Geezers and pleasers

So many artists from the so-called "indie rock" boom of the early to mid-2000s resurfaced in 2017, many with comeback records after a long hiatus. Meanwhile, the new album from the War on Drugs was considered the high-water mark of the genre—which only confirms that whatever was once known as "indie rock" is all but dead. Which makes the few triumphs below even more valuable.

Broken Social Scene – Hug of Thunder (Arts and Crafts)

It’s hard to believe Broken Social Scene didn’t already come up with that title earlier in their career. It defines both their sound and their live experience: a warm embrace, almost suffocating at times, all the biggest emotions laid bare and expressed through gesture. Vulnerability presented with a small army of friends. A big, big love with a big, big sound, forever and ever, amen.

Broken Social Scene took a hiatus after touring 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record, which is a good thing: this was never a band built for the recording/touring cycle, and time apart has always benefited the project. This time out, singers Leslie Feist and Emily Haines are noticeably back in the fold, joined by Ariel Engle (AroarA, Hydra). The horns also play a larger role, giving everything an extra heft. With so many solo outlets for the individual members, Hug of Thunder benefits from a united sense of purpose: everyone involved knows what this particular band does well, and hence we have one rousing song after another that also happen to be filled with sonic shades that tickle the tiny corners of your headphones, the kinds of songs U2 has been trying to write for the past 25 years and failing, songs marry pop melodies, stadium ambition and experimentalism. Even the lower-key, more subtle material seems designed to echo out across large festival fields.

As with any band this size, and with this level of talent and competing egos, the real trick is avoiding bloat and excess. With this group of old friends, it sounds like that gets even easier with age. (July 6, 2017)

  

Stream: “Halfway Home,” “Skyline,” “Please Take Me With You”

Filthy Friends – Invitation (Kill Rock Stars)

Since the demise of REM in 2011, all members have been laying low. Michael Stipe has popped up on a couple of late-night talk shows for a skit or two. Mike Mills is trying his hand at symphonic works. Peter Buck has been putting out solo albums quietly on a tiny, independent, vinyl-only label. All seem more than happy to have nothing to do with the machinery of rock’n’roll.

Except here comes Buck with a powerhouse new band, on the venerable punk label Kill Rock Stars. It features musicians from the Fastbacks, REM’s touring band, and--King Crimson?! It’s fronted by Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker, who recently restarted that power trio after a nine-year hiatus.

Yes, it sounds a lot like the singer from Sleater-Kinney fronting a more raw version of REM. Buck’s sound and songwriting style is unmistakable, and certain tracks here harken back to REM classics. “Windmill” is a more than obvious nod to Television’s “Marquee Moon,” a key touchstone for both Buck and Tucker. On the other hand, “Come Back Shelley” slinks like T.Rex (the band), which would have been hard to detect in either of their other bands. Tucker doesn’t feel compelled to constantly channel the aggression that Sleater-Kinney so often demands; she sounds more than comfortable toning it down here, in ways she didn’t on her own solo records, while never dulling the unique edge she’s always had in her voice. While there is softer material here, like the breezy, almost jazz closer “Invitation,” Buck and company were obviously attracted to Tucker for what she’s known for in the first place; a voice like hers can’t be tamed for long.

“Holding on to the past won’t make it repeat,” she sings on the opening track. Between the pedigree on hand here and the strength of the new material, Filthy Friends are looking forward to a time when their CVs don’t matter as much as the new music they’re creating. For a bunch of old folks on their second or third go-around, they sound excited and hungry--and not at all too old for rock’n’roll. (Aug. 24, 2017)

Stream: “Despierta,” “Faded Afternoon,” “No Forgotten Son”

Iron and Wine – Beast Epic (Sub Pop)

In many ways, Beast Epic winds the clock back to 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days. There are no dub reggae grooves, no jazz excursions, no crescendos, no danger of veering into jam-band territory--even if all those things were welcome extensions of Beam’s aesthetic. Instead, it’s 11 three-minute songs where you can hear the squeaks of the strings as Beam moves around the neck of the guitar, even when he’s surrounded by a full band that applies the most delicate of touches throughout. For what it’s worth, he’s also returned to the Sub Pop label that gave him his start, after two bigger-budget records for major-label affiliates.

Just in case listening to Iron and Wine didn’t already always make you feel older than you were, Beam admits that this, more than any of his others, is made by a middle-aged man. He recently said, “Where the older songs painted a picture of youth moving wide-eyed into adulthood’s violent pleasures and disappointments, this collection speaks to the beauty and pain of growing up after you’ve already grown up. For me, that experience has been more generous in its gifts and darker in its tragedies.” The best of times, the worst of times: that pretty much sums up your 40s, doesn’t it?

Beam could easy cash out by writing less oblique lyrics, by doing acoustic covers of pop songs (his take on the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” helped launch his career), by decorating his songs with more conventional arrangements. He has a beautiful voice and writes beautiful songs: that’s all he needs. But that’s what he did on his very first album. Every album since, even here on a somewhat back-to-basics record, he’s still full of surprising ideas and pushing himself. Middle age isn’t about giving up. It’s about trying harder. (Aug. 24, 2017)

Stream: “Summer Clouds,” “Last Night,” “The Truest Stars We Know”

LCD Soundsystem – American Dream (Columbia)

The hotly anticipated comeback album by the band who taught indie kids to dance opens with… a ballad that sounds like a Cure B-side from 1990.

Many LCD fans were upset that after announcing a break-up and playing a triumphant last show at Madison Square Gardens, filmed and recorded as Shut Up and Play the Hits, that they’re now back on the festival circuit just four years later. Those fans are going to be even more upset to hear an album like this sullying LCD’s legacy. What’s worse, bandleader James Murphy—always a self-aware guy, to say the least—appears to know it, as he sings: “I’m not dangerous now / the way I used to be once / I’m just too old for it now / at least that seems to be true.” Self-flagellation is one thing; doing it on a poor track with even worse lyrics is another crime entirely.

Much of American Dream sits at mid-tempo, which is fine: bands change and mature, and one can’t expect the adrenalin rush of the first two records over and over again. (Also: The Cure’s Disintegration is a great record.) But the slower tracks here, with the exception of the title track—which bears an odd resemblance to “Worlds Away” by ’80s Vancouver band Strange Advance—are dire and dirge-like. Ballads have never been James Murphy’s strength, and that’s not about to change any time soon.

Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire have already had trouble this year convincing people that the magic of 2004 is still alive. LCD Soundsystem isn’t helping their case.

Stream: “Call the Police,” “American Dream,” “Emotional Haircut”

The National – Sleep Well Beast (4AD/Beggars)

This is the National’s seventh album. They’re inexplicably popular. They’re the somnambulant Arcade Fire. U2 with zero charisma. They’re ostensibly a rock band, but their music sounds like divorced bankers opiated on too much expensive red wine.

Not much has changed here, unless a few more synths here and there are considered revolutionary for such a static band. The production is marginally more interesting, on songs like “Empire Line” and “I’ll Still Destroy You,” both of which tap into the hypnotic trance of German art-rock or West African guitar music—in the most subtle ways possible, of course. Singer Matt Beringer still sings like he’s five minutes away from falling asleep. The rest of the band backs him begrudgingly, playing as if they had something better to do.

Beringer says this is a midlife marital crisis record, and that he cowrote many of the lyrics with his wife as a way of working through their troubles. “Blame it on me, I really don’t care / it’s a foregone conclusion,” he sings in what sounds like an act of mutually assured destruction on “Carin at the Liquor Store.” “I’m going to keep you in love with me for a while,” he claims on “Dark Side of the Gym.” Good luck with that. (Sept. 7, 2017)

Stream: “Nobody Else Will Be There,” “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness,” “I’ll Still Destroy You.”

The War on Drugs – A Better Understanding (Warner)

Grizzly Bear – Painted Ruins (RCA)

“Is the War on Drugs rock’s new torchbearer?” That headline comes from a publication not known for hyperbolic pop-culture pieces: The New Yorker. Maybe the magazine’s target demographic—and its arts editor—has forgotten what rock’n’roll is, or what it sounds like. Or maybe this is just another nail in the coffin of rock’n’roll, rock music, indie rock, or whatever you want to call it.

Almost every song by the War on Drugs is approximately the same tempo, and it’s not one likely to raise a pulse. Almost every song has chugging acoustic guitar and electric pass and pulsing keyboards, with some guitar leads snaking around the lead vocals. Sometimes there is some xylophone or bells to make you think of “Born to Run.” The songs that don’t have any of those elements are too narcoleptic to mention, though the 11-minute dirge “Thinking of a Place” underscores just how rarely this band actually goes anywhere.

Sure, some of this album is pretty. And I’m sure a War on Drugs song sounds great when you’re stoned. But unless you’ve been pining for Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham to have produced a Grateful Dead album in 1977, there’s likely not much for you here.

Nor is there much hope for aging indie rock fans in the latest from Grizzly Bear, who, like the War on Drugs, are making their major-label debut in 2017. Grizzly Bear are like Radiohead with fewer interesting bits and more obtuse song structures. To their credit, they’re wonderful harmony singers, and certainly have more sonic imagination than the War on Drugs or most guitar-based bands. But their songs are all sharp angles and seemingly assembled by cut-and-paste. It’s cleverness without charisma, full of smarts but no swagger. Maybe the vocals are too distracting, placing the band in a pop music context when they’d be better off liberating themselves from any structural formats at all. As it is, this is egghead experimentalism that doesn’t coalesce in any fashion. At a time when the most experimental pop music is coming from R&B corners, listening to a band like Grizzly Bear seems archaic and unnecessary. (Aug. 31, 2017)

Stream the War On Drugs: “Up All Night,” “In Chains,” “Holding On”

Stream Grizzly Bear: “Wasted Acres,” “Mourning Sound,” “Glass Hillside”

Wolf Parade – Cry Cry Cry (Sub Pop)

What year is it again? New albums by Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Feist, New Pornographers, and now Wolf Parade—it’s like the last 15 years never happened. Except a lot has happened. Those artists were at the epicentre of an explosion of Canadian rock music that set a new template for years to come. That they’ve all remained vital, together and in separate projects, is a testament.

Wolf Parade went on hiatus in 2010. Dan Boeckner has had three bands since: Handsome Furs, Divine Fits and Operators. Spencer Krug abandoned his other band, Sunset Rubdown, to record solo records as Moonface. Drummer Arlen Thompson and guitarist Dante DeCaro busied themselves with low-key projects on Vancouver Island.

During their first incarnation, Wolf Parade always sounded like they were in a hurry: every song had a propulsive intensity, played as if it were the last gig of their lives. Everybody in the band sounded like they were falling over each other on a postage-stamp-sized stage in a dingy bar on St. Laurent in Montreal. Now they’re older, wiser, living on the West Coast, and some of the chaos has subsided. Due to their own maturity and the presence of producer John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney), every instrumentalist is heard more clearly in the mix—especially drummer Arlen Thompson, who really shines.

The overall intensity remains: Wolf Parade are as virile and vital as ever. And with Boeckner and Krug both writing songs that complement each other perfectly, this is as good a comeback as one could ever hope for. (Oct. 6, 2017)

Stream: "Lazarus Online," "Valley Boy," "Weaponized"

April 2013 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Waterloo Record and the Guelph Mercury last month. Highly, highly, highly recommended: AroarA. Merely highly recommended: Rokia Traoré, Joshua Van Tassel.

AroarA – In the Pines EP (Club Roll)


Someone old, something new. You know Andrew Whiteman from Broken Social Scene, Apostle of Hustle and many other projects. You don’t know his new collaborator Ariel Engel, who sings the bulk of this material and brings out the best in Whiteman. The lyrics on AroarA’s debut EP are by American poet Alice Notley, from her 2007 book of the same name, set here to original music made with primitive cigar-box banjos and drum machines. Notley’s poems themselves reference old folk songs, and even a Bob Dylan lyric about Blind Willie McTell, so repurposing Notley’s words for modern avant-garde pop music taps into a natural continuum. If that doesn’t intrigue you enough and you need a big namedrop, it was recorded at Feist’s house.

Concept and pedigree aside, it’s the music of AroarA that compels. Like the Los Lobos side project Latin Playboys, AroarA takes traditional elements—Spanish pop, American blues, Asian melodies, PJ Harvey—and tosses them in a digital kaleidoscope that defies easy description. Engel’s compelling voice is the anchor: a confident calm presence not unlike Feist or Daniela Gesundheit of Snowblink (who all performed together at the 2012 Polaris Prize gala). The sonic density that marked Whiteman’s last album as Apostle of Hustle has been stripped back; each track contains only a few elements: sampler, two guitars and percussion, either electronic, hand-played or of unknown origin.

These five songs are as fulfilling as a full-length album, but they’re just the beginning: nine more are due on AroarA’s debut album in June. (April 4)

Download (tracks only have numbers as titles, as per the original poems; they don’t refer to running order): “#11,” “#6,” “#2”

Arts and Crafts: 2003-2013 – Various Artists (Arts and Crafts)

Many people and many artists across the country contributed to the explosion of great Canadian music in the last decade, but it’s safe to say that Toronto label Arts and Crafts were at the forefront of taking it all to the mainstream: first with Broken Social Scene, whose Kevin Drew is a cofounder, then with Feist and many others. Arts and Crafts has released many classic Canadian records, and it’s a safe bet that a decade retrospective would be a worthy time capsule.

Sadly, it’s not. The selection here appears to have been selected from a shuffle playlist, albeit one that favours Broken Social Scene, Feist and Stars, with three tracks each—odd for Stars, who have released just as many albums off the label as they have on. Many artists are relegated to the “rarities” disc, hence people like the Constantines, Hidden Cameras, Cold Specks, the Dears, Gonzales and Snowblink are not necessarily on their A game. Bell Orchestre, who put out one of the best albums in the label’s entire discography, is not found anywhere here.

Listening to the main disc gives further credence to the notion that the label has faltered the most when it recruits from outside its immediate family: The Most Serene Republic? Los Campesinos? New Buffalo? Dan Mangan? Well, at least Mangan sells a lot of records and deserves to be here. The compiler does deserve some credit, at least, for finding a listenable song by the Stills.

You probably own the best Arts and Crafts albums already, and this compilation won’t shed much light on the rest of the roster. Save your money and buy a ticket for their June 8 anniversary show in Toronto featuring a one-off Broken Social Scene reunion, Feist, Stars, Zeus, Cold Specks, Jason Collett and more—including Hayden and Bloc Party, who are also absent from the comp. (April 18)

Download: “Islands in the Stream” – Feist and the Constantines; “I Want a New Drug” – Apostle of Hustle; “Apology” – Kevin Drew

The Bicycles - Stop Thinking So Much (Aporia)

This Toronto pop band was beloved but underrated during their run in the 2000s; after a four-year hiatus, they remind us what we’ve been missing by returning from various other projects sounding entirely rejuvenated and more eclectic than ever, not unlike a ’70s K-Tel collection where the only real through line is an abundance of sunny California harmonies. Twee pop, country balladry, glam rock, even some Rolling Stones swagger weave their way through these two- and three-minute miracles, where each member brings their own songs to the table—and drummer Dana Snell nearly steals the whole show with her opening track, the lovely “Appalachian Mountain Station.” (April 25)

Download: “Appalachian Mountain Station,” “Bandana Cat,” “Goldeneye”

James Blake – Overgrown (Polydor)

This young Brit wowed plenty with his 2011 debut, with its blend of innovative electronics, live performance and Blake’s androgynous croon, as well as a dreamy Feist cover.  And yet anyone who heard Blake’s earlier instrumental EPs may well have wondered why he appeared to have dropped the ball for his coming-out party, with a collection of tracks that were neither great songs nor particularly cutting edge: clearly this man had more potential than just a great voice.

Blake more than makes up for that on Overgrown, which is both as sonically stunning and seductive as what is ostensibly a pop album could possibly be. He’s obvious invested more time into the songwriting process instead of coasting on his studio wizardry, and yet he’s not about to embrace clichés. What would have happened had Joni Mitchell fled California in the early ’70s and moved to Berlin to work with Brian Eno? They would have spawned James Blake. (April 18)

Download: “Overgrown,” “Retrograde,” “Digital Lion”

The Burning Hell - People (weewerk)

“Inside everyone one of us is a comedian, a cult leader and an amateur rapper.” So says Mathias Kom, singer and songwriter at the core of The Burning Hell. He should know: he’s all three. His band is an open invitational depending on what city he’s living in at the moment (Peterborough, Whitehorse, now St. John’s); he’s a verbose wordsmith who claims he writes songs while listening to the Wu-Tang Clan; and he’s wry, witty, and occasionally hilarious.

Kom writes songs that ask questions no one else dares to ask—never mind set to music. Why aren’t cults ever any fun? Why, as teenagers, were we prematurely nostalgic for the age we actually were at the time? Why not set the legend of Loki to a seven-minute rock epic? When Lionel Richie wrote “Hello,” was it you he was looking for and not the blind girl in the video?

As Kom has shifted from ukulele-wielding folk singer to stream-of-consciousness rock bandleader, he’s less concerned with writing songs than he is using the music as a vehicle for observational ramblings. It can be a recipe for disaster—his last album, overburdened with pop culture references, was proof of this—but here he’s a raconteur par excellence, holding court while his band keeps the party going behind him. (April 25)

Download: “Grown-ups,” “Amateur Rappers,” “Industrialists”

Dusted – Total Dust (Hand Drawn Dracula)

Pick a Piper – s/t (Mint)

Canadians seem to excel at albums tailor-made for long-haul late-night drives: spooky enough to suit the occasion, but with enough volume and pulse to keep the driver awake. And why wouldn’t we? We, especially our touring musicians, spend an inordinate amount of time in the wee hours travelling from town to faraway town. Brian Borcherdt, a rock’n’roll lifer who’s spent almost 20 years on the road, is no different, hence the sound of his new project, Dusted, made during a rare time when he was standing still.

While his all-live electronic band Holy Fuck was touring the world in the last eight years and hailed as one of the best live acts in Canada, Borcherdt was busy releasing quiet solo albums under his own name. When his bandmates took some time off to raise babies, Borcherdt threw himself into Dusted, a collaboration with producer/drummer Leon Taheny (Owen Pallett, Bruce Peninsula, Austra).

Taheny brings out the best in Borcherdt’s songwriting; while his solo work was often lovely but aimless, Taheny tightens everything up with minimal percussion and dropping in ukulele, violin and minimal keyboards when necessary. Borcherdt, who’s also in fine vocal form, plays chugging rhythm guitar with a steady hand and both feet on effects pedals, looping it and running it through various decaying levels of distortion. The result sounds unlike Borcherdt’s good pal Chad Van Gaalen (especially in a live setting), but the album successfully creates its own world, one where the late-night radio is your guiding light.

A similar vibe prevails for K-W’s Pick a Piper, though further astray from the indie rock singer/songwriter genre Dusted is working in. Waterloo drummer Brad Weber has been performing with psychedelic electronica group Caribou for the last decade, and that band’s sound inevitably bleeds through on Weber’s first full-length as Pick a Piper. Comparisons are inevitable not only because of the direct connection, but because very few, if any, other acts working today successfully merge those elements, other than Atoms for Peace, the new band from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke (who is a big Caribou fan). Like Caribou’s Dan Snaith, Weber employs lovely melodies and Beach Boys harmonies, sets them to club beats on both acoustic and electronic drums, and layers in various percussive and jazz elements—and then lets you sit back and zone out. Vocalists from Braids, Ruby Suns and Enon also show up to provide additional scenery along the way, though they easily fade into the blurry background of a fascinating journey. (April 4)

Download Pick a Piper: “Cinders and Dust,” “Once Were Leaves,” “South to Polynesia”

Download Dusted: “All Comes Down,” “(Into the) Atmosphere,” “Pale Light”

Iron and Wine – Ghost on Ghost (Nonesuch)

Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam introduced himself to us many years ago as a solo, fingerpicking singer/songwriter. As his popularity grew, his arrangements swelled and he slowly shifted into swampy, New Orleans psychedelic funk that owed a few debts to Dr. John’s more outré output. Here, however, it sounds like he took a more marked left turn: by getting happy.

Ghost on Ghost is notable for sounding much sunnier than any other Iron and Wine album; the preponderance of major keys helps. For an album with “ghost” in its title, Beam has shifted from spookier sonics into opiated bliss, California soft rock that could be a funkier Fleetwood Mac. Longtime producer Brian Deck continues to provide plenty of tasty tricks underneath the steady calm of Beam’s voice; just because the music is pleasant doesn’t mean it can’t be multi-layered and sophisticated. The other key difference is the increased role of a horn section, providing not just soul shots but even embarking on bebop jazz breakdowns on tracks like “Lover’s Revolution”—didn’t see that coming.

It’s easy to underestimate Iron and Wine, but Sam Beam has just given us yet another reason why we never should. (April 18)

Download: “Joy,” “Low Light Buddy of Mine,” “Winter Prayers”

Kacey Musgraves - Same Trailer, Different Park (Universal)

This 24-year-old Texas artist is notable most for what she is not: she’s far removed from the gloss of new country—no crunching guitars or synths here—yet conventional enough to target the same market; a year older than Taylor Swift, she writes poignant, homespun and youthful observations without sounding like a 15-year-old Twilight fan. Musgraves has a sweet enough voice, though unremarkable; the appeal is her songwriting. Her first single features the opening line, “If you ain’t got two kids by 21, you’re probably going to die alone / at least that’s what tradition told you.” That, and her love of minor chords, makes you wonder how she ever wound up a contestant on Nashville Star (where she placed seventh). This, her fourth album but major-label debut, sounds like the love child of Lucinda Williams and Fred Eaglesmith, with trace elements of teen angst found in a line like, “It’s a fine line between telling a joke and twisting the knife.” The album has already topped the U.S. country charts and sold half a million copies in three weeks, and it sounds like this well is just going to get deeper. (April 11)

Download: “Merry Go ’Round,” “My House,” “Dandelion”

New Country Rehab - Ghost of Your Charms (Kelp) 

The name of this band suggests that they’re tried and true traditionalists bucking against the slick new country scene. Well, they do replace gloss with grit, but the muscular, modern arrangements here aren’t all that far off from stadium-size country music—or Bruce Springsteen circa The Rising. This ain’t no Hank Williams revival act (see: Daniel Romano). Frontman John Showman is not only a convincing belter, but he’s a fine fiddler player, and its those textures that set this band apart from every other roots rock act in Canada. Producer Chris Stringer (Timber Timbre, Snowblink) captures the live energy effectively: this is a record that demands to be played loud. Too bad the performances and the production outshine the songwriting, something that matters a whole lot less on stage, which is obviously this band’s forte. (April 25)

Download: “Rollin’,” “Lizzy Dying of a Broken Heart,” “Midnight Cargo”

The Ford Pier Vengeance Trio – Huzzah! (independent)

Ford Pier is one of Canada’s musical MVPs, playing with members of the Rheostatics, NoMeansNo, backing up arty singer/songwriters Veda Hille and Christine Fellows, and serving time in punk legends D.O.A., cowpunk pioneers Jr. Gone Wild and reggae band Roots Roundup. What does Pier get up to on his own terms? Tightly controlled jazz-punk chaos in a power-trio setting that celebrates “the gift of life” one minute while decrying destruction and banality the next. Pier doesn’t do anything simply: every track here twists and turns inside out and yet never spirals out of control, thanks in part to a phenomenal rhythm section that seem to understand every synapse in Pier’s brain. It’s all overwhelming on first listen; sometimes you wish Pier didn’t feel the need to change chords every two beats. But Pier’s invention and magnetism—and brevity—carry the day. Huzzah, indeed. (April 11)

Download: “When We Were Poor,” “The Gift of Life,” “Newton and the Counterfeiters”

Cam Penner – To Build a Fire (Rawlco Radio)

Cam Penner is the kind of guy who wanders up to your folk-festival campfire and casually starts playing a few songs that sound like howling winds set to blues stomps that suddenly shut up all the drunks, until everyone is spellbound wondering exactly who this travelling stranger is. That’s just how he rolls: Penner is a wandering troubadour who has lived and worked all over the continent (“sometimes I wonder if I’m running or being chased”), performing songs with choruses like “may the good Lord take you in self-defence.” He opens this, his fifth album, with a brass instrumental; the Everlast-esque single “Memphis” drops a drum machine into the rhythm. But for the most part, Penner stays true to his cabin-in-the-woods aesthetic, drawing you in with tales of travel and dollops of inspiration for tough times. (April 25)

Download: “Whiskey Lips,” “No Consequence,” “Memphis”

The Sapphires – Various Artists (Sony)

It’s been over 20 years since The Commitments, one of the finest and funniest movies about rock’n’roll ever made, in which a band of ragged Irish misfits attempt to make American soul music. And unlike 1990, classic R&B is back in style in full force, so the idea of a new film soundtrack stacked with actors singing faithful versions of Motown and Stax classics won’t seem an overworked concept for anyone too young to remember either The Commitments or The Blues Brothers. Plus, this time the artists doing the reappropriation of African-American culture are Australian Aborigines.

But do we need yet another version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” or “Land of 1,000 Dances”? (Supplementary question: does CCR’s “Run Through the Jungle” need to appear on yet another soundtrack of a Vietnam film?) The cinematic twist this time is the ’60s story of Australian Aborgine women, who had only recently been granted political and legal rights, who were recruited to form an R&B band to entertain American troops in Vietnam. The story sells the movie, but all you really need to hear is actress Jessica Mauboy open her mouth: she is every bit the equal of Diana Ross, Carla Thomas, Gladys Knight and Mavis Staples, and she even pulls off Merle Haggard’s “Today I Started Loving You Again” and Arthur Lyman’s “Yellow Bird.” On the one modern-sounding track here, “Gotcha,” she enters Beyoncé territory, signalling that she’s poised for much more than a fluke film role. (April 11)

Download: “Gotcha,” “What a Man,” “I’ll Take You There”

Telekinesis – Dormarion (Merge)

People continue to whine about lacklustre new Weezer albums, while young Michael Benjamin Lerner, a.k.a. Telekinesis, is now on his third flawless record of anthemic power pop. What gives? Lerner is a master of melancholic lyrics set to sunny melodies, crushing guitars, fuzzy bass and new wave keyboards, to say nothing of his own buoyant drumming. He gets production help this time out from Spoon drummer Jim Eno, like Lerner himself a multi-tasking percussionist. Eno not only brings out Lerner’s pre-existing strengths, he also drops a drum machine on him and plays up an ’80s influence on several tracks. And majestic closing track “You Take It Slowly” is the song you keep hoping the reunite Pixies would get around to writing. (April 4)

Download: “Power Lines,” “Laissez-Faire,” “Ever True”

Rokia Traoré – Beautiful Africa (Nonesuch)

This Malian musician has collaborated with novelist Toni Morrison, Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, and toured with Blur’s Damon Albarn. She’s the daughter of a diplomat who was posted to the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. She studied sociology in Brussels. This, her fifth album, is produced by PJ Harvey sideman John Parish. And yet after Beautiful Africa, it’s unlikely she’ll need such name-dropping to be remembered.

She’s a stunning guitar player, steeped in Malian blues (and one of the few female instrumentalists from that scene), but it’s her voice that’s entirely captivating: though she’s capable of projecting, she’s at her most powerful when she applies her strength at a lower volume, with an ever-so-slight tremolo that’s nothing short of chilling, especially on the epic nine-minute ballad N’Teri. Parish gives her a stripped-down backing: a minimalist funky drummer, an n’goni player and a bassist, all used sparingly.

Traoré recently relocated with her son to Paris from Bamako, which is threatened by Islamist insurgents who, among other atrocities, want to ban music in one of the most musically rich regions of the world. Her lyrics are in French, so I can’t assess their political content (if any), but her voice alone is resilience and beauty embodied. (April 25)

Download: “Sikey,” “Melancolie,” “Tuit Tuit”

Joshua Van Tassel - Dream Date (Backward Music)

“Dream date” doesn’t refer here to a fantasy romance; it’s about an appointment with an imaginative, abstract, haunting and playful environment. Van Tassel is an in-demand drummer and multi-instrumentalist for many Toronto singer/songwriters; left to his own devices, he constructs carefully constructed melodic and cinematic instrumentals of all varieties: propulsive, subdued, acoustic instruments manipulated electronically or left to shine on their own strengths. He believes in brevity—only one song here is longer than five minutes—and every sonic layer is entirely deliberate; there’s very little clutter. He does invite two vocalists into the fold—an uncharacteristically gut-wrenching Justin Rutledge, and a soaring Kate Rogers—for two of the album’s strongest songs, but those are by no means the most melodic. Van Tassel has charted an eclectic sonic journey where Calexico, Patrick Watson and the Rheostatics are fellow travellers. (April 11)

Download: “The Sharpest Corner,” “Sentimental Health,” “I Think You’re a Salesman”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Mosquito (Universal)

In the first three songs of the first new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album in four years, we hear: a raw post-punk song that culminates with a full-on gospel choir: a brooding, haunting lullaby that samples a New York City subway car as a rhythm track; an unhinged, nonsensical shriekfest that hearkens back to the very first tracks that put this once-incendiary trio on the map. After the smash success of their electro-disco makeover on 2009’s It’s Blitz!, it sounds like the band has no idea what it should be anymore and doesn’t care. Neither should we, if they sound this good flailing in all directions.

No doubt it helps that singer Karen O has returned to New York from California to join her bandmates; Mosquito is much more informal and loose than this band has been since their debut full-length. Invite long-dormant Kool Keith alias Dr. Octagon to rap on “Buried Alive”? Why not. A Cramps-style sci-fi goof-off about alien conspiracy theories? Of course. And then there are the garage rock rave-ups, the ballads, the disco songs and everything in between. O has lost none of her potency as an ever-elastic vocalist—the bonus tracks include three acoustic demos where she’s pitch-perfect and gorgeous, as well as a howling, snarling live version of the title track—and her bandmates rarely resort to rock clichés.

If their former comrades in the Strokes—another band who defined New York City and rock and roll’s comeback in the early 2000s—are getting successively sleepier with each release, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs return fully invigorated. (April 18)

Download: “Subway,” “Mosquito,” “Despair”