Artist: Weezer
Album: Hurley
Label: Epitaph
Rating: 7.7/10

Ok… So the good news is that the unfortunately titled, “Hurley”, an album that may be named after the “Lost” character (played by Jorge Garcia, whose face adorns the cover looking like the love child of the late, great Dom Deluise) or more disturbingly a clothing company that sells Weezer products,  is Rivers and the boys’ best effort in a decade.  The bad news is that it (like every release since the abysmal “Make Believe” album) is touched by cynicism, riddled with pedantic lyrics, and inflated with far too much bombast and far too little of the wistful sentiment that made their first two records so beloved by an adoring and forgiving legion of Weezerheads.

This is not to say that it is a total loss…  It’s not by any means.  In fact, songwriting-wise (if you can manage to peel away three or four coats of injudiciously slopped on and lacquer-y production) it is a return to the straight ahead pop blazers of the “Blue Album”, albeit a 2010 version, which means no guitar solos, no herky-jerky harmonies and no clever words… and no heart… for the most part.

Those elements that initially made Weezer so exceptional are now replaced with ultra-lush (read over polished) harmonies, headache inducing wall-of-sound guitars and lines like the Post-Beatles-McCartney-esquely pedestrian, “Hang on til I see you again, I’m gonna be more than a friend” a chorus that would’ve never seen daylight in the “Buddy Holly” days. 

In short this is fairly lazy music, performed and written by a genius, savant-like songwriter with infinite talent and a professional, studio savvy backing group that are 40+ years old and content with the good life that has been provided for them by a fanbase that’s been expecting their first two albums from them for 16 years and never getting it.

It’s no matter though, because they have, in the interim, picked up enough younger (less discerning) fans on the strength of cash-in singles like “Beverly Hills” and “(If You’re Wondering if I Want You Too) I Want You To)”  that it’s become obvious that they don’t feel the need to live up to the weight of those two classics… Or do they?*

Despite all this, there are some really fine moments on the album, particularly the stunning “Unspoken” with its gorgeous flute mellotron, string adornments and strikingly powerful ending and the closing tune; the succinctly philosophical, twelve-string stomper “Time Flies”, maybe their two best compositions since “Pinkerton”. Songs so good, in fact, that they lift the entire album from mediocre to good…. and it’s not coincidental that both sport terrific lyrics, which proves that Rivers still can pump them out when he wants to.    

Besides those two gems, the opening trio of tunes (the nostalgic “Memories”, the “Blue”-ish, “Ruling Me” and the acerbic love song “Trainwrecks”) are very solid barn burners.  The rest is listenable candy-ish filler that demolishes anything off of “Raditude”, which is saying something.

In the end, the question is will this album be a transition back to the kind of music that they are capable of?  I don’t know…maybe?

… and if you haven’t guessed, I’M one of those sad, adoring and forgiving Weezerheads, who like Cubs fans, hope beyond hope every season that the boys will turn it around.

In any case, you can give it listen yourselves, as it’s streaming in its entirety on their MySpace page, at least for the time being anyway!

*Word is that the band is planning a series of smaller concerts in which they will being playing alternate evenings of just the “Blue Album” and “Pinkerton”… count me in for “Pinkerton”.

Artist:

Part sped-up San Fran 60′s psychedelia, part 90′s riot grrl rock, Grass Widow kind of fills the void left by bands like Sleater Kinney and Helium.

Their second album stays the course of their self-titled 2009 release, covering much of the same ground musically, but consistently.  It’s a jaunty stripped down three-piece affair, full of off-kilter harmonies, jangly guitars and syncopated bass and drum work.  The only problem is a lack of variation in the actual songs, with the exception of the standout tracks, the lovely “Landscape” and “Submarine”, which sounds like a lost That Dog track that was meant to go on a DGC Rarities compilation…Without those two tunes,the album wouldv’e gotten majorly claustrophobic.

Basically, it’s a sound album, short, scribbly sketches for a rainy day or a pot party.

Artist:

Part late 60s Byrds and Workingman’s Dead, part 80s American underground, part pastoral British psychedelia, Darker My Love’s third album is their most diverse and most satisfying release to date.

A far less heavy affair than 2008′s “2″, I was literally taken aback by the maturity and retro feel of the outstanding opener, “Backseat”, with it’s circa “Slowhand” Claptonesque guitar riffing.  “Refreshing” was the first word out of my mouth.  After listening to all the 80′s synth homages of late, it was like a cool drink of water.

Although it does meander around stylistically a bit, for the most part it stays on the Americana path, which is always an excellent source to mine.

Tracks like the ambling “Rain party”, (which sounds like an outtake from some lost Crosby, Stills and Nash album),  ”New America” which masterfully combines sixties affections with an almost late 70s new wave polish and the fantastic minor country pop of “Trail the Line” more than pay for the price of admission.

One of the best releases I’ve heard so far this year and definitely worth checking out.

Artist:

Imagine the score to the coolest ever imaginary 70s film and you have The Budos Band’s latest record.

The funky instrumental ensemble from Staten Island literally soar on track after track of the most righteous grooves I’ve heard since the first time I ever listened to the “Shaft” soundtrack.   

Most bands that explore retro sounds always lack something, whether it’s faulty production or inauthentic playing, but the B Band just totally NAILS it on this album. This is, as they say, the real McCoy.   If you close your eyes you’d swear you were hearing some lost classic from 30-40 years ago…. and yes that’s a GOOD thing.

Every tune just oozes the bizness.  Their four-piece percussion section provides a rock steady foundation for the alternating wah wah squonk/surf plunk guitars, snake charmer organ, and superlative horn section (occasionally ornamented by a flutter-ifically fantastic flute).

The songs shift seamlessly from the blaxpoitation grit of the opening track, “Rite of the Ancients” to the film noir, by way of Mexico, atmosphere of “Nature’s Wrath”, which features a gloriously moody trumpet break.

If ever there was a must-get this year, this is the one.  I can’t think of a better party album… Just pop this on the ole iTunes, set it on a loop and you’ve got yourself a shindig friends.

Buy it… like now.

Artist: M.I.A.
Album: /\/\ /\ Y /\
Label: Interscope
Rating: 4.5/10

Fresh on the heels of a rep-damaging New York Times interview that revealed the, shall we say, less than sincere side of the “militant” rapper (and left her once touted style in the indie press looking more like the emperor’s new clothes), a disturbing video with no point and a YouTube controversy that seemed to beg for relevance somewhere but found none, Sri Lankan Brit pop tart M.I.A.’s  once hotly anticipated album, “/\/\ /\ Y /\” finally dropped this week…. to a less than stellar reception. 

In other words, this baby is getting seriously panned all across the board.

Why, you may ask, is this germane to my own review? 

The answer is…it isn’t necessarily.

However, as a reviewer, part of my job is to peruse what my critiquing brethren have to say about the new releases of the week.  It doesn’t influence me, per se, but it does give me an idea of what the basic consensus is in the field and how far I swing one way or the other on a certain record.  Well, it turns out that on this particular occasion, I pretty much stand firmly with the rest of the pack. 

Let me just say right off the bat, that “Maya” (I really don’t feel like typing out those hieroglyphics every time) is one of the ugliest sounding records I have ever heard, if not THE ugliest.

I truly don’t overstate when I say that the sounds that fill this album are some of the vilest, most hideous noises I’ve ever encountered in my life.  I mean, this gives Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” a run for its money.  Something about the shrill frequency of the relentless onslaught of bleeps and bloops literally made me nauseous (it was particularly gruesome listening with headphones… don’t attempt this at home). 

The excruciatingly unbearable runout on the track “Teqkillas” with its soulless computer belching of whoops and whirls serves as a perfect example of this.

Shaken, after the first listen I tried to pinpoint what exactly it was about the sonic attack I had just experienced that I found most offensive, and then it came to me… the whole thing sounded like the horrible screech of an old dial-up internet connection, from like 1997.  It’s the absolute purest antithesis of the word “organic”.  It was like looking it to the unblinking dead eye of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

And then it all started to make sense to me… I took a look at the ugly cover festooned with pictures of YouTube players and then I noticed that a couple of the song titles made mention of the computer in some way (“Internet Connection” and “Caps Lock”), and most importantly I listened a little more closely to the opener “The Message”. 

It begins with the sound of someone clicking away on their laptop, followed by the first of the awfully abrasive sounds you will encounter, then buried in this muck come the lyrics; “Headbone’s connected neckbone.  Neckbone’s connected to the armbone connected to the handbone.. the handbone’s connected to the internet…”

Ok, so there is an actual thought process behind the miasma of cacophony.   It’s a kind of a concept album about the melding of human being with the silicon chip, and somewhere in that boggy mix is thrown in a little bit of the Government conspiracy anxiety.

The only problem is that the whole “dark paranoia of a man/machine future” theme has been done before, and infinitely better, by Radiohead with their classic “OK Computer”. 

Still… I was ambivalent.  

On the one hand, so much of it sounds just goddawful, but on the other, this obviously was intentional. … And there are a couple of decent numbers, like the lanky “It takes a muscle” and early PIL-esque “Born Free”… and I guess it’s kind of ballsy and confrontational.

But is it TOO confrontational?

I added up the pluses and minuses in my head, or rather the 1s and 0s…

Is this the work of a woman (the wife of a multibillionaire, mind you) who is so deathly afraid to lose her precious cred, that she creates one of the worst sounding, uncommercial records, certainly of the decade, to try and regain some kind of relevance?  

Or is it the emperor’s new clothes again; a rehash of musical tropes that have already been refined by far greater artists than she could ever hope to be?

After a while these two competing thoughts cancelled each other out and I came to the conclusion that I didn’t care either way.

Artist: The London Souls
Releases: The Sound (single)
Website: http://www.thelondonsouls.com/

 You must check out this power trio out of NYC… I know, I know, not another one… But no, these guys are the real McCoy.

Sounding like a cross between Jimi Hendrix’ Band of Gypsys and circa ’69 Zeppelin, The London Souls offer up an incredible blend of classic hard rock and the best of what today’s music scene has to offer.

As of yet, they’re unsigned to any label, but I don’t see how these guys don’t get picked up soon… even though, maybe they’d be better off if they weren’t and released their stuff independently.

They’ve got a bunch of live clips up on YouTube already to check out and each one of them packs a wallop…  

So mosey on down to their Myspace page and be sure to take a gander of the video for their single “The Sound”, as well (seen below).

Artist:

Two years after the critical success of their “At Mount Zoomer” record Wolf Parade return with a fluid, self-assured product.  Combining icy synth riffs with hard edged guitars, their sound this time around is decidedly more poppy.  That’s not to say you’re gonna be hearing anyone covering these songs on the next season of American Idol, but the added melody provides a little more room making it all seem a trifle less claustrophobic. In short this is a band who have found their groove.

The album’s opener, the driving “Palm Road”, sounds like a mix of the Dead Kennedy’s and… gasp.. The Killers. Other highlights include the circa 1984 Springsteen-esque “Pobody’s Nerfect”, the radio-friendly “Yulia” and the frenetic new wave-sy “Cave-o-Sapien”.

Among recent releases by their contemporaries, “Expo 86″  fits right in with its eighties through a blender vibe, which seems to be the fad of the year. 

The tunes are right and tight and the boys from Montreal definitely seem to know exactly where they’re at and where they’re going, but is that enough these days?

Yes, I can sure hear a bunch of these tunes getting airplay.  The question is though, “Who exactly is listening, and why should they?

The thing is, it’s all very pleasing to the ear the first few times around, but I’m not sure it’s really saying anything, and I don’t know if that’s what’s needed right now.

Still, it’s a damn site better than Lady Gaga or Ke$ha so maybe in the end it’s a good thing we’ve got bands out there, like Wolf Parade, chipping away, stone by stone, at least attempting to unearth us from our graves.

… and I guess I just answered my own question.

Bravo fellas!!

Artist: Walri
Releases: “Paper Crane” (album, 2006), Tinkle Sprinkle/Cotton Candy (single, 2009)
Website: www.walriloverock.com

I think Scott McMicken (Guitarist and co-frontman of the tremendous Dr. Dog) said it best when describing Walri… “These guys are head scratchingly good”.

This is true on two levels: a) they really are; and b) it’s a total head scratcher as to why they are not a huge band, at least in the “indie” scene anyway.

I first came to know these guys about 4 years ago, while working as an editor for another website… At that time, they had sent me a copy of their phenomenal album “Paper Crane” to review.  Their mix of incredible musicianship and world class melodies completely blew me away.  I immediately promised to do a piece on them, but sadly never got an opportunity to. 

Fortunately, now I’ve got the chance to spread the word about them.

Out of Rochester, New York, Walri (Chris Coon – locks and keys, Dave Goebel – shirts and skins, Amos Rosenstein – strings and things, Geoff Saunders – trout and bass) is a band straight after my own heart, combining a 60s pop sensibility and knack for ornate production with a distinctively modern edge that could easily place them among the top bands in their genre.

I just can’t for the life of me understand why no one has discovered them and championed their cause. 

These guys have got to get signed and on the national scene… like YESTERDAY.

I can talk about them all day, but when it comes down to it, LISTENING is believing, so check out their latest single (streaming above) if you don’t believe me.  Released last November, this incredible offering really should be on every music lover’s playlist. 

The kick off track, “Tinkle Sprinkle”, sports florid Beach Boys harmonies (you’d swear it’s Brian Wilson himself on the choruses) and intricate instrumentation.  It’s immediately followed up by the gorgeous,  dreamy and Harry Nilsson-esque “Cotton Candy”, which will leave you breathless and pissed off that you’d never heard of them before. 

So, please, please, please check out their official website and Myspace and Facebook pages and show them the love they so richly deserve.  Get their CD, buy a t-shirt or check them out live if you’re in the area. 

A group of this caliber simply cannot be allowed to go unnoticed by the public at-large!!

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Since The Z Report has gone online, we’ve been flooded with emails from bands all over the world requesting us to review their material.  As former recording artists ourselves, we know how hard it is to get a any kind of foothold in the biz… and these days, it’s even harder than ever to get your voice heard!!  So we at the Z have decided to make it one our missions to support these artists and provide a venue for all the dreamers who, despite the great odds, decide to pick up an instrument and scream into the void. 

Please send your submissions to: zeitgeistyreport@hotmail.com

So without any further ado, we introduce our new feature… You Heard it First!

Please send your submissions to: zeitgeistyreport@hotmail.com

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Artist: The Nod
Album: Easy, Maverick
Website: http://thenodmusic.bandcamp.com/

Out of the wiles of Wisconsin, The Nod’s sound crackles with a refreshing energy that’s both contagiously melodic and intellectual.  Driven by the fuzzerific guitar work and laconic vocal stylings of lead singer Brett Newski (he also took on drum duties as well) and underpinned by the rubbery groove of bassist and co-writer, Eric Maloney, they are a compelling combination of Pavement, Jonathan Richman and the Minutemen. Their slice of life songs are filled to the brim with the kind of humor, unconventional syncopated rhythms and chord progressions of the early post-punk era.  Tunes like the jittery, “Lie in all Honesty” and ragged melancholy of “News” will make you think you’re listening to an album released on IRS Records in 1981. 

In his email to us, Brett Newski, somewhat cheekily declared The Nod to be the “purest rock and roll out there”, and after listening to it with more than a fair amount of incredulity, we officially declare his hyperbolic decree to be not so far off the mark!

Be sure to check out their website, and show them some much deserved support.

Artist: LCD Soundsystem
Album: This Is Happening
Label: DFA
Rating: 8.4/10

Nearly a month since streaming the entire album on their website, LCD Soundsystem’s long-awaited follow-up to the brilliant “Sound of Silver”, “This is Happening” is finally available for purchase online and beyond.

It seems this year, in the indie world, the LOOONNNG song is in.  Even more surprising is kicking off the album with one (as evidenced by recent releases by bands like Broken Social Scene and MGMT). LCD Soundsystem continues the trend with the drawn out “Dance Yrself Clean”… a tune that gurgles in a groove for a huge stretch then breaks out in sawtooth Casio tone be-b-beats for another long spell before fading.  This opening pattern effectively sets the tone and pattern for the rest of the selections on the album.

With the exception of the tight, late 70s Bowie pastiche, “Drunk Girls”, “This is Happening” is a sprawling, challenging album chock full of lengthy (some might even go as far as saying endless) numbers that really push the boundaries of how far one can stretch out an idea, that seem to flout the idea of the commercial pop tune, a perfect example is the NINE minute and appropriately entitled “You Wanted a Hit”.  

The thing of it is, I totally get where (LCD creator) James Murphy is coming from.  This is his full ON Brian Eno record. 

All throughout the record there are instances of the master producer’s influence.  I hear “Remain in Light” era Talking Heads (greatly apparent on the talky/bouncy “Pow Pow”).  I also hear a lot of the aforementioned Bowie/Eno collaboration of “Low”….and I LOVE both those albums… so I should really love this album, right?

But I don’t…. well, not yet anyway. 

I can see how I could after 20 more listens, though.  It’s the definition of a grower, the kind of music you got to give yourself over to.  At this point, my appreciation of it falls more on the intellectual side of things.

This might be due to the fact that, although you can tell that Murphy’s completely absorbed the Eno vibe and knows exactly how to regurgitate it perfectly in the studio, there is little left of MURPHY’S sound mixed in…

I’m not saying it’s not buried in there somewhere, only that it might take a little more seeking to find it.

It’s got my attention though… I will say that.