Les Savy Fav Go Forth is the third full-length album from Brooklyn's new-wave bruisers Les Savy Fav. One of the most remarkable acts to ever emerge from America's postpunk melting pot (a gang of sharp-dressed art students and a frenzied, hairy front man who dresses as a pirate), Les Savy Fav bring the art of confrontation back to rock & roll, but barb their brash physical assault with a musical ingenuity and fierce intelligence. While the Rome (Written Upside Down) EP was the first record to properly capture the Les Savy live sound--a lithe, danceable new-wave rush peppered with electronics--Go Forth adds beats and synthesizer to the tight, jarring musical clatter. Front man Tim Harrington's continues to write enlightening and elliptical lyrics, a frantic mix of cryptic intellectual allusions and cut-and-paste wordplay ("I crave to catch an edge / Break bones and cartilage / Send back the architects of Carthage," he hollers on "One to Three"). With so much of the alternative sector lost to irony, decadence, and self-absorption, Go Forth sounds as pure and true as a missionary's teachings. Become a convert. --Louis Pattison

Wire Wire's debut is the smartest record of the '77 punk explosion, a formally seamless suite of 21 songs in 35 minutes, edited to the bone and graced with allusive, thoughtful lyrics, howled by Colin Newman like political slogans. The band's crisp, precise snap gets an awful lot of mileage out of their three-and-a-half chords, and their attack never lets up. The album's minimal structures and snarly guitar sound are still hugely influential ("12XU" has been covered many times, and Elastica's "Connection" is basically a rewrite of "Three Girl Rhumba"), and its sequence is so perfect that the band that opened for Wire on their reunion tour ten years later simply played Pink Flag straight through, including between-song pauses. --Douglas Wolk

Xiu Xiu No description.

Sonic Youth Des poubelles new-yorkaises, réputées pour leurs odeurs sonores diverses et variées (Ramones, Television, John Zorn, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground), ont surgi ces quatre étudiants en art. Le titre du film était clair : Sonic Youth. On est jeune, on fait du bruit ; voire du son. Et de couches de ces sons violés en accords de guitare partouzés, Sonic Youth vomit ici un double album, sorti après sept ans d'expérimentations plus ou moins convaincantes. Surtout que Sonic Youth lorgne ici vers des thèmes de cinq voire sept minutes. Une durée où l'on respire New York, ses ondes, ses radiations, son mépris, tout le reste... Daydream Nation marque en fait un tournant dans l'oeuvre du quatuor "art core". Ouvertement plus accessible que les précédents attentats sonores à la Jackson Pollock, c'est la première vraie grande toile de Sonic Youth. Une sculpture de distorsion, de larsen, de désaccords ; un son pétri à pleines mains par Thurston Moore et Lee Ranaldo. Approche basée sur la variation, construction pyramidale ("'Cross The Breeze") et répétitive (le final de "Total Crash"), Daydream Nation fait dans l'électricité sérielle. Le A la recherche du son perdu des années quatre-vingt. --Marc Zisman

Pixies No description.

Modest Mouse With their interstellar (really!) lyrics and angular song structures, Modest Mouse tend to defy their self-deprecating band name. In truth, the trio's got some lofty ambitions, and The Moon and Antarctica indulges their grand dreams with pristine production and a vivid sonic backdrop. It also dives deeply into their geographical obsessions--always with the same subjective twists that made The Lonesome Crowded West and This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About such inspired wonders. Isaac Brock opens Moon with meditations on the universe's shape--all twisted into such a solipsistic tangle that they illuminate immediately how much these songs are about the mind as about the world. Rarely giving off the cage-jarring thickness of guitar rock, Moon's 15 tunes are shaped around vignettes of a disheveled head figuring out the rambling disconnections of postmodern society. Guitars wobble, Brock wails on vocals, and his band mates--Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green--help take each song away from any predictable formula and toward wherever they seem to want to go. This is a band as profoundly touched by suburbia as was writer Harold Brodkey. You can imagine Brock, Green, and Judy lying on wide-open lawns, philosophizing about the shape of the universe and coming up with lyric moments like this (sung to folky, spare acoustic guitar): "A wild pack of family dogs came running through the yard and as my own dog ran away I didn't say much of anything at all / A wild pack of family dogs came running through the yard as my little sister played; the dogs took her away, and I guess she was eaten up, okay." Replays of American Beauty, anyone? --Andrew Bartlett

Weezer En 1994, à sa sortie, le premier album éponyme de Weezer (dit "Blue Album") fait clairement souffler un vent de fraîcheur sur l'Amérique des college-radios et du rock indépendant, endeuillée coup sur coup par le split des Pixies et la fin abjecte de l'épopée grunge. Sorte d'équivalents américains à ce qu'a pu représenter Blur vis-à-vis de la tradition musicale anglaise, les quatre de Weezer piochent avec malice dans le riche héritage de leur nation. Il rapatrient par exemple la bonhomie mélodique des Beach Boys du début ou la pop fièrement carénée des Cars (Ric Ocasek est d'ailleurs à la production). Dans cet environnement référencé, le mordant des guitares tour à tour punk ou noisy apporte une résonance plus contemporaine. Explicitement mélodique, pourvu d'un esprit distancié qui sera parfaitement mis en image par Spike Jonze (voire le clip de "Buddy Holly" avec l'intrusion du groupe dans la série Happy Days), exsudant une morgue adolescente gentiment apprêtée, cet opus brut et homogène s'impose rapidement comme un sommet de power pop à l'américaine. --Fabrice Privé

Dinosaur Jr. By now it's clear J Mascis has nothing of any great import to say--or mumble, considering his vocal style--about the human condition. As a noise merchant, however, he again exhibits the rare ability to reenergize the standard guitar/bass/drums lineup. No major departures from earlier outings, though juxtaposing the lilting "Outta Hand" with the primal screamer "Grab It" is a neat touch. --Jeff Bateman

Pixies C'est vrai que Kim Deal a fait ses preuves en solo et que Frank Black ne se débrouille pas mal non plus. Mais n'importe quel fan vous dira que rien n'égalait les Pixies lorsqu'ils étaient tous ensemble. Ils étaient les maîtres de la dynamique ("Monkey Gone To Heaven" ou "Hey"), passant d'une ambiance tamisée à un style dévastateur avant de revenir sur "la la love you". Black Francis restera comme une des plus belles voix des années 80. Ses duos avec la bassiste Kim Deal ("I Bleed" et "Silver") rappellent Ella Fitzgerald et Louis Armstrong. C'est incroyable ce que Joey Santiago, le guitariste lead, peut faire avec une seule note. Pour conclure, "Here Comes Your Man" est un des morceaux les plus pêchus des Pixies, alors éclatez-vous ! --Dan Leone

Les Savy Fav No description.

The Coral While the fiery rock & roll spirit of the La's Lee Mavers courses through their veins, the debut album by youthful Liverpudlian mystics the Coral prove they are far more than Merseybeat imitators. The opening "Spanish Main" ("We've set sail again! / We're heading for the Spanish Main!") casts the sextet as marauding pirates, out to pillage musical history for loot. It's possible to hear the influence of everything from Captain Beefheart to Miles Davis, from Spanish mariachi music to Cossack dance rhythms, surfacing between the tight, ragged grooves of "I Remember When" and "Shadows Fall." This album is stuffed to bursting point with ideas that are presented with remarkable clarity. Highlights are the curious, swooping fable of "Simon Diamond" and the insane "Skeleton Key," which finds frontman James Skelly croaking, "Solid gold skeleton key / Opens the most intricate lock / Brother, roll another for me / I am shipwrecked on the rocks!" as his bandmates caw like parrots in the background. --Louis Pattison

Xiu Xiu No description.

Aphex Twin If techno ever does become the sound of young America, don't expect Richard James to be its poster boy, deserving though he may be. A native of Cornwall, England, James is obsessed with the mechanics of music making: As a kid, he took apart and reassembled the living room piano. Under the names Aphex Twin, Polygon Window, AFX, and other aliases too numerous to mention, he showed that he could make entire tracks with the sounds produced by tapping on a Coke can. Like the indie rockers of yore, he revels in his marginality because of the creative freedom it gives him. His full-length U.S. debut, Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994), includes some of the most serene sounds this side of the Orb, but his favorite hobby is the not-at-all-blissful pastime of driving a Daimler Ferret Mark 3 tank through his parents' backyard.
None of his recordings have captured the competing impulses to lull you to sleep and blast out your eardrums as well as Richard D. James, his third and best album. As the title indicates, James has turned inward for inspiration, painting aural pictures of real and imagined scenes from his west country childhood. "Goongumpas" is a fanciful, playful tune that wouldn't sound out of place on the soundtrack to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. As his adventures with the family upright indicate, James was a bit of a devil even as a child. "Beetles" is the sound of a boy frying bugs on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass, and "To Cure a Weakling Child" shows flashes of the sort of sadism found only on preschool playgrounds. If you still doubt that young Richard developed early on, the romantic Nino Rota-style strings on "Girl/Boy Song" are just made for passionate seductions, and the tune appears in three mixes, each one hot and hornier than the one before.
The raucous undercurrents of even his calmest tunes and the sources of many of his most common sounds are what link James to the rock tradition. With Richard D. James, the artist solidifies his position as an electronic music mastermind who has earned a spot beside such well-respected innovators--whether or not he's destined for stardom. --Jim Derogatis

The Unicorns No description.

Yo La Tengo We always suspected they had it in them, but who knew Yo La Tengo would finally craft a record as wholeheartedly terrific as this? Fourteen years into their career as indie rock's low-key mainstays, the Hoboken, New Jersey, trio have arrived--and it's about time. It's as though simply by sticking around long enough and doing the same thing over and over while constantly refining and focusing Yo La have evolved from scattered, record-collecting eccentrics into the true classicists of '90s indie rock. Blending elements of what has illuminated Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Pavement, and My Bloody Valentine, they've long had a clear voice but never sounded so comfortable using it. Willfully eclectic husband-and-wife multi-instrumentalists Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley--with third member James McNew never sounding more permanent--have previously tended to alternate between their instincts to be a pop rock band and to serve as artsy noisemakers. On I Can Hear..., the group doesn't have to choose between songs and sounds. There's noise leaking out everywhere, but it's always under control. Even the most layered soundscapes--songs like "Autumn Sweater,""Sugarcube," or "Moby Octopad"--have unforgettable melodies, with fragile harmonies to boot. "We're an American Band" (not a Grand Funk cover) could be Simon and Garfunkel singing along to the Jesus and Mary Chain. And on tracks like "Shadows" or "My Little Corner of the World," where the melody consumes everything else, deceptively simple backdrops provide a less-is-more atmosphere. Just in time for indie rock to catch up with Yo La Tengo, Yo La Tengo has caught up with itself. --Roni Sarig

The Pixies When they first hit the underground scene with this debut album, the Pixies were like an exotic drink that hid its sweetness behind a ferocious bite. The album's production is like a crude explosion: every strum and clang comes down with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. English and Spanish lyrics collide as singer Black Francis (later Frank Black) shouts in a hoarse monotone and Mrs. John Murphy (later Kim Deal of the Breeders) backs him up with throaty wails. Yet somehow the clash of these bruising titans makes for tracks that print indelibly upon your consciousness--once let in. Kurt Cobain is their most famous student. He grafted the Pixies' time-honored craft of the big bang theory onto Nirvana's biggest hits. (You start with a quiet verse and then explode for catharsis in the chorus--evidenced best here with "I've Been Fired.") The Pixies themselves have served quietly, attaining post-punk godfather status not by tooting their own horns, but through the praise of a steady stream of genuflecting admirers whose word of mouth continues to increase the band's deserved critical standing. --Rob O'Connor

Pixies Features 9 never before released Pixie's recordings. First unreleased Studio recordings in 10 years. Includes 'Here Comes Your Man', 'Broken Face' as well as the never before released song 'Rock A My Soul'. 2002.

Les Savy Fav No description.

Les Savy Fav No description.

Modest Mouse Loneliness, boredom, and random observations have been at the heart of Modest Mouse's skewered musical universe through all their releases. The Issaquah, Washington-born trio has also been able to spin very-long-playing albums that catered to the group's core obsessions, with both its full-length Up Records releases--This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About and The Lonesome Crowded West clocking in at more than 70 minutes in length. So it's refreshing to hear this supremely odd rock band at its most economical. Building Nothing Out of Something catches singles, compilation tunes, and more--none of which were ever intended to be sequenced as an album. As a narrative whole, the singles take on a visionary quality, discerning worldly, bent revelations in the everyday world. The swervy vocals that Isaac Brock has made his trademark sound as languidly distressed as ever, stricken by marvel and ghastly awakenings in equal measures. The music serves Brock well, sounding wobbly and sturdy at once, as if it barely teeters on chaos's brink at a variety of mostly midtempo paces. "Never Ending Math Equation,""A Life of Arctic Sounds," and "Other People's Lives" play the most stoutly, with the tonally clean guitars breaking across all the angular phrasings and rhythms Modest Mouse thrive on while Brock's voice goes from warpy drollery to exasperated wail in the face of his task as a singer and writer. --Andrew Bartlett

The Ex After their start in 1979, The Ex developed divergent musical styles: noise, rock, jazz, improvisation, and ethnic music, interwoven under one unique umbrella. Discordant, highly rhythmic guitars and the rolling, almost African drumming style give the music its special character. "Turn" contains fourteen new songs; over 80 minutes of music. "At its best, The Ex's agitated racket packed the blast of a hand grenade, sending sonic shrapnel flying off in different directions even as the music magically cohered. While infused with the passion of punk, the music often channeled the energy and excitement of seat-of-your-pants improvisation"--Chicago Tribune.

The Flaming Lips Sometimes it seems as if there's every other band in America, and then there's the Flaming Lips. The Norman, Oklahoma, quartet makes modern rock that doesn't sound like anyone else; head music, they'd have called it in psychedelia's heyday, weird soundscapes that conjure the bizarre alternate universe on the other side of the funhouse mirror. Transmissions, their second major-label release after a long indie apprenticeship has a mellower feel than early fans might expect, with lots of acoustic guitar and dreamy interludes to shame More-era Pink Floyd, but it's no less weird than their last two efforts. Strange sounds float in and out of the mix, and Wayne Coyne's twisted hick vocals are convincingly demented. Coyne's lyrics tend toward a Dadaist stream of consciousness with occasional forays into junk culture; this is familiar modern rock territory, but songs such as "She Don't Use Jelly,""Chewin the Apple of Your Eye," and "Be My Head" are more effective and less annoying than the would-be gonzo efforts of Frank Black and Sonic Youth because they're catchier and less pretentious. The Flaming Lips may be transmitting to the satellites, but when all is said and done, they live in Oklahoma. --Jim DeRogatis

Animal Collective No description.

The Fall No description.

Weezer Deux ans et demi après la belle secousse causée par leur première livraison éponyme, Weezer reviennent et ils ne sont pas contents... Mettant à nouveau un coup de frein à ses études à Harvard, Rivers Cuomo a pris le temps de concocter dans l'isolement de sa chambre estudiantine une sorte d'album concept qui prend vaguement appui sur Madame Butterfly. Finalement reconstitué en rangs serrés autour de son leader, le groupe accouche en 1996 de ce Pinkerton. Un album qui, s'il bat bel et bien le rappel des mélodies sexy, de l'attitude détachée tellement attachante, et de la flamboyance qui avaient fait le succès de son prédécesseur, marque aussi une évolution vers plus de virulence sonore, vers un certain "déformatage". Cette tentative de mariage des contraires (mélodies-guitares magmatiques) donne souvent lieu à d'excellentes choses ("Getchoo", "No Other One" ou The Good Life), mais occasionne à d'autres moments une certaine érosion de l'impact pop de la joyeuse bande. Rien de dommageable néanmoins, surtout qu'emprunt de cette nouvelle gravité se reflétant également dans les textes, Weezer offre un démenti cinglant à ceux qui leur prédisaient une trajectoire d'étoile filante ou ne voyaient en eux qu'un simple groupe à singles. --Fabrice Privé

Q And Not U No description.

Xiu Xiu No description.

Pere Ubu Si le patronyme du groupe est pioché chez le pataphysicien Alfred Jarry, sa musique semble venir de nulle part. A écouter ses rythmes trépidants, les riffs de guitare répétitifs de Tom Herman et la voix haut perchée de l'excentrique David Thomas dont on ne rencontre guère d'équivalents que chez les Talking Heads et PIL en les personnes de David Byrne et Johnny Lydon, elle ressemble à un improbable croisement entre le blues concassé de Captain Beefheart et les chansons robotiques de Devo. Des titres comme "The Modern Dance" et "Life Stinks" écrit par le rock critic Peter Laughner sont typiques de ce punk rock arty alors que "Chinese Radiation" diffuse une ambiance plus cinématographiquement contemplative. Séminal, ce groupe du Midwest a influencé l'avant-garde new-yorkaise de la fin des 70's. --Philippe Robert

Built to Spill With a band like Built to Spill, the key to success is to chart a course through the future that mirrors the past. Built to Spill may be on a major label, but its linchpin, front man Doug Martsch, still writes all song parts himself and has a large hand in every album's production from start to finish. Martsch assembles the players--drummer Scott Plouf and bassist Brett Nelson--to take their parts in the studio and on tour, but he still holds all the musical cards. As a result, the Boise, Idaho-based trio sounds pretty much the same on Ancient Melodies of the Future as it did on 1997's Perfect from Now On and 1999's Keep It Like a Secret. That said, though, why change a winning formula? Martsch's mix of wry humor, Neil Young-influenced rock, and soaring indie-pop ballads has garnered him a Guided by Voices-like cult following that this album is in no danger of turning away. "In Your Mind" is the standout track, with Martsch's fitting assertion that "No one can tell me to listen / No one can tell me what's right / because nobody has my permission / and no one can see in your mind." The other tracks are tried and true BTS fare, bending guitar effects around straight-ahead rock ("Trimmed and Burning") or layering warm melodies atop Martsch's elliptical lyrics. Indie-rock fans looking for something wildly divergent or refreshingly different won't find either on Ancient Melodies, but those looking for a linear extension of BTS's past works should find a happy resistance to change in this latest release. --Jennifer Maerz

Animal Collective Feels is a big, daring collection with recurring themes of psychedelia, folk-rock, prog-rock, jazz, and modern classical composition. Above all the album is cohesive and tangible. This music spreads out ethereally, pulsates, and is ambitious and strange, punctuated by echoes of George Harrison, Brian Wilson, and Motown. Animal Collective seems more inspired by the elements within, rather than in an imitation of that music: There are bombastic drums that would be at home on Pet Sounds on the dynamically thrilling "Grass," and on "Flesh Canoe" there are guitar voicings taken from the pages of Harrison's All Things Must Pass. Perhaps the loveliest of domestic love songs exists in "Purple Bottle," a relaxed transitional ripple that has not one but three build-and-release crescendos. Lead by Avey Tare, AC can be gentle and engulfing, but then will just as easily bare its teeth, even on a beautiful washy song like "Bees" where fright mingles with an rusted autoharp, a spare confluence of harmonized voices, and tucked-in, dreamy synthesizers. On "Daffy Duck" AC tries on a late-'90s Aphex Twin mood, just without the metallic, chrome coldness, and that idea envelopes into an identifiable heart-on-sleeve yearning. Feels should restore faith in the idea that rock musicians can take time and create complete albums that are equally bold, inventive, and meaningful--a far cry from the current vogue of releasing a collection of disparate singles as an album. --Gabi Knight

Nada Surf This is the NYC trio's first full-length in over four years and is a fascinating departure from their two previous records. ''Matthew Caws has matured into an acme-level surgeon of life, lyrically smart without clever-clever'' - Mojo. Barsuk. 2003.

Q and Not U No description.

Neutral Milk Hotel Just from the opening seconds of Neutral Milk Hotel's second album, you know it's going to be special: the acoustic guitar strum is catchy beyond belief, and Jeff Magnum's intonation lends credibility even to a line like "When you were young, you were the King of Carrot Flowers." Listening to In the Aeroplane is like stepping through Alice's looking glass; you enter a fantastic new universe that, while it doesn't always make sense logically, feels like the home you never had. --Randy Silver

Xiu Xiu The central theme of this CD is about negative dominance politically, sexually, and emotionally, despite the space of a new, hopeful relationship. Musically, there's less of a dance influence and more of a pop and academic/experimental influence. It's Xiu Xiu's most experimental record, yet it's their most delicate and accessible.

Modest Mouse Frontman Isaac Brock's claim that he's being stalked by his own alter ego was not the first bit of evidence that Modest Mouse isn't your usual pop band. Witness the entirety of this 1996 indie debut from the Washington trio that inspired a major-label bidding war. This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About finds Brock cruising with cohorts Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green (plus an occasional cellist) through a landscape of intoxicatingly original lo-fi tunes. Sure, Brock's early vocals make Nikki Sudden sound like one smooth crooner, but their strained quality offset the primitive elegance of his guitar work, giving a passionate vulnerability to "Breakthrough," "Custom Concern," and other treatises on life in the lost lane. --Bill Forman

Modest Mouse No description.

Q And Not U No description.

John Frusciante No description.

Weezer Limited Edition Japanese Import. Rare 6 track CD numbered for authenticity.

Amps for Christ "The People At Large" ranges from traditional Scottish to hardcore to pure noise to beat poetry to spoken word. This politically bent folkcore band is for Christ, but against the fake Christ-for-profit right wing Church.

Black Eyes No description.

Xiu Xiu To hear Xiu Xiu is to be shaken, disturbed, and shown something original. Jamie Stewart sings haunted and tortured, though always with a sense of humor somewhere below the poisoned blood. "La Foret" is his most harrowing and beautiful to date, waltzing between acoustic parts so intimate you can hear his shoe scooting on the studio floor as he inches closer to the mic, and pounding dark-wave thunderstorms where electronics go Mogwai loud and Jamie screams over the hissing, spitting deluge. It's the type of record that leaves you seasick. Give your heart to the darkness; the rewards are immense.

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band No description.

Frank Black The sound and the fury that was the Pixies is in little evidence on this shockingly easy-going debut by the band's frontman. "Fu Manchu" is a hoot and there's a soaring version of Pet Sounds outtake "Hang onto Your Ego." --Jeff Bateman

Beat Happening No description.

CSS No description.

Modest Mouse It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment Modest Mouse started sounding like a real band. For the longest time, singer-songwriter Isaac Brock seemed to exist solely to defy the established rules, forging forward on sheer momentum and ingenuity. Even Pavement looked relatively ordinary in comparison to the band's early releases like 1996's This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About and 1997's The Lonesome Crowded West. But on Good News for People Who Love Bad News, the frontman sounds like he's finally touching the earth, and the band--minus founding member and drummer Jeremiah Green--follows suit. A relaxed mood prevails, not so much in volume but in attitude. On the follow-up to the group's 2000 major label debut, The Moon & Antarctica, big sloppy melodies battle it out with brass on punky epics like "Float On" and "The Ocean Breathes Salty." The lyrics are simpler, the arrangements tamer, but the vitality remains. The prevailing mood is that Modest Mouse has pulled off something extraordinary here: a well-rounded, lovable record that doesn't sound anything like David Gray. --Aidin Vaziri

Pixies No description.

CSS From Brazil, CSS is the first South American band Sub Pop has foisted upon the global marketplace. The title is Portuguese for "Tired Of Being Sexy" and the sound is a thick, pulsating thing full of haphazard synths and a come-on of call and response that tears down any attempt at posturing. It's equal parts rock mantra and throwback into something new, transcending boundaries of genre and geography. It goes full speed into dance territory, into the unknown and untouched, to emerge all hot and bothered with wild electro-rock. Quick, tightly-wound, unfastened, and supreme.

Modest Mouse The opening track, "Teeth Like God's Shoeshine," explodes out of your speakers with sharp, see-sawing guitars and shouted vocals, an irresistible melange of angular rhythms and mighty, powerful dynamics. The rest of the songs are similarly pulled along by some unseen force, driven by an energy found in classic post-punk bands like Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 or Drunken Boat. Some reviewers have referenced the Pixies, and while that's not off the mark, this is more like the Pixies undergoing dental work--without anesthesia. --Lorry Fleming

Pixies Before the Breeders and Frank Black, there was this Boston quartet, playing hardcore's rush and terseness against the acoustic grit and the minor-key flourish of Latin pop. Their first full-length album is their starkest, harsh and trebly, with the drums right in your face, and songs edited to eliminate any note that's not absolutely necessary. Singer Black Francis yelping away about destroyed bodies and the river Euphrates, alternately acting cryptic and crazed. Kim Deal, then calling herself "Mrs. John Murphy," contributes the highlight, "Gigantic," a creepy anthem about childhood voyeurism. The playing is snarly and tricky but unfailingly tuneful, and the hooks come out of nowhere, hiding behind the noise, and bite down hard. --Douglas Wolk

Xiu Xiu No description.