CD reviews

Future of the Left

Travels with Myself and Another
(4AD)
*9.5*

Goes well with: The Jesus Lizard, Wire, Shellac, Killing Joke

Future of the Left aren’t concerned with looking or acting cool. Fuck cool. These three Welshmen accost the carefully cultivated image of lesser bands in a dark alley and debase it with scathing insults before spitting in its face. Let’s put it this way: They’re fully devoted to mental and musical superiority, and the more they’re ignored, the angrier and more formidable they become.

But there’s more to Travels with Myself and Another than unadulterated rage. Vocalist-guitarist Andy Falkous has reinforced his caustic wit throughout the decade, first with the underappreciated Mclusky, which unceremoniously dissolved in early 2005. Here, he refines both his sense of melody and his sense of purpose, and every topic is approached with enough conviction to get Joe Strummer’s thumbs-up from beyond the grave. And when the volume diminishes ever so slightly, FOTL is revealed to be an honest-to-God pop band, with layered harmonies (“Throwing Bricks at Trains”) and sharp choruses (“That Damned Fly”) at every corner.

More hyperbolic praise deserves to be thrown at this band, but for brevity’s sake: Travels is a dozen vicious tunes in just under 34 minutes, with not an inch of fat to be found. There won’t be a more vital rock album released this year.

John Vanderslice

Romanian Names
(Dead Oceans)
*7.7*

Goes well with: The Mountain Goats, Sufjan Stevens, lo-fi fetishes

John Vanderslice is an extremely capable indie-pop songwriter. You could tell from the get-go, when Vanderslice released his debut, Mass Suicide Occult Figurines, in 2000. He’s also a gee-whiz kid in his studio, San Francisco’s Tiny Telephone, where he’s worked lo-fi-production magic since 1997. For his seventh full-length, Romanian Names, Vanderslice holed up in his basement for some home-recording sessions, where longtime collaborator Scott Solter also lent his production skills.

Opener “Tremble and Tear” is a bouncy keeper with a killer melodic hook, billowy layers of self-harmonized falsetto vocals and a tight snare beat that stops the whole thing from floating away. Lo-fi always sounds high-quality with Vanderslice, not overly polished, but never tinny, either. “Carina Constellation” is particularly lush, all sunny harmonies and kicky piano, belying the song’s darker, hinted narrative about an unpunished crime. Other tracks feel more grounded, like “Forest Knolls,” which begins with a pow-wow drumbeat and laments man’s lost connection to nature and food—conveyed through subtle storytelling, of course.

Lyrics are Vanderslice’s strength, and he seems to have emerged, soul and smile intact, from the period following 9/11, when his songs crackled with anxiety and dread. The overall feeling of Romanian Names is much lighter, even if it’s one of his most solid efforts to date.

Ye Olde Maids

God Blesses Us, Mother Dresses Us
(Art Fag Recordings)
*8.4*

Goes well with: Brian Eno, Cold Cave, wine-soaked late-night record parties

When Wes Eisold made the transition from hardcore outfits American Nightmare / Give Up the Ghost and Some Girls to the minimal, dance-driven Cold Cave, some of his fans found themselves scratching their heads. Where was the youthful anger? Similar to local favorites Crocodiles, growing up meant learning that one didn’t need to scream in anguish at the hostile world. Why not dance the confusion away instead?

Like the best one-man bedroom recordings, Ye Olde Maids’ God Blesses Us, Mother Dresses Us (available on vinyl only from www.artfag.us) feels like being let in on a secret. This is the sound of wandering into a back room at a party and some shy, quiet guy hands over a pair of headphones to check out the stuff he’s just “been fooling around with.” It’s equal parts fun and melancholy, with the ghost of Brian Eno hanging over the whole thing. Eisold’s other forays into more outward expression give way to something more internal here, with rhythms and patterns emerging without much interference, inviting and warm without losing track of the low-lit room from which they’re birthed. Standouts like “Cocoa Cherubs,” “Dreamscaper” and “Advice to a Future Giallo Killer” welcome the walls, and we enjoy inhabiting the space.