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Girl Talk: "Feed the Animals" (Illegal Art)

Rating: 8

If you heard Girl Talk's 2006 masterpiece "Night Ripper," well, "Feed the Animals" is more of the same. That sounds dismissive, but it's not. "Night Ripper" is one of the most consistently entertaining and downright revolutionary records I've ever heard, certainly every bit as essential as Coldcut's "70 Minutes of Madness" or any of Richie Hawtin's microhouse DE9 mixes. Saying "more of the same" is pretty remarkable considering how good "Night Ripper" was in the first place. Gillis could have been forgiven for backing off and making something more like a "proper" album for his follow up _ you know, like with actual songs and original production and stuff. I'm sure that's in the cards somewhere down the line, but not now. If I were a Jungian, I'd almost be tempted to say that pop songs are like buoys floating through our collective unconscious. The "classic rock" moments that pop up throughout "Feed the Animals" provide an interesting counterpoint to the likes of Lil Wayne's "Lollipop." We know tracks like "Purple Haze" and "The Weight" like we know the back of our hands, and they carry an appropriate heft for their cultural familiarity. Juxtaposing them against undeniably ephemeral tracks like Britney Spears' "Gimme More" forces the listener to examine the tracks as nothing more than the sum of their songwriting DNA, separate from any reputation or pedigree, concise units of musical information created with the sole Darwinian purpose of imparting their hooks onto another generation. There's no such thing as songwriters anymore, it's all about sound-as-sound, divorced from context and pureed into something wilder than could ever previously have been imagined. Tim O'Neil

Sigur Ros: "Meo Suo i Eyrum Vio Spilum Endalaust" (XL)

Rating: 7

There's an overarching theme that permeates Sigur Ros' fifth full-length, "Meo suo i eyrum vio spilum endalaust" (English translation: "With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly"): change. For the first time in their career, Sigur Ros ventured outside of their homeland of Iceland to record, booking studio time in London, New York and Havana, of all places. While the band's previous LPs were all either self-produced or guided by the hand of Ken Thomas, "Meo Suo" finds Sigur Ros working with celebrated British producer Flood, a man who isn't exactly known for his light touch (see Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral"). Finally, there's the album's artwork, which features gloriously washed-out shots of nudists at play by photographer Ryan McGinley. Just one glance at the LP's sun-drenched cover should be enough to signal that this isn't the band of self-serious recluses that we've come to know and love. Lending credence to this idea is the aptly named "Gobbledigook," the album's first single. Gone are the ethereal atmospherics and delicate melodies for which the band is known. All errant strums, distant howls and tribal polyrhythms, "Gobbledigook" finds Sigur Ros diagramming an emotion rarely touched upon in their catalog: rapturous joy. Despite what "Gobbledigook" led many of us to believe, this is not an album of experimental psych-folk. On first listen, this can be a little disappointing, as no other song on the LP approaches the opening track's giddy high. However, on repeated listens it becomes quite clear that it is still a departure for Sigur Ros, if not a radical one. The album finds the band moving outside of their compositional comfort zone on many tracks, while largely abandoning the arsenal of effects pedals that they've long hid behind. Mehan Jayasuriya

Alejandro Escovedo: "Real Animal" (Back Porch)

Rating: 9

"Real Animal" is to date both Escovedo's most straightforwardly autobiographical and the strongest synthesis of the singer-songwriter's many disparate musical impulses. If anything, Escovedo's desert twang is the least prominent musical direction featured on this album, subordinated to the volume and direct rhythms of his punk loves, which mark about half the album, and the carefully orchestrated melodies that fill the chamber pop of the other half. Escovedo enlisted Chuck Prophet to co-write the album, and it is produced by Tony Visconti, known for his work with David Bowie, T. Rex, and Thin Lizzy, and the punk and glam sensibilities Escovedo cultivates with his two collaborators are shot through the veins of the album like the "creature in (his) blood" of which Escovedo sings. Throughout "Real Animal," a pattern emerges: Escovedo alternates his gritty punk and rock shouts with longing, string-filled ballads, and the pairs complement and reinforce one another. The harder-edged songs are also the most explicitly autobiographical and filled with precise scene-setting from his past and the names of the acquaintances and friends. The quieter songs are more oblique; their invocations of the feelings of Escovedo's times past induce goosebumps like a visit from one of Dickens' Christmas ghosts. Each song feels like a plot-filled chapter or impressionistic poem coming out of the long narrative of Escovedo's life. Maura Walz

The Fratellis: "Here We Stand" (Universal/Interscope)

Rating: 4

The Fratellis are a harmless indie-rock band writing intermittently memorable, radio-friendly tunes that, like so much music of its ilk, seems much more tolerable with a heady dose of alcohol in your veins _ and seems much less so under a blanket of sobriety and surrounded by a gaggle of sweaty young men drunkenly moonlighting as Liam Gallaghers. "Here We Stand" only serves to confirm this. But while the album sticks to roughly the same formula "Costello Music" used _ recognizable if unremarkable riffs, passable stopgap verses, singalong choruses _ it has dispensed with some of that record's more objectionable faculties. Gone, for the most part, are the gang-chants and the wordless vocal refrains, and that sense of laddishness, though still evident on occasion, has thankfully diminished. Unfortunately for the Fratellis, it was those qualities that made them a hit in the first place. Indeed, in stripping their music of some of its polarizing qualities, they've left it bereft of anything of any real note. True, it's a more mature album, but that's mature in the negative sense, leaning closer to creaky knee'd AOR than rowdy indie rock. Where the Fratellis' debut sounded like an uncultured, blunter Arctic Monkeys, the sophomore release sounds like the Sheffield foursome in 30 years time if they were to go down the same tireless route as the seemingly immortal Who, knocking out albums every once in a while to a general consensus of "Ooh, aren't they energetic for their age?"  Chris Baynes

Adele: "19" (XL/Columbia)

Rating: 8

This is music that clear blows the roof off any other blue-eyed R&B album that has come out of Great Britain since Macca got down with Stevie Wonder. Boasting a trio of producers that includes Mark Ronson, Eg White and Jim Abbiss, "19" boasts several distinct sounds by which Adele is given to do her thing, all of which are utilized quite harmoniously to fit her powerhouse vocal delivery. A stirring combination of her diverse influences ranging from the Cure's Robert Smith to Philly soul queen Jill Scott to legendary rhythm 'n' folk chanteuse Karen Dalton. Ronson delivers his proto-soul power to but one track here, the album's second single, "Cold Shoulder," which rivals anything on Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" and makes one hope he harbors more of a creative presence on her next album. However, Abbiss, known for his board work on albums by the likes of such new school UK rockers as Kasabian, Editors, and Adele's fave, those pesky Arctic Monkeys, offers up beautifully spare arrangements, using nothing more than bass, acoustic guitars and piano, that really bring out Adele's voice to peak performance, particularly on "19's" one-two punch pair of opening tracks, "Daydreamer" and "Best for Last." One can possibly hear the crackle of old vinyl copies of Carole King's "Tapestry" and Roberta Flack's "First Take" being played in the background if you listen hard enough through a good sound system. Adele Adkins is certainly the real deal, standing before what could potentially be a monster career with worldwide crossover, one that could prove that her staying power is far more plausible than those of her tabloid-driven contemporaries. So long as she doesn't start hanging out with Pete Doherty or finds true love and then starts to get all sappy, that is.  Ron Hart