Gomez

In Our Gun

Virgin

Gomez’ third album of all-new material, In Our Gun, arrives in a haze of fuzzy, overblown guitars and driving drums with “Shot Shot,” the opening song and lead single. Harder-edged and more condensed than anything Gomez have previously done, the song runs less than two and half minutes. The insistent three note riff is reminiscent of Radiohead’s “National Anthem,” before Gomez subvert it with a wicked saxophone stab and a blues-flecked chorus.

The British space-rock-blues band has twice ducked the “difficult third album,” releasing an EP (Machismo) and an oddities album (Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline). After an 18-month hiatus, In Our Gun is a spine-tingling return to the scene. A supremely confident and playful album, it reworks Gomez’ signature bluesy sound without sacrificing any of their trademark oddball goofiness.

Much of the album comes across like Gomez’ take on Kid A with its weird bits of electronica and dark musings. One of the best songs on the album, “Detroit Swing 66,” is underpinned by a roiling bass sample and trips through unpredictable synthesised beats. Yet Gomez’ love of melody and experimentation (they produce all their albums themselves) is too great to let any single conceit carry a song, and the impishness soon shows through, as Ian Ball gurgles, “Your spaceship has arrived/ Please get in.”

With their three singers, Gomez have a penchant for vocal harmonies that few bands have indulged since the Beatles (who Gomez covered sublimely on Trolley). On the title track, a ballad which comes as close as Gomez get to brooding, Ball’s warm, breathy voice gets overlaid with harmonies until it’s hard to tell who’s singing the lead.

As well as the electronic mischief, there are a couple of toe-curlingly beautiful tracks, “Even Song” and “Miles End,” courtesy of Ben Ottewell and his luscious bubblebath of a voice. The album wraps up in style with the “Ballad of Nice and Easy,” a rollicking track featuring all three vocalists, and the classic Gomez line, “Sooner or later there’s an end to this candle/ We’ll burn it at both ends and then switch on the light.”

—Andrew R. Iliff

Luke Slater

Alright On Top

Mute

Discriminating techno aficionados like their music fast and intense, sprinkled with sophisticated, layered beats and with almost no lyrics. But electro impresario Luke Slater, who has never been one to abide by mainstream conventions, has something more in mind with his latest album, Alright on Top. Encouraged by the successes of 1997’s Freek Funk and 1999’s Wireless, Slater holed up in the studio for a year. In addition to the typical array of beat machines and computers, Slater made use of vocalist Ricky Barrow, whose moaning voice turns all but two of these dance tracks into electro-pop love ballads. The combination is a risky one, but Slater is no amateur.

The album kicks off with the bombastic alarm-like bass-line and trance keyboard effects of the album’s single, “Nothing at All.” It is a rebirth anthem more akin to the dazzling electronics of Madonna’s “Ray of Light” than to the Chemical Brothers. The wondrous textures Slater crafts on “Stars and Heroes” and “Searchin’ for a Dream” are slices of the finest future techno, the sort of stuff one might listen to while flying through Tokyo in 2030, or on a day trip to Mars with your lover. The riskiest part of the music, Barrow’s love-letter lyrics, is also the culprit on the lesser parts of the album. His is not the abstract poetry of Thom Yorke on Kid A, but the sort of cornier styling that fills Air’s latest work.

Admittedly the mix of pulsing synths and vocals can be a difficult one to warm to. Lyrics that evoke lost love seem more conducive to guitars and cymbals than to pulsing futuristic soundscapes. At times the deliberateness of both Slater’s instrumentation and Barrow’s vocals is too much at once, almost canceling each other out. But the wizardry sets in by the second or third listen, and while they may not be listening to the words, even those well-dressed ravers will find themselves shaking it on the dance floor.

––Alexander L. Pasternack

Tullycraft

Beat Surf Fun

Magic Market

The cover of Beat Surf Fun is unusually accurate in indicating what music lies inside. With its blurry old black-and-white picture of surfers, the cover tries hard to invoke the innocence that people inexplicably associate with the ’50s. The music tries to follow a similar course—the album even includes a song called “I Kept the Beach Boys.” Tullycraft is one of the best practitioners of twee, a musical genre that draws on the smooth boy-girl harmonies, catchy beats, innocent lyrics and the sheer musical simplicity of the ’50s and ’60s. Twee is, at its best, carefully crafted bubblegum pop with a slight alternative bent.

Although chances are high you’ve never heard of Tullycraft, the Seattle-based foursome is one of the most popular twee bands around; formed in 1994, they made their name in the underground college scene with a hit called “Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend Is Too Stupid To Know About.” Tullycraft’s songs feature steady drum beats, smooth guitar riffs, and the unorthodox voice of lead singer Sean Tollefson (who sounds not unlike the Violent Femme’s Gordon Gano), and back-up vocals on the best songs by the sweet-voiced Jenny Mears.

The album, recorded in a Seattle house by the band’s guitarist, is simple, frills-free, and plenty of good clean fun—but it’s not for all music tastes. Its style is undeniably simplistic, and its lyrics (when decipherable) are hardly memorable. The chorus of “Wild Bikini,” an ode to a hot beach-babe, goes “Well she sure looks cute/ In her pink swim suit.” Beat Surf Fun may not be poetic, but it is a collection of lighthearted, and easy-on-the-ears indie pop songs that go down smooth. Ridiculously catchy songs like “Cowgirls on Parade” or “Wild Bikini” are perfect for that sunny Friday afternoon mood, when you just want something fun to sing along to, and lyrical insight be damned.

––Nathaniel D. Myers