Issue #67 Album Reviews

Reviews of the latest from Of Montreal, Salem and Superchunk. Also the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim Versus The World!

Of Montreal
False Priest
Polyvinyl
Outrageously camp Of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes has a habit of stripping mid-set, slathering shaving foam over his naked body and jumping into an eagerly awaiting audience. Listening to the latest oversexed offering from the Georgia art freaks can have the same effect on you. Once I managed to pick my pants up from the floor and sat down to listen to the record again I got that feeling you get when you realize that something you really want to be good, well it just isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, there are some gems hidden in the band’s follow-up to 2008’s Skeletal Lamping and Barnes’ lyrics are as witty and brazen as ever (“Hooked up with one of your cousins / Just to feel somehow closer to you”), but do yourself a favour, save the cash you would spend downloading this album, haul your ass to your local record store and buy (most likely on special offer) Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust which is a full fat version to what is in retrospect a diluted tribute from Of Montreal. And then you suddenly realize that you only took your clothes off because everyone else did…
-Sinead Keane

Salem
King Night
Iamsound
By the time I had finished listening to the opening track of Chicago trio Salem’s debut full-length, King Night, I had been swept through an array of urges from getting lost, to dropping acid, to throwing a party, to banging, to having a heart-to-heart with my best friend. Salem has somehow figured out how to capture my favourite aspects of Animal Collective, Explosions in the Sky, Timbaland, MGMT, and DJ sets all at the same time while maintaining an ability to be darker, weirder, and more interesting. While the bass is often ready to uproot trees and the high-hat falls in broad circles inside your head, Salem keeps melody hanging around with the subtlety of your older sister’s mysteriously cool boyfriend. It takes skill and tact to be this intense and interesting while also preserving playfulness within your album, and Salem does just that. All this combined with an origin story that includes prostitution, crack, art-school, and a Dutch gay magazine called BUTT, Salem is definitely one of my top bands to watch in the near future with King Night one of the top albums of the year.
-Jeremy McAnulty

Superchunk
Majesty Shredding
Merge
God, can we all finally stop listening to chillwave and witch house and celt-a-billy or whatever now? I mean, Teenage Fanclub just released a new album, Scott Pilgrim Versus the World is basically one big Nineties indie rock song up on the silver screen, and Guided By Voices are playing shows with their early Nineties lineup, so it’s about time we get back to some major chord, heartfelt, guitar driven songs about girls in the midwest. America is only going to get out of their economic and social crevasse by sticking to what they’re good at: baseball, movies and stuff on Merge Records. Superchunk just made an album that compares to any release since their self-titled debut back in 1990, and all the Weezer-looking guys out there had better be pumping up at the gym getting ready to help out with the genocide of people who think the party is better than the music.
-Trevor Risk

Various Artists
Scott Pilgrim Versus The World OST
Abkco
I have always hated having soundtracks in my music collection. The “Various Artists” thing wreaks havoc in a perfectly organized OCD iTunes like mine. There are a few exceptions that I deal with however: High Fidelity, Rushmore, Death Proof and one or two others that are too embarrassing to print. The reason I put my debilitating condition into check for these soundtracks is because they remind me of the brilliant parts of their respective movies. What the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack does so perfectly is remind me of everything I loved in the comic book. The author of the comic book, Bryan Lee O’Malley, always included suggested listening for his books. These songs, however, are (mostly) not his suggestions. They are artists’ interpretations of what the garage bands from the comic books sound like. And if there is one thing I love, it is grimy Canadian garage rock mixed with some indie rock standards. Plumtree’s “Scott Pilgrim” obviously had to be included, but one of the more inspired choices is Frank Black’s “I Heard Ramona Sing.” It is a criminally overlooked song that I’m glad will finally get some widespread airtime. This soundtrack will be added to the list that makes my iTunes OCD boil over. It is absolutely worth it.
-Ian Urbanski