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 Universal
Doldrums
By
David King
Matt
and Kim
Sidewalks
Matt
and Kim sure know how to squander goodwill. They are the couple
everyone loves to love. Their last dance-punk album, Grand,
was ready-made for an iPod commercial, but they delivered
it with such sincerity. It was motherfucking catchy and it
all came spewing out with wonderfully ragged edges—Matt’s
whine, and Kim’s thumping, out-of-tune drums and “good try”
backup vocals made the band feel like that comfy, worn-out
safety-blanket of a sweater that you just can’t bear to throw
away.
Sidewalks
takes the fuzzy feeling and wraps it up in plastic, puts labels
on it like “Cute!” “Hip!” and “Easily Accessible!” and makes
you want to puke. “We’re universal — and we’re aiming for
that genre-less sound,” Matt told Spin while trying
to describe the band’s new direction. I guess no one told
the band that “genre-less sound” usually translates to elevator
music, and that is exactly what you get on Sidewalks:
overprocessed, overemotional, oversentimental elevator music
for the iPad generation.
The band recorded with Deerhunter/ Animal Collective (and
ex-Bad Boy) producer Ben Allen, and boy he sure as fuck did
not get the band’s appeal. The rough edges are gone; the beats
are no longer frantic. The percussion sounds like it was mostly
handled by the hip-hop presets on a Casio keyboard, and they
putt along low in the mix. Kim’s frantic thump is nowhere
to be heard. Matt’s singing is processed into annoying oblivion,
and Kim’s voice is buried deep under boring synth lines. There
are no more quirks here, just a band trying too hard to make
something everyone can like.
Don’t think for a second that this album is the band experimenting
with a more electronic sound. There is nothing creative about
the electronic production—it just makes everything sound sterile.
Perhaps it is an attempt to fit conveniently alongside Passion
Pit at Wal-Mart or maybe the band were just dominated by Allen’s
production. They even tried to capture past magic by rerecording
“Silver Tiles,” a song they recorded in their makeshift home
studio in 2005. It sounds like a 14-year-old kid using the
same line they used as a 7-year old to try to get candy from
their parents. It used to be cute but now it has a cynical,
glossy, polish that is simply irksome.
 Cowboy
Junkies
Demons:
The Nomad Series Volume 2
No
longer affiliated with any label, Cowboy Junkies are flexing
their muscles as they pass their 25th anniversary. They launched
a series of four albums last year, the rest of which will
be appearing over the course of 2011. It’s called “The Nomad
Series,” and the second volume, Demons, is devoted to the
songs of Vic Chesnutt. The band actually had been discussing
doing a collaborative project with him before his death at
the end of 2009.
Chesnutt’s musical identity straddles genres in much the same
as the Cowboy Junkies do. He was equally able to project with
just an acoustic guitar as with a band and an arsenal of noisy
foot pedals. He loved sandpapery surfaces, both in sound and
words. Margo Timmins’ controlled singing may at first seem
an odd match for Chesnutt’s propensity for vocals that seem
just a few steps away from talking. But when Cowboy Junkies’
recipe works it’s because of the tension between Margo’s vibratoed
timbres and brother Michael’s scuffed sonics. That combination
is what makes most of this set work exceedingly well. The
standout tracks tend to be the more intimate ones. “West of
Rome” is heartbreakingly poignant and cinematically riveting,
while “We Hovered With Short Wings” has a paper-thin bearing
that seems like it could disappear from the slightest wisp
of air.
The only misstep is “Wrong Piano.” The band sound lost in
a large loud room, a problem that may have been tempered by
it not being the opening number. But to close these remarks
with that issue would incorrectly frame what is a lovingly
considered and realized album.
—David
Greenberger
 The
Left Rights
Bad
Choices Made Easy
If
you are familiar with New York City techno-rap-punk act Mindless
Self Indulgence, you know they have an off-kilter, sometimes
offensive sense of humor. But if you thought MSI’s bizarre
sexual lyrics were the apex of their depravity, and their
music the apex of their creativity, you were mistaken. MSI
vocalist Jimmy Urine and guitarist Johnny Righ? use side project
the Left Rights as a dumping ground for their most far-out
and fantastical musical atrocities. The lead single “White”
is likely blasphemous to a good number people on myriad levels.
“Just like Michael Jackson I will be white, suburban, middle
class/I’ll never have to work again.” The auto-tune effect
on Urine’s vocals is the first tip that the song is a diss-track
aimed at Kanye West and his MJ obsession. The follow-up lyrics
that drip with absurd levels of auto tune only confirm it:
“I can always piss my life away/There will never be any consequences/It
doesn’t matter what I say/Mommy’s always gonna pay for college!”
Just when you think you’ve pinned down exactly who the band
are trying to insult, they switch it up. “Retail stores/Liquor
and whores/I got one black friend and I don’t want more/The
only thing better than Star Wars/Is a keytar solo from
1994!” Urine raps. As said keytar solo unfolds, Urine comments,
“Oh yeah, this is better than standing still at a Radiohead
concert!”
For the record, Urine and Righ? are both white and probably
rich by this point. But they exist to provoke, inflame and
simultaneously break down stereotypes. They do it in one-
or two- minute long blasts of odd samples, shitty guitar licks
and big beats. Ween-like folky interludes sung in bad foreign
accents break up the techno-punk. Songs like “Little Hardons”
and “Alabaster Street” are delivered like Irish folk tunes
but focus on perverse sex acts. “All the people that you meet/Here
on Alabaster Street/They wank you with their feet!” someone
sings like a cockney carnival barker.
At 41 tracks, Bad Choices is either the most immature
and insulting or insanely creative and hysterical album you
will hear all year. It just depends on what type of person
you are. I, for one, love it. And that means most normal people
won’t.
—David
King
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