Treats by Sleigh Bells

"Loud" like Beastie Boys means "rowdy"; like Public Enemy, "confrontational"; like Slayer, "brutal" perhaps. For Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells "loud" takes on shades of meaning which is only possible because they're hasn't really been a record that was loud in this blown-out amp, drum machine explosion way before. The first time I put it on it infuriated me (headphones); trying it again in my car it made me rapturuos. Tipped way above safe decible levels with "Infinity Guitars" and "Riot Rhythm" that trudges along with dependable steadiness until overwhelming you, the songs often recall those of label-mate M.I.A. they way their bombastic density clobbers you. With songs about superficial "Kids" on a vacation and another track called "Straight A's" the loud here is a reaction to the overstimulation of young people, the shallowness of modern radio and the pitfalls of attention-seeking blog behavior (uh-oh I'm caught up in it too).

These people aren't hypocrites though, they're not fighting overstimulation with overstiulation as much as attempting an alternative, intelligent album about overstimulation. You know, the way Randy Newman's "Rednecks" didn't actually glorify racism. They get the fuel to make that commentary from the sweet suger-laced melodies that chime from singer Alexis Krauss who has far too much respect for teenyboppers (as she says "I know the part") to deride them or condecend to their audience, something label-mate M.I.A. does too much these days. The lyircs are simple, the melodies catchy, the sound LOUD. This is an album about the fracture between mainstream music and independent music, partuicularly for teens who are just carving their own aesthetic niches, and it insists that they meet eachother half way. Sleigh Bells mine dangerous territory here(the glorious thud of rap, dancefloor synths, abrasive punk guitars, and shoegazer vocals are all derided among some listners) but those sounds combine into something unabashedly (even frighteningly) contemporary. "You gotta march" a chorus of giddy tweens boast in "Riot Rythym" and Sleigh Bells make pop worth marching for. Doubt the kids'll listen, much less march, but glad someone is trying. 4.5/5

Brothers by The Black Keys

It's obvious that this duo bought their first instruments and started mining blues tropes to get the girls almost all these songs are about. That's why each tune is shimmering with the smoky atmospherics of a Quentin Tarantino movie, cutting into White Stripes' stomping ground without the trickness of Jack's lyrics or the intensity of Meg's unrelenting stomp. Instead the beat is laid back into
R&B turf for the seduction of those drawn to oddly vague, cool rock-and-roll.We never learn about who that is exactly since The Black Keys treat women as demographics, not individuals, in songs which go for universalism but end up as glorified song skeletons, lacking the meat of real relationship details. After all, it'd be a shame if those girls found out the whole show was for them. That would make the band and their audience appear to be tangible people instead of faceless blues archetypes, ruining the magic. Only on the last track does the gentleman who does the crooning truly sound flustered, and it's not about girls at all. 3/5

Cosmogramma by Flying Lotus

I heard this in a posh restaurant/hotel once. Or maybe it was a dream of a posh restaurant/hotel. I guess they're the same thing which would be the long-labored point of this record if the West Coast DJ who made (he'd say crafted it) was as interested in points as he was in finding new sonic contexts for windchimes. 2/5

Heaven is Whenever by The Hold Steady

A record with this many problems shouldn’t be this good, but that’s life as usual for the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, a guy just far removed enough from his songs of down-and-outs to act as a bar band moralist, but just close enough to them that you wander why and for whom he’s moralizing. You question his authority even as you start to think that maybe he wants you to do just that. His story-songs are hook-strong and delivered in the nasally grandeur of Finn’s singing (stronger and more nuanced than ever as he sings more than speaks) and they all have tremendous problems. The first is the production, which is steeped in power-ballad, roots-rock cliches (so many choirs!) second is the image Finn is trying to project. This band has always been too big for his britches, going for Bruce Springsteen and inevitably falling short and their ambitions are obvious here, as melodramatic as that album cover. The last minutes of the album are ridiculously maudlin

But I must be honest, and despite all I know about propriety, I love this record. Finn, like me, is more or less a rock and roll innocent who fantasizes about the girl he’s wrong for but curls up in bed alone instead (“Hurricane J”) who wishes he wasn’t so happy so he could write better songs (“Rock and Roll Problems”) who’s livin’ for “The Smidge”. He has a way with honesty that here he pairs with some of his strangest and sweetest sentiments without ever resisting the urge for an arena-filling guitar solo. In a world where tuneful nice-guys are confined to the wasteland of twee, indie pushovers, Finn’s nice-guy is inspiring because he understands how unappealing the nice-guy is, but wants to try for it anyway. 4/5

Exile on Main St. by The Rolling Stones (Deluxe Edition Reissue)

In 1972, The Rolling Stones were already a veteran band with eight years of experience and a dozen records behind them. While they had always been overshadowed by the Beatles in the sixties, the breakup of that group allowed the Stones to develop artistically on their own and produce some of the greatest records that the worlds ever seen. Beggars Banquet and Sticky Fingers were towering achievements of modern riffage, blues reinvention, and the playful hedonism that has both informed and tarnished the band’s reputation. But even with those masterpieces and era-defining songs like “Satisfaction” and “Gimme Shelter” to hang on their mantle, Exile on Main St. was a revelation. It stood apart in sound and technique from any other work the band made previous, and has served as the archetypal rock and roll record ever since.

Dense and dirty, this record takes multiple spins before the chaos of its grungy production gives way to the order of the songs, the soaring interplay of the guitars, and the bands genius rhythm section. Mick Jagger is at his most acidic on “Rip This Joint” and his most tender on “Shine A Lights” broken-down reverie (for this band tenderness and broken-downiness are the same). Enough has been said about this record that I can only add personal superlatives to the records sterling reputation. I never believed in this band, until this album, and suddenly it all made sense to me. I preferred the slickness of The Beatles and mistook Mick and Keith’s avant- layering of rhythms and tones to be lazy production, but The Beatles never made a record as primally satisfying as this one and they never really made one that stood as a unified whole quite the way these 18 songs ebb and flow against each other. If the sound hear has been cleaned up, it’s not as revolutionary as the treatment of The Beatles catalogue last year, but this record isn’t supposed to sound smooth and digitized, it’s supposed to crack and hiss and move like the notes are coming at you for the first time every time you play it. The deluxe edition has notable bonus material on the second disk (the Richards-sung version of “Soul Survivor” is a keeper for sure), but it’s the original album that stands as a monument to the best rock band of them all. One of the ten best ever made. 5/5

We Live in Exciting Times

Arcade Fire on the prowl = never a bad thing.

As per usual with this bad, play it loud.

High Violet by The National

The first thing that struck me about High Violet, the new album by these Cincinnati indies, is that it has a sort of sweeping beauty which matches the lead singer’s mournful baritone perfectly. This is the music to out an ache in your bones, that kind of beautiful sad-sackery that was mastered by bands like Joy Division and Interpol. They don’t quite maintain the atmosphere or pleasure-in-suffering that Ian Curtis did, and the story lyrics are too vague to put the dopey lyrics (“I live in a house that sorrow built”) into perspective. Every now and then they throw you a great melody like “Anyone’s Ghost” or “Conversation 16” to keep you listening but at the end of the day this is suffering for sufferings sake. The songwriting is additionally lazy; while the distorted guitar soundscapes are gorgeous and haunting, the vocals are often pastiches of unrelated phraseology. While bands like The Smiths could keep this songwriting method afloat with a good sense of humor, this album never relents in its indulgent morbidity. Those morbid hearts are in the right place, of course; it’s all in the name of the album-as-art conceit. But great art isn’t always tragic and great tragedy is always specific. The National aren’t the enemy, but as far as friends go, they’re pretty lame ones. 2.5/5