First Listen: Clutch, Earth Rocker

This one is for Jon Pirrong. He's been after me to try Clutch for a couple years, and for no good reason, I've just never taken his recommendation. So when I heard that the long-running Maryland band would be releasing its 10th album this month, I decided to seize the opportunity.

Earth Rocker is the band's first independent release, which is usually a good sign - you're getting the band as they want to sound, unfiltered and unfettered. I figured that would make this album a fine entry point for me. Earth Rocker is my first Clutch album, and though I'm not sure how many more I will buy, I liked it for what it is.

Clutch, at least on this record, is a groove metal band that lives somewhere between ZZ Top and Monster Magnet. They lay down some thick, pummeling riffs, and lead singer Neil Fallon bellows out lyrics like some unholy, kind of goofy spawn of Dave Wyndorf and Glenn Danzig. The lyrics are uniformly ridiculous, but you get the sense that Fallon doesn't really take them seriously either.

After five charging tracks ("DC Sound Attack" has exactly enough cowbell), "Gone Cold" signifies the more experimental second half. Its clean blues and sung-spoken lyrics work well, and the more expansive epics that follow - particularly closers "Oh Isabella" and "The Wolf Man Kindly Requests..." - are convincing. They've clearly been around a while, and the band sparks off each other nicely.

I'd never call Earth Rocker a masterpiece, but for fun, silly metal, it's pretty good. So, which Clutch album should I try next?

New Column: Animal Joy Part One

This week and next, we're taking a look at bands and albums with animal names. I've definitely had weaker justifications for grouping reviews together, but damn if I can't remember one right now.

Still, this week's two subjects are splendid little records. The Eels return after a three-year break with a full-band effort that stands with their best, and Frightened Rabbit (above) expand their sound on a fourth album bursting with gigantic melodies and intricate lyrics. Read all about it at the main site, then head back here to leave me a comment. Thanks for reading! 

First Listen: Fiction Family Reunion

The combination of Switchfoot's Jon Foreman and Nickel Creek's Sean Watkins may seem like a weird one, but it works far better than you'd expect. Fiction Family's wittily-titled second record is less immediate and less pop than their first, its songs slowly working its way into your brain. It opens weakly with "Avalon," but by the time the quick and splendid "Damaged" rolls around, the band is on all cylinders.

"God Badge" continues Foreman's one-man war against religious arrogance: "Put your God badge down and love someone." It's a sentiment this reviewer never tires of. Watkins gets to show his bluegrassy stuff on "Just Rob Me," and Foreman's world-weary voice works well on "Give Me Back My Girl." Once again, Fiction Family has proven that this strange alchemy can make gold.

First Listen: Tegan and Sara, Heartthrob

So, I guess Tegan and Sara Quin want to be pop stars now.

That is literally the only motivation I can come up with for this dismal, desperate-for-radio departure. Those who have taken umbrage at Heartthrob have done so because the Quin sisters traded in their guitars for synthesizers. I can't say I like this change in direction very much - at its best moments, this album sounds like Robyn, and at its worst like Katy Perry. But the plastic sounds themselves, created largely by Greg Kurstin (the Bee of The Bird and the Bee) aren't the real problem.

The issue is the songs. Tegan and Sara used to write great songs, and now they write bland radio hits. The songs are simplistic, full of banal sentiments, completely devoid of depth. One of the songs is actually built around this line: "You put the brakes on, and it drove me wild." Another finds the sisters repeating "I was a fool for love" over the most lukewarm synths you've ever heard. There are high points - "Goodbye, Goodbye," "Love They Say" - but the highs are so much lower than they've ever been.

This is the kind of album, the kind of cynical move toward the middle, that makes me feel stupid for ever having once been a fan. Or it would, if the older material weren't so good. Seriously, listen to The Con, and then listen to this. Holy. Shit. Holy shit. There's just nothing more to say.

First Listen: Bad Religion, True North

For more than 30 years, Bad Religion has been plying the same trade. True North is the band's 16th album, and fans should know better at this point than to expect any surprises. Bad Religion delivers fast, sharp, political punk rock with a decidedly melodic edge, and just as every song sounds the same, so does every new album.

In case I'm not being clear, I have no problem with this. Bad Religion occupies a unique space in the continuum, halfway between punk and power pop, and it's a sound I never tire of. The 16 songs on True North fly by - most of them hover between one and two minutes. (The mid-tempo "Hello Cruel World" stretches to 3:50, an eternity in Bad Religion time.) Drums pound in double time, guitars charge forward like flaming horses, and harmonies swirl around Greg Graffin's inimitable voice. My favorite this time is "Popular Consensus," nestled at track 13, but they're all equally great. Bad Religion. May they never change.

First Listen: Christopher Owens, Lysandre

Former Girls frontman Christopher Owens has a fascinating life story. He spent his formative years in Asia and Europe before returning to the United States as a young adult, and falling in with a religious cult, which he only escaped years later. You would think this would translate into interesting music, but so far, it hasn't.

Lysandre is the first album Owens has released under his own name, and it's a conceptual piece - its 11 tracks tell the story of the first Girls tour, and of a French woman he met while on the road. It's meant to be listened to as a single 28-minute piece of music, but it's obvious that this is Owens' first stab at this kind of thing. He bases it around a charming little flute melody, which first appears as "Lysandre's Theme," but instead of finding thematically relevant ways of working that theme into the rest of the piece, he just restates it over and over. The first six songs all contain this theme, often just pasted on at the end, and track 10 is another repetition of it. I get what he was going for, but the execution needs work.

As for the songs themselves, they're in the same mediocre '50s-pop mold as all of Owens' Girls material. The lyrics are frustratingly banal - the song in which Owens' heart is broken is called "A Broken Heart," for example - and the tunes stick to basic chords and lackluster melodies. I give Owens credit for ambition. He really does try to present a cohesive work, and the instrumentation, including flutes and saxophones, is interesting. Given time and practice, I think he'll get better at this sort of thing. For now, Lysandre can only be called a noble failure.

First Listen: Yo La Tengo, Fade.

Yo La Tengo's 13th album is my first new release of 2013. It's a curious, hushed, peaceful way to start the year.

It's been nearly three decades since the first YLT album, and in that time, the New York band has quietly carved out a unique space in the landscape. They've explored all kinds of terrain, from acid-rock freakouts to jazz to electro-pop. Their records regularly blow past an hour in length, and songs can stretch up to 18 minutes. They're an unrestrained and powerful band, but they've always had a tender streak to go with their stylistic game of leapfrog.

So what to make of an album that spans only 45 minutes, with the longest song clocking in at 6:47, and with most of those songs given over to quiet, almost reverent, atmospheric folk? This is the shortest YLT album since Fakebook in 1990 (which makes it the shortest ever with the current trio lineup), and the most sedate. Ira Kaplan cranks up the amps on opener "Ohm," with its Krautrock beat, and skips through rocker "Is That Enough," but even those sound reserved.

And from there, the album barely rises above a whisper. Ironically, I could listen to some of these sweet little songs - "I'll Be Around," "Two Trains," delightful closer "Before We Run" - for 10-plus minutes without an issue. Nothing here is very memorable, and Kaplan's voice is still an acquired taste, but it turns out that when Yo La Tengo aims for pretty, they often end up with gorgeous. Fade sounds like an album made by a 20-plus-year-old band - confident, contemplative, graceful and elegant.