Cortney Tidwell
Don’t Let Stars Keep
Us Tangled Up ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE
A tear-in-your-beer suite of
moody electronic sketches
It’s tempting to dismiss this
Nashville singer/songwriter as a
standard-issue folkie, but on her
debut album, a more intriguing
picture emerges, as her wispy
acoustic guitar and vocal
melodies quietly drift into breezy
experimentalism. From twangy
and ethereal (“Pictures on the
Sidewalk”) to impressionistic and

clicky (“I Do Not Notice”) to undeniably Feisty (“Missing Link”), Stars skitters around styles, yet its songs always feel of a piece. Even when mingling with Lambchop’s deadpan Kurt Wagner, Tidwell never stops searching for her voice. JOSH MODELL

 

Amon Tobin
Foley Room
ITUNES MYSPACE
Producer’s search for unique
sounds ends at the zoo
Did 1950s musique concréte
composers ever imagine their

Young Buck:
His area code is
more gangsta
than yours.

rarified tape-art would become the next century’s pop fodder? On Foley Room, named for the film sound-editing suite where it was assembled, Montreal drum-and-bass eccentric Amon Tobin vigorously assumes the avant-garde mantle, orchestrating field recordings (robots in factories, water dripping) with slithery beat tectonics. The bonus DVD has Tobin vexing the Kronos Quartet (for the cinematic “Bloodstone”) and sticking a $5,000 mic into a lion’s mouth to record the roar (for “Big Furry Head”). J NIIMI

Twisted Black Street Fame ⁵ ITUNES MYSPACE Soon-to-be incarcerated scarface has writerly flair

Twisted Black might be the most legit coke rapper ever—he was recently convicted in federal court of conspiracy to distribute crack. But he’s not just a rap sheet; he’s also a storyteller whose lyrics recall Proust’s madeleines (a piece of jewelry, the sound of a drug dealer’s shoes when he runs from the cops) as much as Biggie’s hustler tales. Street Fame is flush with tracks like “Coldest Summer Ever,” a breathless account of two dealers named Heavy and Pretty Boy trying to outscam one another. These epic narratives are filled with such chilling specificity that it’s a miracle Black survived to spin them. KYLE ANDERSON

 

Willowz Chautauqua ⁵ ITUNES MYSPACE Former teen phenoms are at that awkward stage

As the favorite band of French director Michel Gondry, and as probably the truest spiritual descendants of Jack White’s impetuous early years, Willowz have both a leg up and some-

thing to live up to. Coyly ambitious and in-the-moment exciting, their third album still revolves around jumpy, trashy guitars, but also tries, unconvincingly, to integrate moments of winsome reflection. It’s fitting, then, that the album is named after traveling entertainment shows popular in the late ¹⁹th century—Chautauqua is flashy and brings a quick smile, but leaves only a hazy memory. JOSH MODELL

 

Young Buck Buck the World ⁵ ITUNES MYSPACE Southern thug-life shtick gets by on raw intensity

Though his G-Unit crew’s dominance has waned, this brash Tennessee MC is still roaring to be heard. Buck has left behind the crunk-inspired beats of his debut, Straight Outta Cashville, for producers Dr. Dre, Polow Da Don, and Hi-Tek, who pair his rugged vocals with sweeping backdrops (“Get Buck”), massed organs (“Say It to My Face”), and unrelenting concrete-hard drums. Despite fairly rote lyrics, Buck’s ferocious flow can turn even the most clichéd hood yarn into a fire-and-brimstone sermon. ALVIN BLANCO

Dharma Bums
Enigmatic family act still struggling to connect
Get the feeling
that they’ve got a
lot of mirrors
in the house?

FROM TOP: JONATHAN MANNION; JAMES MINCHIN III/COURTESY BIG HASSLE

Kings of Leon
Because of
the Times ⁵
ITUNES MYSPACE

Despite their well-publicized evangelical upbringing, I have no idea what religion Kings of Leon practice. I suspect they’d make lousy Buddhists—because repetition, when it’s feeding meditation, is supposed to lead to deep thoughts, and no matter how many times you repeat, “She said call me now, baby / And I’d come a-runnin’,” it doesn’t quite cut it. That’s not to say these Tennessee brothers (and a cousin), who sound like Bobcat Goldthwait fronting the Strokes, don’t excel at unlocking grooviness from a word or a note or two.

Roth–worthy shriek before every stanza. At first it’s impressive, then you kinda want to kill him, and eventually the sound settles nicely into the architecture. On “Knocked Up,” two high guitar notes float in and out for seven-plus minutes, as Followill ponders having a kid and getting off the road. But that’s about as believable as the boast that he

Everyone likes bravado,
but they need songs.

On “Charmer,” singer Caleb Followill lets loose a David Lee

and his bandmates are “an ornery cuss.” Everyone likes pointless bravado, but what these guys need now is songs, and this LP sounds too close to unfocused jamming. Even when a tune really pops, like the single “On Call,” it’s just a feeling. The Kings have the potential to reach nirvana, but enlightenment is a long way off. ANDRE W BEAUJON

 

W W W.SPIN.COM APRIL^{2007 29}