Second Childhood
Pop-punk princess makes things uncomplicated
Avril Lavigne
The Best Damn Thing
½
ITUNES MYSPACE

When everyone’s favorite sk8er grrrl was last heard from, she’d not only delivered a surprisingly mature second album, 2004’s Under My Skin, but had noticeably refined her public image. The striped ties and Dickies shorts? Gone—replaced by a sultry new look that landed her in the pages of fashion magazines. Her sound shifted also, as Lavigne began churning out the kind of dark alt rock that’s usually associated with Amy Lee’s psychodrama on the Evanescence tour bus.

Despite her rather serious
career makeover, on this light-
hearted follow-up, Lavigne

returns to the infectious hooks and mall-punk guitars that made her famous. At first it seems like an odd regression. Why would she ever want to record another bratty anthem like “I Don’t Have to Try” or a campy Stefani-esque single like “Girlfriend”?

The album rarely takes
itself too seriously.

The answer is simple: because it’s more fun. A few piano ballads aside, The Best Damn Thing rarely takes itself too seriously, and throughout, Lavigne spruces up her sound with pep-squad chants and funky hip-hop rhythms. The results probably won’t further her reputation as a credible adult artist. But for now, she’s happy to start another riot at the food court. TREVOR KELLEY

Hocking loogies
at paparazzi,
punk or no?

doner comes on like an agreeably eager compendium of every gay and gay-ish pop act of the past 40 years. Sometimes he veers too close to his source material and surrenders to sap (check the Robbie Williams–sucking “Erase,” with its fleeting rip of the Cran-berries’ “Zombie”), but mostly this U.K.-chart-topping magpie makes good with bountiful tunes and Broadway vocal dazzle that could slay even the High School Musical crowd. BARRY WALTERS

mercial-leaning, Deftones-like atmospherics of 2003’s You Come Before You into a dissonant, acidic wash of sound with an emotional range that fluctuates between angry and blood-boiling. But Versions isn’t one-dimensional—PTW’s songs have never been so multilayered, or their focus so staggeringly intense. AARON BURGESS

 

MARK LIDDELL

The Moonbabies Moonbabies at the Ballroom ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Sweeping, bouncy boy/girl melodies—it must be Sweden

On their fourth album, this indie-pop duo— multi-instrumental-ists/songwriters Carina Johansson and Ola Frick—create what finally could be their Stateside breakthrough. Whether it’s the gauzy, Fleetwood Mac–tinged harmonies of the hangover plaint “War on Sound” (heard last year on Grey’s Anatomy) or “Shout It Out,” which reconfig-ures a familiar guitar hook via Phil Spector, the Moonbabies deftly mix the accessible and the bizarre (two short, burbling synth instrumentals), assembling marvelously eclectic but still coherent pop. PETER GERSTENZANG

Noisettes What’s the Time Mr. Wolf? ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Feisty London lady and two chaps writhe and charm Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans who worried that last year’s Show Your Bones would be the turbulent New York outfit’s premature farewell should bend an anxious ear toward Noisettes, an arty U.K. garage trio with a similar disinclination toward sonic tidiness and a fashion-plate singer who’s determined to rule the stage with a sparkly gloved fist. Shingai Shoniwa is most arresting on the band’s remarkably assured debut when she lets it rip—but like Karen O, she’s got a sensitive streak that can devastate unexpectedly. MIKAEL WOOD

The Rosebuds Night of the Furies ITUNES MYSPACE Plucky indie-rock duo get out of the house and shake it

Hybrid genre alert: If Raleigh, North Carolina’s the Rosebuds have their way, “synth-jangle” will soon light up college-radio dials everywhere. Their third album threads seductive, chiming melodies through robotic, New Order–style rhythms. And though some tracks, such as “My Punishment for Fighting,” veer into ambient territory so soft-focus that they fail to register at all, others come on stronger. “Get Up Get Out” matches an outsize dance-floor hook to a soulful, hands-in-the-air chorus; and the languid twangfest “Silence by the Lakeside” is a dark charmer worthy of R.E.M. SHANNON ZIMMERMAN

Scharpling and Wurster The Art of the Slap ½ ITUNES Wreaking havoc on the total absurdity of the music world Over the past decade, Super-chunk drummer Jon Wurster and WFMU radio DJ Tom Scharpling have become one of the most inspired comedy duos ever, and definitely the rock-sav-viest. Scharpling is the straight man, while Wurster calls in posing as a surly fish whose underwater garage band “kinda sounds like the Greenhornes,” a pompous director of a slasher flick that “makes I Spit on Your Grave look like Amélie,” and the lead singer of a group of clueless modern rockers who attempt to climb Mount Everest to play a simulcast concert, with guests Buddy Guy, Clarence Clemons, Travis Barker, and the Polyphonic Spree (“all 38 of them”). Imagine Altamont—if the Stones were eating Power-Bars and freezing to death in the snow. MICHAELANGELO MATOS

purists Shadows Fall jumped to a major label around the same time as their peers in Mastodon and Lamb of God, and like those bands, they’re doing it without apparent compromise. Whether the culture can revert to the spandex-and-solos era to accommodate them is anyone’s guess, but on Threads of Life, they unleash a virtuosic melodic moshfest that’s so in line with everything metal fans have been waiting to hear since 1991, it’s as if Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses never happened. AARON BURGESS

 

Poison the Well Versions ITUNES MYSPACE Punk-metal survivors reach a new level of brutal nuance

Despite a dismal major-label run and countless lineup shake-ups in nine years, these Florida noisecore vets have rebounded to make the album of their career. Now down to three of their previous five members, PTW distill the com-

Shadows Fall Threads of Life ½ ITUNES MYSPACE Ferocious hardcore precision, like the metal gods intended

Massachusetts thrash-metal

The Shaky Hands The Shaky Hands ½ ITUNES MYSPACE If you said “no” to Yeah, these guys could be for you

This Portland band’s debut should satisfy those flummoxed and/or disappointed by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s sophomore slumper. Both groups capture early R.E.M.’s breezy jangle and give it a twisted sideways glance, but the Shaky Hands reduce the bark and play up the loose-limbed folk vibe, refusing to get bogged down in murky layers or sonic experiments. Refreshingly uncluttered tunes like “The Sleepless” and “We Will Rise” bring a relaxed, back-porch quality to typically uptight indie rock. JOSH MODELL