Snap Judgement- Metric’s ‘Fantasies’
If good looks was a minute/ You know that you could've been an hour- Smokey Robinson, 'The Way You Do The Things You Do'
Metric’s new album Fantasies comes out 4/14. You can listen to the album at MBV. You can download a track as well. I saw Metric at Double Door a couple of years ago, back when the hot lead singer was a brunette. I dug the show but lost track of them afterward. I smiled when I saw the stream. Let’s get at it. ‘Help I’m Alive’ is the free mp3. I give them credit that they progress through different sounding sections, but the whole does very little for me. They are going for a Breeders’ sound without the Breeders’ brains. Veruca Salt, anyone? ‘Sick Muse’ continues the game. Oh, wait. They’re reaching for their inner ABBA/Cardigans. And they grabbed it! Now, they’re onto something. ‘Sick Muse’ is a sick, slick pop song- nothing else you can say. ‘Satellite Mind’ rocks! So far, I really like this album. Bust of a first track, but the rest is solid. What I love about it is how it sets its own mood. Metric knows what they are- and that’s huge for band. ‘Twilight Galaxy’ doesn’t do anything. ‘Gold Guns Girls’ is what I’m talking about. If Metric wants to do a sexed-up Cardigans, I’m all in. ‘Gimme Sympathy’ sucks. This band is wildly inconsistent. ‘Collect Call’ sucks as well. I don’t want drippy tween beat, people! Give me some meat. ‘Front Row’ comes out swinging. I can’t help but be reminded of the hair-band albums of my youth. A few smokers wrapped in a brick of Velveeta cheese. ‘Blindness’ sucks. Metric gets an A- for misplaced earnestness. I dig ‘Stadium Love’. Metric needs to go big or go home. Leave the melodrama for Pink. Maybe brunettes have more fun, after all. Fantasies is a burn. 
Snap Judgement- Heartless Bastards’ ‘The Mountain’
We want to remind you of the Delta in all of our minds.
MBV streams the Heartless Bastards’ new album The Mountain, which dropped yesterday. The title track comes out ripping! Me like! This is how you open an album. Other bands take notes. ‘Be So Happy’ enters with a heavy acoustic strum. There is just enough bite to the sound that you can’t take it for granted. With ‘Early In The Morning’, wow, we’re back rocking again. Get in, get out, f*ck off. This is my kind of music. ‘Hold Your Head High’ could be a Faces song. It is that good. Sure, you can call this classic rock redux, but with this level of commitment, who cares? Drums and guitar right up front in the mix. So far, this album is quite a meal. Love the drum intro to ‘Nothing Seems The Same’ which leads right into the melody. Yes, it’s boogie rock, but you know what, who cares? I want to dance! ‘Wide Awake’ is the best PJ Harvey song she never released. Album slows its momentum toward the end, but I wouldn’t say it drags. The fiddles in ‘Had To Go’ do some spookin’ at the end. I listened to a few tracks from this album last month and wasn’t much moved. In the context of the whole album, you can consider this a reconsideration. Buy this album.
Snap Judgement- Apollo Ghost’s Hastings Surprise
You can stream Apollo Ghost’s Hastings Surprise at MBV. I’ve been grooving to many of these tracks throughout the month. If you like your indie rock straight up, no chaser, this is your band. ‘Land Of The Morning Calm’ has a great energy, which can also be found in ‘Little Yokohama’. Apollo Ghost wants us to hear the fun they had making this album. They possess a wry sense of humor, and unlike most bands, know how to use it. No goofiness. Just sincerity and giggles. The lead singer has the kind of confidence in his voice rare in bands this young. And I enjoy the fact that their music is not aping somebody else. They sound like themselves. I listen to a lot of soundalike stuff. A lot. ‘Bad Apple’ is very fun, like Roxy Music Jr.. ‘Shadow Boxing Bruce Lee’ is my song title of the month. The majority of bands struggle for years to create the disarming pop of ‘Day By Day’. “Proof On Tape’ is a sensible lament. Buy this album! If you love crowing about a band first, this is your New Favorite Band.
Snap Judgement- Loney Dear’s Dear John
We can't help the hooks. We're Swedish!
You can listen to a live stream of Swedish popsters Loney Dear’s third album, Dear John, at Spinner. Three songs in and I quite enjoy it. Very pleasant, subtle pop songs. ‘I Was Only Going Out’ is quite effective. Whistling and everything. You appreciate the little things in music like this. The lyrics stand front and center, and they don’t try to make them anymore than what they are. Cue Beach Boys influence for ‘Harsh Words’. But you know that’s always OK with me. Uh oh, he’s starting to drift on us. Come on, Loney Dear, stay on target. ‘Summers’ has it. ‘Distant’ is a tad overblown. This Emil Svanangen has a way with deep melancholy. If you’ve broken up with someone recently, this is the album for you. If you haven’t, it’s still worth a burn.
Snap Judgement: Franz Ferdinand’s Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
We do dissolute as well as debauched.
Franz Ferdinand’s third album, entitled Tonight: Franz Ferdinand streams at their MySpace. The album drops the 26th. Well, I’m here. And so are the four Glaswegians. My shoe should be tapping. I should want to dance. Or something. Nope. Pretty boring. On the fourth track. Off to get tea. Track six, ‘Bite Hard’, has a little something. Maybe this album won’t. “What She Came For’ ends balls out, but where was that during the rest of the song? Time has passed this band by. Pity that. There’s none of the snap, none of the energy of, say, a Roxy Music in this Brit dance-pop. And when you lack that, you start to steer toward Duran Duran territory. I’m just saying. And come on boyos, ‘Dream Again’? That’s just embarrassing. ‘Katherine Kiss Me’ is not too shabby. Pretty, in a way. OK, that’s it. Fairly disappointing. Trust me, there is much more interesting music out this month.
Snap Judgements- Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, Matt & Kim’s Grand, Cut Off Your Hands’ You & I
You'd probably want to get rockist on their asses.
Spinner streams the latest album by Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Now, I’m about to admit something. I was wrong about this album. I heard a song or two off it, and I just thought, “Meh, just more hipster twaddle from the new Grateful Dead.” All the constant praise I heard from the Hype Machine lobby that this redefined modern rock and all this nonsense. I didn’t want to hear it. And I didn’t want to like it. But this is a great album. My standard for such is, after you listen to the album, do you want to listen to it again? The answer, for this record, is a definite “yes!” There is a lot going here. Animal Collective refuses to play by the rules of rock music. They know their pop history, but there will be no guitars. No foundation rhythms. No, they ask you to stick around. Hear what develops. Beautiful keyboard lines drift away to pounding drums which loop to ambient chants. Radiohead always talks about how they wish to be ‘outside’ rock music. This album is as outside rock as you can get. I’ll be very much interested in how they replicate this live. This album is a definite buy.
This leap crushed 8 80-pound hipster dudes.
Find the new Matt & Kim album streaming on Spinner as well. ‘Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare’ works. ‘Cinders’ gets going with some Heavy synths. Ugh. The rest of this album makes you want Pitchfork to start tomorrow so you can add to your hipster teeth collection. What do you get when you sound like every other band from Brooklyn? Rubbish.
Don't call us Franz Ferdinand.
Finally, find the Aussie younsters Cut Off Your Hands’ debut American LP streaming at Spinner. Starts off with a clunker. Why don’t bands put a better song as their first track? As my fellow rocker Kev always says, “You start out loud, and just get louder on tracks two and three.” Advice more people should heed. ‘Expectations’ works. They’re a little too cute by about six-sevenths. And I’m somebody who dorks out on sincerity. ‘Turn Cold’ is hot. Great lil’ single. Hmmm. I think ‘Heartbreak’ is gonna suck. It does. It’s surprisingly bad, at least. I’m just making time here, people. Reading about Blago in the Sun-Times, if you want complete disclosure. How unprofessional, I know. ‘Let’s Get Out of Here’ cranks it back up. There ya go, boyos. ‘Still Fond’ shows they’ve heard a Jam track or two. Whatever you do, do not listen to this after Grand. You will want to listen to complete silence for about six hours. And there’s the headache. It might be the Old Style. I think ‘Nostalgia’ will suck. It does. Early prediction- ‘Someone Like Daniel’ will suck, too. Uh oh. Not off to a good start. ‘People these days just can’t get it right/ We need something today to makes things right.” Wait! Are these guys Christian rock? Hey, at least this too sucks suprisingly.
On the bright side Cut Off Your Hands, you’ll always be huge down under.
Snap Judgement- Bruce Springsteen ‘Working On A Dream’
All hair on my chest has been transplanted to my head.
NPR streams the Boss’ new album, Working On A Dream. The album will drop proper on the 26th. The album starts out slow. ‘Outlaw Pete’ doesn’t really end up going anywhere that you don’t think it will. ‘My Lucky Day’, though, is classic Bruce. Which means it will make most of the unconverted yawn. But for me, it has that bright, hard-charging, deep E Street sound we Boss fanatics love. It reminded me a lot of ‘Ties That Bind’, and that’s a huge compliment. The title track comes next, and I dig it as well. Brendan O’Brien, the producer of this and the last album, gives these songs some rich bass. Especially on Inaugration Day, this song works real well. Less said of ‘Queen of the Supermarket’ the better. ‘What Love Can Do’ gets everybody back on form. In fact, it’s a great song. Guitar is right where you want it. ‘This Life’ is fantastic! Sounds like it could have snuck off side 2 of Born In The USA. So far, I’m very impressed. He hasn’t had such open, big production in a while. ‘Good Eye’ has Bruce doing R.L. Burnside. No, it’s not laughable- it’s actually tough. Again, Brendan provides the most sympathetic production for E Street since everyone got off hard drugs. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ is not a cover of a great Beatles track, but instead a quaint country shuffle. Whatever you may say about this album, it’s got some range. Have to love the shaky background singers. Very ethereal.
Now to the lead single, ‘Life Itself’. Has the judgement changed in a day? No. This song would have fit on The Rising, but with Bruce doing his Exile Great Rock Album thing here it just wrecks the vibe. Interesting guitar work here by Nils that I didn’t catch on first listen. ‘Kingdom Of Days’, meh. He’s really screwing up the forward momentum of this album. ‘Surprise, Surprise’ swings, wide and open. ‘Last Carnival’ earns its spot. If the album kept up where it was going, it would have sensibly ended here. ‘The Wrestler’, from the Mickey Rourke film of same name, should be Example 1A of why the Boss is still necessary. Nobody writes songs so straight and true. Excellent.
Final grade- This album’s a burn. Even if you’re a fan. Bruce really screwed up his momentum with a couple of opaque clunkers that steer the album away from the tight Great Pop Album orbit it was tracing through various ’60s styles. But find a place for ‘The Wrestler’. It is that special.
Snap Judgement- Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast
Mwwaaahaaahaaaa...who's laughing now, Mr. Tweedy.
Hometown hero Andrew Bird’s new album, Noble Beast, is streaming now at NPR. The album is due out January 20 on Fat Possum. Snap judgement on the new album after one listen- really good. A definite buy album. I have to admit, Mr. Bird snuck up on me. I saw him years ago, and thought he was a bit twee for my taste. Then I saw him again at Lollapalooza and thought again, “Good, but not for playing venues this size.” Then last year I heard he packed the Pritzker Pavilion, Wilco-style. I couldn’t believe it.
Well, now I believe it. The new album has all the the Bird wistfulness which makes the skinny girls blush, plus a new found love of lush production. The album has a true sense of space and scope that a production dork like me can’t help but appreciate. Andrew even almost cuts it up-almost-on a few tracks. Overall, if you’ve missed the real R.E.M. since Bill’s been gone or have been waiting for Beck to release that great country-pop album you know he has in him, you need to hear this. Andrew, you make Chicago proud. Hope to see you soon at the Hideout, brother.
O'Hare Arpt., IL
