Fucked Up: Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009

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In a little under a decade, Fucked Up has recorded and released more music than many bands manage to in an entire career. Though the Canadian band isn't the only group churning out songs with such Pollard-like proficiency, it has largely maintained one key element sometimes lacking from other artists who spit out records at breakneck pace: quality control. It took the overwhelmingly positive critical reception to The Chemistry Of Common Life to introduce the band to a wider indie audience, but longtime fans already knew what that album confirmed: since 2002, Fucked Up has created some of indie's most challenging, confrontational and consistently solid records.

Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009 doesn't contain all of the band's essential singles from those years - given the sheer volume of its output, it really couldn't - but it's still a near-perfect compilation for both casual listeners who are only familiar with Fucked Up from Chemistry as well as those already well-versed in the band's extensive discography. Consisting of singles, demos, outtakes, cover songs and alternate versions, the release covers most of the band's best work of the last decade and, taken together with previous singles collection Epics In Minutes, offers a comprehensive overview of the band and is an early entry for one of the best reissues of 2010.

The Fucked Up of Couple Tracks is one whose hardcore leanings are obvious, especially on tracks like "No Pasarán," "Neat Parts" and "Ban Violins." The group takes a similar approach on nearly every song: Pink Eyes barks out his vocals like either an unhinged sociopath or the most dangerously sane person in the room, while the band, behind him, works over their instruments with a mixture of precision and violence. Still, the band offers enough variations in these songs to separate them from the shitpile of hardcore-influenced bands that so slavishly crib from Black Flag, Minor Threat and Fugazi, among others. These departures from typical hardcore are less pronounced than they are on Chemistry, but they are nevertheless evident: the atypically long running times, guitar instrumentals, underlying melodies and overdubs become more pronounced and tense against Pink Eyes' menacing snarls. Many of the songs included here are as strong as anything from Chemistry; moreover, there is an immediacy and directness to tracks like "Dangerous Fumes" and "Toronto FC" that is sometimes missing from some of Chemistry's more meandering and indulgent moments.

Although much of Fucked Up's sound and subject matter fit neatly within the hardcore template - and the group can be faulted for sometimes displaying that genre's dogmatic social/political/cultural tendencies - the band's style is unique enough to have saddled them with lofty, and most likely unrealistic, expectations. Whether by design or something as simple as great songs coupled with critical praise and a loyal fanbase, the group has taken a genre every bit as formulaic and doctrinaire as folk or bluegrass and made it relevant again. If the band's music has sometimes taken a backseat to its carefully honed image - the biographical misdirection and mythologizing, the bouts of painfully obvious and deliberate provocation, among other things - Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009 proves the songs are strong enough to stand on their own. Leave that extraneous stuff to less capable bands.

Revisit: Nirvana - In Utero (Steve Albini mix)

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Revisit is a series of reviews highlighting past releases that now deserve a second look.

In February of 1993, Nirvana and Steve Albini finished recording the follow-up to the band's (insert hyperbolic adjectives here) 1991 release Nevermind. Already starting to distance themselves from that record - and in particular, its mostly sanitized and commercial-friendly sound that made it palatable to a broad audience - the trio consistently maintained that their next studio album would be far less accessible and polished than its predecessor. In the months leading up to the recording sessions Kurt Cobain's opinion of that album increasingly soured, at least in print, where the vocalist frequently voiced his displeasure at its smooth production and inoffensive sheen. Enlisting Albini - someone who seemed to never gave a damn about whether an album would be met with commercial acceptance - seemed to confirm the band's intention to craft something less FM-ready than Nevermind.

Though the exact order of events for what happened after the tapes were submitted to the suits at Geffen remains unclear, one thing is certain: whether due to label pressures, the band's dissatisfaction or a combination of the two, the Albini mix was rejected and hot shot producer Scott Litt was called in to give the songs an overhaul. "All Apologies" and "Heart-Shaped Box" were remixed, the bass and drums were given more separation throughout the album and Cobain's vocals were increased by a few decibels. Judging by most contemporary reviews these modifications were for the better; the revamped record that would be released as In Utero received almost universal critical praise as a radical departure from the style of Nevermind.

In retrospect, this shift wasn't nearly as dramatic as most critics claimed and it's debatable whether these changes really improved the album. Though Albini has as recently as 2007 stated that any version that passes as the Albini mix is generations removed from his recording, what is claimed as the Albini mix reveals significant differences from the revised In Utero. Although the face lift that was applied to the record appears slight and superficial at first glance, the effect it had on the record's overall composition is impossible to miss. The original mix didn't feature The Albini Sound at its most confrontational, but his version is still far more punishing, aggressive and industrial than the official release and emphasizes the influence that noise rock had on the band. This is most noticeable on harder-edged songs like "Serve the Servants," "Scentless Apprentice," "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" and "Milk It." Albini puts the vocals and instrumentation about even in the mix, making these songs far more abrasive than their officially-released counterparts, which still today sometimes sound too refined and safe.

Any chances of Cobain's lyrics not being the focus of attention were lost when the songs were reworked. Though Albini didn't bury the vocals as severely as he had on other albums, they sometimes threatened to be swallowed up by the songs' arrangements, creating a far more primal sound that often felt like Cobain was howling from the depths of his own private hell. In contrast, the Geffen-approved release increased the vocals' prominence just enough to kill off at least a fraction of the conflicted emotions he conveyed. Indeed, this seemingly innocuous decibel boost makes the singer's various mumbles, screams and wails on "Very Ape," "Pennyroyal Tea," "All Apologies" and the perfect-for-radio "Heart-Shaped Box" sound less desperate and urgent. Any potential walls Albini's mix might have allowed Cobain to construct as he railed against being typecast as some sort of disaffected slacker voice of a generation crumbled once the vocals were thrown front and center. Though these lyrics probably would have been dissected and overanalyzed regardless, at least Albini made the listener work to understand what had Cobain so pissed off and distraught.

Prior to his suicide Cobain remarked how he'd like to move in an entirely different musical direction, even suggesting an acoustic record along the lines of Automatic For the People wasn't out of the question. For observant fans it wasn't the first time they'd heard this, but it would be among the last. Though the official release remains Nirvana's most consistent effort, it's hard not to conclude that the band fell just short of a true masterpiece when the Albini mix was overhauled. It may take careful attention to fully appreciate the differences between these two pieces - and such an examination is clearly a sign of geeky fanboy behavior- but ultimately the Albini version comes across as more challenging, satisfying and worthy of the band's legacy. Although it's overly simplistic to assume the band conceded to these revisions to ensure mainstream attention and radio play - it's hard to imagine "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" and "Tourette's" expanding Nirvana's fan base - it is nevertheless undeniable that the Geffen version, while not exactly duplicating the slickness of Nevermind, didn't exactly disavow that record's accessibility either. As it stands today, In Utero sounds more like a partial deconstruction of the Nevermind sound that a complete break from it. That full deconstruction - Albini's mix - was essentially gutted in favor of something that, while representing the group's most adventurous studio release, smoothed over the band's sound just enough to make it less disagreeable to the mainstream audience that Nevermind initially reeled in.

The Walkmen - Bows and Arrows

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Few albums continue to sound as evocative as Bows and Arrows. The follow up to the critic-revered though somewhat scattershot Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone, it remains the Walkmen's most focused, ambitious and successful work. Its songs are so damn good that not even a cameo appearance on ultra-shitty teen melodrama "The O.C." could ruin "Little House of Savages" and "What's in It for Me."

With most tracks centered on the sights, sounds and desperate dramas of the typical metropolitan city, the album's arrangements complement the lyrics almost flawlessly. "The Rat," with its searing guitars, precise drumming and alternately menacing and vulnerable vocals, rightly garnered most of the attention in 2004, but in hindsight the record's other songs are equally strong. The listener can practically smell the booze and feel the rain-soaked streets in the bar-room laments of "138th Street" and "Hang On, Siobhan," while "No Christmas While I'm Talking" and "New Year's Eve" almost too convincingly depict the type of disillusionment and boredom many of us feel around the holidays.

Initially saddled with comparisons to U2, the Walkmen have since proven those claims largely absurd. It likely won't ever escape from the massive shadow that Funeral cast over 2004, but Bows and Arrows remains as relevant and varied as it did upon its initial release. If the "O.C." couldn't destroy those songs, nothing likely would.

13th Chime: Complete Discography

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It's not surprising that 13th Chime never found commercial success, remaining one of Britain's most obscure and under-appreciated bands and their hard-to-find catalog primarily of interest only to hardcore fans and collectors. With a difficult style that mixed post-punk with goth rock and made no concessions to the more accessible elements of either genre, the group self-released just three singles and recorded a handful of songs for I.R.S. Records before the suits at that label decided they weren't particularly interested in the Chime's macabre subject matter and claustrophobic, experimental arrangements. Lead singer Mick Hand would depart soon thereafter, leaving remaining members Gary O'Connor, Terry Taylor and Ricky Cook to recruit a new vocalist and attempt a few rehearsals before eventually calling it quits in 1985. With no sympathetic record label to keep the group's work readily available, the Chime's standing as a band with a cult following was assured.

Complete Discography, then, will likely be most listeners' first introduction to the band. With the exception of live performances, the release presents the group's entire known recorded output and shows the band deserves far more than just passing mention in the post-punk story. Though much of the band's theatricality (the group took its name from a line in George Orwell's 1984, dressed predominately in black and presented themselves as androgynous sub-creatures, while their live shows featured pagan images, animal bones and speakers that were stored in custom-made coffins) now seems both dated and perversely quaint, the music itself remains unnerving and entirely original. The Chime's earliest songs are conversely the group's most discordant and striking efforts. Hand's vocals on "Cuts of Love," "Coffin Maker," "Cursed" and "Dug Up" are delivered as demented, echoed chants - sometimes reminiscent of PiL-era John Lydon - Taylor's bass is oppressively up front in the mix, while O'Connor's guitar and Cook's drums alternate between precision and improvisation. The songs recorded for I.R.S. are more rock-oriented and professional but no less worthwhile. Hand's vocals are fairly straightforward and mostly audible on "Radio Man," "Fire," "Two as a Couple" and "Help Me Street," with the group's instrumentals more developed and mature, the underlying melodies more pronounced.

Though the Chime's catalog contains heavy amounts of stereotypically goth themes - doom, gloom and enough caskets and corpses to fill a cemetery - and the group itself invented a persona to match, their best songs are notable for their introspective undertones and social concerns. The tough instrumentation would never suggest it, but there is a sense of a more personal type of loss in the group's singles beyond all the deathrock images and conceits they contain; indeed, the death of friend Steven Woodgate, with whom Hand, O'Connor and Cook played in the short-lived band Anticx, possibly influenced some of these songs. At their best, the band's lyrics railed against many of the popular topics of the day with both caustic humor and a sharp critical tongue: "A woman's heart is such a small price to pay/ For the exploitations of the people's culture," Hand declares in the barroom drama "Sally Ditch." If this release confirms anything, it's that the Chime should not be typecast as a prototypical goth band.

Complete Discography might not pull 13th Chime out from obscurity, but it does finally make the band's recordings readily available to the public and is a well-produced document of the band's blink-and-you'll-miss-it career. The sound and subject matter won't appeal to everyone, and there likely will be plenty of detractors ready to dismiss the band as just another black-clad, overly theatrical collective. And while goth rock has become its own punchline, the Chime's music still sounds desperate, urgent and unique enough to clearly show that the band should be considered in the broader context of the British post-punk era.

Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream

Steven Watts has managed to do the near-impossible: turn Hugh Hefner's life into a plodding, monotonous and excruciatingly goddamn boring exercise in academic overkill and professorial tedium. His Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream is the first serious book-length attempt to view Hefner as an historical figure, particularly against the backdrop of the socially conservative 1950s in which Playboy was first launched. As a study that largely ignores the more salacious and sordid details of the publisher's life in favor of a considered examination of how Playboy has both impacted and reacted to shifting cultural and sexual attitudes, the book occasionally succeeds. Yet it's ultimately a failure; excessively long and mind-numbingly repetitive, the book is a dry, clinical and humorless biography that simply goes in circles.

That Watts has done his research is never in question. Drawing from an ungodly amount of material from the 1950s to the present, Watts' portrait of Hefner is likely as complete a depiction of the publisher as we'll get. Granted substantial interview time with Hefner in which he clearly discussed far more than which women Hefner has nailed over the years - the author is likely more dedicated than others would be in his place - Watts does a solid job of offering a nuanced view of Hefner as both a person and businessman. Though Watts' depiction is largely sympathetic, it's not fawning and Hefner's flaws do not go unmentioned. Watts never resorts to tabloid journalism; those interested in a tell-all sex fest should look elsewhere. Hefner's single-minded focus - some would say obsession - on all major aspects of the magazine is discussed in depth, as are the various triumphs and tragedies that punctuate the Playboy story. Though Hefner obviously the book's focus, it also serves as a nice primer for anyone interested in the magazine's history (and not just the pictures).

All of which makes Mr. Playboy all the more frustrating. Despite Watts' intensive research and direct access to Hefner, the book is agonizingly redundant and tiresome to read. One of Watts' major assertions is that Playboy played an integral part in shaping the public's views on leisure, consumerism, wealth, and, of course, sex, especially in the post-World War II Eisenhower years. Watts argues that Hefner was adamant that Playboy would never be branded as a skin magazine or pervert's handbook, showing how from its earliest days the magazine included social commentary, fashion advice, fiction from leading writers of the day and critiques of music and film. Less convincingly, Watts depicts Hefner as a, to use his words, "philosopher king" whose frequently awkward and half-baked forays into philosophical discourse attempted to codify the Playboy philosophy.

Though Watts shows how Hefner played a pivotal role in endorsing a lifestyle of pleasure and, in a term the author uses far too often, "material abundance," this conclusion is reiterated constantly and turns the biography into a bloated tome that fails to maintain the reader's attention. Watts exerts a lot of effort and numerous pages - Going Green was apparently never an option - doing nothing more than restating this thesis. The book quickly suffocates under the weight of this oft-repeated conclusion, with a grotesque number of incredibly similar quotes utilized to the point of the reader's annoyance. Watts is about as subtle as a hammer upside the head; either he doesn't trust the reader to get the point unless it's repeated ad nauseam or he needed to add bulk to the biography. Either way too often the book reads like minor variations on the same theme, an interminable and seemingly endless regurgitation of a conclusion that is made painfully obvious. Watts also tends to view too many of Hefner's actions and decisions in light of the editor's broader cultural and social ambitions, an approach that sometimes isn't entirely believable; sometimes a photograph of a naked woman is just a photograph of a naked woman and not a harbinger of evolving cultural attitudes or a celebration of a consumerist lifestyle.

Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream is simply too deliberate and mechanical, with no textures, quirks or humor to offset its laborious approach to Hefner's life and legacy. Regardless of one's personal opinion of the Playboy founder, it's undeniable that Hefner had a visible role in this country's attitudes toward a variety of social and cultural issues. It's a pity that his life story too often takes a back seat to Watts' insistence to make his point.

Tribute: Vic Chesnutt (1964-2009)

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It's the news that we have been dreading and perhaps expecting for years: Vic Chesnutt is dead, most likely by suicide. Chesnutt always seemed older than his years and living on borrowed time: the cracked voice; those loosely-fitting clothes that suggested he was nothing but bones underneath them; the wheelchair and the limitations they imposed on him. Suicide was never a stranger in the singer's life or his songs. In various interviews he acknowledged several previous suicide attempts with a disarming degree of candor; "I flirted with you all my life/ Even kissed you once or twice" is how he addressed the subject on At The Cut. "Florida," written as an elegy for a friend who killed himself, now sounds even more chilling:

A man must take his life in his own hands
Hit those nails on the head
And I respect a man who goes to where he wants to be
Even if he wants to be dead

Most of the obituaries that have been written thus far have invariably typecast Chesnutt as a humorless and death-obsessed Southern folkie. Certainly Chesnutt spent much of his musical, and one imagines, private life confronting the types of questions about mortality many of us would prefer to keep at a safe distance. But the musician's work went far beyond that simplistic characterization; his songs could be cruel, comforting, comical and caustic all at once. At their best they told us something about the beauty and tragedy of life, about companionship and isolation, about hope and hopelessness.

His lyrics could paint pictures more vividly and believably than any painter's canvass; his songs were undeniably poetic. In Chesnutt's songs life was presented in startling detail; a bizarre, fragile and occasionally humorous world came alive in a Vic Chesnutt song. He saw the minute details about the world that most of us cannot or have been conditioned to ignore:

The filthy steps, the cold concrete
The phony earth below my feet
The ancient odor of the street
Yes the world, world, world it is a sponge
"Sponge" (from West of Rome)

Life is often portrayed as painfully transient at best in a Vic Chesnutt song. His albums are littered with characters whose little dramas we can recognize as our own and take consolation in. Chesnutt's musical worldview could be remarkably bleak; even the blissful innocence of childhood couldn't last forever. In his songs he reminded us that eventually we'll become more cynical, distant and indifferent to the world around us as we age:

And a little bitty baby draws a nice clean breath
From over his beaming momma's shoulder
He's staring at the worldly wonders that stretch just as far as he can see
But he'll stop staring when he's older
"New Town" (from About To Choke)

Time is rarely anyone's friend in a Vic Chesnutt song: it inexorably rolls on with or without us. That he could express such sentiments without resorting to melodrama is a testament to his unique lyrical and vocal abilities. When he wasn't twisting the knife into one of his hapless victims, Chesnutt could pose such questions about mortality, aging and the past with both sympathy and tenderness. He knew more about loss and loneliness than any one person should have had to:

Betty Lonely
She will always think in Spanish
Though I know her Spanish black hair will start to fade
"Betty Lonely" (from Is the Actor Happy?)

Conversely some of his songs reflect a fidelity and sense of promise that at least temporarily brightens the suffering lives that played out in his albums. A listener has to look hard and past all the jilted lovers left at the altar, coldest cadavers in the state and dead pigeons in the weeds to find such optimism, but it is there for anyone who wants to find it. If Chesnutt's music usually leans heavily towards total despair, glimpses of light still peak through. He could be unapologetically sentimental:

Cuddling up
Declarations of love
Squeeze and a hug
A kiss and a rub
Faces opposed
Eyelids closed
Nuzzling nose
Like Eskimos
"In My Way, Yes" (from Silver Lake)

In concert it was difficult to watch him perform; his stage presence was simple, genuine and unbearably heartbreaking. He'd sit in the wheelchair and sing in that fractured voice that could wrench meanings out of the even the simplest line or melody, his face twisting and contorting to the words, the bony fingers that actually worked impossible to ignore as they picked at a guitar. When it was time for an encore he'd simply roll the wheelchair back a few feet, wait and then roll it forward towards the microphone. Yet underneath that frail exterior was a defiance and confidence that suggested he knew how great these songs were, and that we'd better goddamn listen. He could quiet a belligerent crowd as easily with his acidic tongue as he could with his lyrics:

Chesnutt: Here's a song about my world actually.
Fan: It's our world, bro!
Chesnutt: It's my yard, motherfucker.
Introducing "Chinaberry Tree," 11/2/09 Athens, GA

It will be impossible to listen to his albums in the same way again. Many of Chesnutt's lyrics will now take on even darker implications in light of his death, and his memory will haunt these songs forever. For those closest to him, his death is a loss that words will never adequately describe. For those who only knew him via his songs, that loss is likewise deeply felt. His music touched our lives and put into words the indignities we endure, and he did it without ever coming across as weepy or self-pitying. He stared down the harsh realities of both his life and our lives with an endearing amount of honesty. He never glossed over anything in his songs - atheism, death, aging, mortality, the past - and he did it with a mixture of humor of the blackest sort and a remarkably colloquial yet poetic ear for language.

Today "Florida" sounds eerily prophetic:

Yes a man must make unpopular decisions, surely from time to time
And a man can only stand what a man can stand
It's a wobbly, volatile line

Vic Chesnutt dangled on that line for longer than most in his situation probably could have. His legacy will be defined by the songs that revealed the scars he'd received throughout life and how he coped with such pain. He wrote some of the most beautiful and disturbing songs any musician has created. For all of us, that will just have to be enough.


by Eric Dennis

Favorite Albums of the Year

My choices for albums of the year. Go to spectrumculture.com for the full list.



13. Dinosaur Jr.
Farm
[Jagjaguwar]
At least one indie reunion didn't destroy the band's legacy in the process. If 2007's Beyond demonstrated that the trio could reunite without wrecking its reputation, this year's Farm proved it was no fluke. Whereas other bands have tried to recreate their classic sound and failed miserably, Dinosaur Jr. didn't even attempt to rehash its past on Farm; those expecting a redux of You're Living All Over Me or Bug were surely disappointed. Instead, the album played to the band's strengths while still sounding original and unique: the intricate guitar workouts, bass and drums of songs like "I Want You To Know," "Plans," "Over It" and "Pieces" couldn't be mistaken for any other band, and never felt forced or redundant.
J. Mascis won't ever be confused with a smooth crooner, but his vocals and lyrics were as evocative as anything from the band's back catalog, especially on slow burners "See You" and "Said the People." Myopic listeners may have tended to zero in on the band's instrumentals - and really, who could blame them? - but Farm contained some of the strongest lyrics and vocals to grace a Dinosaur Jr. album. In a year that regrettably saw too many ill-conceived and poorly executed band reunions, Farm proved such efforts can result in something more than a shitty single and even shittier album. For once, a reunited band didn't simply mail it in; with Farm Dinosaur Jr. created an album that came damn close to matching their best work. -


4. The Antlers
Hospice
[Frenchkiss]
The Antlers created one of this year's - if not this decade's - most complex and profound albums with Hospice, an elegy to loss and remembrance as well as a statement of hope in the face of tragedy. Regardless of the actual events that inspired the record - in interviews lyricist Peter Silberman has downplayed much of the mythology now attached to Hospice - the album is most notable for its dense and varied musical template and richly poetic lyrics. Built around inter-connected storylines of a terminal cancer patient and a disintegrating relationship, Hospice remains a deeply moving album whose standing as one of indie's most fully realized works is assured.
Its songs are alternately devastating and uplifting; empty cancer ward beds, childhood nightmares and dissolution of relationships are contrasted with hopeful defiance and to an extent, guarded optimism. Events are mentioned but the story's complete picture remains elusive and dreamlike, as perspectives and timelines shift to the point that most songs are left open to the listener's interpretation. Silberman's voice and the band's layered instrumentals hold the songs together, never settling on one style for very long but still giving the album an overall tone and consistency.
The world of Hospice is one of transience and fragility, but also one of devotion and, however tentative, optimism. Its characters down mortality and separation squarely and honestly; the album doesn't bullshit and never gives in to resignation. With Hospice, The Antlers managed to take something deeply personal and shape it into a truly universal album. As 2009 ends, the album still is quite simply that type of rare work that serves as a reminder of just how powerful, heartbreaking and comforting music can be.

Album of the Decade....

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Andrew Bird

The Mysterious Production of Eggs

[Righteous Babe; 2005]

Nearly five years after its release, Andrew Bird's The Mysterious Production of Eggs remains one of the few albums from this decade that sounds unlike anything that came before it. Three years in the making, the record marked a dramatic stylistic shift for its creator; instead of repeating or even refining the mostly pastoral sounds of Weather Systems, Bird instead created a sprawling album of layered instrumentation, evocative arrangements and expert lyricism. Addressing predominantly dark subject matter with a mixture of sympathy, defiance and dry humor, the record managed to sound both timeless and timely, a quality that has only increased in subsequent years.

Though Bird's vocals still draw mostly inaccurate comparisons to everyone from Paul Simon to Thom Yorke and Jeff Buckley, Eggs' instrumental foundation is still difficult to categorize. Restrained songs like "Sovay," "MX Missiles" and "Masterfade" are defined by images of mortality and childhood memories as they bend and sway against Bird's careful arrangements, while the blasts of instrumentation that begin and end the morbidly humorous "Fake Palindromes" are largely unlike anything Bird had recorded up to that point. Violin, glockenspiel, guitar and other instruments are applied throughout, yet the album never sounds overly manufactured; even Bird's frequent whistling never feels self-conscious.

Eggs forgoes linear narratives in favor of striking images and clever wordplay. Though it's a bit dicey to call the album prophetic, its relevance to this decade is immediately recognizable: greedy bastards cash in at others' expense, soldiers march off to war, the economy and its financial institutions crumble. Yet even if the world Bird depicts throughout Eggs is markedly bleak, most of its fatalism is tempered with optimism or, at least, benign acceptance. In this way, the apocalypse of "Tables and Chairs" is greeted not with despair but instead with a celebration, complete with dancing bears, a band, Adderall and, of course, snacks, while "Opposite Day" envisions a new social order where society's grunts take charge and the powers-that-be find themselves incarcerated or in hell.

Andrew Bird released a string of outstanding albums this decade - the idyllic Weather Systems, the expansive Armchair Apocrypha and this year's solid Noble Beast - and while each effort demonstrated a different side of Bird's musical vision, none of these records matched The Mysterious Production of Eggs in both depth and ambition. A nuanced album whose charismatic lyrical vagaries and instrumental flourishes never deteriorate into excess or pretentiousness, it stands as one of this decade's most singular, focused and inscrutable releases. - Eric Dennis

Andrew Bird - Effigy

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Built around layers of looped violins eventually fading into an acoustic guitar and one of Andrew Bird's most striking violin instrumentals, "Effigy" is a song of loneliness and isolation. Whatever the song's specifics exactly are - ostensibly it's about a lone drinker at a bar who's short on companionship but long on existential laments, but with Bird, how the hell can anyone be sure? - it is simply one of this year's most powerful and relevant songs.

On paper the song's lyrics are dark enough, but its understated instrumentation and Bird's vocal delivery make the character's situation seem that much more tragic. A few key lyrics add to the track's poignancy; specifically, Bird's reference to "fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone," suggests that communication and social interaction are not among the man's strong suits. Perhaps as bleak a song as Bird has recorded, it offers little sense of resolution or hope. Time isn't on anyone's side and there's nothing romantic about a solitary life for a "man who's lost his way/ Slips away." It's not the first time Bird has written about such things, but the song is among his most direct and moving. "Effigy"'s arrangements, lyrics and vocals fit together perfectly, resulting in one of this year's most touching songs.

Jawbox: For Your Own Special Sweetheart (reissue)

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Such was the fury and self-righteous outrage when Jawbox left fabled indie label Dischord Records and signed with Atlantic, that some fans - exhibiting the type of reactionary lunacy that still surfaces every time an indie darling makes the major label jump - boycotted the group's albums and dismissed the band as corporate sell-outs. Probably most of those principled punks and humorless DC-scene elitists have come around by now; the band's Atlantic debut, 1994's For Your Own Special Sweetheart, remains both Jawbox's finest hour and one of the decade's defining releases. How in the hell this album went out of print is unexplainable, and it's both ironic and fitting that Sweetheart has finally been reissued by the label that lost the band to the majors in the first place.

Though Jawbox's major label output was minimal - the band managed just two albums before Atlantic dropped them - Sweetheart still demonstrates that a band can indeed do its best work under the auspices, watchful eyes and stuffed wallets of a major label without having to sanitize and neuter its sound. While the mid-1990s had its share of indie bands whose edges were softened and polished before the ink on that major label contract could even dry, Jawbox isn't one of them. True, Sweetheart is far more accessible and polished than the Dischord-issued punk blasts Grippe and Novelty, but in this case the sheen applied throughout still works: the songs' lyricism, vocal quirks and precise arrangements easily offset any alleged commercial concessions. J. Robbins' singing alternates between the menacing snarls of "FF=66," "Cruel Swing" and "Cooling Card" and the mostly straightforward alt-rock vocals of "Savory," "Breathe" and "LS/MFT," while Robbins' and Bill Barbot's guitars and Zach Barocas' drums each form essential pieces of the songs' composition. Such arrangements can sometimes sound overly studied and rehearsed - and without question Sweetheart is the band's most meticulously produced record - but the band retains enough of its abrasiveness and tension to render such potential pitfalls non-existent. This tension likewise extends to the songs' content; though the album's lyrics have routinely been overlooked in favor of their structures, the lyrics are as integral as any of the album's guitar bursts or pounded drums. "Motorist," for example, takes the familiar rock motif of a car crash and manages to capture its impact in only a few simple lines: "When you examined the wreck what did you see/ Glass everywhere and wheels still spinning free."

Unlike many such reissues, this version is worth a purchase for both fans that have the original album as well as those who have yet to hear Sweetheart. Purists might object to the album being tinkered with at all, but Bob Weston's remastering job is mostly welcome. Barocas' drums in particular are more pronounced in the mix, giving the songs more muscle without entirely altering their overall makeup. The volume is also a bit punchier and louder than the original release, which is good news for an iPod generation that will likely be deaf by the age of 40 anyway. The Savory EP is tacked on after "Whitney Walks," and though none of its songs surpass anything from the album proper, it's nice to have a more complete picture of the band at its best. The only misstep - a minor one, to be sure - is that the cover art was bafflingly changed from the album's original image of a blow-up doll to that of a marble sculpture. Some things are better just left alone.

The majors may have devoured plenty of bands throughout the 1990s, but Jawbox won't ever be counted among them. However briefly, the group managed to refine their sound and still retain the characteristics that originally endeared them to the DC music scene. If it came at the price of alienating some indie fans who would by default piss on anything even remotely mainstream, so be it. Some people can't be told, but for the rest of us, this reissue of a true landmark 1990s album solidifies Jawbox's place as one of that decade's most inventive and singularly focused groups.

Concert Review: Lucinda Williams

The Pageant, St. Louis, MO 10/17/09

It took exactly one song for the intoxicated requests to start. After Lucinda Williams opened her St. Louis concert with a soulfully garbled solo acoustic take of "Motherless Children," a rather forceful demand for "Drunken Angel" was shouted from the pit area. Other requests punctuated the breaks between songs throughout Williams' mesmerizing two and half hour performance at the Pageant - "Lake Charles," "Joy," "Are You Alright?" (a glutton for punishment, there) - and even if such things are standard and expected for a Williams show, it still doesn't make them any less annoying or unnecessary.

Perhaps such fans were unaware of the approach Williams and her expert backing band (a Doug Pettibone-less Buick 6) have taken on their current tour. Featuring a chronologically arranged setlist, these shows have the feel of a career retrospective, with Williams digging into her back catalog for songs that have been in her repertoire for years as well as a few rarities. If the crowd's expectations and what Williams had planned didn't always jive - especially in the concert's mostly down-tempo first hour, it was clear that more than a few fidgety and vocal concertgoers were expecting a full-on rock concert - the show was nevertheless memorable, with the singer turning in her most assured and confident performance in St. Louis since her 2003 stop at the same venue.

Although any such chronological format runs the risk of disintegrating into a mere nostalgia trip or Kumbaya community sing-along, there were enough surprises in song selection and wrinkles in the arrangements to keep things interesting. The first hour or so emphasized the musician's folk and blues roots: Williams' Folkways years were represented by the aforementioned opener, Robert Johnson's "Rambling On My Mind" and "Happy Woman Blues," while her self-titled Rough Trade debut was revisited with a pitch-perfect full-band version of "Crescent City," a country-inflected "Big Red Sun Blues" and a stripped down take on "Side of the Road." Only a scant two songs from the underappreciated Sweet Old World were offered, neither of which were particularly inspired; if there's an additional complaint here, it's that both songs - "Little Angel, Little Brother" and "Pineola" - were again performed with little deviation from their album versions and have grown a little stale.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the most generous selection of songs came from Williams' three best albums:Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Essence and, despite the occasional dud, World Without Tears. Weeper ballads like "Greenville," "Lake Charles" and "Blue" were intermixed with the muscular, aggressive blasts the band applied to "I Lost It," "Out of Touch" and "Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings." Guitarists Chet Lyster and Eric Schermerhorn and bassist David Sutton played masterfully across the board, while goateed monster drummer Butch Norton was particularly savage, pounding away at his drum kit as if he'd just discovered that it slept with his woman.

The main set somewhat limped to the finish. Recent songs "Unsuffer Me" and "Tears of Joy" sounded as lifeless in concert as they do on record, with both lazy blues crawlers standing in sharp contrast to the mocking and nasty tones the band applied to the vitriolic "Come On" and set-closing "Honey Bee." Still, such missteps were rare, and, after a three-song encore, the curtain closed on a fitting end to the band's tour and one of Williams' most engaging and least predictable St. Louis concerts.

With only a few exceptions, the performance itself was almost always flawless, with both Williams and her superb backing band breathing passion and energy into both the reliable standbys and lost gems from her back catalog. Though Williams' standing as a critics' darling has taken a hit with the dual disappointments of West and Little Honey, she still knows how to translate her songs to a live setting and there is a power to her ragged voice live that isn't always captured on record. If this chronological show confirmed anything, it's that most of Lucinda Williams' songs have aged well and rightly continue to find an audience based on the strength of their content and the often wrenching and conflicted emotions they express.

by Eric Dennis
[Photos: Lindsey Best]

Setlist:
1. Motherless Children
2. Rambling On My Mind (Robert Johnson)
3. Happy Woman Blues
4. Crescent City
5. Big Red Sun Blues
6. Side of the Road
7. Little Angel, Little Brother
8. Pineola
9. Greenville
10. I Lost It
11. Lake Charles
12. Still I Long for Your Kiss
13. Blue
14. Out of Touch
15. Essence
16. Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings
17. Righteously
18. Unsuffer Me
19. Come On
20. Tears of Joy
21. Honey Bee

Encore:
22. Nothing in Rambling (Memphis Minnie)
23. Joy
24. It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock n' Roll)

Interview: Peter Silberman of The Antlers

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Few albums in recent years have elicited such visceral responses from both fans and critics as Hospice, the stunning full-length debut from The Antlers. Currently on tour in support of the album, guitarist/vocalist/lyricist Peter Silberman was kind enough to spend some time with us discussing the album's origins, what the "self isolation" back story that surrounds the album actually means and whether he's comfortable with the various interpretations Hospice has received.




SC: Thanks for taking some time to talk today. By now it's been well documented that the narrative in Hospice centers on the relationship between a hospital worker and a girl/woman dying of cancer. Do you consider this a concept album, or are you hesitant to define the album in those terms?

PS: I'm hesitant to call it that but I'm not sure why. The album's a story, and the story's about a concept. Sure, it's a concept record. I think the songs can exist on their own, independent of the record, but they don't necessarily make sense that way.

SC: Was this storyline already defined before you began the record or did it only start to take shape as the songs were being written?

PS: It was a little of both. The real sequence of events had just wrapped up before the album was started. Turning it into a different kind of story happened alongside the writing.

SC: Most reviews have mentioned that you wrote these songs after a couple years of social isolation. Is that just the type of interesting footnote critics love or did it influence the songs?

PS: I don't even know anymore. I wonder what people think "isolation" actually means. I wasn't in a sensory deprivation tank or in a cabin in the woods. It's gotten out of hand. What happened: I stopped talking to my friends. Why that happened: that's explained in the record.

SC: Perspectives and timelines shift from song to song, and certain events are mentioned but it's sometimes difficult to piece the story together.

PS: Well, Hospice is sort of told like a dream, where things are constantly transforming and confusing, time is arbitrary and illogical, locations become different locations. The record's about life becoming indistinguishable from a dream, or in this case, recurring nightmares.

SC: Various reviews have offered different interpretations of exactly what's happening in Hospice. Are you concerned about these songs being misinterpreted?

PS: People are totally free to call it however they like. I don't want to dictate what this album means to someone else. I only worry when people get carried away with the truth behind the record's events and decide something as concrete as "Hospice is about Peter Silberman's dead girlfriend." Not necessarily true.

SC: While there's a heavy sense of loss throughout the album, it never becomes oppressive and hope isn't necessarily lost.

PS: I never wanted to create something hopeless. I was trying to work through something by making this album, and nothing would have been fixed had it ended at the bottom.

SC: The album is pretty layered and the arrangements and vocals never settle on any one style for very long. What was the recording process like?

PS: The vocals were the last to be recorded, and were recorded frustratingly over the course of one weekend upstate. The rest of the time, the record was being recorded in my apartment with two microphones and very little space for a little over a year. It was actually a lot of fun, though it felt like a failure throughout a good deal of it.

SC: Are you surprised by the attention the album has received despite having very little publicity behind it?

PS: I'm surprised every day that things have reached the point they have. I never expected this record to get to this many people. I'm really happy about that.

SC: What considerations come into play when you try to translate these songs to a live setting?

PS: We're pretty much constantly on tour right now, and we've adapted most of the songs to sound different than they do on record. That keeps us going and engaged, to be changing these songs and sounds, making the live show bigger and washier.

SC: If there's a single takeaway theme to Hospice - something to cut through all the various interpretations - what is it?

PS: The end of guilt.

Real Estate: Real Estate

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Patience is a virtue, and listeners will likely need plenty of it throughout Real Estate's self-titled full-length. It's not that the album is overly long; at just 10 songs and right around 40 minutes, it's not particularly over-indulgent or tediously meandering. It's not that the album is awful or directionless either: clearly the New Jersey band knew what type of sound they were going for throughout the record. Nearly every song consists of opening and closing instrumental sections of varying lengths, fluid guitar lines from Matt Mondanile and the echoed and mostly buried vocals of Martin Courtney.

Only one small problem: the band repeats that formula for the entire album with the type of narrow-minded determination usually reserved for zealots and psychopaths. Individual songs mostly work by themselves, but when evaluated in an album context, this release quickly becomes monotonous and repetitive. To be sure, Real Estate has its moments - "Black Lake" is the album's standout track, its languid pace and distant vocals undeniably evocative and mysterious - but mostly the album crumbles under the weight of its own predictability. The album's charm doesn't last for long: "Fake Blues," "Green River," "Let's Rock the Beach" and "Suburban Beverage" are all built from a remarkably similar template, as each begins with an instrumental lead-in before giving way to various guitar/bass/drum patterns and Courtney's frequently hazy vocals.

Most of the tracks on Real Estate unfold gradually, with no peaks or valleys or moments of tension or resolution. Quite simply its parts are greater than the whole; on their own, songs like "Snow Days" and "Suburban Dogs" offer carefully crafted arrangements and ghostly vocals that sometimes sound like they were recorded underwater. That these songs offer various moods, tones and textures is undeniable. Yet there is just not enough variation to complement these songs' ethereal and nostalgic qualities, and eventually the album collectively becomes fairly ponderous and plodding. Courtney's vocals, buried in the mix to varying degrees, are essentially treated as another instrument, a trick that likewise works for a while before feeling a bit played out.

Of course, we're living in a digital music age where a solid song or two can be isolated from an album and added to a listener's iPod playlist, with those songs sounding all the better for it. Still, Real Estate likely isn't meant to be a collection of singles. There's a logic and consistency to its songs - not to mention plenty of references to beaches, water, lakes, seasons and suburbia - that musically and thematically link its tracks. Yet there are landmines with such a defined scope, and if you're a band that locks into a specific formula, the arrangements and vocals sure as hell better have enough wrinkles to remain interesting and unconventional. All too often such variations are missing from Real Estate, the result being an album whose deliberate pace and mostly uniform sound eventually overstay their welcome.

The Jesus Lizard Reissues

The major labels who treat album reissues as just another way to cheaply recycle and profitably repackage an artist's most celebrated work could learn a thing or two from Touch and Go. Quite simply, the indie label's Jesus Lizard reissues are about as flawless as such releases can be. Though the timing of the label's campaign might make cynics take notice - the original releases aren't out of print, the remastering job by Steve Albini and Bob Weston isn't really noticeable and these reissues come at a time when a reformed Jesus Lizard is performing live to receptive audiences - the care and attention paid to these reissues more than offset any reservations listeners might have about shelling out for the albums. For those not familiar with the Jesus Lizard, the reissues will serve as an ideal overview of the band, while hardcore fans who know there is no better insult than calling someone a mouth-breather should be satisfied with the bonus tracks and the releases' overall aesthetic.

Enough clever metaphors have been used over the years to describe Goat and Liar to make additional commentary redundant. It's enough to say that both albums contain the band's blend of deranged vocals and scathing, stop-start arrangements at their most precise and tense; filled with ugly sentiments and even uglier characters, these albums remain essential pieces of 1990s indie rock. Only a fool would bother to argue that one album is significantly stronger than the other. If this reissue series suggests anything, it's that the records that bookended Goat and Liar deserve a bit more attention. Very few sane fans will argue that the Pure EP, Head and final Touch and Go album Down belong in the same class as Goat and Liar; still, these less-celebrated releases have aged remarkably well and offer traces of the sound the band perfected on those two classic albums. Though Yow's vocals don't quite have the maniacal frenzy of tracks like "Boilermaker," "Seasick," "Karpis" or "Rope" and the EP sometimes exposes a tentative vocalist, the singer's guttural howls and strangled cries on "Bloody Mary," "Starlet" and "Killer McHann" are the stuff of loony bins and state penitentiaries and hint at the unhinged and uncontrolled vocal spasms Yow would employ throughout Goat and Liar.

In contrast the band's taut and sharp arrangements in many ways were solidified early on; starting with Head and continuing through Down, the three-man wrecking crew of David Wm. Sims, Mac McNeilly and Duane Denison delivered music free of frills, extraneous notes or other needless diversions. Of course, the most focused and violently concise songs are found on Goat and Liar, but early songs like "Good Thing," "Waxeater" and "One Evening" all bear the trio's machine-like efficiency. Select tracks from the erratic Down - with its relatively audible vocals and somewhat polished sound, it's arguably the band's most straightforward record - likewise feature the trio's propulsive rhythms and textures. The contrast between Yow's meandering vocals and the band's exact instrumentals still sounds jarring and disorienting.

If there are any complaints to be made, it's that each disc includes a scant number of bonus tracks and that a complete live show might have been preferable to the few live songs captured here. Yet these drawbacks are minor and forgivable. Yow sings like an untreated schizophrenic on live versions of "Bloody Mary," "Killer McHann," "Seasick," "Lady Shoes" and "Monkey Trick;" perfunctory demos of "Dancing Naked Ladies," "Gladiator" and "Boilermaker" are nevertheless intriguing and Down is rounded out with four tracks that would have fit in nicely on that album, particularly "Glamorous" and "Deaf as a Bat." Each reissue is nattily packaged with vintage photos, reproductions of posters, ticket stubs and other miscellany and anecdotes and ramblings from Yow, McNeilly and Denison. Even the requisite mythologizing essays are worth reading, even if the authors' somewhat-fawning superlatives stop just short of arguing that the band could turn shit to gold.

Ultimately, what we're left with is a heavyweight band whose records now get to take the victory lap they were never afforded in the '90s, at least commercially. Goat and Liar still stand as the band's finest works, but for those interested in diving into the aggression and depravity of these songs, either for the first time or once again, all of these reissued albums are required listening.

Song of the Decade: Tom Waits - Barcarolle

"Barcarolle" by Tom Waits (2002)

Trying to pick one song as the aughts' best is a fool's task: for every song a critic chooses, at least one reader will likely wonder why the hell the writer made that bizarre selection. Setting all this aside, the criteria I used was simple: of all the songs I heard this decade, Tom Waits' "Barcarolle" is the only one that I can still listen to at any time, in any mood, at any place and never even become momentarily bored or underwhelmed.

At first glance (hell, even at second and third glance) "Barcarolle" is an unlikely candidate for this feature. The song didn't define the decade in any appreciable way, nor did it bend, reshape, or obliterate any genres. It wasn't created against the backdrop of the past 10 years' key events - 9/11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a crippled economy - and didn't capture the bleakness and dread that defined most of this fucked up Bush-Cheney debacle of a decade. Even in the Tom Waits catalog the song is routinely dismissed as a decent song and not much more. Except for a few performances in 1992's coolly-received play Alice, Waits didn't get around to releasing it until 2002's album of the same name, and even then it was tucked away toward the end of the record. Still, the song carries with it a beauty and fragility that was rarely matched throughout the decade.

The song, like most tracks from Alice, takes as its subject the devotion/illicit obsession Lewis Carroll carries around for the young Alice Liddell. It forgoes the vocal barking and musical clang usually associated with the musician in favor a beautifully subtle approach. The arrangement is wonderfully understated and among the most evocative Waits has recorded; a perfect blend of bass, piano, violin, and saxophone, each instrument is used to evoke a definite mood. Waits' vocals are likewise restrained, with none of the lunatic wailing that has sometimes bordered on self-parody.

In addition to the song's larger themes of devotion and obsession, "Barcarolle" is a moving rumination on mortality and aging. The idealized girl "skating on the ice/ In a glass in the hands of a man/ That she kissed on the train" will be young but for a moment, a truth the older narrator has already discovered but of which the girl seems naively unaware. Set against images that surface in Waits' songs like clockwork, time passes indifferently and the simple joys of youth give way to the effects of time: "...the branches bend down/ To the ground here to swing on/ I'm lost in the blond summer grass/ And the train whistle blows/ And the carnival goes/ Till there's only the tickets and crows here/ And the grass will all grow back."

With an arrangement that could soften even the most jaded heart, "Barcarolle" offers a poetic take on life's fleeting nature and little tragedies. Time moves on, with or without us, it suggests, with a steady indifference. It's also, quite simply, the one song from this decade I'd choose to listen to above all others. - Eric Dennis

Bad Santa

go read the rest of Spectrum Culture's review of the best films of the decade at spectrumculture.com

Few movies have managed to turn a tried-and-true genre on its head as irreverently and successfully as Bad Santa. The 2003 comedy is everything that It's A Wonderful Life and other maudlin, sentimental holiday drivel is not: unrepentantly crude, excessively lewd and cynical even as it embraces, however slightly, a bit of yuletide optimism. Along the way there are countless other incidents to remind viewers that this isn't your mother's Jimmy Stewart Christmas movie and that Clarence sure as hell won't be getting his wings: anal sex, a suicide attempt, murder, attempted murder, massive amounts of greed - among other vices - and copious amounts of unique and colorful profanity.

The main character - the perpetually drunk and horny con artist/thief Willie Stokes, played with convincing lasciviousness by Billy Bob Thornton - subverts the popular depiction of the everyman hero that has defined most holiday films. While almost every other such character has a flaw or two, Willie's are magnified to the point of comedic excess: his gig as a mall Santa is punctuated by drunken violent outbursts (on one occasion he waylays a reindeer display), blatant ogling of the mall's female customers, one self-pissing incident and a nihilistic streak that lessens but never really goes away.

Any concessions to the Christmas spirit come with perverse and violent twists. As the movie unfolds we see through several simple acts of kindness that, underneath the crusty, booze-soaked exterior, Willie just may be a caring person after all: he teaches The Kid (later revealed to have the unfortunate name Thurman Merman) how to defend himself by beating the tar out of a bully, while his relationship with bartender Sue progresses from him grabbing her ass as she hangs up ornaments to one of home-cooked meals and other trappings of domestic bliss. Hell, he even takes a hail of gunfire from the Phoenix Police Department as he delivers a stolen stuffed pink elephant to the boy's home, risking his life to fulfill Thurman's somewhat bizarre Christmas wish.

As the Christmas season seems to start earlier each year - my local Target broke out the decorations, artificial trees and obnoxious ornaments in early September - Bad Santa speaks to the dread and pessimism countless people feel as Christmas consumes various aspects of daily life. For such contemporary viewers the film is both hilarious and sobering: it's easy to see something of ourselves in both Willie's boorish behavior and his eventual redemption. While most Americans have been raised on a steady diet of innocuous and inane holiday movies, Bad Santa shows that films from this genre can be vulgar and obnoxious without resorting to overly emotional characters and weepy holiday sentiments. - Eric Dennis

Concert Review: Built to Spill

plenty more good stuff at spectrumculture.com

If there was ever a band whose sound and stage demeanor perfectly fit the now-dead and practically buried Mississippi Nights (there's always talk of the venue reopening again in a new location, but it won't be the same), it's Built to Spill. Like a shitty and humid St. Louis summer followed by an equally shitty but freezing St. Louis winter, a Built to Spill show on the Landing was practically a given. And without exception these concerts were always memorable: a well-worn and smoke-filled venue packed to the point where you just knew fire codes were being violated, a temperature that seemed to hover around 120 degrees, alcohol flowing like water, a disturbing number of bearded Doug Martsch wannabes all intent on headbanging the night away and the band onstage absolutely pulverizing their songs at tinnitus-inducing volumes.

So perhaps it was inevitable that the band's recent performance at the Pageant - one of the most antiseptic and bland concert night clubs any city has to offer - lacked much of the edge and atmosphere that characterized those Mississippi Nights shows. Certainly there were a few remnants of that old Landing vibe: nearly every song was greeted by hollers of approval and a disconcerting number of air guitarists perfecting their technique, the bearded legions of Martsch disciples turned out in force again and many fans in the pit seemed involved in some test of mortality to see who could chain-smoke their lungs tar-black the fastest. Still, the Pageant's stilted and utterly lifeless environs had the predictable effect, as it often felt like the band was being observed as if specimens under glass.

This isn't to say that Built to Spill gave a lackluster or underwhelming effort. The band itself again demonstrated why they are so strong in a live setting, even if Martsch and co. are about as nondescript and unassuming as it gets. The band dipped into its back catalog often throughout the 90-minute set, with songs like "Distopian Dream Girl," "The Plan," "Sidewalk," and "You Were Right" all featuring furious guitar arrangements, a fairly bouncy and twitchy Martsch and drums that somehow cut through this guitar onslaught. Martsch's reedy-thin voice usually takes a backseat to his guitar work, but the singer's expressive vocals carried more restrained tunes like "Reasons" and "Car," both songs reminding the audience that Martsch is a damn good songwriter and not just one of music's finest guitarists. The band did what they could to let the music speak for itself against the Pageant's clinical setup: new track "Hindsight," from new album There Is No Enemy, offered something new for the lifers, there were no ornate backdrops or wild light shows and Martsch didn't patronize the audience with reminders to visit the merch table and didn't even bother to shill for the new album. The band clearly wanted to focus on the music - Martsch said little to the audience aside from a few sincere words of thanks - and it was refreshing to see a band that still puts substance over flash.

Though this wasn't the first time Built to Spill has played the Pageant, it still feels like an awkward fit. The Pageant's spartan aesthetic might suit other bands well, particularly those who clutter the stage with props and other gimmicks. Although no one is likely expecting this mid-size club to have the personality and charm of the city's smaller, more intimate and undeniably more inviting venues, there is very little that gives the Pageant any local flavor at all. To the sound crew's credit, the sound was as good as I've ever heard at the Pageant, with Martsch's vocals clearly audible and the songs' lengthy instrumental flights sounding particularly balanced and precise. Yet a dull setting has a way of sucking the life out of a room, despite an audience's rapt attention and the band bringing some of its best songs to the dance. Perhaps it's at least partly nostalgia for one of St. Louis' most sorely missed venues, but it's likely that more than a few fans left the Pageant wishing Mississippi Nights was still around to give the band its proper due.

Nirvana: Bleach (reissue)

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Bleach remains Nirvana's most inconsistent and least appreciated album, a tiny and wobbly baby step for a band whose legacy and permanent pop culture presence are both assured (as long as Kurt Cobain's likeness continues to be used for grotesque commercial purposes, at least). Certainly, Bleach is flawed like no other Nirvana release, with both circumstances and Cobain himself contributing to the record's unwanted bastard child status. Two different drummers (neither of them named Dave Grohl) were utilized during the recording sessions, while Cobain was consistently dismissive of the final product, attributing its sludgy sound to label pressures for the band to conform to a specific rock style and frequently discounting the lyrics as little more than hastily thrown-together words that he didn't particularly agonize over. If Cobain never exactly disowned the record, his attitude toward it was ambivalent at best. His self-deprecating introduction to "About a Girl" during the band's 1994 MTV Unplugged performance - besides making the track seem far more obscure than it actually was - nevertheless contained an element of truth: in the wake of Nevermind blowing up, scorching the musical landscape in its wake, Nirvana's awkward and occasionally clumsy debut album would always be overshadowed by the behemoth that was Nevermind.

Though Bleach is still an uneven and fumbling album 20 years after its initial release, Sub Pop's superb reissue suggests a re-examination of the record is in order. Although time hasn't transformed this debut into a lost gem, it hasn't hopelessly dated these songs either, and several tracks are (almost) as good as anything that would later surface on Nevermind and In Utero. First the obvious: the thick-and-plodding instrumentation, bloated big-rock riffing, barely-competent pre-Dave Grohl drumming and affected vocals that doom certain songs show all the markings of a band struggling to find a unique voice. Bleach's second half, from "Swap Meet" through album closer "Downer," continues to feel monotonously repetitive and aimless. Still, there are traces of brilliance here, and with the benefit of hindsight, several songs - "About a Girl," "Negative Creep," "Blew" and "School" - clearly point towards the mostly mainstream-ready sound (let's be honest) the band would achieve on its next two studio releases. If this reissue doesn't exactly wash the stink off the album as a whole, it does at least make the case that its best songs offset these duds.

More revelatory and satisfying is the February 9, 1990 live show that immediately follows. A soundboard recording from Portland's Pine Street Theatre, the sound quality is flawless, easily surpassing previous versions of this show that have circulated on bootleg, revealing a vocalist and bassist who have both outgrown the sonic confines and stylistic constraints of its budget-conscious debut album. Though six of the 11 songs come from Bleach, they differ significantly from their album counterparts; gone are the metallic, muddy arrangements, Krist Novoselic's oppressive bass and Cobain's exaggerated vocals, replaced instead with the first hints of the more focused and direct live sound the band would effectively employ until its demise. Though the band hadn't yet hit upon its classic lineup - the much-maligned Chad Channing is still on drums - the duo's progress, at least in this live setting, is striking. Most noticeably, Cobain's guitar is less grimy than it was on Bleach, and his scorched vocals surpass the tortured and sometimes clownish singing style of that debut album.

Though this show likely won't ever enter the Nirvana pantheon as among the group's best (Reading 1992, Halloween and New Year's Eve 1991) or most infamous (Rome 1994), there is still plenty to like throughout this brief 40-minute, feedback-laden set, in particular Cobain's sing-screaming on "School," "Blew," "Spank Thru" and "Dive," as well as the aggressive cover versions of "Love Buzz" and "Molly's Lips." It's a glimpse into a mostly unknown band playing toward the bottom of the bill, before the massive commercial success of Nevermind briefly made them The Single Most Important Band in the History of Recorded Sound. Skeptics who still can't get past Bleach's shortcomings will find little to gripe about with this show; trimmed of that album's fat, it's simply a blistering rock show and essential listening for any Nirvana fan.

The reissue is rounded out with a booklet of previously-unreleased band photos that should tickle the buying bone of fans who expect such reissues to do more than just thoughtlessly repackage the original release. Coupled with a clearly audible remastering job from Bleach producer Jack Endino, the original album and Portland show offer a fairly complete picture of Nirvana circa 1990. Although this reissue likely won't change the popular consensus of Bleach as the band's least consistent work, it does show how quickly Cobain and Novoselic had moved past that album's limitations, especially in a live setting. The band isn't yet the mighty beast that would be unleashed in 1991, but this reissue offers a compelling snapshot of a band whose creativity, ambition and, for better or worse, mainstream success would soon reshape the 1990s musical landscape.

Devendra Banhart: What Will We Be

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Depending on a listener's point of view, the typical Devendra Banhart album can be interpreted as either a uniquely ambitious exercise in genre manipulation or a gaudy testament to a musician's self-indulgent musical whims and pretentions. The artist has flirted with the type of experimentalism that critics and indie types adore and mainstream audiences loathe, earning his fair share of both loyalists and detractors along the way. Such an approach has, perhaps not surprisingly, yielded mixed results; 2004's Rejoicing in the Hands belongs in any serious discussion of the decade's best releases, whereas 2007's Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, with its near 70-minute running time and genre workouts that inadvertently border on parody, suggested the musician's eccentricities and a paucity of self-editing had gotten the better of him.

Although What Will We Be, Banhart's latest effort and major label debut, still mostly adheres to the template he has followed throughout his career, it is also his most musically straightforward and direct record to date. The album is focused in a way that was absent among Thunder Canyon's excesses, though Banhart's lyrics are as enigmatic as ever. Most songs rely on guitars, piano and drums to lock into a mid-tempo pace that emphasizes restrained vocals, melody and finely crafted instrumentation over his sometimes obtuse style-shifting tendencies. Opener "Can't Help," "Goin' Back to the Place" and "Angelika" are instantly memorable and sound better with repeated listens, with the backing band that also appeared on Thunder Canyon giving these tracks atmosphere and color. The balladry and lyricism of "Meet Me At Lookout Point" are as evocative as anything you'll find in Banhart's back catalog, with Banhart's vocals more conventional than what fans and critics might expect. If Thunder Canyon's seemingly directionless wanderings too often gave the impression of a vocalist and band still trying to figure each other out, such flaws do not surface here, as most songs' instrumental arrangements show the group can be steady and understated without being dull.

This isn't to say that the album is primed for mainstream commercial appeal; it's indeed difficult to imagine many of these songs appealing to a broad audience. Still, this primarily direct approach suits Banhart well, and it's ironic that What Will We Be's least engaging and successful inclusions are those in which the musician attempts the genre exercises for which he's best known. "Brindo," "Wiliamdzi," "Rats," "Foolin" and "Baby" border on being lifeless pastiche and do little more than again demonstrate Banhart's capacity for contrasting musical styles. Although Banhart has made his name bending such disparate genres, these songs sound strangely out of place and make the album seem overly drawn out.

Although it doesn't quite measure up to Rejoicing in the Hands or even parts of Cripple Crow, Devendra Banhart's latest effort is a respectable rebound from the missteps that ultimately doomed Thunder Canyon. Of course, there will be skeptics who can't get past the fact that someone as unclassifiable as Banhart now toils under the auspices of a major label (get ready for critics to renew that long-dead argument about whether an indie artist can do quality work once the jump is made to a major label). Fans willing to look past that major label stigma will find plenty to like here, as What Will We Be succeeds in finding the middle ground between Banhart's folk sensibilities and his fascination with divergent musical forms and structures.

Alec Ounsworth: Mo Beauty

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An indie musician from Philadelphia walks into a New Orleans studio and records a quasi-Southern Gothic album with a small army of Crescent City players. What has the potential to be an unmitigated disaster instead results in one of this year's most varied and intriguing releases. Although cynics might see Mo Beauty, the sprawling "solo" debut from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah frontman Alec Ounsworth, as little more than a vanity project or a fleeting stylistic diversion, its songs are uniformly strong and its style is wonderfully dynamic and original, even if Ounsworth's vocals are an acquired taste and almost certain to limit the record's chances of widespread appeal.

Though Mo Beauty features an unconventional set of contributors whose backgrounds and styles sharply contrast with Ounsworth's and the album is primarily culled from the musician's older material, the record holds together remarkably well. A barrage of various guitars, horns, synthesizers, drums, pianos and keyboards is used to create songs that are alternately raucous and exuberant - and always impossible to guess just where the hell the players will take each one. Guitars, drums and a swampy organ give "Bones in the Grave" an appropriately sinister tone, while "Me and You, Watson" moves with a martial drum rhythm and muffled organ. A trio of songs smack in the middle of the album - "That is Not my Home (after Bruegel)," "Idiots in the Rain" and "South Philadelphia (Drug Days)" - are all punctuated with drums, keyboards and numerous trombones that defy easy categorization. Despite the songs' seemingly meandering arrangements, there is a sense of control and craft to them, as each song sounds carefully rehearsed and executed but not overly produced.

For all the charms and eccentricities of these tracks, the quieter and more traditionally-arranged tunes offer the album's most emotional and gripping moments. Built around an acoustic guitar, stately piano and quiet baritone sax, "Holy, Holy, Holy Moses (song for New Orleans)" is the album's most accessible and memorable track. With its references to "rain and fire" and "high tides" and Ounsworth's understated vocals, the song plays like a contemporary elegy to this Southern city. "What Fun" moves at a faster but mostly deliberate pace, its acoustic guitars and organs accenting the song's wistful and nostalgic (or is that just bitterness?) feel and a pedal steel guitar mixed with an organ lending a dusty time-worn element to the song.

Ounsworth's vocals are suitably unconventional; he doesn't sing so much as nasally wheeze the words out. Sometimes these vocals threaten to go off the rails as Ounsworth crams words into some tight spaces - check out the singer's sporadic slurring on "Me and You, Watson," "Idiots in the Rain" and opener "Modern Girl (with scissors)," as if he's fighting to keep pace with the band behind him - but even in these cases the vocals are more exciting and unpredictable than pretentious or affected. The lyrics are likewise evocative, with specific phrases and images - "pages ripped from some holy book," "like an ordinary citizen tied up in the trunk of a car," "counting cars in South New Jersey" - offering enough ambiguity without feeling deliberately obtuse (though I swear the "all this useless beauty" line that shows up in "Modern Girl" has been used somewhere before...).

Those still clutching their dog-eared copies of CYHSY's self-titled debut should be placated, as Mo Beauty shares that album's spirit of genre-hopping without sounding derivative or intentionally difficult. If there's a stigma about an indie artist branching out for a solo foray, Ounsworth dispels such thoughts throughout this album, even if calling this album a solo effort is misleading. Mo Beauty moves with its own unique logic, its influences and intentions present but not oppressively so. What had the potential to be yet another exercise in gross self-indulgence best relegated to the boneyard of failed albums is instead one of this year's most creative and unclassifiable efforts.