REVIEWS [ALBUMS]

alchemy that’s greater than the individual elements, but ex–Guided by Voices singer Robert Pollard’s latest “group”—featuring guitarist-bassist Chris Slusarenko and Elliott Smith drummer John Moen—stirs up no such magic. Instead, their second album is a limp, loose affiliation of trebly guitar riffs, independently minded drums, and Pollard’s echoing stream-of-consciousness vocals. “Catherine From Mid October” hits on a sweet melody, but Pollard desperately needs a producer who can flesh out and orchestrate his (very) rough sketches. ROB O’CONNOR

 

The Boy Least Likely To The Law of the Playground

••••••••••
MYSPACE
A dose of childlike good-
ness for the unemployed
President Barack Obama
made it official: Optimism
is no longer uncool. On
their ultra-whimsical
second album, this U.K.
twee-pop duo seize the

yes-we-can moment with
plucky anthems such
as “When Life Gives Me
Lemons, I Make Lemonade”
and “Every Goliath Has Its
David.” Boasting enough
sugary banjos, glocken-
spiels, and handclaps to
give a Teletubby diabetes,
The Boy Least Likely To
animate their softly sung
indie twang with nonstop
hooks, bright production,
and gently acknowledged
adult anxieties. Beneath
lyrics celebrating balloons
and whiskers lie bittersweet
longings. BARRY WALTERS

 

B-Real Smoke N Mirrors

••••••••••
MYSPACE AMAZON
Hand-on-the-pump elder
finds roaring second wind
Los Angeles’ Cypress Hill,
with their G’d-up-stoner-
dude-meets-Beelzebub
aesthetic, always repre-
sented an exceptional sonic
mélange. And on his solo
debut, Cypress frontman
B-Real exemplifies his
group’s madcap versatility.
He trades vigorous barbs
with Damian Marley (“Fire”)
and spits spirited Spanglish

BONNIE “PRINCE”

BILLY

over buoyant guitar (“ 1 Life”). The clichéd “Gangsta Muzik” is a cumbersome drag, but on “Everything U Want,” featuring Black Moon’s Buckshot, the elder statesman still holds forth like a helium-breathing demon. WILL DUKES

Condo Fucks
Fuckbook

••••••••••
AMAZON
Canny rock archivists
stock cooler, press play
Remember those shitty
recordings you made in your
basement, playing sham-

bling covers into a Walkman perched on an amp? Yo La Tengo do. In fact, an actual record label just released an album of Hoboken’s indie-pop savants stomping through 11 lower-than-lo-fi songs by ’60s/’70s warhorses the Small Faces (“What’cha Gonna Do About It”), the Beach Boys (“Shut Down”), and Slade (“Gudbuy T’Jane”), all in one take. The pseudonym and title (a wink to Yo La’s mostly-covers Fakebook) indicate how this lark, with oft-inaudible vocals, is meant to be held up against the band’s

canon. It’s the rare album that probably took longer to review than to create. S TEVE KANDELL

Alela Diane
To Be Still

••••••••••
MYSPACE AMAZON
Folk rendered so purely
that it’s nearly abstract
This small-town California-
reared singer could hyp-
notize forest critters with
her mournful, oddly serene
voice, which seems to
be a timeless element of
nature. To Be Still’s subject
matter has a similar eternal

quality—lingering dreams, snow-covered mornings, blue eyes, bluer moods— but the music’s arresting calm is so powerful that little else initially matters. Subsequent plays reveal an effortless classicism: It’s difficult to sound this vintage without coming off as contrived, but Alela Diane, her guitarist/producer father, and assorted friends tap into folk archetypes that are often opaquely generalized but always disarmingly pure. BARRY WALTERS

The Drones
Havilah

••••••••••
MYSPACE AMAZON
Down Under doomsayers
kindle a literary blaze
Taking cues from Australian
forebears the Birthday Party
and the Scientists, with
touches of Dirty Three’s
dusty rage, these country-
tinged post-punks would
be bookish if their shadowy,
hell-bent narratives weren’t
so creepy. Opener “Nail It
Down” sets the template
with an anxious, loping beat
that matches frontman
Gareth Liddiard’s throaty

Fire Restarters
British Big Beat bosses scale down their ambitions

Fatboy Slim’s weekly “poker game” left the boys well knackered.

When the prodigy appeared on spin’s September 1997 cover, the U.K. group’s third album, The Fat of the Land, had been tagged as electronica’s de facto reinvention of rock’n’roll. But it also marked the prodigy’s reinvention from rebellious rave icons to a theatrical rap-rock troupe performing punky hit “Firestarter” with no-hawked punchinello Keith Flint front and center. Madonna anointed it her favorite “workout music.” talk about death knells.

But after a decade-plus of diminishing returns—2004’s flailing Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned ditched Flint and MC Maxim reality in an ill-fated gambit—Invaders Must Die is a stirringly workmanlike, if retro, blast of founder/producer Liam howlett’s anthemic breakbeat spazz. the deft drum programming and piercing synths of “omen” (with Flint and Maxim back on mic) create the sort of gut-punching delirium that Justice could pull off if they weren’t too busy smoking gauloises by the infinity pool, while “Warrior’s dance”—which irreverently bites true Faith’s house classic “take Me Away”—is a restless, junglist pileup that could’ve changed the world for several strobing minutes in 1991. “World’s on Fire” recasts “Firestarter” with tingly breakdowns instead of bratty prattle.

there’s even a nod to their aging rave cohort—the horn-sampling sunrise refrain of closer “Stand Up” emerges as howlett’s “one for My Baby (and one More for the road).” Sleep tight, mate, you’ve earned it. CHARLES AARON

THE PRODIGY Invaders Must Die

•••••••••• MYSPACE AMAZON

FROM TOP: JESSE FISCHLER; PAUL DUGDALE

78 MARCH 2009 / READ DAILY EDITORS’ BLOGS AT SPIN.COM