Best Brief Reviews of New Cool Rock

This is the silly sandwich they sold me by school today. It doesn't have anything to do with rock music reviews, but it was good looking, and I'd definitely eat one again.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Show Your Bones"
First of all, I've got to give mad props to the Yeah Yeah Yeah's label, Interscope, because this record was impossible to find online before it was released today. This talk that file sharing will destroy the record label is too much, because it seems to me that if you hire someone that knows all about stealing music online to look for your records for you, you can cut off the source. Also, it doesn't hurt if you flood the P2Ps with fake copies of your files. So good work, Interscope Internet Division.

This record is really good, but it won't get you going like "Fever to Tell". "Show Your Bones" was produced by DJ Squeak E. Clean who made that song "Hello Tomorrow" with Karen O last year for the dream sequence Adidas commercial by Spike Jonze (by the way, how great is YouTube?) and this whole record pretty much sounds like that commercial--or songs that could be that commercial. And remember when you saw that commercial and thought, "Wait, whoah, that's Karen O singing? This sounds . . . different." Well, that's how you'll feel listening to "Show Your Bones." There's a few really great songs on it, especially "Turn Into", the album's closing track, which is worthy of keeping on repeat for a day and a half. This song is glorious, if "Maps" was High School, "Turn Into" is College. Also definitely dope: lead single "Gold Lion," stomper "Phenomena," and sunrise-sounding "Cheated Hearts." Also, "Mysteries" is fun, it sounds like when you've finished doing a good job at something and everyone is glad about it. Now I think "Dudley" is great, too. Okay, this record is growing on me bad and I like it all. (if you couldn't tell, I've been editing this paragraph as I relisten to "Show Your Bones.")

Morrissey, "Ringleader of the Tormentors"
Sonically, quite similar to "You are the Quarry."
What are the lyrics like? Oh, you know, the usual Steven Patrick. Consider this bit from "To Me You Are a Work of Art":

I see the world
It makes me puke
But then I look at you and know
That somewhere there’s a someone who can soothe me

To me you are a work of art
And I would give you my heart
That’s if I had one, had one

It's not like you don't know what you're getting yourself into when you pick up a Morrissey record. And if you don't know what you're getting yourself into when you pick up a Morrissey record, pick up a different one than this.

Liars, "Drums Not Dead"
Three years ago the Liars were a nearly-unlistenable dancepunk trio that I suspected didn't really expect anyone to dance to their music. They ditched that sound for whatever their second album was supposed to be, and this latest record, supposedly a concept album about the relationship between two characters, Mt. Heart Attack and Drum, ditches the second record's sound for a rhythmcentric dose of late 90's Einsturzende Neubauten lite. What does that mean? It meanst that if you like groany voices and plastic being pounded, this might be the record for you.

Ghostface Killah, "Fishscale"
Yeah, I've got it. But I'm not going to review it. It's not like I totally copy Pitchfork on everything. This I'll tell you: Of course it's good, Pitchfork gave it a 9!