Fighting crime in the streets together

So there were a lot of really, really good albums and mixtapes in the last three months; this isn’t one of those quarters where I can’t think of shit so I end up listing, like the Get Rich or Die Tryin’ soundtrack or a Clientele album. Apologies to Trash Talk, Yakuza, Crystal Castles, Young Jeezy, T.I., Robyn, Male Bonding, Z-Ro, Janelle Monae, Emeralds, the National, Oneohtrix Point Never, and uh The-Dream. (I know! But that album is good!) Also, late pass on the Roc Marciano album and the Das Racist mixtape, both of which I think came out during the first quarter and both of which are dope.

A quick word about the new ones from the Hold Steady, the Gaslight Anthem, and Band of Horses. These are all bands I really love, and they all released pretty sub-par albums for them during this quarter. So the general consensus on all these albums seems to be that they’re wack! But they’re not! They’re all good albums from bands capable of a whole lot more than good albums. Heaven Is Whenever, in particular, has gotten a really bad rap. If any band has earned the goodwill to be just OK for the length of one album, it’s the motherfucking Hold Steady. Let’s just see what they do next time, OK?

1. LCD Soundsystem: This Is Happening. At this point, it doesn’t seem fair to compare LCD Soundsystem to any other band; they’re just too good at what they do. James Murphy has a thing that he does, semi-sarcastic rants over muscular disco grooves with occasional breaks for gorgeous sunburst ballads, and he does it incredibly well every time out. In a way, I’m a little mad at the idea that this will be the final LCD album; seems like there’s no reason they couldn’t crank out another ten of these. This one doesn’t make any bold new moves, but there are some nice little tweaks. “Drunk Girls” is snorting, strutting, preening, bitchy glam, and it’s more convincing than say the entire Placebo discography. “All I Want” is lovelorn krautrock, and I don’t know enough about krautrock to know if that’s a new invention. “Dance Yrself Clean” pulls the old Broken/Rid of Me trick, starting out the album really quietly so you have to turn it up loud and then comes unexpectedly booming in a few minutes later so you have to frantically rush to turn it back down. But musically, this is mostly a sort of expert-level class in how to build a groove: when to bring in the bass or the congas, when to strip everything away to just a kick drums. Murphy knows these things. And if Sound of Silver was about getting older, This Is Happening is about actually being old already and the feelings that come along with it: Desperation and regret and maybe a little bitterness, sure, but also the sense that all your years on the planet have given your presence some weight, that you’ve picked up a few things along the way. At least that’s what I hear. Possibly because I’m old.

2. Sleigh Bells: Treats. One of the fun music-critic games of the earlier part of the year was attempting to trace what music, exactly, went into this thing. Teenpop? Noise? Metal? Rick Rubin-era rap? Brassy’s “Play Some D”? Good times! Nobody knows! But I’m having more fun parsing out what music critics the band was reading, partly because I know Derek Miller reads the fuck out of some music critics and because (rank self-congratulatory egotism alert) I know I’m one of them. When I interviewed Miller last year, he told me he used to read both Status Ain’t Hood and Riff Raff, which made me feel awful good. And I’d sure like to think that I hear bits and pieces of both my approach— which I guess I’ll say is a particular strain of ADD toe-dipping dilettante-ism where you get all drooly-excited about whatever you’re exploring that week— and Nick Sylvester’s— which is basically rampant, expertly executed pranksterism, except with real ideas and real heart, an honesty that unexpectedly slaps you in the head from time to time. And I have it on good authority that Miller was really into that Fluxblog post where Matthew suggested that indie rock dudes find some new influences, like Janet Jackson. I love the idea of Miller spending his time in one of the past decade’s reigning moshcore bands (seriously, Poison the Well was no joke) getting all internet-immersed and trying to figure out how he was gonna make some Janet Jackson-inspired indie rock. I’m not too sure about the chronology, but I know Miller left that band, came to Brooklyn, and had the absurd luck of finding a singer who’d been in a go-nowhere teenpop group (so you know she knows pop) and gone through Teach for America (so you know she’s tough and idealistic and cool) and who also had ridiculous levels of onstage livewire charisma. Fun story. But most of what I hear in Treats is a dizzy, boundary-ignoring joy, a joy that I always tried to bring to my writing and that I know Nick and Matthew always did. Sorry to turn this into a referendum on my own fucking career because this is a great album that really has nothing to do with me, but a big part of why I love Treats is the idea that I’m doing some good out there. Also “Rill Rill” is a total banger.

3. Gucci Mane: Mr. Zone 6. I reviewed this shit already, so I don’t have a ton more to say about it. But what I was saying about how LCD Soundsystem could make 10 more albums because they’ve got their whole shit absolutely figured out? That’s sort of what Gucci is doing. He has a thing that he does incredibly well, and he’s going to keep doing it for god knows how long. He loves making joyous, inventive rap songs about girls and diamonds and cars and drugs and money over catchy-cheap synth music, and he knows he does that stuff better than anyone else. He’s gonna live the life, forever rocking ice, throwing money popping bottles cuz that’s just what he likes. He cares, I think, about technical development; he’s rapping incrementally better on Mr. Zone 6 than he ever has before. But I’m not sure he cares about artistic development. And fuck it, fine. Because Mr. Zone 6, like the last umpteen billion Gucci tapes, is a ridiculous amount of fun, and I’d love it if he just kept going with this shit.

4. Big KRIT: KRIT Wuz Here. Noz had an interesting piece about how KRIT is sort of a new Southern traditionalist. Especially with his whole crate-digging fetishism, KRIT’s sort of a Mississippi version of these crusty New York dudes who don’t think music should’ve changed after 1996 and who won’t ever forgive Nas for not doing that whole album with DJ Premier that he was talking about once upon a time. Maybe that’s true, and it seems pretty lame when you think about it like that. But my main memory of those guys, from living in New York and writing about rap there, was how goddam aggressively insular they were, how quick they were to sneer at anything that didn’t fit their aesthetic exactly. I hated that whole attitude, and I don’t hear it in KRIT. Instead, I hear this earnest and open-hearted young dude who’s trying to figure out his place is the world, and it just so happens that this kid is incredibly good at old-model sample-based country-rap production. KRIT Wuz Here, for me, works like the first couple of Band of Horses albums: unoriginal but honest comfort-food music that sounds amazing in a car. If that’s retrograde as all hell, I’m fine with that; retrograde can still be exciting. Also, a Friday Night Lights sample equals instant bonus points.

5. Nachtmystium: Addicts: Black Meddle Pt. 2. Reviewed this shit too. Something I’m just starting to learn about Chicago after a year and a half of living here: This city’s metal scene is the shit, like miles beyond whatever indie rock scene we’ve got. You’ve got these guys and Yakuza and Minsk and Pelican, who I don’t actually like but who are definitely important. You’ve got Sanford Parker producing all these bands and making them sound like a million bucks. You’ve got Kuma’s Corner, which isn’t exactly a musical entity but which is a really good burger place that names all its burgers after metal bands, so that sort of counts. You can order burgers called the Plague Bringer and the Insect Warfare, which I think is pretty hilariously unappetizing. I went there on Father’s Day, and my daughter did pretty well with having death metal blasted at her for an hour. But anyway, before I moved to Chicago, I don’t think I had a real concept that Nachtmystium was from anywhere. Blake Judd was just this shadowy dude who cranks out this mysterious hate-filled music that sounds epically badass when you’re reading comic books. Turns out he works at the Empty Bottle, so I got to have the truly weird experience of having the king of American black metal tell me to keep the doorway clear while I was watching Girls. All of which is to say that when someone from this city makes a gigantic fearless churning slab like this album, I actually feel some level of pride, which is a new thing. I realize I didn’t just say anything about the album itself, but I did already review the damn thing.

6-10. The Chemical Brothers: Further, Wiz Khalifa: Kush & Orange Juice, The Drums: The Drums, Beach Fossils: Beach Fossils, Cam’ron & Vado: Boss of All Bosses 2.5.