Interpol (2010)

(Matador)

!! CAUTION !!

Yikes.

So Interpol came to my attention when they were already three albums in to their game and had gone from playfully melodramatic New York grit to pseudogoth pure pop style, the latter goofoff motif peaking with a mournful dirge about trying to get a girlfriend to agree to have a three-way, which to the best of my knowledge they always performed with the straightest of faces, as if their proposition had some ironic gist and artistic importance lost on all others.

Nobody liked Our Love to Admire. I can honestly say it was never terribly offensive to me on the whole because I heard all three albums for the first time nearly simultaneously; the shock of a downward spiral missed me since I wasn't even familiar enough with Turn on the Bright Lights and Antics yet to define what was interesting about them. But now, several apologies about Admire later (and a corresponding nosedive back to indiedom after that album's ill-fated Capitol deal), geez, fuck it. They're already on some kind of blurrily inconsequential carousel ride, self-repeating and perpetual.

I'm not big on extreme reactions and I'm not knocked down to the gutter by how boring I find this record, not least because part of me expected it to be a bit worse than it actually is. The other part retained cautious optimism, especially after the single "Barricade" was a reasonably fun, silly, catchy jam. That's one of the big problems: these privileged souls don't seem to have any serious complaints about anything, they just have the favored sound of The Mope. Witness the other song that advanced the LP, the labored gloom piece "Lights," accompanied by a nonsensical science fiction video. (It figures these guys would be all about Blade Runner.) It feels built on trends, like something you'd hear at a Hot Topic? Or maybe that's unfair. Either way, "Barricade" is an exception -- stupid rock stuff that inserts some levity and doesn't feel wholly strained.

The other issue is that the songs all sound the fucking same. Atmospheric rock doesn't have to be like this: I would have to think for a good long while to name all the songs on the National's new album, but I know them instantly when they come on. Interpol's always been about the vague along with the theatrical, but that used to be a major advantage; I took Bright Lights along for a long drive not long ago and verified this. I remembered all of the songs and still found they piqued my curiosity and evoked, signified, suggested something. The emptiness that persists now, well, that's incredible. Where initial peers like the Walkmen have progressed and discovered new ideas, new noises, Interpol, for all their popularity, is left coughing in the dust. It's a relief when a song like "Try It On" initially sounds like something different, a new experiment, a playful approach, but after a bit it devolves into the same old brooding, same-y nonsense.

After two listens, I can make out "Barricade" and "Try It On" as distinct songs, and track number one, "Success," comes close and is a decent cut I might actually decide I like if I hear it a few more times. The rest is sludge. People on the Net (including but not limited to the people at Matador; shocking!) are being cautiously optimistic about this record as a step in the right direction or a return to form or a return to non-shit. Though I find it hard to dispute that -- nothing here is remotely as bad as "No I in Threesome" -- I have a sneaking suspicion these boys are spent.

"Boys." Hmm. You know, speaking strictly in musical rather than behavioral terms, a lot of my favorite bands consist of men: the National, or the Kinks, or R.E.M., or the Clash, or Wire, or Radiohead; they might be immature buttholes for all I know or care but they sure as fuck sound like grownups who make grownup music for other grownups, right? But that's one faction of popular music. I don't have to remind you that some boys we love as boys. The Rolling Stones, always boys. The Replacements. MGMT (so far). The Flamin' Groovies. The Animals. Could keep going. But all of them at their peaks live(d) in the world, not in themselves. Even MGMT are stalwart believers in populist fun. Interpol's two latest albums are boy music with gratingly high-minded, insincere trappings; it feels like it's made less to identify with than to stare at, but for all that dust cloud, one feels duped. They seem to want to inspire the kind of awe and worship Radiohead does, only without taking any of the drastic evolutionary and experimental steps that justify the treatment awarded the older band. I can't figure out the motivation if it's not money, and that's none of my business, so speculation's where it has to end except that the result is not talking to me.

And also "Memory Serves" sounds like fucking Ozzy Osbourne. Gahhh.

The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (1966)

(International Artists)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This album is new to me and the first chance I've had to properly hear this band; these songs give me that elusive feeling of musical magic falling into place off some half-attentive cuff. Of course I've meant to listen to this for approximately a decade, but for whatever reason, it slipped my mind until Roky Erickson's quite enjoyable album with Okkervil River earlier this year. And what a delight to find such a fun '60s album to explore anew, even though I'm not sure "fun" is precisely what this band was aiming for. This is Serious Business, and for 1966, it feels surprisingly harsh and bold.

The Elevators are widely noted for their promotion of drugs, with band member Tommy Hall's sleeve notes explicitly advocating mind-altering substances as an aid for the enjoyment of the record (and life in general). But if this is truly the beginning of "stoner rock," it's in a spirit of greater levity and eclecticism than the music to which the term generally applies. This band could do more than one thing, and yes, this is druggy music, but it's also genuinely oddball in discernibly rational ways. Even as it, as my girlfriend pointed out, conjures up images of straight-haired blondes slouching against walls and sofas in yellow-wallpapared living rooms, it comes off as unlazily imaginative: a tornado hitting a beach party. The way some perfect Tom Wolfe version of the '60s might have happened.

Part of the reason I find this so irresistible is how it effortlessly dives into some of my favorite rock & roll gimmicks, it must be pointed out, even before the Velvet Underground released their debut album (but not before they were making such noises on stage). Perpetual drone, dirty garage sound, ranting and affected vocals, excessive tremolo, apocalyptic distortion, and lovingly buried melodies -- this is dream pop for me. Part of the mysterious vibe of menace it achieves is thanks to Hall's electric jug, which parades on like a monolithically bizarre backdrop, but one shouldn't discount the amateurish intensity of Stacy Sutherland's guitar playing, riddled with vague but hyperactive emotion.

The 13th Floor Elevators' most famous cut is their single "You're Gonna Miss Me," which you've heard and is more or less an example of classic garage sound, but with an ominous tension bubbling underneath, even with the boisterous (if raw) Erickson lead. It's a worthwhile sample of the most base ideas of the record, but even a quick, unexpectant entrance will throw the investigator of this LP for a loop, particularly the modern listener: song number two, "Roller Coaster," recalls the Stones and anticipates Pavement (the slapped-together-into-Heaven feeling) and relates surprisingly little to "Miss Me" with its still tense but subtler, more casual vibe, not to mention its improved (and calmer) songwriting. Still more startling -- "Splash 1," sideways balladry with the most memorable melody yet. The surprises peak a bit later with the provocatively arty "Thru the Rhythm," which sounds like... '80s indie rock? No wonder everyone was covering these guys by then.

Television famously covered "Fire Engine" at a lot of shows. The first time I heard a 13th Floor Elevators song it was that one, for that reason, and I admit to being disappointed that the freshfaced precision of Verlaine and pals on their punky, slicing version was traced back to a shapeless nightmare involving an actual siren and a lot of impassioned (terrified?) shouting. In the context of the album, I get it; "Splash 1" is peace and this is war. Its pounding beat and populist rockshow come out on repeated listens so it starts to feel really impressive and it, too, looks ahead to later touchstones: I hear some Pere Ubu in it in addition to the more direct line to Television and the New York scene.

For all that, the Elevators still belong to their time, and this produces a lot of the charm to be found here: just look at that album cover for starters. Roky wails in a cathartic, high-pitched manner no serious rocker would dare attempt after the heavy metal indulgences of the '70s; if anything, his Yoko-like yodel is more delicate, restrained, and status quo. But the fact that he could then get away with his more flamboyant and... fearless caterwauling in the former category legitimizes him against any tainting and reminds one of just how experimental the band was at the time. The drug thing is inescapable, sure, and if you listen to this long enough you start to sound like you've been dropping or smoking up yourself, as I just did when I actually said out loud during "Monkey Island" that "you can feel the space of the room here." But even if only occasionally, there's something to be said for the blankbrained release of intense red-light bad-trip psychedelic rock.

The baddest trip here? Oh, easy, "Kingdom of Heaven." As much as Erickson and company could sound like the Animals or the Kinks ("You Don't Know" Is the Kinkiest, with truly awesome guitarics) and even the Byrds ("Don't Fall Down" is shimmery music, its flighty mood alleviated only by the vocal deadpan), this is pure joyous self-imposed misery: the siren from "Fire Engine" returns amidst plodding drama to craft some addictive dirging that rivals the most methamphetamine-addled jams in the VU catalog (and certainly makes the Beatles' "I Want You" seem redundant and three years too late, even if only for a little while).

At the beginning, the 13th Floor Elevators were Texans playing rock & roll; Roky Erickson's subsequent tragedies and the short, sad life of the band itself seem irrelevant when faced with a record as teeming with life as this. Of course you can spend all your time gazing through the mind enhancement-addled clichés, and there are plenty to find, but you'd be missing the point: some of the purest, most enjoyable, and most artistically innovative and respectable garage rock ever made. I can't wait to check out Easter Everywhere.

Eels: Tomorrow Morning (2010)

(Vagrant)

If singer-songwrietr E is like, oh, any other person who's made a living creatively, he's sick of hearing people tell him that his older stuff is better. I can apologize in advance all I want but I still have to say that E's older stuff is better. What troubles me is that in his case, I'm not convinced it has to be.

Many alt-rock centuries ago (which is to say, fifteen years back), Billy Corgan released a double album called Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It didn't seem as though this double album existed because Corgan had a whole bunch of great songs lying around, enough to make two CDs instead of one -- it seemed like it was a double album because Corgan wanted to make a double album. Its length was its own story. The ruse worked; people bought it. Now Eels are bringing us the final installment of a "trilogy" of albums E instituted with Hombre Lobo last year. Released in rapid succession, the three are song cycles about relationships or something. The songs are mostly half-formed, the lyrics are mostly godawful, but look! Eels just released a trilogy of albums! Let's all give them our attention.

Tomorrow Morning, the newest record, is firmly in the middle quality-wise. Hombre Lobo was an average Eels record; End Times was dismal dullsville. This one won't excite your senses but it's not a bad album, at least musically. Behind his weary croak, E throws in some strange nods to circa-1997 trip-hop, somewhat disrupting the sameness of the songs and allowing a few of them to hop and skip and cavort a bit. Don't call it innovation, though; it's appropriated the way Sting coopted 1980s lite-jazz: window dressing for average or sub-average tunes.

But then again, the songcraft is more or less fine on the brighter efforts here. "Spectacular Girl," "Baby Loves Me," and "That's Not Her Way" are slight but catchy, fun tracks, catapulting the idea of E as a manic-depressive Ian Broudie back into consciousness. E's voice is more a liability than ever; at his age, he shouldn't be sounding as tired and ancient as Peter Gabriel does on this year's turgid Scratch My Back, especially on the first two vocal tracks, formless dirges both. The bigger problem is what he's singing. I don't recall noticing E's lyrics on his best albums, which is a good sign. Here, they're difficult to ignore. On one song he rhymes "sick" with "dick" and "pig" with "gig"; on another, "disposition" with "fishin'"; yet another, "pee" with "E." Simultaneously, he complains about being "shushed" by a "librarian." Another choice selection involves a girl who "sees the beauty in things we all miss."

Fuck it, I could just fill the rest of this review with verbatim quotes from this album's lyrics. "With a lustful admiration / I look upon you / Can't wait until tomorrow / The things that we'll do." "I feel my heart changin' in mysterious new ways." "Used to kind of bitter / Always had a babysitter / Now I'm feeling much fitter." "Used to be kind of cruel / Kind of a tool / Like a damn fool."

This could easily just be a temporary symptom of the songsmith well running dry, right? A few more drafts, maybe, and these songs might have gone somewhere; a bit more time spent on production and they could be memorable. There's nothing really unsalvageable. But when you're determined to make a Trilogy of Albums, I guess you throw in everything you've got. I still say, wouldn't people fondly remember twelve good songs more than thirty-odd mediocrities?

But E is still street, y'all. On "Baby Loves Me," he offers us a truly universal sentiment: "The record company hates me." Well, we've all been there.

The Kinks (1964)

(Pye [orig] / Castle [reissue])

RECOMMENDED

The first generation of British Invasion bands -- most specifically the so-called Big Four (Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who) -- cut their teeth on a wide-ranging series of modern standards, most of them derived from U.S. blues and R&B. The base repertoire of artists admired and worshipped was universal, and in all of these bands, passionate. Perhaps no one in the early '60s UK scene had a taste for the most obscure and scarcely exported American blues quite like Ray Davies. And perhaps no one in the group entire seemed quite as uncomfortable singing his favorite songs as Ray did.

To state the deadeningly obvious, the Kinks stand apart from their three internationally beloved peers in myriad ways. They were never as popular as the others. They were driven disproportionately by one personality (some would say two, and they'd be very generous). They were never interested in a rebellious image like the Stones or the Who, much less a rebellious actuality like the Beatles at their youngest and dirtiest. But in investigating their debut album, which most people don't, the difference that matters most is that the Kinks simply weren't great at covering the American masters, a feat at which all three of the aforementioned bands, with whom they broke across the universe in 1964-65, excelled.

As a result, the starkly titled Kinks (or You Really Got Me, in America on Reprise sans three tracks) suffers. Let's get this out of the way: it's the worst Kinks album of the '60s, and as UK debut albums go, Please Please Me (or Introducing the Beatles, if you like), The Rolling Stones (or England's Newest Hit Makers, if you like), and The Who Sings My Generation (I don't even know if there was an alternate American version of this one) all pretty well destroy it. But if you're anything like me, in the time since you've listened to this record -- if you bothered at all, given its rep -- you've forgotten one fascinating thing that also sets the Kinks apart: on their very first record, their originals are already fully formed and accomplished, as much as they would be six years later; Davies' songcraft emerges from nowhere improbably developed, mannered, original, affecting. Only six original compositions reside on this album, but four of those are shocking, compelling winners.

This schism in the early Kinks output begins with their first 45, a miserable, tired-sounding cover of "Long Tall Sally," sequelled immediately by the infectious, sparkling "You Still Want Me," a Davies composition that feels exciting and new even today. Neither single charted but their third, "You Really Got Me," was in a different world and was a burning legend the moment it was pressed. In this case, the success was owed as much to Ray's brother Dave and his dangerously loud, bleeding guitar as to the basics of the songwriting. It's difficult to pare down the beginning of punk and garage to one record, but "You Really Got Me" lays claim to the groundbreaking of that parallel pop that was with us for decades after. Maybe "Louie, Louie" (also covered, badly, by the Kinks around this time) deserves equal distinction but it cannot match the urge of feeling, the (literal and otherwise) plainspokenness. Davies' hopping-mad, formless guitar solo offers the second moment in British Invasion rock when everything threatens to go screaming and howling off the rails and throttle us all into some bloody destiny, the second moment when that feels legitimate and in the realm of the possible (the first being John Lennon's apocalyptic, terrifying vocal on the Beatles' blistering cover of the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout"). Partisans for rock's dunderheaded quotient might make some claim that "You Really Got Me" marks the founding of hard rock; I hope the Kinks would rebuke such a dubious honor. Instead, the song and specifically that solo invents the underdog-guitar hero, the Lou Reeds and Thurston Moores who treasure emotionally draining insanity over technical prowess.

But "You Really Got Me," which is featured on this album, and its almost equally famous followup, "All Day and All of the Night," which isn't, don't actually say much about the Kinks except that they were capable of being loud. Having proven this, after one more soundalike single, they turned down their amps and -- for the remainder of their artistically vital period -- never really cranked them again. The Kinks' two most famous '60s songs have little to nothing to do with the actual appeal of the band, or the band's and Ray Davies' real characters. Nevertheless, "Really Got Me" drops a fascinating hint. The batshit screams of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis had long faded from the airwaves by 1964, and it would soon be left up to another generation to go crazy in public. Still, surely a tradition had been established, one proudly taken up in the UK by both John Lennon and Paul McCartney, soon enough by others. The pregnant pause just before Dave's solo is the ideal moment for a release of primal tension, an "AAGAGAHHHHAGAHHAHH!" or a "WAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA"... but from Ray, who can't break his shy British boy dignity even in this moment of truth, all we get is a half-hearted, almost gentle shout of "Ohh, come on!" that sounds as though it was belted out at some manager or band member's annoyed insistence. Davies seems embarrassed by the outburst even while it's emerging from him. And the clincher is that, unless I'm forgetting something, this is the one and only time that an actual British accent was audible on any of the giant hit singles of 1964.

Everyone is obliged to comment about the Kinks being the most defiantly British of all rock bands, but most pinpoint this as a turn of events, not their natural state, that began sometime in the middle '60s. Their fourth album, Face to Face, is regarded as the ultimate radical departure. Undoubtedly it is, but the Kinks' style, the mode of expression they'd build on for the next seven years, is firmly in place here. "I Took My Baby Home" is no less an ear-candy pop masterstroke than "She's Got Everything," recorded four years later; you hear either song and can't believe it isn't worldwide-famous and a blazing all-time radio hit. "So Mystifying" is an antecedent to "Fancy." "Stop Your Sobbing" is punk cynicism, sarcastic love, pure beauty, smirking like the endlessly surprising character portraits on the sophisticated Something Else (1967). It becomes hard not to feel as though Davies was chomping at the bit to move beyond covers-band mode, knowing that others could record blues and R&B better than some surly white boys from Muswell Hill, that their time and talent could be more adequately applied. I cannot help feeling that Davies had interest in injecting literacy, nostalgia, articulate regret, classical insecurity into his songs long before the Beatles had the same idea. That he also had "You Really Got Me" in him only proves the depth of his rock & roll committment.

Davies is one of rock & roll's only poets -- it's an exclusive group that might include Smokey Robinson, Lennon, Leonard Cohen, Dylan on a good day -- and "Stop Your Sobbing" is a poem. To me, it's indisputable that the Stones and the Who were not cranking out originals as strong as it and "I Took My Baby Home" yet in 1964, nor would they ever match the dumb-luck perfection, distorted dirt, and spontanenous combustion of "You Really Got Me," the most exciting and immediate UK single of all.

Neither of the two remaining originals will stay with you as long but they are enjoyable: "Revenge" is a scrappy and fun instrumental, "Just Can't Go to Sleep" is the kind of dance music Davies could (and probably still can) write with one eye open. These two filler cuts are bettered by some strong covers: of Chuck Berry's "Beautiful Delilah," of the oddly affecting "I've Been Driving on Bald Mountain," and of standard blues "Bald Headed Woman." The rest of the album is overstuffed with shoddy, unnecessary covers; "I'm a Lover, Not a Fighter" bloodlessly redirects its New Orleans origins, "Long Tall Shorty" feels tired and overlong, and "Got Love If You Want It" just wasn't made for the Kinks. But worst of all are two rock classics: Bo Diddley's "Cadillac" and Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business," both of which make our Muswell Hillbillies sound like inexperienced kids in over their heads. Which may be what they were, but if they could write stuff like "Stop Your Sobbing," why were they bothering with trying to duplicate sounds of their gods? You're better off listening to Berry or Diddley anyway. Thankfully, the band would make no further embarrassing mistakes like this except for a slightly less misguided cover of "Dancing in the Street" on their second album.

And then there are the peripherals. Castle's compact disc of Kinks offers crucial context for this record with an incredible twelve bonus tracks, incorporating all the concurrent single and EP cuts, including the major hit and classic "All Day and All of the Night." Bonus tracks aren't really our concern here, but these make such a difference in appreciation of the LP I can't help pointing them out. Be sure you find the 26-track Castle version, not the 16-track CD on Sanctuary.

Overall, this is a frustrating album that's fun for hardcore fans of the Kinks and may be choppy for others. As evidenced by the quantum leap forward a matter of months later on the excellent Kinda Kinks, this band was already prepared to issue a knockout album that could have competed with the near-simultaneous Beatles for Sale. Was Shel Talmy holding them back? I'm sure third parties would say that they just weren't ready yet; the songs say otherwise. The evolution business model worked for the other three British Invasion biggies; they publicly grew into their own as composers until each developed a distinguished, separate set of ideas and styles. Ray Davies was formidable from the earliest; the Kinks needed no such hand-holding. They got it anyway. That's the music business, I suppose.

Sufjan Stevens: All Delighted People EP (2010)

(Asthmatic Kitty)

RECOMMENDED (purchase online-only here)

Less than two weeks ago, Sufjan Stevens remained in the limbo that's been his home since the ecstatic reaction given to Illinois[e] in 2005; still no new pop material could be verified, continuing the silence of these five years that's been broken only by an outtakes album, an orchestral experiment, and several one-offs. But then suddenly and with no prior announcement, last week, Stevens put this EP up for sale digitally. It was ready for download immediately, eclipsing even the tiny lead time Radiohead allowed for In Rainbows in '07. Speculation mounted immediately about what such an unorthodox approach to distribution and promotion means in the context of Sufjan's career and the perilous industry at large. Is putting up an hour of new music for $5 the wave of the pop music future? Was the quiet, underhanded out-of-nowhere nature of the announcement an antidote to hype and leaks, or simply a comment on the unusual and/or uncommercial nature of the record?

When Sufjan, days later, signaled the coming of a new studio album, the position of All Delighted People in his catalog began more clearly to fall into place, particularly with the caveat that said album, The Age of Adz, will have nothing to do with the songs or sound of this EP. We may have to wait until we hear Adz to know if this runoff EP amounts of leftover or discarded ideas from the larger record, or just a Mt. Vernon and Fairway-style supplement, an altogether separate but simultaneous entity. In contrast to Vernon, though, much of People's strangeness derives from the coldest facts and measurements of its existence.

What's so strange about Sufjan releasing an EP? Nothing, really, disregarding the suddenness of its appearance, nor is it weird that there is no immediately available physical counterpart... but this is an oddity in every other sense, beginning with its length. The record stretches every definition of "EP" I can recall in my years of consciousness that such a format existed. At 59:15, it is longer than seven of my ten favorite albums so far in 2010; this will require it to be stretched across two records for its vinyl release late this year, making it surely the first double-LP EP ever. (The Beatles' UK EP Magical Mystery Tour was a two-record set, but they were seven-inches.) Its number of tracks, eight, is hardly modest either; the EP average is, what, five? And a number of classic albums (Marquee Moon, Horses, Remain in Light) contained eight songs. And oh yes, some of the music is also pretty fucking weird.

If you've followed Stevens' career carefully enough, you know better than to expect complacency; if the oddball genius of something like The BQE wasn't a convincer, maybe last year's left-field "You Are the Blood" (from the charity compilation Dark Was the Night) got the point across. Still, one can't help but be taken aback by this EP's title track, presented here in two versions (one eight minutes, one twelve) best described as a violent rollercoaster of sweetness and caterwauling, sounding a bit like a typical cut from Michigan or Seven Swans placed in a garbage disposal for a few seconds before the hapless dishwashing househusband realizes his error and removes the mangled mess from the blades. It's kind of wonderful, kind of irritating, all the way eccentric, replete with liberal Paul Simon quotes and a taste for the epic. Never one for the overblown tendencies of puffier rock music, I admit I'm impressed but doubt I'll be listening often to either the "original" version or the bafflingly titled "classic rock" version.

Half a decade past the peak of his awestruck college-rock acclaim, Stevens counters the inevitability of diminishing returns caused by his lengthy absence with much that sounds as disarmingly New as Illinoise did at the time, not always in such immediate ways. Sounding slightly like a forgotten rejected tune from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, "Owl and the Tanager" is measured, dramatic minimalism, the falsetto and trickery classic Sufjan, the whimsy somehow a different angle. And "From the Mouth of Gabriel" offers operatic baroque pop with a new electro-bounce in its flourishes. Shedding all but the essentials of his melody, the hushed, confident "Arnika" -- the simplest song here -- proves that at its barest, the magic lives; outside of Joanna Newsom, no one wrings so much casual, ornate beauty out of so modest a sound.

But if it's genuinely new territory the listener seeks (which may or may not be the idea; after all, couldn't the EP be designed to stave off protests about a potentially ever more radical full-length?), "Djohariah" delivers. The record's grand finale runs seventeen minutes (longer, for those keeping score, than any of the three much-whined-about closing tracks on Yo La Tengo's Popular Songs of last year), the first nine of which consist of a genuinely disorienting, creepy choral chant behind Sufjan shredding away amateurishly on an electric guitar, wringing sounds from it that are several leagues below Dave Davies but certainly possess comparable goals, if not more apocalyptic ones -- the feeling of mounting chaos from the never-obsolete "Revolution 9" makes a cameo, unnerving and eerily close. When he finally begins to sing, the track becomes only marginally less surreal and disturbing. It's welcome news that Stevens plans to compress his eclecticism and thus challenge his kinder gentler listeners more; all the same, conflicted feelings about this particular execution are difficult to escape. I can't help loving the idea of a lengthy atonal guitar solo, especially on a Sufjan record, but something feels too studied, overwrought about this one, and it does become pretty insufferable and rambling before the halfway point. But no self-respecting fan of the feedback-laden dirge can deny a (nostalgic?) giddiness at the audaciousness of this track. And strangely enough, it's quite catchy.

Maybe, though, for all its detours and indulgences, All Delighted People serves its highest purpose as a kind of reassurance. Those of us who follow great pop music have been waiting for a new song-based Sufjan release for so long we forgot we were waiting for it. Before the crescendo, here's a tiny announcement that our guy is still out there banging away and putting new shit together, only with this particular artist, of course, nothing is ever really tiny, so even his EP has epic pretensions. How could it really be him otherwise? No matter, the net effect is a hit: this is reassuring -- he's still thinking, still preoccupied, still wondering, still our eccentric weirdo, still "just like us" (but so much better).

Did you forget he's a master? One of our brightest lights? You don't even have to pull out your well-worn copies of Illinoise (one of the last physical CDs a lot of us probably bought) and Michigan to bring this back into your fickle consciousness. The moment when I realized the magnitude of Sufjan's return, and how thrilled I am that he's back, was on track number two here, "Enchanting Ghost," ironically one of the two most explicit callbacks back here to Stevens' most famous compositions. That's irrelevant because here it is: the lyrical wisdom and elegant melodies, guitars, candycoated pastoral little soundscapes, strange buried rhythmic suggestions. Oh, but even better: the haunting "Heirloom," here the revival of his folky celebrations of pure gorgeousness that seem to make all other music cease to exist for a few minutes, blissfully drowning in lovely tracked vocals. This noise will never grow too old. Right then, all those qualms and suspicions and mixed feelings about the more overblown moments here (which have their obvious excitment, application, virtue) go away and I can only say: come right on, October 12.

M. Ward: Duet for Guitars #2 (1999)

(Ow Om [orig] / Merge [reissue])

RECOMMENDED

Back in the Nineties, Matt Ward was just one of many acoustic folkies searching for a niche. The album he recorded before the wispy, barbed elements of his best material fell into place, Duet for Guitars #2, might have sounded like nothing special in 1999, but hindsight benefits it. It's possible, with knowledge of brilliant records like Post-War and Hold Time, to approach it as prologue, an identity that suits its elegant, whispered prettiness and tentative melodic quirks.

It also gives ample opportunity to appreciate Ward's guitar playing before it became somewhat iconic. It's great fun to hear the idle strums on the instrumentals, and the calm but insistent chiming everywhere, particularly the slightly Lennonesque "Who May Be Lazy." And dig the Leonard Cohen lick and tonal experimentation on "It Won't Happen Twice." Despite the clear appropriations of these forefathers' ideas, the record mostly sounds ahead of its time, setting a table of sorts for the introspective, quietly ambitious compositions from Iron & Wine and Sufjan Stevens that would light the world up in the next several years.

That said, Duet is still mostly a throwback, and it isn't particularly unique in this sense -- the mixtape-ready "Scene from #12" is half a step away from being an outtake from Beck's One Foot in the Grave, accurately paring down his abrasive folk melodies to a slightly sweeter and more cleanly recorded vocal-guitar combo. Those are gentle Elliott Smithisms you're hearing on the appealingly named "He Asked Me to Be a Snake and Live Underground," a fine song that simply doesn't have much lasting impact. One shouldn't underestimate, of course, the value of something that sounds familiar without being old: "Beautiful Car" features some of Ward's most nuanced double-tracked vocals, and its lyrical suggestions of the Beach Boys' "Ballad of Ole' Betsy" and "This Car of Mine" offer charm to spare.

Ward also exhibits an admirable economy in his songwriting; the achingly beautiful "Good News" and the singsong drone "Fishing Boat Song" could each be a couple of minutes longer without really wearing out their welcome, but they make their respective points and move on. Best of all is the minimal production on "Look Me Over," completely amazing scrappy Euro-folk that has to be one of Ward's greatest songs ever. All of the flourishes he indulges in elsewhere step out of the way for the wonderful churn and elegance of his melody and craft on this one.

"Look Me Over" and "Good News" might be the only truly great cuts here, but there's nothing on the record that's not intriguing and appealing; for sure, I think this is at least as essential as either of Ward's She & Him albums with Zooey Deschanel. It won't blow your mind, but it doesn't want to; it wants to be friends, and as lovely and occasionally hypnotic dinner music, it's a notable success.

Male Bonding: Nothing Hurts (2010)

(Sub Pop)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

If you love music, you live for unexpected discoveries. 2010 has been full of them for me. Here is the latest, a band whose first release has been met with a bottomless pool of Nirvana comparisons. Much to my surprise, then, every time I put it on, I can't stop dancing; no fucking way is it not one of the most glorious albums of the year, and yet how can I really explain why when it's simply in a hallowed tradition, its unique contributions to its genre -- if they exist -- virtually impossible to pin down? This, in other words, is Punk Rock.

What is it about young men blasting out sweet melodies as loud and fast and hard as they can that manages to achieve such consistent eternal grace? No band seems able to pull off more than half an hour of it before it starts to sound stale, but at their first blush, every one of them (or at least a staggering number of them) achieve this odd, life-affirming impeccability on their initial full-force annihiliation of rock & roll. After thirty-five years, how does punk always manage to sound new? How did punk manage to sound new twenty years after rock & roll? Etc.

Male Bonding is a British punk band whose album is a twenty-nine minute thunderbolt of lovably catchy songs couched in feverish energy and unmitigated joy. Only Surfer Blood and Love Is All have recorded straight-ahead rock albums with as much vitality this year. We'll continue to need a neverending supply of young people to fill these holes as they wear themselves out, and Male Bonding is merely the latest in a long line that may or may not be able to capture anything of such immediacy and emotion again. But right now, the world is theirs, and rock & roll is nothing if not a movement of moments. Enjoy this one while it's here, before it becomes as nostalgic as a glass of wine and Is This It.

The impulse to dance and brood flies in with the opening "Year's Not Long," all big riffage and shoegaze vocals, plus irresistible hooks and instant transcendence. The boys keep the monstrously appealing rock & roll coming nonstop, with not a second of breathing space between the thirteen songs, none of which exceed 2:45 and four of which run less than two minutes. And for most of the program, everything is impossibly right: the singing is massive, towering, anthemic, the guitars explosive, the beat pounding. The highlights hammer from all directions afterward with battering-ram force; check out the angular rhythmic trickery on "Crooked Scene" that manages to build to an undeniable raveup. Take a listen to the youthful hooks, vocal interplay, simple but sublime melody (buried behind massive, dynamic guitar, of course) on "Nothing Remains." And best of all, put on "Franklin" and feel the room spinning around in some cosmic meeting between IRS-era R.E.M. and Robert Knight's '60s chestnut "Everlasting Love."

You can spot My Bloody Valentine here and there as well, plus a bit of Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., as in any new band that plays with noise and melody, but the pure pleasures that abound on this LP are an end in themselves; in all seriousness, cue up any of these songs and feel the permanent daylight of guitars chiming, chugging, shouting. Listening to Nothing Hurts feels like being a teenager again, in the best way, all the magnified emotions and dead-eyed understatement and infinite abandon, as though we and the band will live a million years and never feel older than here. When the singer/bassist Kevin Hendrick dismissively contends "I felt like this for ages, just didn't know how to say it," we all stand in angsty solidarity, although it's really the freakish impulsive dancing that Male Bonding involuntarily inspires in me that puts me there.

Admittedly, even at this length, Male Bonding lose some of their momentum near the end. Neither the grungy thrash of "Paradise Vendors" nor the dogged early post-punk imitation "Pumpkin" retain the excitement and power of the better cuts, though stacking their only less than stellar tracks as two of the last three only serves to make everything else more addictive, one ruthless banger effortlessly leading to another.

Nothing Hurts does save its most heartening trick for last; the beautiful acoustic jangle "Worse to Come" is the album's only song without a driving beat, but it will make you shout thanks to whatever heavens that people are still making music so plainly, unpretentiously lovely in a pop/indie context. It will remind you of the stunning Paul Westerberg solo numbers the Replacements used to save for Side Two of their albums, the special bits when the rockers unplug and tell you how they really feel. And better yet, it's succinct, minimal, and boasts piping-hot cynicism, closing on the bitter "Keep her away from me." It is on this cut and "Franklin" that Male Bonding suggests they can contribute more than this single magic moment.

Even if they can't, though, this magic is real -- my choice for the most fun album of the year so far.