American Gothic: The Faint "Fasciination"

With 2004's Wet from Birth, Omaha quintet the Faint took a nasty little step away from the world of retro dance and into the land of Goth-kid apathy. The results were admittedly bold but, unfortunately, spotty. While Danse Macabre (that album's lauded predecessor) took the band's proposed new wave reboot to soaring heights of bastardized dance-pop hybrids with razor-sharp synth melodies, the Faint has never been an outfit concerned with meeting expectations. Each of their LPs have been significantly different in tone as well as delivery, making it hard to fault them completely for Wet from Birth without also faulting ourselves for having any expectations at all. So the album, while sinister, joyless and cheeky, almost made sense as a logical accompaniment to the technical prowess and promise displayed on Danse Macabre.

With a Depeche Mode kind of darkness, the Faint's latest, Fasciination, deals in sexual politics and, oddly, actual politics with enough aural texture to stand alongside the aforementioned giant's lesser albums (like Ultra), but lacks the perspective and inexplicable gothic perfection to stand with their best (Music for the Masses, Violator).

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The Ludicrously Tragic: CSS "Donkey"

CSS and the impressive reputation that they’ve garnered over the past couple of years can easily be attributed to their brash predilection towards genre-fusing dance numbers, cleverly ridiculous lyrical choices, a personality that is as genuine as it is juvenile, and an honest-to-goodness, balls-to-the-wall live show. It is a deceptively simple dynamic that is incredibly precious to the group’s staying power. While any band with a significant amount of hype should allow themselves some wiggle room on their much dreaded “sophomore” effort, balance between growth and recognition must always be considered. With Donkey, CSS walk this line, landing on the somewhat nuanced and sometimes dubiously progressive side of maturity—if just barely.

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The Hold Steady, Stay Positive (Addendum)

The inevitable leak of The Hold Steady's fourth LP Stay Positive seemed to really get to them. However, instead of getting mad, it's almost like they've decided to reward everyone. First, there was the decision to move the iTunes release of Stay Positive up an entire month. Now, with the wait over, and the actual physical release of the CD here, the group (along with the folks at Vagrant) have decided to add 3 bonus tracks to the first 50k Cds sold. Way to punish us, dudes.

So, if you go out and pick up Stay Positive today, you will find the curious adding of a twelfth track. That twelfth track contains 3 songs from the Stay Positive sessions that didn't quite make the cut for the album. They are "Ask Her For Adderall," "Cheyenne Sunrise," and "Two Handed Handshake."

I've heard "Ask Her For Adderall" live, but, needless to say, it is a much different experience recorded. It has a similar feel to album opener "Constructive Summer," but the similarities are mostly in tempo. "Constructive Summer" relates a post-punk/Husker Du feel, where as "Ask Her For Adderall" is more in the vein of a sped up Springsteen throw-away track. It's quite typical lyrically--we even get the return of Holly, Charlemagne, and Gideon--if not a bit darker than they are used to. But it is all momentum, and ends as quickly as it starts, which weirdly works in its favor.

"Cheyenne Sunrise" is more of a barroom ballad affair. I can see why it didn't make the album, though. Superficially it's just a bit too similar to "Lord, I'm Discouraged." However, thematically, it actually almost works as the much darker, male counterpart to "Joke About Jamaica."

"Two Handed Handshake" is, without a doubt, the best of the lot here. If "Slapped Actress" wasn't already the best song that The Hold Steady have ever done, I would say that this would be a perfect track to close Stay Positive. "Two Handed Handshake" is a damn near epic plea to all of us boys and girls in America to "try a little harder," to "be a little better," and to fucking "pull it back together." Damned if you don't want to do all of those things after listening.

Wolf Like Me: Feral Children "Second to the Last Frontier"

Not without its bloated moments of dissonance and white noise, Feral Children's Second to the Last Frontier—an eclectic blend of noise rock, Animal Collective-style psych-folk, Northwest indie rock and New York No Wave—is grounded by an abundance of organic elements such as acoustic instrumentation and tribal percussion. Daydream Nation this is not, but it doesn't need to be. The album never crosses the line from homage into plagiarism and the lyrics are honest, sharp and visceral. Whether it's the record's infinitely layered sonic landscapes, the tumultuous punch of two drum sets (a hardly original concept that is both unnecessary and effective), or the Seattle quintet's palpable chemistry, Last Frontier demands a devoted audience: If you're not paying close attention, you're liable to miss some happy accident that is simultaneously too small to notice casually and too perfect to ignore.

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The Emperor's (sort of) New Groove: Girl Talk "Feed the Animals"

Greg Gillis has risen so far above mash-up geek status that I'm not even sure I know how to accurately describe him. On his latest LP, Feed the Animals, the dude samples Temple of the Dog, for god's sake. And that's not even the most bizarre reference on the album. But really, it's not those odd choices that make Gillis's sample-crazy, laptop-aided, booty-shake tracks so striking. With this mash-up subset of the dance genre that he has helped to refine, Gillis has found a way to make music-inspired music for the sake of…music.

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Band on the Run: The M's "Real Close Ones"

With the M’s, there’s never any mystery. After three albums now under their respective belt, with each LP you can pretty much take comfort in the fact that you’ll be getting what’s expected. And there is comfort in that.

The M’s brand of neo-soul/Britpop is as authentic and simultaneously derivative as anything riding the indie circuit right now, and that makes them incredibly safe. Not safe in a boring way, but in a palatable way. Their music isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s not exactly run of the mill either.

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Between the Bars: Earlimart "Hymn and Her"

The baroque pop of Earlimart has been a staple of the West Coast independent scene for almost a decade now. Despite having only occasionally rubbed elbows with mass success, they continue to sincerely crank out that dreary, downbeat, sometimes lo-fi, sometimes overly large Pixies sound that has made them such worthy underdogs. The emotive and elegant ruminations of both Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray provide beautiful canvases, and as usual, sprawling piano pieces set to disaffected vocals at poppy tempos make up much of the disc, while variety shows its face in key spots with softly strummed guitars, beautiful orchestral movements and accordion cameos. Unfortunately, there is nothing here that they haven't done before with more attractive results.

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No Culture Icons: The Hold Steady "Stay Positive"

In Opening Night, Gena Rowlands plays a Broadway actress who witnesses the accidental death of an adoring young fan as she tries to snag an autograph from the star. This experience both traumatizes and enlightens Rowlands's character to the point where she questions the very nature of what she does for a living. Her lack of actual responsibility for the death is slightly outweighed by her guilt for indirectly creating the situation that led to it; her fame brought the fan there, after all, and caused her to look "upwards with wonder" from the start. When Craig Finn of the Hold Steady sings, "Some nights it's just entertainment/And some other nights it's work," on the song "Slapped Actress," which references the John Cassavetes film, he's talking about the moments in which the fantastic escapism of the entertainment world meets harsh reality.

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Sheepskin: Wolf Parade "At Mount Zoomer"

At Mount Zoomer takes its name from the studio in which Wolf Parade conceived their long-awaited second LP. While the initially proposed title, Kissing the Beehive, went along a bit better with the gloriously over-the-top album art, the final title speaks to the intimate and simple nature of the finished work. While the band's debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, was bold and quirky, At Mount Zoomer is cautiously quiet and silently sinister. It instills an almost foreboding quality throughout that acts as a testament to the atmospheric dexterity of the band itself.

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Make Up the Break Down: Weezer (The Red Album)

I'm not sure exactly when Rivers Cuomo decided to test just how far good will can take you in the music business, but it's a question that he's been asking for a while now—at least since The Green Album. It's as if Weezer has become some sort of social experiment, feeling out how closely they can coax their legion of apologists and hangers-on to follow them into the very heart of irrelevance. I used to be a member of the focus group, but when Make Believe came along, with its faux balladry and power-chord blandness, I came to the conclusion that what I was listening to was either shameless sarcasm disguised as cleverness or the final floundering of a band that had clearly lost any creative flare that it once (however accidentally) had. What the band's sixth LP and third self-titled venture, The Red Album, seems to prove is that, in all likelihood, it was both.

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Hot Soft Light: French Kicks

It's deconstructionist rock. And it didn't used to be. French Kicks spent the better part of their early career chasing that garage rock aesthetic that seemed to work so well for everyone else. Ironically, it seems to have worked out better for them that they never really caught on in the mainstream. Their latest album entitled Swimming is their most ponderous, beautiful, and subtle yet. Rock without the pangs of pretension, Swimming is one of the most easily enveloping albums of the year. It breaks down a rock and roll sound to its most vulnerable and never shys away from exposing its underbelly. Both bouncy and jubilant; both biting and bitter; both simple and complex. Swimming, with its jangly guitars, pointed rhythmic trappings, and surprisingly precise percussion (running the gamut from tribal stomps, to calypso and then some) is one of the most aurally pleasing rock albums to be released this year. From its slight album art, to Nick Stumpf's barely-there posturing; The French Kicks have produced an album that is inclusive, inviting, and the most fluid of their career.

*You can listen to the entire album through the imeem attatchment on the band's Myspace page:

French Kicks Myspace

Dance Goes Digital (Death Disco): Crystal Castles

Becoming hired guns for myriad remixes as well as being at the center of several controversial plagiarism disputes can get you plenty of buzz. None of it means anything, though, if you don't have some sort of winking proposition to get the people to stay after you wow them with the Colecovision sound signatures. Crystal Castles pull this off--if just barely. I mean, their name even comes from an Atari video game. It's not the method that seems trite, it's the tone. And with that tone comes baggage. Fortunately, it is baggage that is shrugged off about halfway through the Toronto based duo's surprinsingly infectious, self-titled debut. The album's digitally drowned chimes and bleeps set out for the fall in the early going. Things seem front loaded and eager to please. They almost let the album get away from them, but save it with ponderous, formless works of dubious fiction under the guise of dance and trip-hop under the guise of electropop. Crystal Castles is a menacing, jagged affair, that is in no way perfect, and in no way means to be. Ghost like vocals spoken by an alien robot; deft compositions, deceptively simple; it is as trite as it seems, but not without its otherworldly charms. If nothing else, Crystal Castles wraps you up and takes you away to its aforementioned frozen kingdom. It all almost feels like you would drown, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

*Myspace