The cover art for Murder By Death’s fifth release, in bocca al lupo, is quite fantastic: a barren tree’s labyrinthine root system descends (in thick, brunette curls) into a darkness populated with winged gnome-thingies, giving way to telling, burning rings of fire. All the elements of this engaging mini-mural seem to spell out the goings on of the album itself, but, contrarily, the album itself is not nearly as fantastic. Or engaging.
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Wolf Eyes is not the sort of band you listen to if you like music. They strike me, rather, as the sort of thing you might have playing in the background while brutally murdering your family with an axe.

They do make music in the broader sense, inasmuch as they create vibrations in the air which are then picked up by the timpanic membrane in your ear, either directly (should you be present while they perform) or indirectly via some sort of prerecorded medium. But somewhere in this otherwise normal process (which I have dubbed “hearing”), something has gone horribly wrong. You see, Wolf Eyes makes noise music.
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The world doesn’t exactly wait for Jeremy Enigk anymore. Return of the Frog Queen was beautiful and brief, but that was 1996, and we’ve moved on. His next two releases with Sunny Day minus Hoerner (Rising Tide and then the Fire Theft’s self-titled) reminded everyone that wow, Diary and LP2 rocked; you don’t start calling someone the “grandfather of emo-core” if they’re still in the game. While Enigk would like you to think World Waits is the Frog Queen’s follow-up (see the orchestral first track), this album takes off exactly where the Fire Theft left off: beautifully blanding you to death.
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There are a few inflectional variations on the phrase, “I can’t complain,” that drastically alter its intended meaning. If stated with a glib, upbeat sense of irony, it can usually be translated to something like, “I am doing quite, quite well, and I’m happy that this opportunity to bask in my many successes has arisen.” Conversely, a hurried, defensive delivery reveals the bitter crest foaming over a deep sea of denial. There are endless variants, of course, but these two examples are most pertinent to the record that I am reviewing today.
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The Hold Steady is Craig Finn, and Craig Finn is really damn good at what he does. The guys in the band holding instruments are great at what they’re doing, but what they’re doing is playing classic rock, and when it comes down to it, who cares about classic rock? Thirty-five year-old roofers and sarcastic indie kids, sure, but then why the hell are The Hold Steady getting so much hype? It’s not the riffs, stupid, it’s Craig Finn.

Finn is an unlikely rock band front-man. With a biting voice that’s more punk than rock n roll, Finn’s words spill out like that guy next to you at the bar who won’t stop talking but you don’t really mind. Would-be classic rock fans may jump out and accuse him of not being able to sing, and this would be mostly true. Finn is a lyricist and not a singer. When he sings: “She was a really cool kisser/ And she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian”, it’s the way “kisser”, “strict” and “Christian” sound together. It’s phrases like “when they kiss/ they spit white noise” and “there are guys with wild eyes/ when they ask to get you high” that the songs are built on, not vocal prowess.
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Happy Hollow is a fictional town set somewhere in the Midwest. It’s also the title and setting of the new Cursive album, and if you know anything about Cursive, you can probably guess that there aren’t too many folks within this small town that could actually be characterized as happy. If you have a son he’s off to war. If you have a job it’s killing you. If you know a priest he’s a closet homosexual. Or even better, he’s knocking up your daughter.
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Capitol or no, the Decemberists were headed for a change. Picaresque, the band’s 2004 Kill Rock Stars release, was bombastically dramatic, showcasing a band intimately attuned to its own quirky strengths. But alas, sea shanties about chimbley sweeps and barrow boys were only gonna work for so long. The initial uniqueness of the antiquated, maritime imagery had faded, and that long-ass song about the guy trapped in the whale pretty much closed the deal. The addition of a small brass and strings section stepped up the energy, but at the same time, pushed the band’s sound to its dynamic threshold. So while nobody would argue that Picaresque wasn’t a flat-out success, it presented the band with a challenge: stop writing songs about 19th century British gay prostitutes hanging out at the Bus Mall.
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