the dude who wrote the 1973 soft-rock classic “It Never Rains in Southern California.” On this appealingly low-key solo debut, Hammond—a native Angeleno who landed in New York after boarding school—enters the family business with “101,” a fuzzy jam about lost love that revolves around a reference to the freeway that winds through Hollywood. Like most of these top-shelf indie-pop tunes, it’s cause for hoping Julian Casablancas loosens his songwriting grip on the next Strokes album. MIKAEL WOOD

The Higher
On Fire
ITUNES MYSPACE
Sin City kids gleefully do the
blue-eyed shuffle
Like fellow Las Vegans
Panic! At the Disco, these emo
lads see room in the genre for
way more than girl-trouble
whine and radio-chorus
cheese (though they certainly
have no problem with either).
The punchy odes to under-
age misbehavior on the
Higher’s follow-up to their
2005 debut give thick guitar
chug and nasal vocals a sleek
R&B sheen that imagines
Maroon 5 slumming in an
all-ages VFW hall. Yo,
Timbaland: Got time for
some pro bono work?
MIKAEL WOOD

The Jai-Alai Savant
Flight of the Bass
Delegate
ITUNES MYSPACE
One nation under a dubby
pop-punk groove
Raised in a large black family,
Chicago guitarist Ralph Darden
grew up on Parliament/
Funkadelic. Later, he immersed
himself in Fugazi and was seen
recently in the documentary
Afro-Punk. For his band’s debut
album, he somehow filters all
those influences, creating
fierce emo anthems with
pop hooks (rather than self-
pitying pathos) and mixing in
some deep skanking. Would
Jimmy Eat World come up
with the jaunty opening
couplet “Sex is war / And you’re
my adversary” during an
angular ode to obsession
(“Scarlett Johansson, Why
Don’t You Love Me”) or indulge
in a righteous seven-minute
dub excursion (“The Low
Frequent See”)? Doubtful.
JASON GROSS

Ted Leo (far right)
still believes punk
isn’t just for shoe
endorsements.

The Last Town
Chorus
Wire Waltz
ITUNES MYSPACE
Curing ills, while her steel
guitar gently weeps
As The OC ’s Bait Shop goes the
way of Beverly Hills 90210’s
Peach Pit, options for television
exposure are getting weirder—
witness the Last Town Chorus’
glacial cover of David Bowie’s
“Modern Love,” which under-
scored a flirtation between an
intern and a heart patient on
Grey’s Anatomy. But that asso-
ciation is easily overcome by the
clear, gliding voice of Megan
Hickey—who sings like a corn-
fed Cocteau Twin—and the
screams and exaltations of her
lap steel, which elsewhere com-
plement tales of snow, straw-
berry wine, and ninth-grade
Smiths fandom. SEAN HOWE

Speaking the Gospel
Brilliant Jersey rocker, not the same as the old Boss

Ted Leo and the
Pharmacists
Living With the Living
⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE

day, with a soundtrack of chaotic slambeats and rough syncopations, best exemplified by Fugazi, Lungfish, and Shudder to Think.

dexing of sounds and visions. Produced by Fugazi’s Brendan Canty, it moves strikingly from punk to folk to reggae to noise to liberation theology.

 

I’m From Barcelona
Let Me Introduce My
Friends ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
If you’re happy and you know
it—keep it to yourself
Undiluted, unrelenting
happiness can be exhausting,
and Swedish 29-piece I’m
From Barcelona pour on the
innocent ebullience so thick
and sweet that listening along
feels like chugging maple
syrup. Singer/songwriter/
mastermind Emanuel
Lundgren—aided by horns,
banjos, accordions, bells,
strings, hand-claps, etc.—
wants to convey the joys of
love, stamp collecting, even
building a tree house (“It’s
a you-and-me house”), and
while all that harmony is good
for revving your sugar motor,
no conflict means no relief,
just repeated shots of child-
like cheer with no chaser.
JOSH MODELL

Ted Leo understands. A vet-
eran of Jersey and D.C. hard-
core, he retains total belief in
the old-fashioned notion that

About 20 years ago, when the speedy strictures and moral panic of Washington, D.C. hardcore gave way to more expansive music and politics, the scene’s unofficial motto went from “Out of step / With the world” to “Live the Life,” per the old Thomas Dorsey spiritual. It signaled a shift from accusatory tunnel vision to a revolution of the every-

Leo tries to pack an
essay into each song.

what the individual does actually matters. If 2004’s killer Shake the Sheets was Leo’s Give ’Em Enough Rope—slicker production that amped up heavier, catchier riffs—Living With the Living is his London Calling, an hour-long Rolo-

“The Sons of Cain” jigs around the loneliness of the good fight with a triumphant thump. “Colleen” worships a scene goddess with sing-along power pop, and “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb” evokes the frenetic jerk of Dutch punks the Ex. Leo still tries to pack an essay into each song, but thinking too much shouldn’t exactly be discouraged these days. Especially when he sounds like he could start the revolution by sheer positive force. JOE GROSS

SHAWN BRACKBILL/COURTESY TOUCH AND GO

Charlie Louvin Charlie Louvin ⁵ ITUNES MYSPACE Septuagenarian country legend gets paid a tepid tribute The interwoven harmonies (if not the Pentecostal fear of God) of the Louvin Brothers were a tremendous influence on alt-country progenitor Gram Parsons—and, by extension, just about every contemporary rock artist to ever ogle a Nudie suit. So the surviving Louvin, tender

tenor Charlie, has more than earned respect-paying cameos from relative young’uns Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy, Will Oldham, and Lambchop’s Mark Nevers (the album’s producer). But the arrangements lack hellfire, and the precisely traded verses seldom translate into anything like collaboration. The Louvins often sounded sanctimonious, but they never sounded sterile. SEAN HO WE

Jesse Malin
Glitter in the Gutter
ITUNES MYSPACE
Former D Generation frontman
serves corn on third album
His glam-punk roots mostly
forgotten, New Yorker Malin
now specializes in sentimental
rock anthems that showcase
his Tom Petty–like yowl.
Credibility-boosting pals Ryan
Adams, Josh Homme, and

Bruce Springsteen
(who coughs up a hairball
duet vocal on the mawkish
“Broken Radio”) chip in, but
you’ve heard these over-
heated tales of wild girls
and outlaw boys many times
before. An adoring version of
the Replacements’ “Bastards
of Young” only emphasizes
the generic tendencies of
Malin’s own material.
JON YOUNG

W WW. SPIN. COM MARCH^{2007 19}