OLDIE: Edie Brickell & New Bohemians

Recalling Ghost of a Dog (Geffen, 1990).

In the Deusner household, Ghost of a Dog ranks as one of the most underrated follow-ups ever. Following the unexpected success of their Geffen debut, Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars, the New Bohemians grew up quite a bit but refused to let go of their hippie-isms. These songs have soft hearts but tough minds. despite a few fretless bass riffs, these songs have aged perfectly. Kenny Withrow’s guitar appears out of nowhere with the right riff for the right occasion, and the drummer Matt Chamberlain and percussionist John Bush add textured grooves to “Woyaho” and “Mama Help Me.”

As a singer, Brickell possesses more natural charisma than she gets credit for, with a wide-eyed voice that sells the seedier details of “Carmelito” and the lump-in-throat hook of “Black and Blue” just as easily as the breezy introspection of the musical haiku “Oak Cliff Bra” and “This Eye.” “He Said” is quietly devastating, “Stwisted” darkly so: When she sings “I ain’t gonna kill myself loving you, I ain’t gonna break my own heart,” her voice remains clear and strong, as if mustering determination, but when she gets to the final soulful testimony (“Why make my heart go to bed at night beating alone?”), she’s a woman scorned but desperate, drawing out that whyyyyyyy angrily but make the rest of the question sound heart-rending.

Ultimately, Ghost of a Dog is a singer-songwriter album backed by the most inventive jam band you ever heard, but nothing here was a smash hit like “What I Am”—or even a modest hit like “Little Miss S.” What should have stocked every dorm-room CD rack during the early ‘90s was largely neglected upon release, and the band went their separate ways. Brickell married Paul Simon and road-tested a solo career, and the New Bohemians splintered. Even a 2006 reunion album couldn’t rekindle interest or color the band as more than a late-80s one-hit-wonder. In another universe, though, Ghost of a Dog is a career-making album.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

ARE YOU READY FOR THE COUNTRY?

Upcoming albums from a Nashville veteran in exile, three scionesses of outlaw country, a British wanderer, and a young Midwesterner with album-of-the-year ambitions.

Fall is already crowded with big country albums—Tim McGraw, Kellie Pickler, Lucinda Williams, and, um, Darius Rucker and Jessica Simpson—but a few strong efforts by two rookies and two vets promise to sail under the radar, through not fault of their own. Four to watch out for, and don’t miss this first one.

(Photo: Joshua Black Wilkins)

Jessica Lea Mayfield: With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt (Polymer, September 16)

If the women of Carter’s Chord sing about “Young Love” from an older perspective, Rust Belt belter Mayfield reports from the front lines. On the eighteen-year-old’s debut, the dark mood (courtesy of producer Dan Auerbach, who dueted with Mayfield on the Black Keys “Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be,” from Attack & Release) hooks you, Mayfield’s haunted voice reels you in, but it’s her songwriting that keeps you on the line. “I was walking with your left hand in my back pocket,” she sings on “For Today,” “and I stared at the sky while you kissed me.” But the chorus carries the kind of weighty confession that Lucinda Williams used to pen with her grocery list: “I could care less about you, care less about you/I love the sound of you walking away.” Young love isn’t sweet; it scars. That Mayfield can sound so much older than her years gives With Blasphemy So Heartfelt its dire gravity and invites you to obsess over it.

On repeat: the whole damn thing

Rodney Crowell: Sex and Gasoline (Yep Roc, September 5)

“This mean ol’ world runs on sex and gasoline,” Crowell sings on the title track to his thirteenth album, which is equally angry and randy. The singer/picker is outraged, but he’s not pining for some idealized past. That title track ends with an apt punchline: Same as in your mother’s day. The world’s always been screwed, in other words. Producer Joe Henry gives Crowell’s dissent a dark, smoky sound but mostly and wisely steps aside and lets the singer rail like Dylan, even wondering what it’d be like to be the first female president—his empathy is both comic and deadly serious. Most of all, the album runs on sex: “Moving Work of Art” (as in, “she’s a…”) is the seduction, “I Want You #35” is all taut tension with no release, “The Night’s Just Right” is pretty much self-explanatory. The world’s falling down around him, but Crowell just wants to make time.

On repeat: “I Want You #35”

Carter’s Chord: Carter’s Chord (Show Dog Nashville, September 16)

You could argue that Carter’s Chord are Toby Keith’s own Dixie Chicks. After all, he signed the all-female trio to his Show Dog label and co-produced their self-titled debut. While these sisters—Becky, Emily, and Joanna Robertson, daughters of parents who toured with Waylon Jennings back in the ‘70s—may lack the Chicks’ playful defiance (I’m thinking more “Goodbye Earl” than “Not Ready to Play Nice”), they have enough personality and songwriting chops to excuse themselves from the crossfire from that culture war. Their voices meld beautifully on these rock-country arrangements, especially on “Young Love” and “Dear Baltimore”. Only real dud is “Summer, Early ‘60s”, written by their mother, Carter Robinson, and closer to Garth Brooks’ “Thunder Rolls” than “Ode to Billie Joe”. On the other hand, opener “Boys Like You (Give Love a Bad Name)” sounds one power chord away from Bon Jovi, although it’s tough to tell if they’re in on the joke. Probably not, and more power to them.

On repeat: “Young Love”

Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs: Dirt Don’t Hurt (Transdreamer, October 14)

There’s only one Brokeoff, and his name is Lawyer Dave. He and Golightly team up for her fourth album, playing down-and-dirty country-folk numbers and rural blues stomps that sound like De Stijl-era White Stripes or Giant Sand relocated to the Ozarks. Their voices—hers high and clear, his low and gruff—meld nicely amid railroad harmonica, muddy guitars, and pots n pans percussion. They do right by Claudia Swann on “I Wanna Hug Ya, Kiss Ya, Squeeze Ya” and they do even better by Traditional on “Cluck Old Hen”, but the best songs here are Golightly originals like the clattering “Accuse Me” and the uptempo gospel “Gettin’ High for Jesus,” which is the country cousin to King Missile’s “Jesus Was Way Cool.” The big guy coulda turned wheat into marijuana and sugar into cocaine, but Golightly and Dave turn blasphemy into something resembling salvation.

On repeat: “Gettin’ High for Jesus”

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

ONE-SIDED STORY: The Pursuit of Happiness

I was fairly obsessed with the Pursuit of Happiness for a couple of months during eighth grade, when it wasn’t uncommon to catch “I’m an Adult Now” on late-night MTV. Seriously, what dorky small-town eighth-grader wouldn’t be? Coming across like Weird Al’s id backed by the Violent Femmes ego, the Toronto band assayed smart, smart-ass lyrics about getting girls, not “getting” girls, and getting girls to do certain things, which are typically the three thoughts crowding any thirteen-year-old’s mind. So when I found the band’s 1990 album One Sided Story in the dollar bin, I was simultaneously elated (oh cool! I haven’t heard this band in nearly twenty years) and crushed (oh shit! I’m old).

One Sided Story is the lesser Pursuit of Happiness album, the confused follow-up to their 1988 debut, Love Junk. Todd Rundgren’s production sounds overly polished and flat, with Moe Berg’s vocals too low in the mix and the guitars defanged. And some of Berg’s songs sound a little too ungenerous (“Something Physical”) or too conceptual (“New Language”). Still, it’s hard to deny his angsty hook on “Two Girls in One” or the cocksure boy-girl exchange “The One Thing,” and Berg could write a sharp, witty lyric, whether he’s chasing an absurd comparison (“Your love is like greasy fried noodles...”) or making himself the butt of the joke (“Sometimes I go too far / The girls think I’m icky / They can see the boner in my pants”). One Sided Story is a hard album to love, even harder to hate, which pretty much sums up the relationships Berg’s singing about.

Despite their clever singles, this band was never going to be your life. But they had a vision of how rock and roll needs to sound—tense, lusty, rejected, dejected, smart, and hopelessly, darkly adolescent—and the clarity with which they pursued it means One Sided Story never sounds as dated as you would expect.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE A REFUGEE

Peeking at The Pretenders, Palmyra Delran, Beaten by Them and The Standard.  

I typically approach new material by bands who had their heydays in the 1980s or 1990s with no small amount of trepidation. There’s no way it’s going to live up to their best work; admittedly, that’s not the best way to think about it. But I’m pleasantly surprised by new releases by refugees from the postpunk 80s and the riot grrrl 90s, although much less so with a storied album by an indie band still plugging away.

The Pretenders, Break Up the Concert (Shangri-La, September 23)

In recent years, country music has become the last refuge for washed-up artists looking to revive their careers in a genre whose fans still buy albums. Bon Jovi and Jewel saw modest commercial upticks after signing with Nashville labels, and upcoming albums by ex-Hootie Darius Rucker and Jessica Simpson will likely do the same. Of course, Chrissie Hynde is not now and never will be washed up, no matter how many mediocre Pretenders reunion albums she releases. The latest, Break Up the Concrete, is the band’s least mediocre in nearly two decades, mainly because the Pretenders have gone country. Not slick Nashville country, but roadhouse country. Break Up opens with the rockabilly single “Boots of Chinese Plastic,” then launches into “The Nothing Maker,” which is steeped in pedal steel. “Don’t Lose Faith in Me” and closer “One Thing Never Never Changed” are convincing country-soul numbers, while “Don’t Cut Your Hair” and the Bo Diddley-style title track tear up the barroom dance floor. Unlike other artists, Hynde’s gravitation toward country never really sounds like a career-calculated move, if only because it’s such a good setting for her brassy vocals, which amazingly have lost none of their jive or authority over the years. Has she aged at all?

On repeat: “Boots of Chinese Plastic”

Palmyra Delran, She Digs the Ride (Apex East, October 14)

On the heels of last year’s friggin’ great Friggs retrospective, Today Is Tomorrow’s Yesterday, comes this genial EP from guitarist Palmyra Delran, who trades her band’s sloppy East Coast riot-grrrl assault for a more pop-addled sound complete with surf riffs and jangly guitars. The Joan Jettsy “You’re Losin’ Me” stops for a kazoo-sounding guitar solo, and “When I Was You” begins with a strong Byrds-by-way-of-Bangles riff, then careens into a ska breakdown. “Baby Should Have Known Better” roughs up a girl-group chorus, while on the title track, lovely backing vocals ooh and aah coyly behind Delran’s vocals, which exaggerate the sneer in Delran’s voice. Short but sweet, hardened but happy, She Digs the Ride could be the soundtrack for the coolest teen movie ever, by which I mean Clueless.

On repeat: “When I Was You”

Beaten by Them: Signs of Life (Logicpole/Thrill Jockey, November 11)

Remember that Silver Mt. Zion album from earlier this year? Think back. Remember how it was pretty damn silly? Remember how you thought apocalyptic post-rock had run its course and was no longer a viable genre? Remember thinking that scene in 28 Days Later was both its pinnacle and its death knell? Well, I remember. I also remember taking it all back after hearing this Australian band’s ominous debut, on which they build tense grooves instrument by instrument. Each member does his own things, not always playing toward a common purpose and so creating a strange friction on “Town Too Small” and “Pioneer 10.” The drama recalls early Dirty Three, but without the same sense of careening abandon. These songs go where they need to go and the band just follow along, which makes Signs of Life sound organic instead of forced or “written.” Beyond that, it’s well sequenced as an album, cresting and fading dramatically between tense numbers and more atmospheric songs like the title track--never a glamorous compliment, but crucial here to maintain that sense of undirected flow. Only complaint: Post-post-rock band should not be allowed to rap, which sinks “Verge” and nearly ruins the mood altogether.

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On repeat: “Town Too Small”

When Hell is full, the dud will walk the earth:

The Standard, Swimmer (Partisan, September 23)

Yes, I feel absolutely terrible panning the Standard’s long-in-coming sixth album. The Portland band got shafted when V2 folded shortly after they signed with the label, and they spent nearly a year in the wilderness, shopping around Swimmer. Credit them with persistence: Singer Tim Putnam founded Partisan Records to release the damn thing himself. It’d be a tale of triumph if Swimmer were their Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but instead it’s more of the same: high-drama indie rock that’s still pretty faceless.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

ILL PENICILL’

Sometimes a moldy oldie is the best medicine.

Generally, this Blurt blog (Blurg? Shoot me.) will look months ahead to get a sense of highly anticipated albums, but every once in a while, I’ll look back at an older album that I’ve recently discovered or rediscovered. Or, hell, just something I found in the $1 bin. Don’t hold me to this, but I’m going to try to keep it older than a decade and fairly obscure. Nothing like “Hey, remember Funeral?”

Team Dresch

Personal Best

(Chainsaw Records, 1995)

I went through a riot grrrl phase for a few weeks last year, trying to get my head around a genre I didn’t countenance too much the first time around. So I dipped into Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and early Sleater-Kinney (that self-titled album… not so hot), but Personal Best stuck with me beyond that early burst of interest. It’s one of those albums that could inspire a dissertation on queer identity and feminist politics. There’s even a line that goes “Half of this is me and I’m not sure who the other is,” “other” being an academically loaded word. But who wants to read a dissertation on a Friday? These songs wouldn’t have stuck with me—and I wouldn’t be writing about them now—if Team Dresch hadn’t given them so much emotional heft and desperate viscerality. Opener “Fagetarian & Dyke” admits early to career misgivings, wondering if ten years of little sleep and Smiths rip-offs was worth it; the verses are urgent, melodic, almost diaristic, but the choruses abruptly loud, messy, cathartic. There’s fury in their populism, as they lace those excoriating guitars with pop-song ba-ba-ba’s on “She’s Crushing My Mind” or Breeders-style B-side jangle on “Freewheel.” Only “#1 Chance Pirate TV” doesn’t survive the 13-year interval between then and now, but it was designed to be topical: Referring to an event three years earlier, the lyrics imagine a television station that shows Sinead O’Connor ripping up the Pope instead of lame late-night skits. Personal Best ultimately lived up to its name, a rock album that looms large over its genre (if not, sadly, over the ‘90s in general). Even removed from that context, though, it still rages eloquently.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington, DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

SING-ALONGS ALL AROUND

Let’s do what John Mellencamp says and get a leg up, get a leg over, boy. Here are three upcoming releases we think you should know about.

The Hold Steady: Stay Positive (Vagrant, July 15)

“Our songs are sing-along songs,” Craig Finn sings in the very first verse of the very first song on the Hold Steady’s new album. And sure enough, almost every song here sounds specifically designed to get fists pumping, lighters flying, audiences singing. All the need is one of those cool hand signs that Van Halen used to have, the one with the thumbs and index fingers touching and the pinkies extended. Work on that, guys. Stay Positive may not live up to the impossibly high standards of the previous two albums, but that’s almost like saying the Holy Ghost needs to hold up his end of this whole Trinity bargain. Ultimately, there are enough killer choruses and urban details to compensate for non-essential songs like “Yeah Sapphire” and “One for the Cutters.” “The sing-along songs will be our scriptures,” Finn decrees on the title track before breaking into a sing-along chorus like it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On repeat: “Stay Positive”

David Vandervelde: Waiting for the Sunrise (Secretly Canadian, Aug 5)

David Vandervelde is obsessed with styles much older than him. On his full-length debut last year, he filtered English glam (specifically Marc Bolan) through Midwestern power pop (specifically Cheap Trick). From there he widens his range to take in very different ‘70s sources, namely Peter Frampton and Seals & Croft. As a whole, Waiting for the Sunrise is a better soft-rock exegesis than Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky, with much less noodling to boot. Like The Moonstation House Band, it’s a bit more re-creative than interpretive, and despite its August release date, it’s actually a pretty good summer album, perfect for lounging on the porch and letting the summer breeze blow through the jasmine in your mind.

On repeat: “I Will Be Fine”

Perhapst: Perhapst (In Music We Trust, Aug 19)

The promise of a solo album from Decemberist John Moen prompts a thousand drummer jokes, including the one with the punchline “Hey guys, why don’t we try one of my songs?” None of the other Decemberists took the bait, but Stephen Malkmus did (Moen is a former Jick). I didn’t know a guitar could arch its eyebrows. Despite a weak falsetto, Moen proves just as playful as his former bandleader, whether he’s putting extra quote marks on opener ““Quote,"” cribbing from the Traveling Wilburys on “Maryanne,” or singing sha-dooo ahhh over and over on “Incense Cone.” The results aren’t as bad as the joke predicts: Moen writes strong indie-pop hooks like they’re punchlines to his own in-jokes.

On repeat: “Harbour”

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington, DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

Because every little tidbit helps.

Hello, and welcome. We at BLURT figure that, after leaks, we get a couple days’ jump on new music—and why not pass that on to our readers? Each week, I’ll dig up the good stuff and give you a leg up on hipster cool. You know, ‘cause because every little bit helps. Check back throughout the week for reports on upcoming releases, chart updates and a retroactive leg up on albums you may have missed.

We Vs. the Shark: Dirty Versions (Hello Sir, July 1)

We Vs. the Shark live, work and record in Athens, but they look northward to the nation’s capital, taking inspiration from pretty much the entire Dischord roster as well as the usual DC acts like The Dismemberment Plan and Q and Not U. Their aptly titled second album is all momentum: Songs careen headlong into choruses, then veer sharply and messily across emphatic guitars and barked vocals before breaking into abrupt shout-outs or jams, as if Peter Falk were behind them yelling “Serpentine!” To capture the energy of their live shows, the band recorded the album in two short days, presumably with the volume set to ear-bleeding. I got $50 on We.

On repeat: “I Am the Contempt Machine”

Brazilian Girls: New York City (Verve Forecast, July 29)

Neither of the words in this band’s name is quite accurate. There’s only one woman in the band, and she’s not Brazilian, but a Franco-Italian-Austrian who lives in America (guess where). As usual, their third album is a studiously global affair, drafting Senegalese vocalist Baaba Maal for “Internacional” and singing every song in a different language. On “Ricardo” and “Good Time” this polyglot aesthetic sounds like an end in itself, but at least New York City brings back some of the Eurotrash decadence missing on their previous album, Talk to La Bomb.

On repeat: “St. Petersburg”

Wire: Object 47 (Pink Flag, July 15)

The title of Wire’s eleventh album—their first since 2003’s Send—suggests some angular, nonrepresentational piece of AbEx sculpture, the kind that rejects all attempts to name it anything other than what it is. Which is more or less the case. Object 47 is Wire’s 47th release, counting albums, EPs, and compilations. That means it comes with context intact: Even as the band work not to retread well-trod ground, these songs feature the same sociopolitical songwriting and tense interplay between drums and guitars as on previous albums. That’s a good thing. So are Page Hamilton’s (Helmet) blasts of feedback on closer “All Fours.”

On repeat: “Hard Currency”

Nico Muhly: Mothertongue (Brassland, July 22)

You may have already heard composer Nico Muhly this year on All Is Well, Samamidon’s lovely reimaginings of immigrant folk songs. (If you haven’t, you should.) Mothertongue, Muhly’s second album and first for Brassland (run by members of the National), is divided into three acts. First, Glassy Mothertongue features mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer delivering a litany of barely intelligible voices—the aural equivalent of that green Matrix coding. The Wonders suite sets passages from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville to melody, dismantling the tune as it proceeds. Amidon shows up on the Only Tune suite, relating a murderous tale against Muhly’s refractive backdrop. Sure, it’s highly conceptual, but there are enough odd sounds and strange textures to make it accessible even to those who don’t usually venture into composer territory.

On repeat: “Wonders: I. New Things & New Tidings”

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington, DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

DISCOVERY: THE DUTCHESS AND THE DUKE

Sometimes it’s nice to look back at what we might have missed even a few months ago. That’s how I came across the Dutchess and the Duke, a Seattle duo who are looking way back to the 60s on their debut, She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke. The title may be stunningly obvious, but these ten songs are anything but. Drawing from some imagined-but-never-made Dylan album (check the subterranean homesick album art), the duo play scuzzed-out, scuffed-up acoustic folk rock full of jaded observations and pointed wordplay about wayward friends and lovers. Duke Jesse Lortz plays all the guitars, Dutchess Kimberly Morrison plays everything else: flute, keys, tambourine, handclaps. He sings wry leads, she oohs and aahs and harmonizes like his last friend. She’s the DJ, he’s the rapper. Despite all the old sounds and obvious musical touchstones, She’s the Dutchess never sounds like music to thumb through your record collection to (despite the Incredible String Band-style wailing on “The Prisoner”). They’re too anchored in the here and now to escape to the there and then.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

THE PLIGHT OF THE NAUGHTY GIRL

Samantha Fox blazed a trail for skanks’ rights in “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too).”

Every once in a while, I have to dig my way out of the avalanche of promos and find the oldies but goodies that remind me why I’m in this racket in the first place. This week, revisiting one of the most respected songs of the 1980s has thoroughly reinvigorated me and renewed my faith in music as a means of social change: Samantha Fox’s “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too).”

Up until the late 1980s, it had been long understood that much like camels in the desert, naughty girls could go for long periods of time without love. But in 1987, twenty-one-year-old Samantha Fox, a successful model and aspiring actress from London, exploded that misconception with her hit single “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too),” in which she admitted that while it’s fun not being on Santa’s nice list, she and others like her in fact do need love too. It’s difficult to overestimate the impact these new findings had on society, and the controversy was immediate and intense. The Catholic Church reasserted its ban on naughtiness before marriage, parent-teacher organizations across the country decried the song as anti-nice propaganda, and many critics accused her of inflating anecdotal evidence to try to speak for all naughty girls.

Unbowed by the new pressures facing her, the young Fox confronted her opponents in a startling video that at the time was panned as overly conceptual. Now, however, it is regarded as one of the most influential clips of that decade, alongside Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.” Having dyed her hair pink for the shoot—an unmistakable sign of outrage and dissent—Fox dances in a poor urban neighborhood, clearly conveying the idea that the plight of naughty girls is as crucial an issue as poverty, racism, and bared midriffs. What remains especially disarming about this protest song, however, is Fox’s naked vulnerability: “Please don’t tease,” she sings, her despair increasingly palpable, “if you lie my heart will freeze.”

Twenty-one years later, it seems hard to believe there was ever a time when naughty girls were systemically denied the love they need, but the success of artists as diverse as Beyonce, Rihanna, and Joanna Newsom shows just how far we have come in acknowledging the needs of naughty girls. And we all have Samantha Fox—singer, model, activist, naughty girl—to thank for it.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

ANDROGYNES, QUEERS AND PEERS: AIN’T THAT AMERICANA?

Checkin’ out Americana according to Jeff Hanson, Todd Snider and the reunion of Jayhawks principals Gary Louris and Mark Olson. Oh, and a dud from Wovenhand.

Did that old weird America really exist? Is the new strange America even odder? Four upcoming releases reconsider and rethink the Americana genre, making small or large adjustments as these crazy times demand. Three hold up well enough, but one gets lost in the woods.

Mark Olson & Gary Louris: Ready for the Flood (Hacktone, September 16)

It’s been nearly fourteen years since Olson and Louris have sung together, and in the interim, neither’s career has panned out as planned (whose ever does?). So this reunion always seemed as inevitable as Jay-Z breaking his retirement. It was mainly a question of when they would do it and how it would sound. Fourteen years is longer than I expected, but Ready for the Flood is better than I expected. This isn’t Hollywood Town Hall rebuilt or Next Week the Green Grass, but something older, wiser, more world weary—‘70s singer-songwriters on vinyl rather than Midwestern plains poets. Their voices don’t harmonize quite as closely as they once did, but Olson and Louris sound good together, natural and friendly. Not that I expected them to sound contentious after all these years.

On repeat: “Doves and Stones”

Todd Snider: Peace Queer (Aimless, October 14)

Much earlier in his career, Todd Snider seemed like a mellow country-rocker with a keen wit and a few acoustic guitar chords away from frat rock, but eight years of a disagreeable administration have brought out the freak-flag-waving hippie that in retrospect was toking up under the surface. Giving his liberal orneriness free rein, man, the self-released Peace Queer (a free download October 11-31) would be unbearable if he didn’t mix a bit of humor with his outrage and if he didn’t attack hippie folk, garage rock, and “Fortunate Son” with the same aplomb that he reserves for Bush’s foreign policy, veteran rights, and Wal-Mart parents. I like the idea of a spoken-word parable like “Is This Thing Working?” better than its execution, and I don’t like the idea at all of including two versions on such a short release. Regardless, Peace Queer is Snider at his freewheeling-est and freeloving-est.

On repeat: “Mission Accomplished (Because You Gotta Have Faith)”

Jeff Hanson: Madam Owl (Kill Rock Stars, August 19)

Androgyny is this season’s lupine-themed band name. Already soundtrack rockers Azeda Booth have released their soggy debut, and Death Vessel is releasing his crisp sophomore album, and now Jeff Hanson’s Madam Owl provides a similar showcase for his high, feminine falsetto, which gives opener “Night” and “Careful” their otherworldly sound. It could be a sideshow attraction, but Hanson writes sturdy, thoughtful songs and places them in folksy arrangements that set his voice against banjo, violin, and horns that nicely contrast. Madam Owl might be the best release to come out of this gender-bending mini-trend, but it also isn’t quite as startling as Hanson’s debut. Still, having expectations doesn’t lessen the impact of these carefully crafted, cleverly sung songs.

On repeat: “The Hills”

THIS DUD’S FOR YOU:

Wovenhand: Ten Stones (Sounds Familyre, September 9)

I didn’t get 16 Horsepower, David Eugene Edwards’ former band, and I don’t get Wovenhand either. On the latter’s fifth album in five years, Edwards writes in biblical pull quotes and paints everything in Sherwin-Williams Gothic Pitch^TM, but there’s no sense of wonder or discovery here. Even Nick Cave infuses his darkest songs with sex and humor. Ten Stones doesn’t build on Edwards’ fascination with the old weird America. It’s just more of the same.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

ALT-ROCK MARATHONERS

Your weekly leg up on upcoming new releases: Juliana Hatfield, The New Year, Mercury Rev..

Three long-running alt- acts return from years in the wilderness, either reinvigorated or simply to reclaim lost ground. I can’t hear them outside of the context of their larger careers, but if there are any newcomers out there, let me know how these sound completely new, will ya?

Juliana Hatfield: How to Walk Away (Ye Olde Records, August 19)

A few weeks ago I picked up Hatfield’s 1994 break-out album Become What You Are in the dollar bin of the sketchy used CD store down the street. Listening to songs like “My Sister” and “Mabel” I was a bit surprised by how immature it sounded: the clumsy rhythms of her lines, the easy sentiments, the barely invested singing, the simplistic arrangements. It sounded like high school poetry in the worst way, which made it strangely compelling, as if she had bypassed all the usual music-biz checkpoints and plunked these songs right on my desk. Fifteen years later—by very stark contrast—How to Walk Away is studiously adult, which is not quite as surprising as the mere fact that she has stuck around for so long. Launching her own label and taking the reins of her career, Hatfield has been going AOR gracefully over the past few years, which suits her better than early 90s alternative ever did. Producer Andy Chase of Ivy streamlines these songs with a careful, uncluttered sound, as Hatfield voices spectacularly grown-up disappointments about love, life, and music.

On repeat: “This Lonely Love”

The New Year: The New Year (Touch and Go, September 9)

Four years doesn’t feel like a long time, but in the indie-rock world, it can be an eternity. Think of all the bands that have come and gone since 2004, when the New Year released their second album, The End Is Near. Many bands might seem old hat with that sort of interval, but the Kadane brothers have been refining their signature sound—slow-moving indie-rock with delicate vocals, mordant observations, and shimmery guitars—for nearly two decades now. It has yet to sound dated. The New Year, their third album, begins with a slow, slow fade-in to Folios, then transitions into “The Company I Can Get,” another epic in miniature: “I need all the company I can get / even that redneck in the red Corvette,” sings Matt Kadane as the guitar lends his self-deprecation a certain splendor. Therein lies the contradiction that keeps the New Year compelling after so many years: As down on himself as Kadane always sounds, the band (with Steve Albini again producing) always lift him up… a least a little bit.

On repeat: “The Door Opens”

Mercury Rev: Snowflake Midnight (Yep Roc, September 30)

Continuing the band’s migration away from noisy to ethereal—which is neither as egregious as detractors declare nor as righteous as the agonistes claim—Snowflake Midnight (Mercury Rev’s seventh album and first in three years) alights in the same Casio forest that swallowed Grandaddy a few years ago. Synth bleeps and programmed motorik beats replace the baroque orchestrations of The Secret Migration and All Is Dream, but the band keep the music simultaneously dense yet airy, occasionally reaching for majestic (“Senses on Fire”) but often settling for something just shy. John Donahue’s lyrics remain determinedly soft-focus and sentimental, and his fascination with beautiful butterflies and vulnerable snowflakes often sound inspired by a schoolgirl’s notebook cover circa 1982. Snowflake Midnight sounds a little dippy at times, but Mercury Rev sounds genuinely reinvigorated, emerging from their cocoon once again as the American Sigur Ros.

On repeat: “Senses on Fire”

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

DISCOVERY: NOA BABAYOF

I picture Greg Weeks’ Hexham Head Studio out deep in the woods somewhere, accessible only by playing the right combination of notes on a magical ocarina. Jackrabbits push the knobs and squirrels turn the dials, getting an open, airy sound on some of the freakiest folk around. Of course I kid Hexham Head, but its rise, along with Weeks’ label Language of Stone, seems to reflect the growing trend for going green. The records out of this psych-folk and -rock scene—by Mountain Home, Orion Rigel Domisee, and Weeks’ own Vespers—are earthy and airy, outdoors albums evoking the elements. Weeks’ doesn’t have a roster so much as the beginnings of a movement.

The latest addition to Language of Stone is Noa Babayof, an Israeli singer-songwriter with an eye for beguiling lyrical imagery and the kind of phrasing that the word gossamer was invented to describe. On her debut, From a Window to a Wall (Language of Stone), subdued folk accompaniment and quivering string arrangements add pastoral drama to her songs about love, death, and remembrance, emphasizing but never overpowering her delicate melodies. She hits some of her notes gently flat, which makes her sound a bit like Astrid Gilberto but gives her an otherworldly presence on stand-outs like “Indian Queen” and “At Your Death”. At times she recalls Vashti Bunyan, Sachiko Kanenobu, and other recently rediscovered folk singers, as if emanating from some obscure corner of music history. But like her labelmates, Babayof anchors her music in the here and now, making it sound immediate rather than settling for record-collection escapism.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

STRAIGHT OUTTA WORMHOLE

Giving you the benefit of our advance listens.

In the near future, these musicians will scurry through wormholes to visit the not-so-distant past. I’m a robot sent from the future to warn you not to miss three and to give the fourth a wide berth.

Loudon Wainwright: Recovery (Yep Roc, August 19)

With Joe Henry producing, Loudon Wainwright reinterprets a baker’s dozen of his old tracks on Recovery, with a new band and many more years behind him. It’s a strange, suspect project: The word “reinterpreting” can be just a fancy word for “covering” or “resting on your laurels” or “living off your back catalog.” But that album title is more than an easy pun, and Recovery is more than simply a glorified greatest hits. Sure, he’s recovering “Motel Blues” and “The Man Who Couldn’t Cry” from Big Star and Johnny Cash, respectively, but mainly this album sounds like self-reckoning. Sung by a man closer to the end of his career and his life than to the beginning, these old songs have new relevance and more complex emotional gradations, which give songs like “School Days” and “Be Careful There’s a Baby in the House” a heftier impact than such a project promises. Age has tempered his anger but thank God not his humor. Just listen to him hit those goofy low notes on “Be Careful There’s a Baby in the House,” which is coincidentally one of his venomous sets of lyrics. And now that children Rufus and Martha are following in their father’s footsteps, “Saw Your Name in the Paper” has more distance and regret than ever, but also more well wishes.

On repeat: “Saw Your Name in the Paper,” “Motel Blues”

Horse Feathers: House with No Home (Kill Rock Stars, September 9)

Portland-based Horse Feathers have no back catalog to recover, so they set their sights even further in the past. The songs on their eerie sophomore album, House with No Home, sound as if they emanate from decades ago, drenched in sepiatone and indebted to Harry Smith. But Horse Feathers aren’t not playing dress-up or bowing to some notion of an old weird America; they sound too subdued, too opaque. In his hoarse voice (no pun intended.... really), Justin Ringle sings softly and keeps his lyrics secondary to the music, which draws its dusty ambience from Peter Broderick’s eddies of violin and the sustained low end courtesy of Heather Broderick’s cello. Recalling Bon Iver’s debut as well as Samamidon’s overly studied All Is Well, and improving tenfold on the band’s debut, House with No Home sounds effortlessly, gracefully out-of-time.

On repeat: “Working Poor”

The Broken West: Now or Heaven (Merge, September 9)

The Broken West follow up their breezy debut album with an equally breezy sophomore record, and while Now or Heaven may lack a song as immediately catchy as “Down in the Valley,” it does sound more adventurous yet more consistent. Consistent isn’t exactly an exciting adjective, nor is mature, yet the West draw from a deeper range of sources and use a greater variety of sounds, thinking outside the SoCal pop. “Perfect Games” is a good Wings; a bit of watery Cure guitar seeps into “Embassy Row”; and “Terror for Two” sounds like the kind of tossed-off grandeur that every blog band has been aiming for. But more than anything else, on Now or Heaven the West sound like a West Coast Wilco--that smart, that off-script.

On repeat: “Auctioneer,” “The Smartest Man Alive”

FOX CONFESSOR BRINGS THE DUD:

Dr. Dog: Fate (Park the Van, July 22)

Every generation gets the Gomez it deserves.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

HAIL HALEY

Haley Bonar returns with Big Star.

There are thousands of artists out there struggling to get your attention, loudly clearing their throats to get you to look their way. It can all be a bit overwhelming, which makes discovering a new (or new-to-you) artist a crucial and even reinvigorating experience.

This week I latched onto Haley Bonar, who’s actually on her third album. Hailing from South Dakota but based in Minnesota, she reminds me of Shawn Colvin circa Fat City, which I mean in the best way possible. Underrated at the time (and overrated since), Colvin had a great voice and even better songs, both of which suggested a hard life rather than an insular existence. Similarly, Bonar sings pretty melodies as vehicles for tough-minded sentiments; she also plays most of the instruments and produced. In that regard, Big Star is exquisitely jaded—a concept album about how much the music business sucks. On “Queen of Everything,” she sounds much older than her years: The industry, she sings, will “tear you from the inside, fuck with your spine, take you to the same place I lost my mind.” Fortunately, she never sounds like she’s whining. Instead, she just shrugs her shoulders, plugs in an amp, and sings a song about hitting the road and getting away from it all. “It’s just me and a map and a cup in my lap,” she sings on stand-out “Highway 16. “Life’s getting a lot better, no doubt about that.” Here’s hoping she lives up to the title very soon.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

OLDIE OF THE WEEK: TOMMY PAGE

Teenpop done well? Yeah, actually.

Even as new CDs arrive by mail, I’m always compelled to pull out old ones on a whim. Previously I wrote about Team Dresch and Those Bastard Souls, but this week I’m obsessed with someone a bit less reputable: Tommy Page.

His single “I’ll Be Your Everything” was a number-one hit in 1990, but it sounds like crap today. “A Shoulder to Cry On” has weathered the years much more gracefully, even if it remains a towering monument to the power of schmaltz. A new Jersey-born singer in the mode of New Kids on the Block (with whom he toured and recorded), Page recorded the songs in 1988, when he was 18 years old. And he sings it like an 18-year-old, which is part of the reason why it still holds up.

As teary ballads go, “A Shoulder to Cry On” is actually really good—big, direct, simplistic, yet stylish. By far the best part of the song comes right at the moment when the bridge transitions into the final climactic chorus: famed producer Arif Mardin and son Joe have inserted the sound of a revving motorcycle, implying some neo-mod leanings that may or may not actually exist but at fun to think about in a ‘90s teenpop context.

His voice slightly feminine but infused with effortless empathy, Page is harmlessly handsome and hammy here, playing the wiser, older friend to comfort all the teenage girls the song was written and sung for. The adult cynic in me thinks he’s playing sensitive to get into her pants, but I don’t really think Page has ulterior motives here. There is no subtext in “A Shoulder to Cry On,” only text. Besides, the genius of the song is that it plays into listener fantasies, allowing let’s say a young teenage girl to imagine a handsome older boy drying her tears while pledging his undying devotion. That it inspires a kind of playacting means it’s much more active that most of the teenpop created in the nearly twenty years since.

Watch the video and marvel at the fashions: Page’s turtleneck-and-varsity-jacket ensemble is period-accurate, but it’s overshadowed by the model’s floral-print dress, which manages to split the difference between Laura Ashley modest and Frederick’s of Hollywood revealing. 

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington, DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY

Getting a leg up on impending new stuff.

Back for more? Here are three upcoming releases you should know, and one you can blow off. You... are... almost... savvy.

Broken Social Scene Presents Brendan Canning: Something for All of Us (Arts & Crafts, July 22)

The Broken Social Scene reproduces asexually, producing buds that eventually separate when mature. Already, the Toronto outfit has spawned solo debuts from Emily Haines, Feist, Kevin Drew, Amy Millan, Jason Collett, and now Brendan Canning. Canning was one of the Scene’s founding members, so it’s no surprise that the songs on Something for All of Us retain that band’s low, forward thrust and its patient cacophonic crawl. “Chameleon” buzzes with synths, gradually building but never peaking. Instead, it gives way to the guitar duel of “Hit the Wall” and the errant folk of “Snowballs and Icicles.” Hell, if you close your eyes, you might think it’s the new Scene album. Nothing wrong with that.

On repeat: “Something for All of Us”

Andre Williams: Can You Deal with It? (Bloodshot, July 29)

The man who wrote “Shake a Tail Feather” returns to Bloodshot after nearly a decade, this time with the New Orleans Hellhounds in tow. On the talking-blues “Hear Ya Dance,” the seventy-two-year-old can still sing so low and lewd you can only hear him in your gut, but he spends most of this short album speak-singing with gravel in his mouth, still animated and raunchy and cartoonishly threatening on “If You Leave Me.” The Hellhounds don’t have the range or refinement of The Sadies (who backed Williams on his ’99 Bloodshot album Red Dirt), but maybe that’s for the best: With cult-legendary Crescent City organist Mr. Quintron, the group craft a sloppy garage-punk sound that matches Williams’ loose delivery and lascivious lyrics, drawing out his ruffian tendencies. They can deal with it.

On repeat: “Pray for Your Daughter”

Taylor Hollingsworth: Bad Little Kitty (Self-release, July 29)

Taylor Hollingsworth’s in-jokes—like launching your third album with the most obnoxious rock-dork introduction you could imagine—can get a little annoying. But get past the shit-eating-grin persona and you’ll find a strong blues-punk album that combines the brattiness of the Black Lips with the southern-rock jams of old-school Molly Hatchet. The Birmingham-born rabble-rouser, who has played with 13ghosts, Maria Taylor, and Conor Oberst, writes riffs like dirty jokes, but these songs have real wit. “Damn Boy (What’s Wrong with You),” which has the inevitably of a theme song, slyly rewrites the Georgia Satellites’ “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” as a loser’s anthem that’s even more sordid and surly. And “TNT & Dynamite” is the running-naked-in-the-yard bastard child of Southern Culture on the Skids and Jon Spencer. But “You Don’t Treat Me Like a Man” cuts through the humor to find a kernel of real heartache, and “Christmas Blues” manages to sound actually kinda pretty. For God’s sake, though, skip that introduction and just delete “Bad Little Kitty,” whose pop-metal rave-up doesn’t make up for the full-minute of Hollingsworth repeating the album title and distorting his voice. Dork.

On repeat: “Damn Boy (What’s Wrong with You)”

Here’s dud in your eye:

Ratatat: LP3 (XL, July 8)

This duo made a big noise a few years ago with their self-titled album, but all I hear now are crickets.

On repeat: something else.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington, DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.