The Horrors - Luminous

The Horrors
Luminous
5 May 2014
XL

3 stars out of 5

 

Luminous is the fourth LP by England’s The Horrors, and it explores much of the same fog-shrouded, reverb-obscured ‘80s goth pop of their previous albums. It’s not quite as noisy and edgy as their 2009 LP Primary Colours, instead opting at times for a more dancefloor-ready sound (“In and Out of Sight”) and some sunnier tunes and textures (“So Now You Know”). The result is that The Horrors have given us a superficially pleasant if ultimately unsatisfying record.

Luminous is full of very catchy and pretty things, such as the slightly rock ‘n’ roll-ish “Falling Star” and the Psychedelic Furs-meet-Simple Minds tribute “I See You.” The problem with most of these songs is that they head straight for the gates which guard the path of least resistance. This is the route that some goth and post-punk bands took in the late ‘80s: get rid of all the edges and go straight for the pop. The difference here is that The Horrors are aiming for Superstition without bothering with Kaleidoscope or Hyæna first.

Ultimately, Luminous comes off as more of an exercise in genre and style than as a collection of real compositions. Every song is permeated by the feeling that you’ve heard it before, perhaps many times. While it still may true that there’s nothing new under the sun, The Horrors have proven here that there’s also nothing new under the fog.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

tUnE-yArDs - Nikki Nack

tUnE-yArDs
Nikki Nack
5 May 2014
4AD

4.5 stars out of 5

 

Merrill Garbus’s third LP under the tUnE-yArDs letterhead, Nikki Nack, sees her continuing to explore the intersection of eccentric blues vocals and experimental Afrobeat-ish percussion. Garbus doesn’t have many peers in the genre she’s pioneered—one could draw comparisons to TV on the Radio, or other, less secure comparisons to Meryn Cadell or (if you want to go wayyy back) ESG, but none of these comparisons would be all that accurate. No matter what label you want to attach to her or what genre you want to file her under, Nikki Nack is her best record yet, a triumph of… well, whatever it is that she does.

There are no real album highlights here, as the whole album is one extended highlight. “Sink-O” is possibly the best song I’ve heard all year, though I haven’t heard your rendition of “Happy Birthday” drunkenly sung to your girl/boyfriend that disastrous cold night in February when you forgot her/his name and substituted the name of your ex instead. Everything here is not only good, but great, even the bizarre story-time intermission that is “Why Do We Dine on the Tots?” On Nikki Nack, Garbus’s lyrics are sharper, her vocals are both more refined and more powerful, and her arrangements are more ambitious and more engaging.

tUnE-yArDs have mastered and continue to develop the art of creating incredibly challenging music that is also incredibly catchy. This is high brow art you can dance to and sing along to. While Garbus pushes her vocal melodies further into R&B/pop territory, she also pushes her music further into the experimental. Worried that in a few weeks “Water Fountain” will be heard on that crappy radio station at work, sandwiched between Katy and Ri-Ri? Not bloody likely. Garbus will never be mainstream, not even in a Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” kind of way, so relax.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Lily Allen - Sheezus

Lily Allen
Sheezus
2 May 2014
Parlophone

4 stars out of 5

 

Lily Allen’s third LP, Sheezus, is a controversial and unbalanced affair. On one hand there’s the clever title track, full of disses that mock the very idea of dissing, and on the other hand there’s a third of the rest of the record, which is unfortunately closer to the dull mire of It’s Not Me, It’s You rather than to the jaw-dropping brilliance of Alright, Still. The record starts off strong with “Sheezus,” “L8 CMMR,” and the second single “Air Balloon,” but after that the party stutters along in fits and starts. Still, the strengths of Sheezus far outweigh its weaknesses, and it finishes just as strongly as it begins.

“Insincerely Yours” and “Silver Spoon” are successful manifestations of character Allen created for the album: a superficial, money-focused, boastful, vengeful, and ultimately unlikeable biotch. Basically, she’s Kanye with a vajayjay. Let’s be clear: this is a character. But what if it weren’t a character? Why does Mr. West get accolades for glorifying ego and idiocy, while Ms. West gets nothing but backlash? Allen’s vajayjay is dripping with irony, sarcasm, and a wit that could cut a diamond. She’s the Shakespeare of chav, with lyrical skillz that make Kanye seem like he should go back to repeat the third grade.

While Sheezus has its filler (“Our Time,” tracks 6 to 8), the high points are so high that the rather dull middle section of the record can be forgiven (or at least skipped through on the way to the very rewarding “URL Badman” and onward). Not all of the songs are in the Ms. West character, so it’s not a full-on concept album as such, but the bookends of “Sheezus” and “Hard Out Here” present the subject matter in a manifesto that calls out the hypocrisy of the music industry, the music press, and society in general. “Always trust the injustice ‘cause it’s not going away,” sings Allen on the closing track, and while the injustice isn’t going away anytime soon, neither is Allen nor her need to fight it.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Lykke Li - I Never Learn

Lykke Li
I Never Learn
2 May 2014
LL

4 stars out of 5

 

I feel bad for Sweden. So much great music has been exported from this country with a population only two-thirds that of Istanbul, and pretty much all of it has been in English. Where are the great internationally-known acts who sing only in Swedish? Lykke Li hails from Skåne, a part of Sweden where a dialect is spoken which other Swedes have so much difficulty understanding that it’s often considered a different language altogether. For these poor souls, for whom even Swedish could be seen as the language of a foreign power, English is a second layer of cultural colonization on top.

Lykke Li’s third LP, I Never Learn, is her least experimental and most obviously pop record to date. This doesn’t mean she’s going to be rubbing shoulders with Lady Gaga anytime soon—she’s still far too intense and challenging for that—but present here are several massive radio-friendly hooks that should see Lykke Li’s music playing in homes and businesses who had no idea of her existence before now.

Witness the sing-along ballads “Never Gonna Love Again” and “Heart of Steel,” two tracks that go all-out in their gospel-meets-‘80s pop bombast. Ystad’s favourite chanteuse seems to be reaching for an audience beyond the hipster kids and the swedophiles. For her old fans there’s “No Rest for the Wicked” and “Gunshot,” a pair of dark and edgy tunes that rescue the album from a less happy fate. They are the context by which we can orient ourselves to the ballads; they are the dark matter that holds the universe together. The ballads are very good, and perhaps she is one of today’s finest masters of the form, but all ballads and no play makes Lykke Li a dull artist.

Once all the numbers have been crunched, all the totals tallied, I Never Learn is a third straight victory for Lykke Li. She’s not the same innocent-sounding girl who made Youth Novels, nor is she attempting to retrace old paths. It’s a confident record by a talented artist, one who found her own voice long ago but who isn’t afraid to keep exploring it.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Fennesz - Bécs

Fennesz
Bécs
29 April 2014
Mego

3.5 stars out of 5

 

Vienna’s Christian Fennesz returns with his thirteenth studio LP, Bécs, a record far more guitar-based than much of his previous work. Rather than providing only texture and atmosphere, on tracks like “Static Kings” and “Liminality” the guitar provides the melody and rhythm, a marked step away from his established songwriting techniques. Still, Fennesz uses static as an instrument so often that a lot of the time it’s difficult to tell if your speakers are blown or if that buzz is actually part of the music.

The extended keyboard textures of “Pallas Athene” have the ability to suspend time for the listener. It’s a relatively uncluttered work compared to “Bécs,” a simple piano progression obscured by layers of distortion and static. Even still, “Bécs” is a straight forward folk song compared to “Sav,” a finely detailed drone piece that is the centerpiece of the album, though one that is seemingly at odds with the rest of the music here. The only song approaching glitch an album by an artist traditionally associated with that genre, it sticks out almost unnaturally here.

Where many (most?) electronic composers emphasize the rhythm and use notes and melodies to fill in the gaps or to add flavour, Fennesz is at the opposite pole. His music often has no beat at all, apart from what might be implied by the pulsations of the keyboards or guitars. While some of Bécs drifts towards New Age territory, it’s still a solid album from one of the more interesting artists in electronic music.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Pink Mountaintops - Get Back

Pink Mountaintops
Get Back
29 April 2014
Jagjaguwar
 
3.5 stars out of 5

 

Stephen McBean & Co.’s fourth studio LP under the banner Pink Mountaintops, Get Back is basically a party in your ears. Its hallucinogen-drenched rock ’n’ roll, now baked in the Los Angeles sun instead of soaked in the Vancouver rain, manages to make angst, misery, and fucking wildlife seem like loads of fun. Much of what’s on offer here is traditional rock fare, but performed with the authenticity of someone who places the most emphasis on the second part of “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.” Welcome to 1974, where even the influences hinted at—beginning with the Neu!-like intro of “Ambulance City,” though the Bruce Springsteen tribute that is “Sixteen”—are contemporaneous.

The highlight here is Annie Hardy’s guest rap on “North Hollywood Microwaves,” which simply must be heard to be believed. Go on, YouTube that shit and listen to it now, then come back. I’ll wait. /looks at pictures of cats on Instagram. You’re back? Good. You probably need to take a shower now to get all that cum off your various body parts. Who knows who (or what) it came from, really. There were so many people (and animals) in that dark, sweat-soaked room it was hard to tell. It might even be bear cum for all you know. Regardless of the origin of the semen, your life will never be the same after this moment, after having been fucked multiple times by Hardy and her fellow pleasure dome residents. It’s a change for the better, trust me.

An early contender for the feel-good soundtrack to the summer of 2014, Get Back is a couple of steps below a classic, but not too many paces away from being a favourite. It’s not ambitious, but it’s real, and that counts for a lot these days. It might be wise to cover your furniture with plastic before throwing it on at a house party, just to be safe.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Pixies - Indie Cindy

Pixies
Indie Cindy
19 April 2014
PIAS

2.5 stars out of 5

 

For diehard Pixies fans there are no surprises on Indie Cindy, their favourite band’s first new LP since 1991’s Trompe le Monde. Why, you ask? Because all of the tracks here have been previously released on the three EPs Pixies have put out since September of 2013. Nor would anyone be terribly surprised, having perhaps not heard the aforementioned EPs, that a band that now lacks the tensions it had during the feuding days (whether real, or imagined by the press) between Black Francis and Kim Deal would not have any spark to transform into something resembling the incredible creative spurt it enjoyed from 1987 to 1991. Deal didn’t join the others for this reunion and recording, and while she may have contributed only one song per album (if at all) during the Pixies’ classic period, without Deal’s influence Francis lacks the focus and sharpness (witness his dull and predictable solo career) that made this band one of the greatest of all time.

But perhaps we should ignore Pixies’ past and analyse Indie Cindy in a critical and historical vacuum? Fine. It’s a dull record by anyone’s standards. It’s the kind of uninspired classic rock and roll you’d expect from some forgotten ‘70s or ‘80s band hoping for one last hurrah but lacking any sort of inspiration to pull it off. The only reason I would continue to listen to this record after the first couple of boring tracks is because it says “Pixies” on the cover. And, seriously, what the fuck are they doing trying to sound like AC/DC on “Blue Eyed Hexe”?!? That shit don’t fly.

While there will likely be plenty of worse records this year, there won’t be too many records that are more disappointing than Indie Cindy. It lacks all of the elements—inventive timing, obscure lyrics, in-your-face attitude, epic nerdiness—that made Pixies the legend that they are. While it’s often dangerous for any band to try to re-capture the past, it’s more dangerous to lose touch with the energy and spirit of creativity that made them successful to begin with. Unfortunately, it appears that Pixies have lost touch with pretty much everything.

reviewed by Richard Krueger