Opinz

Meat Puppets – Sewn Together

The extent of familiarity a lot of people have of the Meat Puppets is that they were an influence on Kurt Cobain and played with Nirvana during their MTV Unplugged performance, which is unfortunate because the Meat Puppets are an incredibly sonicly diverse band, demonstrated particularly well on Sewn Together, which features a near-perfect melding of modern rock with elements of bluegrass and subdued but powerful vocal harmonies (see “Blanket of Weeds” and “Sapphire”)…Curt Kirkwood said of the record, “If I can get away with it, I’ll make a record as cheap as I can and put as little work as I can into it,” and it’s glaring in the more traditional, straightforward rock songs and moments (see “Rotten Shame” and “S.K.A.”) that don’t have the same level of imagination or personality as the aforementioned tracks and are the biggest weaknesses on the album.
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Deerhunter – Rainwater Cassette Exchange

This new EP may be a bit of a victory lap after last year’s Microcastle/Weird Era Cont., but Deerhunter is not resting on their laurels: clearly using Microcastle as a jumping off point, Rainwater Cassette Exchange presents some of the band’s most accessible offerings yet, all be it with the unique touches that we’ve come to expect from them – like the highly tropical title track and “Game of Diamonds”, and the soaring, channel-flipping freak-out that ends “Circulation”.

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Eminem – Relapse

Relapse serves a important purpose in the professional career of Eminem, and that is proving that Encore was not a fluke: Eminem really has lost whatever he had that made him unique…Relapse is completely devoid of imagination and wit; every hook is forced and contrieved and every lyric is vanilla…and the album as a whole just proves that he’s been out of the game too long and probably would have been better served (and caused less of an embarrassment for himself) by taking the Huey Lewis approach and doing small venue tours with guys like Young M.C.
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Animal Collective – Animal Crack Box

Animal Crack Box is a limited edition box set featuring carefully sequenced, unreleased and live material from Animal Collective’s early and most experimental days, ranging from droning noise experiments to surreal, Campfire Songs-style acoustic segments – this is a far cry from the successful and (relatively) accessible band of recent years, and it offers us an interesting look at their rather dramatic musical evolution, but be warned: only die hard fans need listen.

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Bob Dylan – Together Through Life

Bob Dylan can, at this point, churn albums out in his sleep…and Together Through Life sounds like he’s done just that – there is nothing compelling or provoking about the latest from a guy who has shaped pop and rock music with his lyrics and themes; it’s just tired old blues derivitives and filler he’s been producing for the last 10 years which all sound like they are not much more than cover versions of this own work – this is not your parents’ Bob Dylan, folks.
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Woods – Songs of Shame

Poised to be the next well-hyped indie act that everyone’s supposed to be talking about, Woods fuse the lo-fi craze with folk and a bit of noise rock, but it’s hard to see exactly what’s so original about all this, and by the time you’ve yawned your way through the first few forgettable tracks and the insufferable 10-minute jam band freak-out, the few standouts (Most notably “Gypsy Hand” and Graham Nash cover “Military Madness”) nearly slip under your radar – don’t believe the hype, save yourself the boredom.

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