It can seem that way on the surface, yeah, but it deserves headphones, a decent car stereo, or a good home system.

But it's a different animal from Caribou and Four Tet, and if those are more your bag, you just might not be into it.

The Morning Benders - Big Echo (emusic download 4/15/10)

Another one of these things. A grandiose, wistful indie album that calls to mind several other current bands. That composed, labored-over sound that never rocks too hard or delves too far into melancholy. Mid-tempo, mid-volume moderate rockers. It's not exactly middling, though, as they do have a pretty good way with a melody and harmonies and such and do employ some dynamic range into their mostly safe, pleasant sound.

The best song is the shortest: "Cold War". It's probably the catchiest and most fun, and not too light or unsubstantial despite its length. I feel like the rest the of this record could learn something from its economy, not that the album is really too long or anything. It's pretty and reasonably varied enough to keep it from being tedious. I suppose that this is better than a lot of things - I like it more than a fair number of things I've heard this year - but it just isn't the kind of thing I could ever get really excited about or love.

Rating: 7.5/10

Retribution Gospel Choir - 2 (emusic download 4/15/10)

I had either ignored or was unaware of Retribution Gospel Choir's existence until early this year when this album came out. A few reliable sources claimed to really like their first album, and so I downloaded that and liked it as well. I actually liked it better than the last album by Alan Sparhawk's other band, Low. I guess this band is his outlet for rocking out apart from Mimi Parker, not that I think Mimi has ever been the problem with Low or had much to do with what was wrong with Drums and Guns. Actually the problems with that album stemmed from Sparhawk himself and from Dave Fridmann's production. Well, RGC is free of one of those things, at least, and I found their first album to be pretty refreshing. This one isn't quite as successful.

Maybe it's Sparhawk's increasing self-seriousness, but I'm not sure that makes any sense. Low has never exactly been playful and lighthearted. But they also never seemed cynical until fairly recently, and I don't think cynicism suits them. I'm not really sure if that's what's going here, but something just feels too heavy and not in a good way. There's something weighing this down that keeps me from ever really enjoying it and makes me glad when it's over. It's hard to pinpoint, and technically, I like several aspects of this. It's just that this guy used to make beautiful and moving music, and this, despite being a fairly solid rock album with some really nice guitar, just isn't that.

Rating: 7/10

Sightings - City of Straw (CD purchased 4/26/10)

Sightings have reliably been just about the best noise band out there. I guess "noise band" is a little bit of a nebulous concept, but I'd group Sightings together with bands like Hair Police and Wolf Eyes that have something resembling a rock band setup but play something pretty far from rock. Since Sightings' 2004 album Arrived in Gold, they've separated the elements of their sound - guitar, bass, drums, vocals - more clearly and put a little more space in between them. The result has mostly been to bring the rhythm and vocals to the fore (rather than being buried in the deluge of screeches and clattering), but it's also created a great deal more variation between their songs. So now with this album, much like their last one, there's a pretty broad range of sounds - for a noise album - making it a satisfying and interesting listen from start to finish.

There's an uneasiness that permeates all of it, and I suppose that's become the niche that they choose to stay in. It opens on the relatively mellow - and nearly industrial - "Tar and Pine" before lurching into the more frantic and anxious "Jabber Queens". The lengthy title track gurgles along creepily with shifting textures stuttering, stumbling percussion, leading to the pummeling, violent release of "Saccharine Traps". It might sound like an unwanted assault on its own, but with its placement here on the album, the enveloping burst of noise is something of a relief. Things slow down again with "We All Amplify", setting up another big release in "Weehawken" (a track that gets its name from The Lorax, perhaps?). Then, again, we have a somewhat quieter track with "Hush" (not that quiet) which leads into the excellent, climactic closing track "Sky Above Mud Below", the best song on the album. I love when bands do that. I love a lot of things that Sightings does. And you know what, they're not just the best noise band around, but one of the best bands, period.

Rating: 8.5/10

Daughters - s/t (emusic download 4/29/10)

Daughters have improved quite a bit since their last album, 2006's Hell Songs, but they're still a pretty blatant Jesus Lizard ripoff. Or at least the vocals are a blatant ripoff of David Yow. The band seems to have broadened their sound considerably, and it's not too hard to hear how half of them went on to join Fang Island. The singer choosing to evoke Yow so clearly is definitely limiting to them, and it's not hard to imagine why they'd want another outlet that isn't always going to be compared to The Jesus Lizard. Still, I like this a hell of a lot more than Fang Island, and it's been one of my most pleasant surprises in a very solid year for new music.

This is a pretty heavy record with some great guitar. The Fang Island dudes can obviously play, and tailoring their riffs to this more aggressive format is a lot more enjoyable for me than Fang Island's take on cheesy arena rock. This album's eight songs go by in a flash, but not without taking you on a thrilling, jostling ride. There's an intricacy and complexity to match the speed and the heaviness, something I don't think Jesus Lizard ever really had. Even with the vocals and lyrics as a weak link, it's still a pretty serious album to reckon with. And it's not like the vocals sound bad or anything. I mean, if you're going to imitate someone, pick someone awesome, and they have. And with the band playing with this much energy and creativity, it doesn't matter a whole lot anyway.

Rating: 8/10

I'm a fan of this record I guess, but I liked it more when the weather was cold if that makes any sense. Still, it's pretty good.

Yeah, that review sounded really negative, but I've generally liked it. And like you, I liked it more earlier in the year when "warmer" albums sounded more appealing.

I've never heard it but i was scratching my head and thinking the 7.5 rating didn't match the negative review.

At the time I wrote it and on that particular listen, I couldn't muster up any enthusiasm for it. But I didn't want to dock it any points because I still feel like it's a good album.

I also painted myself into a corner by already giving Local Natives the same rating, and I think The Morning Benders are much better. I may have to revise some of these scores later on, depending on how I feel about them toward the end of the year.

Skullflower - Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament (2xCD purchased 4/29/10)

This is just an unrelenting, nearly impenetrable wall of noise. Like Sightings, Skullflower are an actual band consisting of the usual rock instruments, but their sound is more on the drone side. It's constant deluge of white noise so thick that initially it might seem like a completely random mess. Imagine the sound of an orchestra tuning up in an active construction site during a hurricane. This is my introduction to them, but apparently they've been at this for a really long time with this album being a return to their noisier, more chaotic roots.

Oddly enough, I find it kind of soothing. (Unless I listen to it while driving which is not advisable.) I guess that shouldn't be too surprising since white noise can often have that effect if it's constant and even enough, which this is. The tracks start and stop abruptly - as if they were all culled from lengthy improv sessions - but other than that, there's very little jarring about it. It doesn't all sound exactly the same, though, and repeated listens can start to reveal the various different parts being played and the underlying patterns there, such as there are any. Judging good and bad with something like this can be difficult, I guess, because there's the nagging notion that this type of music is infinitely easier to make than more composed or tunefully improvised music. Still, I've heard my share of bad noise bands, and this definitely isn't one. The various parts, while all equally dissonant and abrasive, mesh into an entrancing whole that I've frequently enjoyed wading into. It's not something I want to listen to all the time, but it's good immersive, meditative music.

Rating: 7.5/10

Toro y Moi - Causers of This (emusic download 4/30/10)

This one has been really frustrating, at least as far as trying to write about it is concerned. It isn't frustrating to listen to. On the contrary, it always manages to sneak by while making very little impression at all. Listening to it now, I'd have to say that, sure, I like it, but I know none of it will stick with me by the time it's over. This is "chillwave", and I suppose I like it a little more than Washed Out and Memory Tapes but a little less than Neon Indian. Perhaps the reason that I like Neon Indian more than the others is that they're a little more fun, less serious, and less reliant on a sort of wistful nostalgia. Psychic Chasms was more of a party record than the others, not that party records are necessarily what I go for. It's just that with this stuff, I'm not wholly won over by the aesthetic to the extent that I can really be moved by it when it gets all pensive and atmospheric. And Toro y Moi seems to deftly shift between both modes - which Memory Tapes admittedly does as well - but with maybe a stronger emphasis on beats and grooves. The sound here is a little more hip-hop informed than his peers, and it wears its clipped, cut-and-paste nature more clearly on its sleeve, I think.

So I really don't know where that leaves me. I'll keep listening to it, keep trying to soak it in. The first two songs, "Blessa" and "Minors", are probably the standouts for me right now, but as I said above, even they don't ever stick with me. The rest tends to all just blend together. It could do a lot worse, though, especially for music that traffics so self-consciously in of-the-moment sounds. It's nice, relaxing, good-vibes stuff. Good for summer mornings like this.

Rating: 7.5/10

Caribou - Swim (CD purchased 4/30/10)

Unlike a lot of people, I was pretty disappointed with Caribou's last album, Andorra. The one before that, The Milk of Human Kindness, saw him incorporate some Krautrock influence into his sunny electro-psychedelia, giving it a propulsive rhythmic foundation. It think it was possibly his best record, even better than In Flames (the last album he put out under his old name, Manitoba, and his big breakout). Andorra saw him go for a more subdued, vintage baroque pop sound (The Beach Boys, The Left Banke, The Zombies, etc.), and frankly, I thought it was pretty boring. Something about it was just too flat, too plastic. It revealed some problems in Dan Snaith's songwriting and arrangements that may have always been there and are still present on this record.

It's hard to define just what those are, unfortunately. It's the melodies, the sound of his voice... they just don't evoke much of anything. This being his "disco" album (and I'd say he's probably been listening to a little chillwave and other recent trends), it's more fun and more immediately likable than Andorra - for me, anyway - but there's still that flatness. The beats aren't that good. The melodies aren't that good. The arrangements and the production are nice, but they often aren't enough. Surprisingly, I've found that I've begun liking this less than the Four Tet album from this year, which I initially found pretty underwhelming. Maybe it's really just his voice. I don't know. I'm not really big on singers having traditionally good voices, but Snaith's is especially nasally and weak. The music makes up for it at times - he cops a little Pantha du Prince on "Bowls", blends it pretty well with his own style, and thankfully doesn't sing. The closing track "Jamelia" also benefits greatly from having another vocalist who sounds more than a little like Avey Tare from Animal Collective. Unfortunately he feels the need to sing on most of the rest of the album, and I guess that's become a stylistic trademark of his, helping to set him apart from other electronic producers and link him more to indie rock. It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but it just sounds so lackadaisical. Maybe he just needs to try harder.

Rating: 6.5/10

The last Skullflower release I listened to was "Tribulation". I dunno if he's grown since then or not. Sounds like Mr. Bower is doing pretty much the same thing, which isn't a bad thing.

The Radio Dept. - Clinging to a Scheme (emusic download 5/4/10)

I didn't really expect much from this, and I guess it more or less met my expectations. It's pretty lite fare, but pleasant and somewhat endearing. It mostly chugs along as expected, no real standouts or misfires as far as I'm concerned. What is kind of funny about it are the samples used in a couple of places. Using the Thurston Moore quote about a call to "destroy the bogus capitalist system" is ironic on a few levels, not least of which being that this music doesn't sound like it's poised to destroy anything. Later on a familiar-sounding sample from a graffiti artist (presumably) about tagging trains seems almost entirely unrelated to the surrounding music as well. Sonically, the samples fit, Radio Dept.'s sound having just a touch of homespun grit and haze to it that spliced-in elements feel fairly natural. I'm just a little baffled as to why these particular ones were used. Anyway, it's an incredibly minor part of this album, which on the whole is a very easy, feel-good listen. Just, you know, nothing too interesting, exciting, inspiring, or overly infectious, fun, or even melancholy to really get worked up about. This about as safe as it comes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Rating: 7/10

I like the Toro y Moi album art, but haven't heard the music.

If you like(d) Washed Out, Memory Tapes, Neon Indian, etc., it's worth a shot.

I'm fairly indifferent on all of them with Washed Out and Neon Indian having a few good tracks out there that I've enjoyed, but I'm not going to spend a long time with their albums or anything. It's good mood/background music.

I don't disagree with any of this yet I still couldn't make it through this album. Just get bored with it after a couple of songs.

Yeah the Toro y Moi album definitely never manages to be much more than that. But as background music goes, it's pretty nice.

Male Bonding - Nothing Hurts (Amazon download 5/13/10)

I found this to be immediately likable - a fair amount of hooks, great energy, good sound. In fact, I can't remember the last time I've liked a rock album by a British band this much. My initial enthusiasm for it has worn off a little, but I still really enjoy it from start to finish. The songs are all very short, and the whole thing clocks in at under a half an hour so it's hard for it to wear out its welcome. It's mostly fairly simple, straightforward punk rock, with just a few present-day signifiers that keep it from sounding just like it could have come out fifteen, twenty, or thirty-something years ago. It isn't exactly lo-fi, but it's just noisy enough with the vocals buried a little in the mix to give a hint of that DIY aesthetic.

The quality level is even enough that it's kind of hard to pick any clear standouts. The second half is probably a little stronger than the first, with a great string of tracks stretching from "Nothing Remains" to the closing track "Worse to Come". "Nothing Used to Hurt" is fairly striking with its use the old Pixies quiet-loud dynamic, and the following track "Pirate Key" is particularly crisp and one of the more memorable parts, sounding a little like contemporaries Abe Vigoda. "Pumpkin" is based around a great little high-register riff in the verses, a blast of thick power chords in the chorus, and another great riff in the bridge. The closing track with Vivian Girls sounds the most different from anything else on the album, mostly acoustic with a wash of feedback at the end. It's all just really solid stuff. There's a lot of promise here, but even if this is the best the ever do, it's a good bit better than most.

Rating: 8/10

I wish they included stare at my problems on the album.

I just grabbed the demo recording of that. Pretty cool, but I don't think it's better than most of the songs on the album. It's kind of similar to "Pumpkin" in a way, but I don't think I like it as much.

there's a better recording of it on a split with Cola Pumas, which i have but have no way to convert it to mp3.

I'll keep looking. I may be able to find it.

If I do I'll post it.

good luck. i certainly haven't been able to find it.