Top 5 - Steve Kandell
1) Beulah, When Your Heartstrings Break (Sugar Free). Delirious power pop from San Francisco punctuated with big fat horns - a lot like fellow Elephant 6 band Apples In Stereo, but with less Pet Sounds baggage. "Emma Blowgun's Last Stand" and "If We Can Land a Man On the Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart" are even better than their titles.
2. Tom Waits, Mule Variations (Epitaph). The long-awaited album from the last American icon/iconoclast actually manages to live up to its lofty anticipation. Amazingly, this works both as a sampler for the uninitiated and a satisfying offering for those who have been with him all along.
3. Superchunk, Come Pick Me Up (Merge). Superchunk is somehow getting better after ten years of writing the catchiest songs on earth. This time around, horns and strings augment the old formula, without detracting from what made the formula so successful to begin with. And if you're not down with the brass, "Good Dreams" should keep you sufficiently rocked.
4. Built to Spill, Keep It Like a Secret (Warner). More streamlined than '97's sprawling Perfect From Now On, but still large and epic enough to give prog rock indie cred. With his soaring guitars and reedy vocals, Doug Martsch is the missing link between Neil Young and J. Mascis.
5. The Flaming Lips, The Soft Bulletin (Warner). Equal parts maudlin and effervescent, this collection of ditties about bugs, bombs, and open wounds sounds like a companion piece to Mercury Rev's Deserter Songs, both of which were produced by the latter's Dave Fridmann. Full of bold, symphonic arrangements and lyrical quirks, The Soft Bulletin is kiddie music for grown-ups.
