REVIEWS [ALBUMS]
Riverboat Gamblers
Underneath the Owl

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MYSPACE AMAZON
North Texas’ missing
liquor? Look no further.
Chest-thumping call-and-
response, greasy riffs, lyrics
about drinking and girls and
Vicodin and more drink-
ing—if Against Me! had paid
their dues opening for Faster
Pussycat at the Whisky in
1984, they might sound
something like this. But for
every straightforward burner
like “Catastrophe,” there’s
a subtle curveball such as
the glockenspiel-enhanced
“Robots May Break Your
Heart.” It’s weird to think
that these Texas upstarts
are largely relegated to the
fringes of pop—what they do
is so basic, so elemental, it’s
hard to even come up with a
modifier to place in front of
“rock.” STEVE KANDELL

T Y SEGALL

Die”) to up-tempo struts, and more deliberate mood pieces (the wave-your-arms-in-the-air finale, “The Passover”). S TEVE KANDELL

Ty Segall
Ty Segall

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MYSPACE AMAZON
Boyish one-man band wails
over unrelenting scuzz
This San Francisco 21-year-
old follows garage rock’s

lo-fi philosophy very strictly. The guitar, bass drum, high-hat, tambourine, and rollicking vocals on his debut album—for which he is solely responsible—are barely comprehensible through curtains of crackling distortion (though on the mellow album closer, “An Ill Jest,” he flashes a surprisingly sweet tenor). But warped sonics do nothing to diminish the impact of his vigorously nostalgic riff and stomp. From paranoid whistler “Watching You” to

the huge, fuzzy pound of “The Drag,” Segall thunders along with the timeless, impudently rowdy energy of a cement basement dance-off. ABIGAIL EVERDELL

These Are Powers All Aboard Future

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MYSPACE AMAZON
Cerebral Brooklynites
give art rock a cool jolt
Blipping and thumping
through nine tracks, These
Are Powers’ debut album
cross-wires art-damaged dif-
ficult listening with skewed
rock swagger. The result is
a thrilling, hyperpercussive
collection of laptop ditties
mixed so cleverly that they’ll
sound great ticking through
earbuds or booming out of
dad’s trusty Cerwin-Vegas.
Trainspotters may detect
trace amounts of Siouxsie
Sioux (the sensuous yelp of
“Double Double Yolk”) or
PiL (the ambient menace
of “Light After Sound”), but
TAP aren’t throwbacks. All
Aboard Future lives up to its
title. SHANNON ZIMMERMAN

The Soundtrack of
Our Lives
Communion

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MYSPACE AMAZON
Epic blast of classic rock
from shaggy Swedes
The album is having a hard
enough time retaining its
relevance as a medium, but

the double album? It’s been a symbol of unchecked impulses since Tusk (apologies to London Calling, Double Nickels on the Dime, and Warehouse: Songs and Stories). So it’s a minor miracle that these Swedish vets’ 24-song sixth album clocks in at 94 filler-free minutes, stuffed with late- ’60s guitar romps ranging from slow-burn psychedelia (the Beta Band–like opener “Babel On,” the Velvet Underground–indebted “Everything Beautiful Must

Telepathe Dance Mother

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MYSPACE AMAZON
Cooing synth charmers
apply for hipsters du jour
Conjuring a chillier
Bananarama transplanted
to Brooklyn, this female
duo’s debut album is the
latest intriguing art-pop
indulgence produced by TV
on the Radio’s David Sitek
(Celebration, Scarlett
Johansson). “So Fine” bor-
rows a title from ELO and
kitschy, sequenced rhythms
from New Order, and “Devil’s
Trident” laces portentous
spoken words through
skittering disco beats, while
meticulously arranged
seven-minute epic “Trilogy:
Breath of Life, Crimes and
Killings, Threads and Knives”
nearly lives up to the title’s
prog-rock promise. Goofy
if not guileless, Telepathe
seem intentionally designed
as a guilty pleasure.
SHANNON ZIMMERMAN

Various Artists Dark Was the Night

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AMAZON
Thirty-one heartfelt tracks
and not a solitary dud!
Produced by the National’s
Aaron and Bryce Dessner,
the latest in the Red Hot

Jah, Guns, Glory
Jamaican street soldier tests the spiritual waters

A man’s bike should match the size of his…mic skills.

GANGSTA PERSONAS HAVE short shelf lives. Snoop Dogg: The only set he’s believably rolling with these days is the P TA. And who’s still afraid of big, bad 50 Cent? Post–“In Da Club,” he became more of a thug cartoon than the genuine article. But on his stellar second album, David “Mavado” Brooks—the Kingston-born artist hyped as having more street cred than Biggie and Tupac combined—has lost none of the edge that made him dancehall’s latest commercial savior.

Backed by stripped-down beats, Mavado “singjays”—a style that’s part chatting, part crooning—in his trademark tear-soaked voice, lamenting gunshots and demanding them (shades of the Tupac paradox). On his debut album, he did more of the latter, but here he ups the gravitas with elegies saturated in Biblical references: the haunting “Don’t Worry,” the hymnlike “On the Rock” (which inspired Jay-Z to drop a verse on its remix), and “Overcome,” a stunning cry against Jamaican poverty and crime. Even warning an enemy that he’ll be laying “in a tomb” (“Life of a G”), Mavado never quite glorifies bullets and bravado.

There are still the requisite sexed-up dancehall clichés, but they only suggest where Mr. Brooks’ real strengths lie.

Some of Jamaica’s most conscious reggae stars—Buju Banton, Capleton—started out talking girls and guns; here, Mavado hints that he soon may be following them down a righteous path. BAZ DREISINGER

MAVADO Mr. Brooks… A Better Tomorrow

•••••••••• MYSPACE AMAZON

FROM TOP: DENEE PE TRACEK; AFFLIC TED YARD

82 MARCH 2009 / WATCH EXCLUSIVE VIDEO AT SPIN.COM