Saturday, May 25, 2013
Sound Advice
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TV on the Radio
Return to Cookie Mountain
Interscope
Sounds like: A progressive music fan's wet dream
Short take: Confusing, discordant, sublime, genius
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It's rare these days when you can actually say a new album sounds like nothing else out there. But on Return to Cookie Mountain, samples and hooks entrap your interest, then the falsetto vocals, and the trip-hop-inspired beats ... it all leaves you thinking that this is the type of cool shit Beck wishes he still created. The complexity of the chord structures and convoluted melodies boggles the mind. And you experience all this, my friends, while listening to the first track, "I Was a Lover." Don't even get me started on the anthemic "Province" or the wall-of-sound harmonics on "A Method." When singer Tunde Adebimpe delivers the chorus "This is hardly the method you know" on the latter track, you can't help but feel he's right. John Benson
Crazy Itch Radio
Basement Jaxx
XL
Sounds like: A daft gumbo of party-ready anything
Short-take: Madcap playlist potpourri
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It's impossible to say what kind of music the Basement Jaxx ... well, "do." Through their career, they've done everything from frenetic lounge music to dirty club jams to robotic soul to jungle grime to bizarro reggaeton, often all on single albums. Their fourth release, Crazy Itch Radio, is no exception. But unfortunately, it de-emphasizes their many strengths for their one glaring weakness: They're exhausting as hell. Here, their penchant for all things hyperkinetic and slamming isn't as well-bolstered by novel ideas, leaving Radio, while still giddily original and sonically baroque, more resistible and obnoxious. Bands that ape their own great ideas still produce decent albums, but why bother with the facsimile when the original's right there? Matt Martin
Justin Timberlake
FutureSex / LoveSounds
Jive
Sounds like: The first night out in a new city
Short-take: Pop, credibly
Defending Justin Timberlake still earns skeptical eyebrows and disapproving frowns. It's true that the past sometimes is just too damning, but hating this former *NSync-er pays a blind eye to his present presence. Or strategic lack thereof; his sophomore album merely features him as a competent smoove tawker and falsetto pouter, with enough pluck to overlay Timbaland's Midas-touched beats, the real stars here. Really, that's Timberlake's ultimate accomplishment: On his own solo album, he effectively negates himself, becoming one sonic element of many, and safeguarding himself against judgment. Whether you like or hate the man doesn't matter one iota when his backing music is so polished. Matt Martin
