After launching the year with Beach House’s personal-best Teen Dream, then following it up with adored niche records from Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore, Dum Dum Girls and The Ruby Suns, Sub Pop Records continues its strong 2010 with a trio of likable spring releases.
The loudest of the bunch, Male Bonding’s Nothing Hurts is the debut record from a British band that sounds nothing like a British band. Their allegiance to ’80s punk and early-’90s lo-fi places Male Bonding near No Age on the Sub Pop roster, but unlike No Age, they counterbalance their noise with a whole lot of heart, singing unabashed bubblegum hooks. Nothing Hurts is a markedly restless album, with all 13 songs clocking in around two minutes, none above three, and even that’s too long for these songs to sit stillthey weave through all sorts of twists and turns, motored by speeding tempos that turn over a couple of times a minute. Singer John Arthur Webb’s voice is mostly buried under the melodic rumble, but when it’s audible, he’s usually singing about the horrors of stagnancy and the urgency to make the most of the limited time he has.
Time is also a primary concern on Avi Buffalo’s self-titled Sub Pop debut. Fresh out of high school and blissfully in love, 19-year-old every-boy Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg wishes it would just stand still so he could forever bask in the afterglow of a consummated summer crush. He's nostalgic for a moment that hasn’t yet ended, and the awareness that there’s an expiration date on his near-perfect relationship weighs heavy on him. “I can’t hate you ’cause you’re free, and you’ll be wealthy when you’re old,” he tells his temporary love, with shades of both affection and resentment. The breezy, Inverted World-esque single “What’s In It For” earned Avi Buffalo instant Shins comparisons, but Zahner-Isenberg is a much more confrontational lyricist than James Mercer. In blunt sexual and emotional terms that belie his youth, he copes with the tragic revelation that teen love isn't built to last.
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Also out this week digitally, in advance of its physical June 15 release, is Total Life Forever, the sophomore album from the much-improved Oxford buzz band Foals. The group’s 2008 debut was weighed down by a generically polished, NME-baiting sound that made it too easy to dismiss the band as a more experimental Bloc Party, but the new record is its own beast, touching on Afro-beat grooves and the moody pop of Head on the Door-era Cure, with staid songs that work themselves into feverish jams. For my money, the title track is one of the year’s catchiest singles:
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