Very few bands would be able to get away with delivering an album of demos, cover songs, and live tracks as their third release. Fewer still would be able to turn it into a stand-alone work of such charm that it would only fail to seduce the most churlish souls. Unless you have a huge vendetta against pretty Americana dreamscapes, the New York-based collective’s interpretations of everything from classic R & B (‘Rainy Night In Georgia’) to traditional southernisms (‘Tennessee Waltz’) to intelligent rock (songs by REM and Fountains of Wayne) are a revelation–painterly sweeps of sonic flourishes reanimating familiar tunes. Along with virtuoso musicianship and arranging and sincere and visionary aural curating, what makes this a truly listenable album rather than simply a completist’s wet dream (though it is that, too) is a considered and clean approach to organizing the sound. Even the live tracks are clean, and the flow of each song into the next is unerringly immaculate. The unsung heroes of No Word From Tom are the recording and mixing engineers.

SHE WANTS REVENGE
She Wants Revenge
(Geffen)
*

Have you ever had that feeling? Standing in front of your bedroom mirror, you want to be somebody. Not necessarily somebody, as in a personal success, but you literally want to be somebody else. In the case of the singer of She Wants Revenge, that somebody else is Ian Curtis from Joy Division. And not in the charming and somewhat original way that Paul Banks of Interpol does, but in a "let’s dress in all black and swallow the microphone because I was picked last in soccer" style move. Imagine The Faint but without the creative arrangements and conceptuality. The Faint isn’t the ideal synth-rock outfit, but this is just like them with the heart cut out, literally and figuratively. And I’m all about unrequited love and heartbreak in song, don’t get me wrong. In junior high, I once asked a girl to the dance and she laughed! That was seriously scarring! But "I want to fucking tear you apart?" It isn’t Trent Reznor (another influence) saying "I want to fuck you like an animal," but a guy who was thinking "this is brilliant."

HINTERLAND
The Picture Plane
(Submerged)
****

Even if the rest of the record wasn’t up to par with the majesty that is The Picture Plane’s opening track, "Sirens," it would still be worth buying the album for that song alone. Fat chance it would actually be the case because Hinterland are, on this record, nearly flawless. A couple years after their debut, Under the Waterline, got them national press attention, the Vancouver outfit have taken everything that is mesmerizing about their sound and bumped it up a few dozen notches. Michaela Galloway’s child-like, breezy voice is hair-raising, the guitars and keys come closer to the Cocteau Twins’ shoegazing rock than the band would probably wish to admit, and comparisons are even more difficult to avoid than ever before. But deep inside, Hinterland are following the path they were drawn to from the beginning, still experimenting with a variety of textures, including wind instruments. From the jaw-dropping "ThisClose" to "Western Development Museum," by way of "Inside Outside" and "Object Lessons," the build-ups are massive and intricate, while still poppy enough to satisfy short-attention spans. But "Sirens" is the kicker, a monster of a song where Galloway’s siren-like vocals (of the water kind) echo the band’s siren-like instruments (of the ambulance kind) with an unbearable sense of mad urgency.

FUNKMASTER FLEX
Carshow Tour CD & DVD
(Koch)
*1/2

Funkmaster Flex has made a career out of yelling. Yelling at shows. Yelling over his mixtapes. Yelling over his car-nographic, lowrider-worshiping syndicated TV show. Just yelling.

Funk Master Flex does this because he is the end product of a secret government breeding program that used genetic material taken from DJs at strip clubs and Top 40 meat markets from around the world. However, it appears they've lost control over Flex because, unlike everything else he is associated with that I've heard, his oppressive shout-outs are missing.

Without his trademark wall-of-yell sound, this is just another crappy mix CD/DVD release. Sure it’s got some big names, but really you'd likely be better off grabbing an old DJ Clue release. In fact, you might barely notice the difference beyond the age of the songs selected and the comforting lack of 50 Cent.

In fact, this barely felt like a Funkmaster Flex release at all. Maybe he was just too busy ogling cars to even bother showing up at the studio to either put time in mixing or yelling his way through his Rolodex. That could explain a lot about this release.

MAGNETA LANE
Dancing With Daggers
(Paper Bag)
***

The ladies follow their 2005 breakout EP (name-checked in a mid-album track) with a full-length that further develops their brand of coquettishly seductive art-punk guitar wed to dance rock rhythms. Guitarist Lexi Valentine’s voice, with its bruised and defiant premature weariness, acts as the record’s centerpiece. Purring, growling, or lazily tossing off lines like the high school cool girls shrugged away their cigarettes after lunch breaks, Valentine seemingly channels every femme touchstone to ever grace CBGB’s stage or stairwell–Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett et al. Her pipes are a smart nexus to orbit the rest around, since the girls are–understandably, as they picked up their instruments less than three years ago and hover around the 21-year old mark–limited and repetitive musicians and songwriters. There are wonderfully catchy songs here–the opener and closer plus the excellent "Secrets Aren’t So Bad" (which should have been the first track)–but as a whole the record is dragged down by lack of breadth and some egregious lyrical Harlequin-isms ("kiss her lips tonight/please make her come alive").

WOODPIGEON
Sketchbook
(Independent)
****

Spiritually Glaswegian yet geographically Calgarian, Woodpigeon is cardigan handclap pop at its finest, lovingly crafted by Mark Hamilton and executed by his perma-expanding and contracting faux orchestra of musical allies. Hamilton has a sweet choirboy voice that could meet Stuart Murdoch’s after school by the bike racks for a twee-fest bitch knockdown any day, and he uses his vocal gifts to animate agonizingly wide-eyed ditties about love and other longings and cravings of the soul. Displaying a Morrissey-esque sense of scale and a manic Dave Fridmannian (producer of Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips, etc.) glee for whimsical instrumentation and studio witchery that sometimes verges on the frankly bonkers, the adventuresome Sketchbook is still as likable and smart as Murdoch’s sonic stomping ground, Belle & Sebastian. The album flutters and swoons like a heart in the first lurching throws of a crush and in certain moments, such as on the stupendous "Alison Yip School for Girls," even ascends to brilliance.