Passion Pit: Manners

It’s like you froze the Beach Boys in 1965 and thawed them in 2009. They discovered synthesizers and digital effects, Interpol and Grizzly Bear. Then you turned them loose in a well-equipped studio. From there they unleashed their falsetto harmonies on the world in the form of a catchy indie electro-pop album. This metaphor for Passion Pit’s Manners falls apart in any number of ways, of course. The Beach Boys are alive and presumably well, and Passion Pit sound nothing like them. And so forth. The point is, Passion Pit’s experimental flair and knack for melody make Manners a delight.

Rating: * * * * *

Moby: Wait for Me

Moby begins each song with some mild rhythm and circular sequence of synthesizers. Then he repeats the thing until we, the listening audience, have been hypnotized. He throws timid singers into echo chambers and captures 3 to 5 lines from them. “Study War” uses the old trick of sampling a spoken word piece to create an effect. After 4 minutes of the quote, I’m ready to disregard the song’s message of peace. Ultimately Moby provides 16 tracks of cool sounds that could have been condensed into 6 interesting songs. That kills the LP, but those would be 6 awesome songs.

Rating: * * *

Beck: Guero

After several style changes, Beck strikes back with his unique type of genre bending. Country, alternative, techno, and any number of other influences show up, say hi, and disappear on Guero. In that way, it is vintage Beck. However, this time he has tamed some of his quirkiness and abandoned altogether the lyrical jabberwockies that marked his early stuff. “Girl,” the third song, caught my attention. What is this? I thought. A straight song? A second listen proved me wrong, but only to a degree. Like several songs on Guero, “Girl” maintains Beck’s recognizable branding but moderates his eccentric weirdness.

Rating: * * * *

Paper Route: Absence

Paper Route carries the synthesizer torch. Listening to Absence, I thought, “This is what New Order was trying to do.” A few decades ago, Paper Route would have been buried in Erasures, Depeche Modes, Pet Shop Boys, and Duran Durans. The synth pop forest has since been denuded; even some of the pioneers have switched genres. Now Paper Route is the best thing on the scene. Why are they the torchbearers? Because they get it right. The sound is right and the songs are right. Their style is complex, yet restrained, precise, yet impassioned. They’re ushering the new new wave.

Rating: * * * * *

Bush: Deconstructed

The idea is a good one: Let’s take some cool songs and do wild remixes and alternate versions. To the producers’ credit, no song remained in its original form. Some songs, or long stretches of them, were nearly unidentifiable. No one likes a remix album where things are modified only by imperceptible degrees (I’m looking at you, Beatles: Love). Bush goes whole hog, interjecting their signature grunge with wild techno flair. Does it work? Not so much. Coming at the tail of the grunge wagon anyway, Bush released Deconstructed either as an artistic stretch or a money grab or both.

Rating: * *

Chris Cornell: Scream

Maybe Scream contains an interesting moment or two, but giving it anything better than the worst possible rating seems an insult to all those artists who at least tried before failing monumentally. The lyrics were unintentionally silly, the dance tunes undanceable, and the rock songs dull and repetitive. Audioslave and Soundgarden make a good case for Mr. Cornell *not* going solo. But here he is. Maybe I should just admire that he took a chance by straying from his usual genres. If only he wasn’t impinging on the New Kids’ territory with “tough guy” pop rock and a dance beat.

Rating: *

Black Eyed Peas: The E.N.D.

The Black Eyed Peas don’t shy from sound effects or overwrought electronic beats on The E.N.D., which will probably make this album sound dated sooner than later. But the songs have swagger and soul. Fergie and will.i.am trade singing duties and to good effect. “Ring-a-Ling” reminded me of Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling” (for some reason) but with even more poorly obfuscated double entendre. “Rock That Body” was just as stupid and on the same subject. The songs with a social conscience are positive and avoid being obnoxious. They are the real gems worth cherry picking. The others are more forgettable.

Rating: * *

Black Moth Super Rainbow: Eating Us

Suddenly I feel like dancing with these really soothing robots. It can only mean one thing: I’m listening to Black Moth Super Rainbow. On Eating Us, nothing of the natural world remains. Instead, the noises sound like electronic imitations of streams, birdsong, and the susurration of leaves. The singing is the surreal, feminine voice of the wind, digitized and blowing in bits. The band members all employ mysterious monikers (Tobacco, d.kyler, The Seven Fields of Aphelion, Father Hummingbird, etc.), perhaps to suggest, “Yes, this is weird, experimental stuff,” or perhaps to distance themselves as humans from the music they produce.

Rating: * * * *

Depeche Mode: Sounds of the Universe

Depeche Mode was a prolific force in the 80s as a big synthesizer band. In the 90s it drifted toward guitars and rock. Sounds of the Universe definitely looks back at the synths, but this is no poppy new wave. It’s gritty and rough, straining David Gahan’s vocals and making use of the fuzzy button on the amp. The songs retain the band’s trademarked gothic gloom, but nothing that encouraged me to don a cloak. The long absence from the studio indicated that Depeche Mode was either broke or finally had something worth recording. Turns out it was the latter.

Rating: * * * * *