Disc Of The Week
The xx
xx
(Young Turks)
****1/2
Even at its best, ethereal electronic pop music is prone to a number of faults — trite lyrics, for one. Complacent, redundant melodies and sounds for another. But with xx, the British band The xx has crafted a dreamy record that transcends all these problems; it’s an album that’s both warm and cool, carnal and affecting. It’s an impressive feat, considering this is the debut album from a quartet of 20-year-olds. Bassist Oliver Sim and guitarist Romy Madley Croft, both of whom share vocal duties, fall in and out of step on songs deliberately crafted to echo the feelings of a fractured, tumultuous romance. On “Heart Skipped a Beat,” for instance, the two echo back and forth the words “Sometimes I still need you.” Despite the simplicity of the lyrics, Sim and Croft’s vocal performances make these songs feel mature and full of depth, capturing a sense of fluid connections and ephemeral human relationships. This is mood music that deserves better than to be relegated to the background.
CLARA LOGINOV

Rude Boy
Jamie T
Kings & Queens
(Virgin)
****
With Kings & Queens, sneering British troubadour Jamie T confirms the promise he made on his 2007 debut: there’s more than just knife-crime coming from the streets of London these days. Jamie’s infectiously unpredictable mix of punk, ska, hip-hop, and folk is a thrilling combination — one that makes for perhaps the best musical expression we have so far of the ironic, multicultural metropolises of the 21st century. The record is full of unexpected flourishes of stand-up bass, snippets of live dialogue, chant-along choruses, and dystopian synthesizers. And Jamie’s wry, keenly observed lyrics — “Two World Wars and one World Cup” is one of my favourites — are more than able to hold their own. And more surprisingly still, the best moments on Kings & Queens are when he goes all quiet and sensitive. I’d imagine ballads like “Emily’s Heart” and “Jilly Armeen” are the kind of thing that’d get a 23-year-old British rude boy kicked out of the gang. Fortunately, they can also get him a musical career that’s now exponentially on the rise.
MICHAEL HINGSTON

Post-Rock
Califone
All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
(Dead Oceans)
***1/2
The new album from Chicago post-rockers Califone is also the soundtrack to an as-yet-unreleased feature film written and directed by lead singer Tim Rutili — information is sketchy, but apparently it’s about a young female psychic living in the woods in a haunted cabin. I’m not sure how the song about film director Luis Buñuel fits into the narrative, but otherwise this music sounds like it would set the mood perfectly. There’s a lonely, Appalachian quality to a lot of these tracks, with the touches of mournful fiddle and melancholy banjo — but every so often, it’s like the ghost of some other album wanders through, like when something that sounds either like an old-fashioned radio tuner or a singing saw wafts through “1928” or a loud clatter of steel drums barges in on “Better Angels.” I find my ear drawn to the background textures of these songs more than I am to Rutili’s drab, funereal vocals — I realize that’s the album’s title, but still! — but that’s not a bad thing. On this album, the wallpaper is the most interesting feature. I hope that’s not true of the movie.
PAUL MATWYCHUK

Celtic Punk
Rum Runner
What’s the Music Mean to You
(Stumble)
***
Calgary’s Rum Runner have been thumping across Canadian stages with their Celtic-punk sound since 2001. The band is still sonically akin to The Pogues or Dropkick Murphys with a touch of Bouncing Souls for good fun. Lyricist/vocalist Al Drinkle sings his folk-punk tales in a gravelly, road-weary voice that belies his relative youth. Drinkle has developed substantially as a songwriter too, getting away from the obvious drunk punk of the old Rum Runner to now writing amped-up ballads of life, love, and wasted youth. While the lyrics can get gymnastic at times — there’s a song here titled “The Dipsomaniacal Sentimentalist” — Drinkle’s raw voice lends his songs enough strength and plaintive emotion to stand on their own, especially when backed busking-style by acoustic guitar on “Volnay” and “The Solar Pessimist.” What’s the Music Mean to You may not break any new ground, but it’ll provide a decent soundtrack for a night at the pub with plenty of Guinness and Smithwick’s.
RICH BOMBER

Swedish Innovators
Miike Snow
Miike Snow
(Downtown)
***
If you listen to the opening seconds of “Animal” from Sweden’s Miike Snow, you’d never guess it’s the work of the same production team behind some major players in the top-40 game. Well, the beatmakers behind Britney Spears’ “Toxic” have teamed up with an indie singer and they’ve made something (mildly) memorable on this self-titled disc. I was captivated by nearly every track on this disc right from the opening seconds and couldn’t wait to find out where they were headed. Unfortunately, they often headed pretty far afield — imagine a cross between Sigur Rós, an uninspired Coldplay, and a melancholy (and easily distracted) MGMT spinning the knobs. It’s all frustratingly elusive, but perhaps that elusiveness is what makes the album notable — if this same material were sung by your standard indie band, it’d hardly be would be worth the plastic the CD was made from. Miike Snow won’t stick in your head like a Britney Spears hit, but I guess the imagination that went into this album stands for something.
CURTIS WRIGHT