February's Best and Worst Records

BEST ALBUM OF THE MONTH

TOBIAS JESSO JR.: Goon (True Panther)

Here's a dude who has long hair and probably will steal your girl because he's so freaking good-looking, and you want to hate him and spend your nights dreaming his head would turn into a giant penis (because it kind of already looks like one), but you can't hate him because he makes music that's so fucking good. Goon, his debut record, recalls singer-songwriters from the 70s—Graham Nash, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson—and his sweet falsetto is the kind of voice that makes you feel like you can run to the moon. In 20 years, "Without You" will be a go-to for jukeboxes in dive bars, still the perfect soundtrack for that perfect drunken make-out with that perfect person.
CALIFORNIA DREW

WORST ALBUM OF THE MONTH

OF MONTREAL: Aureate Gloom (Polyvinyl)

Idea for a modern-day Chinese curse: May you only listen to Of Montreal albums made after Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? I know there must have been a time when "Prince undergoes a nervous breakdown" seemed like a glittering treasure trove of possibilities, but listening to Kevin Barnes's 13th album of arch blaxploitation funk, teeth-itching glam whimsy, and songs about beating off his dad, I think it's about time someone had a word with him.
DEAN FUNK

BEST COVER OF THE MONTH

PALMBOMEN II: S/T (Beats in Space)

As concepts go, an album of fucked-up Chicago house tracks named after minor characters from the X-Files didn't have me salivating until I realized that the guy behind Palmbomen II is Kai Hugo, the suave Dutch disco producer who scores video games in his spare time and once put out a sumptuous synth-pop record called Night Flight Europa. Curdled, garish, and strangely enchanting, Palmbomen II (palmbomen means "palm trees" in Dutch) is Hugo's LA art record—he recently relocated there—so let's hope he moves away as soon as possible before he's brainwashed by new age hippies.
THEYDON BOIS

WORST COVER OF THE MONTH

YOUNG GUV: Ripe 4 Luv (Slumberland)

See the little vomiting smiley next to this review, Sum 41 songwriter, former child actor, label owner, guitarist of Fucked Up, and all-around awesome guy Ben Cook? See the streams of puke bursting out of that little guy's mouth? That's all for you! Yes, for you, Mr. Multitalented! Because this record is fucking horrible, from the name of this project to the titles, cover art, and—good God, let's not talk about the music! Young Guv is like college radio shitting on mid-90s power pop and then, without wiping, standing up to piss a little stream of lo-fi surf rock over the whole mess because you just had to go.
A WRITER IN NEW YORK

KID INK
Full Speed
RCA

You should be able to describe a rapper in a single sentence: Rick Ross sells drugs on the moon, Drake makes acting like a pussy seem cool, Jay Z is the American dream personified, etc. As for Kid Ink, well, he's got a lot of tattoos and exists just in case Chris Brown goes full-on Taxi Driver on us and shoots up a brothel.
REGGIE NOGLE

TRINIDAD JAMES

It's a bittersweet achievement that perhaps Trinidad James's most compelling musical effort to date dropped after he lost his major-label record contract. Let's hope the underdog can keep mining this "Kid Cudi of the South" sound and emerge like a gold-toothed phoenix, instead of spending the rest of his life as the butt of every meme rap joke.
CAPTAIN QUEEFHEART

CASINO

Casino is one of those guys who, if it weren't for all his talk of murder, drug slinging, and sexual impropriety, would be great as an extra on Thomas the Tank Engine. As in, he kind of raps like a sputtering freight train that might beat the shit out of you and fuck your bitch at the same time, all while transporting large quantities of processed cocaine across state lines.
ERIC PUNDERMANN

CARTER TUTTI
Carter Tutti Plays Chris & Cosey
CTI

Roughly speaking, from when Throbbing Gristle split up in 1981 to the turn of the century, the "Sonny & Cher of the death set" released electronic, industrial-leaning dance music as Chris & Cosey. Since 2000, they've gone by the name of Carter Tutti. This album, rather confusingly, is essentially a modern studio re-recording of old Chris & Cosey material played by Carter Tutti after being road-tested during their recent live shows. However hard it is to categorize, it's clear that this torrid and extremely satisfying mix of proto-acid, new beat, techno, and bleep and bass is excellent.
THE GREEN CORNETT

FUTURE BROWN
S/T
Warp

I hear you have misgivings about Future Brown. I hear you think they make watered-down urban music for high-end catwalks and Frieze subscribers. I hear you think they knocked down the ghetto and built luxury apartments complete with an art-gallery annex on the rubble. Still, what I hear is a record that's essentially the glowing neon skeleton of Fatima Al Qadiri's Asiatisch with a bit of meat slapped on its bones and guests like Tink, Riko Dan, Kelela, and Sicko Mobb clamoring for the mic. I'm all for it.
WAKA FLOCKA SEAGULLS

THE SOFT MOON
Deeper
Captured Tracks

The modern crop of post-punk and minimal-synth musicians would have you believe their influences are long-lost Belgian coldwave bands that released one cassette demo in 1982 before disappearing forever. Good for Luis Vasquez of the Soft Moon, then, for sounding so unashamedly like the ludicrous but great stadium goths Sisters of Mercy that he's basically a twirled cane off of being Andrew Eldritch in the "Lucretia, My Reflection" video.
FLORENCE RIDA

CHROMATICS

Chromatics are the most average band of all time—if you took every band and made them form a line from best to worst, Chromatics would be in the exact fucking middle. People remember great stuff, and they remember horrible stuff. Meanwhile, history will be neither kind nor unkind to Chromatics, because history will not remember Chromatics at all. Good day, sir.
KEN HAM

MADONNA

There's something weirdly admirable about a gazillion-year-old person saying "fuck it" and doing the same stuff that young people are doing. Madonna making an album with Diplo and Avicii is basically the same thing as your uncle who fought in Desert Storm Snapchatting his girlfriend a picture of his wrinkly, white-haired balls. Most of you is all "AH DUDE WHAT THE FUCK," but there's still that part of you that's like, "You go, crazy uncle! Be modern, even if it makes you look dumb as shit." So go ahead and show those wizened testes to the world, Madge!
KORTNEY KOCKS

APHEX TWIN

Let me check, but I think it's OK now to say that Syro wasn't as jaw-droppingly awesome as the internet unanimously declared back in September. In fact, once you waded through that album, checked out his six-year-old son's tracks, and negotiated the data dump of files he stuck online, the promise of even more new Aphex Twin music coming soon actually kind of filled you with dread. Happily, this batch of computer-controlled drum-and-piano pieces is easier to swallow, though if anyone else released these, you'd wonder why they'd just jizzed out a load of jazz-funk fluff.
LES PANINI

KING KHAN & BBQ SHOW
Bad News Boys
In the Red

It's a valiant return to the dirty-as-fuck garage-dancing days. So flip up your raw-edged denim skirt and prepare to receive sloppy cunnilingus behind the keg of skunk beer, ladies—it's on. King Khan's latest effort is mostly a lot of fun, not unlike pretending you can waltz after shotgunning a third bong rip from that hot mechanic. But there are brief moments too akin to when you can't find your underwear post-party—what the hell is that last, yowling track, Khan? And where the hell is my underwear?
B. GRIMM

MARILYN MANSON
The Pale Emperor
Cooking Vinyl

Brian Warner sits alone in his trailer, gazes at the black olive bobbing around in his glass of absinthe, and lets out a long, deep sigh. Idly, his thoughts turn to the album that he really wanted to make—the one in which he croaked like an emphysemic Iggy Pop through a set of outlaw country songs. But you know what they say—once the God of Fuck, always the God of Fuck. Sadly, he reaches for the lipstick and pulls on the fishnet stockings. Resigned, he smokes a bit of opium through a monkey skull and tries to think of something to rhyme with "Mephistopheles." Somewhere out there, there's a pile of broken glass that hasn't been rolled around in. Somewhere there's a Christian who hasn't seen him push a crucifix up his ass. Time to give the people what they want.
FLORENCE RIDA

MOURN
S/T
Captured Tracks

Melting glaciers. North Korean dirty bombs. Humanity enslaved under the yoke of malign artificial intelligence. Lots of reasons to be afraid about the future, but the debut album by Catalan teenagers Mourn is not one of them. Witness: 11 grrrl-punk songs called things like "Your Brain Is Made of Candy" and "Boys Are Cunts" as played by three hobo P. J. Harveys and a young man who can't believe his luck.
LIL LOUIS

BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH
S/T
Neurot

Some of the musicians who came up through grunge became internationally celebrated rock stars. Some others ended up in body bags. The ones who did neither, however, appear to have spent the last two decades getting heavier, grimmer, gnarlier. Tad Doyle of sometime Nirvana tourmates Tad wasn't exactly a slender chap to begin with: a burly lumberjack-shirted motherfucker who looked like he might have a few bodies in the freezer. But the debut album from his new band, Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, makes Tad look lightweight. Mixed by doom overlord Billy Anderson, "Lava" and "Empires of Dust" slaver sludge over post-punk grooves and bat the result home with troglodyte force.
CHARLES HANSON

ROGER ALAN WADE
Bad News Knockin'
Johnny Knoxville Records

What do you do when there's bad news knockin' at your door? You pull out the 12-gauge, point it at evil's face, and pump, squeeze, pump, squeeze… until that fucker is a pile of giblets and gravy. Then you slurp it up off the floor, digest, pick up the ol' six-string, and write a bleakly stark country album about it. And you hear all of it, every letter of the sad story, in Roger Alan Wade's damaged snarl and lyrics. It's the vocalization of trying to keep inside the lines while running on fumes and rotgut. Also, his cousin Johnny Knoxville, who co-produced this album, told me it was the most intense session RAW had ever completed—eight years sober, just lost his girl, etc. By the way he ends with "Peace of Mind" you can tell he held it together just long enough to (briefly) fall off the wagon after its recording. Authentic as it gets, without quotation marks.
DECK INSPECTAH

SLEATER-KINNEY
No Cities to Love
Sub Pop

I saw Sleater-Kinney at Lollapalooza in 2006, just before they went on indefinite hiatus. That same trip, I bought my first weed-smoking device, peed in Lake Michigan at night, and vomited in public. With the onslaught of Carrie Brownstein and Co.'s regenerated interest in making balls-out, awesome rock music again, it seems reasonable to expect this year might even inspire my first vape. Who knows. If not, at least there's this great reunion record—I'm getting too old for weed anyway.
BECA GRIMM

TURZI
C
Record Makers

I have a lot of respect for composers. Oftentimes they'll be well into middle age before earning enough on commissions to live. They're usually crazy, bizarre, or isolated in some way (maybe I'm romanticizing a little), and it's a likely bet most of their music will never see the light of day, much less be put in the inbox of some skeptical youth-culture-magazine writer. I'm happy to say Turzi made it. He's here in my iTunes being lush as fuck with that lone opera singer warbling over some epic arrangements that have the propulsion of a French Pink Floyd on ketamine wading through discarded electronics on some barren planet.
LIKE MISS IDK

KID ROCK
First Kiss
Warner

Recently, the news came out that Kid Rock killed a mountain lion, to the applause of Ted Nugent. Your enjoyment of the new Kid Rock album is almost completely contingent on whether you think killing a mountain lion is the dopest shit that a human being can do or an offense worthy of capital punishment.
CARL GNARSOM

THE GO! TEAM
The Scene Between
Memphis Industries

At first it's like nothing has changed. All the standard rock-band instruments (mainly sourced from samples) are recorded with the needles in the red through (what sounds like) a fucked Dictaphone, creating a mass of impenetrable and cheap-sounding distortion, while all of the honeyed vocals are recorded in crystal clarity. As such The Scene Between is comparable to The Go! Team's charming debut from a decade ago, Thunder, Lightning, Strike. But the melodic side of the band has been pushed into overdrive—it's not like they were SunnO))) to begin with—and the resultant mess is like battling through your eighth quart of rum-raisin ice cream while listening to Meghan Trainor and watching The Powerpuff Girls six inches away from a giant plasma-screen TV. Only the most dementedly happy and young could endure this torture.
PADDY McGINTY'S GOATWHORE

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE
Hexadic
Drag City

Ben Chasny, the preternaturally talented guitar savant behind Six Organs and Comets on Fire, has devised an entirely original way of writing music called hexadic—which generates all the tonal fields, chord changes, lyrics, and scales—after which his new album has been named. I, for one, really hope it catches on so that next year Taylor Swift, Mac DeMarco, Sting, and Drake all have to release albums that sound like a youthful Butthole Surfers trying to do a live cover version of Miles Davis's Dark Magus at gunpoint during an earthquake.
PC PETE

MATTHEW E. WHITE
Fresh Blood
Domino

The instant you put Fresh Blood on the stereo, your innate knowledge that all "feel-good" music made post-1974 is bogus gets smashed to smithereens by Matthew E. White, because he's like a giant Transformer of love and good vibes called Optimus Right-On Dude! By the time you get to "Rock & Roll Is Cold," it's game over because this album is like being hugged by someone with silk-smooth skin who smells amazing and is wearing a really expensive jumper. You wish he were a bouncy castle the size of Texas so the whole human race could all jump up and down on his giant belly while holding hands! YIPPEEEE! Maybe everything's going to be OK! And then it ends and you feel deeply ashamed and you reach for your copy of Anaal Nathrakh's Total Fucking Necro in a desperate attempt to restore the natural order of things.
JOHN DORAN

GANG OF FOUR
What Happens Next
Metropolis

Funny, I thought when classic bands reformed with only one original member it was a horrible and cynical cash-in move, but because the band in question went to art school, it turns out it's "a testament to the integrity of the concept" (thanks, Michael Azerrad!). Guitarist Andy Gill leads an entirely new lineup of the once brilliant British post-punk band, and of course the results are stupendously terrible. I could point to the floppy political commentary of "First World Citizen" or the tinny digi-metal of "Obey the Ghost of the Colony," but if it's OK with you I'm just going to use the phrase "Alison Mosshart guest vocals" and leave it at that.
RONNIE BARKER

THE POP GROUP

Oh man, is it Esteemed-British-Post-Punk-Band-Craps-All-Over-Their-Pristine-Reputation Month? They better not rush out that New Order album for any reason.
RONNIE CORBETT

NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING BIRDS

Poor Noel. Despite having lyrics that scan like all of the input options for some cruel, Noel Gallagher random-lyric-generator Facebook meme, this album borders on being very good indeed. But there will be literally only two responses to it: Aging Brit-poppers will deem it "OK but no Oasis," and everyone else will think it's shit despite never hearing it. But in the obnoxiously glammy ramalama of "In the Heat of the Moment" and the brilliantly languid Balearic soul and jazz-rock freak-out of "The Right Stuff," Gallagher senior is finally breaking out of the songwriting shackles that have bound him since Morning Glory.
R. KIDD

MOON DUO
Shadow of the Sun
Sacred Bones

Damn, look at that beard. I'd say Ripley's let himself go, but he's been rocking that Fraggle Rock maggot look since he was two. Kind of guy to go to an orgy to eat the fuckin' grapes.
BONES JUSTICE

DAN DEACON
Gliss Riffer
Domino

If I'd traveled back in time to tell a younger you that one of the most accomplished minimalist composers of the 21st century would fit the description "8-bit hobo in hipster girl's spectacles," I bet you wouldn't believe me. And you'd probably be like, "Who are you, and why are you telling me this? Ugh, get away from me, man." But I just have to tell someone about Dan Deacon and Gliss Riffer, an album roughly the sound of Steve Reich and Terry Riley soaring above you on a pixelated Pegasus, booming out bighearted psychedelic hymns and periodically plastering you in perfectly syncopated blasts of magical horse dung.
CHARLES HANSON

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Ah, you see, this is what good psych sounds like. Guitars so acidic it's like an angry volcano god has just jizzed hot lava into your ears. Hyper-phased Hammond organs that sound like the hidden rocket boosters under Notre-Dame Cathedral, firing up for take-off. The kind of heavy use of echo that has probably been responsible for several herds of whales beaching themselves in psychedelic confusion over the years. This is the fourth in an irregular series of mix albums and sees the Amorphous Androgynous duo drawing on rare and ridiculous sounds from Australia, and bar the slightly dad-esque inclusion of Tame Impala, this comp is a total (bong) ripper.
JAY DEE

SIR RICHARD BISHOP

In a world where "indie" bands (Deer Tick) are moving into "advertising-agency-owned content houses" to produce "meaningless bullshit music," it's comforting to know that Sir Richard Bishop will continue pumping out album after album of gorgeous, enveloping guitar music, completely unaware of how much he is destroying any current notion of "keeping it real" and putting all Sour Patch Kids–sucking musicians to shame.
B. J. ARMSTRONG