Sink This City

Sink This City   
Sink This City EP
(independent)
3 1/2 Stars

Edmonton punk/power-pop outfit Sink This City deserves praise, first and foremost, for their lack of pretension. Their debut EP even contains a song called “Injuries Sustained While Fighting a Bear Using Karate”—and a more fun, less highbrow image would be hard to imagine. I don’t think they’re putting us on, either—these guys were raised on The Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. and weaned on Doug Martsch and Built to Spill, and I doubt they could give a shit about anything deep, murky, noisy, or otherwise. “Third Place in the Moustache Contest” is a neatly layered tune crackling with energy, an honest flair for melody, and a wise attitude toward ironic facial hair: “You’re going nowhere/With an act like that,” wails singer Steve Gunn.  “Injuries Sustained...” is a fierce meltdown of precise guitar and tricky timing that features the rousing sentiment “Just because our heart stops working/Doesn’t mean the world stops turning.” But it’s “Sorry, It’s My First Day” that captures Sink This City at their best, melding climbing guitars and the urgent pitter-patter of snares, all kicking into a furious rideout.  “Put Your Hand Down You Idiot,” “No One Will Ever Catch Me Now,” and “Accountabilabuddies” round the EP out with reliable, tight power pop. Strong debuts like this are proof that Edmonton has life in her yet—and apparently some bears roaming the streets as well.
MATT HUBERT

Gnarls Barkley
The Odd Couple
(Atlantic)
4 Stars

If you went solely by Gnarls Barkley’s publicity photos (for which they’ve dressed up as everything from astronauts to prep-schoolers to characters from Austin Powers), you’d think Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse were the worst kind of joke-rap act, a throwback to the dress-up excesses of David Lee Roth’s  “Just a Gigolo” video.
But what kind of joke-rap act writes songs as full of tortured self-loathing as the ones on their debut, 2006’s St. Elsewhere, and the followup, The Odd Couple?  This is a disc on which Cee-Lo sings about loving a blind girl because she doesn’t know how ugly he is (“Blind Mary”) and thanks his parents “for hurting me so bad” (“A Little Better”). The most propulsive track, “Run,” finds Cee-Lo fleeing something so terrifying he can’t even name it. Maybe it’s his own paranoia.
It’s hard to know whether Cee-Lo’s efforts will be rewarded with a platinum record or a straitjacket. Maybe with The Odd Couple, he’ll wind up with both.
PAUL MATWYCHUK

What Made Milwaukee Famous
What Doesn’t Kill Us (Barsuk)
1 Star

My decision to give this album a listen was based solely on the band’s handle, which they nabbed from my favorite honkytonk-era Jerry Lee Lewis song. Crossing my fingers in hopes of hearing some saloon-style piano-playin’, I was disappointed to learn that What Made Milwaukee Famous pay homage to The Killer in name only. At its best, What Doesn’t Kill Us channels Joel Plaskett and Elvis Costello; at its worst, it’s a combination of the matchbox twentys and Collective Souls of ’90s alternarock yesteryear. Tracks like “Cheap Wine” and “The Right Place” are sweet and catchy enough to sneak onto the odd mixtape (provided you don’t mind adding a strong dose of syrup to your tracklist).
If bands like the Barenaked Ladies are too “dark” and “edgy” for you, you might want to check this one
out; otherwise heed Jerry Lee’s words and don’t let What Made Milwaukee Famous “make a loser out of me.”  
TRAVIS SARGENT

The B-52s
Funplex
(Astralwerks/EMI)
3 Stars

I love the B-52s more than anyone I know, but Funplex, their first album in 15 years, just isn’t deserving of the wild praise it’s getting all over the internet. Sure, guitarist/keyboardist Keith Strickland has discovered ProTools and techno, but the updated ideas get fleshed out on too few tracks, leaving the back end of the album full of safe tunes to keep fans of the classic sound from rebelling. Funplex’s best, “Eyes Wide Open,” ticks away robotically before some punk energy flows in with sweet organ stabs. The ladies’ duet “Juliet of the Spirits” is a touching, psychedelic coming-out song. The lyrics are still delightfully campy (“Tentative tentacles grabbing me! In the spandex spiral vortex!”) but Fred Schneider’s staccato has lost its punch and Kate Pierson’s beehive is starting to droop. The band has said they made the album because they got tired of singing the same songs all the time. But that’s exactly what Funplex sounds like.
PROSPER PRODANIUK