Field Music
Tones of Town ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Excessively clever second
album from slippery Brits
This fresh-faced trio makes pop
music for snobs, bending famil-
iar sounds into odd shapes, like
an even more fidgety XTC. In
less ironic hands, the creamy-
sweet voices (shades of Yes or
Supertramp) and clean, perky
grooves might be a source of
mindless comfort, but here,
they’re unstable elements in a
constantly shifting landscape

that induces a sense of gnawing anxiety. For all its obvious wit and fizzy energy, Tones of Town ultimately feels self-congratulatory and a bit cold-hearted. JON YOUNG

that bogs down their previously rugged and introspective rock with power-ballad vibrato, lurid over-orchestration, and petulantly vague lyrics. The Cost has been pared of the electronic influences that worked well on 2005’s Burn the Maps, replacing them with self-indulgent swooning. When singer Glen Hansard hisses, “Dance, monkey, dance / Don’t have me repeating myself” (on “The Side You Never Get to See”), you’ll need a Guinness to erase the memory of a record with theatrics to

spare but nothing to say.

STACEY ANDERSON

 

The Frames
The Cost ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
The poor man’s U2 slowly
descend into melodrama
On their sixth album, these
Irish rockers clearly ache to be
anthemic rather than adventur-
ous. The result is a tepid effort

Ginger
Yoni ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Another buggy odyssey from a
dreadlocked wildman
As the flamboyantly mercurial
frontman of U.K. pop-metal
outfit the Wildhearts, Ginger’s
no stranger to bombast-
bedazzled guitar rock. But Yoni
is his most zealous effort yet:
“When She Comes” weds a
scrappy punk riff to a Phil
Spector–ish brawl-of-sound
chorus, while “Smile in Denial”
is an acidic mini-musical that
even name-checks Grease. It’s
a lot to digest at times—the
world really doesn’t need
more bass solos—but any
overreaching is immediately
forgiven upon hearing “Jake,”
a heart-stoppingly over-the-top
epic that could be the finest
power ballad since Axl used his
illusions. BRIAN RAFTER Y

players—a second guitarist, a bassist, and a full-time vocalist. Knocking out hectic, aimless prog rock sprinkled with electronics, whistles, and momentary sax skronk, the quintet conjures the Mars Volta doing Zeppelin karaoke over two-bit Mr. Bungle. It makes sense that Bungle’s Mike Patton signed them. But otherwise, not so much. BRANDON STOSUY

They sound much
more tormented
than they look.

Kristin Hersh
Learn to Sing Like a
Star
ITUNES MYSPACE
Throwing Muse does not
want what she hasn’t got
Stars Learn to Sing Like Me
might’ve been a more accurate
title for the latest solo album
by this 40-year-old mother of
four, whose mid-’80s power
trio, Throwing Muses, laid the
groundwork for subsequent
women-in-rock heavyweights
like Polly Jean Harvey and
Sinéad O’Connor. Dialing down
the fury of her newish neo-
grunge act 50Foot Wave, Hersh
reconnects with her arty
folk-rock roots, as if trying to
demonstrate her individualistic
chutzpah. It won’t satisfy hook-
hungry Jewel fans, but Learn to
Sing wears Hersh’s experience
like a custom-tailored hair shirt.
MIKAEL WOOD

Wake-up Call
The heart-pounding party ends, but with a bit too much drama
Bloc Party
A Weekend in the City

ITUNES MYSPACE
panging lust, and heart-beat- rizes the musical frustrations
ing-out-of-its-chest anticipa- that abound on Weekend:
tion. It was the sound of an While it has a beautifully
actual panic at the disco. ascending chorus and a

Last fall, when this London quartet announced they were going on tour with emo hatchlings Panic! At the Disco (they later had to cancel), loyal Blocheads around the world cried foul: What could these anguished art rockers possibly have in common with a bunch of overtheatrical mopes?

A Weekend in the City cracking, spare drumbeat, so concerns the comedown, does every other song on the when the clubs empty out at album. In fact, not since U2 dusk and the kids are out built an Atomic Bomb has fending for themselves. “I love you in the morning, when you’re still strung out,”

Lee Hazlewood
Cake or Death ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
The fascinating curtain call of
a brilliant, bizarre career
Lee Hazlewood’s farewell to the
recording industry is as oblique
as his journey through it, which
took him from producing
Duane Eddy to saving Nancy
Sinatra’s career to making a
series of ever-more-baffling and
often genius solo albums in the
’70s. Other than a jazzy take on
the classic “These Boots Are
Made for Walkin’,” Act III of his
life is best represented here—
the twisted, modal interpola-
tion of “The Star-Spangled
Banner” in “Anthem” is his
career in miniature: arguably
inappropriate, undeniably
beautiful, and deeply, impor-
tantly weird. ANDRE W BEAUJON

 

As it turns out, plenty. While 2005’s Silent Alarm may not have been emo, it was cut with taut, icy-cool punk that was sexy as hell, full of forbidden glances,

Kele Okereke swoons on “Sunday,” one of the several unapologetically emotive lines on Weekend. “Sunday” perhaps best demonstrates why Bloc Party’s connection with its audience is so deeply entrenched: They’re one of the few acts that can write a song about a hangover that will also sound great during a hangover.

The band tries to
turn each track into
a breathless epic.
But “Sunday” also summa-

one band tried so hard to turn each track into a breathless epic. Sometimes it works, as with the corkscrew-guitar rave-up “Hunting for Witches” and the lovely, insomnious ballad “Kreuzberg.” Too often, though, Weekend meshes together a little too seamlessly. BRIAN RAFTERY

Hella There’s No 666 in Outer Space ITUNES MYSPACE Incomprehensible bombast from beefed-up noise duo

Over the past five years, drummer Zach Hill and guitarist Spencer Seim have maintained a position as the least compelling twosome on the techy, noise-rock totem poll (see Lightning Bolt, Orthrelm, the USA Is a Monster, etc.). Perhaps sensing stagnation, the Californians drafted three extra

Dustin Kensrue
Please Come Home
ITUNES MYSPACE
Thrice frontman hates sin,
loves acoustic guitars. Amen.
Some artists use solo projects
to chase wild hairs. But here,
Dustin Kensrue exorcises tunes
that are far too conservative—
musically and ideologically—
for Thrice, the heady,
prog-leaning emo outfit he
fronts. The twangy shuffle “I
Knew You Before” decries
materialism, promiscuity, and
the media, but the thorny
questions of faith that Kensrue
grapples with in Thrice are
smoothed out into straight-
forward, alt-folk Christian
devotionals. For fans of both
Ryan Adams and John Ashcroft.
DAVID PEISNER

 

k-os Atlantis: Hymns for Disco ⁵ ITUNES MYSPACE Conscious hip-hopper flips through indie-rock Rolodex

What if a Canadian rapper

STEVE GULLICK/COURTESY PRESS HERE

 

10 FEBRUARY 2007 WWW.SPIN.COM