Album Review: Dälek - Abandoned Language

Rating: 9 out of 10

Dälek never make it easy - not for their listeners and certainly not for themselves. Ostensibly, this duo is a hip-hop act: their songs have beats, and vocalist Dälek raps a lot about how the youngsters don't know the history of the genre. But most of their fans are white indie/noise/metal kids (like me!); they also tour with those kind of bands. Within hip hop their closest affinity is probably with the Def Jux acts, but their sound is more accurately described as a serious update of My Bloody Valentine's squall, only ten times more diverse and intentionally hostile rather than simply intimidating as a by-product. Their last album Absence was one of the ugliest slabs of noise you're ever likely to hear... at least until you took the time to wade through the layers and layers of sound to hear the broken, hopeful, beating heart at the center of all the anger. These guys are the epitome of "challenging" - and so it's little wonder they're relatively unknown.

It is also a fucking shame, and one I hope is going to end with this masterwork of a third album. Abandoned Language is the quietest Dälek album yet, but that's hardly a concession to accessibility. You still have to pay a lot of attention to these songs before they start to yield their secrets. I suspect a lot of people will give this a cursory listen, dismiss it as "monotone" or "boring" or "torpid," and never uncover all the beautifully strange sonic architecture lurking below the surface.

Consider first single "Paragraphs Relentless." A simple hip-hop beat, a bit of scratching buried in the mix, bassline so thick and ominous it's hard to pick out notes, and an eerie melody that sounds like a harmonica being played underwater are the prominent features. But listen more closely - at least three other layers of ambient sound shifting and sliding around each other are providing a subtle foundation for the song. Once you catch them, it's impossible not to follow their flow as well. What sounds minimal on the surface is in fact layered, immaculately produced, fascinating. And that's before you even add in Dälek's rap or the way the choruses practically explode with additional layers of sound. The net effect is hypnotic.

Every song on Abandoned Language follows this basic template, and yet each contains a list of details unique to itself that makes it stand out from the bunch. "Bricks Crumble" is built on an almost jaunty two-note bass loop. The choruses add in piles of dischordant strings and voices for a beautifully queasy effect. The song also features a brief instrumental break after the first chorus that wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Portishead album. A bit of a crowd-pleaser, except you only get it once. The bassline of "Starved for Truth" thumps like a heartbeat. The frantic beat kicks in, distorted bell-like tones echo off each other claustrophobically, and then the truly-sick chorus drops accompanied by squalling saxophone blasts. Only, it turns out this isn't just the chorus - it's the beginning of an amazing instrumental interlude. Dizzy two-note keyboard motifs start stacking up, the saxophone gets more urgent and dischordant, eerie layers of organ build in the background... are you sweating yet?

I could continue in the same vein, mapping out the way these songs twist, grow, collapse, and mutate - but I'd much rather let you discover their beautiful (il)logic for yourself. Abandoned Language isn't going to be for everyone - it's too demanding, and is too easily heard as uniform rather than brilliantly constructed and produced. It took me at least five listens before I was able to really pick the songs apart, but once I crossed that threshhold my fascination with it has continued to grow. This one's my new favorite album of 2007, and it's going to be a tough act to dethrone.

Album Review: !!! - Myth Takes

Rating: 8 out of 10

I've been patiently waiting for an album to hit me over the head this year and scream "THIS is a serious contender for Album of the Year!" I ended up giving Menomena a higher rating than I'd originally intended, but that's only because it grew on me. What I wanted was something immediate. If you'd told me that what I was waiting for was the new album by !!!, I would have laughed at you. I liked Let Us Never Speak of It Again, the last (and final) release by these guys' sister band Out Hud, but it didn't hit me over the head. And I'd never read anything about !!! that led me to think they were going to provide the goods either.

Well, let's just say it: Myth Takes is fantastic. The album manages to push enough genre boundaries to be interesting, without ever sacrificing its infectious grooviness. It's danceable, and every song is built on a killer bass line that will have you nodding your head in time - but it's wonderfully varied and even occasionally unpredictable without ever being ostentatious. And, it's sequenced brilliantly: the first three songs slowly build in intensity; the middle four are a seamless peak; and then the final three songs steadily wind down.

I can't think of a more pleasurable way to spend 20 minutes than those middle four songs. "A New Name" starts out a bit jagged on the verses, segues into a woozy bridge with insistent drum fills, and then throws an indelible falsetto over an instantly-memorable guitar riff for the chorus. "Heart of Hearts" is built on restless guitar notes and rattling cymbals duking it out with a sinister looping bass. The arch, processed female vocals on the chorus remind me of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - which in present context is totally a compliment. "Sweet Life" (my favorite song on the album) starts out simply with vocalist Nic Offer singing breathily over a jangly guitar. With zero warning the choruses explode out of your speakers: enter the bass line over a sea of percussion while Offer urgently intones nonsense syllables a la Deerhoof. (It sounds like he might be spelling something, actually, but damned if I know what it is). The song winds down to a single buzzing synth, and then the stomping greatness of "Yadnus" kicks in - 5 minutes of loping bass, jangly dancepunk guitar and a jawdropping percussive breakdown at the 3:20 mark. After that, it's an increasingly dreamy drift through the final three songs, closing out with the sedate and ballad "Infinifold."

There are a few missteps on Myth Takes, most notably the self-consicous hip hop parody "Must be the Moon," whose lyrics tritely recount a club hookup and subsequent sexual conquest. Offer pretty much shoots himself in the foot with the meta-ness of a line like "It's all beginning to sound like a rap song" on the only song where he attempts - poorly - to rap. But the all-around awesomeness of the album more than compensates for this one bad choice.

It's early in the year still; I'll probably get even more excited about other albums in 2007. But Myth Takes' impressive mix of the familiar and unexpected, on top of its overwhelming grooviness and sheer fun, have definitely made it the one to beat at this point.

Album Review: Menomena - Friend and Foe

Rating: 8 out of 10

Menomena are one of those bands I'm going to champion even when I don't necessarily like everything they've done. On a song-by-song basis, their ratio of "I Like" to "I'm Indifferent To" (there aren't enough "I Don't Like"s to mention) is honestly about 1:1. But man! those "I Likes" are some seriously and memorably strange gems. Much has been made of the way these guys approach songwriting - a custom piece of software spits out riffs, drum loops, etc. and then they mix and sequence these into real songs. Well, I had the pleasure of seeing them live (they inexplicably opened for Gang of Four two years ago), and can testify that they sound anything but canned.

Friend and Foe is stranger, more chaotic, and yet also more consistent than Menomena's debut I am the Fun Blame Monster! Whereas that album seriously lagged in momentum in the middle, Friend and Foe maintains its energy nearly throughout. ("Rotting Hell" is the one plodding sleeper.) On any given song the instrumentation is sparse, yet the overall palette is extremely diverse: multi-part vocals, drums, various percussion, lots of saxophone, pianos, and the occasional blasting guitar. The basic blueprint: select a couple of these elements, assign a melody or two (or three...) to those amenable to such, string them together or let them stage a succession of battles, include lots of empty space to make the explosive dynamics all the more intense, and use some of the most creative and fantastic drumming in the world to hold it all together.

I won't even try to do the songs justice with words - they're best experienced at volume and with an open mind. All three of my favorites are near the end of the album. "My My" is hauntingly beautiful, with an ascending break near the middle that still makes my skin tingle. It's followed by "Boyscout'N", a jaunty march complete with whistling and insistent sax bursts that just keeps getting larger in scope and sound. It burns itself out near the end and the whistling carries the listener over to the epic "Evil Bee," which manages to cram at least five different movements into fewer than that many minutes.

The sheer amount of creativity at work in this album is staggering. The songs are messy yet stately; unpredictable yet organically dynamic. And I'll repeat it: you won't hear drumming this inventive from anyone else. My one criticism about the album is it can be intimidating. There are definitely moods with which it works better than others, and I really wouldn't recommend it for social situations - it's a bit of a jovial bully for your attention. But it rewards that attention admirably and consistently. I expect a long shelf life on this one.

Album Review: Kristin Hersh - Learn to Sing Like a Star

Rating: 7 out of 10

Y'know, it's almost like I'm in a romantic relationship with the music made by Kristin Hersh (no wonder I seem to have a hard time finding/keeping a boyfriend!) Kristin's music and I have been inseparable for almost 20 years. The romance started out really hot and heavy - the self-titled Throwing Muses debut, The Fat Skier, House Tornado, and her solo debut Hips and Makers are all near the top of my list of all-time favorite albums. As time went on I started seeing the music's warts, but they never became the focus for me, and there were still plenty of high points (Limbo; Sunny Border Blue; the first half of Golden Ocean) to get me through the occasional arguments and misunderstandings. I'm just as committed as I've always been; I'll always find something to like and want around to snuggle with; and I can be objective about the imperfections without them detracting from my enjoyment of the music's companionship.

I mostly like Learn to Sing Like a Star. After the stark The Grotto, this one has a full-band sound: drumming by David Narcizo (surprisingly subdued), electric piano, cellos and violins, and the occasional electric guitar riff all back up Kristin's scratchy vocals and acoustic strumming. It's mostly pretty without being overwhelmingly so. The church bells and rolling drums of "Winter" create an air of menace and expectation that flows nicely into the soaring chorus. "Sugarbaby," "Under the Gun," and "Wild Vanilla" all feature insistent electric guitar solos that wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Throwing Muses album.

But as always, Kristin's vocals are the instrument most likely to grab your attention and demand access to your memory. Kristin's voice shows its wear a little more on each new album, but the scratchiness around the edges just adds depth and contrast to the pretty moments, and an emotional intensity to the occasional scary ones she can still conjure. Representing the latter: On the leadup to the chorus of "Day Glo," she repeats "Getting up is what HUUUUUUUUURRRRTS!", slurring that last word out into a near-howl before the electric guitar and violin slink in. It's impossible to ignore. I was fortunate to grab an early copy of the album that came with a bonus disc bearing three songs. The first of these, "Windowpane," is possibly the most intense moment on the album. Representing the former: Both "Ice" and "Winter" feature memorably pretty melodies on the chorus.

Overall the album plays it pretty safe. Several of the songs I haven't mentioned yet are straightforward guitar pop with that distinctive voice sitting - sometimes silky, sometimes uncomfortably naked - on top. It's a decent album but not a mindblowing one. I'm happy to spend time with it until the next one, just the way an old lover should.