It's a big week for new indie-rock albums. For cash-strapped consumers, the revelatory PJ Harvey record is the new release that'll yield the most returns, but listeners able to drop a fifty at the record store can treat themselves to a great spree in the run-up to the new Radiohead album by also picking up the following:
Conor Oberst returns, possibly for the last time, to Bright Eyes on The People's Key, the catchy, keyboard-heavy successor to 2005's Digital Ash in a Digital Urn that nobody expected after the songwriter's rootsy solo records. Despite lofty themes of spirituality, this is a minor record, only occasionally revisiting the chorus-of-friends epics of Bright Eyes' prime works. Mostly, though, the album doesn't suffer for its small scale. There's a nice immediacy to Oberst's dashed-off songwriting, and it's great to hear him drop the twang and turn a hook again.
Even catchier is the new Telekinesis record, 12 Desperate Straight Lines, an exercise in instant gratification from Michael Benjamin Lerner, a young Seattle songwriter who probably bites his finger nails way too much when he isn't directing that nervous energy into his fast and sugary guitar-pop tunes. The album expands on the Death Cab For Cutie for Beginners aesthetic of Telekinesis's debut, touching on shimmering Cure homages ("Please Ask for Help") and bubblegum grunge ("50 Ways.") It all works wonderfully.
I always feel conflicted by underground-rock revival records like Yuck's self-titled debut, which studiously recreates the aesthetic of early records by Dinosaur Jr., The Posies and the like without updating those styles in any meaningful way. On one hand, there's no innovation here, but on the other, Yuck does beautiful things with these recycled sounds.
Also out this week:
* The Dears' Degeneration Street
* Twilight Singers' Dynamite Steps
* Mogwai's Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
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* The Cowboy Junkies' Demons
* Drive-By Truckers' Go-Go Boots
* And Asobi Seksu's Fluorescence
