In only the second week of New Muesday, I already have to change my mission. I only got 3 new records this week, and only one of them is actually new(ish). As you’ll recall, I initially claimed that I would be reviewing the 5 latest albums in my iTunes. I didn’t realize when I made that claim that 5 albums a week is a lot of new albums to get. In the interest of not going broke, the new mission is to write about whatever I’ve picked up since last week, with maybe some others thrown in when I have nothing new to offer. Let me just run this by the blogging rules committee, and I’ll let you kno … yes! The blogging rules committee said yes. (Full disclosure: I am the president of the blogging rules committee.)

For this week, I have lots of paying work to do, so I think I’m going to keep this short and sweet with the 3 records I’ve picked up since last time. Are we ready? Here we go!

1) School of Seven Bells: Alpinisms
Date added: 8/21/2009

Hmm. I have listened to this record 3 times now, and it still hasn’t settled in. I guess I would say it’s a little like Postal Service crossed with Dirty Projectors. Which sounds like it might be good, because Postal Service could use some of Dirty Projectors artiness, and Dirty Projectors could use some of Postal Service’s simple poppiness, right? Probably, although for whatever reason, it doesn’t quite mesh in the way a fan of both of those groups would like it to.

Apparently, the band is made up of one dude from the Secret Machines and a twin sisters from the band On! Air! Library! which I’ve never heard of, but I’m inclined to discount just because of the exclamation points. According to Wikipedia, they met on tour and decided to move in together and start a new band. Which, I mean, what? That happens? I guess it happens to the dude from the Secret Machines.

I can’t really recommend this or not recommend it. So far, it has failed to interest me. It’s long. 12 songs, and all but 2 of them are over 4 minutes long. One is over 11 minutes long. That’s too long. No one needs a song that long. That’s almost an hour of music, total. No one needs an hour of music. Also, the vocals sound like they should be buried in the mix, a la My Bloody Valentine, but they’re front and center. It’s a little irritating. I might turn around on it, but for now, I would have to give it a solid “meh.”

Conclusion: Meh.

1) Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Date added: 8/20/2009

“What? You didn’t already own this album? Are you even … what are you?”

No. I did not own this album before last week. I know, I’m a poser. (I don’t know why I resist spelling it poseur. The French are quite angry with me.) This is the Dead Kennedys’ most famous album, the one with “California Über Alles” and “Holiday in Cambodia.” I never got into the Dead Kennedys because Jello Biafra’s spoken word stuff is really obnoxious. But I am pleasantly surprised by this record. I’m not paying attention to the lyrics, because I’m listening to it in the background (that’s what I do on New Muesday). The lyrics would, I’m sure, add a whole new dimension to the songs. As far as fist-pumping punk rock goes, this sounds right up my alley.

The Dead Kennedys are classified as “hardcore” punk. Every time I hear that description, I brace myself for some super abrasive, unlistenable caterwauling, but then it usually turns out to be good old, catchy punk, just played a little faster. I’m a sucker for a sing-along song. The great thing about punk rock is that, for music that was always sort of stereotyped as being “ugly,” most of the good stuff is just a faster version of classic 50s rock. And often, the ugliness is played for laughs … how can you take yourself seriously when your whole M.O. is to start a band without really learning how to play your instruments? It’s a silly experiment on its face. And with tracks titles like “Kill the Poor,” “Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” and “I Kill Children” … clearly, someone’s taking the piss.

Even without the other songs, this record would be worth buying just for “California Über Alles.” But the whole thing is great from start to finish. It deserves its place in the pantheon of classic punk. Thanks, Jello! You made my day.

Or at least, you did, until my office mate arrived and I had to turn it off. I once walked into his office to find the new Sheryl Crow record sitting on his desk. The new Sheryl Crow! Casual Sheryl Crow listeners did not buy the new Sheryl Crow albums. That one was strickly for the fanatics.

Conclusion: I’m sure you already own it, because you’re cooler than me. But if you don’t, add it to the collection. I mean, the Dead Kennedys, not Sheryl Crow.

3) The Adverts: Cast of Thousands
Date added: 8/20/2009
Recommended by: Mike Segretto

See, this is why I love punk rock. You start with the Dead Kennedys, and you move on to Adverts, and the only thing really uniting them is that they both make you want to jump up and down with joy, even though they’re ostensibly filled with rage. As Segretto said when he recommended it to me, “The first song has a freaking choir!” And yet it still manages to have the immediacy and raw power that makes punk so consistently invigorating and entertaining, in spite of its relative simplicity.

These guys are frigging fantastic. They can do it all … from epic crescendo-pop (“Cast of Thousands”) to rockabilly rave-ups (“Love Songs”) to spaghetti Western Valium surf (yes, that’s totally a kind of music — “I Will Walk You Home”). In “The Adverts,” they even turn their own name into a fantastic meta-joke (“Pretty soon you’ll be thinking like the Adverts/Spouting out the same words/Pretty soon you’ll be living like the Adverts/things could be worse.”)

As with many albums recorded between, oh, 1972 and 1991, the mastering leaves a lot to be desired. The orchestrations are always inventive, but the mastering makes it sound flat and disconnected. For an album this chock full of rock, however, I will deal.

Conclusion: Get. Now.