Ra Ra Riot
The Rhumb Line
(Universal)
***1/2
The full-length debut from upstate New York’s Ra Ra Riot is understandably overdue. First their lead singer quit, and then drummer John Pike accidentally drowned in June 2007 — so we should probably cut them some slack for only releasing The Rhumb Line several months later than expected. The product is a sweeping, somewhat orchestral pop album that’s consistently lovely and engaging, though what’s most striking is how the band takes its obvious influences and subverts them.
There’s a full-time cellist and violinist on hand amidst the soaring melodies and crashing drums, but the songs don’t automatically invoke the Arcade Fire. And aside from “St. Peter’s Day Festival,” Wes Miles’ acrobatic vocals manage to carve out territory from the jauntiness of fellow upper-crust New Yorkers Vampire Weekend. The best song on the album is the massive, spiralling cover of Kate Nash’s “Suspended in Gaffa,” which makes me want to get better acquainted with Nash herself. 
MICHAEL HINGSTON

The Streets
Everything Is Borrowed
(679)
****
While The Streets started out largely as a showcase for Mike Skinner’s charming, everyman brand of braggadocio (typical taunt: “I’m 45th-generation Roman”), he’s since become obsessed with authenticity, particularly in the face of fame, and making music that’s honest above all else. His fourth album, Everything Is Borrowed, is his most unabashed and successful step in that quest yet.
Opening title track makes Skinner’s argument in its most eloquent form. Over a bubbling, triumphant horn line, he excitedly rattles off a series of mundane things that suddenly seem rife with possibility under the right light. The rest of the album takes a string of similarly trite life lessons — take care of your family, don’t commit suicide — and re-energizes them one by one. Sometimes Skinner’s earnestness can be a bit grating, but as long as there’s one great party beat (“The Sherry End”) in the mix, nobody can fault him for giving these diary confessionals the distribution they deserve.
MICHAEL HINGSTON

Hexes and Ohs   
Bedroom Madness
(Noise Factory)
***1/2

Montreal’s Hexes and Ohs are my wife’s new favourite band. It’s easy to hear why. The world’s cutest “longtime couple” (that’s how they’re described on Wikipedia) have put some of the warmest, sweetest synth-pop songs in the genre’s existence.
Like Postal Service, Magnetic Fields, and Lali Puna, Hexes and Ohs take the sad-songs-wrapped-in-happy-sounds approach to music. It’s great to hear a band playing the indie-disco game that can do more than find one groove or one sound and ride it for six minutes. A lot of the tracks have that loping bass that Joy Division/New Order made so popular — plus banjo, which is not exactly common in synth-pop but works wonderfully on “Little Bird” all the same.
They were also here for two shows a couple weeks ago. They’re even better live than on CD — that’s when you see it wasn’t all studio magic. But you slept. Or at least you were somewhere else on Friday, when only about 20 people showed up to see them at Riverdale.
Don’t worry. They’ll be back soon — that is, unless some of their songs get played on a TV show or they get too busy and leave everyone here thinking, “Oh man, I sure wish Hexes and Ohs would come here.”
PROSPER PRODANIUK