He’s available
to write any
jingles the AARP
might need.

Old at Heart

Conor Oberst worries that his life is slipping away

Bright Eyes Cassadaga ITUNES MYSPACE

The bummer about boy geniuses is that they feel ancient so soon. One day Conor Oberst is a teenage Dylan, scribbling metaphors while his friends’ band-camp orchestras weave daisy chains around him, the next he’s a 27-year-old J. Alfred Prufrock, singing, “I got old in an instant / Now I’m all on my own.”

Granted, he’s not just grasping at his own mortality on Cassadaga: There are shades of Iraq on the electro-symphony “Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed),” September 11 on the Zen-folk ballad “Cleanse Song,” and other premature demises on “Classic Cars,” where the shrugged-off nostalgia (“It’s not that often, but I think of her sometimes”) is straight out

of Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel No. 2.” But when he thinks about a friend’s abortion on “Lime Tree,” noting that he’s in his own prime years to have children, these wide-lens issues point Oberst to a personal question: Is his chance to settle down passing him by?

If so, praise be to nonstop
touring, because Oberst’s
countryish genre studies
have deepened with a very
Oberst’s country-ish
genre studies have
deepened with a very
adult loneliness.

adult loneliness. And the unique electronic knob-twiddling here suggests there’s more growing to come. Knowing no nouns he can’t spin into archetypes, Oberst doesn’t really see The End as the end, anyway. As a tarot card reader tells him on the first track, sometimes the death card just means change. MELISSA MAERZ

²⁸ APRIL ²⁰⁰⁷ WWW.SPIN.COM

Gruff Rhys
Candylion ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
More offbeat melodic mastery
from Welsh nutter
As the frontman for Super Furry
Animals, Wales’ foremost
prog/punk/psych/techno-pop
band, Gruff Rhys hasn’t made
many missteps. But charming
though it was, his 2005 solo
debut, Yr Atal Genhedlaeth,
sounded more like an extramu-
ral idea dump than a genuine
effort. He redeems himself with
Candylion, an excellent collec-
tion of space folk and ram-
shackle Tropicalia that matches
the wild-eyed absurdism (if not
the Technicolor ambition) of
his band’s better output. Put it
this way: Album closer “Skylon”
takes 13 minutes to find a
chorus and never overstays its
welcome. LANE BRO WN

 

Richie Spice
In the Streets to
Africa ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
Captivating Jamaican voice
is positive, not preachy
Dancehall gets all the shine
these days, but on his third
album, Rastafarian singer
Richie Spice proves that old-
school roots reggae can still be
fresh and energizing. With
lyrics political (“Youth Dem
Cold”), mystical (“Open the
Door”), and inspirational
(“Heng On”), this is a stunning

set of stripped-down, one-drop tunes that Spice delivers with sober ease. And on the dulcet lovers’ rock of “Brown Skin,” he becomes one of the rare artists who can show that “Rasta” and “romance” need not be mutually exclusive. BAZ DREISINGER

 

Static-X
Cannibal ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
A reserved collection of
madrigal-influenced folk
Just kidding. When Static-X
dropped 1999’s Wisconsin
Death Trip, it sounded slightly
ahead of its time, taking luke-
warm nü-metal and slathering
it with pseudo-industrial key-
boards. Though it’s got a bit
of Mastodon-esque thrash in
the mix, Cannibal lacks even
the most rudimentary thrills.
It picks up an extra half-star
because frontman Wayne
Static maintains the most
unwieldy coif in rock—but if
he spent half as much time
on his inane lyrics as he does
on his hair, maybe he’d break
the record’s monotony.
K YLE ANDERSON

 

Takka Takka
We Feel Safer at
Night
ITUNES MYSPACE
Attention, deflated indie
kids: This band’s for you
Brooklyn’s Takka Takka seem
overly casual or even apolo-

getic at first, but there’s a sneaky intensity to the minimalist urban rock’n’roll on this wonderful debut. Resisting cynicism and self-pity, wry frontman Gabriel Levine sings the way people talk, resembling a nicer Lou Reed as he offers moral support to self-conscious loners who get caught up in society’s games, only to “break under pressure.” Sample throwaway gem: “You pushed real hard / But you never pushed enough.” JON YOUNG

 

Maria Taylor
Lynn Teeter Flower ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
The sultry chanteuse of choice
for indie-pop romantics
From her work in Little Red
Rocket, Azure Ray, and Now
It’s Overhead to her stints
backing Bright Eyes and
the Faint, Maria Taylor has
enjoyed steady acclaim since
age 15. But as she showed
on her ethereal 2005 solo
debut, 11:11, and as she drives
home on the stripped-bare
electronic folk pop of Lynn
Teeter Flower, Taylor has also
benefited from growing up in
public. Part Natalie Maines,
part Carole King, her vocals
are both pitch-perfect and
emotionally resonant; and
though she’s again got a
strong supporting cast (Conor
Oberst, Spoon’s Jim Eno),
Taylor is in no way diminished
by her guests’ bigger
shadows. AARON BURGESS

Willowz: Remember that really cool video where the guy was running down the sidewalk on fire? This isn’t it.

FROM LEFT: MARTYNKA WAWRZNIAK; AMANDA MILLUS/COURTESY SCREAMING PEACH