REVIEWS [ALBUMS]

Well, Danger Mouse produces and cowrites the creepy tunes, while Quentin Tarantino–approved soundtrack composer Daniele Luppi arranges austere strings, and Neutral Milk Hotel associate Scott Spillane contributes elegiac horns. Sounds better, doesn’t it? Costas coos anachronistically whimsical and hallucinatory lyrics as if she were the ghost of an ill-fated fairy-tale heroine, and the haunted results suggest the greatest psych-folk obscurity you’ll never afford on eBay. BARR Y WALTERS

Junior Boys Begone Dull Care

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MYSPACE AMAZON
Fussily polished synth
pop loses its quirky flair
Be ware inserting the word
dull in the title of your third
album. These tracks by
singer Jeremy Greenspan
and programmer Matt
Didemus reveal acute detail-
ing: cresting arpeggios on
“Work,” pedal-steel blossoms
on “Dull to Pause” (that word
again), a squelch of ’80s
boogie underpinning
“Hazel.” But gone are the
tricky negative-space pro-
ductions of their stunning
debut, and even the mel-
ancholia of 2006’s So This
Is Goodbye is tempered. It
leaves us with a streamlined
New Romantic sound, but
one that at times feels like
emotional Teflon. ANDY BETA

Metric Fantasies

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MYSPACE
Morning-after musings and
restless, nocturnal beats
Having spent the last few
years on acoustic solo work,
Emily Haines sounds eager
to get back to the club
with these nightlife tales
chronicling obsessed group-
ies, lonely hearts, and dis-
satisfied hedonists. Ever the
empathizer, Haines calmly
untangles her characters’
despair, whether it’s over
the quietly pulsing “Collect
Call” or the driving electro
rock of “Satellite Mind.”
Fantasies is a welcome
return, but it’s not without
flaws: Some of the synths
veer into jock-jam territory,
which makes sense on the
tongue-in-cheek “Stadium
Love,” but less so on the
earnest “Gimme Sympathy.”
LINDSEY THOMAS

this is only their second album as a duo. What’s more, Written in Chalk sounds like a breakup record, with the Millers (and guests Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, and Robert Plant) picking through an emotional boneyard of broken promises, shattered hearts, and spiritual uncertainty. In fact, most of the songs are so resolute (with the exception of the lusty “Gasoline and Matches”) that you can practically hear the back door slamming. If it’s not, then this long-married pair must have plenty of makeup sex. JAAN UHELSZKI

No crack pipes were harmed during the shooting of this photo.

Vital Signs
U.K.’s wasted bard returns to the land of the living

THE SEEMINGLY CONSTANT rehabs, arrests, and prison
stints. The romp with Amy Winehouse and a filthy
handful of newborn mice on You Tube. It’s all too easy to
dismiss Pete (now Peter, for a touch of class) Doherty as
nothing more than a smack-addled wretch. But there’s
little denying the former Libertine and current Babyshamble’s
talent as a songwriter and, well, presence. As if channeling Serge
Gainsbourg—a kindred louche European who probably smelled
and couldn’t quite sing—Doherty flits through genres on his
first solo album like a nodding junkie
discovering what’s been buried in his
pockets all these years. And in a narcotized
haze of lounge blues, New Orleans jazz,
gauzy retro soul, and understated guitar
pop, he has made the most compelling
record of his career.

Babyshambles babysitter Stephen Street returns to produce, but instead of pushing the urgent rock of Shotters Nation, he focuses on spare arrangements that highlight Doherty’s severely vulnerable voice and Beat-poetic lyrics about the guy

with a Scottish fiver up his nose and the girl who knows her tit from her tat and her Winstons from her Enochs. Where Doherty prominently borrowed from (paid homage to?) the Cure’s “Love Cats” on Shotters, here he nicks from literary Britpoppers the Auteurs for the druggy anthem “A Little Death Around the Eyes.” They should be flattered. DOUG BROD

Buddy and Julie
Miller
Written in Chalk

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MYSPACE AMAZON
Americana’s royal couple
duels love to a draw
We may never understand
Buddy and Julie Miller’s
relationship. Together since
the mid-’80s, when he
crashed an Austin, Texas
band she was fronting,
they’ve accompanied each
other for two decades, yet

Mr. Lif I Heard It Today

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MYSPACE AMAZON
Savvy MC prescribes
beats, hope, and weed
Chuck D famously called
rap the CNN of black
America, but Mr. Lif wants
to remake it as CNBC. The
Boston rapper’s latest is
a quasi concept album
dedicated to the current
financial crisis—think It
Takes a Nation of Bankers
to Hold Us Back . Over
harried beats and synth
stabs that do a fair job of
approximating the public’s
panicked mood, Lif delivers
a populist, paranoid disser-
tation on the TARP bailout,
fluctuating interest rates,

PETER DOHERTY Grace/Wastelands

•••••••••• MYSPACE AMAZON

Ida Maria Fortress Round My Heart

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MYSPACE AMAZON
Courtney Love minus the
bullshit plus more charm
Among this Norwegian pop
rocker’s many endearing
attributes is her total lack
of interest in consistently
singing pretty. Her debut is
full of rasps and howls, from
the raw, frenetic power of
the U.K. single “Oh My God”
to the ballsy bubblegum
blast “I Like You So Much
Better When You’re Naked.”
The last few notes of “Stella,”
a torch song from God to a
hooker, are so strained they
barely make it out of her
mouth. Ida Maria throws
herself into every song as
if it’s all a big finale, which
makes for an auspicious
beginning. LINDSE Y THOMAS

IDA MARIA

FROM LEF T: KEVIN WES TENBERG; COUR TES Y PRESS HERE

80 APRIL 2009 / MUSIC STUFF! ON SPIN.COM! NO KIDDING!