[Soul-Pop]
Gnarls Barkley
the Odd Couple
***
Gnarls Barkley consists 0of two talented weirdos who want every day to be Halloween, so it’s hardly a surprise that their second release resembles a concept album based on Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” There’s soul to spare and dance-worthy moments and frightening crescendos and creepy cackling. Potentially problematic, though, is that there’s not really a clear smash single here, although the crazy sexy cool “Surprise” comes close, and the record label’s pushing “Run (I’m a Natural Disaster)” as the moneymaker.
And while fans of Pink Floyd and Animal Collective might have no problem with a slow-burning album like this, you have to wonder if folks who dug “Crazy” and the cover of “Gone Daddy Gone” on Gnarls Barkley’s debut are going to listen all the way through. It’s an album for patient listeners in a world where music buyers are getting more jittery and singles-oriented than ever. It’s an elaborate lounge act in a mash-up world. And if it alienates listeners, well, at least Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo are probably too busy figuring out their next elaborate costume to care.
“I don’t have any friends at all/’Cause I have nothing in common with y’all,” Cee-Lo declares on “Whatever,” then later adds, “I don’t know what else to do/Said fuck me, well fuck you too/I know it sounds real sad but true/Being alone is nothing new.” His ultimate skill might be making it impossible to know whether he’s being serious or sarcastic, or if he’s not even sure himself.
The point of Gnarls Barkley, perhaps, is that you should never get too comfortable, with your sleep schedule, with your skin, with your success. Because if you’re static, you might as well stop breathing.
As Cee-Lo says on “Run,” “Either you run right now/Or you best get ready to die.”
And yes, this is the song that’s supposed to be the single.
–Andy Wang
[Garage Rock]
The Raconteurs
Consolers of the Lonely
** 1/2
The Raconteurs became the latest band to unleash a surprise release when they announced on March 18 that their second album, Consolers of the Lonely, would arrive in stores just one week later. (iTunes accidentally leaked the disc early, which ultimately foiled the plot somewhat.)
Cynics sniffed that the Jack White/Brendan Benson/Greenhornes supergroup kept leaks to a minimum because Lonely was, well, boring. And to a certain extent, the skeptics are right: Although the album is far more diverse than 2006’s Broken Boy Soldiers—and thankfully, contains many more unhinged rock ’n’ roll moments—it’s ultimately hampered by poor sequencing.
Any momentum gained by Lonely’s Zeppelin-aping barnburners (the title track), arena-worthy psych-rockers (“Hold Up”) or garage-punk nuggets (“Attention”) dissipates by the presence of mid-tempo dirges (the trippy, piano-driven bloat “You Don’t Understand Me,” an execrable Beatles/Sammy Hagar/Boston pastiche called “Rich Kid Blues”) that meander aimlessly. Lonely works better as a series of moments considered separately. White’s howls sound gloriously feral on the smoking, bass-heavy “Salute Your Solution”; shrieking, siren-like riffs conjure Queens of the Stone Age on “Five on the Five,” and “The Switch and the Spur” features flashy trumpet flourishes and devolves into a majestic slice of medieval prog-rock geekery.
Like the classic rockers it so lovingly honors, however, Lonely’s excess is its downfall. –Annie Zaleski
[Electronic]
Moby
Last Night
***
After the massive success of 1999’s Play, an exuberant and inescapable melding of modern techno with blues, folk, soul and new wave, Moby scaled back on the dance tunes, opened a Manhattan café and became a spokesman for both PETA and the vegan lifestyle. Three albums later, his ninth overall comes at an interesting time for both the music industry and electronica; with the likes of Daft Punk and Justice hogging all the glory, perhaps Moby felt the need to defend his critical and commercial crown.
Where those challengers take retro standards in futuristic directions, however, Moby keeps the past firmly in the past, hammering home that notion with a tune titled “Everyday It’s 1989” and an appearance by “Rapper’s Delight” lyricist Grandmaster Caz—ensuring “Old school’s takin’ ya back”—on “I Love to Move in Here.”
There’s disco and funk, jazzy piano and strings, but overall the feeling is more rehash than homage. For all the big emotional talk of “Live for Tomorrow” and “I’m in Love,” there’s just not much heart to be found. Last Night is a return to form in the most literal sense. Moby’s been here, done that, and did it better the first time around. Not much has changed, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. –Julie Seabaugh
[Metal]
In Flames
A Sense of Purpose
*** 1/2
Age hasn’t exactly mellowed Swedish metal titans In Flames, but their ninth album, A Sense of Purpose, continues their evolution toward a more commercial sound, emphasizing melody and catchy riffs over death-metal intensity. Purpose maintains the balance exhibited on the band’s last two albums, with blasts of pummeling double-bass drums and lightning-fast guitars pushed right up against radio-friendly choruses. The hard-rock mainstream has inched ever closer to In Flames territory in recent years, but the band never sounds like it’s pandering to anyone’s idea of how to create a hit single.
The musicianship is as tight as ever, and the mosh pits will love songs like “Sober and Irrelevant” and “Move Through Me.” But it’s the more adventurous tracks, like layered, slow-build epic “The Chosen Pessimist” and the syncopated, keyboard-heavy “Alias,” that show the band’s skill at integrating their trademark innovations—which have since been co-opted by dozens of bands around the world—with explorations of new territory. Every time you get used to a certain familiar metal structure and sound from In Flames, there’s an intricate acoustic interlude or melodic detour that proves that more of the same from these guys means always staying one step ahead of their peers. –Josh Bell
[Indie Rock]
Tapes ’n Tapes
Walk it off
**
Minnesota quartet Tapes ’n Tapes registered one of 2006’s breakout debuts with The Loon, an album that borrowed threads from a slew of indie icons—Pavement, Pixies, Modest Mouse—yet managed to weave them into a distinctive sonic quilt that felt weighty in its own right.
Not so with follow-up Walk It Off. Much the way British Sea Power seemed strangely intent on smoothing out its edges after the success of its jagged first LP, TNT songwriter Josh Grier and his mates sound shockingly unadventurous this time out. Gone are the complex structures that made songs like “Crazy Eights,” “10 Gallon Ascots” and “Jakov’s Suite” so memorable, replaced mostly by unadventurous arrangements with predictable outcomes.
Worse still, tracks that do show promise—hyper-finishing mid-tempo number “Headshock” and guitar-fueled basher “Blunt,” for example—are foiled entirely by crap production, courtesy of compression-possessed studio man Dave Fridmann. Long hailed as a recording wiz, the Mercury Rev player has actually mucked up so much material (Low’s Drums and Guns, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Some Loud Thunder, The Flaming Lips’ At War With the Mystics) in recent years, it’s more of a shock when something good, say Sleater-Kinney’s The Woods, results from his work these days.
In short, Walk It Off, sadly, is a near-total disaster—the kind of disc that can get a nice little indie band forgotten about as quickly as it once got hailed as the next big thing. –Spencer Patterson