Music

After an unabridged listening of Crazy Price, it is still difficult to ascertain exactly how much of each track is live instrumentation and how much is brilliant sample. It hardly matters. This much is known: Messer Chups present us with a highly unique mishmash of film noir sounds.

Originally released in 2001 on the Thule Icelandic label, the re-release of Mum’s debut album was something I couldn’t wait to get my hands on again. This is one of the few albums that I have actually succeeded in playing until the disc itself was completely destroyed.

Oh, Tomlab Records! Can you do nothing wrong? Young Adults Against Suicide is Ninja High School ’s first full-length, following only the 2004 EP entitled We Win, which was released on Steven Kado’s Toronto-based Blocks Recording Club.

The folks at Kill Rock Stars, who usually have better ideas, are re-releasing Linda Perry’s album In Flight, which originally came out on Interscope in 1996. Allmusicguide’s Vincent Jeffries, despite giving In Flight a generally positive review, used the following phrases: “overly personal,” “dangerously sincere,” “excessively self-analytical,” and “weepy predisposition” to describe it. All of those apply.

ADULT. are (aside from being grammatically sensitive about their name) one of those bands whose ideals and creative vision are more easily appreciated than the music that they create. Their desire to craft something new and different – music as an artistic statement – is a noble and interesting endeavor; unfortunately, their angular, effects-ridden brand of techno-laced indie dance rock misses the mark.

How many times this year have I said, “Oh yeah! I can’t wait to get the new Deerhoof album!” It’s getting to the point where specific titles have to be used or else I wind up in the conversation that goes something like: “The new new one, or the new one? Wasn’t that a re-release? Oh, it was just an EP?”

Jagjaguwar doesn’t put out bad records, and No Rest for Ghosts won’t be the exception. Minus Story come to us from Lawrence, Kansas, kind of, but might as well have just stepped of the bus from Athens, Georgia, 1997. This record has a real Elephant 6 Collective feel about it: sprawling psychedelic pop experimentation with simple, catchy melodies.

Tim Kinsella is a figurehead of genuinely progressive music, and Make Believe’s first long-player proves worthy of your should-be high expectations. Immediate comparisons to Joan of Arc are in order since, well, they’re composed of the same members, but what two JofA records sound alike, anyway?

After the breakout success of 2003’s It Still Moves, My Morning Jacket have returned with a major label release that is nothing short of amazing. Their dreary, reverb-laden style of songwriting is stronger than ever and features catchy hooks and vocal melodies that the band hinted at in early recordings, but had never before demonstrated with such strength until now.

Mt. Egypt are the best kept secret in indie music right now. Much as Cass McCombs’ 2003 release A was the sleeper hit of last year, people will be latching onto Perspectives in a few years and proclaiming its brilliance at the top of their blogging lungs. In fact, the comparisons between the McCombs and Mt. Egypt songwriter Travis Graves are many.

Throughout the course of this summer I have been wrestling with a demon. I just can’t shake this sort of sonic-crush on The Strokes. I don’t know when it started, and it’s most certainly embarrassing, but now that I’ve come clean about it perhaps we can deal with it.

Pure metal bands usually leave me feeling less than enamored, but God Forbid is one of the few that I can legitimately say that I enjoy. Sure, there are quite a few uncouth vocal moments, but they’re more than satisfactory at the whole chug, thrash, speed-picking, dueling-high-pitched-harmonies thing.