Labels are folding, record shops are closing up, famous clubs are being chased off their blocks by greedy developers; but hey, at least 2007 provided us with one hell of a soundtrack to this cultural apocalypse thus far. Here is a smattering of some of the albums that rocked the socks off our staff during this first half of 2007.

WHITE STRIPES

Icky Thump (Third Man-Warner Bros.)

You would think that after making albums since 1999, The White Stripes would have, at some point down the road, made the decision to change their sound. Yet with 2007’s Icky Thump out on shelves now, it can be proven to the general public once again that the Detroit duo are unwilling to give up their edge even for a second. The opening title track is their finest Zep send-up in years—Jack White’s distorted guitar crashing and then immediately silencing itself under Jack’s unmistakable crooning gives one the sense of walking down the middle of a street in slow-motion, holding a gun. And for those who complain of Meg White’s inability to drum can shut their mouths on this one, because her simple pounding is what makes this song, and a majority of this album, the powerhouse that it is. It chugs steadily on up until Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn and St. Andrew (The Battle Is In The Air), when the band gives up their standard sound for some kind of weird celtic jig that they still, somehow, manage to pull off with a flare only the Stripes can muster. And maybe that’s their secret to pulling off Icky Thump…always having an air of weirdness to everything they do. –Nicole Wertheim

PAUL MCCARTNEY

Memory Almost Full (MPL-HEAR Music)

Yeah, that’s right Mike Conklin! We did it again! Macca continues the winning streak he began 10 years ago with 1997’s left field surprise classic Flaming Pie with his grittiest, most personal post-Fab work since Ram. Memory Almost Full deserves a spot right up there with Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear and Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks as one of the finest post-divorce albums in pop history. Keep churning out these gems, Paul. Keep listening to that lame new New Pornographers album, Mike. –Ed.

MODEST MOUSE

We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank (Epic)

All right, all right, all right. Gone are the days of The Lonesome Crowded West, Modest Mouse’s breakthrough and arguably best release. This can be confirmed by the nationwide “Top 40 success” of 2004’s Good News For People Who Love Bad News. Christ, when Float On hit the airwaves, let’s face it—there was not a single person, regardless of social denomination, who wasn’t telling you that “it would all float on, all right.” And yeah, those cult followers who joined the Modest Mouse Fan Club back in 1997 (the year The Lonesome Crowded West was released) spit all over frontman Issac Brock’s shoes, saying they were selling out to achieve coast-to-coast stardom (Brock indignantly replied that he had been trying to release albums that would achieve the band coast-to-coast success since Modest Mouse’s career began, which leads us to wonder if you can start selling out if you never stopped to begin with). It’s safe to say that since Good News For People Who Love Bad News was showing up at a music store near you, the crowd that had previously followed Modest Mouse changed. It got bigger. The faces and styles were different. Suddenly, listening to Modest Mouse didn’t mean that you also listened to Built to Spill. As someone who jumped on the MM Bandwagon after the release of Good News For People Who Love Bad News, I can attest that I personally have never heard a single track by Built to Spill, which I suppose means that I don’t listen to them. Good News For People Who Love Bad News was different than anything Modest Mouse had put out before. It certainly was no The Lonesome Crowded West. Modest Mouse’s follow up and latest release We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank had people hanging on the edges of their seats, waiting to see if the band would take a step forward or a step back. Generally, it seems like they’re stepping to the side in some kind of weird Electric Slide style dance. I mean, what direction are you going in when you add ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to your line-up? No one saw that one coming. At least, I didn’t. But while we can pit new Modest Mouse fans against old and watch them argue until they suffocate, not one person can say that Modest Mouse has lost any ambition. They still record with the fire they had when they were cutting their teeth still. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank proves this. There are new instruments, there are new members (and old members that are returning—original drummer Jeremiah Green has seemingly recovered from his 2003 mental breakdown to grace us with his snare pounds once more). Modest Mouse explodes back onto our speakers and takes no prisoners with opener March Into the Sea, and yes, that’s an accordion playing in the beginning. It’s safe to say that while the band can’t seem to keep a steady line-up or sound, one thing that will never change is Isaac Brock’s vocal-chord-shredding singing style, or his tongue-in-cheek humor. He laughs at us and says “Bang your head like a gong cuz it’s filled with all wrong!”. This is a band that is never short on fervor. Modest Mouse litters this album with slow songs and fast songs, a good balance that allows you to listen to this album regardless of the mood you’re in. The band gets sentimental on us in Little Motel, a rare relationship song not normally heard from Isaac Brock’s pen. Dashboard, the first single released off the album, showcases Johnny Marr’s ability to fit in quite nicely with the band, along with the fact that Modest Mouse sounds really good with a brass section backing them up. Brock implies that it’s all okay because “we still have the radio.” Well, thank God for that. Parting of the Sensory mixes the best of both worlds by starting off slow and simple (just Brock, an acoustic guitar, a bass drum, and some creepy distant handclapping), before exploding into drum rolls and a violin. If someone has to steal my carbon, I hope they do it to this song because at least then my death will seem really badass. The album closes out with Invisible, beginning with faded guitar chords that kind of remind you of We’ve Got Everything for some reason, but only for a couple of bars. Granted, these are only several tracks that a mediocre amateur journalist has hand-picked to write about, but that’s just because I’m pressed for space. There are few albums that can be listened to all the way through without skipping a track or at least offering up one eye roll—We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank is one of those. Modest Mouse might be different, but they’re not lacking in spunk. They should be granted credit for that, at least. –Nicole Wertheim

WILCO

Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch)

Let’s talk about this record not by considering what it should have been, but by focusing on what it is.  I find it hard to accept the notion that Wilco can be viewed as such an essentially “experimental” or “left-field” group to the extent that their perceived lack of accountability to this standard renders an album as strong as “Sky Blue Sky” underwhelming.  One would assume that temperance is as much of a mark of sound musicianship as sheer virtuosity and it should go without saying that Tweedy’s songs are good enough to hold their own without vast sonic support columns. (The production, however, is a bit problematic; the versions of “Shake it Off” and “Walken” that appear in 

looser, more brittle form on the accompanying DVD doc are far more compelling than their relatively sterile studio counterparts).  Wilco’s art house cult would love to see this band take a nice big poo poo where it used to break bread but the band’s core has only gotten juicier after subsuming some more adventurous contributors. –Tom Whalen

DEATH PROOF

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Maverick)

Usually when Quentin Tarantino puts out a film, the soundtrack gets just as much press. Death Proof is no exception. The soundtrack may even have made more of an impact then the film (see www.irtmag.com for my condemnation of the American public for not supporting Grind House). Full of obscure soundtrack instrumentals from other films to old soul to classic rock, The Death Proof soundtrack has it all you would expect from a classic QT soundtrack (including the occasional dialog track). It is hard to even pick a favorite track; they all mix together so well. The best thing to do is just list track list and let you gather your own opinions:

1. Last Race - Jack Nitzsche

2. Baby, It’s You - Smith

3. Paranoia Prima - Ennio Morricone

4. Planning & Scheming - Michael Bacall

5. Jeepster - T. Rex

6. Stuntman Mike - Rose McGowan, Rose McGowan, Kurt Russell, Kurt Russell

7. Staggolee - Pacific Gas & Electric

8. Love You Save (May Be Your Own) - Joe Tex

9. Good Love, Bad Love - Eddie Floyd

10. Down in Mexico - The Coasters

11. Hold Tight - Beaky, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

12. Sally and Jack [From Blow Out] - Pino Donaggio

13. It’s So Easy - Willy DeVille

14. Whatever-However - Zoe Bell, Tracie Thoms

15. Riot in Thunder Alley - Eddie Beram

16. Chick Habit - An April March

It takes a certain vision to know to put these songs together. The music may be old, but it is still sure to be one of the best albums released all year. –Brad Filicky

FIELD MUSIC

Tones of Town (Memphis Industries)

“In an era of modern rock where it is believed that true genius hides behind a hedgerow of static and feedback, the crisp complexity of Field Music’s impeccable pop gem here is as refreshing as the first time you heard Thurston Moore spike his guitar head through an amp.” –Ron Hart, Billboard.com

JESU

Conqueror (Hydrahead)

Godflesh gone shoe-gazer?! The thought of having Mr. Broadrick front My Bloody Valentine may look a bit awkward on paper, but sure as hell not in your stereo! Jesu have perfectly blended the “wall of sound” so prominent in the shoe-gazer genre with the doomy industrial tingled sludge that Godlfesh is renowned for. On the album opener/title track, the first words out of Broadrick’s mouth are “all the colors that we saw they touched us”. Colorful and touching are two words that can sum up the album as a whole. A deeper landscape is painted with each passing song, flowing together in such a way that if you were to skip a track, it would be like missing an episode of your favorite HBO series. Arguably, Jesu has easily surpassed Godflesh’s latter work both sonically and creatively. -Mark Traverson

GRINDERMAN

Grinderman (Anti-)

Nick Cave follows his triumphant release of the two finest records of his nearly flawless career, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ The Lyre of Orpheus and Abattoir Blues, with his new project, Grinderman, comprised of three of the Bad Seeds: violinist Warren Ellis (recently heard collaborating with Cave on the score to the Cave penned Australian western, The Proposition), bassist Martyn Casey, and percussionist Jim Sclavunos. Grinderman’s self-titled debut may be less dynamic in scope than the Bad Seeds’ recent efforts but delivers heftily on a primal level. Trading in his traditional piano for an electric guitar, Cave steers the band between aggressive rockers, propelled by Casey’s pulsating bass lines and Ellis’ unsettling violin loops, to softer tunes built around sparse, repetitive themes. The jauntier numbers are sonically similar to the Stooges’ Fun House (Cave’s bluesy, howling guitar solos immediately conjure up Ron Asheton’s name) and Crime, San Francisco’s criminally ignored 1970’s punk rock outfit. Indeed, Grinderman’s sensibilities are more in tune with bluesy classic rock and nascent punk rock than any other genres. The album breaks little new ground; it reminds rather than explores, but this ultimately serves as one of its attributes. Those anticipating a more angular and anarchic sound akin to Cave’s seminal early eighties project, The Birthday Party, will be disappointed by the orderliness of this record. I must confess to feeling slight disappointment as well, although mine arises not from the structured songwriting, but from the lack of more menacing tunes such as the band’s first single, “No Pussy Blues”, showcasing Cave at his most playful and threatening, often simultaneously. Widely available for months, the single hinted at a monstrously seedy record catered to our baser impulses. While the record doesn’t quite live up to that perception, it remains an achievement and a worthy addition to the Cave catalog. -Frank McGar

NINE INCH NAILS

Year Zero (Nothing-Interscope)

I said it in my review of the last Nine Inch Nails album that Trent Reznor doesn’t need to make new NIN music. He could tour now and then and spend the rest of the time doing film soundtracks and producing other artists. If he is making new NIN music, it is because he has something to say. Despite what Vice magazine may think, Year Zero is both a gripping concept album and a return to the noisier roots of Reznor’s music. The concept behind the album is a reaction to both the vapid nature of modern consumerist culture and a direct reaction to the missteps of the Bush administration. The best way to explore that is to check out all the guerilla marketing techniques that I blogged about on IRT’s site (that’s www.irtmag.com, folks –Ed.) The most striking musical aspect of the album is the hip-hop influence. Most of Year Zero sounds like the Bomb Squad jamming with Ministry blazed by the greenest green. There’s no MCing of course but a lot of the production on this record comes straight from the South Bronx, or at least the influence of Reznor’s new pal El-P. That’s a good thing. Sure, Reznor has mellowed out over the years but his musical ear is still sharp as ever and once again hip hop proves how adaptable and applicable to pop culture at large. – Brad Filicky

BATTLES

Mirrored (Warp)

It seems sensible to presume that progressive electronic music necessarily undergoes a diminution in “soul” and/or “danceability” as its constituent musical moments grow increasingly focused on technical proficiency. In other words, molesting a snare drum and setting a fret board on fire do not go hand in hand with bumping hips and nodding heads. If anyone bothered to explain this to the dudes in Battles, rest assured they were not listening. For a record like Mirrored, the group’s first full length, the terms “math” and “prog” barely suffice; this puppy flashes a kaleidoscopic marriage of crimson chops, precious beats, and dense melodic texture that borders on the indescribable. The sheer virtuosic musicianship on display, though astounding, never bullies the hooks from the foreground nor detracts from the rhythmic pulse that is relentless throughout. Bulging with sweat and muscle, the resulting sound is evidently the product of four flesh and blood beings but it is a music that is rendered all the more captivating when considering how inhuman and how impossible it often sounds. Daft Punk, eat your heart back in.-Thom Whalen

LOVE OF DIAGRAMS

Mosaic (Matador)

This Australian trio exudes the dark exuberance of real post-punk (not the discofied stuff perpetrated by more popular groups), thanks to Antonia Sellbach’s throbbing bass and yelping vocals, Monika Fikerle’s cascading drum rolls, and Luke Horton’s coruscating guitars (and occasional duo vocals). It sounds dangerous, not nostalgic, and if you’ve been wishing that, say, the Bush Tetras had released more music, or think Killing Joke’s first album was their best, this album will fill that void in your life. –Steve Holtje

NEIL YOUNG Live at Massey Hall (Reprise)

Though this release technically should be referred to the “reissue” department, Neil’s poignant 1971 solo show at Massey Hall in his Canadian homeland, after years on the bootleg circuit, finally sees its official release as part of Reprise’s massive Neil Young Archive series, the motherload of which, that crazy nine-disc box set we’ve been hearing about all these years, should see the light of day sooner than later. This is a classic solo Young performance, loaded with beautiful performances of some of his greatest songs, including the debut of “Old Man” from Harvest, replete with stage banter where Neil talks about the origin of his signature acoustic staple. And when he sings the refrain “Well, I’m going back to Canada…” on “Journey Through The Past”, eruptions of applause ring out through Massey Hall like a people who really love their country. If only America were so lucky. –Ed.

BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW

Dandelion Gum (Graveface)

“Candy” seems to be the operative word here, though, after a month of straight chewing, my teeth are no worse for the wear.  Dandelion Gum appears as a product of three years of woodland isolation and drug-drizzled sonic sun spotting from a band that defiantly attests to the sheer inadequacy of “RIYL” reference-pointing.  My best attempt at a relevant rock equation (“If  Boards of Canada cashed their submarine in for a garage-rock ice-cream truck”) is clumsy at best. This isn’t another “new weird US” derivative eclectic, either; Dandelion Gum is incredibly cohesive without being the least bit overwrought, the beautiful residue of honest, striking music focusing itself, finding its own essence and spreading that stuff thick and sweet. –Tom Whalen

BILL CALLAHAN

Woke On A Whaleheart (Drag City)

Though he’s more known these days for being Mr. Joanna Newsom by the indie rock stalkerazzi than his own accomplishments as one of the finest underground singer-songwriters of the last 20 years, Mr. Callahan has risen above the (Smog) of his dark past by getting together with producer Neil Michael Hagerty and releasing a beautiful collection of robust, romantic black country rock that stands tall as his best singular piece of work since Knock Knock. You would be a fool not to appreciate this “Whale” of an album. –Patch Atomz

FROG EYES

Tears of the Valedictorian (Absolutely Kosher)

With every subsequent release, Carey Mercer and co. have been flexing their muscles in ways that contortionists grow envious of. The follow-up to 2004’s The Folded Palm and last year’s EP Future Is Inter-Disciplinary or Not at All, Frog Eyes’ latest effort finds a steady, and occasionally breathtaking, middle-ground between the two. The fractured, beaten intensity of The Folded Palm is coupled masterfully with Future’s deliberate pacing and breadth of sonic texture. Mercer howls and squawks with a blind passion over epics “Bushels” and “Caravan Breakers”, which put every moment of their extended track lengths to use. Opener “Idle Songs” bursts out of the gates in a frenzy and slowly comes to a soft crawl, peppered by the bands continued mastery of their instrumentation (all of which allows them to make the lulls as engaging as the blitzkriegs). The band is reunited with Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade on keys, and his contributions to the album’s sound can only be seen as a plus. Tears of the Valedictorian” works on every level and is as disturbing as it is enlightening. Mercer sings: “I was a singer and I sang in your home,” and, like a vampire, once you give him permission he’ll be back. –Greg Canino

KRISTIN HERSH

Learn to Sing Like a Star (Yep Roc)

More like “return to sing like she used to.” Instead of the clear, pure singing of her other solo efforts, Hersh revives her wailing ways of the first few Throwing Muses releases, letting the quaver and yelp back into her voice as uninhibitedly as on the 2001 Muses reunion. Her first officially released studio album under her own name since 2003 is self-produced, and she plays all the instruments except drums (supplied by Throwing Muses’ David Narcizo), violin and cello. As expected from her, the lyrics are dark and troubled. This is her best work since her solo debut in ‘94, maybe even her best in 20 years. Early buyers got a three-song bonus EP, +, with three non-album songs including the traditional folk song “Poor Wayfaring Stranger”. –Steve Holtje

MONEY MARK

Brand New By Tomorrow (Brushfire)

Though trying to get an interview with this man was akin to trying to land a money shot of Paris Hilton lickin’ labia in jail for In Touch, the Money man’s fourth solo album is by far his most sublime to date. Yes, he may have abandoned the ramshackle insect funk of his outstanding 1995 solo debut Mark’s Keyboard Repair. But in its place is the beautiful pop harmonies he originally blessed us with on 1997’s Push The Button, only with more of a compelling flair for creating the exact kind of album we have expected from Weezer since Pinkerton. –Eli Whitney

METHENY/MEHLDAU QUARTET

Metheny/Mehldau Quartet (Nonesuch)

Two modern day masters of their instruments come together to release some of their best music yet as the Metheny/Mehldau Quartet. Anyone who considers Pat Metheny to be a smooth jazz softie is a complete fool, especially after one catches the six-string beatdown he has delivered on such classic albums as Offramp and Song X, his experimental-as-fuck collaboration with the one and only Ornette Coleman. And Mehldau has since found a partner he can really drop science with in Pat, proving this piano prodigy is so much more than alt-rock’s go-to piano bar cover act. Metheny Mehldau Quartet is as good as anything both of these gentlemen have put out in their respective careers, and here’s hoping there is more to come from this dynamic duo. –Chester A. Arthur

PAGE MCCONNELL

Page McConnell (Legacy)

Why is Page McConnell laughing on the cover of his eponymous solo debut? It’s because he knows he has made a better solo album than all three of his bandmates could ever hope to achieve. Listening to this album, it is clear who the strongest songwriter of Phish was, as songs like “Heavy Rotation” and “Complex Wind” overshadows anything any of these guys have done since The Story of the Ghost. If only Trey’s records could be this satisfying… -The Cosby Kid

REDMAN

Red Gone Wild (Def Jam)

I’m feeling this. I’m glad REDMAN is back. I was a little sad that he is retiring Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s character, the Superman Lova. Redman has been through the mill and still comes out banging. You can tell he’s a grizzled veteran surviving the wilderness of all contemporary Hip Flop with his wits, talent and character! The album is very entertaining, even though it may not be as legendary as his first three. –Elfin Delmundo

BOOK OF KNOTS

Traineater (Anti-)

This album is a gawd damn monsta! Cobbled together by a rogue squadron of pre-gentrification NYC rock and jazz luminaries, including Tony Maimone of Pere Ubu fame, producer Joel Hamilton, Carla Kihlstedt of Tin Hat Trio and Matthias Bossi of Skeleton Key and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, this megagroup marks its debut on Epitaph’s Anti- imprint with a ferocious collection of heavy, heavy art rock inspired by the beautiful decay lining the rust-belt of Old, Weird America. Tom Waits, Mike Watt and Jon Langford come along for the ride as well, helping Book of Knots to create an album that literally pummels the majority of horrible loudness your local college metal station is spinning these days. I’ll eat my train with a side of Shadows Fall’s blood, thank you. –Grover Cleveland

!!!

Myth Takes (Warp)

Brooklyn’s !!! make songs that are as much a set of lame ducks as they’ve ever been and we couldn’t be more happy about it. The night club romanticism and soft-biting politics of “Myth Takes” is the same plate the band has always offered up to the table, but it’s never sounded this full of quality eating. It’s a hooky bastard, with songs just as likely to get trapped inside your head as in your feet. Vocalist Nic Offer explores the range of his register in songs like “A New Name” and “Sweet Life”, giving vocal warbling a go in place of the traditional low-end mumbling. “Heart of Hearts” is a perfect dance track, full of flow and noise. And the single utterance of a dial-tone “fuck” in “Must Be The Moon” saddens any college radio deejay wanting to send its slick package over the airwaves. A marked development over 2004’s “Louden Up Now”, “Myth Takes” catapults the band to flashier playgrounds without dropping their hold over the tight, chest-thumping bass grooves. !!! transcend the trappings of being seen as a danceable rock band, meaning they’re simply a dance factory and “Myth Takes” dares you to disagree. –Greg Canino

THE ROSEBUDS

Night Of The Furies (Merge)

Nothing says love like some old school 120 Minutes-style romantic new wave, and The Rosebuds delivers the goods like it was 1986 all over again on Night of the Furies. Why pop music like this cannot be fully represented on network TV or in Hollywood continues to astound me. I would totally watch any Drew Barrymore or Jennifer Garner chick flick my girlfriend picks out without any reservation if there were more songs like “Cemetery Lawns” and “Hold on to This Coat” being utilized as music beds as opposed to fucking Sixpence None The Richer. Here’s hoping if the Smiths ever stop being bitches to each other and reunite already, they will take The Rosebuds on the road with them as their opening act. How cool would that be? –Peter Peters

BRIGHT EYES

Cassadaga (Saddle Creek)

I’m listening to Cassadaga right now. I’ve had this album for over a month and have never, until this point, gotten past the third track. This might be because there’s not much to Conor Oberst anymore. There’s only so much you can write about and record about before you start sounding really watered down. Maybe I should give the album some more time so I can actually listen to it all the way through. Maybe there’s something I’m missing. Maybe I should give it another chance.

The one thing that Conor Oberst never changes is the meandering first track off of basically every single album that Bright Eyes releases. Cassadaga’s opener Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed) has the standard self-indulgent recording at the beginning—this time of a woman talking on an answering machine about Cassadaga, and small spiritual town in Florida from where the album gets its namesake—which leads into an equally meandering Oberst and his beloved guitar as he sings over audio clips of psychics about how times have changed and it’s kill or be killed. It’s sentimental but it’s also six minutes of nonsensical orchestral movements and by the end of it I’m skipping the track as I do with every other opening song on almost every other Bright Eyes album in existence.

The song trails off and leads into Four Winds, the first single released off the album. It’s folky and catchy and upbeat in a tongue-in-cheek, cynical way. This song proves that Oberst has made good use of his friends since the days of 1998’s letting off the happiness, back when it was predominantly him and his guitar. Following this, in If the Brakeman Turns My Way, Oberst gets preachy and tells us that we’ve gotta find ourselves a place to level out. Thanks Conor, I’ll get right on that. Cleanse Song is a gem, actually, and my ill feelings towards Bright Eyes suddenly getting more preachy and less talky begin to fade away. Yeah, we do need some laughter, don’t we Conor?

But we were all foolish to think that Oberst had forgotten the political cape he started wearing back around the 2004 elections. No One Would Riot For Less is one part sweet love song and three parts bash of the war in Iraq. I’m always up for a political song, but after 2005’s Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I’m Wide Awake, it’s Morning, I’m ready to go back to listening to Bright Eyes because Conor Oberst knew how to word my feelings in a way that I didn’t…not because I want to be told that war has no heart. But I Must Belong Somewhere reminds me that there still might be hope that Oberst isn’t making his career into a vendetta against the White House, as he asks us simply to leave us where he is because everything belongs somewhere. That’s the kind of song that makes you feel better about where you are, and that’s the kind of song that we all need to hear at some point. The album closes with Lime Tree, as an organ, a guitar, Conor Oberst, and a chorus of female voices leave us with the explanation that they felt lost and found with every step they took. Cue prompt ending.

Now that I’ve finished my first full rotation of this album, I can reread what I’ve written and understand that I’m probably being too critical. But quite frankly, I miss the old Bright Eyes. I miss the feeling I had the first time I listened to Calendar Hung Itself and realized that yeah, I do worry you smoke too many cigarettes. I even miss the shitty recording quality of the tracks on letting off the happiness and 2000’s Fevers and Mirrors because, regardless of the fact that your track is echoing because of the room you recorded it in, it’s still really awesome that you’re doing the recording on an eight-track in your pal’s basement. Bright Eyes just isn’t like that anymore. I don’t feel the punch that I used to feel when I listen to this album. I don’t feel the angst or the anger or the sadness. It’s almost as if Conor Oberst went to bed one night and he was nineteen, and then woke up the next morning to discover that he was ten years older and ten years more mature. I don’t fucking like that.

However, can we hold this against him? When you’ve been releasing albums for nine years, eventually your sound has to change. There are only so many songs you can write about how angry you are that you survived your last suicide attempt, or about how many hours you spent bent over the toilet this morning because you drank two bottles of JD alone last night. Looking over Bright Eyes’ past three releases, it’s safe to say that this change has occurred and it’s not going anywhere. But while Conor Oberst will maintain his stance on being a liberal, while he sounds folkier now than he did when he first started, while his songs are slower and sometimes even dragging, he’s grown up. He’s not the twenty-year-old writing songs like If Winter Ends anymore, and that’s sad, but that’s life. Looking at it from this perspective, this album is just as daring as Bright Eyes’ previous releases were. Maybe it doesn’t have everything that an old school Bright Eyes fan is looking for—that song that you heard echoing off the lockers as you walked through your high school hallway by yourself to get to class. But Conor Oberst has never been one to sell-out, and this is continuing proof. He knows somewhere that the reason he’s popular was because the kids could relate to him, but when he wanted to change, he changed. And of course he’s changed. He is not singing for you, after all. –Nicole Wertheim

MICHAEL PENN

Palms & Runes, Tarot & Tea: A Michael Penn Collection (RCA/Epic/Legacy)

Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 (Mimeograph/spinART/Legacy)

Michael Penn is known as many things to many people. To some, he is the guy who sang that song “Romeo In Black Jeans” (sic). To others, he is the oldest Penn brother, firstborn of his actor brothers Sean and the late, great Christopher, who played Nice Guy Eddie in Reservoir Dogs. To her hardcore fans, he is known as Mr. Aimee Mann, loving husband and touring partner to the grand dame of alternative pop. To us here at the IRT, however, Michael Penn is considered to be one of the five most underrated singer-songwriters in American rock whose body of work deserves ample recognition far beyond that of his aforementioned 1989 radio and MTV smash “No Myth”. And based on this respectable new career retrospective brought to you by the folks at Sony Legacy, one can understand why Mr. Penn has been filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson’s go-to guy in the music department over the last 10 years, be it to score his film debut Hard Eight or to make a cameo as a studio engineer suffering through Dirk Diggler’s horrific cover of Stan Bush’s Transformers anthem “You Got The Touch”. Palms & Runes gathers 20 of Penn’s finest moments in song, including the great “Brave New World” from 1992’s Free-For-All, alternate takes of “Try” from 1997’s Resigned and “Lucky One” from 2000’s fairly better MP4: Days Since a Lost Time Accident.  One can argue, however, as to why the producers of this collection failed to include some of Penn’s best songs, including “This and That”, the equally catchy follow-up single to “No Myth” off the March album, or “Seen The Doctor”, the rockin’ first single off Free-For-All, especially in favor of a tepid rework of “Long Way Down (Look What The Cat Drug In)” and a weak demo outtake of “Me Around” from Resigned.  For those of you who really want to sink their teeth into the world of Michael Penn, however, one would be wise to check out his sadly overlooked 2005 concept album about post-WWII Los Angeles, Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947, also reissued by Legacy with a bonus disc featuring six tracks recorded live at KCRW.  One cannot hear the album’s opening song “Walter Reed” and not think of the downtrodden military hospital’s recent controversial shine in the national spotlight, while tracks like “The Transistor” and “The Television Set Waltz” successfully evoke the Capra-esque feel Penn was shooting for with this great song cycle, arguably his best full album since March.  Here’s hoping that come the next time we hear of Michael Penn, he, Aimee Mann and Jon Brion will have conspired another classic score to a new Paul Thomas Anderson film that will finally make people stand up and give this man the recognition he so richly deserves. -Patch Atomz

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA

Out Of The Blue (Epic-Legacy)

APPLES IN STEREO

New Magnetic Wonder (Simian/Yep Roc)

Yeah Apples In Stereo, you guys are cool. This new album is pretty good, I guess. Definitely the most put-together stuff I have ever heard from your band. But unfortunately, I received this CD the same exact time I scored a copy of Out Of The Blue in the mail. And next to Out Of The Blue, as perfect an equilibrium as pop can get that sounds just as fresh today as it did 30 years ago to the year, New Magnetic Wonder just can’t cut the mustard, pawl. I would be doing a major disservice to Jeff Lynne by putting up any of the 24 songs on the new Apples album up against “Mr. Blue Sky” or “The Whale” or “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” or “Starlight” or “Big Wheels” or any of the tracks drenched in grandiose arrangements steeped in footnotes from conversations with Bowie and Harrison on this outstanding pop gem. The spaceship on the jacket cover that looks like the game Simon with Jetfire from the Transformers docking in its bay. I’m not saying that New Magnetic Wonder is bad. Just in sequence with a monster like Out Of The Blue, it’s not happening. –Patch Atomz

Flogging Molly brought their Green 17 Tour to New Jersey last Friday. Openers Street Dogs (featuring Ex Dropkick Murphy frontman and former Boston firefighter Mike McColgan) brought the punk to the restless and already drunk crowd, but it was Flogging Molly who really brought the house down with rousing renditions of classics like Drunken Lullabies and Laura. The New Jersey crowd seemed a bit more rowdy than times when I‘ve seen the band play in New York. At their gig last fall at Webster Hal people were dancing jigs like they were in the bottom of the titanic partying with the working class folks. This show it seemed like people were there to brawl. I saw more than one fight almost break out, but cooler heads prevailed and Flogging Molly kicked all of our asses. - Brad Filicky