expansive cool than insidious sweetness. And the duo’s seasick guitars (“Layers”), ethereal synths (“Gliss”), and Japanese lyricism (“ Mehno-mae”) still provide plenty of geeky studio epiphanies. JESSICA SUAREZ

electronics on Holland (under the name Realpeople) feel a tad thin. JESSICA SUAREZ

Dan Auerbach
Keep It Hid

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mYspAce AmAZon
Post–Danger Mouse, bluesy
frontman goes it alone
Black Keys singer-guitarist
Dan Auerbach opens his
first solo outing with an
acoustic country blues
(“Trouble Weighs a Ton”)
that sounds utterly authen-
tic but signifies mainly as a
museum-quality reproduc-
tion. Fortunately, the rest
of Keep It Hid hews more
closely to the Keys’ scuzz-
encrusted, blunt-instrument
assault—the tremolo-soaked
“Heartbroken, in Disrepair”
throbs like ZZ Top on a lo-fi
bender, and the lecherously
lumbering “When I Left the
Room” is a slow-burner of
barn-burning proportions.
SHANNON ZIMMERMAN

 

Beirut/Realpeople March of the Zapotec/ Holland

•••••••••• mYspAce AmAZon Global pop voyeur nods to corridos de muerte Thank God for that voice. Without such caramel pipes, Beirut’s Zach Condon would never be able to own his shape-shifting styles— elegant French pop and Balkan folk on past albums, Mexican funeral marches here. But like a musical version of conceptual photographer Cindy Sherman, he embodies the essence without disappearing completely. The first half of this double EP was recorded with a 19-piece Oaxacan band, who pull the songs away from Condon’s reflexive melancholy; but next to their pomp, his sparse bedroom

Bonnie “Prince”
Billy
Beware

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Rootsy lovestruck enigma
returns in relative repose
On last year’s buoyant and
easeful Lie Do wn in the Light ,
prolific singer-songwriter
Will Oldham was in love and
diametrically opposed to
the mind-set of his unflinch-
ingly dour 1999 indie-folk
classic I See a Darkness (the
title track of which was later
covered by Johnny Cash).
But how could a song about
a public blow job not bright-
en your spirits? Oldham
remains mostly untroubled
on Beware, accompanied by
an array of instruments—
marimba, cornet, banjo, and
flute swirl around placid
country-tinged ruminations
like “You Can’t Hurt Me
Now.” Amid the unsettling
drones, windy howls, and
sparse notes of “There Is
Something I Have to Say,”
though, one glimpses the
darkness once again.
AND Y BE TA

Bishop Allen
Grrr…

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mYspAce AmAZon
Even after Nick and Norah,
they still ain’t the Shins
Consider Bishop Allen the
safety school to Vampire
Weekend’s Ivy League reach.
The third Kinks-y compen-
dium of postadolescent
dithering by this whip-smart
Brooklyn band is as melodic-
ally clever and musically
detailed as ever (big-up to
the marimba player). But
aside from the nicely scuffed
“Dirt on Your New Shoes,”
a general lack of spark or
lyrical acuity makes even
the album’s catchiest songs
of predestination (“The
Ancient Commonsense of
Things”), passive-aggres-
sion (“Don’t Hide Away”),
and whimsy (“Cue the
Elephants”) register as little
more than charming diver-
sions. DAVID MARCHESE

 

Boston Spaceships The Planets Are Blasted

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mYspAce
Uncle Bob’s revolving-
door pop goes poop
The point of forming a
band is to capture an

Neko’s flapper flirtation stopped at the powdered knees.

BISHOP ALLEN

Animalize
Alt country’s sublime fabulist bares her claws

FROM LEF T: JASON CREPS; SEBAS TIAN MLYNARSKI

get more FOR LINKS TO M YSPACE PAGES AND VIDEOS, AS WELL AS TO I TUNES AND AMAZON, GO TO digitAl.spin.com/ reviews

WITH THE ECONOMY tanking, homes being lost, and folks switching to survival mode, America may need Neko Case’s back-to-nature fantasias more than ever.

On 2006’s gothic classic Fox Confessor Brings the
Flood, she belted out soaring country rock, Southern
gospel, and power-pop hymns about lions, sparrows, and two-
legged creatures living outside civilization. Middle Cyclone
carries Case’s unique vision one step further: Here, she truly
embraces the beast within. Whether she’s imagining herself as
a killer whale or translating a magpie’s song,
the message is clear. “I’m an animal,” she

growls, “and you’re an animal, too.”

With cameos by Calexico, M. Ward, and the New Pornographers, Middle Cyclone finds its haunted heart in the tension between rootsy twang and man-made squall. On the smoldering ballad “Polar Nettles,” robins chirp just before Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin wipes them out with a MIDI sax solo. And while “Fever” sways like a ’50s- style slow dance at the VFW hall, its guitar outro warbles like a melting motherboard.

The two forces dovetail with fragile grace on the title track, as Case pours out her throaty tenor over music-box twinkles and acoustic strums: “I lie across the path, waiting / Just for the chance to be / A spiderweb trapped in your lashes.” The instincts she channels— hunger, fear, lust—may be animalistic. But the ache in her voice is wrenchingly human. MELISSA MAERZ

NEKO CASE Middle Cyclone

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