The Dodos
No Color
Frenchkiss
Quite the contrary Retreating from the illreceived Time to Die like a skinny-dipper stepping on a piece of glass, Dodos are up to their old tricks on No Color. Eccentric plucker Meric Long and polyrhythmic thwacker Logan Kroeber are a duo again, shed of supplemental vibraphone and trendy producers; but No Color is a step sideways, not back, a course correction rather than a fullfledged retreat. The songs gain focus without losing their skittering energy. In “Hunting Season,” Long repeats the phrase “How’m I ’sposed to know that” as Kroeber’s drums gather speed behind him, like a car spinning its wheels until they finally catch and throw you against the seat. Neko Case’s frequent harmonies smooth the passage, but the band’s voice is strong enough to accommodate hers without losing their own. —Sam Adams The Dwarves
Are Born Again MVD
Think smaller The Dwarves have always been punk rock sadist assholes. These bastards would sell out their own mothers for a chance to kick you in the mouth so your lips swelled up and looked like gigantic hemorrhoids on your face. Then they’d write a song about it, and the song would be so catchy, you’d simply have to shout along. Twenty-five years into their career, the Dwarves are still delivering the hilariously nasty goods on Are Born Again, proof that this San Francisco-based band is more tenacious than the crabs undoubtedly festering under guitarist HeWhoCanNotBeNamed’s always-exposed ballsack. Are Born Again is packed to the cheeks with tight, swinging hardcore punk built on grooves from the ’60s, complete with ooh-ooh backing harmonies and surfy guitar leads. Blag the Ripper’s sleazy vocals contrast with Rex Everything’s (a.k.a. Nick Oliveri’s) teeth-gnashing, methmouthed screams. Tunes like “The Dwarves Are Still the Best Band Ever,” “I Masturbate Me” and “Working Class Hole” are indicative of the band’s determination to outlive, outrock and outfuck the rest of humanity. They’re born (again) to be wild. —Jeanne Fury Ear Pwr
Ear Pwr
Carpark
Wax off Though they spent time in Baltimore, Ear Pwr have recently returned to Asheville, NC, and this self-titled album is a hell of a lot calmer than 2009’s spazzed-out Super Animal Brothers III. This time around, instead of evoking their star labelmate (and Baltimorean) Dan Deacon, Devin Booze (music) and Sarah Reynolds
(vocals) are closer in spirit to their other star labelmate, Toro Y Moi: hazy, keyboard-dappled, very homemade semi-pop songs that sound, in places, like they were intended to be sung along with, from “North Carolina,” about the glory of moving back home, to “Feel It”: “I feel it in my body / A Milky Way in my brain,” goes the chorus. But while Ear Pwr ramps up the duo’s seriousness, the songwriting itself is largely blasé (Reynolds’ Milky Way might as well be the candy bar); the album’s major highlight, “Geodes,” is a fizzy, live-drums (we think) instrumental. —Michaelangelo Matos
Here We Go Magic
The January EP
Secretly Canadian
It’s raining mediocrity again Bleepy-folky indie bands are not exactly as unique and precious as snowflakes, if you catch my drift. Being one of those bands, Brooklyn’s Here We Go Magic don’t entirely distinguish themselves on this companion EP to their album of last year, Pigeons. But they don’t completely embarrass themselves either. Half of this six-song release strikes a successful balance between memorable melodies and itchy, repetitive rhythms. “Tulip,” “Song in Three” and “Backwards Time” sound like the band is subtly integrating the influence of XTC and Talking Heads, rather than just shamelessly pilfering. However, frontman Luke Temple’s voice is an acquired taste throughout. At best, he’s a nondescript Wayne Coyne. At worst, on “Mirror Me” and the excruciating “Hollywood,” his elfin falsetto hits unnervingly Supertramp-like notes. —Michael Pelusi Joan of Arc
Life Like
Polyvinyl
The Windy City’s math hysteria If Tim Kinsella were any more experimental, he’d be playing with beakers and Bunsen burners rather than guitars, tape loops and revolving personnel. Over the past decade and a half, the Joan of Arc sparkplug has crafted a catalog that defies description, incorporating math rock precision, post-rock crunch, aggressively ambient noise, angular pop melodicism and jazzy time signatures—sometimes simultaneously—in the service of his lysergic lyrics and anti-pop vocals. On Life Like, the 16th studio album under the JOA banner, Kinsella and this year’s Joan—cut down to a streamlined quartet—strip away the noodling electronics and utilize a more typical sonic arsenal on a set of actual songs. Well, typical for them, anyway. Life Like’s 10-minute opener, “I Saw the Messed Blinds of My Generation,” offers jarring blasts of noise, circuitous mathy riffs and stuttering pulses, as well as sheets of guitar noise that sound like the second post-rock coming of Jimi Hendrix. It’s the perfect introduction to Kinsella’s singular version of a song-based rock album. —Brian Baker
Ladytron
Best of ’00-’10 Nettwerk
Revisiting the nü-new wave Ah yes, the “good” old days of post-9/11 electronica, where no one felt like partying, club attendance took a nosedive and everything sounded a bit bleaker. Groups like adult., Miss Kittin & the Hacker and Liverpool’s Ladytron were well positioned to take advantage with the sort of catatonic, dystopian observations and retro-synth punk touches that would define the early 21st century electroclash movement. And now enough cadmium-laced water’s under the bridge that Ladytron can safely examine their legacy. Considering the inherent limitations of their creative persona, Ladytron were able to cover a lot of ground over the last decade. They could evoke Moroder-style Italo-disco as easily as they could surly modern electro, while lead vocalist Mira Aroyo suffused the multilingual proceedings with an appropriate sangfroid. The release of retrospectives like this often suggest a band at a creative crossroads—or a dead-end. But at least they’ve had a good run so far.—Justin Hampton Oval/Liturgy
Split
Liturgy
Aesthetica Thrill Jockey
Progressive black metal, glitchy electronica, PB&J On paper, Oval and Liturgy make a strange pair. The former pioneered the use of digital glitches in electronic music, scratching and carving chunks out of CDs, then integrating those rhythmic pops and hiccups into their work. On the flip side, Liturgy play sprawling black metal. If you’re familiar with each, there are no big surprises on either side. Oval are accompanied by drums on the first of four tracks, while thick rhythmic pops drift between abstract, freeform noise and cyclical loops. Oval use less than 10 minutes to get the point across. Liturgy need nearly 20 of them on a single track. The untitled song opens with a six-minute single-chord riff before delving into some vaguely electronic psychedelia. By the end, the Brooklyn group gets the dense squall expected of them. New album Aesthetica finds Liturgy riding out single chords extensively as well. “Generation” takes a root note and drops it all around the downbeat in jerky, irregular rhythms, while one- and two-note riffs crop up throughout the rest of the record. Renihilation’s noodliness is still present, and unfortunately, so are the multi-layered moans that are being passed off as chants (although the burlier riffs are a welcome addition). —Matt Sullivan
41