CD Reviews

Beirut | The Rip Tide

Pompeii (2011)

By DAN WEISS | August 23, 2011

2.5 Stars

Check out Zach Condon in the New York Times last month: "I'm sick of seeing 30-year-old men in New York look like toddlers, wearing sweatpants and flip-flops." That's a mixed blessing; on one hand, it's great to see a young, indie-identified songsmith shooting down the gross abundance of neon hipster ugliness in Brooklyn that's usually protected by the banner of irony. But on the other hand, he kind of sounds like an asshole, doesn't he? Railing against sweatpants is a far more egregious brand of bourgeois alienation than anything Vampire Weekend did to deserve their bizarre level of class controversy. And Condon's eternally highbrow music doesn't help — Rufus Wainwright rocks out by comparison. So good for him that Beirut's most tolerable album since the 2006 pairing of Gulag Orkestar and Lon Gisland (both featuring their best song, "Scenic World") keeps it tasteful. By that, I'm referring to the 33-minute running time, not his sad-bastard croon or overshot lyrics — but even those qualities are charming on the stately "East Harlem," and his brass section's grand return on "The Peacock." He'll never be as good as he once was until he hooks up with funereal Balkan scales again, but imitation Magnetic Fields on "Santa Fe" is better than nothing, right?

Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008
Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.
Various Artists | Where the Action Is: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965 - 1968
More than three years in the making, the most recent installment of Rhino's legendary archival garage-rock series offers an amazingly comprehensive excavation of an absurdly fertile scene.
Various Artists | Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966–1970
Girl-group records are great and everything, yet the countless compilations out there were becoming a little hit-or-miss until 2005, when the great Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found box set finally gave this diverse genre a proper taxonomy.
Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010
The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.
Bearstronaut | Broken Handclaps
There's a distinct absence of wildlife or astronauts on Lowell electronica quartet Bearstronaut's latest release.
Avi Buffalo | Avi Buffalo
Look, I get it: the last thing we need right now is yet another band who can be described as “sun-baked,” “reverb-soaked,” or even just “psychedelic.” But Avi Buffalo (I know! An animal name to boot!) are worth your attention for a few reasons.
Review: Brandon Flowers | Flamingo
Brandon Flowers has gone on record saying he brought the songs on Flamingo to his fellow bandmates for the next Killers album and was given the brush-off.
Review: Kevin Dunn | No Great Lost: Songs 1979–1985
Casa Nueva Industries (2010)
Review: Crocodiles | Sleep Forever
With remarkable swiftness, Crocodiles tick off all the key characteristics of a band in the thriving lo-fi indie/punk/garage scene.
Review: Teengirl Fantasy | 7AM
If the demise of traditional record making is designed to foster any band’s fruitful existence, it’s that of Teengirl Fantasy.
Review: Screaming Females | Castle Talk
Screaming Females are one of those rare examples of a band who fester so long in the dark — in this case, the teeming basements of New Brunswick, New Jersey — that they sour into something great by the time anyone’s heard of them.
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Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Beirut, Beirut, More

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