Do your chain
hang low, do
it wobble to
and fro?

Aluminium
Aluminium ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Imitation can be the most
tedious form of flattery
Jack White has already suffered
the compliments/indignities of
bluegrass and electro tribute
albums, so imagine his hidden
cringe when the head of his U.K.
label decided to give the White
Stripes catalog an avant-classi-
cal reading. As producers of an
orchestra dubbed Aluminium,
XL founder Richard Russell and
composer Joby Talbot add regal
pomp and twisted flourishes to
songs that were born from just
guitar, voice, and drums, often
rendering them unrecogniz-
able. Beyond unnecessary—
explaining its limited
availability—Aluminium might
find a home with diehard
Stripes fans and eccentric
modern-classical buffs, but
very few others. JOSH MODELL

“My Whole Life” are also punchy R&B anthems of the don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-in-the-ass-on-the-way-out variety. A few come-hither moments emerge, but Sunshine is most convincing when she’s choosing darkness. DAVID PEISNER

album. Despite the noisy, over-
heated production, which tries
to make Babyshambles sound
like tough guys, or at least Arctic
Monkeys, Doherty’s slack, go-
with-the-flow persona rules (in
contrast to the pissed-off vibe
of Dirty Pretty Things, the other
ex-Libertines band, led by Carl
Barât). If these bleary rockers
feel unfinished, at least they’re
not the flaming disaster that
you probably expected.
JON YOUNG

 

Busdriver RoadKillOvercoat ITUNES MYSPACE Los Angeles MC speaks his maddening mind—at length

She’s Crafty
Witty Brit brat calls out the phonies
Lily Allen
Alright, Still
ITUNES MYSPACE

stories. In the chorus of “Everything’s Just Wonderful,” Allen puts on her game face for the tabloids, and then reveals, “I wanna be able to eat spaghetti Bolognese / And not feel bad about it for days and days and days.” “Knock ’Em Out” describes the thrill of looking fabulous

Sunshine
Anderson
Sunshine at Midnight

ITUNES MYSPACE
R&B belter gets heart stomped
on, comes snarling back
Sunshine Anderson has been
out of the game since her gritty
neo-soul debut went gold in
2001. It’s a safe bet she’s had
some romantic misadventures
since then. “Get your lazy ass
up off of my couch,” she howls
on “Something I Wanna Give
You,” the impressively brutal,
horn-juiced kiss-off that opens
her second album. “Trust” and

The Apples in
Stereo
New Magnetic Wonder

ITUNES MYSPACE
Indie craftsman stops fiddling,
lets melodies shine through
The Apples haven’t always
made it easy to find their songs’
sweet, chewy centers, often
obscuring pure pop in unnec-
essarily dense shells. But on
his first album for actor Elijah
Wood’s new label, chief Apple
Robert Schneider gets back
to the core—simple, catchy,
unabashedly cheery—even
while exploring a new musical
scale (don’t ask) and tinkering
with between-song “link-
tracks.” New Magnetic Wonder
(particularly “Can You Feel It?”
and the ELO-inspired “Same Old
Drag”) couldn’t be brighter if
it had been performed on the
sun. JOSH MODELL

 

Babyshambles
The Blinding EP ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Tabloid bad boy rebels by
showing up, playing music
Bet ween drug busts and court
appearances, Pete Doherty
somehow found time for this
likably messy five-track sequel
to his quartet’s 2005 debut

Regan “Busdriver” Farquhar embodies everything exhilarating and frustrating about indie-underground hip-hop. He’s got a savagely self-aware wit, a gift for freewheelin’ lyrical flights, producer friends who burrow inside his tracks and draw out their mad moods, and the most minimal capacity for anything resembling an accessible hook. Here, on his fifth album, he’s more overtly musical, with producers Nobody and Boom Bip incorporating rock, folk, and pop elements. But while 2005’s Fear of a Black Tangent was a hilarious, merciless evisceration of rap hypocrisy from the bottom up, he’s now trying to address the wider world. The result: motormouth musings on killing yourself, killing your boss, and “ethereal driftwood.” That’s why they call it underground. CHARLES AARON

In “LDN,” a breezy reggae-pop jam from her debut album, 21-year-old Lily Allen describes a bike ride through her hometown of London and notes that objects in her mirror are more screwed up than they appear. “When you look with your eyes / Everything seems nice,” she chirps. “But if you look twice / You can see it’s all lies.” That basically sums up the worldview of this well-to-do daughter of British actor Keith Allen: Everyone in England assumes she traded on her dad’s showbiz clout, but Allen actually built a grassroots buzz the new old-fashioned way—posting demos to her MySpace page.

Alright, Still is all
about the stories
behind the stories.

in a bar, then repelling guys with outrageous excuses. In “Not Big,” Allen bids a harsh farewell to an ex: “How would you feel if I said that you never made me come?”

Alright, Still is all about
the stories behind the

Alright’s sparkly high-life beats—courtesy of Mark Ronson and Greg Kurstin, among others—are less ambivalent; they all gleam with upmarket panache. But strong medicine always requires a little sugar.

MIKAEL WOOD

Babyshambles:
Arresting officer
not pictured

FROM LEFT: DERRICK SANTINI/COURTESY CAPITOL RECORDS; MJ KIM/GETTY IMAGES FOR MTV

 

8 FEBRUARY 2007 WWW.SPIN.COM