MusicBoxer.com

Los Campesinos! have released their second (possibly third) album and it is wicked. Romance is Boring was released January and it is chock full of nutty nuts that light up those indy receptors in our ear-tastebuds. Musicboxer’s Free Music Friday featured a song off of the album, “The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future,” and it is still the best thing this album has going for it. Unfortunately it lands later in the album but what precedes it is worth listening to as well. The easy review is if you liked that link off of Free Music Friday then you will appreciate this album.

There is a certain morbidity to this album that reminds me of the COTIcats photoshops from Garrison Dean’s most recent “It’s a Disaster!” column on Io9.com. Basically it is quite a lot of “my crazy girlfriend and death and yelling and I hate the ‘church’ and drowning after falling off of a pier” type of songs. But not any more than say, Pinkerton, really. And the music is definitely an art-rock-noise variant similar to Stars. Which I like a lot. And are made up of members of Broken Social Scene. And are all on the Canadian Label Arts & Crafts.

Really, the back end of this album, starting with “I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know” after an odd coda of a 45 second track is where the meat is. Loud, noisy, messy pop rock goodness. So check it out. It isn’t perfect, but the whole thing is enjoyable to say the least.

No One’s First and You’re Next, the latest and long awaited EP by Modest Mouse, is good classic EP material. It is a collection of different ideas and feelings swept up after the band’s last two albums, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank and Good News for People who Love Bad News and the first EP since Everywhere and His Nasty Parlor Tricks. In one sentence, like most post-studio leftover EPs, it is tasty leftovers without coherence that share the flavor of the original batch. Just like the biscuit recipe says though, you can gather the dough scraps, roll them out and cut more biscuits, but they won’t be as savory and flaky as that first rolled-out batch.

Those folks chanting sell-out over the last album’s mainstream success should appreciate this albums longer instrumentals, dissonance and wall-building sound. “Whale Song” could have been off of an early demo had it worse production values. “Perpetual Motion Machine” has a New Orleans Funeral March feel to it but ends too short. The two singles, “Satellite Skin” and “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” can best be described as the most single-worthy of the bunch. Both feel the most like the previous full length albums and I can easily see how they don’t stand out enough from either album to have them included. “Satellite” has a characteristic Modest Mouse guitar that leads you to feel at home right off the bat.

Of course you can’t discuss this album without including a mention of the “King Rat” music video involving the late Heath Ledger. There, I did it.

As for the song itself, I like the violin and horns. And it carries the storytelling feel of Lonesome Crowded West material.

Overall, No One’s First and You’re Next fits right in with Modest Mouse EPs, and they are better than most EPs. It brings back some of the pre-“Float On” feeling. The singles might fly but “King Rat” and “Whale Song” will last in this fan’s memory.

As an aside during this review I discovered that I have been listening to We Were Dead in the exact opposite track order for the last two years! This may be why I feel that it deserved best album of the year over Neon Bible in 2007. But that’s what you get when you let iTunes control your listening order and somehow the tracks get jacked. The album I’ve always listened to starts with the heavy pounding “Invisible” and ends with the flowing “March into the Sea”. Try it! I don’t think I want to listen to it in the intended order.

Remember the summer of 2001? The dot-com boom had been crashing around us, we had an incompetent yet, at the time, inconsequentially harmless president, and although nothing was great, we were happy, feeling glad and, sardonically, had sunshine in a bag.

Then tragedy rained down in NY. The clear and present target for our angst finished reading a book to an elementary school class and stepped into our crosshairs. Cue hundreds of concise and timely pop-punk albums, including Green Day’s triumphant American Idiot.

Four months into an administration that arguably agrees with most of Billie Joe’s lyrics and spirit from that album comes 21st Century Breakdown. Released in the midst of yet another economic collapse, and without an obvious target for rebellion, the album succeeds where other post-bush regime albums like Bad Religion’s New Maps of Hell fall flat. The album pulls pop-punk heartstrings all the way through.

The album is broken into three acts, each having its own theme of sorts. The acts start with a static-riddled radio-style short song introducing the theme. The first, “Heroes and Cons,” focuses on the empty promises of the new century. The two most outstanding songs in this act are the title track and “Christian’s Inferno.” The title track echoes the trend of “Jesus of Suburbia” (Weezer tried to pull it off with “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived,” YAWN), longer songs moving through style and time signature changes. It ends on a minor key out of beat with the rest of the song, carrying through the empty dreams of generations it speaks to. “Christian’s Inferno” is a ripping, fast-paced pop-punk anthem. Green Day can hit the slow, ballad marks fine but they absolutely destroy the fast strong loud songs, going back to “2,000 Light Years Away,” “She,” and “Basket Case.” “Christian’s Inferno” has that speed and energy plus a dark twist. The single “Know Your Enemy” is in this act and will play well with radio just like “American Idiot” did. But the best material won’t become a single until the end of this album’s life, just like American Idiot.

If you love Green Day, have a sinking sensation that Obama optimism is crushingly inappropriate, or just are hearkening for some Gen X early nostalgia, this is a must-have album.

Yippee more indie dance-that-should-be-rock.

Weezer’s gonna teach baby Jesus to whine.

Guess what? Weezer made a six song disc of Christmas carols. Why do you care? So you can avoid it like the plague. Lacking dynamics, creativity and depth this album can’t even call itself worthy of the rock-legend catalog of holiday puerile dredge.

A caveat: My favorite Christmas-themed album is Bad Religion’s Christmas Sampler. My favorite songs involving the holidays usually involve prison, such as John Prine’s “Christmas in Prison” or The Pogue’s brilliant “Fairytale of New York.” And I could not stand Sarah Mclachlan’s venture. Ami Mann’s take on the season was by far the best recent attempt. So an empty carol entry was bound to fail in my eyes. And it did.

The characteristic successes of Weezer involve building stunning emotional crests out of simple subtle initial introspection. One might expect that a carol such as “Oh Holy Night” could surge in a similar fashion. Instead it enters with a basic arpeggio and Cuomo whining. Enter the drums after one line and the song has reached climax. One finds a yearning to hear Cartman’s rendition. At least that song has motivation.

The altogether much too brief guitar solos in “Oh Holy Night” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” are the only points of excitement in the entire release. Besides these moments the songs enter at the same level and volume as they exit. No one wants to be wished a merry Christmas by a generic distorted guitar rhythm track. But they will be playing the fuck out of this thing in Macy’s Elevators and around Dillard’s escalators next year I promise you. So look out for these tracks and dodge them before they hit your ears.