UGLY CASANOVA
Sharpen Your Teeth
(Sub Pop)
****

The best Modest Mouse songs are the ones where the inner and outer demons wrestle, and the listener is never quite sure which is truly meant to be dominant. Sharpen Your Teeth, Modest Mouse singer Isaac Brock's full-length debut as Ugly Casanova, contains songs that require careful listening to hear all the souls fighting to be heard at once. The first track, "Barnacles," pits the need to be isolated against the pull of connecting with someone forever; Brock's vocals intertwine with those of John Orth, forming a bittersweet union before Califone's Tim Rutili chimes in for "Spilled Milk Factory," another struggle of wills beautifully rubbing up against each other. "Parasites" blends death, decay, and joyous-sounding keyboards before "Hotcha Girls" breaks your heart with a violin-laden layer cake of dusty neglect and the sweet bloom of youth. Time flows and returns and bearings are never quite found, making Sharpen Your Teeth an album worth the dedicated attention it demands, if only to show the listener that it's in that loose footing that the truest route lies. KATHLEEN WILSON

THE GET UP KIDS
On a Wire
(Vagrant)
**

As a Get Up Kids fan for some time, I held high hopes for On a Wire. I was so ready to rock, dying to dance around my room like a woman possessed, as I did to Something to Write Home About. But it didn't happen. With Wire, the GUKs have tamed their ways and are now showcasing nothing more than catchy pop songs and solemn "you hurt me, I still love you" ballads that lack any depth. Don't think it doesn't hurt to say this, because it does. I still listen to Four Minute Mile, and I've even marinated in another man's vomit during a GUK show just because I didn't want to miss any of their set (a story too long and gross for this review). Man, I was a legitimate fan, which I may be again someday--albeit after I grow accustomed to the fact that the band has grown out of their rock phase and into an "adult contemporary" state. MEGAN SELING

WEEZER
Maladroit
(Interscope)
**

When I first heard Maladroit, I believed it represented the final failure of my campaign to dislike all Weezer records--a campaign, I should add, that has been a stunning success up to now. As the swaggering rock riff in "American Gigolo" turned into a classic pop melodic descent, and then gave way to the second song's joyous Steve Miller homage, I thought, sweet Christ, Weezer has pulled it off. I imagined that the sucker punch of their green album (and by sucker punch I mean how lame it was, except for "Hash Pipe") was all part of an intricate ruse to fool the public into thinking the band had been born again soft, and that Maladroit was going to be the great, honest, unexpected album Pinkerton is supposed to be (and isn't). Then, the amazing pot I'd been smoking wore off, I woke up and smelled the false metal, and realized that I'd only been hearing the Weezer of my imagination, the one that made records as great as their live shows, the one that fools me every time. SEAN NELSON

NO FUTURO
No Futuro
(First World)
***

No Futuro should score Dark Angel--a TV show set in "post-pulse" (indeed, post-everything) Seattle, 2019--because their music is as dark as the dense streets the genetic freak/hero of Dark Angel, Jessica Alba, roams on her motorbike. Dark Angel's music is usually too positive--a Moby-like mix of mystical Eastern melodies, groovy funk, and glossy techno--when it should instead be closer to No Futuro, who have a toxic, crepuscular sound that's "more dusty than digital," as Cyclops 4000 once put it. No Futuro's beats are made by Miguel Moskowitz (a pseudonym for Jeremy Moss) and Will E. B., while Rodrigo Romero of Sky Cries Mary provides vocals and poetry that draws inspiration from J. G. Ballard's early '70s novels (Crash, Concrete Island, The Atrocity Exhibition). Listen to the "No Futuro Theme" and you will feel the mood of those moments when Jessica Alba contemplates post-prosperity Seattle from atop the dead Space Needle. CHARLES MUDEDE