4Play

Feb. 24, 2008

Beck - Odelay: Deluxe Edition - Geffen
Beck’s early endeavor with the Dust Brothers on production remains one of his best albums ever, with crazy-hook grooves, his signature clever vocals, and influences ranging from punk to bossa nova. So even though at first glance it might seem like overkill, it actually makes sense for the Beckster to re-release it as a deluxe edition, especially when you see just what “deluxe,” in this case, means. Not only do you get the Beck-magic of the original set - including “Jackass” and “Where It’s At” - you’ll also get an entire roster of B-sides and rare tracks that could be a full Beck album on their own. “Clock,” “Erase the Sun,” and “Lemonade” are several standouts - but perhaps the most wryly witty is “Burro,” a version of “Jackass” sung in Spanish with a mariachi band.


British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music? - Rough Trade
An album of extremes, British Sea Power’s latest can’t seem to decide if it wants to rock or if it wants to shoegaze. But that’s okay - whichever approach they decide to take (and whichever song they’re taking on), they do both equally well. On the lower-fi side, songs like “The Great Skua,” with its instrumental arrangement, showcase the band’s quieter, more delicate side. And when it’s time to crank up the amps, they know how to make the transition, especially on songs like “Atom,” with its slowly accelerating tempo and choppy guitars. Other highlights include “Waving Flags” and the brief intro track, “All In It,” which reappears at album’s end as the cool eight-minute-long “We Close Our Eyes,” at which point you might decide that you do like BSP’s rock music, indeed.


Eels - Useless Trinkets - Geffen
Subtitled “B Sides, Soundtracks, Rarities, and Unreleased 1996-2007” (whew), this collection brings together plenty of those so-called trinkets, most of them just as good as any Eels album cuts to date. Eels’ quirky companionship with the Shrek movies is highlighted here through three different versions of their Shrek soundtrack contribution, “My Beloved Monster,” as are Eels tracks from other films like Holes and The End of Violence.Their early hit, “Novocaine for the Soul,” is here, too, festooned with vocoder, music box, spoken word, and Moog; you’ll also get plenty of random tunes, like the simple but pretty “Taking a Bath in Rust” and the sorrowful “Living Life” - plus a DVD featuring six cool performances from Eels’ live set at Lollapalooza 2006.



The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia - Sub Pop
Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli and Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan teamed up back in 2003 for a new musical project, but it’s not until now that an actual album has surfaced. The debut disc from the Twins, it’s probably not what you’d expect, given these musicians’ respective band bandgrounds. Sure, there’s a little of what may archaically be termed alternative rock in these songs, but it’s more a modern take on roots-pop music, with a much darker twist. “Idle Hands” is almost arena-rock with its huge guitars; “Seven Stories Underground” carries more of that rootsy influence; and “Circle the Fringes” begins with warped, electronic-tweaked strings and slowly adds in bass and an echoey, tentative vocal line. This may not be a happy album, but it’s an interesting one.