New MBV Album Due

First off, what?  To me, this is an incredible surprise that came absolutely out of nowhere.  Plenty of shoegaze bands have reissued their old albums in the past 5-10 years, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Swervedriver, and Ride among them, but none of them have gone about recording new material, so obviously this is almost a dream come true that I would not have expected (though it does appear that Kevin Shields & Co. put a ton of effort into their remasterings, while the bands named above haven't really gotten together recently for anything, so maybe this isn't such a surprise).

There's one interesting caveat though:  http://www.nme.com/news/my-bloody-valentine/64118.  "The new My Bloody Valentine album was influenced by the Beach Boys".  For someone as pedantic as myself, this isn't exactly welcome news.  When bands start working with out-of-left-field pop influences, some odd things happen - consider Idlewild's post-Remote Part output and Suede's A New Morning for examples.

There is some hope, however.  In the news section of the My Bloody Valentine website, there's a quote from Kevin Shields where he says, "The songs on Loveless had more in common with folk-blues music to me."  If Loveless was inspired by generally bland folk and blues, I'm not too worried about a Beach Boys inspired MBV album.

Album Reviews - not fitting for Halloween edition

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".

In Defense of Oasis

Quite the arduous task, isn't it?  But despite being frequently brilliant, though at times merely good, Oasis has never been a critic's darling.  Even their successes are swept under the rug: check out this brief comment on "Live Forever" if you don't believe me [http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7852-the-top-200-tracks-of-the-1990s-50-21/].  It's all their own fault, really, and it wasn't just their in your face attitude - Blur never gets half the posthumous dissing even though Damon Albarn has every bit of the attitude that the brothers Gallagher have, but if you start acting like The Beatles, suddenly people think you think you are The Beatles.  The fact that Oasis never were about reinventing the wheel brings about challenges of plagiarism that are in some cases accurate.  That Oasis seemed to want to be their idols just makes them more susceptible - in 1993 Liam was wearing Ian Brown's hair, in 2003 he was wearing John Lennon's glasses.  That post-Be Here Now Oasis was a mere shadow of their former selves makes them fruit ripe for the picking, when the transition between pop stardom and indie quaintness is seen as the ultimate sin, even as bonafide indie stardom becomes more and more real, and Bon Iver and Arcade Fire take home Grammies.

Oasis don't come off to me as just a bunch of wannabe rock star copycats, though.  Sure, they didn't make much of an effort to differentiate themselves from their influences, but the music they recorded was so much more than The Beatles, 1990 Edition.  The Beatles never had the power or the passion that reveals itself in Oasis, and for that reason, we can at the very least thank Oasis for bringing The Beatles to the sensitive chap.  In this sense, Oasis is the ultimate fusion of popular music.  The older styles can't be missed, and I won't try to pretend they aren't there, but Oasis takes them to infinitely more dizzying heights.  "Don't Look Back In Anger" may take some of the piano bit from "Imagine", but it then does what Lennon never could, which was write a boy meets girl song with some reality and some emotion in it.  This realism is the real core of Oasis' music.  The images they present are intense and powerful, yet they're grounded in reality, and Liam's vocals and Noel's guitar have the power and passion to match these forces.

Definitely Maybe, being Oasis' first album, is able to avoid a great deal of criticism.  Where it's heavy, this gravity is palpable - "Live Forever" and  "Slide Away" display a passion that many would deny Oasis ever had.  These songs not only have a desperate energy that can't be missed by the listener, but treat subjects very real to our own life: the unachievability of lasting life and love.  The difference on Definitely Maybe, when it comes to the critic's perspective, is that when Oasis doesn't try to be weighty, they don't end up being straight pop.  In a sense, perhaps the critics are too generous to Oasis' debut.  "Rock 'n' Roll Star", "Supersonic", and "Shakermaker" cover subjects of no greater intellectual and emotional vitality than the banal moneymaking songs of Bon Jovi or Aerosmith.  On Definitely Maybe, however, this comes off as a sort of innocence that I don't think is at all absent.  "Rock 'n' Roll Star" may be the sole song about wanting to be a rock star that is actually genuine.  The realism of Oasis' early music is that they're true working class Mancunians, and therein lay much of their charm for the Britpop fanatics of the '90's.  When Liam says it, he really means it.  This is what makes "Digsy's Dinner" and "Married with Children" such timeless works of art.  The former is an endlessly charming song about the lightest of romantic interactions and the permanence they can achieve, and the earnestness in Liam's voice is an instant winner.  The latter is almost the opposite: an unashamed yet not gloating break-up litany, yet it manages to be this without either complaining or ranting.  It's character assassination is so gentle as to be non existent, and this makes it seem so real.  Definitely Maybe is an album of blue collar urbanites showing their softer side, and maybe not quite knowing how to do it, making it an absolutely likable album.

What's the Story (Morning Glory)? is a step toward the Oasis everybody knows, and many don't love.  There is indeed a sense of self-importance here that was missing in their debut, but this is not a hindrance.  Instead, it enables the true flowering of Oasis' musical genius.  How so?  This sense of self-importance does have the drawback of making any flaws not only apparent, but painful.  On Definitely Maybe, the band could get away with a pointless or pedestrian lyric, or an inaccurate observation, because it had an aura of carefree innocence, like it was just a practice round that shouldn't be judged too seriously, and any "Live Forever" type triumphs become a sort of spontaneous burst of musical genius, the sort of thing Blake, Byron, or Pushkin would be proud of.  On What's the Story, this safety net is gone, and the stakes are much higher, because this is a serious album, not playful stuff.  Nonetheless, they hit it out of the park more often than not.  It starts slowly, "Hello" sputtering at times, and "Roll with It" alternating bland pop with touching sincerity, but it soon hits its stride.  Though not the biggest "Wonderwall" fan, I must admit the popularity it has gained for being the sort of serious song of which I speak, and the album only goes up from there.  "Don't Look Back in Anger" takes the predictable, and flips it, taking optimistic and wide-eyed imagery and crafting from it a song about failure as well as success, a song about people being people, warts and all, just trying to get ahead.  Listen to it again: it's more real than it would seem.  "Hey Now!" goes past this mark, mixing not joviality into it.  It is very much a patchwork of dark and moody symbols, whose refrain brings us to think about our connections to the past as individuals.  After a brief instrumental that is like a 40 second slice of the '90's as I remember it, "Some Might Say" ensues, with its intense guitar riff turning into a message of secular faith and hope, reminding us that our daily lives may indeed have a purpose.  "Cast No Shadow", perhaps the deepest song of the album, is a comment on the essence of the songwriter, a modern poet taking up the labor of that the imagists left undone.  "She's Electric" is a bit of neo-Digsy's nostalgia that is to some extent repeated in "Champagne Supernova" with the added question, "how many special people change?", while the title track is the most intense song on the album, raising more questions than it answers.  What's the Story (Morning Glory)? is a serious work of songwriting, and perhaps it was too serious.  For Be Here Now and it's successors, Oasis adopted the soul of What's the Story (Morning Glory)? and took it farther than it could perhaps ever go.  It's philosophical soul was lost for the Oasis creed of optimism in the face of ever darkening times, while its fragile seriousness was preserved even when the material didn't match this atmosphere.  Thus the decline of Oasis, which for many became a caricature of rock stardom, the very essence of taking one's self too seriously.  Oasis' first two albums, however, show that this seriousness was very justified.

Rereviews, plus an all time favorite

GUIDED BY VOICES - UNDER THE BUSHES, UNDER THE STARS
I've been meaning to do this for awhile, and have now time and inclination to get around to it.  In my original review, I called it "good, but not great", giving it the same score as Eric's Trip's Forever Again at a 7/10 (for anyone looking to get into Eric's Trip, I recommend the superior Love Tara), one of the issues being that in comparison to Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes, it was hardly experimental.  This may have been correct, but I think Under the Bushes offers more of something for everyone even than their prior two albums, while also, in my opinion, having more awesome songs than more palatable later works like Isolation Drills.  First off, this album is almost as experimental as Alien Lanes: to a non-GBV fan, "Man Called Aerodynamics" sounds just as out there as "Ex-Supermodel".  Robert Pollard just approaches things so differently, you sort of have to forgive all of his foibles.  Admittedly, the first half is weak by Guided by Voices standards (which is to say, admitting the odd piece of crap for a few gems).  "Rhine Jive Click" and "Lord of Overstock" are eminently forgettable despite the brilliance of the aforementioned opening track and the should-be classic, "The Official Ironman Rally Song".  The second half, basically beginning with "Your Name is Wild", however, is as good as anything they've ever released, if more traditional.  "Ghosts of a Different Dream" is a terrific song in tune and content that wouldn't be out of place alongside the best Post-punk of the '90's. The album shifts into even another gear, however, starting with "Underwater Explosions", a Pollard pop song with class and introspection - both intelligent and unavoidably catchy.  "Atom Eyes", "Don't Stop Now" and "Office of Hearts" are just as good as well, the latter beginning with some tasty GBV darkness before bubbling into a chorus that's so good, I can't believe it took until 1995 for it to exist. Then "Drag Days" emerges with, shockingly again, an incredibly display of sensitivity (though for all his affectation, Pollard always could relate to the everyteen - "Game of Pricks" even says as much), and "Redmen and Their Wives" is like a sparse and tasteful ode to Americana. This album deserves to be up there with it's two more famous predecessors, just like "Ghosts of Different Dream" and "Drag Days" deserve comparison with "Echos Myron" and "My Valuable Hunting Knife".  This album marks a transition to being a normal band, but there aren't many growing pains here.

PULP - THIS IS HARDCORE
I give this a deservedly high rating before, but I'd be remiss if I didn't add that this was in part due to Jarvis Cocker becoming my idol this summer.  Now, I know exactly why this album deserves to be well received, to the extent that, having ordered Different Class which should arrive sooner or later, I'm not sure how it can live up to the Pulp album I already have.  What makes This is Hardcore so great is that it manages to be a concept album - overused language or no - without being ostentatious about it.  It is meant to be a single work, and succeeds fabulously.  "The Fear" establishes the premise, general malaise.  This malaise can be brought about by anything - old age, drug abuse, what have you.  Thereafter, the album attempts to conquer it, and as I mentioned before, whether it does remains in question, which may or may not be kind of the point.  Anyway, in "The Dishes", Jarvis compares his own aging to Jesus' crucifixion and ... wait for this ... then depicts his own rebirth and journey to redemption.  "Party Hard", "Help the Aged", "This is Hardcore", and the rest of the songs between this point travel slowly through increasingly effectual attempts at redemption, shifting from attempting to continue hedonism in the near future to remembering and accepting the past, finally emerging from "Glory Days" with the realization that what's done is done.  In "The Day After the Revolution", the album finally comes to its resolution, Jarvis clearly stating "the fear is over".  Not only is this an album that tells a story, it's a good album that tells a story.  It doesn't get with most people on being a redemptive album with a powerful message (unlike, in my opinion, Tommy, which is more or less superficial as I see it), it only gets recognition for being good music.  All in all, though, This is Hardcore may be one of the most therapeutic albums ever recorded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ and now for one of my personal favorites ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IDLEWILD - 100 BROKEN WINDOWS
This is probably my personal favorite album, for a number of reasons.  First of all, it helped me get through fall of freshman year, so it's very near and dear to my heart.  In general, however, I think 100 Broken Windows is a legitimately great album, even if basically everyone has either never heard of it or doesn't see it that way.  100 Broken Windows is, first of all, supremely emotive, utilizing both post-hardcore energy and power pop sensitivity.  The album quickly shows its potency in opener "Little Discourage", amping it up yet again in "I Don't Have the Map" with its commentary on trust and individualism in its chorus of "you can't cope without the contract".  "These Wooden Ideas" and "Roseability" continue this energy, adding their commentary on philosophy in a way that actually makes sense.  It's one thing to name drop Gertrude Stein in a song.  That's cool, but meaningless in the end.  It's another to provide an interpretation of Gertrude Stein into everyday life in song form - the basic idea being that images are meaningless, pairing well with the credo "don't be real, be postmodern" - a statement with a glib sarcasm typical of Idlewild (or perhaps more properly Roddy Woomble) even in their more sedate works.  "Idea Track" takes this philosophizing to its maximum, creating an entire aesthetic around interpretations of modernity with it's mathematical and powerful guitars and it's invocation of modern technology with fin de seicle worry, finishing with poetry and a violin chord that brings us back to the very basis of music.  "Let Me Sleep (Next to the Mirror)" may be one of the most beautiful and sensitive yet potent songs ever recorded and provides a new hope in the face of the ultra-current wave of sound that preceded it.  "Listen to What You've Got" basically starts the album anew, calling for a return to simplicity, saying "you might as well be talking backwards" and "you might as well be talking to yourself".  "Actually It's Darkness", perhaps the cleverest song ever written, begins with a deliberately cheesy and derivative riff and builds it into a commentary on 21st Century cynicism and trust, begging the question, if we doubt this, why do we believe that.  "Rusty", about whose title I wonder whether it came from producer Bob Weston, math rockers Rodan's lone full-length, or elsewhere, once again calls for a return to simplicity, breaking down the listener for the last time on the album before it finally and once-and-for-all turns to sensitivity.  "Mistake Pageant"'s chorus of "you've had bad luck, and I know what it feels like to have bad luck" preaches understanding, while "Quiet Crown", another song that should be an indie classic, inspires nostalgia like no other song, perhaps especially so because my home state of Maine is like the Scotland of America (Scotland presumably being the subject of the song).  Finally, the sedate but persistent "Bronze Medal" closes out the album, reminding the listener that no matter how hopeless we are, we always have the little victories.

Album Queue for the New School Year

I intend to write some new reviews on Superchunk, Portastatic, and maybe some Pulp, Suede, and/or mystery artist.  Furthermore, I'm going to revise some of my ratings and maybe add a review for some of my all time favorites.  For the time being, however, I've got my new queue:


1. Be Here Now - Oasis
2. Coming Up - Suede
3. Unfun - Jawbreaker
4. Return of the Frog Queen - Jeremy Enigk
5. Warnings/Promises - Idlewild
6. Mezcal Head - Swervedriver
7. His 'n' Hers - Pulp
8. Dig Out Your Soul - Oasis
9. No P or D - Ms. John Soda
10. Indoor Living - Superchunk
11. Isn't Anything - My Bloody Valentine
12. Going Blank Again - Ride (ironically, I go blank again whenever I try to remember what that album with the clown face and "Leave Them All Behind" on it is called)
13. A Northern Soul - The Verve
14. Earthquake Glue - Guided by Voices15. First Edition - The Fruit Tree Foundation
16. Heaven or Las Vegas - Cocteau Twins
17. Future Perfect - Autolux
18. Four Great Points - June of 44
19. Fantastic Planet - Failure
20. Parklife - Blur

Album Reviews - Britpop, Shoegaze, and more

It's been awhile, eh?  Anyway, I've got five new albums to review here: Italian punk-rockers Verdena's eponymous debut, [the] Verve's debut A Storm in Heaven, [the London] Suede's Dog Man Star, Slowdive's last album, Pygmalion, and Pulp's This is Hardcore.

VERDENA - VERDENA - 8/10
One challenge in rating this album is that it's not in English.  As a result, it's hard to know how meaningful the lyrics really are, regardless of my ability to understand them.  That said, they seem at times to be very meaningful, and Alberto Ferrari's songwriting appears to be singularly abstract and disparate, creating a sort of lonely distant effect.  Verdena also show a great command of atmosphere: "Valvonauta", probably the best song on the album, begins with a smooth wall of guitars and gradually becomes darker and darker, while "Bambina in Nero" is soft yet powerful.  In this sense they somewhat remind me of Teenage Fanclub - at first glance they're just flailing at their guitars, but in fact are very calculated, and instrumental track "Caramel Pop" isn't half bad.  Verdena have much more of an edge than Teenage Fanclub, however, and remind me a lot of Sunny Day Real Estate with Ferrari's alternatively smooth and rough vocals and their melodic yet forceful guitar play.  Highlights include "Valvonauta", "Dentro Sharon", "Pixel", and "Bambina in Nero".

VERVE - A STORM IN HEAVEN - 8/10
A Storm in Heaven is not The Verve as you probably know them.  No hints are dropped that songs like "On Your Own" or "Bittersweet Symphony" are in this band's future.  To describe their first album as shoegaze doesn't really do it justice either.  First off, Richard Ashcroft's voice is not a shoegaze voice.  It lacks the softness of Mark Gardener and Neil Halstead, among others, and the music itself is much clearer.  The music is complex, with it's mix of echos and ambient noise, but has a sort of rough quality that makes it sound more psychadelic than, say, My Bloody Valentine.  As a result, this is not a very accessible album.  It's not as hook-laden as A Northern Soul or Urban Hymns, and also doesn't have the obvious beauty of albums like Nowhere or Souvlaki.  That said, it's still an enjoyable album because it's so complex.  Hooks come and go, and bursts of energy flame up unexpectedly with reckless abandon.  For the most part, I might describe it as Slint or Can meets shoegaze.  It's bare, but it's still powerful.  Album closer "See You in the Next One (Have a Good Time)" ends A Storm in Heaven with hints of what is to come, with it's softness and clarity.  Highlights include "Star Sail", "Slide Away", and "The Sun, The Sea".

SUEDE - DOG MAN STAR - 9.5/10
Comparable A Storm in Heaven in many ways, Dog Man Star is a difficult album to get into for someone who is crazy about debut album Suede, because this is, believe or not, a big change from that LP.  What made Suede so great was the way that songs like "Animal Nitrate" and "The Drowners" took rock and made it dark and evil, creating some sort of bizarro rock invented by Charles Baudelaire and the Marquis de Sade.  Dog Man Star, meanwhile, makes strides toward earthliness, bringing in more conventional pop stylings.  I'll admit, I wasn't crazy about it at first.  Opener "Introducing the Band" is their worst track to that point (even factoring in their B-sides, which are fantastic; surprising to those used to bands who just release extra songs not good enough to be on the album as their B-sides), and the imagery Brett uses is just a bit more mundane in songs like "We are the Pigs" and "Daddy's Speeding" - its seems to lack a bit of the energy of Suede's debut and the lyrics are a bit less abstract.    The music itself, however, is as fantastic as ever.  It's not as gloriously thrashy as on Suede, where "Animal Nitrate" and "Metal Mickey" were seizures of sound, but, after a few listens, the brilliance of songs like "Heroine" and "The Asphalt World" becomes clear.  The songs here are lonelier and more sparse than they were on Suede, and contain all the drama with a poppier framework, although not as obviously brilliant at first glance.  This is a record that seems initially like a more boring Suede.  This is an inaccurate assessment.  Dog Man Star intentionally goes in a more pedestrian direction, but pursues the revisionary goals as Suede did.  This time, however, Suede go beyond reinventing rock music to reinventing all music.  "Heroin" and "New Generation" are, to be sure, a rethinking of rock and pop, but "Still Life" and "The 2 of Us" go beyond this, to rethinking music as a whole, fusing pop, opera, and show music together and imbuing it with the power of Brett's voice and Bernard's arrangements.  What results is music of a higher order.  It takes dozens of listens to get to the point of recognizing it, but Dog Man Star is a landmark album that imbues takes the depravity of Suede and imbues it with an even greater drama.  It's definitely and album that has to grow on you over time, but you'll be constantly discovering new aspects of this album, making it incredibly rewarding.  Highlights include "Heroin", "The Wild Ones", and "This Hollywood Life".

SLOWDIVE - PYGMALION - 9.5/10
Pygmalion is a perfect title for this final Slowdive album.  I don't know why, really.  Or do I? Let me think.  Pygmalion carves (and falls in love with) that statue that comes to life, right? Well that statue is this album - it's permanent, it's timeless, it's perfect, it's organic, and despite being chiseled out of the very essence of music, it's alive.  Just for a Day was a clear forerunner to Souvlaki: it had the same moving choruses and ambience, but the latter buried the former in Just for a Day while in Souvlaki this ingredients emerged fully formed from their chrysalis.  Pygmalion rejects all of this, and also rejects music.  The first notes of the album in "Rutti" set the tone: Pygmalion is nothing more, or less, than a perfect fusion of sound.  It's powerfully monolithic and sparse, like being lost in Antarctica, or being the first animal to evolve with eyes and a brain.  It reflects all of history and all of the future.  It honestly is that good.  I think it's every bit as good as Spiderland or Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven or any similarly abstract album.  It's hard to tell this is even a Slowdive album except for moments, like in "Blue Skied an' Clear", where Halstead's knack for simple, dark, and powerful hooks rises from the depths (and then disappears).  Check this album out.  It's unheralded but incredible.  Highlights include "J's Heaven", "Visions of La" (or LA, but my opinion of Los Angeles as an utterly uninteresting city makes me hope it's La), and "Blue Skied an' Clear".

PULP - THIS IS HARDCORE - 8.5/10
I've gotten really into Pulp recently, sort of branching off of my fondness for Suede.  Upon hearing "Help the Aged", I opted to start with This is Hardcore and go back chronologically to His 'n' Hers.  So, what of this album?  It's very, very solid, with moments of brilliance scattered throughout.  Jarvis Cocker displays his wit and humility in songs like "Dishes", "Help the Aged", and "I'm A Man", and the songs on This is Hardcore surge with an energy rising from calmness much like Pulp's previous albums.  This is Hardcore is a much heavier, darker affair, however, than Different Class or His 'n' Hers.  "The Fear" sets a standard of pessimism that speckles even seemingly bright songs, such as "Help the Aged" where Jarvis asks "We try, try to forget that nothing lasts forever".  Even "Glory Days" can't break this tide, and This is Hardcore seems very much to be the swan song of an era, although Pulp would release We Love Life after the turn of the millennium.  Highlights include "The Fear", "Help the Aged", "I'm a Man", and "The Day After the Revolution".

Album Queue, July 2012

I have accrued some more of these, and will hopefully get around to reviewing them pretty soon.  For right now, here is my updated queue.

1. Be Here Now - Oasis

2. Different Class - Pulp3. On the Mouth - Superchunk
4. I Hope Your Heart is Not Brittle - Portastatic
5. Coming Up - Suede
6. Unfun - Jawbreaker
7. Warnings/Promises - Idlewild
8. Mezcal Head - Swervedriver

9. Class Clown Spots a UFO - Guided By Voices10. No P or D - Ms. John Soda
11. Indoor Living - Superchunk
12. Isn't Anything - My Bloody Valentine
13. First Edition - The Fruit Tree Foundation
14. A Northern Soul - The Verve
15. Future Perfect - Autolux
16. Four Great Points - June of 44

17. Pod - The Breeder

18. Dig Out Your Soul - Oasis19. Fantastic Planet - Failure
20. The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle - The Sex Pistols