Hector Faceplant

Cry About It

     Sean Sulac + Liz Carroll + Jason Thompson = Hector Faceplant. I've been enlisted to review their new CD, Cry About It, so I've been spinning it for a week now, and having a good time in the process, because this band delivers. I love rock trios. There's just something about that stripped-down sound.
     Hector Faceplant grew out of Pomo Christi, a venerable local group, memorable to me for having opened for Fugazi some years back at the Rivermarket. The spirit of Pomo Christi hovers over HFP. Some of the lyrics are by Pomo's Jenifer Hamel, who is now living up in Chicago. Liz Carroll, bassist, singer, and sometime lyricist for HFP was also a member of Pomo Christi.
     HFP likes what they're doing a whole lot, and it shines out of every crevice on this CD. From fast tempo punk numbers to more contemplative material, these rather clipped offerings exceed themselves from listen to listen. Though the HFP holds its own throughout, there are a few bands that come to mind here. One is vintage SST bands from the 1980s like Husker Du and Minutemen. Maybe it's the trio format, but I hear shades of Mike Watt & co. wailing along on those bass lines and arrangements. My mind also drifts to the Meat Puppets here and there as well. Another trio, I know. Maybe it's the surreal aspects of some of the lyrics, or maybe it's that third cup of tea I just had. The lyrics make no attempt at linearity and non sequiturs abound. This obfuscation works after repeated listenings, however, as meaning emerges through the often coded ranting. There's a certain magic to emotionally exhorting poetic verses over loud guitars, as we all know. Sulac does most of this exhorting, and to good effect. What we are left with are shards of personal risk, triumph, failure, and some dirty sheets-sometimes all at once. You can't live without getting dirty after all. Like an ashtray full of butts, at least it's getting used. Where linearity does prevail, the subject matter blows your mind, like "Ecoli," where anal germophobia is aired to comic effect. I'll never shake hands in public again! I'm tempted to say that this is mostly Sulac's party, as he pens most of the songs, but then I'm guessing that it's not by design, just by natural proliferation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like what gets written gets played, no matter who comes up with it.
     When bassist Liz Carroll isn't singing lead vocals, she's adding strong harmonies. The tandem harmonies on several of these songs are really nice, not too far a field of X's John Doe and Exene Cervenka. Oh yeah, and drummer Jason Thompson holds down the fort with some well-placed thunder! All fired up and ready to...cry? Yeah, ultimately that's where it's all going, but it's the ride that counts, right?
     If I had to say one critical thing, it would be that the opening dream monologue might have been placed elsewhere on the CD (preferably at the end). Maybe placing it up front was meant to fly in the face of convention, but for me, it just stalls the show. The arty dream theme is all well and good, but as the British say, it might be a bit over-egged. To occupy pole position with a lengthy soliloquy probably seemed like a good idea, but you have to hear it right up front every time you throw on the CD. And it's not like it's exactly hypnotic or psychedelic. So, dear reader, after an initial listen, punch past track one and enjoy the show.
     If you haven't picked up Cry About It yet, I advise you to run over to Anthropop and throw some money at Rod. You can also buy it through Hectorfaceplant.com. And if you want to hear more, pick up the faster and much shorter Corporate Sponsored Churches for an eleven-song lesson in brevity, clocking in at just over 22 minutes.
CHARLIE JAMES

Kings of New England
On the Cusp

      On the Cusp is an album of dramatic entrance and exit strategies. Intros lever second intros. Verses splinter jagged instrumental breaks. Choruses cede to codas. Like wheels turning wheels, song parts revolve, accelerate, and redouble their strength. Though convoluted in their machinations, these songs speak passionately. All too often, technically difficult music is cerebral, logical, and cold, and it suffers from a lack of emotion. Here the opposite is the case. The Kings of New England play music that is as involved and intricate as it is expressive and bold. The band's songs ripple with drastic, dynamic changes and it's within these transitions that the power of the band becomes apparent. Whether landing together at the closing snap of high hats or pounding out rapid quarter notes in unison, the Kings slam into song sections with an acute commitment to dramatic impact. Constantly renewing itself, this album showcases incendiary performances fueled by hard work and difficult forms. It eschews the pat conventions and pre-cooked methodology of current trends, steering clear of the trappings of both nu metal's power-chug anthems and indie-pops's falsetto-boy ballads. It challenges the isentropic flow of dead flavors. It rocks.
      Any random scan of this disc turns up moments of individual brilliance. Check out the furious, Damon Che-like drum work on "Dot the I," the brainy, terse guitar figures running throughout "Are You the Kid," or the loping, up and down bass lines that drive the verses of "Ruined." Alone, these sections impress, but the greater promise of the album lies in its collaborative gestures. Guitarists Tommy Atkinson and Jonathan Haguewood double their respective powers through compelling, complimentary guitar work. These two pile chord voicings in stacked structures remarkable for dissonant overtones and high-gain agility. "Woodson Lateral" in particular speaks like this, beginning with an arpeggiated figure that jolts to a stop as the song dives and runs through its falling chromatics.
      Likewise bassist Paul Warden and drummer Christopher Byrne impress dually.
      Warden's low-end melodicism and Byrne's firework drumming speak loudly throughout this release. Check "Tie Yr Shoes" where Warden's gritty bass nudges Byrne's snare, nosing accents out of the tune's martial tempo. Revisiting the bridge to "Woodson Lateral" finds Warden dropping a speedy, four-note walk-down into Byrne's double-time workout. Like Atkinson and Haguewood, these guys play well as a pair, matching each other's intensity without steering the songs into ridiculous behavior. Overall, there's a we-run-as-a-pack mentality here that keeps this band away from showboating. These guys chop hard and it pays off. Without the effort, On The Cusp would surely warrant much less attention.
      Not to be overlooked, the other key player here is singer Roger Barrett. The owner of an impressive baritone, Barret commands air time like an electric-veined drill sergeant. An ingenious elocutionist, he jabs his lyrics in and around this band's bad-ass post-punk choogle by keeping his words close to the riff. Just check the way he slings a phrase in the disc's opener "Topper Harley." Here he repeats his phrases, draping his words in shifting postures around the song's central groove. The line "no matter what you do or say" returns again and again, newly attired at each turning. Barrett plays off both the desperation of the line as well as the rhythmic pulse driving the song. It's fantastic work.
      In band press, apt comparisons point from Barrett to Fugazi's Guy Picciotto. And for this review, if any one band need be presented as a reference point, Fugazi makes good. These bands share the same dramaturgy, the same passionate musicianship tempered by a collective identity. But Picciotto's pre-Fugazi band, the Rites of Spring, also keeps coming up in reference to the Kings of New England. Being a fan of all three of these outfits, I'd have to place the Kings above the Rites, primarily for the control Barrett brings to the table. Sure, Picciotto screams his ass off on that Rites record, but Barrett does a better job of putting his emotions on the line with well-placed histrionics. Heresy I know, but I'll take On The Cusp over that old Rites CD any day.
      Also unlike Picciotto's socially conscious diatribes, Barrett's uses his authority to relay lyrics with a personal vision. Loss, regret, and frustration all play out in his songs, but unlike most emo-pity-me-crooners, Barrett delves in more than hurt feelings and heartbreak. A strata of dream imagery pokes through many of these songs, pushing them into surreal territory. But what really sparks investigation is the way in which the personal meets the universal in the album's final song. In "the future minus," Barrett howls that the burden of the zodiac "has broken my back." Here the albums finds its calling, both literally and figuratively. Barrett addresses being "On The Cusp" both in his horoscope and in his mind. He's crushed by an outer burden, a mythical, thematic posture that he claims for himself with corporeal acuity. The weight of conflicting star signs symbolizes a sort of existential conflict that Barrett identifies as his own, peculiar cross to bear. Once again, all of this would deserve less attention if not for the power of the performance. The strength of Barrett's vocal delivery gives his lyrics a totemic, emotive power. Even his most cryptic observations ring like emotional truths. Throughout Barrett sounds driven to disclosure by intense reflection, giving all of these songs a powerful, confessional tone.
      There's a great deal to admire in this CD-outstanding musicianship and powerful vocal performances being paramount. The only small criticism is that so much relentless riffage can feel overwrought. One wonders if the entrancing, cello touched "Asleep in Wolves Clothing" really needed that final push towards the stratosphere. Likewise the ambitious "Golden Cove" might more effectively tell its maritime tale if streamlined. Also, Barrett suffers somewhat in this mix. I don't know if its early room reflections or some other microphone issue, but the voice sounds misplaced. Barrett needs to be up front and center. As is, he sounds like he's shouting from the back of the room. Thankfully, he commands attention even from this unfortunate location.
      But really, all this is chump change in a register filled with large bills. On The Cusp breaks the bank. The energy here drives powerful music-concussive songs rippled by intense performances. These five kings display great instincts and prowess. Here's to their continued reign in the future plus.
CHARLES WYRICK

CHRISTOPHER DENNY
Christopher Denny

     Christopher Denny, whose self-titled debut album was released last month, is the oldest twenty-two year old on the planet. He seems to have come of age sometime in the '30s or '40s, in the numberless dusty small towns and on the single-lane highways of the American interior, in the company of an itinerant cohort of men whose shoes were soled with cardboard but whose hearts were tender, and who were buoyed along in the margins of society by bad times and good love and the ability to turn all it into a song.
      The songs that Chris Denny sings on this album-nine are his and three are covers-are in many ways straight out of that era. Their rhythms are energetic but uncomplicated, like the rhythms of trains, or chain gangs, or spit-shined couples stomping politely through coordinated dance steps. Lyrics for the most part are equally modest, the interior laments of a narrator looking for a girl ("Lookin' For You"), or regretting the loss of a girl ("All Burned Up"), or not quite regretting the loss of a girl ("Gypsy into a Carpenter"). Chords raise simple questions and resolve them in sunny, stair-step progressions. The production, on a couple of tunes, gives his voice a Pinocchio-in-the-whale echo, as though it were calling up through the years. Even his language is old-fashioned, the spidery script on a penny postcard: he "drifts from town to town" (who was the last twenty-two year old to drift? Hank Sr.?), his "rambling shoes don't fit anymore," he'd "rather lay down and die," he "burns, burns, burns," he "cries and cries and cries."
      There is one reason Chris Denny gets away with all this, and that is Chris Denny's voice. Though it, too, sounds like it belongs to a sun-dried sharecropper in a WPA photograph, it is anachronistically vital, as though that sharecropper were young and hale and retouched in Technicolor. It has something of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's high-wire whine and Roy Orbison's throaty moan, but it is not exactly like either of those. It is sometimes like being licked and sometimes like being strangled. It is both smooth and peppery, wave and particle. It is impossible not to orient yourself to it, like a pole. He exerts over it a preternatural control: Here it is clenched and mournful, holed up in the center of his skull, here it is lean and elastic, here so thin the light shines through it. He makes it sound effortless, but there is heat coming off of it; his high notes are cauterizing.
      Denny says more with his voice and music, actually, than he does with his words. The songwriting style he seems to be emulating, the simple-unto-cliched lyrics, the block-lettered cartoons that stand in for subjects, reads a little strangely today, an imitation in danger of being a caricature. Simplicity is a tall order these days, and his has neither the spoken-word poetics of Lou Reed's verses nor the charming, biting, reading-bad-news-from-a-teleprompter quality of Johnny Cash's. Although these are all songs of heartbreak and restlessness-fine things for a young man to be singing-it's hard to tell exactly what the trouble is. "There's no time to cry," he says in "Wake Up," decisively if vaguely, "I'd rather lay down and die." In "Apology," he adds, "I know nothing's gonna change/if I don't take the time to rearrange/I cry because I couldn't see the light."
      On the other hand, Denny's music knows exactly what the trouble is, and the joy and the heartbreak, too. The foot-stomper "Hearts on Fire" is a tour-de-force of major chords and golden crooning. On eight of the tracks he plays a drawling harmonica, which underlines the melodies with a pretty twang. And "Goin' Home," one of the best songs on the album, is wordless, a bubbly ditty with a harmonica melody that jigs uphill to a breathless conclusion, like a beloved traveling tune the words have worn off of. Even Denny, who can't resist humming a few bars in the middle, knows to leave it alone.
      One of his most interesting songs, "When Will I Realize," seems to point the way to another level of songwriting, or at least a more contemporary one. He addresses someone who feels real-"I remember when you took off/It was just like that/Deep inside we all thought you were looking/for someone to cut you some slack." The song builds slowly, sort of a latter-day "Like a Rolling Stone;" a personal commentary instead of a social one, anguished instead of angry. The chorus, when it hits, only twice in the eight-minute song, is a masterpiece of airtight paradox-"When am I gonna realize/I really, truly do care."-that sounds current, even new.
      Denny can cover songs like nobody's business. A gut-wrenching version of Orbison's "I'm Hurtin'" was a standout at a recent show at Whitewater Tavern in Little Rock, and the five notes at the end of his cover of "Frankie and Johnny" are surely five of the most goosepimply in the history of "Frankie and Johnny" covers. It's as though he needs to channel other people's experiences while he waits for his own to catch up with the complexity of his emotions and the range of his talent. All the "drifting" he does in his songs is a placeholder for a whole life, full of real rambling, that will eventually, hopefully, provide material enough for his old soul.
      One of the last songs Denny played at the show at Whitewater was a cover of Neil Young's coming-of-age anthem, "Powderfinger," which he sang at his preferred pitch, high, and tempo, up. In a lot of ways it was the perfect song for Denny-hammering drums, big gnashing chords, a twenty-two-year-old hero with a loaded gun and a reason to use it-and its effect on the packed house was like a match on a tank of gas. The penultimate verse, "Raised my rifle to my eye/Never stopped to wonder why/And I saw black and my face splashed in the sky," and the ensuing instrumental mayhem jacked the place up to the rafters. Maybe he hasn't gotten where he's going, yet, but you could see it from there.
LAUREN WILCOX

THE GOOD FEAR
Keep in Touch

     There's been a lot of talk lately in the Arkansas press about a perceived shift in the cultural center of the state from Fayetteville to Little Rock. While martini and karaoke bars replace live music venues on Dickson Street, Little Rock is undergoing a sort of creative renewal, with local artists of all stripes receiving unprecedented support from the community. Drop by the Whitewater on any Tuesday night for proof of enthusiastic support for the city's original live music scene.
     I was at the Whitewater on a recent Tuesday when someone handed me the new Good Fear record Keep in Touch. Stumbling through the bar with a glass in one hand and the Good Fear disc in the other, I was stopped several times and told how great the record was. Despite the fact that the Fayetteville-based band has hardly played in Little Rock, they obviously have many fans in town.
     The Good Fear plays Southern indie rock. The lap steel, slide guitar, and piano hint at 70s rock radio-but the smart, inventive songwriting takes the album out of Allman Brothers territory and into the realm of recent pop gems from the Shins and A.C. Newman.
     More than a couple of moments on the album ("Thieves" and "Blow Away") are reminiscent of recent (more subtle) Sonic Youth. And like those recent Sonic Youth records, Keep in Touch is packed with moody late-night laments. But the mellow ("Mailman" and "To Hold Your Own Funeral") give way the raucous and energetic ("Tonight," "Blow Away") in good measure.
     With the exception of one track, the album was recorded by Zach Holland at the band's practice space in Fayetteville. While it sounds interesting, a couple of the tracks almost get lost in muddy lo-fi distortion. But what the record lacks in sonic detail it makes up for with charm and smart arrangements. Standout tracks like "Keep in Touch," "The Way You Were," and "Thieves," serve as a reminder of the power of well-written, well-performed songs to transcend recording techniques and studio wizardry.
     Zach Holland recently moved from Fayetteville to Little Rock-score one more for Little Rock in the state's culture war. Here's hoping for a Good Fear show at the Whitewater on a Tuesday night very soon.
JASON WEINHEIMER

SUGAR AND THE RAW Translucent

     There are certain genres of music that are inherently hard for bands to venture into. Among those, Southern rock is perhaps the most difficult for two reasons: it requires a relatively high level of execution and it's rife with cliché. With Translucent, Sugar and the Raw has produced a work that not only demonstrates that the band has the necessary chops to pull off a demanding style of rock 'n' roll, but that also suggests that they can avoid the obvious and tired-a difficult combination
     This record is a kind of departure for Sugar. Previously labeled by many as not much more than a good party band, the new material has a drive and direction not before found in their catalogue. Invariably, this is the result of another year's worth of effort refining what the band does and what they are about. But there's more.
     Singer Mason Mauldin has begun to play rhythm guitar, and while this may not seem like much of a change in direction, the affect is considerable. It makes the new stuff rock. In fact, there are flashes when it rocks hard (see opening track, "Henry Gates"). Moments of atmospheric moodiness also appear, such as on the closer, "Make Believe," featuring Mike Motley's soulful organ and Conrad Burnham's Robby Kreiger-esque slide guitar solo. Other highlights include the sing-song give and take of "Again and Again" and the sweeping chorus of "Living the Life".
     Without a doubt, however, the high point of the record is the gleeful charm and energetic rush of "Hope You Don't Mind." Set firmly in the middle of the record, the song is pure pop bliss. Put into the right and lucky hands, this sparkling gem could produce a lot of revenue. Unfortunately, it's immediately followed by "Tap Out," the record's lone detractor.
     Veterans of SATR's live act know there's a good time to be had. But frequently the show is muddled and chaotic. With two guitars, bass, drums, keys, horns, percussion, a slew of vocal harmonies, and varying sound conditions and engineers, this problem is nearly impossible to avoid. Thankfully, Translucent overcomes this difficulty with a combination of fine production and exquisite mix. The result is a well and thoroughly textured landscape full of rock 'n' roll history. And it's fun.
DAN JOHNSON

MICHAEL GOODRICH Late at Night in a Monaural World

     Last March, Michael Goodrich sat down at his dining room table and recorded a series of intimate, rambling tunes. Over the course of just two days, he wrestled a variety of instruments and came up with performances alternately sinister and humorous, mellow and anguished, all drenched in reverb and delay.
     Anyone who pays attention to live music in Little Rock knows Michael from his gig as frontman for the improvisational rock band Parachute Woman. Iconoclastic scofflaws, they generally shun formal set lists in favor of launching into musical adventures that defy the tired term "jam band." That sense of abandon permeates Late at Night in a Monaural World, albeit in a different format. This is Goodrich's show, and it's a one-man, three-ring circus of blues.
     A mix of originals and standards, the songs range from the good time rave-up "They're Red Hot," a Robert Johnson classic (wherein Goodrich demands, "Someone play a trumpet or something!" before scat-singing the solo he needs) to meditative, minimalist instrumentals like "Monosqatsi," a track Goodrich dedicates to Philip Glass. With just one man and one instrument (and no overdubs), he manages to wrangle a startling variety of musical perspectives across the album's 13 cuts.
     The quality of the performances vary, with some cuts suffering from an excess of treble, persistent feedback, and dead air. There are some spots where Goodrich loses the groove, but overall the album sustains a continuous and peculiar mood similar to the ramshackle performances Alan Lomax recorded in the '30s and '40s.
     Limitations aside, this CD glows like a diner at 3AM.
COLTER MCCORKINDALE

BIG STAR In Space
   So I thought that last Big Star album was their supernova. And no, I don't mean that live CD from the University of Missouri. Their last studio album. You know, the one from 1978-Third/Sister Lovers. That's the one that changed the universe, which is not such a bold claim when you consider how many musicians continue to name that album as a major influence. Back in the '90s, everyone from REM to Wilco to the Posies pointed to this obscure Memphis LP when taking the pop press name-something-seminal-to-you quiz. Jeff Buckley covered "Holocaust," Elliott Smith did "Nighttime." Even the mighty Paul Westerberg paid his respects in a bouncy single named after Big Star's enigmatic singer, Alex Chilton. And it's no wonder. Listening today Third/Sister Lovers still beguiles. Meeting it on its own terms, it swings wide and wild. The rock songs careen into night-drowned ballads. The quiet tunes bump into kinetic rave-ups. At times it all seems bruised and fragile, at others, exuberant and explosive. Third allows itself to be riotous when it's going up and fractious when it's coming down. It's power pop nonpareil. But more than anything, it sounds like a band intentionally ripping itself apart.
     So now, ahem, 27 years later, it seems that third record isn't the goodbye that it still feels like. Alex Chilton and original drummer Jody Stephens have joined forces with two of their most talented devotees, Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, to record a new Big Star studio album. And though diverse, the result, In Space, beguiles in a different way.
     Initially "In Space" sets itself up as a sunny collection of songs. From the flirtatious opener, "Dony," to the guitar-whipped gallop of "Best Chance," this new Big Star release prances like an optimist. Thankfully there's enough grit around these recordings to elevate them beyond simple, sugary pap. Still, the mood is upbeat. The good vibes extend all the way through Chilton's light-hearted lyrics into the refreshingly giddy performances by the band itself. To further brighten these arrangements, a new infatuation with Beach Boys harmonies imbues many of these tracks. It's almost impossible to imagine any of these songs succeeding without those soothing backing layers of ooos and ahhhs, especially when it comes to considering "Turn My Back On the Sun," a song that could never exist if Brian Wilson had failed to pen "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Music allusions aside, the tone and attitude here is vintage Big Star-ebullient, hopeful, and catchy as hell.
     Unfortunately, the other side to the Big Star legend, the introspective, meandering, quiet side, doesn't make an appearance anywhere on this release. In its place, Alex and his present assembled company offer an unfortunate set of goofy pranks coyly disguised as genre tipping send-ups. The disco-ish "Love Revolution," the Stooge-y "Makeover" and the bar-band predictable "Do You Wanna Make It" all disappoint. If not for Stephens' imaginative drum fills and the equally gracious guitar work of Auer, Stringfellow, and Chilton, these songs would seem wholly recorded on autopilot.
     But that's not to say the entire outing is a wash. "February's Quiet" and the dream-tinted "Lady Sweet" stand out strongly from the pack. These two songs are quintessentially Big Star-raw in the guitar and sweet in the melody. And really, no one can match this band when they're chasing the right hook.
     Although "In Space" reaches neither the highs nor the lows of its infamous predecessor, it offers several songs that sit comfortably alongside their best. So looking up into the night sky, you might notice a smudge next to a really bright star. That's a partially muted star, the fourth in an obscure constellation. Though not spectacular, it's good to know it's there.
CHARLES WYRICK

LUCERO Nobody’s Darlings
 When I was seventeen, I took a short road trip with some friends. When we got to Memphis, Ben Nichols-the future front man of Lucero-came out to meet us and show us the town. We piled in the back of his car and took off.
     Red Forty, his former band, had just broken up, but burned bright enough in their criminally short time together to leave me a lifelong member of the Cult of Ben Nichols. The man could do no wrong as a songwriter in my mind, and by extension the man could do no wrong, period. That said, I had hardly ever talked to him and was curious to see what he was about. I remember trying to record and analyze the minutiae of his car-the bumper stickers, the tape in the stereo, the magazines strewn across the floor. It feels slightly creepy in retrospect, but at the time those details were my best hope of getting to know more sides of a musician I looked up to.
     The first stop on our Memphis tour was a foundation of an abandoned railroad bridge. Ben parked the car at a steep drop-off at the edge of an overgrown ravine littered with shopping carts, burned out cars, and probably more than one corpse. Fifty feet above our heads, a rusted train track stretched lazily off into the distance.
     Ben was shy about showing us this place, saying something to the effect of, "I don't know whether you guys will like this. It's just a place that I thought was interesting." I mention that afternoon because it was a turning point for me in how I viewed Ben. He started to remind me less of Blake Schwarzenbach and more of Breece D'J Pancake: His modus operandi as a musician seemed to me less about chunking out a three-minute pop song and more about being a conduit for something with a genuine narrative behind it, something that shines a light in each of us precisely because it comes from a place that is completely quotidian. A place that he doesn't know whether we'll like, just a place he thought was interesting.
     This is why I like Lucero records, and why I particularly like their latest album. That and because Nobody's Darling is a fucking rock record.
     Gone are any vestiges of alt. country or punk rock. This is a record that exhumes the bodies of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Guns 'n' Roses and runs them roughshod over the twee contrivances that pass for bands these days. It chops and hacks at bands like the Fiery Furnaces, Franz Ferdinand, Bright Eyes, and Spoon and recalls a time when rock was sweaty, raw, devoid of irony, and unencumbered by the sad and meaningless prefix "indie."
     The credit is to be split four ways. First, Brian Venable's return to the band marks a shift in Lucero's guitar dynamic. Former guitarist Todd Gill created subtle, blended, and often understated lines that would smooth the rough edges of a song, providing a backdrop for the vocals that revealed itself slowly, upon multiple listens. Venable, however, goes for the throat and stays there, with frenetic and raw lines on songs like "Noon as Dark as Midnight" and "Last Night in Town" that lead the pack in the aforementioned Skynyrd exhumation.
     Roy Berry has always been the weapon-X of the band, and he doesn't disappoint on this record. His boom-boom-CHACK-boom-boom-CHACK-boom on "Bikeriders" simultaneously anchors and threatens to destroy the song. John Stubblefield's methodic and driving interplay on bass cements Lucero's rhythm section as a Mid-South strip club's answer to Sly and Robbie.
     Finally, Nichols's songwriting is at its finest on this record. At the moment, my favorite offering is "Bikeriders," a song that feels like the American answer to Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." It's Nichols's strongest narrative to date, detailing the formation and dissolution of the bad love of Benny, a biker with a penchant for getting beaten up by bar patrons, and Kathy, his long suffering woman. The imagery is strong to the point of being painful ("He made it from the club room all the way out to the street/They beat him with their bar stools, but he made it on his feet"), but what I like most about the song is the narrator's shift at the end. He stops recounting events and talks openly with Kathy, the song's victim: "Kathy you mean it this time/just leave in the middle of the night." It's an interesting situation; the word "you" always crops up in love songs, but almost never in a story-driven piece. It indicates an involvement in the characters' lives on the part of the songwriter and a desire to split a song's perspective that feels refreshing and satisfying. It rescues the song from cliché: Benny and Kathy don't slowly morph into Jack and Diane.
     "Sixteen" is another song that slays me. Young love is a familiar trope in Lucero's catalogue, but again Nichols plays with perspective in a way that elevates the song from lesser attempts in the genre. The narrator tries to piece together a woman's entrée into love and lust as only those under voting age can feel it: "At the end of the bar with the boys she orders a drink over the noise/As she pays she sings in time 'I am so unsatisfied."' (A nod to the Replacements is always a good call, of course). The man chronicling these events wasn't there, but acts as historian, putting together this woman's liminal and defining moments with a tenderness and eye for detail that is shrewd and resonant.
     Nobody's Darlings shows us a band at the height of its powers. A relentless touring schedule and an ever-improving live set have left Lucero a rabid following in almost every town in the States. They evoke a feeling of rusted-out train tracks and the dilapidated South. Their music is personal and beautiful and helps us find glory in the everyday things. The album's titular track deals with the idea of being an underdog, unblessed by the nepotism and blinding hype that many bands seem to be born with at the moment. But at the end of the day, it's a wink as opposed to a letter of resignation. Sure, they're nobody's darlings, but that hasn't stopped them yet.
DAVID SLADE

STEPHEN MALKMUS Face The Truth
  Somehow I finished the '90s without ever having heard of Pavement. I guess between the orthodontist and the young adult novels, there wasn't much time, especially when you factor in high school sports and Amnesty International. Come to think of it, there wasn't really, er, time for a lot of things that I like to refer to as the "trappings of adolescence;" you know, like dating and parties and whippets.that sort of thing.
     But anyway, I first heard Slanted and Enchanted in 2004. I told the Localist editors that the Pavement people (because, yes, they comprise sort of a genre) were going to get angry because I can't reliably compare the past with the present. So I just wanted to apologize, and ask that if you could please pretend that Malkmus created Face the Truth in a vacuum, I will spare you any lame attempts at Malkmus-makes-a-marked-departure-from-his-previous-work-type analyses.
     I bring all this up not just as a self-indulgent disclaimer, but also because Malkmus, on this album, seems to be grappling with the idea of fame. Not like E! Entertainment Television celebrity fame, but a fame I think we could call "indie-llectual," that of people like Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola and Dave Eggers and maybe Malkmus himself.
     Take "Pencil Rot," the opening track, full of fabulous electronic bursts that bring to mind car chases and superhero fist fights. When Malkmus belts, "I'm here to sing a song, a song about privilege/The spikes you put on your feet when you were crawling and dancing to the top of the human shit pile," he could be talking in general rat-race terms. But when, in taunting falsetto, he adds, "Somehow you managed to elucidate something that was on all of their minds.and all the people see themselves in you and I can see them in you too" he's made his critique a little more pointed toward the indie-llect, whose success is not about mere sex appeal and ambition, but emotional resonance with its longing public. This coming from one of (I read this on allmusic.com) the Fathers of Indie Rock is no small thing.
     His snide opinion of artsy celebrity is further heightened on "Post-Paint Boy," where Malkmus turns his disdain toward the contemporary art scene, home to the most notoriously overrated indie-llecutals. Maybe I'm wrong, but I hear sarcasm when he tells the post-paint boy he's proud of him for being "the maker of modern minor masterpieces for the untrained eye."
     While much of Face the Truth is smart and at times sublime, the loser tracks nearly bring it to its knees. "I've Hardly Been," marches tediously along, featuring the cliché that "normal is weirder than you would care to admit." The track "No More Shoes" falls into a jam band-like chaos that lasts for much of its eight minutes. "Mama" is an indulgence of domestic nostalgia with an opening throwback to the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La Da" ("Mama's in the kitchen with the onions/Dad is in the back with ol' Hank"). Where the album often best succeeds is not in social indictment but in soaring emotion, as on the tracks "It Kills," and the particularly lovely "Loud Cloud Crowd."
     Throughout, Malkmus's guitar playing is skillful and varied, his forays into electronic sound largely successful. And if it feels like there's an underlying critique, it's an admonishment to have more faith in your own self-expression, an assertion that genuine creativity is much more charming than name-dropping. As Malkmus says on "It Kills," "There's more to you than what you think at me."
EMILY WITT

THE TICKLE Ifihadahifi
     So I slog home from the day job, pick the locks, and swerve to the sofa, whereupon I now find my person upended there, prone. The eyelids pour themselves closed and just sort of gloat there, chucking and twitching, amazed at their accomplishment. Time is tenuous, and I seem to be snoring. Add to this the soft whirr of a rotating fan.I hear my girlfriend tap on the home stereo, and then the spin of a CD, and, somehow, I am inside of a whale. And not just any whale, but the Old Testament kind, where that guy just sort of rides around for a while and gets lost from the world.
     The music is just that kind of music, the kind that takes you on a not-unpleasant inside-of-a-whale ride. It's not too talky, and it has massive groove; a groove so thick that it feels like a protective coating, as if it could cradle your lungs by head-lamp at the bottom of the Atlantic, like one of those Jules Verne reinforced deep-sea diving suits with the lead shoes and piped-in oxygen. Don't get me wrong, there's some sweet little trebly things in there, too-maybe some "whut-ups" from a couple of class-cutting seahorses, and some tasteful samplings and texturing along the way, but no winking joy-buzzer surprises, and nothing to take away from the whole I-got-your-back gestalt.
     Back on land, I ask around and find that the scoring of my aqua adventure squarely rest upon the shoulders of Fayetteville's the Tickle, and their release Ifihadahifi. I'm happy to attest that repeated listens bear truth to my dream-gladdened bleats, with regard to its positive/proactive (laundry-folding) grooviness, and also to its welcome nix on the vocals. Kudos to the lads for heeding that the adage "If you can't say something nice..." does hold certain merits.
     A quick glance at Ifihadahifi's song list will leave one still the happier that the Tickle have taken the fifth on lyricizing their gorgeous tunes, as a mind-baffling silliness pervades it. Would we really be remiss for leaving to someone with the peculiar talents of, say, Ween to come up with the verbiage to suit such titles as "Tadpole Pete and His Stinky Feet" or even "Pariah Carey"? I should think not. The tunes themselves work as stand-alone creations, and I am plenty glad to take this ride sans narrator, submerged in the Tickle's blessed soundtrack.
JEFF DEE LAUX

THE BODY The Body LP
Whether in pre-Copernican thought or a peculiar contrivance of the future, this record places the Body at the center of Earth's gravitational pull. Aligned with all of nature's courses, this assemblage pummels along, crushing everything in its path, but not in an aggressive way. The Body LP exercises all aspects of the Body, and not just the muscles.
     It's nice these days to put on a truly honest record, not some witty, post-intellectual sarcasm produced in the late screamo era. The album, produced in Providence, features only Chip and Lee, alumni of such illustrious Little Rock bands as Generation of Vipers and the Divine Hook-up.
     For all "the industry's" problems with downloading music, it's ironic that the punks and other vinyl-appreciating subgenres have maintained a tangible collecting relationship between artist and audience. Get this record, because it is an art object.
     While beautiful to hold, these loud, repetitive song structures are not relaxing or docile by any means. Powerful, organic drones come from the guitar on top of drums gracefully hammered out like skipping stones from the gods. Though working in a traditional rock set-up, the second chord often doesn't come until four minutes after the start of the first, giving patience regeneration in a land of immediate convenience. (Rumor has it that at the Knitting Factory, a rock club in Manhattan, their show was stopped because of volume and nausea.) And while not for everyone, this can be extremely satisfying for those who seek to question why music like this is made by choice. The Body pushes the (skin) envelope further still with this monolithic LP.
ELI MONSTER

LYRICS BORN Same !@#$ Different Day
      Producer/multi-instrumentalist Todd Rundgren said, some ten years ago, that an important development in the future of music would come when individuals would be able to mix their own versions of an album. He even went so far as to release CDs that gave buyers the basic tracks from which they could configure their own mix. While that hasn't quite caught on to the mainstream, the increasing prevalence of remix albums is certainly a step in that direction. It's only natural that hip-hop, itself an art form with its roots planted firmly in the recycling of older musical forms, should lead the charge to reinvent.
     So it is with Lyrics Born's Same !@#$ Different Day, remixed from his 2003 debut effort, Later That Day. It may seem curious for an artist to recycle his first solo record and present it as a follow-up just a year and a half later, but a remix album is still a creative endeavor.ideally. This is especially the case with Lyrics Born, one of the most inventive MCs to break through from the underground this century. His paragraph-style delivery, punctuated with syncopated accents and interior rhyme, stands in stark contrast to the lazy-flow, rhymed couplets of more popular MCs. And even among the thousands of underground MCs who can spit clever rhymes at breakneck speeds, few can do it with the intelligence that Lyrics Born delivers. Witness this line from "The Last Trumpet" and you know you're dealing with a rapper with skills, heart, and a brain: "The global poverty that we accept so commonly/Turns people into property one step away from hell."
     Same !@#$ Different Day allows Lyrics Born to have the best of two creative worlds. Where Later That Day was almost entirely a solo effort, Same !@#$ is collaborative. Rare is the MC who can produce his own cuts as professionally as a DJ or producer could. On top of those duties, Born also wore the hats of keyboardist, mixer, percussionist, and programmer on Later That Day. With Same !@#$, Born hands the tracks over to an all-star cast-KRS-One, Dan the Automator, DJ Shadow, and Morcheeba, along with the usual Quannum Crew regulars-to do with as they please. Is it better than Later That Day? Is color better than black and white?
     As a bonus, Same !@#$ Different Day comes packaged with The Lyrics Born DVD Experience, a collection of videos, live footage, and interviews drawn mainly from the last few years of Born's career. So if anyone has any qualms about the value of a remix album, Same !@#$ Different Day offers some enticing extras, while standing on its own as a bright example of the virtues of the remix album.
COLTER MCCORKINDALE

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Devils and Dust
     One of Bruce Springsteen's consistently strong qualities is his songwriting. Whether his lyrics are put to a folk-acoustic sound like 1982's Nebraska, or a more commercial, full-band production like 1988's Tunnel of Love, judging by songwriting alone, it's hard to put any one album ahead of any other. Great songwriting has not always translated into great albums for Springsteen, however. Not since Nebraska has he managed to put together a complete album, one in which the overall sound matched the poignancy of the lyrics.
     In his younger days Springsteen wrote songs more from personal experience, enabling him to connect to an audience who identified with his small town protagonists. Although he's never completely abandoned that form, his post-Tunnel albums have included more songs from topics about which he's obviously educated, but hasn't exactly experienced. For example, three songs on 1995's ghost of tom joad deal with the plight of Mexican migrant workers-a compelling topic, but not the easiest one for his audience to connect with.
     On his latest album, Devils and Dust, Springsteen returns to a mostly acoustic arrangement similar to the one on ghost of tom joad. What distinguishes this album is that he sprinkles in some familiar Springsteen themes-particularly ones involving girls-as well as a few upbeat tempos, making it sound less destitute than the bleak joad. One of the charms, "Maria's Bed," about a guy coming home to his baby after being away for some time, is a pleasant return to the sexed-up lyrics of Springsteen past: " She give me candy stick kisses 'neath a wolf dog moon/One sweet breath and she'll take you mister to the upper room/I was burned by the angels, sold wings of lead/Then I fell in the roses and sweet salvation of Maria's bed."
     Springsteen's falsetto and some cool slide playing make the catchy "All I'm Thinkin' About" one of the album's highlights. The rocking "Long Time Comin'," about a guy looking for a second chance with his family, is a return to another familiar Springsteen theme, redemption. On "Leah," an ode about long term love, he borrows near-identical rhythm guitar parts and backing vocals from "Maria's Bed," making them sound like sister songs.
     Springsteen uses mothers and sons as central characters a few times, including "The Hitter" and "Jesus Was an Only Son." The stand-out, "Silver Palomino," is about a thirteen-year-old coming to terms with his mother's death. He tracks his favorite wild horse into the west Texas mountains and daydreams about riding it. Springsteen's rich imagery allows a warmth to cover up some of the sadness.
     Devils and Dust is a solid Springsteen album, and probably his best solo effort since Nebraska. Springsteen always manages to write a lot of depth into his characters, something hard to do in a four-minute song, and this album is another prime example of that ability. It takes a step away from the schlocky musical arrangements and general overproduction that have mired recent albums, but there are still moments where the keyboards creep in too much or an unnecessary strings track was added. Springsteen recorded the masterpiece Nebraska on a four-track recorder with only a few instruments, and not until he decides to put his folk lyrics completely to folk music again will he give himself the chance to return to such heights.
DAVE PUCHOWSKI

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