Justin Timberlake – “The 20/20 Experience 2 of 2”

(Photo credit: thelineofbestfit.com)

Grade: B-

Key Tracks: “True Blood,” “Take Back the Night”

It’s rare that the second album in a double album is an improvement over the first (look at the mediocre “Use Your Illusion 2,” “Hypnotize” and the second disc of “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”). But when it does happen, it’s usually because the musician has used up the potential singles and leaves more room to move around. This isn’t necessarily true of this double album, as “Take Back the Night” might be the safest song across either disc, but the ambition is just a little stronger on Part 2. Despite the clunky title.

The second track, “True Blood,” might be over nine minutes and might be about vampires, but the song adds a bit of depth to the beat and achieves that soulful sound Timberlake tried so hard to find on Part 1. And it transitions, beat and all, into “Cabaret,” an equally great and more modestly-long song that has a well-needed guest stop from Drake. Second single “TKO” is a bland seven minutes, but leadoff single “Take Back the Night” is a catchy number, whose horns and moderate tempo call back to Part 1′s “Suit & Tie.” Musically, the album’s more diverse, making it more listenable.

But, like Part 1, it has many faults. The average song length here is around 5:30, as opposed to Part 1′s 7:00. But at 74 minutes, it’s just as long and bloated as it’s 70 minute partner. the album has a lot of great ideas, but the songs are neither experimental enough to be original or conventional enough to be memorable smashes. They exist in a weird in-between, where they’re mainly all great songs that just go on for 2-5 minutes too many. And that’s not good. Also, Timberlake’s lyrics have been consistently mediocre across the two parts. The worst offender here is “Only When I Walk Away,” where Timberlake profanely curses out someone for only loving him when he leaves. Not only does hearing Timberlake swear like this sound uncomfortable, it’s not believable for a man who is so openly in love with his wife. But the worst offender is the other guest spot, Jay-Z. His summer keeps pushing him further and further from the top, and it continues as he raps about Yoko Ono’s vagina (?) on a song called “Murder.” Maybe poorly timed, as Ono just released a much more experimental, and much better, pop album.

Luckily for Timberlake, these two albums are inherently likable. They’re always catchy, the transitions between ideas are strong, and they’re fun. Almost every song stretches far past a comfortable zone, but sometimes you can get lost in it (“True Blood” especially). The only objectively bad song is, unfortunately, the bonus track that closes the album. “Pair of Wings” has both the acoustic tenderness and lyrical cheese of an N*SYNC throwaway. Otherwise, the album is enjoyable. It’s bold, it’s ambitious and it’s good enough to be a very entertaining pop album, reigning in an age of otherwise unoriginal pop singers.

-By Andrew McNally

Andrew Jackson Jihad – “Live at the Crescent Ballroom”

(Photo credit: bandcamp.com)

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Gift of the Magi 2: Return of Magi,” “People II 2: Still Peoplin'”

I normally wouldn’t take the time to review a live album – they’re not designed to grab any new fans. But I happened to see Andrew Jackson Jihad on this tour. Not this show, as it was recorded on their last night, in Phoenix. But I saw them at Europa in Brooklyn, days after Hurricane Sandy. The show was originally scheduled for Manhattan, but the southern portion of the borough was still without power. It was kind of an emotional time, and one that the band mentions numerous times on the album as the tour’s “dark days.” We were late to the show because public transport was a mess. We missed the opening bits of the appropriately-timed “Hurricane Waves,” from opening act Jeff Rosenstock (singer for my second favorite band, Bomb the Music Industry!). Future of the Left came on second, and for a third time proved themselves one the best live bands in all of music (I had previously seen them earlier that summer, and once opening for Against Me! way back in 2007). Jeff’s do-whatever DIY, FOTL’s political noise-punk and AJJ’s folk-punk never seemed like a logical line-up, but it was three great bands.

It only makes sense that the band would record their live album on the last stop. The band is a little worn-out and had experienced some unexpected dark days on the tour. And at one point, during “American Tune,” both the guitar and vocals cut out. After “Bad Things,” rude fans start requesting songs they know. It makes sense. Andrew Jackson Jihad has never shied away from ugliness in their music – “Back Pack” is about finding your loved one murdered, carrying her into town and wondering what her life could’ve been. It’s an imperfect show for a band that isn’t remotely looking for approval or purity.

This 2012 tour was a full band tour, not something they always do. They actually focus more on the electric songs, opening with the double-dose of “We Didn’t Come Here to Rock” and “Distance.” They do a great job placing fan favorites like “Big Bird,” “Rejoice” and “Hate, Rain On Me” among relative unknown songs, like “Kokopelli Face Tattoo,” “#armageddon” and “Inner City Basehead History Teacher.”

They spend a lot of time in between songs chatting, which can be a little cumbersome for a listener. But they have to, they were doing constant guitar switches. At the end of “People II 2: Still Peoplin’,” the band has to play an extended note so the singer can switch from acoustic to electric for the final ten seconds.

The album is surprisingly long, but they pack it with enough familiar songs to make it a very satisfying listen. With typical folk-punk, it’s fast, it’s messy and it’s got deeply unsettling lyrics. This live album won’t gain any new fans, but it is a great pick-up for current ones. Andrew Jackson Jihad is one of my favorite bands, and to have a record of the tour when I saw them is kinda special.

-By Andrew McNally

Kira Velella – “Daughter”

(Photo credit: bandcamp.com)

Grade: A-

Singer-songwriter Kira Velella’s debut EP finds her among the likes of Eleanor Friedburger, Laura Marling, and Waxahatchee, all relatively interchangeable but impeccable musicians. Velella’s soothing acoustic guitar matches her sweet, high voice in a mix that easily could’ve been bland but is pretty and catchy enough to be a very pleasing listen.

“Lover, Move” starts after a couple seconds of silence with a quiet and rhythmic guitar line. The EP’s longest song, it is just Velella, singing and playing guitar. It’s a pretty folk song – they all are. “Come Down” and “Blood Moon” are the same (although “Come Down” has a very effective moment towards the end when Velella dubs over herself vocally). “Act Your Age” and “Barn Swallow” have subtle electric guitar behind Velella, breaking up the solely acoustic sound. And the finale, “Found Her, Found Her” benefits from hand clapping and Velella’s washboard playing, which sounds as percussive as it does rhythmic.

Velella’s voice is vulnerable and beautiful. The soprano pitch of her singing complements the clean sound of her guitar. Velella wisely went for a polished production, instead of a lo-fi, fuzzy sound. It is as nostalgic for 70’s folk as it is current indie-folk, and it’s refreshing, as many indie-folk singer-songwriters have been branching a little too far out lately. It’s simple while being complex, catchy, and it all works, so it succeeds as a folk album. It’s a promising debut, and Velella’s music could fit right in alongside her established contemporaries.

The album is available here.

If you like this, try: Waxahatchee. Her all-acoustic debut, “American Weekend,” is more related to Velella, but her sophomore album, “Cerulean Salt,” is better overall.

-By Andrew McNally

Tyranny Is Tyranny – “Let It Come From Whom It May”

(Photo Credit: bandcamp)

Grade: B

Tyranny is Tyranny create a pretty heavy sound for four people. With Russell Emerson Hall and Jason Jensen on vocals and guitar, M. Guy Ficcioto on bass and vocals and Ben Aldis on drums, the band creates a demanding and achingly slow hard rock-noise rock hybrid. The album is only seven tracks but is a full-length time wise, many songs going over five minutes. Think Pissed Jeans slowed down. And the band takes a strong, anti-capitalist approach. They seem to take on the same political fervor as Propagandhi, though aimed at a different target. Their leftist lyrics add a different element to their post-noise rock genre.

The album’s first two tracks – “Manufacturing Truth” and “Owned By Thieves” take more of a direct approach, coming off as decent, heavy rock songs. “Down the K-Hole” is heavier, though, and a little faster. The vocals are more intense and the central rhythm is crunchier, more chord-based. “The Haze of Childhood” is a quiet, instrumental interlude at the album’s physical midpoint (though actually coming earlier time-wise). It’s a welcome break before the intensity kicks up again. “Apostasy” starts off with the same rhythm as the previous song, building into a properly heavy song with a grinding central line. The sixth song, “The American Dream is a Lie,” acts as the first of two magnum opuses, a heavy and constantly changing song. The second, “Always Stockholm, Never Lima” is a destructive finale, feeling like it brings the album to a close.

The vocals contributed to the album are sometimes screamed, sometimes just aggressively sung. Overall, they resemble some of those very heavy but radio-friendly hard rock bands of the early ’90’s (your Sepultura and so forth). The band’s somewhat lo-fi recording makes the lyrics unintelligible at points, but they still contribute to the album. Very liberal rock bands tend to have their own goals, and Tyranny is Tyranny feels no different. They still have some kinks to work out, but Tyranny is Tyranny sounds like the beginning of a good political post-noise rock band.

The album can be found here.

-By Andrew McNally

Surgery In An Opera – “Sad Songs For the Sad State”

(Photo Credit: bandcamp)

Grade: B

It may help that I was, by chance, listening to Brand New’s “Deja Entendu” right before I put on this DIY EP from the trio called Surgery in an Opera. The band consists of Calvin Roberts on vocals and guitar, Eldon Campbell on bass and Joshua Strong on drums. In four songs, the band invokes the image of an early 2000’s pop-punk/emo band, which nostalgia seems to be bringing back to today. The band has a sound similar to that of Brand New without the budget – that catchy emo type of sound that isn’t afraid to go either acoustic or distorted.

The first and shortest track, “The Escape Artist,” feels like a true pop-punk song. It’s energetic and catchy, with fuzzy guitars and vaguely personal lyrics. Track two, “Down the Beaten Path, or a Song For Those in the Vehicle City,” is slower but more melodic, and it blends acoustic guitar with a distorted, electric one. Again, it’s a catchy song. And it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome – because around the three minute mark, the band stops for about five seconds before quickly jumping back into a chorus. “The Worker Bee Brings Home the Honey” is a song that takes its time to build up, leading up a slow climax and features guest vocals by the very emo-sounding Campbell. Finally, “Wounds Pt. 2” starts acoustic, with very typical pop-punk lyrics. But a very distorted electric guitar kicks in pretty quickly, and Roberts ends up making a very effective use of power chords. The song ends big and loud, blowing out the volume.

Surgery In An Opera are not doing anything revolutionary, and their lo-fi/DIY approach can be seen as both a good and bad quality to their music. But “Sad Songs For the Sad State” is a good little blast of emo/pop-punk. Roberts’ vocals are fine and they’re all along with each other. It’s a promising release for a band that sounds like they know what they’re doing. And if you’re going for that bit of early aughts nostalgia, this EP is just reminiscent enough to do the trick.

The EP is available for streaming here.

If you like this, try: I Kill Giants’ self-titled debut from earlier this year. A little heavier and scream-ier, but they’re another good up-and-coming nostalgia band.

-By Andrew McNally

Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band – “Take Me to the Land of Hell”

(Photo Credit: hasitleaked.com)

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Moonbeams,” “7th Floor”

Avant garde has never sounded this groovy. Yoko Ono has never taken too much of a break, musically. But this album is the second in four years for the Plastic Ono Band, whose last proper release before 2009 was in 1973 and featured John Lennon. Ono’s music is tough to predict – it can exist anywhere from feminist poetry, noise recordings with Sonic Youth members, or this album, an unpredictable but catchy record. No, it isn’t radio-proper, but it finds a consistent groove early on and only breaks from it to get some avant garde freakouts.

Opening track “Moonbeams” nears six minutes, and pushes the volume until it is a loud and shrieking track, but one that still finds a little rhythm. The two tracks that follow, “Cheshire Cat Cry” and “Tabetai” calm down and settle into a weird and rhythmic pattern. the follow-up, “Bad Dancer,” is lyrically and musically the most conventional song on the album, with a funky rhythm that doesn’t really stray away. The album keeps up with this weirdly successful combination for a number of tracks, until the haunting piano ballad title track. The album meddles just a little too long in slow songs, but the final, “Shine, Shine” is a frantic and experimental bit that wraps it all up nicely.

“Take Me to the Land of Hell” settles much closer to Nico on the avant garde spectrum – pop with the unsettling dissonance seeping in. Only this album is far more upbeat and diverse than anything on “Chelsea Girl.” Ono’s vocals are right for the album, and her backing band create a perfect avant garde-pop background. Contributions from guests like Lenny Kravitz, Questlove and the two surviving Beastie Boys go unnoticed as part of an ensemble, but what the ensemble presents is a fun, intense performance piece that takes both the rhythms of pop-rock and the experimental nature of poetic avant-garde.

If you like this, try: I mentioned it already, Nico’s legendary 1967 album “Chelsea Girl.”

-By Andrew McNally

Potty Mouth – “Hell Bent”

(Photo Credit: Spin)

Grade: B

Key tracks: “Rusted Shut,” “The Spins”

Freshly born at a woman’s college just a short drive from me, western Massachusetts’ Potty Mouth’s full-length debut falls under the increasingly growing umbrella term of “pop-punk.” A decade ago, pop-punk was a very specific genre of music, but nowadays, it’s just anything that fits the qualifications. And technically, Potty Mouth do. Their songs are pop songs, tainted by punk rhythm and intensity. But they aren’t a big-chorus, small town hating band. Their songs have an added reverb tinge to them, uncharacteristic of pop-punk. And the band seems to have a personal attitude, not to be bothered by genre lines.

Potty Mouth have such a fuzzy and distorted sound that they almost start to resemble simple shoegaze bands like Yuck, but they still have definitive song structures. This toying with the basics of genres only helps to show the band’s open attitude and general distrust of being labeled under anything. This non-abiding of genres makes the catchiness of the album seem perversely warped, almost ironic. But it isn’t – the songs are catchy, at times fully embracing the pop element of pop-punk. Equal parts fuzzy and catchy, Potty Mouth properly blend the best of two genres to make that rich, 90’s-revivalist sound.

This isn’t a political album, but the band does take an approach towards equality in their music. And rightfully so, because they are often labeled as a “female band” and not as a “band”. This approach is, I guess, the “punk” element of the “pop-punk,” although that’s still defined more by the energy of the music. Because things aren’t equal, especially in the music world, they’re often labeled as a feminist band. But musings of equality creep into the album, pushing the album above most lyrically-boring pop-punk bands.

But what the album really is, is a decent set of fuzzy, catchy, punk tunes that have trouble separating themselves from each other but are instantly catchy and memorable. Potty Mouth has the energy of a punk band, the catchy rhythms of a pop group, and the reverb of a conventional-leaning noise-rock band. The album isn’t perfect, but it’s a winning combination.

If you like this, try: Yuck’s 2011 self-titled album. It isn’t that great of an album, but the distortion on “Hell Bent” reminded me greatly of it.

-By Andrew McNally

Drake – “Nothing Was the Same”

(Photo Credit: defpenradio.com)

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Tuscan Leather,” “Own It”

Contrary to Drake’s previous albums, and most albums by any known rapper, there is only one major guest spot on “Nothing Was the Same”. And it feels very, very deliberate. Jay-Z shows up on the album’s last track, “Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2″ for a lengthy guest verse. This placement signifies something, a very boastful claim. With Kanye West’s “Yeezus” outcasting him from Top 40 radio and commercial hits, and with Jay-Z’s “Magna Carta Holy Grail” being a massive and unpopular stumble, this leaves the throne at the top of hip-hop suddenly open. Drake, already immensely popular, has laid claim to it. It’s a bold risk for a young musician, but the combination of emotions displayed across 2011′s “Take Care” and “Nothing Was the Same” prove that he might just be the next hip-hop king. Jay-Z’s verse feels like a bowing out, relinquishing the throne while still promising not to fade away.

The album’s first track, “Tuscan Leather,” is over six minutes long and self-aware about it’s length. Twice he raps, “How long this n***a gonna spend on the intro?” His self-parodying is dripping with boldness – he acts as a critic, gawking at Drake’s unconventional song structures. The rest of the track is mainly claims about wealth and luxury, fairly typical claims but ones that are made believable just by sheer effort on Drake’s part. And this song sets the album’s tone – unconventional song structures, and surprisingly effective effort and emotion from Drake. The complex man that we know – half sad and misunderstood, half rich celebrity – is the same man that comes through on “Nothing Was the Same.”

Boasts about having millions come alongside musings to figuring out your true friends on an album that’s often slightly unsettling. Love songs are honest and devastatingly poetic, and the boast songs always come close to overboard without ever reaching. Songs blend together instead of standing alone. When “Own It” ends and “Worst Behavior” starts, whisperings of the words ‘Own It’ continue in the background. And Drake knows when to take rapping to the backseat – slower songs are half-sung, decently. And an occasional guest spot from relative unknowns break up the tone. Jhene Aiko is more of a presence on “From Time” than Drake is, his rapping coming secondary to her singing.

Drake has a strong personality, and it helps to add depth to what might be an otherwise average rap album. It suffers from typical tempo issues, but it is lyrically original and honest, as Drake becomes the semi-reluctant heir to the hip-hop throne. Kanye and Jay-Z seem willing to step aside, at least for the time being, and leave their throne to their younger prodigy.

-By Andrew McNally

Elton John – “The Diving Board”

(Photo Credit: The Hollywood Reporter)

Grade: B

Key Tracks: “A Town Called Jubilee,” “My Quicksand”

Elton John understands that he may not be attracting a younger fan base, still writing music for a much older audience now. He’s responded accordingly, releasing a stripped-down, adult album. “The Diving Board” does not feature any members of his regular band, the first album he’s done without them since 1979. Instead, John sat down with Bernie Taupin, John composing the music and Taupin writing the lyrics. They wrote “The Diving Board” in two days.

Musically, “The Diving Board” is a very soft record. A majority of the songs are only John on piano, with some faint drums and/or guitar. Only a handful of songs have added instruments, allowing them sound bigger. But ‘big’ wasn’t the goal – those just help to break up the album a bit. “The Diving Board” is a bare-bones, soft rock record. John shows that, after all these years, he’s still immensely talented. Theatrics aside, John’s voice is still strong, even as he sings deeper than usual on this record.

He is still, predictably, a phenomenal piano player too. One of the album’s tales, “My Quicksand,” ends on a truly haunting piano chord. “Home Again” is centered around some truly beautiful piano work. Often, John takes vocal breaks during the songs that let him play some great riffs and solos. The album has three “dreams,” too, that act as quick, piano interludes where he really gets to shine.

As with most soft rock, it starts to get repetitive. The songs that aren’t the stand-outs start to sound similar, and while they’re never bad, they’re a little too repetitious. Thankfully, the stand-outs are placed throughout the album, so every time a casual listener might get distracted from the album, they’re drawn back in.  Overall, the album could stand to be a little shorter and do with a few less tracks. But “The Diving Board” serves as a welcome return for Sir Elton John, who hasn’t released an album since 2006. The album is beautiful and sparse, and serves as a nice ode to John’s musical origins.

-By Andrew McNally

Melt-Banana – “fetch”

(Photo Credit: exclaim.ca)

Grade: A

Key Tracks: “The Hive,” “Schemes of the Tails”

There’s a certain number of people out there that have thought, “I wish Melt-Banana would just be more intense!” That number hovers around zero. But they’ve gotten more intense. The Japanese noise-punk group has been established, since the mid-90’s, as one of the leaders in the world of total aural assault. Their earlier albums were nonsensical blasts of noise, each track often lasting less than a minute. In the 2000’s, they gravitated towards more conventional song structures while still maintaining that furious intensity. 2003’s “Cell-Scape” was a goldmine of pop-brutality. After six years of inactivity, they’re back, and “fetch” makes those six years excusable.

It should be mentioned that they took time off because of problems faced in their native Japan – an earthquake in Tohoku and the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima left the band putting their careers to the side to help their country. But the return is still welcomed – because they’re back to their experimenting. Sometimes the band experiments, other times they just put out noise albums. But “fetch” sounds like the album that should’ve come out before “Cell-Scape.” To put it simply, this is the Melt-Banana album I’ve been craving since I got into them roughly six years ago.

“fetch” starts off with ocean waves and a synth rhythm, a bit of a red herring intro that also acts as a metaphorical apology for the band’s unintended hiatus. The song builds up, finally ending in intense Melt-Banana form. For those unfamiliar with the band, that involves guitar and drum paired with squeaky high vocals and drums that sound like they’re being murdered. Follow up “The Hive” is more of a traditional track, at slightly over two minutes.

A slight majority of the songs on the album are under the 2:30 mark, and all except an interlude are expectedly intense. But what makes this album great – maybe even their best – is the way it uses typical song structures to sound even more brutal. “Cell-Scape” loosely framed its songs around rock structures, but didn’t advance much beyond them. “fetch” takes a typical structure, allows the band to slow down just a little to add a noticeable energy, and intersperse typical songs against blasts of noise. The final track, “Zero,” almost comes close to resembling the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song of the same name, as a synth-based dance-number. But yet, the tracks before them are still brutally fast. Melt-Banana stretches their own boundaries on this album.

The vocals aren’t as high-pitched, and the drums are on a less consistently melodic, Zach Hill type of brutality, which automatically sounds different. “fetch” honestly would’ve been a wonderful intro to “Cell-Scape,” now 10+ years removed. But with the mediocre “Bambi’s Dilemma” standing as their most recent release, “fetch” is more than a welcome return – it’s a noisy, assaulting and relentless piece of noise-punk that recognizes its boundaries, always going to them but never going over. Melt-Banana is not a band that has a wide audience in America, but for those that do enjoy, they’ll hopefully accept “fetch” as an apology for a long absence.

If you like this, try: Lightning Bolt’s 2005 album “Hypermagic Mountain.” Two guys from Connecticut created one of the most feedback-laden, noisy masterpieces of the ’00s.

-By Andrew McNally