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We Love Life, Pulp (Island)

Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker knows how to do one thing really, really well: be Jarvis Cocker. This is the public agitator who made world news (and secured a hell of a lot of press for his band) by attempting to physically attack Michael Jackson during a British awards ceremony and then made some of us jealous by courting actress Chloe Sevigny. But for all the tabloid fodder he provides, Cocker is no less a singular figure when tending to his day job as the glue that holds the good ship Pulp together, something he’s shown a fair amount of dedication to over the past 23 years. Absurdly young, in 1978, when he launched Pulp into the years of obscurity that preceded their gradual late-’80s ascent up the Brit-pop ladder, by the early ’90s, Cocker and his ever-changing lineup of bandmates were superstars in the U.K., though they never really matched the popularity of Oasis or Blur in the U.S. The 1991 single “Babies” was the first in a string of mild-to-massive hits Pulp had on the other side of the Atlantic throughout the decade, and Jarvis’ status as a sex symbol and television staple rubbed conversely against the darker material the band began to explore. Pulp’s last album, 1999’s This Is Hardcore, was a culmination of several years of negativity and working-class satire communicated through just about every pop genre this side of well, hardcore.

We Love Life was three years in the making and actually lives up to its title. Its celebratory airiness and orchestration mix well with such stalwart Pulp qualities as unapologetic Bryan Ferry worship and too-clever-for-its-own-good art pop. Much of it will be juicy fodder for those hungry for a smart-ass take on the Tindersticks or Nick Cave, as the words “grand” and “epic” apply, but Cocker’s take on this grandeur is more tongue-in-cheek. And the music’s hero-pandering transcends mere sonic influences once you take a gander at who produced We Love Life: recently unearthed cult figure Scott Walker. The ’60s luminary does a surprisingly fine job not making this Pulp record sound like a Scott Walker record but more like an attractively sophisticated Berlin-era Bowie/Eno collaboration (see the album’s centerpiece, “Trees”). There’s also a song titled “Bob Lind” after a forgotten L.A. folkie of the ’60s. After a quarter century on the pop margins, Cocker shows that he just might carry on his agenda for another decade without looking silly or contrived. Kudos to that. — Andrew Earles

Grade: B+

Daybreaker, Beth Orton (Heavenly/Astralwerks)

Beth Orton’s third album, Daybreaker, is neither as trippy as her debut, Trailer Park, nor as straightforwardly folky as her follow-up, Central Reservation. Instead, with its bizarre Barry Manilow-ish title (are the Brits even aware of Manilow’s existence?), Daybreaker is a hybrid of her two previous records, its acoustic guitars nicely balanced against synthetic beats and sound effects.

While she may not be the best songwriter to emerge from the post-Lilith landscape, Orton does have the good sense to emphasize lyrics and melody over sound. The music on Daybreaker is arranged to complement the songs — not just the lyrics but also her interpretation of them — rather than have the songs act as vehicles for the electro-folky sonics.

Fortunately, the songs on Daybreaker are among the most confessional and accomplished of Orton’s career. Most fit well into the framework she has already established but are unbound by any obligation to a verse-chorus-verse formula. Tracks like “Paris Train” and the gloomy “Mount Washington” seem to float more freely and spontaneously, which seems appropriate to her ethereal voice.

Some of the album’s more structured tracks, however, are also its most experimental — at least for Orton. The first single, “Concrete Sky,” marries a rainy-day chorus to a jangly guitar-piano sound. It’s one of the most memorable moments of her career. And “God Song,” with backup vocals by Emmylou Harris, has the simplicity and emotional force of classic country music, ending with a sha-la-la coda that could close a Down From the Mountain Tour concert.

The upside to this song-over-sound approach is that Orton always seems sincere. The downside is that the production is so precisely premeditated that it squeezes the life out of everything but Orton’s voice. As a result, Daybreaker is simultaneously idiosyncratic and anonymous, a highly personal record that occasionally sounds highly impersonal. — Stephen Deusner

Grade: B+

Humpty Dumpty LSD, Butthole Surfers (Latino Buggerveil/Revolver)

Michael Azerrad’s chapter on the Butthole Surfers in his book Our Band Could Be Your Life is one of the saddest, scariest, funniest, and best pieces of nonfiction writing I’ve ever read. Composed largely of interviews with band members Paul Leary and King Coffey, this anecdotal history of the Band That Dare Not Speak Its Name charts their rise from staggering, dumpster-diving poverty to relatively uncompromised major-label success. The level and extent of antisocial behavior, sonic terrorism, and truly perverse onstage antics Azerrad records for posterity inspires fear and awe.

But does the music measure up? Not this time. Humpty Dumpty LSD, a massive 17-song, 70-minute smorgasbord of alternate takes and outtakes from the band’s 20-year career, only hints at the Surfers’ commitment to hypnotic tribal guitarmageddon. Maybe a third of the tracks have vocals, and half of those have lyrics, so the emphasis is on the type of distorted drone that might begin to play over and over in the heads of disgruntled industrial workers everywhere. But aside from the semitraditional kicks of “All Day” and the Roky Erickson cover “Earthquake,” Humpty Dumpty LSD sounds like a fans-only deal. And if you ever meet a genuine hardcore Butthole Surfers fan, run for it. — Addison Engelking

Grade: B-

Charango, Morcheeba (London/Sire)

Morcheeba releases a new album and the world stifles a yawn.

After their 2000 flop, the gaudy, disco-lite Fragments Of Freedom, the English trip-hop trio returns with Charango, named after a style of Brazilian music the band discovered during a South American tour. The album doesn’t sound much like Fragments, but it doesn’t exactly sound Brazilian either. Instead, it picks up where Big Calm left off, indulging in the same mid-tempo grooves and singer Skye Edwards’ liquid coo.

There are some bright spots on Charango, though. In perhaps the year’s most unexpected collaboration, Kurt Wagner, frontman for Nashville indie orchestra Lambchop, appears on “What New York Couples Fight About,” which he co-wrote with Edwards. That song is the album’s highlight and a must-have for diehard Lambchop fans (all two of you), but Wagner’s other contribution, “Undress Me Now,” doesn’t quite achieve the ’70s seductiveness he intended.

The album’s other two collaborators don’t fare nearly as well: Pace Won of Tha Outsidaz lends his unimaginative skills to the title track and “Get Along,” and Slick Rick’s “Women Lose Weight,” which tries to be over-the-top ironic, is so insulting, the rapper should be deported.

And yet the band does have its own collaboration-free moments: “Way Beyond” has an effortlessly breezy hook that’ll blow through your mind all afternoon, and “The Great London Traffic Warden Massacre,” an experimental instrumental that closes the album, sounds like a long-lost blaxploitation theme.

Next time around, Morcheeba should indulge this experimental jones and choose their collaborators more carefully. That’ll wipe those yawns off our faces. — SD

Grade: B-

Invoke

Arto Lindsay

(Righteous Babe)

If you consider the pleasures to be found among the numberless

strains, variations, and sub-genres of

“American music,” it’s hard to look at the

term “world music” without a raised

eyebrow. For a genre that allegedly covers

every other kind of music outside of the United

States (but usually ignores a country’s successful local sub-genres, like

Scandinavian death metal or Japanese hip hop), a

reasonable definition of world music for sale in this country sounds both

irritatingly vague and rigidly stereotypical. To

many minds, world music consists of swarthy folk or folk playing cultural

dress-up, crafting music with weird drums and vocals that aim to be more pretty than

forceful. Not only is this definition narrow and ethnocentric and a perfect example of

the way Americans look at the rest of the world, it leaves little room for folk

like Arto Lindsay, a Brazilian-born New York No Wave alumnus who has been

crafting pretty-to-breathtaking Southern-hemisphere pop for nearly 10 years.

If they sound like anything, the 12 songs on

Invoke are reminiscent of the late-afternoon groove on Lindsay’s

much-praised 1997 album Mundo

Civilizado. Lindsay’s main gifts are subtle and

mature, and his greatest one may be the way in which he covers up his most

overwrought lyrics with a voice that sounds like a

gentle, melodic combination of sighing and daydreaming. He may write

something like “All those hidden

variables/Make my life terrible/Dexterity itself

yields/All those numbers,” but when he sings

the words in either English or Portuguese, the supple waves of percussion and guitar

wash all the pretensions away.

So is he “world music” too? Naw.

He’s more like a nerdy, bespectacled solo traveler trying to carve out a tiny niche in

a crowded Third World cathedral so he can marvel at the wonder of the angels in

the architecture. For not much effort at all, you can share some of this peculiarly

private beauty that is, if you can figure out where it’s kept at your record store.

Addison Engelking

Grade: B+

Heathen Chemistry

Oasis

(Epic)

In 1995, Oasis was the reason so many Americans started listening to

British bands like the Verve and Blur. The band grafted Liam Gallagher’s punk sneer

onto Beatles-esque pop songs to create arena-ready rock that didn’t skimp on melody.

In 2002, Oasis is the reason so many Brits are listening to American bands

like the White Stripes and the Strokes. By beating us over the head

with Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, the brothers Gallagher Liam

and Noel have descended to the depths of self-parody. Copies of

their albums should come with ironic detachment free with purchase.

Oasis’ joyless sixth album, Heathen

Chemistry, sounds identical to its three previous

albums. The only discernible difference here is that

Liam, perhaps on a dare, has decided to sing

everything through his nose, which makes his tracks

sound like late John Lennon er, later John Lennon.

But he fares better than his brother Noel, once the brains (I use this

term loosely) of the outfit. His bland vocals sound like a cross between Andy

Partridge of XTC and Billy Bragg but with a

strange inflection that would sound right at home on Top 40 Country radio.

And then there are the songs, which might be the brothers’ weakest batch

yet and that’s saying a lot. Lyrics range from the asinine to the stupid. The

first line of “Little By Little,” which

might be about 9/11 or about, um, relationships, goes “We the people fight for

our existence.” And from “She Is

Love,” which isn’t about 9/11 but rather

about the personification of love in a woman with great hooters: “And she is love,

and her ways are high and steep.”

Perhaps we have been indulging these two boobs their Beatles fixation for

far too long. Perhaps it’s time, my fellow countrymen and -women, to take

up arms against our common enemy. We can start by throwing boxes of

Heathen Chemistry into Boston Harbor. Who’s with me?

Stephen Deusner

Grade: D

In the Morning

Joe Louis Walker

(Telarc)

Joe Louis Walker knows how to work a song. He’s been playing

guitar since he was 14, honed his talent under Mike Bloomfield’s

tutelage, fronted some of the best blues bands on the San Francisco

scene, got involved with gospel along the way, and has more than 10

albums to his credit. But nothing can prepare you for the opening riffs

of “You’re Just About To Lose Your Clown,” the first track off

In the Morning, Walker’s latest, where

he sets an instant groove with chunky guitar riffs, then soars

Carlos Santana-style backed by a sultry Latin beat. Walker stretches

the number for more than five minutes, taking so many

musical twists and turns that your head will spin

long before the final fade.

Walker ably switches gears for the gospel-tinged title track then gets

the party moving again on “Joe’s Jump,” a real foot-stompin’ and

hip-shakin’ blues tune. Fresh and inventive, his licks cut through the shuffling

beat like a well-aimed whiplash. Walker shines the brightest, however, on

a frenzied take on the Rolling Stones’ “2120 South Michigan Avenue.”

He exchanges gritty guitar riffs with an unnamed organist, while his

formidable rhythm section (G.E. Smith on rhythm guitar, T-Bone Wolk on

bass, and drummer Steve Holley) hold down the backbeat. Their

six-minute jam, which veers from hard-driving rock to dirty, funky R&B, is

utterly transcendent. Andria Lisle

Grade: B+

St. Arkansas

Pere Ubu

(SpinART)

One of the great contributions that

rock-and-roll has made to world culture has been the way its

practitioners have demolished a homogenous definition of “vocal talent.”

From Tom Waits’ shots-of-gravel-with-Pennzoil-chasers croak to Liz

Phair’s cool, thin girltalk monotone, rock artists have changed the

qualifications for melodic vocal communication to prize above all the ability to sing

or say what you need to say however you need to sing or say it.

Therefore, it could be argued that esteemed postpunk futurists Pere

Ubu will be remembered more for lead singer David Thomas’ genial,

quivering friendliness than for their initial late-’70s outbursts of synthesized

industrial racket. Though he’s mellowed, Thomas’ voice is still as

alien as his band’s music, but it also continues to humanize their sound.

Embrace his yips and quirks, and you’ll discover one of the most

intriguing frontmen around.

St. Arkansas is easier listening

than touchstones like Dub Housing or The Modern

Dance, but the music remains thunderous and disjunctive,

mixing up Mission Of Burma squeal and whine with Gang Of Four

rhythms and stray sound effects telephones, radio tunings, maybe even

photocopiers. Through it all, Thomas exults in the joys of wearing a suit,

watching the river, and hearing himself sing or say what he needs to say however

he needs to sing or say it. AE

Grade: B+

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips

(Warner Bros.)

“Do you realize that happiness will make you cry?” Wayne Coyne asks on “Do You Realize??,” the first single from the Flaming Lips’ new album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. It’s a typical Lips line, simple on the surface but complex, literally mixing happiness and sadness, hope and despair into one idea. This approach gave the band’s previous album, the commercial and critical breakthrough The Soft Bulletin, its warmth and quirky soul, and despite its cartoonish, anime-inspired subject matter, Yoshimi is marked by these same qualities.

The title character of this concept album is “a black belt in karate working for the city.” She has been picked to save the world from the Pink Robots, which can replicate human emotions to an alarming degree. During the first half of the album, she trains for the confrontation (“Fight Test” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1”) while the robots roll off the assembly line (“One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21”), building up to the big showdown (“Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 2”).

The second half of Yoshimi examines the fight’s aftermath, as the hero is plagued by doubts over the validity and usefulness of human emotions. Emotions are messy and painful (“Do you realize that everyone you know will someday die?”), but, ultimately, they’re what make us human. The album ends with the somberly triumphant instrumental “Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia).”

If all this sounds silly, it is: The childish subject matter underscores the enormity of the message. If it sounds like it might be commenting on politics or cloning or bad Steven Spielberg movies like A.I., it’s not: Coyne’s approach is resoundingly personal, never political. He is fascinated with the spectrum of human emotions, even the extremes: “What is love and what is hate and why does it matter?” he asks on “In the Morning Of the Magicians.” His scope is too broad and entirely too idiosyncratic for the merely topical.

In rock, such grave whimsy demands sonic support to match. Fortunately, the music on Yoshimi is exuberant, inventive, and — despite its studio origins — organic. The album continues the Lips’ steady progression away from the guitar-based psychedelic rock of early albums like Now Hear This and Transmissions From the Satellite Heart to a freer, looser, more evocative sound. A few songs forgo Steve Drozd’s signature fuzzed-out drums for computerized beats and keyboard squiggles appropriate to the subject matter. But the music is always anchored in live instrumentation, from Michael Ivins’ free-floating bass line on “In the Morning Of the Magicians” to the simple, gently strummed acoustic guitar on “Do You Realize??”

Otherworldly yet earthy, spacey yet folksy, Yoshimi invokes intimate emotions with far-out imagery. It’s this sensibility that gives the album its unique spark, making these songs devastating as well as uplifting. — Stephen Deusner

Grade: A

Arkansas Heat

The Gossip

(Kill Rock Stars)

A punk-rock three-piece who relocated from small-town Arkansas to the more congenial Olympia, Washington, the Gossip aren’t prolific, following last year’s rousing half-hour debut That’s Not What I Heard with this six-song, 19-minute return. But that modest discography may still be enough to mark them as the most singular-sounding band to emerge from Olympia’s rich rock scene since Sleater-Kinney.

Like the punk they were born from and the Delta blues they evoke, so much of the Gossip’s appeal derives from the music’s D.I.Y. freedom — the sense that anyone could do this. But like so much of the great punk and Delta blues they, during their finest moments, earn comparisons with, what sets them apart from most of their colleagues is the reality that not everyone can do it this well. Lead singer Beth Ditto’s righteous blues-mama howl isn’t the kind of sound you’d expect to hear fronting an indie-rock or punk band: It isn’t an Everygirl voice; it’s a gift. And her band’s musical appropriation of the blues tradition is natural and unadorned in a manner that countless hipper punk bands have never been able to touch.

The Gossip only hit that kind of peak once here, but the lead/title song is some kind of great anthem: “Arkansas Heat” opens with a big, lumbering guitar riff soon doubled by the bass, the same kind of intro trick –one that says, Something big is about to happen — as “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Then Ditto makes her appearance, recounting the band’s rather mundane origin as if it were some kind of Steinbeckian journey with “Two hours south of Memphis, y’all/From a little town in Arkansas/Where the people haven’t changed at all since 1965” before making her move with “Well, you sell off everything you own/Just to make it all on your own/I ain’t a child, I ain’t full-grown/But I’ll prove to you.” The rest is all sass and relief, from the insouciant “Got my whole town sweatin’ me” to the delighted “Tell the preacher just in case he asks/That we ain’t never never comin’ back” to a hopeful closing-credits salute to all their hometown girls “in Memphis now.”

After that, the rest of the record consists of roughly recorded rave-ups, the sound of a band finding a distinct sound and playing around with it — scruffed-up, juke-ready riffs, drum kits bashed as if by Animal from The Muppets, and Ditto’s lost-in-time deep-soul vocals delivering the message, culminating in the 10-minute tent meeting “(Take Back) The Revolution.” — Chris Herrington

Grade: A-

Stab the Unstoppable Hero

Arlo

(Sub Pop)

Will power pop be the next rock bandwagon after we get the ’80s out of our system? Probably not. Power pop is notoriously maligned, and it’s more stubbornly resistant to change than any other rock subgenre, evolving little since Big Star, Badfinger, and the Raspberries elaborated on the teachings of the Byrds, the Beatles, and the Nazz. It also tends to be geek fodder on a par with prog rock or Monty Python (the Frank Zappa of humor). And this is what makes the genre a little puzzling. After all, the well-written hook is the world’s most underrated aphrodisiac, right? The perfect pop song has a strange and disturbing power over human impulsiveness, causing all kinds of wonderful things to align and catch fire.

Unfortunately, for power-pop band Arlo, the perfect pop song seems unobtainable. They try, and they try hard. They know where their roots lie — late-’70s L.A. power pop — but haven’t managed to locate the perfect hook. This flaw is compounded by big-and-loud alternative-rock radio production, an attempt to make the band the next Foo Fighters or Weezer if only they can catch the ears of the right million people. The dichotomy of the reedy vocals and poor man’s Cheap Trick choruses sharing space with these unrealistic cover-of-Spin aspirations makes for an unfocused effort: This is one would-be power-pop gem that won’t have you whistling as you walk down the street. — Andrew Earles

Grade: C+