Song of the Week: "Chinatown" by Destroyer

What happens when you combine mid 80s cocaine fulled existentialism, early 90s smooth jazz, and modern day production sensibilities? This, apparently. The first track of Destroyer's new album Kaputt, "Chinatown" is relaxing if nothing else. Dan Bejer's voice is a tad aristocratic, but it's complimented nicely by sporadic pop ins from back up vocalist Sibel Thrasher. The various musical elements are pretty disparate, but the jazz stylings act like a molasses, naturally binding everything together. In other words, it works. Give it a listen and keep your eyes peeled for a full album review in the next couple days.

Watch Sleigh Bells' New Video for "Rill Rill"

Also known as "the one song from the album that won't make your ears bleed", Rill Rill is one of many  stand out tracks from Sleigh Bell's debut album Treats. Directed by Jon Watts, the clip seems to pay homage to a number of iconic American cinema templates- the road trip, the high school romance, you get the idea. Here however, there a few twists thrown in, from blood letting telephones and other flavors of horror, to Derek Miller getting thrown from a speeding car. That part is awesome.

Top 40 Songs of 2010: Part 4

10- Beach House- “Real Love”

This is a song that, due to its deceptive simplicity, defies standard descriptors. It has nothing to do with the Victoria Legrand's voice, haunting as it may be. The lyrics are so deeply imbedded with meaning and intent, but shrouded by her own history making it somewhat impenetrable. To say that you could fall in love with minimalist piano beat is so highly normative, that it does you no good. It's entirely plausible you could hate how it sounds- albeit unlikely. At times like this you could throw out the “more than the sum of its parts” line; with “Real Love” that seems like a cop out. Attributing its content to some sort of sentimentality or factor of nostalgia again seems to be skirting along the periphery of the issue. Perhaps its just vague and benin enough in terms of content and aesthetics that whatever it is she is trying to convey seems cathartically applicable to whatever horrible or wonderful event of your own life you find yourself dwelling on. Is it something of pure adulation or an agonizing reminder? It's tricky this one- but its damn good.

Top 40 Songs of 2010: Part 3

20- Shit Robot- “Take em Up”

If Nancy Whang is singing, it will be on my year end list. On this matter, I will accept no arguments. Her voice engages you through a weird blend of sterilizing monotony and genuine emotion. She has this robotic digitized way of singing at times but segues beautifully into more melodic wave form deliveries, like when she sings “but he said it's all right, and he said it's all right, and you know it's all right, now there's just no reason not to say no”. Musically “Take em Up” is like an 8 bit bedroom beat cracked up on melodramatic overture, sketchy guitar strings and obtuse synth base notes. The whole thing is salacious and scandalous, only cynically encased in aristocratic yet soulless shell. But as Whang memorializes the exploits, mishaps and mysteries of her nights that casing is splayed open. By growing slightly more jittery, with a carful blending of euphonic soft notes from the key board and increasingly elongated, ephemeral echos of Whang's voice, the rhythm becomes more organic. As the end approaches, the beat slows down, giving way to a broken down speech from Whang. She tries to convey the futility of desire, and our unwillingness to grow beyond its depleting effects on us. While she seems to have reached her limit from these tribulations, she's got one more round in her still. She ends it on a high note.

2010 in pictures

What good is listening to the ramblings of someone droning on and on about concerts without any pictures to accompany them. To address this egregious oversight I offer a brief compilations of shots from some of the shows I attended in the previous year. I can't tell you how much I regret not getting any shots from the LCD Soundsystem show. Anyways, let's do this.

Julian Casablancas at The Commodore

Little Dragon at Fortune

Tuesday, January 11-

I quite like Fortune; in the murky parochial recesses of Chinatown, cluttered with it's strange little shops is this ultra modern exterior. It seems sterile and monolithic and completely out of place- it's pretty cool! Inside it's a sufficient spot, it's a bit too elongated and the stage is tad small, but it works. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start, beginning with the opener Billygoat. They were... something. I don't know what. Honestly, a few days later it's hard to recall any specifics. There were no vocals, it was very minimal. It seemed almost pretentiously subdued; I was half expecting someone to tell me I had to listen to the notes they weren't playing. I was much more compelled by the pretty cool visual aspect they had to accompany it. It wasn't terribly flashy or opulent, but visually striking; as in sparkling whales petrifying into mountains. That kind of stuff. Aside from that, I don't think I need to hear Billygoat again. If I did, I probably wouldn't know it. I was a little put off that after Billygoat it took over an hour and twenty minutes for set up. It was an excessively long time for something that isn't the Radiohead multicolour brain melting chandelier light show. But I digress... 

Top 40 Songs of 2010: Part 2

30- Of Montreal- “Enemy Gene”

Of Montreal songs are always so densely packed it can be hard to make sense of them, but its worth a shot. “Enemy Gene” is bizarre and unique, with an at times startling mix of whimsical and disturbing elements. Kevin Barnes initially begins with a soft whispering voice, throwing out ridiculous non sequeters like “Zombies are licking your windows/looking for black body radiation”. It seems secluded and seductive, accompanied by innocent sounding flutes and bells. He breaks out of his restrained demeanor and becomes more melodic as things progress. The chorus performed in tandem with Solonge Knowles is majestic in tone. Their manner of singing is so instrumental and melodic, the words seem like music itself. However, with no warning, the song briefly segues into an urgent and frightening zip line. Characterized by a light brass and violent sleigh bells Barnes laments “How can we ever evolve, when are gods are so primitive?” It's very cool stuff. Just as quickly as it begins, the song defaults back to its initial make up leaving you to wonder what just happened. 

Top 40 Songs of 2010: Part 1

40- How to Dress Well- “Walking This Dumb” (live)

There is some sort of lesson to be learned with this song; maybe not from How to Dress Well, or their producers. Instead from whoever recorded and mixed the live version of “Walking This Dumb” For a band that is so frail and wafty sounding, every aspect of this song seems invasively harsh. Like the depths of your ear drums are being pieced, and its peripheries are being scathed by the violent winds of Tom Krell's voice. His vocals interact with and blurringly blend into the low humming ominous instrumental wail that oscillates throughout the song. Only the higher octave notes are fully realized and acute making the song not entirely perceptible at times. Its ghostly and ghoulish and pretty cool!

Daft Punk gets Derezzed

After months of false leaks and anxious waiting the Tron: Legacy soundtrack is finally here. To no one's surprise it's pretty nuts. Even better, there's a video for the first single "Derezzed" and it's just all kinds of awesome. Combining visual elements from both of the Tron films, it seems distinct. It approximates the retrograde film the original was made with as well as filming parts in black in white and liberally applying color after words- much like The Strokes' "12:51".  From the new film it seems to use it's more modern sense of lighting and even use of angular and curved architecture and costumes. Also, it sounds fantastic. Head over to MTV.ca -if you go to a site outside Canada, you're likely to get the "not available in your region" line- parochialists!

Update: Youtube's got the clip now; check it out after the jump

Watch Snoop in the New Gorillaz Video

Gather 'round kids, Snoop needs your focus. One of the most engaging albeit slightly goofy tracks off Gorillaz' Plastic Beach is the Snoop led intro "Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach". Prexif has the clip for the video just recorded for it. Honestly it's not much, with the characteristic animated trope strangely absent for this outing. But who doesn't love Snoop, and anything to get people listening to this track is worth a post. Check it out, and if you haven't listened to Plastic Beach yet, you're doing yourself a disservice. (also via pitchfork)

Song of the Week: "The Girl and the Robot" by Robyn

Robyn spent a good chunk of her career with a bad rap from the 90s. But she went dark, retooled, re-armed, and came roaring back; this year alone she's released three LPs. Off of Body Talk Part 1 we have “The Girl and the Robot”. It's a sinister and industrialized kind of pop raucous. It seems lyrically oriented around your standard references of desire and paranoia. However, its layering on top of such a cleverly constructed yet evil in its overtones beat is pretty sharp. What do you think? Is it crap pop poetry or something more jarringly unique?

Flaming Lips at the Malkin Bowl

As much as I would love to draft a more formal and comprehensive analysis of the recent Flaming Lips show at the Malkin Bowl, time, and more specifically school, is not on my side. Nevertheless since I was there, I should try and at least give you some idea of what it was like. So this time I'm going to attempt whats called a “Katamari” type review of the show.

The following are things I saw at the Flaming Lips show, in no particular order: Two dozen dancers that looked like they were rejects from Devo, Two massive death star sized disco balls, an array of neon green pulsating laser rays, two scary monster claws, a couple banging about 5 feet away from my friend and I (they were in love), a whole lot of giant balloons, two heavy artillery confetti cannons, a shit load of confetti, a few kids sitting on their parents shoulders using big head phones as ear muffs, a bear (costume), Wayne Cohen's massive sweaty face in extreme close up mode, a glowing florescent blue animated women, her vagina that was burning so bright, it was just a blinding white light, a cane that fired streamers and fireworks into the air, smoke and bubble machines, something that looked a lot like this, another vagina that proceeded to envelope and swallow the women it was affixed to, strobing close ups of angry animals growling at you, the drummer smoking a lot, a man sized hamster/space ball, and a single enormous eye ball that stared right at you.

Best show ever.

Song of the Week: "Revival" by Deerhunter

The third track from Deerhunter's new, and absolutely brilliant, LP Halcyon Digest, “Revival” is aptly named. It's a song about not just discovering, but rediscovering the joys and inspiration that comes from making music. It starts off with a sharp, crisp and precise acoustic beat; as if it was designed for a no nonsense sort of efficiency. But as Bradford Cox transitions into the chorus his mood and style transition into something a little more broad and expansive. As he sings he- in a sort of real time way- creates this swelling, cascading sense of realization and epiphany. “Darkness, always... it doesn't make much sense”, he preaches. Its as if he has begun to understand that creation can be a cathartic process, not a dreary and painstaking motion. The way he performs is as if he's not just letting us in on something he recently discovered, but as if he is stumbling upon this enlightenment right along with us. Listen to the way he slows down his pacing just a little bit during the chorus. It's masterful and a big step forward for an artist that has never really been synonymous with any optimistic descriptors.

Review: Of Montreal: False Priest

When have the titles of Of Montreal albums ever made sense? Satanic Panic in the Attic? What could Skeletal Lamping possibly denote? Who was Hissing Fauna, besides potentially the Destroyer? As such, anyone who has continued the rewarding but disorienting life of being an Of Montreal fan long ago parted ways with deriving any literal meaning or interpretations from their titles. Which is why it's something of a shock that False Priest carries with it a quite literal and instructive denotation. Much like Hissing Fauna, and far removed from the incoherent insanity of Skeletal Lamping, False Priest is an album that is graciously about something. Kevin Barnes has made this no secret, as in scores of interviews he revealed the subject matter of the group's new undertaking would be an attack on organized religion. It goes beyond that however, this is more than a negative critique. Kevin Barnes and company absolutely assault the concept of organized religion and all of its constrictive dogmas. They bombard it with vitriol and vengeance. They napalm the church.

The best part about this album is the numerous and dynamic approaches they take to such an assault. At times Barnes uses language to agitate and offend the sensibilities of organized religion (lets stop with idealistic euphemisms here, its not organized religion as a whole, its Christianity). In several cases he speaks in terms of evolution, “How can we ever evolve, when our gods our so primitive” in “Enemy Gene” and saying that god has evolved into something awful in “Casualty of you”. At times Barnes directly address the fallacies and hypocrisies of the church. He casts worship in a perverted light when he says “you fetishize the archetype” in “Like a Tourist”. Furthermore, He indulges in heretic thoughts such as pagan rituals- something particularly antagonizing to christianity- like “soak me in animal blood”. All of the imagery is incendiary and volatile, designed to shake loose the foundations of the churches apathetic yet dominant structures.

Elsewhere Barnes is considerably more literal in his criticisms of the church. The final moment or so of the album is an increasingly distorted voice going off on a scathing rant about the ridiculousness, and very real dangers of religion and faith. “Casualty of You” is a clever bit of story telling as he personifies his relationship with god by relating it vicariously to being dumped and ruined by a girl. He laments “You stole something from me/ can't say what/ just know its gone”. He's not speaking to a person, he is referring to the riotous effect (to borrow Barnes' language) religion has had on him. Elsewhere he callously says “Your sister called me the other day”. Is he referring to an actual familial relation, or a sister of the church? It's subtly clever.

Even more damaging to the church is the way Barnes intermingles religion with highly sexualized psychedelic conceits; specificity, the sort of thing the church vigorously contests. Where as Christian preachings have always threatened some non descript punishment for doing anything other treating your body like a temple, in “Sex Karma” he and Solonge Knowles, lavishly treat each other's bodies like a playground. In “Enemy Gene” Barnes challenges the notion of the human condition being characterized by original sin and rather orients it around sex and hedonism. It is our own urges that influence the world we forge, not some theologically instilled notion of good and evil. In “Girl Named Hello” Barnes slurs “If I treated someone else the way I treat myself/ I'd be in jail” promoting a not so subtle reference to his perceived joys of sadomasochism. There's even a song called “You do Mutilate”. He continues to exercise phraseology that carries a specific meaning to the church throughout the album as a sort of affront to them. In the first song “I Feel Your Strutter”, he blissfuly sings how blessed he is to be in love; it's a back handed way of saying all the bliss and fulfilment that the church promised us is something they are incapable of delivering, but we can find it in others- without them. All of these maneuverings are not direct or blunt strikes against the church, rather he he uses sexuality and the physicality of the body as a hedonistic canvas in which to create his protest against the overtly conservative rigidness and intolerance of Christianity. And what better way to malign the church that to use sex; is there anything else that makes devout Christians more uncomfortable. By tangling them together, intersecting them he destroys the barriers the church has built around itself protecting it from such dimensions. “Godly Intersex”, anyone?

As a result this is Of Montreal's most overtly sexually liberating and explorative album. The low fi Sesame Street, Yo Gabba Gabba innocence of the Sunlandic Twins and Satanic Panic in the Attic is long gone. Barnes is no longer traumatized by one singular apocalyptic emotion as in Hissing Fauna. Whatever was going on in Skeletal Lamping... well thats gone too (Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy Skeletal Lamping, but seriously can anybody tell me what the hell was going on there?). More so than ever Barnes' vocals are seductive and suggestive. Its like the Musical equivalent of a Russ Myers film. This element is lost however during the few occasions where Barnes makes the mistake of regressing into some sort of spoken word monologue, as in “Our Riotous Defects” or "Famine Affair”. He's playful funk falsetto is supplanted by insipid and blase drudgery. I'm thankful it only happens a couple of times but even once is too many. Oddly, my favourite track on the album, “Coquete Coquette” seems (so far) the only track on the album that seems devoid of the thematic punch that defines the rest of the songs. I don't really have an issue with this, as its a damn good song. Mixing a striking guitar hook with a hallucinogenic frenzied fade out, it's an intense trip. It also probably has my favourite line I've heard in a song this year: “I don't wanna catch you with some other guys face under your eyelids”- a wonderful metaphor.

As with all of their albums, False Priest is endowed with a daunting array of alien riffs, oddball synth, feral sounds, nocturnal brassy beats (especially in “Around the way”), and baffling and awkward rhythms and harmonies. Unlike Skeletal Lamping which was nearly torn a sunder by its own strikingly atypical architecture, most of the songs here take the menagerie of audible oddities and firmly coil them together into something much more focused, directed, and coherent. This precision decays somewhat only in the last song, but after making it that far, I'll certainly afford them a little inane experimentation. It's melodically smoother than maybe any of their prior albums; many of the rhythms have a sort of instrumental equivalent to a soft palatalization. Once again they dive heavily into 70s blacksplotation funk, also mixing a great deal of 80s dreary synth pop in the vein of Depeche Mode, albeit at a greatly accelerated tempo. “Hydra fantasies” deviates a little from this but still feels distinctly like Of Montreal with a peculiar and perverted harmony to it. It reminds me why I once described this group as the Mad Hatter of music: mysterious, intriguing, playful, but slightly unsettling and sinister. However there is nothing on the grandiose or epic level of “The Past it a Grotesque Animal” or “Nonpareil of Favor”. Everything here, while bursting with energy is a little more diminutive.

I hope when people listen to False Priest, they will hear more than just slightly obtuse, and scatter brain pop music. It carries with it so much more intent, sincerity, and passion that your average top 40 pop affair, even if at times it seems like nothing more than an abstract perversion of such material. Its content is worth studying in great detail, and in a way that can't really be said for what people may start to mistake as Of Montreal's contemporaries (I have a feeling that people are going to start comparing Kevin Barnes to Lady Gaga. Barnes could eat her alive- have you seen the video for “Coqute Coquette”?). While it is vengeful, spiteful, and even maybe a little narrowly bias, it is done so in a brilliantly nuanced, subtle, and imaginative way. It may be hard to take they're claims seriously when presented in such a hyperbolic manner- but you really should. That's the way it should be anyways, as I can think of few better words than hyperbolic to describe Of Montreal.

Efterklang at the Media Club

You can creating an inviting atmosphere in nearly any setting by adding a dark mahogany bar, and yes the Media Club does have those enveloping and plush seats lining its perimeter; but its small cavernous space always gives me a claustrophobic sense of dread. Maybe I've seen Deer Hunter too many times, but the prospect of an impromptu bout of Russian Roulette seems menacingly plausible in such a setting- and that rarely ends well for all parties involved. Luckily, we were there to see Efterklang, not exactly the most frightening or intimidating of gangs.

But before the main festivities, openers Buke and Gass were to take the densely cluttered faux stage. A Brooklyn based twosome, comprised of Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez, that's heavy on the guitar and little else, Buke and Gass were quite the pleasant surprise. Despite raising concern with the crowd over the notion that their neighbourhood had been utterly decimated by what may or may not have been a tornado (in New York?), they were in high spirits and had a talent for charm. As for their sound, it was a thick syrupy blend of their two electric guitars, a one piece drum kick, and a make shift combination of bells and tambourines affixed to Dyer's leg. Honestly, the miniature set up on her leg couldn't really do much more than be hopelessly over shadowed by insurgent guitar riffs that had this guerrilla warfare way of jumping out at you- but it was a nice touch nevertheless. Also of note was Sanchez's guitar. It was some sort of steam punk hammered together apparatus. As if a globular piece of shrapnel from the corpse of T-1000 had been moulded into a such an device. I want one.

Dyer had a pretty impressive voice I believe. I wouldn't cast it as shrill, she certainly created a melodic flow with it, although she often abruptly punctuated it with short truncated wails. It effectively matched the improvisational segues of the music. She at times managed to almost overshadow the speaker's projection of her own voice, and in such a small space, it created an interesting echoing effect. If one is searching for comparative analysis or a frame of reference, I would liken her voice to that of Maria Andersson from Sahara Hotnights; It had a determinist, empowered, but not quite feminist element to it. It seemed to be something of a hold over from post 90s rock that acted as a waypoint between shallow stadium rock and the not quite gestated indie explosion that was not far off. But the late 90s are probably due for an ironic retro revival pretty soon anyways, so perhaps she is intuitively on the cusp of something.

As noted already, their aesthetic is predominantly oriented around electric guitar- not even a bass; it worked surprisingly well. Played in tandem the two were able to create a more lush and content rich sound then I would have initially estimated. Their influences and stylings were a little all over the place, with some noticeable mid 90s ska riffs and much to my surprise even some ukulele style solos and rhythms. Few if any of the songs followed a conventional arc, narrative or otherwise- rather their approach seemed to be a more professional and functional jam session. At times some of the segues from one melody to another were a bit disjointed and I wished there was an actual percussion set to fill in the gaps. For their most part however, the duo made a strong a case for themselves; I could hear more of these two.

Efterklang followed not long after and created a starkly contrasting image to the preceding group. Where as Buke and Gass was comprised of two people sitting for the entire set so as not to upset the mechanical ecosystem that had already smothered the stage, Efterklang was comprised of 6 or 7 mostly very tall swedes that had a penchant for playground baffonary and bouncing all over anywhere they could. Beyond that, Buke and Gass had an instrumental accompaniment that could easily be grafted onto a single street performer, and Efterklang brought everything they could find with them. Guitar, bass, keyboard, synth, computerized sound effects, trumpet, violin, flute, recorder (really, recorder?) and more than enough drums were well represented here. Some came threw better than others although. Any sounded precipitated by a violin sometimes has trouble permeating a room already battered by horn and drums, but they managed to balance the sound levels nicely. The same can't really be said for the flute, it was almost entirely buried under everything else, to the point where it makes you wonder why they bothered. Interestingly enough the recorder was surprisingly audible- I don't get it.

My Experience with Efterklang was certainly limited at best leading into the show. The multitude of instruments deceives one into thinking their music is too complex to find any approachable contemporaries. They're geographical origins don't provide much in the way of clues, as much of their sound carried a more celtic vibe to it, rather than Nordic- that being said I'm entirely unaware of what (if any) qualitative parameters exist to define nordic music. Glockenspiels? No? Moving on then... It was only towards the end of their set that it became glaringly obvious how similar Efterklang is to Broken Social Scene. The interplay between piano and horn, the sporadic bursts of guitar, the whole kitchen sink approach to layering instruments together is very reminiscent of BSS work. Of course the subject matter is not nearly as morose or loathing. Efterklang certainly carries a subdued affirmation to their music; it's almost evangelical even. In this sense they also share similarities with the likes of Camera Obscura and Belle and Sebastian- it is readily apparent that the music is quite good, but it at times is a little overly sweet, to the point where you're just a little embarrassed to be bobbing your head to it.

For a group with so many diverse sounds and instruments, it became a little annoying to see so many of them constantly vying for a chance to hop on the drums. Irresponsibly almost, abandoning their current role for a chance to grab some sticks and bang on- anything really, the whole affair seemed somewhat juvenile and adolescent. One of them starting smacking the drum set with such reckless and utter abandon, that it seemed startlingly similar to the scene in 2001 where the apes discover for the first time the violent uses and applications of tools. It really seemed like he was trying to mimic such theatrics. Elsewhere, the violinist, who did just wonderful things with it, dismissed his function within the group to join in with the lead singer to add even more clashing strikes to already excessively over used snare. It didn't really add anything, and meanwhile the band member on synth at the back had to start playing digitized violin tracks. Why did they need to artificiality recreate the sound of a violin, when there was a perfectly good one on stage not being used? It was a particularly frustrating kind of redundancy. Chastising them for such practices is such a cold and sterile thing to do I realize. After all, they were having a great deal of fun and it added a level of interaction and playfulness that had the audience thoroughly engaged. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of their songs. Perhaps a more euphemistic way to describe the whole affair would be to say that their live act is not engineered for efficency. Rather it is one for pageantry and festivity. And in all fairness, it was pretty cool when members of the band started using the celling vents for an additional source of percussion; the actually got a pretty good sound out of it.

Depending on quality of the vocals one of the benefits of a band the size of Efterklang is having a large pool of backup vocals to draw from. Here the band showed one of their strongest talents as multiple times throughout all of their tracks the backup singers shifted and changed. At times it was just the man on the drums doing back up, other times the female on keyboards and the fellow on bass. At times it was just a couple, during others it was damn near all of them. Doing so created an amorphous and variable sound to their music that never got old and created a lush extra layer to the rhythm. Heather Borderick, the only female in the group had a very strong encompassing voice; at times she even manged to overshadow the lead singer Casper Clausen's own efforts.

Efterklang may not be high up there on my list of must her bands, but they put on a pretty good show at the media club. All the silliness and ineptitude of the group aside, some of their music is pretty compelling (Modern Drift in particular is fantastic). I'm not sure if their theatrics would translate as well to a larger much less intimate venue, but it seemed to fit the bill here. Even they seemed at least partly aware of some of their mannerisms I have described here. As Clausen and Boderick concluded their final song of the set, a mostly instrument free, achingly slow duet, Clausen raised his arm ready to hammer on the snare once more. Instead he lightly tapped a single key on the piano, creating the faintest of blips. A nice touch.

The Walkmen and The National at the Malkin Bowl

My night started off poorly when my memory relapse resulted in myself being trapped within a Malkin Bowl sans the beer kiosk. A blurry combination of false mental images and inflated hopes and dreams had deceived me into thinking once through the threshold I would still have access to a tasty beverage. Alas, this was not meant to be. And I was all out of vitamin water.

On a decidedly more relevant note, I was not the only one who made an egregious miscalculation. For a great deal of the attendants on that mercifully warm fall day, failed to realize that they ceremony they were soon to bear wear witness to was not just The National, but The Walkmen as well. Nearly an hour and half late and we were only a couple rows behind some accommodatingly diminutive people, and just to the right of center stage- a good angle for all the tambourine to come. This was even after a longer and more indecisive than usual foray into the t shirt kiosk. If I wasn't so smitten with my current proximity to the stage, I might have been more vocal about my surprise regarding the scarcity of the populace. Didn't everyone there know who The Walkmen were? Were they not inundated with excitement? This wasn't some local group that got lucky or post modern nu-wave french art house whatever band that had a single picked up on by 130bpm or Pitchfork. This was the cussing Walkmen. Further investigating into the issue yielded similarly displeasing results. While discussing the whole affair the following day with a friend, she conveyed surprise that they were even still around. Yes, The Walkmen very much continue to exist; Lisbon cam out a month ago.

Fittingly The Walkmen have always conducted themselves a such a band. Even though their body of work is increasingly vast, garnering a gluttonous amount of accolades. They performed their set with out even a hint of pretension or grandeur, nary even a sentiment of their own worth. They made no fuss at all as strolled on stage, stealthily even. A great deal even failed to notice; I was even surprised when the background music disintegrated beyond any audible spectrum to be replaced by The Walkmen's stylings. Where did they come from? Beyond that, the group on multiple, even excessive occasions took the time between songs to graciously thank us all for letting them play. We weren't doing them a favour to have them here; we should be so lucky. It didn't take long for apathetic crowd to take notice and pay very close attention.

Starting with “Blue as Your Blood” off the new album, Lisbon, one thing became absolutely apparent; Hamilton Leithausers voice translates from studio to stage perfectly. His screeches, moans, swelling and bellowing wails were just as they sound on the albums. No inferior audio equipment to distort or obscure it, no post production trickery that they failed to replicate here. It was damn near perfect. This is not to say it was some hollow facsimile of the groups studio work- it certainly carried the weight and echo of a voice right in front of you bursting through a tower of speakers. So often at a show, a singer's voice, will seem muted, stale, in need of some mixing and balancing; specificaly such wonders that the live stage will not afford. His grating, cacophonous slurs needed no such adjusting.

I recently said that The Walkmen's music was becoming less and less aggressive and delving further into a mellow contemplative template. Those with a remedial knowledge of the group who attended the show would no doubt disagree with me- and rightly so. The band certainly picked the most energetic and intensive samplings of recent albums. Tracks including “Angela Surf City” and “Juveniles” which I can comfortably assess as the best tracks of the new album. Oddly they choose to omit “Stranded” their first single and probably most emblematic of the bands new direction from the night. Did they not have a horn player? Surely their reasoning was more than logistical obstacles. I won't go as far as to say I was bothered by it, just a little surprised. Nevertheless, even songs that were preformed with a modest amount of gusto and a moderate tempo on the album, were put on display with a raw fiery urgency. On “Juveniles” in the album, when Leithauser says “You're one of us or one of them” he is surely trying to convince us; on stage when he said it, he was desperately and achingly pleading to us. I'll refrain from going as far as to say he was screaming, but he definitely stepped up the vocal fidelity.

To continue, The Walkmen played a very good set, wisely picking the strongest tracks off of You & Me such as “In the New Year” and “Canadian Girl”. Sometimes there's no better way to fall in love with a song than to be forced to hear it live. I never gave “On the Water” much more than a second listen; hearing it on stage resulted in a swift and illuminating epiphany. But they failed miserably in the one area requisite to make it a great set; they didn't play “The Rat”. How the hell could they not play “The Rat”? I can only imagine the adrenaline bleeding fury of seeing that song live; that's right, I can only imagine. Actually they didn't play anything off of Bows and Arrows which was also more than a little distressing. On a more optimistic note, they did play “We'd Been Had”. I had completely forgotten about that song. I no longer retain the reference points within my own memory as to when or at what point in my life I played that song constantly like a beat on repeat, so it was hazy, albeit pleasant trip down my own nostalgic corridors. The Walkmen did themselves justice on stage, bolstering their own worth with a very wisely constructed set list- mostly.

As The National took stage, it was starkly apparent that unlike The Walkmen, this was a group that had gone to some length to cultivate a more specific and designed stage persona. Their seemed to be a little more pomp and circumstance to go with their entrance; one could theorize that it seemed this way in part because at this point the night had grown dark enough to accommodate something of a light show to accompany the bands introduction. Thankfully their attempt to craft a stage presence that seemed bolstered by some theatrics in no way hampered their efforts to put on a show- and a good one at that.

While relying heavily on their most recent album High Violet, they still delved a great deal into previous albums. A lengthy set window and broad body of work certainly accommodates such an approach (read- they played a lot of songs; not as long a set as Spoon earlier this year, but enough to gt your money's worth). Whereas The Walkmen broke my heart just a little when they didn't play “The Rat” it was quickly mended when The National played “Afraid of Everyone”. On the album it is haunting and macabre; performed live its down right bone chilling. If I had a caveat to preaching the song's merits its that it fizzles out in a limp and abrupt way- not so with this rendition for they extended the ending with an instrumental solo after Matt Beringer had finally run out of breath.

On the topic of running out of breath, while I may not characterize Leithauser's performance as one full of screaming, I can certainly affix such a description to Beringer. While he certainly yells on the album as much as the next disaffected existentialist, on stage he his piercingly loud and coarse. It was quite a feat that he could transition from subdued crooning to such outbursts and back and forth. Others at the show seemed to think I was too appeasing of Beringer vocals stating instead that he skirted to close to each side of the inaudible bandwidth, at times mumbling a little too far under his breath or assaulting an audiences' already strained ear drums. I liked it. Their live act consisted of a number of other slight deviations when compared to their albums- and for the better I think. Having a considerable affinity to horn sections I was delighted at how prevalent the single trumpet and trombone were in a great number of songs. Even in songs like “Blood Buzz Ohio” where a horn section is minimal at best in the studio version, it was quite prominent here. I suppose with all live acts, the bass section seems to take on a more commanding presence, but I noticed it especially with The National (it didn't really seem to be the case with The Walkmen). Songs like “Terrible Love” and “Runaway” Had a much heavier bass spine. One can't necessarily say that qualitatively makes them sound any better, but my preferences certainly were catered to. Having said that at times the band got a little to carried away and went from loud and passionate to “lets make their ears bleed”. Towards the end my friend's and my own right ear was becoming something of an apocalyptic lost cause. Granted we were pretty close to the right speaker monolith, but goddamn. Remember that scene in Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan where that parasite boars its way into Chekov's ear? Ya...

I was unable to ascertain any kind of consensus among the small pool of attendants and fans I interrogated when trying to find out which group put on the more memorable and enjoyable show. The bellicose and thundering Leithauser and The Walkman, or the volatile and draining emotional roller coaster from The National? Both acts were thoroughly satisfying, but for money, I'll give it to The Walkmen (of course, I didn't actually pay any money for my ticket).

Review: The Walkmen- Lisbon

I always respect a band that places more prominence on its own development and evolution than a shallow need to fulfil its fans myopic desires. The problem with subscribing to such a pretentious high ground is I often am one of those myopic fans. As such, like everyone else who has charted the progress of The Walkmen, Lisbon will leave you a little unfulfilled, if only because it's still not just more Bows and Arrows. However this reaction should only be preliminary at most, as closer examination and dismantling of Lisbon gives way to its own merits and dynamics.

While the subject matter from previous outings is very much prevalent here, the tone has shifted dramatically. The Walkmen have always dealt with the disenchanting issue of isolation and loneliness, however in Lisbon, vocalist Hamilton Leithauser has realized his jaded and battered outlook was in dire need for a major reevaluation. As such, much of this album still orbits around the central idea of being alone, however such a thing is no longer characterized in such a demoralizing light; rather Leithauser seems at best, able to ascertain the positive contributions of such a situation, and at worst, nonchalantly unaffected by it. Leithauser wastes no time conveying these new sentiments, as he lays his restructured character directly before us with in the first spoken words of the opening track “Juveniles”. “You're with someone else tomorrow night/ doesn't matter to me”- he seems to accept the fact that at times isolation is a human condition that wholly transcends the grasps of anyone persons control. He goes on to carefully contextualize being alone in something of a comforting even nostalgic manner. “The country air is good for me” he mumbles differentiating the infestation of over populated urban existence with the leisurely, albeit lonely rural life; Leithauser makes his decision clear.

“Stranded”, A clear stand out track on the album continues this line of thinking while at the same time introducing an intriguing subtext to the album. Leithauser pleads “You don't want me, you can tell me”, as if to explain he no longer needs his feelings spared from the inevitable parting of ways between whoever he is speaking to. The only track on the album carried by a horn melody, its tune radiates an enveloping sense of warmth and content. Its both interesting and instructive listening to this and then going back to Bows and Arrows. Leithauser is clearly no longer searching for the cathartic vitriol that spewed from the “The Rat”. That slightly destabilizing sense of anxiety is no longer propelling the bands music forward at such a pace. Leithauser isn't in a rush to get somewhere, rather being content lingering exactly where he is. The music in “Stranded” especially, but elsewhere as well, astutely translates these feelings into something more tangible for the senses.

As for the aforementioned subtextual references, now that Leithauser has taken successful strides towards conquering his own neurosis, he has directed his efforts towards others. Through out segments of certain songs he seems compelled, all though by no means confident in his ability, to apply a similar panacea to others as he did himself. Just as he seems less tormented by a life of loneliness he wants the rest of us to feel the same. Realizing he lacks the capacity to accomplish this, he finds himself striving to be with this people in some noble endeavour to protect them from a vacuumous solitary confinement. In “Angela Surf City” he boasts “Let's go home happy again/ just take your head from you hands”. In “Stranded” he desperately wants to know how his friends are doing; are the ok? Are they drunk and lonely? But he is unable to come to their aid as he says “There's broken glass around my feet” Awesome Die Hard imagery aside, he is conveying that while he is overcome his own dilemmas he is trapped from freeing others from such melancholy. This appears to be the new inspiration for Leithauser's agonized and scouring slurs.

While the pacing and subdued vibe of Lisbon certainly shares more in common with its more recent predecessor You & Me, as opposed to the variable speeds of Bows and Arrows, its construction seems unique and fresh. Most notable is the majority of the guitar seems a great deal lighter, euphonic even. More specifically it seems to generate something of a maritime, pacific aura. While pleasing and euphoric at times, it lacks the charisma of the Walkmen's earlier work. There aren't really any tracks that create the energetic tension and release that “Thinking of a Dream” “In the New Year” and “On the Water” had. This is not to say the direction is a mundane misadventure, I simply miss galvanizing triumphs and vengeful tirades their music use to personify. I have no doubt they till have this ability; perhaps they felt Lisbon's subject matter called for restraint. “Blue as Your Blood” comes close to being an exception with a guitar hook that is decidedly more blunt and penetrating the the rest of the album. “Angela Surf City” seems to be another as it ditches the minimalism of much of the album in favor of more brash hyperactive affair; I think its one of the better songs. Its core melody is actually purposely recycled and altered for a couple of the more low key and low fi tracks on the album. While by no means a recent innovation, it is a tactic that seems to be oddly common as of late. Arcade Fire and M.I.A. have both made similar moves in their recent work. With Lisbon, the purpose of such a maneuver eludes me, and its results seem to be less impacting as a result, when compare to The Suburbs by Arcade Fire at least.

As with they're other albums Matt Barrick shows himself to be one of the best modern day drummers. Throughout the album he directs the percussion from simple supportive backbone to the determining factor in altering and directing the pacing of a song- and then swiftly back into something understated once more. While less prevalent, Leithauser seems to have lost a touch of that grizzled scathing quality to his voice. It seems slightly more mellowed and crooning. The affects of this are minimal at best, but it seems worth mentioning.

With Lisbon, the Walkmen have taken another stride in the opposite direction of venomous outbursts that originally made people take notice of their efforts. Where as with so many other bands, such a maneuver is derived form an misconceived notion of innovation for innovations sake, The Walkmen's journey so far has been pleasantly logical and carefully mulled over. Their sound has become slightly lackadaisical and although its still engaging and thoughtfully engineered, it has discarded its alarmist and rattling guitar and pacing. However the new sound, while perhaps less startling, more aptly compliments a group that has become more seasoned and less irrationally bound by, as they would put it “juvenile” emotions. One wonders if they would take that as a compliment.

Top 30 Albums of the Decade- Part 6

5. LCD Soundsystem- 2005

Now we get to the really good stuff. In LCD Soundsystem's debut album James Murphy and company create one of the most versatile albums out there. Where as groups like TV on the Radio and the like manage to approach multiple genres within a single album, LCD does it in a single song, with so many tracks creating a perfect harmony between rock, techno, and pop. James Murphy bounces between an emotionally drained individual as in tracks like “Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up”, too an apathetic and sterile dance fueled android in tracks like “Too Much Love”. “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” is the kind of heading pounder you wanna playing along with if you have a guitar, yet its still my favorite song to hear in a club. “Tribulations” has an ominous robotic quality to its sound, but is accompanied by very personable lyrics. “Movement” has a somewhat slow build up to it, but then descends in to a slurry sleazy punk realm. “Loosing My Edge”, in particular is a track that needs to be studied. No single song this decade was encapsulated what has happened to music, and what it means to be a fan. 20 years ago, you could spend ages scouring every record store and garage sale to build an evermore complete record collection. Such commitment meant something, that you really cared about the medium; it made you cool. Today, any kid can spend a couple hours googling some bands and wind up with more b-sides and unreleased tracks than their parents ever had. How are these people better informed and cooler than people like himself, Murphy laments. And the worst part is he realizes, they're all actually kind of nice people. Luckily this album is very cool, and listening to it will make you cool too!

Best Tracks- Daft Punk is Playing at My House, Tribulations, Never as Tired as When I'm Waking up, Loosing My Edge

4. The Strokes- Is This It?- 2001

For some reason, The Strokes became the most polarizing figures in music for the time after their release of Is This It? Some said they were dopey brats that got lucky, others said they had saved rock and roll. I fall closer to the latter category. I don't think they saved rock music, but they along with the White Stripes, helped it survive and remain relevant for at least another 5 years or so. What's interesting is that that is far from what Julian Casablancas and company were trying to do as their music was so effortlessly carless and nonchalant it seems preposterous that they had some grand scheme behind it all; by comparison, they make Vampire Weekend look like they are trying really hard. And that what was so refreshing about this album when it released. Do you remember what rock was like back than? The engaging and thought provoking malcontents that were Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails had long since fallen by the wayside to be replaced by monotonous godawful moan fests about trivial matters from groups like Nickelback, Popa Roach, who ever else was popular in 2000. Then The Strokes came along; their music was fun, breezy, refreshing. Julian had a slurry unrehearsed voice that lacked polish, and that was just fine. They didn't need any stupid message in their song, instead they filled it with zany non sequiters and inside jokes about life as privileged New Yorkers. By truly working together as group instead of letting a prima donna vocalist gum up the works they made 13 instantly likeable and catchy tunes. “Someday” evokes such a strong sense of nostalgia, even though your listening to something that never happened to you; “Hard To Explain” has one of the best openings, best guitar hooks, best chorus, best everything that came out that year; If you don't love “Last Night” for its grungy, spastic simplicity, then you're no fun. One should stop thinking about this albums impact and just enjoy it for what it was.

Best Tracks- The Modern Age, Someday, Last Night, Hard to Explain

3. Of Montreal- Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?- 2007

While I may get really annoyed when people say they don't like bands like Radiohead or the like, I can't really fault a person for not liking Of Montreal. They are undeniably weird. They are the Mad Hatter of music; extremely chipper and enthusiastic, but in a very bizarre almost unsettling way. Hissing Fauna is by far the best of their work and very stylisticly separate from their other albums. Where as previous and future LPs are kinda all over the place, Hissing Fauna instead focuses on one singular and particularly awful event in singer Kevin Barnes life; each song represents one stage in the long messy process of dealing with it. “She's a Rejector” is inconsolable rage at the person who did this to him. “Gronlondic Edit” represents a first attempt to be pretend to be over it and finding something else to focus on (religion? Friends?). “Cato as a Pun” is complete and utter depression and giving up on pretty much everything. “A Sentence of sorts in Kongsvinger” is excitement over using this experience to make a better person of one's self. “We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafing” is finally achieving acceptance and “Labrinthian Pomp” is actually getting yourself out there and learning to have fun again. Yes, the track names are very strange. And the music isn't in chronological order creating a sort of Tarantino-esque puzzle for you to try and rearrange All the tracks are very poppy; even the depressing ones. They're all very glossy, which is sort of a contrast to their more low fi methods found in early work. While previous influences came from more traditional 60s pop rock, here we see heavy influence from artists like Prince, and it works very well. All of this would make Hissing Fauna a great album, but its because of one song, “The Past is A Grotesque Animal”, that it's one of my favorite. The 11 minute monolithic centerpiece to the entire album, “The Past is a Grotesque Animal” begins with an ominous sense of dread, builds steadily towards its climax and then explodes at the end with a sound that can best be described as flying saucers on fast forward. Chronologically, this track is one of the closest to the occurrence of the aforementioned yet non descript event. As a result Barnes, is borderline incoherent with a blend of despair, rage, fear, and confusion; and he spends the song slowly but surely purging himself from all of this creating one of my favorites sets of lyrics ever in a song. So ya, its pretty weird.

Best Tracks- Suffer for Fashion, Gronlondic Edit, The Past is a Grotesque Animal, We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafing

2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Show Your Bones- 2006

For all the blistering savagery of their first LP, people were mostly caught off guard by the stylings of Show Your Bones. Much of it was actually quite reserved with Karen O saving her violent outbursts for only certain occasions instead of screaming the whole time. With this album the group showed they weren't just some cacophonous one trick pony and that “Maps” wasn't some anomalous abnormality. Rather, O showed that genuine sincerity was actually something she excelled at, as shown on tracks like “Dudley” and “Turn In To”. This change in direction turned some people off certainly, but I really enjoyed it. Sure, there are still plenty of loud nasty tracks like “Phenomena” and “Mysteries”; and they're really great. But I don't consider them to be the albums high points. Rather I prefer tracks like “The Sweets” and “Warrior”, for these show Karen O's greatest strength; her ability to start of as quiet and even timid, then without any notice drastically and abruptly explode into a roaring beast. Lyrically this is also a wonderful album. It's mostly very non literal and extremely vague. This is by design I believe; I read in an interview with O once that she thought that lyrics tend to age very poorly, especially if they revolve around the specifics. For that reason her lyrics are intentionally vague. She speaks in abstracts and mysterious metaphors, describing events in terms of colors in “The Sweets”. In “Turn In To”, she says she wants to become like someone else and something else, but she doesn't reveal who or what or why; instead all you can do is take her enthusiastic and optimistic word for it. It's simple but its one of my favorite songs in terms of just lyrics. “Gold Lion” exemplifies everything I just said that was good about this album. She tells a bizarre story of what can perhaps be best described as being possessed, and as such she does seem like two different people in the song. A restrained slightly anxious person, and a terrifying monster howling at the moon by the end. It's one of my favorite songs ever and easily the best thing this band has ever done.

Best Tracks- Gold Lion, The Sweets, Warrior, Turn In To

1. LCD Soundsystem- Sound of Silver- 2007

“All My Friends” is my favorite song ever. It starts with a lightning fast piano beat best likened to the musical equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. The song for nearly all of its 7 minute span, is driven forward by James Murphy's vocals as he tries to explain through small pieces of stories and his own history what it is like to be forced to grow up. Not the simplistic benin denotation of such a concept, such as having to pay bills and not being able to stay out till 4 getting shit faced. But instead being forced to take stock of who you are and find out what pieces of yourself you want to endure and what pieces you must regretfully let go of, even if they were the best parts of yourself. It has my favorite set of lyrics, more so than “The Past is a Grotesque Animal” by Of Montreal or “Turn Into” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. It's extremely personable and relatable (“if the sun comes and we still down wanna stagger home/ then it's the memory of our betters that are keeping us on our feet”) and it forces you to realize one day you too will be faced with such a dilemma. It concludes with Murphy, using what seems to be a single massive breath of air, forcing a grand climatic finale to it all, then it quickly dies off.

Someone Great is also in my top ten all time favorite songs. It consists of this uniquely inquisitive and compelling computerized beat, that's so full and rich sounding that your almost surprised that the song even needed lyrics when Murphy starts singing (actually its an abbreviated version of what was originally a purely instrumental track) Again, Murphy shows himself to be extremely adept at writing as the song describes the departure of someone; something that is so hard for him to discuss, that he actually can't. Instead, the best he can do is to focus on the peripheries of the event, things like the weather that day, the coffee he had, hearing a phone ring. By using everyday occurrences as a means to situate himself in such a volatile moment, he is able to avoid being completely disoriented. There is a lot going on in Sound of Silver

One of the things I find so compelling about this album is that, more so than most of albums of this time, James Murphy and company take pop music and present it in a way that is not only interesting but meaningful; as if it was a genre that was capable of real depth. This is a concept that has at worst not been seriously considered since the early 90s and at best not successfully communicated since the same time. This is a real shame since pop, (all of its trend following minutia not withstanding) is a genre that has an incredible amount of versatility, and LCD Soundsystem utilizes this to its fullest. At times it is remorseful and contemplative. In “New York I Love You But Your Bringing Me Down”, Murphy laments what has happened to the city that once inspired him. it is also aggressive and confrontational. In “North American Scum” he attempts to apologize for a post Bush America, but instead comes off as having way to much fun in his excuses that he comes to be emboldened and proud of their brash flaws, with a grungy and brazen beat to follow suit. Nearly every song is brilliant for one reason or another. Nancy Wang's dead pan vocals at the end of the mysterious “Get Innocuous” are perfect. Murphy yelling at the top of his lungs in “Us V. Them” about being drunk and lonely, and still sounding entirely triumphant about it is awesome, especially after the slow methodical build up to that point makes you think that point will never come. “New York I Love You” was the best way to end the album. It starts out slow and sedate making you think the album will fade away quietly then it kicks in with a roaring cacophonous guitar and Murphy claiming that he might just be right about everything he said and then Sound of Silver burns out. Just we you think its done, they actually play themselves off the stage.

Best Tracks- North American Scum, Someone Great, All My Friends, New York I love But You're bringing me down

Review: M.I.A.- MAYA

In attempting to navigate my way through the nuances and mysteries of M.I.A.'s new album, I grew concerned that I would be woefully incapable of separating my thoughts on its content from my increasingly scathing view of her character. After all, people don't like M.I.A. anymore. Who was once a mysterious and distanced observer of the absurdity of pop culture in a world that cultivates constant warfare and atrocities, has now been swallowed by the most superficial and banal elements of it. More concerning, she has taken the scope of her world view, formally aimed at intriguing dichotomies and anathemas, and turned it narcissisticly inwards on herself. With all the animosity she has excessively garnered, would any of that negativity unfairly crossover into what should be an unbiased critique of an artistic endeavour? Alas, such fears appear to be moot, as there is plenty to MAYA in it's own right to make you not like it.

To understand just what the hell went wrong, one must first grasp the multiple shifts in focus and theme M.I.A. has made here. Whereas Arular and Kala were both studies in how two vastly disparate cultures- the war torn third world, and the over privileged globalized world- struggle to mesh together, MAYA has a more mono-thematic approach. This is an album about the culture of the internet; just look at the bloody album cover. While this may seem needlessly abstract at first, such a mission translates tangibly into the music and sounds we are subjected to. Rather than represent the wonders of the digital age for all its expansive, creative, and bold contributions it has made to music, she instead chooses the guttural route of engaging in all the unfocused, unstructured, and fractured noise that also creeps through the tubes. As a result, this album is a aural mess. Random sounds, noises, and barely audible distractions are haphazardly and lazily pieced together into a jumbled forest of distortion. There are some interesting and discernible melodies, such as the faux metal hook in “Steppin Up”. But it is buried under, smothered even, by aimless cacophony. “Lovealot” starts off promising as M.I.A. effortlessly shows her talent for stringing together vocal slurs that have an almost onomatopoeic quality (it sounds like a slowed down “XR2”). However it doesn't take her long to get bored and throw away all coherence in favour of clashing factory-house noises that have no business in the song. One wonders if M.I.A. listened to the brilliant “Clavda” by Bjork- a song where a seemingly randomized string of noises are reined in and molded in to an engaging melody. M.I.A. has the random part down, but seriously over estimated her capacity to fulfil the terms of the all important second part.

By crafting an album around internet phraseology and decorum, her sound has lost its softer organic quality, in favour of sterile artificiality. The Bohemian, Rastafarian, and African vibes and instruments are frustratingly absent, only to be replaced by... the sound of visceral banging on metal sheets and buzzing chainsaws? One notable exception is “It Takes a Muscle”; it has a casually laid back Hawaiian quality, and is unsurprisingly her at her most genuine and sincere. It also benefits from a semblance of recognizable pacing, which apparently M.I.A. is too trendy for now. So many songs brazenly insert musical oddities, abruptly segue from one poorly conceived musical experiment to another, or most annoyingly, just stop without warning or reason. Its as if these songs were constructed not only with an elitist disdain for structure, but for what is palatable to the ears.

While this album certainly carries an offensive grating sound it, what is even more distressing is its lyrical content; or lack thereof. M.I.A. showed with previous work, she can craft insightful, thought provoking, and distinctly unique lyrics. She used her position as a person that was acutely aware of the vast differences between the 3^rd and 1^st world to highlight them. In “M.I.A” She spends one line talking about texting from her Nokia and the next blasting the corruption of the democratic political process. In “Amazon” she relaxingly paints her nails and leisurely sips on a cocktail, only to then be held hostage in the rainforest. By playing these two divergent streams of thought off of each other she provided a n interesting commentary and forced us to look at our lives in a different light, if only for a few seconds. Now, she likes tweeting from her iphone and is pissed that her internet connection is down. She has lost all communion and interest in her roots and has fully embraced the vapid culture she once subtly mocked. How did she go from conveying the absurdity and horrors of torture in songs like “Sunshowers” and “$20” to playing around with Gossip Girl memetics in “XXXO”?

She spends less time on this album trying to describe the things she has seen and learned and the experiences of others; Remember “Mango Pickle Down River”? That was a great story. Growing ever more narcissistic she instead uses the album to talk about herself as much as possible. “Story To Be Told” has her almost complaining that no one is telling her story in a seemingly victimized manner. Didn't she already tell her story in “Paper Planes”? Didn't the New York Times tell her story? And everybody hated it. She named her last two albums after intriguing and mysterious figures that exist either in her memories or her dreams. For christ sakes, she named this album after herself, with a cover that places her vestige at the proverbial center of the goddamn internet. I'm not convinced she is entirely a lost cause however; after all “Born Free” is a good song. That silly video aside (its not a subtle political message, its about as blunt as Mr. Mackey saying “drugs are bad”, m'kay), it shows that she still has a few not entirely self centered things left in her to say. Interestingly, at one point she says, “with a nose to the ground, I found my sound”. When she once again pays attention to the world around her she has something interesting to say. Its no surprise that this song is by far the most energetic song in the collection with an actually interesting fuzzed out base hook.

M.I.A. has taken the credibility and benefit of the doubt that two brilliant prior outings has afforded her and used it to callously test the boundaries of her creative licence and what listeners will blissfully tolerate. In MAYA, she has violently crashed into those boundaries spilling and splaying a torrent of poorly crafted ideas, unfinished thoughts, and an egotistical and impatient demeanour over the shores of a culture she was so sure she understood. I can think of nothing more beneficial for M.I.A. than the backlash that MAYA has already wrought upon her.

Review: Arcade Fire- The Suburbs

Just in case you thought the summer had been too carefree and breezy, the Arcade Fire are back; and to no one's surprise, they're still damn good. With their third LP the group takes aim at the disaffecting concept of life in the suburbs. With the first track the tone is set for an album with a razor sharp focus and conflicting sense of grandeur and sedation. Songs often carry a calm serene vibe in certain aspects and barley stable, yet still controlled spasms in others. Notice the blitzkrieg tempo of “Ready to Start”, in conjunction with his demoralizingly calm tone. In “The Suburbs” we are treated to a quaint, folksy piano line and Win Butler's voice that is weighted down by borderline terrified sense of anxiety; and slowly but surely the tune adapts to him- very well done. The group appears to be trying to encapsulate the boring drudgery that stigmatizes the suburbs with unbridled and untaped creativity and emotion that they have proven to be so adeptly in tune with.

The album as a whole seems to carry the grandiose vibe similar to Funeral that was somewhat lost in Neon Bible for a leaner, more streamlined, but ultimately less fulfilling sound. Even slower tracks like “Rococo” seem to grow and rise above you with a growing sense of blunt dread.With the suburbs, the group actually takes a step away from some of their classical stylings at times. Violin is in several instances replaced by high scale pop synthesizers. This is particularly noticeable in the underlying beat of “Rococo” and the main melody of the “Sprawl II”. Its subtle maneuvering but one that garners great returns. As with the previous albums, this one benefits from mostly great pacing. More methodically directed tunes such as “The Suburbs” and “Modern Man” fit well with with tracks that fly forward at such a speed that you can barely keep up like “Empty Room” and “Month of May”. “Month of May” is actually a terrific track that got overshadowed by “The Suburbs” when they were both released earlier in the year; it evokes a sort of “Go With the Flow” by Queens of the Stone Age vibe. The pacing does suffer a bit in the middle as if the group is saving their waning energy for the climatic conclusion. Then again any 16 song album is bound to suffer from the occasional long in the tooth syndrome.

Regine Chassagne isn't featured enough in the album, but that was true of the other albums I suppose. Her voice is piercing yet maintains a soft edge somehow. She really needs a solo album. Luckily the album's best song, “Sprawl II” is all hers. Carrying melodic artifacts of recent work by MGMT and Hercules and Love Affair with a slightly staccato vocal track that is actually very reminiscent of Blondie, its a bit of a weird song. It burst and bubbles with bright eyed pop hooks and her perpetually energized wails and slurs. It perfectly encapsulates the stifling malaise of the suburbs, “They heard me singing but they told me stop/ quit these pretentious things and just punch a clock.” As with “In the Back Seat” she holds nothing back; belting out the words while still retaining a perfectly audible quality, free from any grizzled distortion.

As has become the hallmark thematic exploration with the group, Butler and co delve once more into to the increasingly contested issue of the nature of family. Butler seems less concerned about being a family man per say, rather he is pondering the implications and consequences of pursing a family in a world such as ours. He has approached this matter from multiple angles, all of them having a negative connotation, implying he still not comfortable with the life of normalcy that having a family often denotes. In Funeral the problem Butler approaches is obvious: if you have a family, you can loose it. Neon Bible observed the idea of religion, once thought to be a central foundation to a stable family, which has now been modernized and monetized into a perversion of its original intent and comfort. With The Suburbs, a key characteristic of the traditional family- the environment in which they are supposed to thrive in- is dissected and analysed. The results are disturbing to say the least. The groups conclusion seems to be that a life in the suburbs is one of stagnation, suffocation, a festering and contagious sense of boredom. The suburbs is an assault on the psyche for the sake of sheltering cohesion. They need to escape this. In “The Suburbs” we are encouraged to “move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass”. In the Sprawl II Chassagne is terrified of being surrounded by mountains of dead shopping malls. Butler says he wants, “to break the mirror of the modern man” freeing him from the confines and boarders that he is supposed to conform to by his mid 30s. Its powerful imagery and hearing the group progress through these deliemas traced back to the first album has been a rich and satisfying journey. This is a tightly cohesive trilogy of albums that feels stronger as a combined effort; that is saying a lot I believe.

The last track is short but sweet, but highly noteworthy for two reasons. It has the same beat from “The Suburbs”, only slowed down and repurposed. After months of listening to the first single on repeat as so many others have no doubt, it is highly refreshing to hear the melody in an altered state. More importantly and ominously is the subject matter, brief though it may be. Butler in a frail, exhausted, and defeated voice, achingly admits, “If I could have it back, all the time we'd wasted, I'd only waste it again” After the whole album and especially “The Sprawl II”, the proceeding song, we think that Butler has gotten to the core of his fear of a family life, but even after three albums he, regretfully, still hasn't. Knowing everything he has discovered in these exercises, he would still make the same tragic mistakes. Something is holding him back; and its not necessarily the taunting spectre of death, or the malignant corruption of religion. At the beginning of this album and throughout, Butler was so sure the suburbs were at the root of this fear, but by the end he is just as lost as ever. On the plus side, Arcade Fire will probably have to keep making albums as a result.