Golden Days Before They End
(Merge)***
Matt Suggs used to be in Butterglory, another in a long line of Velvet Underground imitators. Whereas Butterglory's VU stylings could've been brought down to coincidence, the Ray Davies-isms on Suggs' new solo LP are so blatant it's almost a tribute album. Populated by the same fey characters, and consisting of the same kind of strangely yearning musical and lyrical qualities, this is like the great lost Kinks album--or better yet, the great lost solo album Davies never made, if he'd made it around 1972. Not only the plaintive vocals, but even the way the guitar gently rolls underneath for support in, say, "Walk with Him"--total Kinks. In "Soon the Moon Will Glow," Suggs even picks up on Davies' vocal inflections on "Celluloid Heroes." "Eloise," an homage to a spinster, contains some very baroque '60s-sounding piano. Nice xylophone adorns "Where's Your Patience, Dear?" Throughout is the air of Brit-influenced whimsy, like "Harold Had a Hunch," which, with its tale of "pinwheels always spinning," reminds one of a pastoral English countryside. Similar oddballs and outcasts romp through the album, as do such quaint objets d'art as violins, wind chimes, and "little yellow wooden shoes"--which I guess are like the proverbial "china cups and virginity." JOE S. HARRINGTON
QUICKSPACE
The Death of Quickspace
(Matador)****
I have to admit, while I love Yo La Tengo, the first time I saw them live, I was bored. They were still in their "long repetitive waves of feedback" phase, and while I couldn't deny that they were good, I also couldn't convince myself that they were interesting. No matter what a fabulous drummer Georgia Hubley is, and no matter what kinds of cool noises Ira Kaplan can make with his guitar, once a song hits the six-minute mark and the vocals haven't started yet, my mind starts to wander. I remain wary of arty bands repeating stuff over and over. No matter how much artistic and indie cred a band like Stereolab have, at the heart of it, they're still boring.
Which is why I should hate the new Quickspace album. A typical song is six minutes of one guitar riff and two lyrical phrases, repeated in every possible combination. And while it should be boring as hell, it's not--maybe because they avoid a mathematical approach or virtuosity in favor of a more lo-fi structure that undercuts the basic art snobbery behind this kind of a band.
You get an idea of what you're in for from the get-go. The first song fades in, immediately fades out, and fades back in again, I've-got-blisters-on-my-fingers style, but all in the space of a few seconds. A driving beat buoys two guitar parts that sound more programmed than played, and after repeating one measure's worth of notes a few times, you figure you're in for a long ride. But then the vocals come in. Nina Pascale's voice is shouting, frenetic, and completely blown out with distortion, but also made quiet in the mix. It's frantic, but not overbearing, and the guitars that seemed ready to lull you to sleep are now just there to hold her steady.
Then while one guitar continues burbling away, the other rises up to meet the vocals, a mass of fuzz behind even muddier vocals. She's saying the same thing over and over again, or is she? The words shift with each repetition, and both the singer and the music remain insistent--as if each time through, they've got something else to say with the same three words and the same four beats. Instead of dismissing the repetition as numbing, you're suddenly scrutinizing it all, trying to decode what all the little variations mean.
The next song is much the same--a bassline, then a guitar riff, then another, then a howling theremin, each build on each other until another singer, Tom Cullinan, intones a few lines quietly, then less quietly, then loudly, until the whole thing is a wailing symphony, guitars screeching, a sneered dare: "Don't you want my dirty love in your heart?" Pascale echoes him just a half-second behind, and as the drums keep things moving along, it escalates into a cacophonous, joyful mess.
That's the secret to Quickspace: The tools other bands lull you to sleep with, they use to lull you into a false sense of security. While some bands can go from quiet to loud like a thunderbolt, Quickspace creeps in like a rainstorm, a few drops building up to a torrent. MIKE VAGO
MURDER CITY DEVILS
In Name and Blood
(Sub Pop)****
Oh Jesus, I've blown my load. Busted a nut. Here. Now. In my pants. Crusty bunkers, with no one but the Devils to blame. They stole my heart, my head, and my hands. Now they've crawled into my pants. The best records inspire, and this one has me looking around for the closest thing with a heartbeat to FUCK FOR A FULL THREE MINUTES. (My maximum stamina... ahem.)
This is the true sound of rock and roll in the year 2000. I am constantly being bombarded by pathetic, horseshit dead-heart: Lois, the Makers, and emo--please shut up and quit flogging that dead-on-arrival horse. I will not sit idly by and let these poseurs pollute my ears! In Name and Blood is one of the first real rock records of the century, written from the heart, played from the crotch, and delivered with a drunken, sloppy kiss. It's a soundtrack for loves, bitter breakups, blackout fights, old friends, new enemies, busted legs, laughter, and tears.
As for the music on this plate, it's delivered by a stronger, more advanced Murder City Devils. The self-titled debut was good; Broken Bottles, Empty Hearts was great; and In Name and Blood is their best--so far. It's louder, more precise and to the point. Spencer Moody's lyrics are some of the best rock and roll screams in America these days, but it's not always about the yelling: Paying respect to another master, Moody sings a lovely cover of Neil Diamond's "I'll Come Running" with Fastback Kim Warnick on backing vocals, which will sound perfect at my own upcoming wedding.
Above all, the songs on In Name and Blood are about the rock and roll life and living it. So there it is again: Inspiration. This record inspires me to go out and stay out, to live out.
The new generation is being raised without guitars, and it takes a record like In Name and Blood to shake the kids out of their Special K, big-pants daze, and show them that rock and roll is alive and well in the Northwest! Now put down your goddamned goat milk half-decaf Frappuccino and go live! In Name and Blood: Four Fuckin' Stars! SEATTLE REPRESENT! CALI DeWITT
AIMEE MANN
Bachelor No. 2, or the Last Remains of the Dodo
(SuperEgo Records)****
Aimee Mann is a brilliant lyrical assassin of the fatal flaws in the supra-absorbent male ego. She's able--with even more grace and ease than her co-conspirator in pulverizing pop verbosity, Elvis Costello--to stretch a song's single, poignant metaphor to the point where it bursts apart to reveal those intricate and rather embarrassing moments when romantic self-delusion steps up to the pedestal of heroic self-sacrifice. Bachelor No. 2, though it's got some crossovers with the Magnolia soundtrack, is her strongest album yet.
There's no great departure here from Mann's previous work, which is just fine. (Perhaps the most significant change is in the songs' production: spare, quiet, and stunning.) On each number, her wizened and mellifluous voice cuts like a surgeon's scalpel (there's no contradiction there) with such masochistic, satisfying ease through a variety of not-so-well-disguised types: romantic cowards, sell-outs, bad guys, the good guy with the wrong girl, terminal fuck-ups, celebs, and roundheads.
Mann's obvious (but so beautiful) disgust for dishonesty is tempered by cautionary lines that are to die for (infinitely, deliciously quotable), and by a nearly perfected sense of timing, delivery, melody, and punch. Both "Calling It Quits" and "Red Vines and Cigarettes" are Dylanesque, heart-on-the- ragged-sleeve odes to resignation that creep ever toward a warily blinking hope, but only by default ("I tried to keep perspective despite the flash of the fuse, the smell of cordite," she sings in "Susan"). This woman, bless her songwriting soul, is a serious--and very seriously gifted--malcontent. Mann is peerless in her ability to balance love-bitten bitterness with musical grace, and in the unique way her emotionally ebbing songs make you squirm in discomfort while humming along, mesmerized, and in the strangest way, thankful. RICK LEVIN
REGGIE AND THE FULL EFFECT
Promotional Copy
(Vagrant/Heros & Villains)***
My main complaint about emo bands is that they seem to lack a sense of humor. Even when they sing about timeless themes like love and confusion, it just sounds hopeless and uninspiring. Whether they're singing about their new girlfriend, their old girlfriend, or their neighbor's cats' shit, it all sounds the same.
But not all emo music is tedious and depressing. Reggie and the Full Effect's Promotional Copy has taken advantage of the best quality of emo--namely, a pretty melody--and ditched the excruciating self-consciousness and seriousness. Started by the Get-Up Kids' keyboardist James Dewees, Reggie and the Full Effect play a livelier strain of emo mixed with overtly jokey songs. There are a fair amount of slightly melancholy emo chord changes and vocal melodies, but those don't create the whole story of the album, which makes them okay.
Dewees plays keyboard with '60s garage flair and abandon, but there is a techno influence that gives it a unique sound. Songs lampooning the anti-emo genres of techno ("Doot Doot Pause Doot Doot"), hardcore ("Something I'm Not"), and metal ("Dwarf Invasion": "You are not my friend/You are my foe/You are two feet tall/You have got to go!") combine with the peppier emo numbers to give the album as a whole a healthy sense of humor. Reggie and the Full Effect are doing emo a favor by having so much fun with it. JUAN-CARLOS RODRIGUEZ
IN STORES 6/13 by Juan-Carlos Rodriguez
Sinéad O'Connor, Faith & Courage (Atlantic) After she tore up the Pope's pic, she managed to become an (unofficial) Catholic priest. Or priestess, I guess. No kiddin'.
Duran Duran, Pop Trash (Hollywood) It's just Simon and Nick now. Yep. Reflexes are a little slower, but they're still Wild Boyz.
Soundtrack, Shaft (LaFace/Artista) Isaac Hayes does a new version of the theme and is joined by a number of modern R&B and hiphop stars like R. Kelly and Outkast.
Bon Jovi, Crush (Island) An album focused on Jon's new identity as a Hare Krishna.
Uncle Cracker, Double Wide (Top Dog/Lava/Atlantic) Kid Rock's DJ gets his big chance to sing his terrible songs.
B. B. King & Eric Clapton, Riding with the King (Duck/Reprise) One of these guys should be put out to pasture or shot, and it ain't B. B.
Easy Mo Bee, Now or Never: Odyssey 2000 (Priority) A superproducer finally drops his own wax.
NOFX, Pump up the Valium (Epitaph) NOFX have grown tired of life in the suburbs; they just want a life!
Poison, Power to the People (Cyanide) C. C.'s back! Anyway, I'm sure Poison's families are thrilled for them.
Slum Village, Fantastic, Volume 2 (Goodvibe Recordings/Atomic Pop) The latest from the Motor City.
The Getaway People, The Turnpike Diaries (Columbia) Turnpikes are for East Coast saps. Give me a good old-fashioned freeway any day.
Anastacia, Not That Kind (Epic) Pretty mean, actually.
P. J. Olsson, Words for Living (Columbia) Inspirational messages for a day and age that God is unhappy with.
Sixteen Deluxe, Vision Take Me Make Me Never Forsake Me (Sugar fix) It's so cute that they've learned how to rhyme!
Snake River Conspiracy, Sonic Jihad (Reprise) The only conspiracy about the Snake River is that those yokels on the other side of the mountains just want it to be a drainage ditch for Hanford.
