Rap Album Reviews

Like Thom Yorke, Sigur Rós vocalist Jónsi
Birgisson courts an electronic muse when he’s away from his rock
band. But unlike his more ambient work as half of Riceboy Sleeps,
this restless, electro-acoustic solo debut has his most hyperactive
music yet. Nico Muhly’s chipper, piccolo-heavy orchestral
arrangements get digitally diced, along with Jónsi’s
signature falsetto; he sings in English more than Icelandic here,
but the meaning remains more in the tone than in the words.
When…

Rating:
3.5 Stars

Last year, the Killers plucked this Utah quartet from obscurity
by bringing them on tour. As if in repayment, Neon Trees’ debut
plays like a ham-fisted hommage to their Vegas buddies,
down to the surging synths and “whoa-oh” chorus of their single, a
scoop of dance-rock mac ‘n’ cheese called “Animal.” Other tracks
wrap sparkling keyboards around angsty melodies and lyrics like
“I’d love but don’t know how to.” The biggest problem is how hard
the band tries: Rockers like “Love and Affection” go…

Rating:
2.5 Stars

On their best songs — “Time to Pretend,” “Kids” and the
new “Someone’s Missing” — you don’t know if MGMT are goofing
or sincere or both. “I’m cut and I’m weeping like a rubber tree,”
sings Andrew VanWyngarden on the new track, which seems to be about
death — until the 1:45 mark, when, amid upward-spiraling
synths and harp arpeggios, it transforms into what sounds like a
Jackson 5 tune. Is it a piss take on existential indie rock? A
requie…

Rating:
3 Stars

Known for playing impromptu gigs on subway platforms, and fond
of banjos and glockenspiels, these Queens natives are about as
friendly as a New York band can be. The plush, elegant guitar and
keyboard arrangements of their debut make for pretty moments
(“Starring”) and bouncy pop (“Kilojoules”), but singer Judah Dadone
suffers an attack of the cutes now and then. On “Hannah,” he adopts
a pseudo-rap delivery and rhymes “player-hater” with “lemon Now and
Later.” Mostly, though, Weathervanes is…

Rating:
2.5 Stars

“Love kills time, and time kills love,” Peter Wolf sings on
Midnight Souvenirs, but this delightful new album makes
one thing clear: Nothing can kill Wolf’s charm, musicality and
youthfulness. His first release in eight years, Souvenirs
shows off the virtues that have made Wolf’s work a pleasure through
16 years as lead singer with the J. Geils Band and now seven solo
albums since 1984. He is less an outstanding singer than a
convincing one — the passionate impresario of his own…

Rating:
4 Stars

“Love kills time, and time kills love,” Peter Wolf sings on
Midnight Souvenirs, but this delightful new album makes
one thing clear: Nothing can kill Wolf’s charm, musicality and
youthfulness. His first release in eight years, Souvenirs
shows off the virtues that have made Wolf’s work a pleasure through
16 years as lead singer with the J. Geils Band and now seven solo
albums since 1984. He is less an outstanding singer than a
convincing one — the passionate impresario of his own…

Rating:
4 Stars

After tearing up the New York post-punk scene in the early
2000s, the Liars reappeared as Berlin electronic experimentalists
and L.A. industrial groove things. Their fifth album lays claim to
L.A.’s pulpy occult mythos with glowering noise brutalism and evil
chant-singing that suggest TV on the Radio as a hippie death cult.
Angus Andrew intimates violence everywhere: There are dead-souled
stoners on “The Overachievers,” and he’s blasé “counting
victims one by one” on “Here Comes All the Peo…

Rating:
3 Stars

Released on the same day as Sgt. Pepper, David Bowie’s
1967 debut was an odd start for the man who’d soon turn his
strangeness into stardom. He mixes the English music hall of the
Beatles’ “Penny Lane” with the psychedelic whimsy of early Pink
Floyd, but even in this cabaret setting, Bowie shows his knack for
mixing singalong tunes with offbeat subject matter: The catchiest
song, “She’s Got Medals,” celebrates a cross-dressing lesbian
soldier. Singles, stereo and mono mixes, and Bowie’s first…

Rating:
3 Stars

“Where’d all the time go?” asks a fuzz-guitar-strafed ballad on
Dr. Dog’s latest. The Philadelphia quintet have spent much of their
career looking back to the pop of the Beach Boys and the Beatles,
and the woodsy Americana of the Band. But on their fourth studio
album, retro flavors are scattered smartly and sparingly: a George
Harrison-like lead guitar here, a swooning Brian Wilson-style
chorale there. With co-producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith)
at the helm, Dr. Dog don’t sound…

Rating:
3.5 Stars

“Where’d all the time go?” asks a fuzz-guitar-strafed ballad on
Dr. Dog’s latest. The Philadelphia quintet have spent much of their
career looking back to the pop of the Beach Boys and the Beatles,
and the woodsy Americana of the Band. But on their fourth studio
album, retro flavors are scattered smartly and sparingly: a George
Harrison-like lead guitar here, a swooning Brian Wilson-style
chorale there. With co-producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith)
at the helm, Dr. Dog don’t sound…

Rating:
3.5 Stars