Disc of the week

Love Is All
A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night
(What’s Your Rupture?)
In the three years since the release of the portentous Nine Times That Same Song, members of this Swedish quintet have gotten married, had kids and just generally grown up. You wouldn’t know it from their sassy sophomore effort, though, which remains perfectly plugged into the hormonal hype of adolescence. Blazing through 11 tracks in roughly half an hour, Love Is All bash out a blissful balance of glittering, heart-on-sleeve bubblegum and buzzsaw basement brat-punk, with bonus no-wave skronk care of Ake Stromer’s sax. Singer Josephine Olausson’s delivery has that precise schoolmarm quality common to Swedes, but cranked up and caffeinated enough to be cute. An album worth losing sleep over. 9/10 Trial Track: “Wishing Well” (Rupert Bottenberg) With Crystal Stilts at la Sala Rossa, Wed., Dec. 10, 9 p.m., $15

Britney Spears
Circus (Jive/Zomba/Sony)
Miss American Trainwreck’s yearly attempts at a “comeback” belie the ephemeral nature of her career. Circus would be considered overproduced if Ms. Spears actually had any personality to bury. Her voice is so tremulous and thin, her producers by necessity overdub it with layers of programming, making her sound too husky or like an even more artificial Pussycat Doll. Spears was supposed to be nothing more than a teen pop princess pulled from the trailer park, only to be tossed back into whichever trash bin Tiffany currently calls home. Only America’s morbid fascination with young burnouts is keeping her worthless career afloat. 1/10 Trial Track: “Blur” (Erik Leijon)

Yahowa 13
Sonic Portation (Prophase/MVD)
Fans of improv bands like the No Neck Blues Band, the Nihilist Spasm Band and Acid Mother’s Temple are going to wig out to this one. Yahowa 13 sprang from a religious sect in the ’70s, with Sonic Portation representing a reunion of three of the members. Mumbo jumbo aside, their musical channelling and ability to let the six pieces here breathe while sharing the same destinations is what makes this a trip worth taking. Most pieces are born out of a raga or chanting before sprouting wings and taking flight, taking the necessary time to reach their conclusions. Freak out! 8.5/10 Trial Track: “Traveling Ohm” (Johnson Cummins)

Contrived
blank, blank, blank (Hand Drawn Dracula)
From the overlapping ranks of Holy Fuck and Wintersleep (Yarmouth chapter) comes Contrived, a band too busy for consistency. Since 2005’s Dead Air Verbatim, their stark, aggressive strokes have been replaced by impressionistic soundscapes, presented in pop frames. Bold indie rock guitars roar into the picture, but those moments are outnumbered by lean, efficient riffs, sing-along choruses and light layers of reverb and falsetto. Between the optimistic melodies and graceful textures, it’s downright pretty at times, but the band delivers the goods with such vigour and heart that it’s never left adrift. And doesn’t feel contrived. 8/10 Trial Track: “Keepsake” (Lorraine Carpenter)

Catl
¿Adónde vas? A ningún lado (Coletrain)
Now that Fat Possum has lost the plot, while blue-eyed blues revisionists continue sleepwalking through the same barrelhouse boogie, it seems real blues is a dying form. Thank God for this TO duo, who bring the smash and bash of true juke-joint blues while packing in a fair heaping of the good Captain Beefheart’s sense of dementia. Ten songs here that draw blood and manage to bring something new to the table, with their swampy stabs at Memphis Minnie, Bob Dylan, Leadbelly and Fred McDowell instilling deviance. 8/10 Trial Track: “Outlaw Blues” (Johnson Cummins) CD launch with Soki Soki, Devil Eyes at Bar St. Laurent 2, Sat., Dec. 6, 8 p.m., $5 ($15 with CD)

Ruby Jean & the Thoughtful Bees
self-titled (Youth Club)
From Halifax, these self-professed “indie rock ne’er-do-wells” are playing around with synths and software, blurring the lines between the disco dancefloor and the hipster dive bar. Hard riffs of the electronic and electric variety are paired with undulating Gary Numan synths and Donna Summer-ish vocals on tracks like “You Don’t Miss Me,” bridging modern maximal electro-rock with turn-of-the’70s nostalgia. “Not About To” is the only major misstep, a poor merger of budgetronic and boutique trip hop. Otherwise, despite being a tad repetitive and short on subtlety, it’s a fun record that I suspect would make an even better live show. 7/10 Trial Track: “Girls You Love” (Lorraine Carpenter)

Squarepusher
Just a Souvenir (Warp/Outside)
Tom Jenkinson’s latest is an interstellar voyage navigated by warp-speed clavinet lines, finicky Jaco Pastorius-style bass, silly ’70s sci-fi vocoder magic and lefthanded percussion. Outrageous parodies of pop music structures, as in “A Real Woman,” and “Delta-V,” a jazzy bastardization of Dead Kennedys-style ’80s punk, are played off against a serious mastery of bass, drumming and synthesis. Seemingly his own twist on the music of his youth, it’s a hilarious rendition of everything late ’70s and ’80s, from prog tunes to TV themes, borrowing as much from Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis as Yes, but with an average song length of three minutes. 9/10 Trial Track: “A Real Woman” (Jack Oatmon)

Akon
Freedom (Konvict/Motown/Universal)
There was always an invisible line separating popular, synth-heavy rap beats and Eurotrash dance music, but Akon’s latest uncomfortably points out how close both sides truly are. With lyrics reaching Phil Collins-level syrup and a migraine-inducing army of synths capable of making Chris Sheppard cringe, Akon has excreted what remaining rap influences he had before (save for cameos from Kardinal and Lil Wayne). Perfect for a game of Dance Dance Revolution or an MC Mario mixdown, the dance beats are too dense for Akon’s pop songcraft to shine through—a furious dance record lacking the variation of his previous work. 5/10 Trial Track: “We Don’t Care” (Erik Leijon)

E-40
The Ball Street Journal (Reprise/Warner)
Hyphy icon E-40 Fonzarelli, the self-proclaimed “King of Slang” certainly suffers from the Aging Rapper Syndrome. Symptoms include redundant content about still being “the one,” solicitation of the big-name producer of the moment (in this case, with Lil Jon, it’s a couple years late) and a slew of featuring spots from hip hop’s inescapable hit-makers Akon and T-Pain. The result is a highly forgettable album on which the most memorable verses come not from E-40 himself but from other old-timers Bun B on “The Recipe” and Too Short on “Sliding Down the Pole”. 5/10 Trial Track: “40 Water” (Morgan Steiker)

Various
Strictly the Best Vol. 39 (VP)
VP’s long-running series has always been a a benchmark for dancehall and reggae. Kicking off with Elephant Man’s hugely entertaining “Nuh Linga” sets the tone here. The cover of the comp features a portrait of Jamaica’s man of the year, Usain Bolt, and 2008’s top tunes are all represented (including what’s become the Lightning Bolt’s theme song, Ele’s “Sweep”). For all the folks who think there’s nothing interesting going on in the dance, check the Busta Rhymes-esque “Tic Toc” by Busy Signal or the slow and severe “Winner” by Konshens. For reggae fans, there’s the phenomenal “I Am Not Afraid” by one of this year’s breakthrough artists, Etana, and Beres Hammond demonstrates that he can keep on keeping on with “Love You Like That.” There are a few significant oversights here (Tarrus Riley?), but all in all, 17 top tunes to keep it hot, even when it’s darned cold. 8/10 Trial Track: “Nuh Linga” (Erin MacLeod)

Tracy Chapman
Our Bright Future (Warner)
On her eighth album, her first since 2005’s Where You Live, Chapman sounds as vibrant as on her 1988 self-titled debut. Folk is her strong suit, and she’s always stubbornly stuck to her guns, current trends be damned. That’s good news for her fans, who would probably balk at the mere mention of hip hop on a Chapman release. She can sometimes be too saccharine, like on lead single “Sing for You” and the title track. But mainly she’s simply down to earth to a fault, and it’s hard to argue with the sincerity she imbues into tracks like “For a Dream” and the confessional “I Did It All,” which may as well be the theme song to Chapman’s life. 7.5/10 Trial Track: “For a Dream” (Gerard Dee)

Grant Stewart
In the Still of the Night (Sharp Nine)
Grant Stewart
Young at Heart (Sharp Nine)
If you like Sonny Rollins, you’ll love this pair by tenorman Stewart, who began his recording career in Toronto with Norman Marshall Villeneuve in 1992, the same year he made his debut on record in the U.S. as a leader (Brad Mehldau was on piano). On both of these, he’s backed by a wonderful rhythm team of the much overlooked Tardo Hammer on piano, Peter Washington on bass and Joe Farnsworth on drums. Besides some wonderful standards, Still of the Night includes music by Monk, Strayhorn and Fred Lacey, while Young at Heart adds more standards, mixed with compositions by Elmo Hope, Neal Hefti and Duke Ellington. Like his earlier material on Criss Cross, these two from Stewart come highly recommended. Both 10/10 Trial Tracks: Night, “Wives and Lovers,” Heart “Shades of Jackie Mac” (Len Dobbin) At Upstairs, Fri.–Sat., Dec. 5–6, 8:30 p.m.

Mini CD Reviews

Sonny Rollins Road Shows Vol. 1 (Doxy/Universal) Seven live performances dating from 1980 through 2007 (in Victoria, B.C.), personally chosen by the leader—IMHO, the greatest living jazz musician. 9.5 (LD)

Earl Scruggs The Ultimate Collection/Live at the Ryman (Rounder) One of the forefathers of bluegrass proves that even at the advanced age of 83, he only gets better. 8 (JC)

Belle and Sebastian The BBC Sessions (BBC/Matador) Two discs of top Scotpop, one in studio, one live in Belfast in 2001, the latter feat. Beatles, Thin Lizzy and VU covers. 8 (LC)

The Service Industry Keep the Babies Warm (Sauspop) Features the funniest lyric of the year: “I dig Butch Vig/He’s in a wig/He’s Mr. Big/But his record sounds like it just might blow.” 7 (EL)

Cemetery Blues Attack of the Microphone (Bandit) Do you long to be buried in leather pants? Well, head-bang yourself to death to your new favourite band. Darque, ostie. 4 (LC)

Good Charlotte Greatest Remixes (Epic/Sony) Because all Good Charlotte really needed was a fresh coat of paint. 3 (EL)

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