PORTASTATIC - I HOPE YOUR HEART IS NOT BRITTLE - 8.5/10
This is the first of two Mac McCaughan involving records that I will be reviewing today, and it is certainly the more unexpected of the two. Where Superchunk is frequently brash and energetic, Mac McCaughan's more or less solo debut with the Portastatic moniker is very nearly anything but, with only "Tree Killer" really expressive of the sort of fast paced kineticism typical of McCaughan's regular gig. The change involved in I Hope Your Heart is not Brittle is not unwelcome, however. In place of the rowdy teen punk wannabe sound that Superchunk seems to eternally encompass, even as the band members surpass 40 years of age, this Portastatic debut is remarkably laid back. Rather than surging, it meanders slowly through melody after melody, with a disinterestedness that is every bit as endearing as Superchunk's anxiously zooming nerves. Where Superchunk tries to be '80's punk but is too nice to do it all the way, Portastatic, at least on this record, seems to want to show some post-rock atmosphere but is again to sunny to pull it off. I Hope Your Heart is not Brittle has the same fireside warmth of Rachel's or sedate Mogwai and infuses it with a sort of lo-fi folkiness. What emerges is a sort of Americana that is not entirely surprising. Just as Superchunk practically embodies American indie rock with its fusion of pointedly American punk and hardcore with American good kid attitude (the sort of attitude Suede or Blur could never pull off), Portastatic brings out a sort of American backcountry relaxation and laziness (as opposed to the frenetic pace I associate with the American cityscape) and infuses it with the earnest sensitivity that it deserves but rarely gets in a way that's neither proud nor showy. This is not really a folk-record, though. It's far too self-aware and creative for that. It is, however, perhaps the ideal autumn record. Highlights include "Polaroid", "Creeping Around", and "Naked Pilseners".
SUPERCHUNK - ON THE MOUTH - 8/10
It's clear from the first note that this album is nothing like I Hope Your Heart is not Brittle, if one were to compare the two - a prospect which immediately seems silly. On the Mouth is pumped full of angst, energy, and determination. Opener "Precision Auto" declares as much, as McCaughan sings, "do not pass me just to slow down: I have precision auto." I'm not sure what the words mean, but the sense in which he sings it makes it clear that Superchunk has somewhere to go, they work hard to get there in this album. In many ways, On the Mouth is the paragon of Superchunk albums. Where No Pocky for Kitty was harsh and moody, On the Mouth takes this energy and infuses it with a happy-go-lucky angst that has become Superchunk's identity. For this reason, it would probably make a great intro to the band for someone who wanted to sum it up in 45 minutes. In general, it's also pretty solid and very consistent - maybe too consistent. To be sure, I prefer the layout of this album to that of Here's Where the Strings Come In, which started out brilliantly but fell off by the end, but there is less variety here than in No Pocky for Kitty, Come Pick Me Up, or the more recent Majesty Shredding - all undeniably spectacular albums. Taken individually, all of the songs on On the Mouth are pretty spectacular, and though Superchunk does well to slow things down every so often here, to great effect on "Mower" and "Swallow That", it in general starts to feel like they're sometimes just going through the motions at times, though, I should clarify, it's not as if this album lacks passion. Altogether, it's a solid album, and a very Superchunk album. Perhaps because of this, it doesn't feel as new or different as Come Pick Me Up does. Highlights include "For Tension", "Package Thief", and "Swallow That".
SWERVEDRIVER - RAISE - 8.5/10
Swervedriver has always seemed like the best of all possible bands to me. They're a little bit shoegaze, a little bit grunge; a little bit indie, a little bit rock 'n' roll (I'm sorry: I hate that term and I promise I meant to use it ironically). Raise is just a very, very good album, but one that's hard to describe because it's got a bit of everything in it. I'm not really sure why it gets the shoegaze categorization - there's a good deal of texture here, at least as much as you would find in Ride, for instance, but this isn't sweeping, elegant music. It's loud and punchy. It's even good driving music, because this band is called Swervedriver and there are songs called "Song of Mustang Ford", "Pile Up", and "Deep Seat" on it. It doesn't come off as crass, though. This somehow manages to be a cool kid's album with some awareness, and despite "Pile Up" sounding like arcade driving game music, the rest of it is heavy in a way that imparts a pensive atmosphere. Rather than being loud and noisy like a souped up Camry, Raise is sleek and thought provoking like an Alfa Romeo. This aspect of introspection is really necessary here, and Swervedriver do a great job of it. With a bit more consistency on this, their debut, Swervedriver would have hit it out of the park on the first try, but as it stands they would have to wait for their next two albums to do that. Highlights include "Rave Down", "Sandblasted", and "Deep Seat".
SUEDE - COMING UP - 9/10
Suede's first two albums are consensus classics, yet Coming Up isn't. To be honest, having bought and listened to it, I'm not quite sure why. It's undoubtedly poppier, but it's poppy in a novel and entertaining way. Album opener "Trash" isn't just a hit single - it's a hit single with a message about superficiality and all those other Brett Anderson lyrical obsessions and a bittersweet guitar riff that soars above the rest of the music. What does this tell us? First of all, Richard Oakes may not be Bernard Butler, but he's no slouch. Of course the anecdote is that Brett thought his tape was a Butler demo, but he really does bring a great deal to the table. The atmospheric's on Coming Up are certainly different than those of Suede's first two albums, but that doesn't mean they're bad. Previously, Suede's sound was consumed in darkness, and Butler provided a veritable cornucopia of sounds to back up Anderson's high and angsty voice. Here, the production tends toward the high end, giving it a "cellophane sound", as Anderson intones in "Trash", that evokes the superficiality of music as a whole. Some have also poked fun at Anderson's self-derivitive lexicon. For instance, he uses the probably meaningless phrase "heavy metal stutter" in "Starcrazy" as well as Dog Man Star era B-side "Killing of a Flashboy". I will agree that this does nothing for me, and I don't like the phrase in either song. In the end, this challenge is meaningless, however. Anderson is working toward a new, ultra-modern vocabulary that has been missing from poetic discourse. He's not trying to talk about things in the accepted vocabulary of Romantic poetry and Realist novels, he's trying to invent a new lingo that properly explains contemporary society, and if he has to use eminently modern words with no real long tested connotations, there's no fault in that. In fact, it adds a valuable lyrical imagery to an album whose sound aesthetic already tends toward the ultramodern. Coming Up may be a bright and sugary album, in contrast to its dark and depraved predecessors, but its sparkly exterior is a but a showy facade that works because it's self-aware. Closer "Saturday Night" and the melancholic "Starcrazy" remind us that the happy go lucky attitude that seems to pervade "Trash", "Beautiful Ones", and "Lazy" are by no means meant to be taken seriously, and the almost Blur-esque sarcasm of "Picnic by the Motorway", with an emptily echoing chorus reminiscent of such Blur tunes as "Yuko and Hiro" and "The Universal", backs this up. Coming Up, like every Suede album, has its inconsistencies. "Filmstar" and "She" fall well short of the rest of the album, just as "Introducing the Band" and "The Power" lacked the subtlety of the remainder of Dog Man Star and "Moving" and "Animal Lover" lacked the depth of the rest of Suede. All in all, however, Coming Up is every bit as good anything else Suede ever did, fusing Anderson's dark wit with an ironic bubblegum texture that confuses our expectations and thus makes for an interesting shift from the previously established Suede aesthetic. It seems they weren't able to continue their high quality output afterward, but this first release without Bernard Butler should have served to secure Brett Anderson's status as one of the great musicians of recent times. Highlights include "Trash", "Beautiful Ones", and "Starcrazy".
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