Clinic
Visitations ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Indie-rock oddballs refine
their mysterious groove
Making virtually the same
album four times seems coun-
terintuitive (or even lazy), but
maybe these British weirdos—
rarely seen without surgical
masks—have just been trying
to perfect their strange potions
with infinitesimal changes.
None but diehards will notice,
but Visitations sounds more
alive than anything since 2000’s
near-classic debut, Internal
Wrangler, honing all the group’s
elements: fuzzily distant
guitars, Ade Blackburn’s half-
decipherable rasp, that rarely
changing thump-thump beat,
fleshy dub undertones, and a
sense of urgency and mystery
that comes from cannily
combining all of the above.
JOSH MODELL

Bow wow wow yippee yo
yippee yay: Dr. Dog follow
their bliss, even if the
pooch ain’t feeling it.

background vocals (“Don’t
Pretend”), there’s an underly-
ing sense of anxiety.
We All Belong is a perfect
example of stoner pop—
always warm and fuzzy, yet
shaky with paranoia.
BRIAN RAFTER Y

The Drones Gala Mill ITUNES MYSPACE

 

Jill Cunniff
City Beach ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Breezy, low-key tunes from
former Beastie confrere
On her languid solo debut, Jill
Cunniff suggests we “start the
century again at a slower
pace.” The former Luscious
Jackson frontwoman is

obviously nostalgic for a time—the mid-’90s, to be exact—when it was somehow possible for a shambling all-girl funk band from New York to have a gold record. This easy-listening mix of Tropicalia- and jazz-inflected pop won’t enjoy similar success, but like Coney Island (the rundown Brooklyn beachfront to which the album is dedicated), there’s charm in its corniness, notably

on “Warm Sound,” a pleasant summer ode that could turn a ride on a carousel into a slow-motion reverie. PHOEBE REILLY

Dr. Dog
We All Belong ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Tickling the soft underbelly
of classic pop rock
A true DIY sleeper, Dr. Dog’s
2005 debut was the sort of
seemingly innocuous indie

album that becomes more
knotty and habit-forming with
each listen. We All Belong is
more immediate, and even
better: The group’s unabashed
’70s revivalism remains
unchanged—their hometown
is Philadelphia, but their
heart’s in Chicago V—and
while singer/songwriters
Toby Leaman and Scott
McMicken regularly traf-
fic in jaunty piano shuffles
(“My Old Ways”) and cooing

Growling, guitar-strangling rockers stare down the abyss Melbourne’s the Drones amplify Australia’s turbulent musical past by violently wresting it out of their instruments. Positioned somewhere between Nick Cave and Dirty Three, frontman Gareth Liddiard flips from compassion to contempt, from minimal country to fervent punk. In a grizzled bellow, he tells of cannibalistic convicts (“Words From the Executioner to Alexander Pearce”) and nuclear-age atrocities (“Jezebel”), blending myth and legend with congenital blues. An album’s worth of betrayal and bereavement, Gala Mill is infused with an outback cowboy’s refusal to let honor languish with a whimper. JENNIFER MAERZ

 

FROM TOP: RYAN COLLERD/COURTESY BIG HASSLE; JONATHAN MANNION/COURTESY DEF JAM

Whatever
happens in
the trap, stays
in the trap.
Winter Wonderland
Corporate thug takes his act widescreen, demands payback
Young Jeezy
The Inspiration: Thug
Motivation 102 ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE

On The Inspiration, his second major-label album, Young Jeezy, a.k.a. the Snowman (no, he doesn’t own a drive-way-plowing company), sticks with the kind of hustler/dealer-as-Everyman/Superman material that he covered on last year’s Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101. But this time around, it’s as if the script has been reshot by Michael Bay—glossy and viscerally stimulating—and we’re watching a coming attraction for a film that never starts.

himself as a self-help guru (“I command you niggas to get money”), while Shawty Redd builds a nearly drum-free pillar of sci-fi keyboards with Morricone majesty. Timbaland’s astounding beat for “3 A.M.” is equally extraterrestrial, its kick drums like a UFO backfiring while Jeezy gets “higher than a pelican.”

Except for the genuinely moving
“Dreamin’,” which concerns his
The Inspiration ignores the
man to reinforce the myth.

This doesn’t matter if you happen to like Michael Bay movies (guilty as charged). Over a dazzlingly cohesive collection of beats, the rapper gets larger than life. “Hypnotize” starts the blockbuster with Jeezy reintroducing

mother’s battle with drug addiction and his guilt over facilitating it, The Inspiration ignores the man in an effort to reinforce the myth. Through repetition of words (“yeaaaah”) and themes, you certainly will know how he gets down, but you’ll have no idea how he gets there. Ultimately, Jeezy just shows up with the attitude, the ad-libs, and the punch lines, and lets it snow. Hell of a storm, though. CHRIS RYAN

W WW. SPIN.COM FEBRUARY^{2007 9}