I have just had one of the worst 24 hour periods of my life, as if the universe wants to make surviving til my vacation as difficult and painful as possible. Such is life.

Album of the Week: Sonic Youth- The Eternal

Back on an indie label, minus Jim O'Rourke but plus former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold, Sonic Youth are closing out this decade with an album that may not best their greatest from this decade (2001's Murray Street) but certainly affirms that they still have it. Whatever 'it' is. The Eternal is fantastic noise-pop that is arguably more successful than even Murray Street at splitting the different between noise/lengthy psychdelic improv and pop/melodic songwriting.

If you'll allow me a slight detour, I have to wonder how much having different members has done for Sonic Youth during this decade. Once the band stabilized with now-permanent drummer Steve Shelley around the late 80s, it wasn't until Jim O'Rourke became involved in 200ish that they released their most critically acclaimed and beloved album in years, Murray Street. After two solid albums that followed in the footsteps of that album (reaching a refined, polished, almost noise-less level with 2006's Rather Ripped), O'Rourke left the band to pursue his own projects and the band picked up Ibold as a full time touring bassist and eventual new member. After performing their classic Daydream Nation in its entirety a few times, not to mention going back to the indies after sticking with a major for so long, you have to wonder how much playing their older material along with the fresh blood of Ibold added to The Eternal. Certainly I don't remember noticing the bass lines of Sonic Youth songs before--but that's probably because for a few albums, they didn't bother with any.

So, then, the album. The Eternal sees the band playing all their best cards while adding some new wrinkles to the mix--'Poison Arrow' has the band singing together where normally Thurston, Lee, or Kim solely sang. It's weird to hear their voices together after so long but it works very well. Perhaps the biggest appeal of the album to me is the unforgettable force of Sonic Youth once again playing it loud, heavy, and noisy. While I loved Rather Ripped as much as anyone, it had a little too much drift and lightness, the guitars chiming when they normally ripped and tore. This album still has some of that, but it also brings the 'classic' Sonic Youth guitar skronk and mid 90s psychedelic improv to the fore again. The ultimate effect is an album that, yes, reminds me of my favorite Sonic Youth songs and albums but never sounds like a copy or throwback. Album closer 'Massage The History' has an almost 10 minute run time that makes me think of the Washing Machine/A Thousand Leaves era but has an acoustic guitar(!) and dreamy vocal from Kim that would be more at home on a Yo La Tengo album. 'Sacred Trickster' is probably the most thrilling shot in the arm opening song of a Sonic Youth album in well over a decade, propelling the album to full speed where even Daydream Nation took a few seconds to work up to the full frenzy of 'Teenage Riot.' And 'What We Know' makes excellent use of Ibold's bass, dancing with the always sublime Steve Shelley's drums, revealing what I always assumed about Ibold from his previous associations with Sonic Youth as well as underground in music in general: he was actually wasted on Pavement in a lot of ways. The focus of Sonic Youth has always been the upper registers of noise and atonality, but The Eternal is a refresher course both on how Shelley is and has been their secret weapon along with whoever is pondering the bottom end on bass.

The best compliment I can pay to The Eternal is that it has me curious to see where Sonic Youth will go next. Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped were good, even great, albums but they didn't leave one wanting more. The Eternal does. It may not end up on my best of '09 list but it's an endlessly satisfying release and probably the best I've heard this year from bands in the "old, established band have still got it" category. Regardless of how I feel about it by year's end, The Eternal will remain an excellent release from a band with no shortage of fascinating and great albums.

Yo La Tengo- I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass

Though I love I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, Yo La Tengo's other verbosely titled album, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, has always held my heart in its hands. The dreamy, surreal atmosphere of it makes for perfect summer evening listening yet the album is also sure to get in at least a little of Yo La Tengo's patented noisy side with the brilliant and brilliantly placed 'Cherry Chapstick.' Yet 2003's Summer Sun mostly saw the band continue the strand of And Then Nothing... while eliminating any but the barest traces of distortion. So when the band released I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, it felt like a signal to fans that they were going for that I Can Hear The Heart... sound, both albums with long titles and a lot of stylistic variety but always an undercurrent of indie rock and noise pop.

Well, this 2006 album is bald faced sequel to that album. It's an inferior sequel, sure, but it's still good. Actually, taken on its own merits I Am Not Afraid... is an excellent album, and was one of 2006's best, but compared to Yo La Tengo's ever growing discography, it comes off as a bit of a regression. Certain songs recall previous Yo La Tengo classics and the entire album feels like it's paced and patterned after I Can Hear The Heart... So assuming you want more of that 1997 classic, and any music fan should, this is a must hear. The reason I withhold a more ringing endorsement is that, much like Radiohead's Amnesiac in comparison to Kid A, here are two albums that feel of a piece yet have enough different songs and directions to be equally fascinating. Ultimately it'll probably come down to personal preference and/or which one you heard first. Who knows.

I love the way the album is bookended by long squalors of krautrock-drone-beat-meets-noise-pop ('Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodking') and a psychedelic, self referential jam ('The Story Of Yo La Tango'), I do, but it's the songs in between that offer the most surprise and delight. 'Mr. Tough' is sung in a falsetto voice with a jaunty piano melody; James McNew, the band's secret weapon/underutilized vocalist, offers the chamber/orchestral pop ballad 'Black Flowers'; the tongue in cheek 'Watch Out For Me Ronnie' takes the band into full punk rock territory and has fun along the way. Yet in the midst of these highlights are songs that, as said before, merely recall other Yo La Tengo songs without adding anything. Or are sub par. 'Daphnia' revisits the same ambient instrumental territory as 'Green Arrow' from I Can Hear The Heart... but takes twice as long to have the same effect. 'The Race Is On Again' is a mid-tempo mellow number that reminds me of something off of And Then Nothing... but isn't languid/dreamy enough and, well, damned M.O.R. And 'Song For Mahlia' is much too pleasant for its own good, another song that reminds me of And Then Nothing... but wouldn't fit in with the special atmosphere and finesse of that album.

Is it a sin for a band to be content with making music that sounds like them?? This may seem like a pointless question, but I think you know what I mean. I'm running into a similar problem with the new Wilco album, actually. Wilco (The Album) sounds like Wilco; most of its songs remind me of other Wilco songs. I end up liking the album when I listen to it because I don't feel particularly strong about it either way. I guess the same can be said for I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.

Album of the Week: Sonic Youth- Washing Machine

"...Sonic Youth, an institution whose guitars are often emulated and never replicated. As does everything else on a record that will startle no one and sound fresh in 2002."

I sometimes forget how long Sonic Youth have been around, but they're a band of survivors who have a lengthy discography three decades deep. There are a few patches in my knowledge of Sonic Youth so any proclamations I can make about their stuff feels kind of half-cocked. Thankfully there's Robert Christgau, who has had a sometimes acrimonious relationship with the band (specifically Thurston Moore), with the quote above. I'm not sure about the claim that it will startle no one, but it's 2009 and Washine Machine sounds as fresh and interesting as their newewst, The Eternal.

Every Sonic Youth album manages the trick of clearly sounding like a Sonic Youth album yet possessing its own distinct identity. Daydream Nation is a sprawling double album; Bad Moon Rising allows its songs to flow together in a suite-like fashion; Murray Street patiently unfolds into glorious psychedelic and noisy avenues. While I've yet to hear Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, Washing Machine feels like the point where the band re-asserted their experimental and sprawling tendencies. Sonic Youth spent most of the early 90s/late 80s moving toward stripped down, short pop-style songs, but I would argue that they manage this best when the catchy pop moments bubble in and out of the noise and guitar trances. So with 1995's Washing Machine they began to move back to this approach, leading to the lengthy psychedelic/experimental A Thousand Leaves, all those SYR releases, and their material from this decade, which has expertly twisted the threads of punk rock energy, noise/psychedelia, and indie rock/pop.

I really love Washing Machine. In my book it's a five star album but I'm willing to concede that for most people it's got some problems. For starters, it's a weird album even for Sonic Youth: the band closes it with a 19 minute song (which can be heard in its full 25ish minute runtime on their The Destroyed Room collection) yet caved in to their record company and broke up the opening 'Becuz', moving the instrumental outro to later in the album as an untitled track. At the same time, the title track spins out into a white noise mid-section that would put off any casual listener then follows it two songs later with the Kim Gordon/Kim Deal (of the Pixies/Breeders) duet, a homage of sorts to 60s girl groups. The second problem is that the album has no sense of flow or progression. This isn't essential to have a great album but Washing Machine never builds any momentum or a sense of purpose, wandering about for 40 or so minutes before investing the remainder of its runtime on 'The Diamond Sea.'

The final problem with Washing Machine is that there's nothing here to hook newcomers. There are a handful of great 'starter' albums for getting into Sonic Youth, but there's really nothing on Washing Machine that's poppy or accessible enough to pull neophytes in. 'The Diamond Sea', the song part, anyway, is an excellent psychedelic ballad, but there's at least 15 minutes of noise and improv wrapped around it; 'No Queen Blues' has Steve Shelley's patented bouncy drums and some brilliant guitar sounds but ruins its chances with a noisy outro; even Gordon's straightforward 'Becuz' goes for too much chaos and skronk. As mentioned earlier, Sonic Youth were better at mixing the noise and pop at other points in their career, but Washing Machine definitely (one might say, defiantly) sticks closer to noise and rock force than it does memorable songwriting and pop elements.

...which is why I love it so much. Despite the caving in on 'Becuz', from here on out the band did whatever they wanted to, and Washing Machine has a devil may care, relaxed feel. True, Sonic Youth's 90s output is an uneven, contentious set of albums. Nothing really won them the acclaim and interest that Daydream Nation and 2001's "return to form" Murray Street did. But maybe that's why the 90s are such a fascinating era for the established Sonic Youth fan. To paraphrase Christgau, Washing Machine still sounds fresh, but I would add that it can also startle and surprise, too. You just have to already like the band to enjoy it.

Primer: Part 3: Shins- Wincing The Night Away

In 2007, one of the biggest names in the indie rock world released an album to mixed reviews. A controversial album that divided fans, it suggested for some the beginning of the end or even was the end itself. Those who felt this way argued that the band were trying too hard to be something they were not, and how everything that used to make them great was mostly missing.

That album was Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. However, James Mercer of the Shins appears on it, and his band released an album that same year which drew mixed reviews and divided fans, too.

That album was Wincing The Night Away. And it, dear readers, is what we music critics call a "growing pains" album. This is shorthand for any album in which a band spends most of the run time expanding their palette, their approach to music, or similarly experimenting. Typically this results in music that is interesting and different than what the band had done before but is nevertheless not a completely successful transition.

I have to wonder what it must've been like for all those people who bought this one based on their love of the Shins from Garden State and their first two albums. I say this because most of what originally attracted people to this band is absent or played down: their excellent indie pop sound, intractable hooks, and James Mercer's way with songwriting. In its place is an album full of experimentation, patience, and James Mercer's way with songwriting. Er, wait, not that third one.

In all seriousness, Mercer remarked during the PR blitz for the album that he had been suffering from terrible insomnia. This helps explain Wincing The Night Away's frequently delirious lyrics which take one step past the pleasant psychedelia of Oh, Inverted World into the realm of Brian Eno "if it sounds good, it is good" lyrics and Stephen Malkmus-ian "it doesn't have to make sense to be awesome and memorable." I don't know what "and the necessary balloon lies a corpse on the floor/we're p*ssed on far too many sprites/and they're all standing up for their rights" is supposed to mean but I sure like the sound of it.

But the prosecution's case against this album will come down to how un-catchy most of the music is. Coming off of the power pop masterpieces of Chutes Too Narrow, you will likely listen to this one a few times and wonder where all the great songs went off to. Yeah, it's the same band and their sound isn't radically different, but at the same time things aren't the same and the approach has changed. 'Spilt Needles' is the most guilty party, with its whip crack heavy drums and cavalcade of keyboard atmospherics/wails along with a heavily treated guitar. There's also the percussive drum loops of 'Sea Legs' to pick at, as well as the syrupy synthesizer backing of the percussion-less 'Red Rabbits.' And the ominous 'Black Wave', which picks up where 'Your Algebra' from Oh, Inverted World left off. The total effect is that of an indie pop band who made an album that puts a premium on experimenting and pushing themselves to do things differently, to not rely on easy choruses or hooks. If you're looking for a sequel to the first or second Shins album, you'd be best advised to move along.

However, I still find a lot to enjoy on this album. I like the idea that bands are on a continual journey to new and exciting places, so I silently cheer whenever I think about this album. Frankly I'm surprised the band had the guts to do something like this. Don't misjudge where I'm going with this. This album isn't a huge departure from what they had done before; at the same time, while it's good and has some interesting, satisfying music, it still is, as I mentioned earlier, a "growing pains" album. It's different from their first two albums and it's not as good but it promises a lot for the future. Things like the short interlude 'Pam Berry' (with its huge guitar sound), the way 'Turn On Me' slowly offers its delights over a few minutes instead of cramming it all in quick like they used to, and the surprising keyboard solo outro to 'Sea Legs' make me excited for their next release. I never thought I would be interested to see where the Shins go next. After Chutes Too Narrow they seemed destined to release an excellent pop/rock album that was about a half hour long once every 3 or 4 years. In this scenario, their albums would always be good but they would have a steady, unexciting consistency like The Sea & Cake albums have. After Wincing The Night Away, I'm going to get their next album day one instead of "meh, it's just more pop/rock, I'll get around to it someday..."

While Wincing The Night Away is inevitably always going to be known as the Shins's "growing pains" album, one that some fans will enjoy but most will find weak and too different, it's still worth a listen. It may be more enjoyable as a document of where they might go than it is for where they went, but that's not a bad thing. Anyway, if you just want more of the same no one is stopping you from listening to Chutes Too Narrow and Oh, Inverted World.

Primer: Part 2/Album Of The Week: Shins- Chutes Too Narrow

I'm working on a theory that the beginning of every Shins album announces its intention within the first song. Oh, Inverted World opens with 'Caring Is Creepy', which has astral keyboards and is a chugging mid-tempo jangle-pop gem. Wincing The Night Away's 'Sleeping Lessons' has a dreamy keyboard line and James Mercer sounds like he's singing underwater; it takes almost a full two minutes and 30 seconds before the electric guitars kick in and the songs sounds 'full' finally. What does Chutes Too Narrow begin with?? Some clapping, a "Woo!" and a patient acoustic guitar intro that gets punctured by electric guitars 40 seconds in. Before we hit the minute mark we're already in the midst of one of the most rocking and downright raunchy songs the Shins have put to tape--Mercer even manages a scream on the "be ready to remember" line.

Yeah, it's gunna be that kind of album.

Chutes Too Narrow represents a lot of things for the Shins. As alluded to in my review of their first album, this one sees the band fully plugging into the Northwest music scene, enlisting Built To Spill/Modest Mouse producer Phil Elk to help get the abundance of electric guitars on display to sound just right. It also represents the band not only matching their impressive debut but overcoming it; Oh, Inverted World is nearly flawless indie pop and essential to the zeitgeist of this decade thanks to Garden State, but pound for pound Chutes is better. This is an album bursting with addictive hooks and excellent songwriting--Wincing The Night Away is more challenging and interesting to talk about, but Mercer really perfected his way with arrangements and lyrics on this one. Lastly, Chutes Too Narrow represents the band filtering out some of their 60s pop/psychedelic tendencies for something much more akin to the power pop of contemporaries like The New Pornographers. Funnily enough, it was during this same era when Belle & Sebastian were themselves moving toward power pop from their twee/indie pop beginnings. Once again, comparisons could be drawn between the Shins and those Scottish masters. But I digress.

The thing that strikes me most about this album today is just how energetic it is. We aren't quite to the spastic levels of Architecture In Helsinki but we're pretty close. Even the slower songs like 'Young Pilgrims' have a forward momentum to them (I also dig the pedal steel on this track; see 'Gone For Good' for more of the Shins going country). Most of this energy is due to the way the album was mixed, moving the guitars and vocals up front while burying the keyboards and bass. This is easily the Shins's most guitar centric album yet. Thankfully Phil Elk was on hand to capture the results;I say "thankfully" because he is an old hand at capturing these sort of distinctive guitar tones after working with Built To Spill, who also make use of guitars with a very clean, crisp, and slightly reverb-y sound. 'Saint Simon' has some staccato guitar chording as plucked from reggae (or funk) which somehow works in this context even once the band gets to the second half of the song with the angelic 'la da da da da' chorus. 'Turn A Square', meanwhile, reminds me of excellent group interplay in the beginning to the Beatles's 'Don't Let Me Down' only played faster and continuously.

On a side note, 'Those To Come' is such a great way to end this album. It's so reserved and poetic; something about the atmosphere it creates is utterly perfect and makes me think of whistling tea kettles on foggy weekend mornings. It makes me long for a James Mercer solo album whenever I hear it because--especially after the growth shown on Wincing The Night Away--I think he could make a really excellent album on his own.

I wanted to complain that this album is too short, but I only think that when I look at the runtime. Chutes Too Narrow is short and to the point; all excess and flab has been trimmed away. It is an as-perfect-as-we're-likely-to-get-in-this-world power pop album. While it's unclear where they'll go from their third album, Chutes stands as the band's pinnacle and is my favorite of their's thus far.

Primer: The Shins Part 1- Oh, Inverted World

Oh, Inverted World only took on significance and popular appeal years after it was released, which is an odd thing to happen to an album. It was highly praised on its release and it sold well, yes, but it was hardly a blockbuster success. No one was thinking of the band in the terms they do now. Anyway, in my recollection the trajectory and heart of this decade didn't really start to develop until 2003 or 2004, with the rise of websites like Pitchfork and the blog culture. It was another indie rock revolution as had happened in both the 80s and 90s with fanzines and the like, but this one moved faster and reached more people. The Shins were one of the first beneficiaries of this--particularly after the epochal Garden State film (love it or hate it, it's incredibly important to this decade and the youth coming of age during it). It was as if everyone went out and bought Oh, Inverted World 3 years after its release and subsequently decided that good music was worth seeking out since it was easier than ever to find (via the aforementioned websites and blogs) and to sample before buying (via piracy/torrents or things like MySpace and YouTube). When Wincing The Night Away, the first post-Garden State album by the Shins, was released in 2007 it went to number 2 on the Billboard charts and was, more significantly, the highest charting album that their record label, Sub Pop, ever had. Speaking of which...while this decade has seen the further strengthening of well established indie stalwarts like Matador, Merge, Thrill Jockey, and Touch N Go, it was also the decade when Sub Pop re-invented itself from "that grunge rock label" to "that indie rock label." The Shins were one of the first big indie rock acts that Sub Pop collected, including Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes, Wolf Parade, and The Postal Service.

That's a lot of heady stuff swirling around this rather unassuming band and even more unassuming album. And even if most people only bought it because it was "the band who had that song from the one scene in Garden State" it doesn't change the fact that Oh, Inverted World is both one of the most fully formed, distinctive debuts of the decade and one of the best indie pop albums ever released. True, The Shins borrow from the pop/rock/psychedelia of the 60s. True, they sounded enough like indie pop torch bearers Belle & Sebastian to make comparisons between the two inevitable. But, at least on this album, The Shins are weirder and more psychedelic than Belle & Sebastian ever got. Revisiting Oh, Inverted World, I'm struck by how, on one hand, it's as catchy and near-perfect as I remember, but on the other hand, how strange it can be.

I'm not just talking about 'Your Algebra', either. The lyrics are memorably surreal at certain points. Behind all that addictive indie pop are some odd visuals and observations. 'New Slang', "that song from the one scene in Garden State", presents us with the following couplet that I think would disturb anyone who bothered to pay attention:

God speed all the bakers at dawn
May they cut all their thumbs
And bleed into their buns
'till they melt away

As the band are from New Mexico, I'd like to point out that the Southwest has a rich tradition of weird bands, like The 13th Floor Elevators and Butthole Surfers. However, their sound and lyrics remind me more of the Northwest during the turn of the Millennium. In the era after grunge died off, the Northwest became a hotbed of indie rock. Inventive, fascinating bands and musicians who drew from obvious influences but made music all of their own came into being: Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, Elliott Smith, Sleater-Kinney, The Microphones, and so on. Modest Mouse were another pre-super fame in the 2001 era when Oh, Inverted World was release. Modest Mouse used to be an indie rock band who wrote a lot of strange, fascinating music, and as they are thanked in the liner notes of Oh, Inverted World, they were probably one inspiration for the Shins. After all, Isaac Brock was not a man adverse to writing some surreal-but-poignant couplets.

Still, I'd be selling the album under false pretenses if I didn't praise the music. The Shins's second album Chutes Too Narrow is a much more straightforward and rocking release in comparison, but this one is perfect, catchy pop/rock. The electric guitars on it are more jangle than rock, more reverb than distortion. There are both more keyboards and more acoustic guitars than you probably remember as well; the bass playing is normally melodic in the Paul McCartney-style. All told, this is an album without much bottom end. But indie pop never does have that, unless you're Beat Happening. And even then it's only because Calvin Johnson likes his baritone vocals just fine. But I digress. Oh, Inverted World also has the most psychedelic touches of any Shins release though they're subtle and to-the-point. For what it's worth, however, when I saw the band live in '04 they played an extended psychedelic jam intro to 'Pressed In A Book' that came out of seemingly nowhere and set my heart a-twitter. Wincing The Night Away has some arty elements to it and it's nowhere near as immediate as their first two albums, but even it isn't as psychedelic as their first one gets. Songs like 'Your Algebra' and 'Pressed In A Book' represent an interesting direction the band could revisit someday.

We can look back now and say with certainty that the first Shins album will stand alongside whatever other albums you might wish to throw against the wall that we will build one day to define this decade. From the present, we can also say with certainty where the band would go from Oh, Inverted World. But if one examines it in a vacuum, pretends one was back in 2001 and feigns ignorance of the other two albums, the Shins's debut stands up as a truly exciting first release from a band who have an impressively complete sound and aesthetic. Oh, Inverted World does what most great debuts do: it suggests that while this is great, the best is yet to come. It presents a band with distinctive music of variety and consistency, but suggests a few pathes they might follow from here. Downright essential indie pop listening.

Album of the Week: Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion

How often do you really listen to an album and your opinion ends up completely changing on it?? Normally my take away of an album is generally in line with my first impression, if a bit stronger. If I don't like it on the first spin I usually end up hating it. If I like it, I usually end up loving it. But I can't think of the last time my feeling about an album made a complete turn-around. It's all the more strange because I'm a huge Animal Collective fan and since I trust their taste and ability, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that I would love Merriweather Post Pavilion. The idea of them releasing a sub par or even outright bad album is as likely as Radiohead releasing one at this point. Yet on New Year's Eve, as I was driving to Cleveland to spend the night and a few days at a friend's house, I listened to Merriweather for the first time and hated it.

Perhaps hated is too strong, but I was certainly confused by what I heard. My initial impression was utter disappointment. It seemed like the band were going against their strengths, trying to make an electronic album, stuffed with overwhelming bass and confusing walls of synthesizer, drum machines, and spaced out vocals. In retrospect a lot of this might have been due to my car's stereo system, which tends to emphasize the bottom end of music way more than necessary and leave the mid and upper range muddled. Whatever the case, it wasn't until I had listened to Merriweather Post Pavilion on my laptop with iTunes's visualizer and a few more times in my car that I got it: this album is indeed Animal Collective's electronic album, but it's also a ballsy, psychedelic, and incredibly beautiful headphone album.

I've seen a few reviews that cite this as Animal Collective's pop album, but that's not entirely true. The biggest change from albums past is that the screams and noisy elements are entirely gone. The music is every bit as experimental and weird as before, but the band are emphasizing their gift for intricate vocals, unexpected sounds, strangely addictive melodies, and that indescribable ability their music has to be both repetitive and continually changing, always engaging the listener with new ideas as well as tweaks of familiar sounds. It might sound like lazy critic shorthand to say that there's bits and pieces of almost all of their albums on this one, but it's true. If pressed to give a succinct short description, I'd say this album is like an electronic version of Sung Tongs smashed together with Panda Bear's Person Pitch but less sample heavy.

Allow me to develop that. Sung Tongs was Animal Collective's breakthrough album, a duo album done by Avey Tare and Panda Bear in the freak folk style, all droney/strum-happy acoustic guitars, Beach Boys druggy vocal harmonies, primitive/minimalist drums, and child-like wonder. Literally, since 'Sweet Road' was used in a crayon commercial. But I digress. Person Pitch, then: it was like Panda Bear's coming out party. He was always a crucial element of Animal Collective, but most of their albums belong to Avey Tare. Think of your favorite tracks from previous albums, and there's a good chance it's Avey Tare singing most of it. On Merriweather Post Pavilion Panda Bear spends just as much time on lead vocals as Avey. At the same time, the way these two intertwine and harmonize has gotten better than ever. This, too, hearkens back to Sung Tongs, which was probably the last album where they sang together so much. In fact, one of this album's most unexpected treats is 'Guys Eyes', a song I thought was the weakest until I "got" that it was all about the way their voices work together. What at first seems like a confusing jumble of overlapping vocals eventually resolves into a beautiful harmony of the chorus "what I want to."

I normally try to talk some about the music of an album instead of purely about the ideas or my own reaction to it, describing sound as best I can with words, but in this case I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. I hesitate to let my enthusiasm get the best of me--after all, I'm a professional critic, and I'm above such "emotions" harrumph harrumph--but Merriweather Post Pavilion is all about the experience of hearing these songs for yourself. Every song is a unique, singular entity but they all work together as a cohesive whole. Every time the album ends, I get a little sad. It's as if the movie is over and I have to go back to real life. Or, maybe, since the album is named after a concert venue, it's like going home after a concert...

...bah, OK, I can't resist talking about two of the songs. 'Brothersport' ends the album, and it's the strongest final song they've ever made. Yes, even better than 'Turn Into Something.' It is pure euphoria in audio form, the band's vocal chants and squiggly keyboard/sound loops trading dance moves with bumping bass blurts, skittering shakers, and drum breaks. And 'Bluish' is a syrup thick psychedelic space ballad, Avey Tare drawing galaxies in the sky while we all float around hoping we never have to come down from this high. With its unashamed love song romantics, it hints back to the 'love' album, Feels, which was pretty much all about Avey Tare's feelings for Kria Brekkan (and for what it's worth, the album they made together, Pullhair Rubeye, is awesome if an acquired taste). I really want to tell you about orgasmic peaks of 'Lion In A Coma', the relaxing 'No More Runnin', the Panda Bear showcase 'My Girls' which thematically picks up where 'Chores' from Strawberry Jam left off and...no no, bad Greg!! You said you wouldn't, after all...

One of the true measures of a great album is whether you enjoy it more over time instead of getting tired of it. Merriweather Post Pavilion gets better and better with every listen, the sounds and melodies becoming embedded in your DNA. It's far too soon to tell whether this album will become a classic, but I'm already willing to declare it the best album Animal Collective have made so far, and though we're barely into the year, it's going to end up on my 2009 'best of' list without question. The only question, really, is where Animal Collective will go from here. It's something I wondered after I heard Feels and Strawberry Jam, but for the first time I can honestly say that I don't really care where they go, because I'll follow them anywhere they want to go. Merriweather Post Pavilion isn't a career maker like Sung Tongs was, but it's the next step up: it's a legend maker; a modern day masterpiece. Let me say it as directly as possible: buy this album.

Field Music- Tones of Town

Well, this review is going to start off awfully digressive. You see, I'm finally back from a combination vacation/writing hiatus, and while it seems like just yesterday that I was reading year end lists (and writing some of my own), new things are already starting to come out. What's more, I started a second job today, so not only is it a new year, my life schedule is all wonky. As it stands, I'll have to work my way up to my old rate and quality. Maybe. Anyway, January...:everyone thinks of January as a time of new beginnings; we don't really associate it with much in the way of the arts. Most videogames are released in the Fall to coincide with the shop-happy holidays, movies saturate the Summer with, er, summer blockbusters and save the arsty/prestige movies for Fall or Winter. Music seems to stand alone as the venue where bands release music at their whim and not the dictates of their record company to make money or win awards. As I've been trying to seriously keep up with music for awhile now, every year there seems to be one or two albums that are released this month, surprising anyone who's still busy trying to catch up on the previous year or not expecting anything truly great yet. I like to refer to these situations as the 'January Surprise.' 2007 seemed to have a very strong start. I could probably think of more examples, but January 2007 saw a decent amount of albums I would consider to be great, including Deerhoof's Friend Opportunity, Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, Menomena's Friend and Foe, and The Shins's Wincing The Night Away. Most if not all of those came out on the same day; ah, synchronicity, my old friend. January 2007 also gave us Tones of Town by Field Music, which is one of the most criminally unsung and unknown indie pop albums this side of everything Beat Happening ever released.

I can't fathom why it is that bands like this don't get the popular audience they richly deserve. I suppose the mass audience for this type of music has long since gone. They're content to stick to R&B, hip hop, and whatever garbage strand of hard rock is on the radio today. Not that there's anything wrong with that. As for indie rock/twee pop/underground/experimental/whatever music nerds like me, we'll happily eat this stuff up. Besides, there's something awfully paradoxical inherent to indie pop now, and really there always has been. It's pop music but it's not popular music. It's pop in the sense that it's reminiscent of pop music from the 60s and 70s. So using 'pop' as a term to denote anything other than 'popular' music is technically false. But it's easy shorthand for 'music that is reminiscent of pop music from the 60s and 70s' and I'm all about that kind of succinct shorthard. My reviews are longwinded enough as it is.

Field Music are yet another reason to be a happy indie pop fan during this decade. The 90s weren't awful for indie pop music, but other than Belle & Sebastian I can't think of any really fantastic indie pop bands from that decade. Perhaps that's just my ignorance talking, though. Or maybe I'm just a reductionist dilettante. I think I will be, and right now I'll trace back the beginning of the blooming of indie pop during this decade to the release of Oh, Inverted World by the Shins in 2001 along with the trickledown effect of Belle & Sebastian. Still, I'm not sure there's any unifying aesthetic to bands like the Shins, Los Campesinos!, Field Music, The Decemberists, I'm From Barcelona, Jens Lekman, and Vampire Weekend other than the fact that you can claim they're indie pop and no one throws too much of a fit. To the average listener they may sound alike, but saying Vampire Weekend are the same as Field Music is like saying Miller High Life is the same as Guiness. Both fine beers, by the way.

Tones of Town was met with much critical acclaim on its release but was subsequently swallowed in the ensuing 11-tidal-wave-like months of music of 2007, including juggernauts like Radiohead, Arcade Fire, and uhhh Stars of the Lid. Anyway, Tones of Town is really, really damn good, and like those bands above it's all because of one thing: the music is catchy but it never gets annoying. 'Inventive' is one of those words that comes to mind when you discuss great indie pop not because these bands are changing the world but because they're putting unique spins on a seemingly set-in-stone musical form. Witness the opening track of this album, which has a chugging Paul McCartney-esque pop feel and then collapses into a vibraphone led cooldown that makes one wonder what Tortoise would've sounded like if they had grown up listening to Steely Dan and Elvis Costello. Or something like that. 'Sit Tight' has a whip tight drum groove, all staccato punctuations doing battle with sweet guitars, retro organ, melodic bass, and even a jaunty piano solo. The title track has a dreamy, psychedelic sugar glaze all over it, as if you spent 30 seconds listening to that packet of jam at Bob Evans instead of eating it, before going off on a few tangents while possessing that rare ability to sound far more simple and straightforward than it really is. 'A House Is Not A Home' namechecks the title of that classic Love song 'A House Is Not A Motel' and has a piano and string led progression with unexpected twists and turns that reminds one of, well, the Beatles. And that's just the first four songs, too. I hesitate to use the phrase "every song is a highlight" because even I always roll my eyes when I see it in reviews, but it is absolutely true here. Assuming you still rolled your eyes, have this: Tones of Town is the kind of deliriously fun, immediately engaging, endlessly listenable and enjoyable pop album that you remember in your head as having way more handclaps than it really does.

You have to give this record a chance. I know that on paper it sounds like a lot you've heard before. It uses the exact same elements that indie pop bands have since they grew up listening to the Beatles--strings, lots of piano, more hooks than a boxing match (sorry)--but it uses them so well that they seem fresh all over again. If you've ever complained that the kind of music the indie rock world loves is overrated experimental crap, then Field Music is here to remind you that we like a sweet dose of pop, too.

Album of the Week: No Age- Nouns

There's a phenomenon for cases of moderate to severe hypothermia known as "paradoxical undressing." There are theories as to why it happens (maybe the intense cold affects the part of the brain that regulates body temperature or maybe blood vessels give out from exertion and thus a surge of blood reaches the limbs and warms them) but since it doesn't happen to every victim and it's dangerous to test, scientists still aren't sure. The first time I heard about this I was reminded of how you're actually more in danger in the desert with less clothing on because lots of light clothing will shield your skin from the sun and keep you from getting sunstroke and sunburn as quickly as you would otherwise. I bring both of these up because it reminds me of the strange phenomenon of listening to noise-y music: you get so used to the ugliness of it that it wraps around to pretty. I don't know why it happens, but I think some immoral parent should raise their children on atonal noise and then expose them to pretty harmonies and see what the results are.

Anyway, this very notion lies at the heart of the noise pop masterpiece Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, an album that is every bit as loud and piercing as the Velvet Underground's best but is somehow incredibly beautiful and warm. I suppose noise and feedback themselves aren't inherently cold or warm, ugly or pretty. It's all in how it's used. This is a lesson that the band No Age have taken to heart.

Nouns is interesting and successful in the way that all the best noise-pop is: it plays with the borders between the inherent dichotomy of the genre itself while maintaining a unique, singular sound. Though only a duo, No Age recall bigger, better-known bands like the aforementioned My Bloody Valentine and noise-pop elder statesmen like Sonic Youth. Where they differentiate themselves is with their use of noise, electronics, and the dynamics of a two-person band. Unlike the less successful noise-pop of Times New Viking, No Age understand that you don't need awful production to make your songs seem experimental and dense. Even with the poppier moments like 'Here Should Be My Home' the album shows an understanding of what makes this kind of music fascinating and timeless; as I alluded to earlier, the best noise-pop concerns itself with the borders between things like noise and pop (duh), warmth and coldness, loud and quiet, ugly and pretty, machine and natural. The instrumentals of Nouns are perhaps the best place to note this, particularly 'Impossible Bouquet' which has an Animal Collective-circa-Sung Tongs acoustic guitar buried in a hive of guitar loops and electronic noise. And while I don't know the words too well, I find the songs with vocals surprisingly catchy despite being buried in fuzz or distortion. Again, Times New Viking are the opposite of the spectrum, a place where I can't really hear their songs and what little comes through doesn't leave an impression.

Nouns is one of those great albums that improves with each listen while giving you the notion that the best is still ahead. I like to call this 'The Bends effect', named after the second album by Radiohead. I loved The Bends but in the context of the rest of that band's discography it comes off like an engagement ring rather than the wedding, honeymoon, or marriage. Wherever No Age end up from here, Nouns will remain an excellent piece of beautiful noise-pop and one of 2008's best "unexpected, from out of left field" releases.

Album of the Week: Deerhoof- Offend Maggie

Deerhoof are an endlessly fascinating band assuming you're a fully baptised member of the tribe who enjoy their music. They're the sort of group who elicit extreme reactions from listeners: you either love them or hate their guts and the guts of the people who listen to them. I don't think of Deerhoof as an extremely experimental band but I have a very skewed perspective. I think it's easy for people like me to forget that bands like the Fiery Furnaces and Animal Collective sound like absolute, intolerable, and pretentious crap to most people. At any rate, if you've never liked Deerhoof before, Offend Maggie will do nothing to change your mind, so you may as well just click away from this review right now and I'll count to five before continuing.

....five. OK, the haters are gone.

Offend Maggie is a mighty fine Deerhoof album. I was more than pleased to hear that the band had added another guitarist to their fold while recording the album because, in my opinion, the band functions best with two guitarists. Deerhoof's sound started to congeal into something interesting with Reveille in 2002. But it was with their next two albums, Apple O' and Milk Man, in 2003 and 2004, recorded after Chris Cohen joined, that they really started to record some great stuff. I still hold The Runners Four as their high point, being a fascinating and sprawling double album and all, but moreso I think it was because they sounded like a band. When Cohen left, their next album, Friend Opportunity, became a lean collection of experimental pop that simultaneously expanded both the band's pop and experimental sides. It's an odd album by any standard, with almost a third of its length given over to the final track, which was an 11 minute epic. Though I like Friend Opportunity, it sounded like a studio album made with little regard for live performances. Watching the now-threesome version of Deerhoof perform shortly after its release, they felt a bit limited. They did a good job of pulling off some of the older material even with only one guitarist, but Friend Opportunity was a bit too ambitious for its own good. 'Kidz Are So Small' doesn't quite translate well to the stage when the same guy playing the odd samples and keyboards has to play the guitar parts, too.

Offend Maggie is a return to the classic two guitarist Deerhoof sound and I welcome it with open arms. The more time that goes on, the more I think of The Runners Four as a masterpiece, so it's good to see the band...well, not returning to that sound, but hearkening back to it. At the same time, while Offend Maggie isn't as good as The Runners Four, it is a musical feast for fans of the band. The emphasis on this album is definitely on the instruments, from the clashing-and-interlocking guitars, bouncing Paul McCartney-esque bass lines, and the ultimate secret weapon of the band, the controlled chaos of Greg Saunier's drums. Deerhoof does their 'spastic prog rock, stop on a dime' stuff here better than ever. However, the downside of all this is that the vocals and lyrics are buried. I'm a fan of Satomi's voice beyond the surface "hey, listen to that weird Japanese chick sing random stuff!!" enjoyment of hipster irony-nauts, so it's a bit sad that I can't really tell what she's singing most of the time. Meanwhile, Saunier continues to deliver his one or two vocal turns per album with 'Family Of Others'; much like his drumming, his voice is a secret weapon for the band, with his child-like innocence and Brian Wilson-esque register.

When the initial excitement of a new Deerhoof album wears off, the inevitable conclusion is reached: it's just another Deerhoof album. You can't fault a band for sounding like themselves, but Offend Maggie is, in the end, Deerhoof doing Deerhoof. This album features some incredible songs but it would be hard to argue that there's anything entirely new about it. Again, this is not a bad thing, but Offend Maggie features some now-standard Deerhoof tropes from albums past, with the annoying/unlistenable song ('This Is God Speaking'), the repetitive-but-addictive song ('Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back'), the epic album closer ('Jagged Fruit'), and the awesome song that doesn't get the praise it deserves ('Buck and Judy'). While Offend Maggie does offer some new tidbits (the acoustic guitar intro to the title track, the sly use of pianos/keyboards here or there) this isn't really an album about change. This is a 'consolidate lessons you've learned' kind of release, putting the emphasis on band dynamics, interplay, and "let's do what we do best" songwriting. This makes for an easy, compulsive listen. Kinda like Wilco's Sky Blue Sky or Radiohead's In Rainbows in that regard, two albums that didn't do anything new but were nevertheless really damn good.

So where does this leave us?? Well, if you're a fan of Deerhoof--which I assume you are if you made it this far into this review--you should rush out immediately and buy this album. It's another great album from a band who've been on a winning streak for five years. Those of you non-fans who've made it this far into my review, well, you won't like Offend Maggie and are best served by giving Friend Opportunity or The Runners Four a try, albums that are a bit more welcoming to newcomers but still have all the elements of Deerhoof that will either excite or sicken you.

The Jesus And Mary Chain- Psychocandy

Since you can't get more than a paragraph or so into a review of Psychocandy without bringing up feedback and noise, I figured I would just attack it head on. I used to hate noise and loud volumes, and I still generally avoid them when I can. I have always hated being around the kind of people who malevolently pop balloons at parties, play music ridiculously loud in their cars, and are incapable of sitting still and being quiet for more than five seconds at a time. Moreover, I was genuinely nervous the first time I listened to the Velvet Underground since I had read so much about the 'noisy' aspects of their music. The idea of feedback scared me for a long time after I accidentally touched the strings of my electric guitar to the amplifier while showing it to a friend shortly after I got for a birthday and a horrendous, deafening, indescribable racket erupted into my ears and body. At some point, though, I began to like noise, feedback, and distortion, probably when I started to hate the world, myself, and other people. I even got around to 'playing' feedback with my guitar. All that said, I still don't like noise music. I have occasional dalliances with it, sure, but I usually require some kind of modifier to go along with 'noise', whether it be 'noise-pop' or 'pretty noise.'

I figured I would just lay all of that out there because Psychocandy, despite the 20+ years of criticism since its release, is still referred to as 'noise pop.' And going into the album with that assumption (and the deadpan recommendation from a record store clerk that it was his "favorite album for about five years"), I was misled. I've been struggling with the album for a few months now, and the curve of my experience with it is pretty much identical to my original relationship with noise and feedback. On first listen I was kind of terrified of the album. It seemed so bleak and menacing, all nihilism and skull throttling bursts of white noise. I didn't listen to it for awhile, afraid to admit to myself or anyone that I didn't like such a 'classic' album because the feedback scared me. Empowered by alcohol, I have since made repeat excursions into the cityscape of Psychocandy and have finally come around to it. It's a great album, but it's great more for what it sounds like than what it is.

See, Psychocandy is not 'noise pop.' But that doesn't help, does it?? Genre distinctions are entirely meaningless and arbitrary; they're shorthand for referring to a general "feel" or "kind" of music when we're too rushed (or lazy) to completely lay down the full story. Allow me to explain what I mean, then. 'Noise pop', to me, is music that allows--wait for it--"noise" and "pop" to co-exist peacefully. This can be pop music with experimental/noisy undertones (see: Deerhoof, Sonic Youth, et. al.) or noise as pop music (see the ethereal, beatiful noise of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless). However, Psychocandy is much more noise than pop most of the time. What little pop there is to be had isn't the 'Beach Boys' kind of pop reviews often refer to it as. Rather, it's more like the Velvet Underground, a druggy, languid pop with a singer who doesn't care. At the same time, most of the songs have a shrieking torrent of noise either constantly on tap or waiting to be poured for the listener. This isn't noise, feedback, and distortion as an enhancement or interesting texture to music. Rather, it's noise as an impediment to enjoying the song that is trapped underneath.

The sad truth about Psychocandy is that, without all that howling noise, nobody would really care about the album. Only 'Just Like Honey' stands up as a classic pop song with or without noise, and it's one of the least feedback-drenched tunes from the album. Without the incredible aural headache you're exposed to on 'Never Understand', all you'd be left with is a sub-par take on Joy Division/Velvet Underground inspired British 80s music. It's telling that the band never recorded another album like this, and the shoegazer bands who are its obvious descendants crafted music that was much more successful at blending 'noise' and 'pop' in a symbiotic way. You can tell they looked more closely to 'Just Like Honey' and 'Inside Me'--which, in retrospect, sound really similar, down to the drumbeat--for inspiration, music that was still challenging and 'noisy' but not so excruciating and forceful about it.

And yet...remember when I said earlier that I liked Psychocandy more for what it sounds like than what it is?? Well, Psychocandy was like a shot-across-the-bow for the 80s underground scene. You're very unlikely to hear an album quite like it from this era, and its sheer extreme-ness garnered it endless talk and debate in British music magazines at the time. Listening to Psychocandy at loud volume is really the only way to hear it for what it truly is: a noisy monolith, a middle finger to polite-and-proper British pop music, and a reptilian-brain-stem endurance test. Psychocandy is an album you experience as much as you hear, and even if you don't like noise music, it's hard to argue with its committment. The Jesus & March Chain weren't fooling around when they recorded this music. The feedback and noise are actually more extreme than that of the Velvet Underground; even if the resultant songs are nowhere near as good or enduring, the sheer sonic assault of the album is brilliant. I mean, is it even music?? It's the sort of album that makes me reconsider what 'music' can be, and what it means to 'enjoy' something. I don't 'enjoy' watching Silence of the Lambs or Schindler's List, yet they're incredible movies. Or should I say "experiences"?? Like them, Psychocandy is not enjoyable in the way I typically associate with its artform, but it is an incredible experience.

To be succinct, what Psychocandy is isn't important, because it's not 'noise pop' and the songs buried below the noise are mostly forgettable. But what Psychocandy sounds like is important because it's an incredible piece of sound violence, nihilistic and painful, that is like nothing you've heard. I don't like it as a piece of music made up of discrete songs to enjoy, but as a slab of noise to be played at loud volume so that I feel it in my whole body. Amazing.

Album of the Week: Stephen Malkmus: Real Emotional Trash

The last time I saw Stephen Malkmus, he was playing solo and acoustic at the Pitchfork Music Festival last summer. He seemed very relaxed and sloppy, which are two things I normally associate with both his solo albums as well as his much celebrated, loved, and (sometimes) hated former band, Pavement. However, his performance was also brilliant in its way: his between song was banter clever, funny, and self deprecating, but his acoustic playing seemed frustrated and at times awkward. It occurred to me then that Stephen Malkmus was, has, and always will be an electric kind of guy, and I couldn't wait to hear what his next album would turn out like.

One of the standard cards that music critics can play is the "band album." I realize that this may not be as 'common knowledge' as I assume it is, so let me explain. When a band or solo artists releases a "band album", it typically means that the album is tightly played but jammy, as if the band had played the songs for awhile and were familiar enough with them to stretch them to their breaking points and/or add new little emphases or accents here and there. Real Emotional Trash is all of these things: it's played extremely well, but it stretches out and has many little bits and pieces that feel thrown in because the band were a bit bored and needed to spice things up.

Anyone who follows Stephen Malkmus had to see this coming. Not only did Pig Lib point the way to this kind of prog rock/jam bandy/classic rocky music, but tracks from other solo works ('No More Shoes' says hello) did too. Hell, you could trace his particular inclination for this kind of thing back to 'Fillmore Jive' off Pavement's second album if you wanted to. Anyway, indie rock and extended guitar soloing are not mutually exclusive. For starters, Dinosaur Jr. and Built To Spill would have something to say on the matter, and then there's My Morning Jacket, who skirt the line between jam band and indie rock pretty finely. But I digress.

The real story behind Real Emotional Trash is that it is Malkmus's coming out party as a guitar hero as well as his tip-of-the-hat to his sometimes credited band, the Jicks. Though indie rock has its stalwart guitar heroes--from the noise masters Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth to Neil Youngish J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. to good-at-everything Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline of Wilco--it's only now that we can truly say Stephen Malkmus has made a point of foregrounding his chops. It will take a live album to really see if he stands up to the old masters of classic rock and beyond but, for a studio album, it's easily his most guitar centric. At the same time, it's the first one that really gives any kind of credit to the Jicks, his backing band. Though their lineup has shuffled over the past 4 releases, in ex-Sleater Kinney drummer Janet Weiss he has found a sympathetic musical foil not known since the early Pavement/Gary Young or mid-to-late Pavement Steve West days. That's not to discredit the other Jicks, who offer solid-but-unremarkable bass and brilliant-but-understated keyboards.

Anyway, let's cut to the chase. The title track is a flat out epic, building steam and segueing into a rocking second half--I'm almost tempted to let Malkmus know that he's not in a jam band and he isn't supposed to do this kind of thing (especially on a studio album) but the result is so visceral and, frankly, awesome that I keep my mouth shut. 'Baltimore' is a 6+ minute Malkmus showcase, with guitars stacking on top of guitars to continually keep the rock going. Meanwhile, the less indulgent side of Malkmus shows up in the short, pop-ish 'Gardenia' with its female backing vocals that recall the brilliant 'Us' from Pig Lib (and make one wish he'd contrast his voice with others more often) and the early album ballady 'Cold Son.' Finally, there's 'Elmo Delmo', which combines Malkmus's love for absurdist/poetic wordplay with whip sharp music acrobatics, effectively combining his two artistic spheres (jammy guitar hero and weird indie rock poet) in one of the album's best decadent treats.

At this point, if you're a Stephen Malkmus fan, I feel like you've either accepted the aforementioned sides of his musical spheres or you prefer one over the other. If you can't stand his instrumental grandstanding, then Real Emotional Trash represents his nadir in the same way that Face The Truth felt like his best album since Pavement's Wowee Zowee. For the rest of us, Real Emotional Trash is just another great solo album that expands the Malkmus book and expounds upon the jammy/guitar hero ploy that Pig Lib only hinted at.

Album of the Week: Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend

A few times each year, a band seems to come out of nowhere and rise to huge critical and popular standing within the space of a few weeks. Vampire Weekend are one such band, who, over the first few months of 2008, went from a blip on the radar to appearing on SNL and having their videos featured on MTV.

A lot of what you'll read about the music on their self titled album has to do with afro-pop and how the band are upper crust, Ivy League college grads. However, this misses the real thrust of their music, because whatever genre it might belong to or be influenced by, Vampire Weekend is addictive indie pop. Significantly, Vampire Weekend toured with the Shins in 2007, perhaps the Father of all "indie pop darlings who come out of nowhere to be really popular."

While the singles 'Mansard Roof' and 'A-Punk' are the obvious treats, the album is 35ish minutes of brilliant, catchy indie pop. 'M79' has a Harpsichord-laden intro and strings that tip the band's hat to Classical music, as well as a charming bridge around the 2:45 mark that rhymes callous with madras. 'One (Blake's Got A New Face)' has plinky 80s keyboards and the album's most surprisingly hook filled chorus, though the singer's voice seems to crack on the high pitched "Blake's" part each time. Maybe that's part of the fun. Finally, album closer 'The Kids Don't Stand A Chance' offers the strongest connection to more standard American indie pop, an almost proto-typical finale that slows the pace, pours on the harpsichord and strings for one last hurrah, and leaves one with the same satisfying ending as on 'The Past and Pending' from Oh, Inverted World by the Shins.

I suspect this album will only become more popular and beloved as the year goes on, particularly once we get into Spring and Summer. It's not often that an album so addictive and instantly accessible comes along, but Vampire Weekend have proven themselves worthy of all the praise and success they've achieved with this one.

Primer: Fiery Furnaces Part 3- EP

I'm resisting the urge to begin my review by making the obvious joke about how the Fiery Furnaces are so long winded their EPs are as long as another band's album...and I suppose I just did. Regardless, it's hard to know what to make, conceptually, of this release. The EP label may be an ironic one by a band who've always had more of a sense of humor than we give them credit for, but it's also misleading label, too.

So, then: after releasing Blueberry Boat the Fiery Furnaces had a handful of singles that predated it which either never saw release in the U.S. or were largely ignored. As demand for new product arose after everybody lost their collective minds over their second album, the band and/or their record label decided to compile a stop-gap release until the next album(s). The term "stop-gap" release is a loaded one, weighted down with negative connotations of shoveling a bunch of crap together into a pile to exploit cash soaked fans, but let me assure you that EP is a substantial release in its own right, and the one thing we'd heard before--'Tropical Ice-Land', here spelled 'Tropical-Iceland'--appears in a different form.

I've long wrestled with the idea of which Fiery Furnaces release makes for the best introduction to the band. I tend to just want to foist Blueberry Boat unto their plate and tell them to eat until they get it. However, in listening to EP in the context of the rest of the band's discography, it's easily the most compact and digestible meal to be had. At only 10 songs and 40ish minutes, it's almost like an appetizer to whet one's appetite for the full(er) albums.

As for the music, well, it steers carefully toward the pop side of the Furnaces' persona. While there are touches of the experimentation and song suite stylings from Blueberry Boat, they are largely kept in check by sweet melodies and strong songwriting. 'Cousin Chris' is pretty unorthodox, but the burbling keyboard parts and the Friedberger siblings syrupy vocals help the medicine go down. Meanwhile, all the restraint has been stripped from the aforementioned 'Tropical Ice-Land': in its 'Tropical-Iceland' revision, it's a surging new wave rocker, much zestier but less filling. If there's a weak spot here, it's 'Sweet Spots', which sounds and feels like a transitional song between Gallowsbird's Bark and Blueberry Boat but doesn't top or even equal anything from those two albums; instead, it's a chugging, repetitive number with "yeah yeah" refrains that feel apathetic and thrown together. Thankfully, the rest of the release is ace, including 'Duffer St. George', which sets its chorus to the tune of "Jimmy cracked corn and I don't care" (or whatever that 'song' is called) and is gleeful fun because of it.

Really, you can't go wrong with EP. It's equivalent to a full album for the price of an EP (roughly $10 last time I checked), and it will please diehard fans as well as it does newcomers.

Album of the Week: Yo La Tengo- Summer Sun

Yo La Tengo- Summer Sun (2003)

Sometimes you meet someone at just the right time and you find you have an album or band in common, and that music becomes the soundtrack to your romance. I can't listen to Summer Sun or And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out without thinking about a summer 3 years ago when I had first begun to go out with a girl. During our second or third date, we went to her parents' house in the country to relax and enjoy the muggy summer night. Listening to the two albums by Yo La Tengo, which have always felt of a pair to me, they perfectly encapsulated the feel of the season and the growing affection between the two of us.

While Yo La Tengo are primarily known for their sprawling, diverse masterpieces like I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One or their early noise/pop gems like Painful, I've always loved their two albums released during the first half of this decade. And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out is generally acknowledged as the superior of the two, and I would tend to agree. Both albums bend toward the narcoleptic/melodic/poppy/free floating/beautiful/air-y/reserved side of Yo La Tengo's sound, playing their post-rock, kraut rock, and jazzy cards from their hand instead of the entire deck or the noise/pop cards.

If any album in Yo La Tengo's discography could be considered a secret masterpiece, it's Summer Sun. The album was released in 2003, during a time when affection for the band was at a low ebb. I certainly don't remember anyone going crazy over the album, and if you didn't happen to like the dream pop direction And Then Nothing... was heading into, then Summer Sun seemed to confirm all fears that Yo La Tengo were becoming a blood-less, noise-less rock band. I mean, at least And Then Nothing... had 'Cherry Chapstick', right??

Perhaps, but my affection for Summer Sun has grown over the past 5 years. It's the sort of album where, in the course of your review, you try not to use words like "mature" and "nuanced" because for many people those are euphemisms for "your Dad will like it, and he never liked (insert band name here) before" and "it's really boring, but if you listen to it more, it becomes slightly less boring." But, well, Summer Sun *is* more mature and nuanced than previous releases. Not only does it further prove that the band are masters of restraint when it comes to ballads ('Don't Have To Be So Sad', the gorgeous closing Big Star cover 'Take Care'), but it shows their capability with instrumentals ('Georgia Vs. Yo La Tengo', most of 'Let's Be Still'). Furthermore, it proves that bassist James McNew is an underutilized vocalist with 'Tiny Birds.'

The odd thing about the album to me is that even the people who think it's fairly mediocre seem to love most of the songs from it. 'Season of the Shark', 'Little Eyes', 'Today Is The Day', and 'Don't Have To Be So Sad' are four of the greatest songs Yo La Tengo have committed to tape, and much loved fan favorites to boot. However, I will admit to one thing: the album could easily lose 'Winter A Go-Go', 'Moonrock Mambo', and 'Let's Be Still' and be both leaner and better for it. And I say that as someone who actually likes these songs.

Summer Sun is a tough album to sum up because my opinion of it is necessarily paradoxical and muddled. It's at once one of the least essential Yo La Tengo albums and at the same time one of the most rewarding and unique. If you're a fan, you've probably already heard it; if you aren't a fan, you're better off starting with I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One or, really, any of their albums released from Painful onward. Still, it's a gorgeous seasonal album that I dig out every time the weather turns warm, and I feel like that summer romance I spoke of earlier might have been slightly less rich if I hadn't had it.

Primer: Animal Collective Part 2

Album: Sung Tongs

Why Should I Care?? Sung Tongs is basically the landmark moment in the AC discography. It was the album that got them attention from both critics and music fans alike, partially due to mistakenly being lumped in with the 2004-era ‘freak-folk’ boom, but mostly because it is a fantastic album in its own right. Though I like the previous albums to varying extents, it was only with Sung Tongs that they started writing great songs. ‘Leaf House’ is quite possibly one of the most perfect introductions to the band. Anyway, Sung Tongs represents the logical conclusion to the acoustic experiment of Campfire Songs.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Buy.

Album: Feels

Why Should I Care??: If Sung Tongs perfected the AC’s folky side, then Feels represents the perfection of the electronic side. According to the band, every song is a love song, but these are love songs as filtered through the warped AC lens. The album has a warm, reverb drenched vibe made all the more paradoxically familiar and strange due to the oddly tuned instruments the band used. In short, Feels is every bit the masterpiece Sung Tongs is for very different, but not necessarily opposite, reasons.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Buy.

Album: Strawberry Jam

Why Should I Care??: Well, for starters, 2007 was what I would call a ridiculously good year for music. I’m in the process of making a 2007 mix CD for a friend and I’m having a tough time narrowing it down. With that in mind, Strawberry Jam easily clinches the top album of the year. It is perhaps the most perfect thing the band have yet released, a noise/pop/psychedelic/electronic quilt you can wrap yourself in and never want to come out of. ‘For Reverend Green’, ‘Peacebone’, and ‘Fireworks’ alone are reason enough to need this album.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: BUY.

Also Of Note: Young Prayer by Panda Bear (Buy); Pullhair Rubeye by Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan (Buy); Person Pitch by Panda Bear (Buy)

Primer: Animal Collective Part 1

As my current favorite band, I've been itching to cook up an entry about them. I could--and did, on Epinions.com--write lengthy reviews of each album, EP, and side project, but instead I'll spare you the headache and take you through their discography, a few steps at a time.

Album: Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’re Vanished/Danse Manatee

Why Should I Care??: Now packed together as a 2-for-1 CD set, the first two Animal Collective albums are fitfully brilliant and a pretty good value to boot. Critically speaking, they’re my two least favorite Animal Collective albums because they aren’t much like what was to come, and I find them tough to listen to all the way through in one sitting because—especially on Danse Manatee—the songs range in quality from terrible to great-but-not-as-good-as-what’s-to-come. Basically, they sound cool but they aren’t terribly memorable.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Buy. I’m a sucker for a good deal.

Album: Hollinndagain

Why Should I Care??: As it stands, this is the only official live Animal Collective album. There are live tracks scattered across various EPs and singles, but they don’t have the flow of a live show. That said, Hollinndagain is frustrating because while it does give a taste of the live AC experience, it’s nowhere near as rewarding and refined as modern live shows. Essentially, the Animal Collective used lots of electronics, feedback loops, and odd noises and while it sounds cool, just like their previous studio material, it’s extremely tedious and unrewarding. As it’s largely improvised, or sounds like it is, that makes it pretty worthless.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Ignore. If you must hear what they used to sound like live, then “borrow” it.

Album: Campfire Songs

Why Should I Care??: This album is a cool concept and a great result, and easily the best thing they had done up to that point. Campfire Songs was recorded in one long take on a screened in porch on acoustic instruments, with ambient sounds picked up on the mics as well as field recordings added later. There is a haunting, entrancing quality to this droney folk album, an aesthetic that would be perfected on Sung Tongs and Panda Bear’s solo album Young Prayer.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Absolutely buy. This is the hidden gem of their discography.

Album: Here Comes The Indian

Why Should I Care??: This marks the first time their electronic/experimental side produced a great album. Though they weren’t writing “songs” quite yet, the lengthy soundscapes and small bits of melody that intertwine point forward to modern masterpieces. Also, ‘Two Sails On A Sound’ is amazing to listen to while you’re driving through a heavy rainstorm during the day.

Buy, Ignore, Or “Borrow”: Buy. You’ll come back to this album again and again.

Album of the Week: Yo La Tengo-Painful

I'm currently in the midst of a really nasty cold, coughing up my lungs every few minutes and blowing my nose constantly, but the one advantage is that, between my general feeling of being out of it and taking NyQuil at night, I've been in the perfect frame of body and mind to listen to Painful.

The long and short of the Yo La Tengo story is that they're a band of music nerds. Their knowledge and love of the art form is ridiculously encyclopedic, and to top that off, they've been around since 1984 (coincidentally, the year of my birth), so their discography is suitably vast and varied.

Painful falls neatly into the halfway point of their existence, released in 1993, and is something of a watershed for a number of reasons. It was the first album released on Matador after years of casting about in the indie minor leagues, an association that continues to this day. More importantly, I would call it the beginning of the 'modern' Yo La Tengo sound. Though not the first album with then-new bassist James McNew, it is the first that refined the band's sound, perfecting their noise/pop and druggy/psychedelic side with their pastoral, calm ballads and folky moments. Later albums would expand their sound even further, such as the masterpiece I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, but there is just something special about a moment when a band finally matches their unique sound to genuinely great songs, and Painful is it. Lastly, and this may be the kind of nerdy footnote that the band themselves would love, it marks the first time when the last song on the album is arguably the best.

The early 90s were something of a time when noisy bands tempered their sound to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Yo La Tengo contemporaries Sonic Youth were going through the beginnings of their accessible/classic rock influenced era at the time of Painful so it's interesting to note just how uncompromising the album is, yet it's noise and feedback are not alienating. I've never thought of Yo La Tengo as especially difficult or experimental because their rough edges are rounded off a bit. Even the explicitly noisy tracks like 'Sudden Organ' and the second version of 'Big Day Coming' use distortion and feedback as a textural/melodic device, such that it becomes a blissful, warm sound. In short, this is the kind of thing people mean when they say noise/pop, and while there's a very fine line between the two, when they're balanced just right as they are here, it is glorious. Especially while you're floating around due to illness or cold medicine.

If I were forced name my favorite Yo La Tengo album, it would never be Painful. I don't think that's an insult, really, because their discography is startlingly consistent, and it's hard to displace I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One or And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out in my estimation. All of that said, Painful is a perfectly sublime album in its own right as well as being the cornerstone upon which the modern Yo La Tengo is built. It's that rare beast: an important album and an addictively listenable one at that.