Mogwai
Mr. Beast (4 stars)
Don't let the piano intro to Mogwai's fifth album fool you; the Scotsmen haven't gone soft. They've simply mastered the art of ramping up the tension by balancing their heavy onslaughts with peaceful interludes. And before long, that tranquil piano turns ominous, as "Auto Rock" explodes into a titanic anthem, and one of 2006's most memorable tunes thus far.
Not that Stuart Braithwaite, John Cummings and Co. haven't always known a thing or two about shifting dynamics. Most of the post-rock crew's best songs—1997's "Like Herod," 1999's "Christmas Steps," 2001's remade Hebrew prayer, "My Father, My King" and 2003's "Ratts of the Capital"—succeed in large part because their intensity waxes and wanes so dramatically.
On Mr. Beast, however, Mogwai reels in its shape-shifting ways somewhat, keeping all 10 tracks under six minutes while maximizing each's potential. Epic piano lines mix it up with fuzzy guitar blasts on "Friend of the Night," while rarely heard vocals join the fray on the menacing "Travel Is Dangerous." The disc loses a bit of steam toward its finish, but always keeps listeners guessing what sound—or volume—might be around the next bend.
Goldfrapp
Supernature (4 stars)
Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory open their third album with the trippy, electro-pop single "Ooh La La," grabbing you by the wrist and not letting go for 11 more tracks.
The Brit duo has crafted a dance-floor-filling disc crammed with catchy synths, sexy lyrics ("Don't want it Baudelaire / Just glitter lust" or "Lip gloss bold as blood / You got 'em linin' up"), dark strings and Goldfrapp's cold but sultry vocals. The sound manages to pay homage to prog rock, early electro explorers like Gary Numan and pure '70s disco, but Goldfrapp and Gregory give it a shiny, 21st-century latex coat. The result is an album that is great on the first go-around and only improves the more you listen.
"Ride a White Horse" glams up heroin as well as T. Rex or Iggy Pop ever did; lush orchestration accompanies "You Never Know"; "Let It Take You" and "Time Out From the World" are slow gems with warm heat beats; but "Fly Me Away" and "Number 1" take the tempo back up to a steady cruising speed. At times, the music overwhelms Goldfrapp's delicious vibrato, as in "Koko," but it's a small fare to pay for the trip.
Hawthorne Heights
If Only You Were Lonely (2 stars)
Hawthorne Heights are going to have a serious problem if singer-guitarist JT Woodruff ever gets into a stable relationship. On the band's second album, If Only You Were Lonely, Woodruff spends 12 songs lamenting his broken love life, as if his lyrics were written by some random emo generator. Then again, maybe they were: Woodruff thanks his "lovely" wife in the liner notes, so they've either got a relationship fraught with tension or the singer is faking the sentiment in most of his songs.
Whether or not Woodruff's angst is real, there's no arguing it's unoriginal, as is the band's music, featuring a polished, thick wall of guitars (there are three guitar players) and alternating loud/soft sections. Whatever raw emotion emo might have once possessed is processed out on this album; if it's possible to scream tastefully, that's exactly what Woodruff does.
Some of the songs are catchy, and will probably appeal to the mopey teenagers that make up the band's core audience. They may even shed a tear at the sappy ballad "Decembers," whose prom-worthy lyrics confirm Hawthorne Heights as the emo version of the Backstreet Boys.
Neko Case
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (4 stars)
The term alt-country suggests a strain of country music influenced by alternative culture, be it the punky Mekons, rocked-out Uncle Tupelo or avant-leaning Lambchop. For Neko Case, though, the alt denotes an alternative not to country's fundamental traditions, but to the glossy, pop-impaired sound associated with the genre today.
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood acts as a welcome time machine to those yearning for eras when Emmylou, Loretta and Patsy served as country music's queens. Case's warm, Virginia twang sounds so Old World it practically sprinkles a layer of dust on your speakers, while her earthy approach to songwriting evokes images of grizzled Nashville veterans, not a 35-year-old Canadian transplant with but four studio albums to her credit.
Though the disc's 12 songs combine for a running time of around 36 minutes, the experience feels far grander, thanks partly to a crack team of backing musicians headlined by the Band's Garth Hudson and Giant Sand's Howe Gelb. Highlights are many, from the glorious harmonies of "Star Witness" to a bluesy update of spiritual "John Saw That Number" to the sheer strength of Case's vocal on ballad "Maybe Sparrow." Dreamy third track "Hold On, Hold On" might have even been a successful single in the days before country insisted on attaching the word "new" to its handle.