Do Make Say Think - Other Truths (Arts & Crafts, 2009)

Breaking through in the early 2000s as part of the third wave of post-rock, Toronto's mostly instrumental outfit Do Make Say Think have become a crown jewel of Canadian alternative rock and one of the most popular post-rock bands today.

DMST take self-titling to a whole new level on their sixth album Other Truths by naming the album’s four tracks "Do," Make," "Say" and "Think," respectively. Although Other Truths features the fewest number of songs on a Do Make album yet, brevity is not the adjective to describe this album. Other Truths is the band’s shortest album to date, but it still clocks in at approximately forty-three minutes.

Other Truths blasts off with the rocket-fueled "Do," as a gently finger-picked melody dabbed with audible fretboard-slides quickly gives way to a meteor shower of instruments. One by one, electric guitars, bass and increasingly thunderous drums plummet from the sky like space shrapnel burning up on re-entry. "Do" is gripping and overpowering; however, it essentially conforms to the false-finish/climax formula that typifies most post-rock.

The last three minutes of "Do" coast into the subtle drum-work of "Make" which may appeal to fans of the band’s earlier, more jazz-infused albums. Here, experimental folk-rockers Akron/Family reprise their role as vocalists from Do Make Say Think's previous album You, You're a History in Rust (still the only vocalists to ever appear on a DMST album), before "Make" skyrockets to uncharted territories.

"Make" concludes with a winding, horn-driven transition into "Say" where, in contrast to the epic brass battalion featured so prominently on the two previous tracks, determined drums direct a cast of doleful, climactic horns. The track’s dramatic sombreness works perfectly as a soundtrack to a band preparing for war, consciously marching in as underdogs.

As DMST enter an un-winnable situation, plaintive vocals lull the track to a quiet close, and the scene plays out in slow motion as it fades to black. From here, the quietest stretch on Other Truths begins and continues until the album ends. It is difficult to recall if DMST have ever sounded so distant, with such sparse, barely noticeable drums.

It took me a long time to like or even come to terms with Other Truths. The sudden change from torrential to introspective jarred me, and I was disappointed that the pace and mood seemed to have steadily declined after the first track. But the more I listened to Other Truths, the less the songs seemed to have been "stuck in middling positions, unsure of their courses" or "easily fade[d] into background music," as I’d had to backspace. Like a lot of other post-rock, Other Truths can be a little difficult to digest – even boring, at least upon the first few listens. But certainly as far as track and album lengths go, post-rock can get a lot worse than Other Truths.

Yo La Tengo - Popular (Matador Records, 2009)

Last month, Yo La Tengo returned with their twelfth – count it: twelfth – full-length studio album Popular Songs. Formed in 1984, the Hoboken, New Jersey trio have attained a longevity of which most bands can only dream.

Popular Songs opens with the kaleidoscopic “Here to Fall” which features Yo La Tengo’s most dramatic use of strings to date. Immediately following, “Avalon or Someone Very Similar” bursts through the psychedelic debris like a ray of light to reveal all of YLT’s familiar traits. Drummer Georgia Hubley’s sweet vocals fill the album’s quota for simple, distinctly charming pop. “By Two’s” is light, Summer Sun-era ambience, as is the dreamy, bongo tap-filled “I’m on My Way,” a perfect choice for an afternoon spent floating in a sunlit pool (imagery better fit for a season recently past). The up-tempo “Nothing to Hide” recalls the rough-cut fuzz-rock of I Can Here the Heart Beating as One’s “Sugar Cube” and Beach Boys cover “Little Honda.” Retro keys are backed by a groovy bass line and Ira Kaplan’s soft, buoyant falsetto on “Periodically Double or Triple,” and male-female vocal swaps and honeydew harmonies color the bouncy “If It’s True.”

The last three tracks move away from soothing, momentary pop to classic YLT drone and sprawl, clocking in at nine, eleven and sixteen minutes, respectively. Subtle guitar effects string along a dreamy undertow on “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven” and placidly wash upon listeners’ ears like a calm, early evening tide. Dabs of translucent guitars on “The Fireside” recall the aquatic sound collages of YLT’s The Sounds of the Sounds of Science but with an added human touch from Ira’s lofty vocals. And finally, “And the Glitter is Gone” completes the album’s bookend of agitated energy with lively drumming and dramatic cymbal crashes drenched in feedback. There’s not much build on this one, as YLT characteristically fade in with noise, before distortion and myriad effects invade the sonic splash-zone.

Like many seasoned alternative rock icons (such as The Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth), Yo La Tengo have essentially evolved beyond the need for reinvention. Even when they rest on their laurels, they trump most other new releases in terms of quality. I’m confident, however, Yo La Tengo have too much artistic integrity to coast on their past merits for too long. The key to Yo La Tengo’s longevity is maybe not their near-constant evolution but their overall flexibility and perhaps even honesty. Popular Songs is exactly what the title says: an unabashed ensemble of perfect pop songs, even if the latter portion is a little more “difficult” than the rest. Popular Songs is Yo La Tengo at their most unmitigated yet accessible – a shining example of their aptitude for synthesizing countless diverse styles without sounding derivative. Indeed, Popular Songs is an ideal choice for new Yo La Tengo listeners.

Atlas Sound ft. Panda Bear - "Walkabout" (single) (Kranky Records; 4AD, 2009)

I'm not a fan of Bradford Cox, whether it be his psychedelic shoegaze group Deerhunter or solo bedroom-ambience project Atlas Sound. Nor am I a huge fan of current Animal Collective (sorry, Merriweather Post Pavilion lovers). But I am a fan of the recent Panda Bear and Atlas Sound collaboration "Walkabout" (Panda Bear is Animal Collective's Noah Lennox whose own solo album Person Pitch was released to rave reviews in 2007). In fact, for me, "Walkabout" leaves nothing to be desired.

While on tour with Animal Collective in Europe, the band inspired Cox to learn more about "sampling and matching up beats." Fortunately for Cox (and fans), Lennox was more than happy to teach. Their song of choice, which also inspired the tutorial, was "What Am I Going to Do?" by mid-60s American garage rock-poppers The Dovers. The result is a great, catchy little summer psych jam. It's nothing over-thought or too experimental, as one might otherwise expect from a collaboration between any AC and Deerhunter members. Rather, the track's simplicity reflects the collaboration as a learning experience for Bradford, although he's not completely unfamiliar with samples (hear the spoken word bit on "A Ghost Story" from his debut solo album Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel).

"Walkabout" will appear on Atlas Sound's forthcoming album Logos.

The Dandy Warhols - The Dandy Warhols Are Sound (Beat the World Records, 2009)

Here's the backstory on The Dandy Warhols Are Sound: Between September 11th, 2001 and December 2nd, 2002, The Dandy Warhols were busy recording their fourth album for Capitol Records. With help from Grammy Award-winning soul mixing engineer Russell Elavedo, whose credits include albums by The Roots, Common and Alicia Keys, The Dandy Warhols created The Dandy Warhols Are Sound. However, Capitol rejected the album in favor of a repackaged version with spiffier production, a re-arranged tracklist, slightly altered titles and a sparse, lethargic intro track instead of an extensive ambient outro track. The Capitol-approved version of Are Sound was subsequently released as Welcome to the Monkey House, as Dandys fans came to know and love. Over the next seven years, while Are Sound became a favorite for private Dandys parties, it also floated around the Internet as the colloquially-dubbed Welcome to the Monkey House: The Director's Cut. Finally though, with The Dandy Warhols at the helm of their own label Beat the World Records, they've been able to release Monkey House the way they intended the record to be heard.

Admittedly, on first impression, tampering with the track order and song titles seem like the only things Capitol did, but that's only because Are Sound opens with "Burned" which doesn't sound very different from the Monkey House version "You Come In Burned." As soon as the slowburning, throbbing temple-like "Burned" began, I already kind of wished The Dandy Warhols were allowed to release the original mix, despite how much I love Monkey House. I never thought "You Come In Burned" would make such a good opener. Like frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor said, Are Sound is way more lo-fi and less polished and slick, although the drums and bass are far more pronounced (not a surprise, given its producer's style). This is immediately apparent as soon as the second track, simply titled "Scientist" rather than "I Am a Scientist," begins. The differences become increasingly apparent with the next track, party-favorite "We Used to Be Friends," and so on for the rest of the album.

Whereas Monkey House is a record you can put on with friends or blast through your car stereo while blasting down the open road, Are Sound is a quiet, chill night in with dim lights, some green and aromatic candles. Actually, Are Sound is more like Welcome to the Monkey House on sedatives or listening to Monkey House on shuffle with cotton stuffed in your ears. Hear the difference between the albums' versions of "The Dandy Warhols Love Almost Everyone" and "Over It," the latter in which the sounds of a lighter, bong hit and exhalation seem more appropriate on the original mix.

Besides all of the aforementioned, there's not much else to say about The Dandy Warhols Are Sound that can't be said about Welcome to the Monkey House. The only reason why I'm even really talking about Are Sound is because the only real news of it came very suddenly through The Dandy Warhols' newsletter and website. Some Dandys fans (including some diehards I know) probably haven't even heard about it. Hell, The Dandy Warhols have been one of my favorite bands since I started listening to them eight years ago, and I didn't even know about The Director's Cut until I got the e-mail which said, "Hey, this is out!"

Are Sound is available in its entirety at The Dandy Warhols' site here. No idea how long these full length, good quality "previews" will be available.

The Dead Weather "Horehound" Spoilers

http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/The%20Dead%20Weather

And you don't even have to be on Facebook to enjoy this. Available for the next >twenty-four hours.

Edit: You can listen to the album here. Just click "Songs" on the right-side panel. Also, the Facebook link's going to work for the rest of the week before the album's release on July 14th.

Q and Not U - No Kill No Beep Beep (Dischord Records, 2000)

All right. Here's a band I never thought I’d listen to again. I’d deleted Q and Not U's 2000 debut No Kill No Beep Beep X years ago because I thought they were nothing more than a samey, generic post-punk band with irritating vocals. But when Kevin played me one of their songs on our show, I heard something I didn’t here the first time around. Maybe it was my discontent with all of my music up to that point, or maybe it was having someone with good taste being invested in something I was being opened up to, but whatever it was, something clicked.

The first thing that struck me about No Kill No Beep Beep, which was produced by Minor Threat and Fugazi frontman/hardcore legend Ian MacKaye, was its constant unpredictability. I could say it was the album’s constant motion that instantly grabbed me, but so many albums move in ways in which one can predict the lyrics that finish a couplet, accurately hum the rest of a melody which one hasn’t even heard yet, or guess where the next verse or chorus jumps in. A prime example of No Kill No Beep Beep’s unpredictability is the festering "Kiss Distinctly American." The whole underlying riff feels like it's building to a crescendo and ready to explode at any minute, but the song quickly defuses just as it’s about to reach its climax. Listening to this song is like getting musical blue balls, except in this case, that’s a good thing.

Slicing, jagged guitars and pulse-pounding rhythms infest No Kill No Beep Beep. Songs like "Nine Things Everybody Knows" and particularly "Little Sparkee" recall post-hardcore outfits like Les Savy Fav with their unexpected yelps and cries. No Kill No Beep Beep shares other similarities with Les Savy Fav including killer drum-work, pronounced bass, and solid hooks which beg listeners to move their feet. While Q and Not U leans more towards dance-punk than Les Savy Fav, Q and Not U possesses much of the same energy and spirit that many other hardcore, post-punk favorites have embodied over the years.

With hardly any rest between songs or any interludes within songs, except for perhaps "The More I Get, the More I Want" and closer "Sleeping the Terror Code," there isn’t a dull moment on this album. And speaking of songs defusing, that’s exactly how "Sleeping the Terror Code" closes the album. Despite No Kill No Beep Beep’s scarcity of slow moments, "Terror Code"'s pace fits perfectly and appropriately as the last piece of the sonic puzzle, and the album feels in no way stunted because of the placement of this last particular track.

Another nice, although admittedly minor, detail of the album is the song titles. They're unconventional but not to the point of being irritating, stupid or unconventional for the sake of being unconventional (see The Flaming Lips, Sufjan Stevens, and boatloads of post-rock outfits). On the flip-side, lately, I've been finding that so many bands (too many bands) have the most generic names for everything. Wilco's Wilco (the Album) may be one of the worst recent offenders, but that's a great album which I will discuss in another review.

Like I said, No Kill No Beep Beep’s a pretty unpredictable album. You can't follow along with any of the lines the first time you listen through it. You can't listen and say, "Okay, they're going to rhyme this word with that word" and sing along. Until you get a hold of the songs, you’ll find yourself discovering new twists and turns with every listen. And even after you catch onto all of the motions, as people can fall in love with a Beat Happening or early Mountain Goats record (artists and records that are known for their repetitiveness), listeners can find themselves enjoying No Kill No Beep Beep like any other album in their collection.

Handsome Furs - Plague Park (Sub Pop, 2007)

Fuck Wolf Parade. Handsome Furs are the only Dan Boeckner project I need. Unlike other husband-and-wife duos (such as Mates of State), Handsome Furs steer clear of sentimental, lovey-dovey pop songs. Instead, Plague Park's distinctive electric timbre provides a refreshing take on indie rock.

Stand-out track: "Hearts of Iron"