Records | Vinyl | Movies | TV | Books

Ex Lion Tamer
Go Ghost (Tinstar Creative Pool)

It seems a safe bet that if Ex Lion Tamer were in the business of fashion rather than music, they'd be stitching up slightly uncomfortable outfits designed to challenge their owner. These avant-garde ensembles would restrict the body, be cut from scratchy fabric and would look best with a heavy pair of boots, resulting in silhouettes that would marry the classic and the unexpected.

As musicians, this Israeli trio excel at coaxing melody and form from beneath a tangle of dissonance. Supple bass lines wind their way to the surface amid the steady hum of guitar squall, Assaf Tager's weary growl going head-to-head with Zoe Polanski's megaphoned punk cheers (or wan sing-speak, depending on the song). While Go Ghost is focused at its metronomic core on drone and contrast, this formula is varied enough to give each track its own appeal. The Smashing Pumpkins-esque "Shaky" wouldn't be out of place on a modern rock playlist, while "Charlie Head" matches Polanski's distorted shouts with stuttering riffs and a feeling of vicious gloom. The most gripping number is "My Little Lioness," whose ethereal vocal balances atop a murky shoegaze foundation. Sludgy and smart, Ex Lion Tamer are at home in the right now of winter, but theirs is a sound suitable for any season.

- Amanda Langston

Ex Lion Tamer
Tinstar Creative Pool

Lily Allen
Alright, Still (Capitol)

For the last six months or so, the rise of Lily Allen has generated so much online buzz and critical praise that it sometimes feels as though she's already come and gone (file under Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, et al). However, it's not for nothing that Allen's been the toast of blogs everywhere. As her first full-length finally makes its U.S. debut, it seems certain that we'll be hearing much more about her in the months to come.

Allen is a mere 21 years old, and injects her music with the rhythms of her London home, incorporating (through samples and otherwise) calypso, reggae and dub elements into a pop confection that, if not exactly as highbrow as a magnum of champagne, certainly satisfies like a lusty beer-fueled belch. A cheeky bird on par with the likes of Lady Sovereign or Elastica's Justine Frischmann, Allen specializes in the well-crafted kiss-off, each aimed at a litany of disappointing blokes. She cheerfully mocks a cheating ex's misery (the lilting "Smile"), informs another suitor that he's "rubbish in bed" ("Not Big"), and ponders how best to tell a creep to fuck off ("Knock 'em Out"). Loaded with punchy couplets ("Oh my gosh you must be jokin' me / If you think that you'll be pokin' me") and plentiful hooks, the album's sunny sass never lets up.

The U.S. version of Alright includes two tracks not included on the original release. "Nan, You're a Window Shopper," previously the U.K. B-side of album highlight "LDN," is a rude, playful portrait of her grandma, while "Smiler (Version Revisited)" turns her biggest single into a busy two-step number. While release dates have become less relevant thanks to the online presence of pretty much everything, the official Stateside availability of the record should increase her visibility and grant her a wider American audience. As for the flavor-of-the-month syndrome her brief fame seems to be courting, not to worry. Allen's a natural - her humor and charm makes it feel like we've been singing her songs forever.

- Amanda Langston

Lily Allen
Capitol Records

Sloan
Never Hear the End of It (Yep Roc)

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Sloan are the greatest charmers in rock. Over the course of fourteen years and eight records, these eternally youthfully Nova Scotians have feverishly stripped the mines of their influences, leaving no riff unturned. Early on their career, it was easy to say they sounded like Todd Rundgren or The Beatles. Their last two albums have given us closer likenesses to Kiss or AC/DC. The schizophrenic hodgepodge of Never Hear the End of It feels less tied to an era or genre, and more like a window into Sloan's song selection process.

Rather than edit themselves, on Never Sloan has thrown every idea against the wall to see what would stick. Short songs (the shortest is :50) weave in and out of longer ones (the longest is 5:28) with few breaks, creating what feels like one very long song. At 30 tracks and almost 77 minutes, the title of the album feels literal around song 26. This is a record tailor-made for the iPod age: hard to digest in one sitting, but very satisfying in doses.

When you have four distinct and talented songwriters, sometimes you have to fight to be heard. Never before in the band's career has this been so evident. Sloan feels less like a band here, and more like four guys talking over one another. On an album with 30 songs, one really has to stand out to be remembered. While many are catchy and enjoyable on their own, they get lost in the shuffle. Musically, this album is all over the place, never allowing the listener to get too comfortable. Some cool tunes are gone before you really get the chance to know them. You find yourself hanging onto witty turns of phrase or good ideas more than great songs.

Sloan have been much more successful in their native Canada than here in the U.S., and several of the songs sung by bassist Chris Murphy seem concerned with his legacy and waning popularity. One of them, "Fading Into Obscurity," is the true classic of this album, a wry yet sincere look at being less popular now than he once was. "I made a name for myself when one could do such a thing / A reputation that's held together by a string / So I chose to cherish those who think there's some purity / To fading into obscurity." Later on we get "Set In Motion," a song about the tribulations of a movie being made of his life based on a "novel that shouldn't have been written." Murphy gets to play himself in the film, but "I already told them once, I don't do nudity or my own stunts." In "People Think They Know Me," he lets us in on the paranoid worldview that people think they know him but they don't ("They know a bit about some things. They know shit about some things."). "Will I Belong?" finds him thinking aloud, "I wondered what I did to offend. It wasn't one thing; it was more of a blend."

The rest of the album is certainly not all doom and gloom. The loveable "Someone I Can Be True With" shows Murphy longing to find "someone to watch Gremlins 2 with, someone to not watch The View with." Guitarist Patrick Pentland shines with "Love Is All Around," which feels like his melancholy answer to Edwyn Collins' "A Girl Like You," and "Ill Placed Trust," a rocker which sounds a lot like "Backstabbin'" from their 2004 effort Action Pact. The weakest tracks are the punky, garage rock curveballs, drummer Andrew Scott's "I Can't Sleep," and Pentland's "HFXNSHC" (which stands for "Halifax, Nova Scotia Hardcore"), mainly because these sorts of styles just aren't in the band's wheelhouse.

Never Hear the End of It feels like Sloan's White Album. The songs range from odd to amazing, but the album lacks a cohesive identity. The record is a natural extension of the suites featured on the band's unheralded masterpiece, 1999's Between the Bridges, though here they seem to have pushed themselves to the creative breaking point. I admire the band's ambition to fight against complacency, and this is the most interesting record released thus far in this short year. My only real complaint is that the album would've served the listener better if, like Wilco's Being There, it had been split into two CDs. That way, you could eat smaller portions at one time, and avoid the "too full" feeling of the record as it's currently sequenced.

- Jeremy Frye

Sloan
Yep Roc