Now Scything: She & Him, Counting Crows, N.E.R.D.

She & Him
Volume One
Score: 9

These days, when an actress decides to dive into singing and songwriting, often the best you can hope for is collective amnesia. But unlike Ashlee Simpson, Juliette Lewis, Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan or Scarlett Johansson, Zooey Deschanel has tapped into a vein of musical talent. Collaborating with M. Ward (but you can call him Him), Deschanel demonstrates a keen ear for melody and a knack for country-tinged pop delivered in the style of Patsy Cline. Whether covering "You Really Got a Hold on Me" or chirping her way through originals, Deschanel sings with a purity of spirit that recalls a bygone era. (The whistling on "I Thought I Saw Your Face Today" is more likely to evoke "The Andy Griffith Show" than Peter Bjorn and John -- not that PB&J aren't pure themselves.) On "Black Hole," for example, Deschanel lays out her melancholy simply: "I'm alone on a bicycle for two." And "I Was Made for You" shows that, with some smart multitracking, she can pull off nimble harmonies worthy of The Angels (of "My Boyfriend's Back" fame). M. Ward, who produced the succinct Volume One and contributed guitar and vocals, doubtlessly played a big role in achieving the album's vintage sound. The warm and dusty overtones might as well be sunbeams shining in from an attic window.


Counting Crows
Saturday Nights
& Sunday Mornings
Score: 5

Thanks to pop culture, we know Saturday night's all right for fighting, drinking, carousing, canoodling and otherwise blowing off steam. And Sunday's the day of regret and hangover and phone-checking. Between the seven of them, the members of Counting Crows no doubt had plenty of personal experience to draw from in creating Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings. For a while, it looked as if Counting Crows were winding down, having released a greatest-hits collection in 2003, Films About Ghosts: The Best Of, and a concert disc in 2006, New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall, which was compiled from shows performed more than three years earlier. Yet here they are. Naturally, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings speaks to both sides of its title, loading the first half with rock bluster and the second half with quieter fare. (Turn off the amps, break out the banjo and the piano.) The album would have been right at home when cassettes were the order of the day. It's brave to lead off with a song that references Christopher Columbus and borrows from a mnemonic device about him sailing "the ocean blue," but Adam Duritz has kept good care of his voice, and he sells "1492" with his earnestness. He also has a hit in the resigned "You Can't Count on Me," care of a catchy chorus. Given the time that's passed since Counting Crows' last studio album, 2002's Hard Candy, it's remarkable how little has changed stylistically, though the caliber of their songs in general started to sag before the new millennium. Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings works as a quasi-concept album, but you won't necessarily want it to serve as your soundtrack to Saturday night or Sunday morning.


N.E.R.D.
Seeing Sounds
Score: 7

In one of their many farces, comedy band Flight of the Conchords had their way
with a song style praised
the world over: the sex jam. But if "Business Time" took away any of the style's mojo, even for just a few minutes, consider it taken back. N.E.R.D.'s "Time for Some Action" is a lust-not-love instant classic, or would be if it weren't attached to an intro of Pharrell Williams talking about a supernatural ability he discovered in the shower (see album title). In an odd but effective pairing, The Hives supply the bassy bump 'n' grind and the deep, throaty hook as Williams indulges his inner lothario. Seeing Sounds, though, has more than that to offer. The second half is a garden of delights, from the Red Hot Chili Pepper-ish funk metal of "Kill Joy" to the extended chorus and guitar heroics of "Sooner or Later." Turn down the bed, but save some energy for the rest of the show.

He loves the '80s

M83
Saturdays=Youth
Score: 5

A song called "Teen Angst" appeared on Anthony Gonzalez's last nonseries album, the masterwork
Before the Dawn Heals Us;
this time around, the topic carries a lot more weight. Saturdays=Youth is Gonzalez's homage to the '80s, particularly to synthesizer-heavy British rock.

"Graveyard Girl" bears the unmistakable influence of New Order, guitars chiming over synth strings and a brisk tempo. But the bridge goes overboard, yielding the floor to the title character, who, with a school bell ringing in the background, proceeds to drown us in melodrama:

"I'm gonna jump the walls and run. I wonder if they'll miss me. I won't miss them. The cemetery is my home; I want to be a part of it, invisible even to the night. Then I'll read poetry to the stones. Maybe one day I could be one of them: wise and silent, waiting for someone to love me, waiting for someone to kiss me. I'm 15 years old, and I feel it's already too late to live. Don't you?"

The monologue reduces her to a stereotypically irrational teenager, removing any intrigue from her graveyard fascination. It's precisely the sort of move that's at odds with Gonzalez's wistfulness, making him seem more of a patronizing adult than the kindred spirit he means to be.

Many of the vocals come courtesy of Morgan Kibby, a classically trained Los Angeles-based musician with whom he's collaborating. Also on hand is brother Yann, who helps with the songwriting, and drummer Loic Maurin in an expanded role, also contributing guitar, bass and keyboards this time around.

Saturdays=Youth continues Gonzalez's retreat from his early instrumental works, as well as his movement toward conventional song structures. Gone are the choirs of Before the Dawn Heals Us. Gone, too, are the noisy jaunts, leaving Saturdays=Youth fairly homogeneous.

As on past M83 releases, the final track is of epic length: 11-plus minutes. The problem is that there's too little variation in "Midnight Souls Still Remain" to support its runtime. The moody synth drone, registering somewhere between Brian Eno and Angelo Badalamenti, doesn't function as a climax; it simply stretches on for what seems like an arbitrarily long time, then drops off.

Also frustrating is the album's cover, a tableau of characters with uncanny resemblance to those featured in coming-of-age movies set in the '80s. Ever seen "The Breakfast Club"? Even if you've seen the box, you'll get it. Ever seen "Donnie Darko"? Really, a guy in skeleton pajamas?! The only way that could be more obvious is to have the dude with the neck chain appear as a giant menacing rabbit.

Gonzalez would have done better to try subtlety. His nostalgia for the '80s is genuine, and his mimicry of some of the decade's British rock touchstones (Tears for Fears, Kate Bush) is skilled, but his heavy-handed approach doesn't do justice to him or his inspirations.

Victims of excess

The Gutter Twins
Saturnalia
Score: 5

Hearing a name like the Gutter Twins, you'd be forgiven if you pictured two grizzled dirtbags sitting at the bar, doing shots of whatever burned the most. And you wouldn't be far off. Now, "dirtbag" isn't necessarily a term befitting Greg Dulli or Mark Lanegan, but both have played the role on their albums, and their choice of words here plays up that image. (A "saturnalia," for instance, is equivalent to a bacchanalia, which is basically a drunken orgy.)

As far as team-ups go, they make an intriguing pair: Dulli, the self-immolating womanizer; Lanegan, the haunted rogue. Dulli, the alabaster-soul smoothie; Lanegan, the craggy baritone.

"The Stations" starts out promising, with Lanegan singing lead and with Dulli's backing vocal coming in after the first verse. But right before the one-minute mark, Dulli joins Lanegan at the forefront. And as the track piles on --- a cello, a second electric guitar part, harder snare-playing, harder cymbal-playing, a louder string part --- Dulli and Lanegan belt out their lines as if playing a game of chicken.

Maybe it's because they've spent so much time as frontmen over their careers, but when they sing lead simultaneously, they clash more often than they mesh. The big-and-loud arrangements exacerbate this, making Saturnalia overbearing. This is a shame, because many of the songs have pleasant melodies and had potential. If given a different setting, or with a few tweaks to the vocal parts, some could be quite good.

It brings to mind Lanegan's work with Isobel Campbell. If 2006's Ballad of the Broken Seas had spent its time crashing and booming, their intricate balance of masculinity and femininity would have been lost amid the din.

Whenever Dulli and Lanegan dial it down, as on "The Body," their voices blend better, imparting a spirit of cooperation rather than competition. Likewise, the tracks with more modest accompaniment ("Seven Stories Underground," "Who Will Lead Us?") keep the focus on the album's main appeal: the Twins' interplay.

With two strong personalities, there's no need for heaps of bombast; it simply becomes a distraction.

Music from or inspired by ...

Moby
Last Night
Score: 5

Moby has already had what could be considered a full life cycle, going from obscurity to club fixture to cult figure to household name to household name that never comes up.

Last Night attempts to step back to his early '90s club days, but it lacks the hyperkinetic energy of "Drop a Beat" or "Electricity." His female vocalists, too, are more subdued. Compare "The Stars" to "Ah Ah" or "Go," both on his 1992 self-titled release. "The Stars," somewhat of a combination of those tracks, uses a quick cut of a crowd cheering (playing the role of the "Go!" chant) and replaces the quasi-gospel "Ah ah" with the quasi-gospel "I see the stars." Near the end of its midsection, vaguely eerie synths --- not unlike the "Twin Peaks" ones he sampled to great effect in "Go" --- sneak in.

The main sample of "257.Zero" should be so lucky. A woman, possibly an air-traffic controller, intones, "Two, five, seven." Then, "Two, five, seven." And again, "Two, five, seven." And finally ... "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, zero."

Maybe there's a cool dance Moby could do with it and an audience, but it's dead on record.

"Everyday It's 1989" is one of the few tracks that does justice to his earlier works. The piano run and the crisp beats build each other up as a diva hollers and the synth layers beam in like lasers.

By contrast, "Alice" and "I Love to Move in Here" don't resemble what he's done before. Instead they point, perhaps, to Moby's next creative stage. Both are collaborations. "I Love to Move in Here" shimmies with a Brazilian rhythm, and versatile session vocalist Chrissi Poland provides Reddi Wip-light coos that flank an underwhelming appearance by Grandmaster Caz, whose old-school detour lasts for all of 40 seconds. "Alice," a foray into hard-edged territory, bristles with bass feedback and features the show-stealing flow of MC Aynzli of Nigerian group 419 Squad.

Moby's smart to pass the mike to his guests. Hotel foundered in part because he sang lead on almost every track. Although he can carry punk rock-styled songs, like Play's "Machete" and Animal Rights' "That's When I Reach for My Revolver," his voice remains the weakest of his attributes. His strongest might be his strings. Moby's strings have always kissed the sky.

In the liner notes, Moby writes that Last Night is about two things: "trying to take 24 years of going out in nyc and condensing it into a 65 minute record" and "trying to condense an 8 hour night into just over an hour of music."

On the first count, the album misses by a mile. In no way does it approach the variety and scope his statement implies. New York City birthed whole archetypes of music that aren't represented here. Of course, this is Moby's album, and he can interpret that 24-year orgy of sounds as he sees fit. He comes closer to his second goal, as Last Night holds to the basic structure of a dance mix, building up the tempo, then bearing down or easing back, depending on whether it's time for a breather (although its last third locks you in the chillout room). Again, though, it's in Moby's hands how that hour plays out, and considering that Last Night is on the New Releases shelf, there's a good chance this is exactly how he wanted it to sound.

But the theme seems like window dressing when you consider that all those years and styles and nights and venues, when boiled down and shaped into songs, all come out sounding like Moby. Whether it's the mystérieux intrigue of "Hyenas" or the stately contemplation of "Mothers of the Night," there's no way you'd mistake the songs for anyone else. Then again, maybe that's the point.

Archives at your fingertips

I wasn't completely satisfied with Blogger's archiving system, so I created an easier way for you to access past reviews. Now you can check out any you missed the first time around, or any you want to revisit, or any that catch your eye.

New tricks (and new hoes) for an old Dogg

Snoop Dogg
Ego Trippin'
Score: 6

Big Snoopy's gettin' long in the toothy. Outlasting gangstas and canines alike, Snoop Dogg asserts his longevity on his ninth album proper. Over 21 tracks and nearly 80 minutes, he shows that, if anything, he still has lots of energy.

Ego Trippin' runs the gamut, from the house-party bass bumpin' of "Sets Up" to the chipmunk soul of "Those Gurlz"; from the piano clank of "Deez Hollywood Nights" to the back-porch acoustic strum of the Everlast-assisted "My Medicine." "Cool" is a dead ringer for Prince, all synth vamps and drum machine. Snoop and a crew of producers traffic in familiar templates, but they do it with considerable skill, making Ego Trippin' a relatively streamlined grab bag.

Rumor was, Snoop was going to sing on this one, and while his parts aren't unmistakable --- he's not trying to outdo Ne-Yo here --- he does occasionally rest his rap to play with vocoder and some studio treatments. And you can hear his naked voice behind the cabaret chorus line in "Deez Hollywood Nights."

'Course, with his smooth, blunted flow and his outsize personality, it's not like he needed any new tricks up his sleeve. But we'll take 'em. It's fun to hear his Prince, since both have such a special connection to the bedroom. Snoop decides to go the extra mile for his partner, devoting a track to ... well, it's called "Sexual Eruption."

Overall, though, it's clear Snoop hasn't gone soft (so to speak). His No. 1 concern is still Snoop D-O-Double-G, and most women don't advance beyond the status of playthings.

It seems a bit incongruous that he details his sexual exploits with the hoes, then dedicates a song or two to the wife. He even refers to her by name on "One Chance (Make It Good)": "Shante, what more can I say? / But, baby, look at us today / Your husband's a boss, the kids is cute / The king of the coast with a gang of loot."

In "Gangsta Like Me," which blares cinematic horns for drama, he tells of a fan inspired by "my nasty video," otherwise known as his Hustler film "Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle." He doesn't turn her down, but he makes sure to note, "We can do our thing, but you can't be wifey."

Did the encounter really happen? There's Snoop the person, and there's Snoop the persona. There's fact, and there's fiction. But with this album, the line is all blurry. Within the first minute of Ego Trippin', Snoop alludes to his TV show, "Snoop Dogg's Father Hood." "Neva Have 2 Worry" gives us the CliffsNotes version of his career. In "Deez Hollywood Nights," he says of Jessica Alba, Jessica Simpson and Jessica Biel, "I let 'em all come to my back table / Roll up and lick the paper if they able." And that wily Leonardo Di Caprio "slide me new hoes everywhere we go."

Regardless of whether that's true, the expansion of Snoop's fame through the years has made more of his boasts plausible. His real life now competes with his larger-than-life character in the way of extravagance. Snoop has appeared in "Training Day" with Denzel Washington. He has his own line of hot dogs. On the Showtime hit "Weeds," he's played himself. (Is that even acting anymore? Their script would be tied to your reality!) He's made it as a rapper, an actor, a TV star and a porn director. The memoirs can't be far behind.

No, wait: They already came out. Nine years ago.

Now Scything: Mike Doughty, The Raveonettes, Goldfrapp

Mike Doughty
Golden Delicious
Score: 5

Relax, James Van Der Beek, you're off the hook. Ex-Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty isn't busting up a Starbucks this time around. But aside from that, Golden Delicious could be Part II of Haughty Melodic. It's another round of sunny pop melodies with a liberal helping of quirkiness and acoustic guitar. Doughty hasn't forgotten the days of El Oso, throwing in Spanish ("Wednesday [No Se Apoye]") and quasi-rap ("More Bacon Than the Pan Can Handle"). And his favorite triumvirate --- women, cars and food --- remains intact. Soul Coughing fans will probably miss the inventive musicianship, but Doughty's moved on. He's mellowed out, favoring the schoolhouse nostalgia of "27 Jennifers" over the rumpled brio of "I Miss the Girl." If you want it black, you'll have to go somewhere else.


The Raveonettes
Lust Lust Lust
Score: 7

Lust Lust Lust expands the playbook of Danish duo Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo, if only slightly. Their Jesus and Mary Chain idolatry continues full-tilt, but on a few occasions the Raveonettes use conspicuous beats to punch up their songs. Lead-off track "Aly, Walk with Me" doesn't so much walk as swaggers, the kick-kick-snare rhythm giving it body. Overall, though, this album, like their others, is all about guitar. The Raveonettes work on two levels: fuzzy and fuzzier. Usually they favor a gentle approach, relying greatly on reverb to construct their sound net. But in "Aly, Walk with Me," they unleash torrents of distortion. The aggression is a welcome constrast to the rut of similarity they can sometimes trap themselves in. The album's real treat is "You Want the Candy," a sparkling euphoria of chimes over surf-rock guitar. Each chorus delivers another rush of Pixy Stix rapture. Of course, it's not as innocent as it comes on, with "I hooked myself on you" and "I plowed my way through hell" being a good indication that when the Raveonettes sing, "Gimme some C," the C doesn't stand for chocolate.


Goldfrapp
Seventh Tree
Score: 4

Restless as always, Goldfrapp make their fourth album another transformation. They shed their Supernature nightclub gear, take the back door, and step straight into a field of dewy wheat stalks. Wait a minute: Where'd the field come from? In the holodeck world of Seventh Tree, images are transitory. Sounds, too. Forgettable, in other words. Principally soft and airy, Seventh Tree whiles away its 40-some minutes drifting through a pastoral landscape. But the easy-listening strings and acoustic guitars can't shake the electronic touches that peek through like cracks in the simulation.

Introducing ... Now Scything

I'm pleased to announce a new feature today, Now Scything. Now Scything will be comprised of condensed reviews, and it will run less frequently than my standard reviews. This will provide a greater variety in review form, and it will allow me to cover more albums.