Animal Collective
Centipede Hz
(Domino Records)
4.5/5
Nickolas Joy, contributing writer
Centipede Hz, like every other Animal Collective album, is completely different from every other Animal Collective album.
The experimental rock band’s ninth album comes three years after their biggest success, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Centipede Hz is filled with the pop elements that won Merriweather such acclaim, but it has darker undertones.
It’s a step away from their usual childlike freakiness and expresses a more solemn, spacey psychedelia. They moved away from being entirely sample-based, back to having a more traditional band dynamic.
The songs are a danceable cluster of explosions strung together by the sounds of radio interference. For those who aren’t already fans, this may not be the best first impression: the album is abrasive, dissonant, and confusing. However, if you can get past the white noise and crashing instrumentation, it’s their poppiest and most understandable album to date.
Coheed and Cambria
The Afterman: Ascension
(Universal Records)
4/5
Dan Darling, contributing writer
Fans of epic stories woven around prog rock can rejoice: Coheed and Cambria are set to release another part of The Amory Wars series with their sixth studio album, entitled The Afterman: Ascension.
Every new album by this band is a chapter in an ongoing rock opera. There’s always a varying degree of style to each of the stories/songs on any Coheed album. Otherworldly intros give way to lead singer Claudio Sanchez’s latest vision of his science-fiction universe.
Songs like “Goodnight Fair Lady” feel almost poppy when put right before the voice-altered, train-on-the-tracks tempo of “Key Entity Extraction II Hollywood the Cracked.” There’s softness in the mix, too, with the quiet lullaby of the album’s final entry, “Subtraction.”
There is a cohesive theme running through this album, and that always interests me. Coheed and Cambria are selling an album in its entirety, and I’m buying it.
Danny Michel
Blackbirds Are Dancing Over Me
(Six Shooter Records)
4/5
Dan Darling, contributing writer
Danny Michel relocated from his home in Ontario to the foot of the Xunantunich Mayan ruins in Belize to record Blackbirds Are Dancing Over Me, his inventive 10th album.
The vibes from the sounds and lyrics carry the listener to a different place. It’s obvious from the very beginning that the music developed from a faraway land. It feels reminiscent of Paul Simon’s Graceland album, with its local vocal flavour and instruments.
Still, Michel’s songwriting is never overburdened by the music. Pleasing tunes like “Just The Way I Am” and “Break It You Buy It” are perfectly accented by the percussion and guitar. “The First Night” tells the tale of the girl who steals Michel’s heart when he first arrives. “Don’t flatter yourself, boy,” he sings, with a contagiously upbeat outlook.
These are simply enjoyable tunes from a veteran Canadian artist.
Dance Movie
Interlopers
(independent)
4/5
Chris Johnson, contributing writer
“Interlopers is for sad sacks and hopeful dreamers, dancers and sleepers, lovers and haters.” So says the press material for Halifax’s Dance Movie. The band’s debut album is also for all the other people who don’t end up where they thought they would.
This indie-pop album is really easy to listen to, with great vocals, and it’s all very melodically interesting. It can be kind of sad and sappy at times, then more upbeat and hopeful at other points.
Apparently, the song “Maps” by New York indie rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs was used as the thesis for the creation of this album, which shows some strange kind of fanaticism from Dance Movie frontwoman Tara Thorne. The song “Maps” is sappy and romantic; Interlopers tries to pull off the same emotions and does a pretty good job of it.
Interlopers is recommended for the dreamer type, as it allows the music to just carry you.
NOFX
Self Entitled
(Fat Wreck Chords)
3.5/5
Jason Schreurs, managing editor
Three songs into the latest album by Los Angeles, CA pop-punk legends NOFX and that familar horse-gallop ennui sets in: yep, another album of two-to-three-minute, tongue-in-ass-cheek, sarcastic punk rock.
In fact, the band’s 12th album (how did that happen?!) is slightly more than a half hour of songs that sound pretty much like everything they’ve ever done.
Not as landmark in the snot-faced department as the band’s classic early ’90s output, like Ribbed and White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean, but these are different times, and the NOFX guys aren’t getting any younger with age.
Still, “Cell Out,” with its frenetic riff and bug-eyed bass lines, could measure up against any of the band’s upper echelon greatest hits.
Lyrically,“Fat” Mike Burkett is as shock-value punk as ever (see “72 Hookers,” promoting a prostitutes-for -world-peace agenda).