"We're Not Above Reviewing Leaks": Best Coast - Crazy For You

As Best Coast, Bethany Cosentino--with the help of Bobb Bruno--has quickly established a reputation for crafting sunny, infectious lo-fi pop gems like last year's wonderfully playful "When I'm With You." On Best Coast's debut long player, the aptly titled Crazy For You Cosentino pushes the Best Coast conceit--vaguely retro sounding beach pop about relationships--as far as it can go without breaking, while serving up some of the shiniest, most polished songs of the group's still young career. The biggest concern one has with Best Coast is that Cosentino's songs sound a little bland on paper--the album is another hazy summery album in a long line of the same, featuring nothing but lyrics about relationships, mostly failed. To make matters worse, Cosentino isn't just singing about relationships gone wrong, she's singing about relationships in what seems like a very juvenile manner, and that's where listener patience might stretch to its limits. How many ways can a gal really say "I miss you," before it all starts to sound the same?

Despite all these potential missteps, after a handful of listens, something funny happens--overly familiar lines like "I miss you, so much" fade into the background as creepier, more desperate lines like, "I want to go back to/the first time, the first place" bubble up to the surface. The trite surface sentiment, "I wish he was my boyfriend," from album opener "Boyfriend," gives way to the co-dependent creep-fest "Crazy for You," in which Cosentino sings such uncomfortable gems as, "I can't do anything without you/I can't do anything with you," and "I want to hit you but then I kiss you/I want to kill you but then I'd miss you." What begins to emerge from beneath the album's sugary facade is that Cosentino's songs aren't just typical pop songs about heartache, there's something darker and more desperate at work.

The desperation in Cosentino's songs is most apparent through her preoccupation with nostalgia. More than one song on Crazy For You invokes the ever popular age of seventeen: on "Boyfriend," Cosentino sings, "I dropped out when I was seventeen"; on "Each & Everyday," it's "I wish we could go back to when I was seventeen/and I wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't have been so mean," both marking that year as a turning point to be revisited. In a way, Cosentino isn't doing anything that hordes of indie pop dudes haven't been doing for years--think The Promise Ring--but rather than obscuring the nostalgia in obtuse turns of phrase, she owns the nostalgia resulting in an uneasier, sadder, but also more entertaining end product. Indeed, not only are the songs written from remarkably honest points of view, but they are also full of quirky humor be it an offhanded reference to how a character "freaks when she gets high," or another's list of complaints ending with a non-sequitor: "I lost my job/I miss my mom/I wish my cat could talk." Cosentino's real achievement with the songwriting on Crazy For You, it turns out, is her ability to make the songs sound simpler and easier than they are. Inside every whispy complaint exists an ocean of neurosis--less "Breaking Up is Hard To Do," than "The One I Love," or "Every Breath You Take".

But of course, the lyrics don't even matter if this album doesn't sound good, and sound good it does. The summery production is spot on, and every song is built on killer melodies and strong hooks. The only thing really holding Crazy For You back, and it's just a little, is that, after a spell, the songs start to sound the same. One wonders what a couple of stripped down songs, or some more outside-the-box production techniques sprinkled throughout might have brought to this album. Maybe some more of those lo-fi textures and and hints of shit-gaze aesthetic from Best Coast's earlier releases might have given the album just the right balance to keep listeners grounded in each song. That being said, while Crazy For You is a bit too easy of an album in which to get lost, it also illustrates that the key to Best Coast's disaffected energy and good-times vibe has more to do with Cosentino's songwriting than some might have expected.

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Best Coast' Crazy For You is available 7/27 on Mexican Summer. Also, you can hear a stream of the whole album here...

"We're Not Above Reviewing Leaks": LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening

Ever since James Murphy told Rolling Stone that LCD Soundsystem's upcoming album, This is Happening, might be the band's last, it's been difficult not to listen to the band's output with an ear toward their career arc. The first, self-titled album was the big debut, in many ways, the purest distillation of James Murphy's ideas about sound and music. Sound of Silver, then, was the refined, slightly re-imagined follow up. The album sounded bigger, roomier, the themes were heavier and darker, the melodies pushed a bit harder, and every moment of music felt relevant. So what could we possibly expect from the third album in what could potentially be LCD Soundsystem's nice, round trilogy? I'd hope for an album that grows the band's sound while offering a sense of closure. An album that carries the sonic threads of its predecessors to a logical destination--the arrangements should get bigger and weirder, the melodies catchier, the production sharper. When This is Happening leaked to the internet a few weeks back, I listened for all of the above. In other words, the possibility that This is Happening could be LCD Soundsystem's last album not only raised my expectations for the album, but it also raised the stakes for the album itself. If the record was going to meet my expectations, it seemed, Murphy and co. needed to show up with their A game.

As it turns out, This is Happening meets all of those expectations and, in the process, brings to mind the third film in another trilogy of note: Return of the Jedi. Now, I know that this is an extremely geeky comparison that would make hipsters across America gag in dismay on the alkaline drip at the back of their throats, or do spit takes out of their PBRs, and I also realize that the review I wrote right before this one also used sci fi movies as a point of reference, but hear me out. When Return of the Jedi was released in 1983, it was a fairly successful conclusion to the Star Wars trilogy. Following 1980's dark installment in the trilogy The Empire Strikes Back, Jedi managed to conclude the trilogy's narrative--and all of the character's emotional arcs--in about as satisfying and engaging a way possible. Jedi drew on Empire's darkness to pull in audiences with a sense of unbridled euphoria and release as those flashes of hopelessness and despair from the middle film were conquered with pure, raw excitement and the realization of a mostly happy ending. In just about every way mentioned above, This is Happening parallels Return of the Jedi. Not only does Murphy's latest album follow a darker, heavier album, its sounds and ideas feel like organic extensions from that predecessor. And, while This is Happening could never be confused for a light or unabashedly positive album--when has LCD Soundystem ever been either of those--it certainly signals an uptick from its predecessor's ruminations on mortality and loss.

So, if This is Happening isn't about mortality and loss, what is it about? Well, you know, James Murphy Stuff: alienation, relationships, failed relationships, raw human need, fucking up, having fun, and, perhaps most of all, carving out an okay space to call home somewhere between all of the above drama. In a way, the album feels like a conclusion, the hipster settling down into an uneasy domestication. So, like Sound of Silver, in its own way, This is Happening is still a record about getting older and figuring your shit out, even if none of its songs hang quite as heavy as the previous album's back-to-back masterpieces "Someone Great," and "All My Friends." And though nothing on This is Happening is as heavy or bold as those songs, the new album is still an exquisite addition to LCD Soundsystem's discography, and would definitely make for a good final chapter to this part of James Murphy's career. "Dance Yrself Clean," opens the album with one of Murphy's finest moments, an almost lo-fi prologue that explodes into analogue synth bursts that fizz and burst with buoyant urgency. "All I Want," is a fairly straight forward guitar-driven pop gem that clearly evokes Bowie's "Heroes," as Murphy sings "All I want is your pity." Perhaps the album's finest moment comes with the deliciously soulful "I Can Change," which finds Murphy delivering his finest vocal to date over a lush bed of synthesized textures. Other highlights include the percussive rave-up "Pow Pow," and the Talking Heads inflected "Home."

Of course, were I to go on listing all of the highlights on This is Happening I'd eventually name every song, and probably revisit some of them a second time. As it stands, I've already mentioned five of the album's nine songs, and one of those, "Drunk Girls," I would have mentioned had I not already devoted a blog post to it. That's sort of the whole point though--This is Happening is another exceptional album from LCD Soundsystem, start to finish.

If you're going to take one thing away from this rambling, fog-headed review, it's that This is Happening, while maybe not quite as strong as Sound of Silver, is another astonishingly good entry in LCD Soundsystem's catalog. Even the plodding, unsettling "Somebody's Calling Me," opens up on repeat listens, transcending its claustrophobic (and initially boring) trappings to become an exercise in seasick, paranoid psychadelia. All in all, while I hope that Murphy continues to make music this strong in some form or another, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if LCD Soundsystem went out on This is Happening. And, if this does end up being LCD's last album, I wouldn't be surprised if, a few years down the road, critics and music fans alike look back on the band's three long players as one of the finest trilogies in rock.

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LCD Soundsysetm's This is Happening will be available on 5/18 through DFA. You can preorder the album here.

"We're Not Above Reviewing Leaks": Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

In Retrospect, Broken Social Scene's 2002 break-out album, You Forgot It in People, must have been the product of a confluence of events and influences falling perfectly into place. On that album, Broken Social Scene sounded like their name--the songs bristled with a loose immediacy. The album as a whole sounded like a heap of loose threads woven together into ecstatic pop songs, acoustic jams, and delicate interludes by an informal collection of music-junky friends locked in a studio for months--and that was a good thing. You Forgot It in People thrived on its organic flow and style, becoming one of last decade's most loved albums. It was an underdog album, a surprising collection of songs that showed up, seemingly out of nowhere, and seduced us with its messy sprawl. I bring these points to my discussion of Broken Social Scene's newest album, Forgiveness Rock Record, because I'm trying to understand why, despite a slew of excellent songs, this new release never quite manages to become the engaging record it appears to be on paper.

To be honest, most of the songs on Forgiveness Rock Record are excellent. Lead-off track "World Sick," combines low-key chiming guitars, driving floor-toms, and a simple vocal melody into an epic, but reserved anthem for the damaged but optimistic. Kevin Drew's opening lyrics establish the problem: "We got a minefield of crippled affection." This problem is more directly named, then, in the songs messy, and dramatic chorus: "I get world sick every time I take a step." And while the lyrics appear, on paper, as hopelessly negative, the delivery paints the song as an affirmation of sorts, an acknowledgement of our damaged circumstances and a promise to make them better. The song's large-scale group dynamics and sing-along feel remind us exactly what Broken Social Scene are capable of. Elsewhere, "All in All," featuring what I believe is Lisa Lobsinger's first lead vocal since joining the band's core, succeeds thanks to the elegant vocals and rich arrangement that combines rapid pulsing electric textures with lush backing vocals and, eventually, some subtle violins. What both of these songs have in common--and what they share with other outstanding tracks like "Art House Director," "Ungrateful Little Father," and "Sentimental X's"--is that the arrangements have a chance to breathe, to become fully formed environments for the listener to inhabit.

In essence, Broken Social Scene's songs work best when they are spacious. That's why You Forgot It in People was such a wildly successful artistic statement--the album was full of arrangements that provided plenty of space for the listener. This allows songs to become something more than melody and lyrics--they become landscapes, ideas, collections of textures and inspired moments lovingly arranged and layered so that listeners can enter into songs instead of merely hearing them. This is something that the band continued to do successfully through their 2005 self-titled album. Unfortunately, that album was a bit too sloppy and unfocused to live up to its predecessor. Now, like with those albums, Broken Social Scene still excel at creating songs that give us this imaginary listening space, but the album suffers from its more conventionally arranged songs that, not only don't quite live up to the gorgeous production that defines Broken Social Scene's best work, but actually impede the album's flow--instead of a giant, open-roofed warehouse, Forgiveness Rock Record is a long hallway with a room for each song. Some of the room's are connecting. Some are huge. Others might as well be coat closets.

How does this tie back to the atmosphere of the first album--that sense of kairos that made You Forgot It in People such a wonderful record? It is in the albums' sense of becoming--the prior album felt like the musical equivalent of a collective--each part, each layer, each texture arrived at and positioned naturally. And, while the best songs on Forgiveness Rock Record feel the same way, a number of good songs--"Chase Scene," "Forced to Love," and "Romance to the Grave," for example--feel too crafted and closed off. While they're good songs in their own right, they don't fit the tone or feel of the highlights, ultimately disrupting the album's dramatic development.

As I re-read what I've written above, I can't help but feel that this review reads harsher than my actual feelings toward the album. Allow me to reiterate--almost every song on this album is good to great, and fans of Broken Social Scene, or just excellent indie guitar pop, in general, will find plenty to love about Forgiveness Rock Record. That being said, when a band has a masterpiece under its belt, it's only natural to consider a new work's relationship to the band's previous greatness. In short, then, Broken Social Scene's latest is an excellent album--easily their second best--but it isn't able to consistently live up to their finest moment. That's a tall order, though, especially when the bar is set as high as it is for Broken Social Scene. That being said, forget about that bar and enjoy this record. Who cares about my own convoluted reasoning for why this album isn't quite as good as one of the standout masterpiece of the 00's. It's an enjoyable and worthy album--not a masterpiece (and I feel like an ass for hoping for one, but why not?) but enjoyable none-the-less.

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Broken Social Scene's Forgiveness Rock Record is available on 5/4 from Arts&Crafts.

"We're Not Above Reviewing Leaks": Caribou - Swim

Back when Caribou's Dan Snaith was still making music under the name Manitoba--back before colostomy bag Handsome Dick Manitoba, in a fit of good old fashioned American arrogance, got upset at Snaith for using his name, despite the existence of, you know, a Canadian province named Manitoba--he made one of the best albums of the previous decade, Up in Flames. What made Up in Flames such an exceptional album was its vibrant sonic palate--Snaith incorporated psychedelic samples, sick beats, and sun-drenched melodies to make one of the most beautifully explosive "electronic" albums of the last ten years. Since then, Snaith, carrying on as Caribou, has continued to work within the boundaries of dance and electronic music, always exploring new sonic territory and doing so, more often than not, exceptionally well. 2005's The Milk of Human Kindness was a dense, almost claustrophobic affair, while 2007's Andorra superficially returned to the sunnier aesthetic of Up in Flames, but in a way that was slightly haunted by the specter of 60's pop, the album's atmosphere and melodies invoking The Left Banke and, more directly, The Zombie's summertime masterpiece Odyssey and Oracle.

On his upcoming release under the Caribou moniker, Swim, Snaith keeps things summery, but in darker and more aggressively dancier ways than anything on Andorra or Up in Flames. While those albums were a bit haunted and sunny, and ecstatic and bright, respectively--each capable of sounding perfectly at home on a hot day at the park or beach--Swim feels a bit more like summer alone at a cabin in the woods, at least when we're talking about atmosphere. The production is a bit denser than the previous albums, and the beats heavier. While opening track "Odessa" rides a slick percussion and bass groove, the subdued vocals and key flourishes gives the song a peculiarly solitary feel. Even more immediately bright songs like the accessibly dancey "Sun," conjures scenes of humid, foggy evenings at dusk.

One of the key's to Swim, it seems, is the anchoring of Snaith's sunnier elements with thicker beats and electronics, resulting in something that sounds both from the future and otherworldy, beautiful and exciting, but shot through with an uncanny current of quiet solitude. "Found Out" opens with warm keys and Snaith singing "While she waits she holds her breath/And thinks about the things he said." The nervey synths pulse beneath Snaith's voice as he describes the song's subject attempting to sing a not entirely familiar song. Already, the song's mood has been set as contemplative and a bit dark. When the beats kick in, and Snaith introduces new sonic layers, the song builds towards an unsettling sense of confinement, but never arrives, managing to keep itself anchored in the song's initial delicate sadness.

Elsewhere, "Bowls" rides a hard street beat percussion groove, while album closer "Jamelia," comes off as a cool down lap, albeit one with occasional stabs of strings and keys, re-asserting the album's slightly unsettling aesthetic. In the end, Snaith has, once again, progressed his art, pushed his sound to someplace that makes sense, but that we didn't necessarily see coming. The songs are still lush and accessible, but the production is richer, perhaps, than anything he's yet released. While Swim doesn't quite match the consistent heights of Up in Flames, its healthy balance between a dance foundation and eerie psychedelia easily places the album among Snaith's finest work.

Swim will be available on 4/20 from Merge records.

"We're Not Above Reviewing Leaks": Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks

When I really get into a “discovery” album—meaning either a band’s first effort, or the record that introduces me to a band—I’m often disappointed by the follow-up. Most likely, this is a personal problem, one of expectations, and not the fault of the artists. I say this upfront because I loved Frightened Rabbit’s Midnight Organ Fight (FatCat, 2008)—partially because of the immediacy and intensity of the record, the feeling of four guys playing slightly imperfect but heartfelt indiepop in a room together, and partially because the bitter breakup theme running through the album resonated with my personal problems at the time. While the latter no longer applies, I still find myself able to return to Midnight Organ Fight and engage with the record the same way I did nearly two years ago.

So, ok. I admit it. I came to The Winter of Mixed Drinks (FatCat, 2010) with lofty expectations. I didn’t expect Midnight Organ Fight II: Revenge of the Organ, but I expected the same immediacy, the same intensity as the last album had. I expected the promise of the last album to be somehow fulfilled or at least furthered. On first listening to Mixed Drinks, I was carried away by the pop melodies and the familiar feel of the songs. On second listen, I realized why the songs feel so familiar: All of them would have a place on Snow Patrol’s Final Straw. Depending on your taste, you can read that statement how you choose. On repeated listen, I’ve realized The Winter of Mixed Drinks, though in a lot of ways a more accessible and polished album, fell short of meeting those expectations.

For one, Frightened Rabbit decided to forego the live studio recording of Organ, so this album lacks that intimate feeling of being in the room with the musicians. For another, and this is a direct result of the first, the production on Mixed Drinks seems to take much more focus, resulting in a clean and beautiful album, but one that crosses the line into over-production a few too many times. For yet another, Mixed Drinks lacks a true standout song, like Organ had with “Good Arms vs. Bad Arms.”

“Things,” the opening track on Mixed Drinks, immediately sets a tension that I expected to run through the record. The first 34 seconds consist of low-register fuzz guitar with heavy echo and a piano tinkling in the background before the vocals begin. Once the drums join in the party, the conflict is mounting as Scott Hutchison sings about not needing “things,” the material possessions that get in the way of our interpersonal relationships. “So I’ll shed my clothes,” he says, “shed my flesh down to the bone, and burn the rest.” A powerful statement of stripping oneself bare, and Mixed Drinks is in a lot of ways about flaying ourselves. Later in the chorus, Hutchison sings, “It’s just you I need, you my human heat, and the things are only things, and nothing brings me life, brings me love.” The need for human heat returns us to Organ’s “The Twist’ and Hutchison seems to be exploring similar territory.

This opening track sets up the rest of the album in two key ways. First, it establishes the complex arrangements and production that the rest of the album will follow. “Things” is so layered with instruments that to hear them all requires a focused listening with good headphones. Second, “Things” establishes a tension for the album that we hope will be carried through and fulfilled by the end.

Sadly, that tension is neither carried through nor fulfilled. Immediately following “Things” is the album’s first single, “Swim Until You Can’t See Land,” a bright, poppy, radio-friendly song whose opening contrasts sharply with the urgency of the first track. The chorus of “Swim Until You Can’t See Land” is Hutchison’s attempt to make the “sink or swim” cliché somehow interesting, by repeating the song’s title three times before asking, “are you a man or a bag of sand?” Apparently, this question is so profound that the chorus’s two lines repeat ad nauseam on the album’s seventh track, “Man/Bag of Sand.” This play with cliché also comes up again in the song “Foot Shooter” toward the end of the album. (Bet you can’t guess what that one’s about.)

Following “Swim” are two tracks that begin the Snow Patrol comparison, “The Loneliness and the Scream” and “The Wrestle.” Both tracks have interesting lyrical tension, but their melodies and arrangements leave something wanting, and we’ve moved far from the tension of “Things.” This tension seems to be resumed in “Skip the Youth,” whose long introduction includes building layers of noise and skipping drums that we expect to come to an urgent boil. But when the vocals come in around the 1:45 mark, all that tension evaporates and we’re left with another bright, poppy song that relies on choir-like backing vocals and overwrought sentiments like “All I need is a place to lie. Guess a grave will have to do.” Unfortunately, graves function as a trope throughout the album, leaving that bitter taste of teenage sentiment in my mouth.

The two most immediately accessible songs on the album, “Nothing Like You” and “Living Colour” are both poppy, catchy, and upbeat. “Nothing Like You,” the second single, has those hints of Snow Patrol like earlier tracks did, but its themes of getting over an ex by getting with someone else bring us back to Midnight Organ Fight. “There is nothing like someone new,” Hutchison sings, “and this girl she was nothing like you.” “Living in Colour,” which has Top 40 written all over it, is the poppiest and catchiest offering on the album. On my first listening of the album, this was the song that immediately stood out. On my tenth listening, this is the track I anticipate. Other than “Things,” “Living in Colour” is the song that most resonates. Unfortunately, it is framed by “Not Miserable” and “Yes, I Would,” two slow, plodding but melodic tracks. “Yes, I Would” in particular drags, and seems a disappointing way to end an album that begins with such urgency and tension as “Things” sets up.

Overall, I have to say that Winter of Mixed Drinks is a very pretty album in terms of its songcraft and production, and the addition of strings to nearly every single track adds layers absent from Midnight Organ Fight. The songs are tight and catchy and the arrangements are complex. However, this feels every bit like one of those unfortunate indie crossover albums, where the relatively successful band tries to create mainstream appeal by writing catchy songs with simple and repetitive lyrics and adding strings to every. single. track. While Winter of Mixed Drinks has the potential to far surpass the success Frightened Rabbit achieved with Midnight Organ Fight, ultimately it lacks the staying power of its predecessor.

The Winter of Mixed Drinks is out March 1 in Europe and March 9 in North America, both on FatCat Records. You can preorder the album here.

"We're Not Above Reviewing Leaks": Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks

Almost a decade ago, Ted Leo opened one of the finest albums of his career with a stunning song that climaxed with the line, "All the songs you hear down here, they have a purpose." This line from "Biomusicology" has proved a fitting mission statement for Leo's career. Leo has a knack for trying to squeeze political action into every corner of every song. At first, the politics were more subdued, a mixture of the personal-is-political, and more overt soap-boxing. As America's political climate soured, though, Leo's songwriting grew increasingly political. Shake the Sheets was an outright protest record, and Living With the Living was a sprawling mess of an album that tried to focus on the personal, but was too bogged down by its own political clutter. That's a shame, because turning back to "Biomusicology," the song's more important lines are the supporting sentiments that follow the above quote: first, "all in all/we can not stop singing"; and second, "but we will ne'er be broken hearted." Why these lines? Because they maintain a sense of political action while focusing inward to the vital, human tendency to seek joy. The song isn't simply a political diatribe, it is about finding spaces in which to maintain one's humanity in a fucked up, dysfunctional culture. These are the kinds of songs where Leo shines and that, at times, make me wonder if he isn't one of our best living songwriters. And of course, Tyranny of Distance and Hearts of Oak are full of such songs. Then there's also the song that many Leo fans consider, not just the finest moment off of Shake the Sheets, but from Leo's entire discography, the personal-is-political pep talk, "Me and Mia," featuring the ecstatic refrain: "Do you believe in something beautiful?/Then get up and be it."

What I'm getting at is that Leo's songs work best when they are about human struggles and interactions, but informed by a political sensibility. The more that politics become a song's focus, the less vital Leo's songs feel. A prime example of this is the hardcore punk inflected "Bomb.Repeat.Bomb" off of Living With the Living. The song finds Leo sacrificing the humanity in his songwriting in the name of vitriolic anger. This song also points out another trend in Leo's songwriting: Leo's best songs tend to be informed by a punk sensibility, but never concern themselves too much with sounding "punk." The charm of Leo's earlier work from the 00's is that it synthesizes power pop, punk, folk, and straight up rock and roll into a brilliant and engaging concoction of undeniable pop music.

Which brings us to Leo's latest effort, the forthcoming The Brutalist Bricks. A good chunk of Leo's new album could be described as a satisfying return to form full of songs that, for the most part, leave politics in the background as a context within which the song's characters strive for a better way to live. Musically, the album trends more consistently toward power pop than fans might be used to, but that's okay because the melodies and hooks are consistently strong to match.

The album asserts itself immediately on its urgent opening track, "The Mighty Sparrow." Leo opens the song with a vigorous strum-and-howl, the lyrics pointing both to turbulent global politics and the necessity of human connection: "When the cafe doors exploded I reacted to/Reacted to you..." When the Pharmacists kick in after this brief introduction, they sound tighter and more excited than they have since "Me and Mia." The opening song's momentum carries through the albums first four tracks, resulting in two more highlights, "Ativan Eyes," and "Even Heroes Have to Die." Among the other highlights, there is the two-parted "Bottled in Cork," which moves from a punky, politically minded, power pop intro into a buoyant acoustic jam about sister's having kids and infectious optimism where "a little good will goes a mighty long way," before ending with an exhortation to "tell the bartender/I think I'm falling in love." And let's not forget the bright guitar pop of "Bartolemo and the Buzzing of Bees," built around a slick bass hook and an all around tight performance that reminds us why Leo's Pharmacists are such an impressive live act.

Despite this album's obvious successes, the end product comes off feeling a bit uneven due to a couple of puzzling song and production choices. The album's first cracks become visible on its fourth track, "The Stick." It's one of the "hardest" songs Leo has recorded as of late, and the end result sounds labored and forced. Then there is the album's difficult three song run of "Woke Up Near Chelsea," "One Polaroid a Day," and "Where Was My Brain?" The first takes itself too seriously, as Leo proselytizes, "we are born of despair/we're gonna do it together." "One Polaroid a Day," dealing with an unnamed characters' desire to "control everything," is built on an interesting, light, funk-type rhythm, but Leo sings the song through a hushed whisper in his uncomfortable lower register, making the song somewhat difficult to listen to. Finally, the Ramones-esque "Where Was My Brain?" isn't bad, exactly, but its goofy chorus and bright production feel more like b-side material than a strong deep cut off of a largely exceptional album. In some respects, the unevenness brought on by these songs tempts us to draw more explicit comparisons to Living With the Living, which suffered from wild variation between styles. Fortunately, despite its inconsistencies, The Brutalist Bricks is a much stronger album.

Trying to figure out why certain songs feel out of place on an album isn't an easy thing to do, so I won't try. Perhaps where The Brutalist Bricks goes wrong is in trying too hard to diversify its sound. In this album's case, the attempt took what could have been an out-and-out power pop masterpiece and made it "just" an excellent album with a few awkward moments. After years of listening to Leo, though, I suspect he's not all that worried with making another masterpiece, instead finding satisfaction in making a fun, passionate, sincere album that takes some risks. And, I can honestly say that no matter how little I care to listen to some of the album's weaker tracks, they won't detract from the finer moments. Make of that what you will, I'll chalk this one up as another win for Team Leo.

The Brutalist Bricks by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists is available on March, 9 in the U.S. on Matador Records. You can pre-order the album here.