Disc of the week

LOVE IS ALL
Two Thousand and Ten Injuries (Polyvinyl)
Pretty and gritty dovetail neatly again on the
third full-length from this quirky quintet outta
Gothenburg, Sweden, whose label shift heralds
no major alterations to their winning formula
for tightly wound basement bubblegum
with a post-punk streak. Raw, cavernous production
affords plenty of space to fill with their
gnarly sparkle—Nicholaus Sparding’s crisp guitar, Fredrik Eriksson’s caustic sax and Josephine Olausson’s yelped vocals, alternately plaintive and dictatorial. 8.5/10 Trial Track: “False Pretense” (Rupert Bottenberg)

Field Music
Measure (Memphis Industries/Revolver)
Sunderland, England’s Brewis brothers & co. return with their third LP, a pop puzzle made up of disparate pieces: guitars from the Hammer house of horrors and your dad’s VW bus, rhythms that chug forward and jerk sideways, smooth vocal harmonies and a high-strung lead, decorous percussion and jarring keys. It’s a new wave, prog rock, indie, funk, blues, math, AM-gold mash-up served surprisingly light and smooth. 8/10 Trial Track: “Each Time Is a New Time” (Lorraine Carpenter) With the Clientele, Receivers at Il Motore, Sat., March 20, 8:30 p.m., $15

The BCASA
Fuck It Up Hard (Little Baby)
The debut LP by this local punk power trio—their name an acronym for a fictitious anarchist society with a litigious African American comedian as its figurehead—features songs about fast food, video games, the Internet, cartoon characters and “God Damn Fucking Robots.” Recorded raw, lean and mean by the Planet Smashers’ Dave Cooper, the emphasis shifts between speed and heaviosity, and melody and riffage. 7.5/10 Trial Track: “Punch You in the Facebook” (Lorraine Carpenter)

Crash Karma
self-titled (E1)
When I Mother Earth’s Edwin, the Tea Party’s Jeff Burrows and Our Lady Peace’s Mike Turner activate their Wonder Twin powers, they form Can-con alterna-rock supergroup Crash Karma. But if they ever combine forces with Glueleg’s saxophonist and Serial Joe’s dog walker and turn the skeleton key located in the basement of the former Sam the Record Man, they will unleash the ultimate doomsday device. 5/10 Trial Track: “Not About Anger” (Erik Leijon)

Five Star Trailer Park
Dark as the North Atlantic (independent)
I don’t know what it means to be Canadian, but between the Olympics, Roll Up and CBC Radio 3 scouring the world’s second-largest land mass for bands like this one, there are people in this country willing to find out. Emotive working-class rock, with maritime themes and Saskatchewan namedrops, but most importantly a fierce modesty that works in both the most dimly lit pubs or at Tragically Hip levels of success. 6.5/10 Trial Track: “St. Theresa” (Erik Leijon) With the Hypocrites at les Trois Minots, Fri., March 19, 10 p.m.

Kid 606
Songs About Fucking Steve Albini (Important)
Kid 606’s history of provocation and irritation through extreme, crushing frequencies is well documented, and although his square-wave squelches still make appearances here, he also knows to wipe his feet before embarking on the expressway to your skull. The nine psyched-out tracks barely share a passing fancy with each other, while dipping into the ebb and flow of synth loops, minimalist composition, hard-chop arrangements and glitch-driven psych. A true feast for the ears. 8/10 Trial Track: “Periled Emu God” (Johnson Cummins)

Freeway & Jake One
The Stimulus Package (Rhymesayers)
Both of these dudes excel at what they do—spitting gutter rhymes and making ill beats, respectively, often for other people’s shit. So it’s hard to tell who is working harder here, since they both make it seem effortless. The same cannot be said of the sleeve, which is among the coolest ever conceived in hip hop. Ghetto and indie can get along, after all. 8/10 Trial Track: “Sho’ Nuff” feat. Bun B (Darcy MacDonald)

Burning Star Core
Papercuts Theatre (No Quarter)
Violinist C. Spencer’s chief project, Burning Star Core, has cooked up some sweeping ambient drone for this hour-long epic, culled from over 60 live performances and conveniently broken up into four movements. Not for the faint of heart, the outcome is a dense fog of minimalist sound loops, frenetic blips and bleeps and tribal repetition, with any later editing left cleverly disguised. 7.5/10 Trial Track: “II” (Johnson Cummins)

Surkin
Silver Island EP (Institubes)
A trio of funky irritants. These high-octane anachronisms reprise the French touch of Bangalter in aggressive amalgamations of arpeggios, glitchy samples, growling digital low-end, sequenced basslines and laser-zapping sounds. Surkin invites far too many comparisons to label-mate Para One in just three disjointed tracks, none of which reach a convincing crescendo, interesting and well produced as they are. 6.5/10 Trial Track: “Easy Action” (Jack Oatmon)

Various
Defected in the House: Miami ’10 (Defected)
Unlike previous years, where several DJs were selected for this annual comp, London-based Italian DJ Riva Starr is a one-man show here. Starr’s eclectic tastes favour tribal beats, dub rhythms and Latin grooves, among others, which he mashes up into one seamless flow. And he successfully stands his own quirky “I Was Drunk” against Dennis Ferrer’s ubiquitous anthem “Hey Hey” without missing a beat. 8/10 Trial Track: Thomas Schumacher, “Yara” (Gerard Dee)

Gaudi
No Prisoners (Six Degrees)
Gaudi is an analog aficionado who is passionate about dub. On this record, his list of collaborators, including Spearhead’s Michael Franti and Jamaican singer Kenny Knots, is long and the tunes are accessible and danceable. Keeping the tempo up, the man whose other job is as a judge on Italy’s X Factor understands pop appeal. Sure, there might be a few too many instruments (bagpipes?), but the dub here never drags. 7/10 Trial Track: “Bad Boy Bass” (Erin MacLeod)

Tommy Babin’s Benzene
Your Body is Your Prison (Drip Audio)

MINI CD REVIEWS

Various Ragga Ragga Ragga 2010 (VP) Whether you’re Gaza or Gully, it nah matter. A great compilation of the tunes that get the big forwards. 10 (EM)

A Wilhelm Scream self-titled EP (Paper and Plastik) Hardly a stock sound effect—17 minutes of melodic hardcore, bruising and brisk without a moment wasted and plenty of sweat spent. 7 (EL) With Outbreak, Dig It Up at Katacombes, Mon., Mar. 22, 7 p.m., $10

Coalesce Oxep (Relapse)If you ever wanted to know just how demented crossover metalcore can get… 7 (JC)

Bettie Serveert Pharmacy of Love (Sound of Pop/PIAS) The Dutch quintet marks a quarter century of alt-rocking with a timeless set of corny candy pop, hard shells with soft syrupy centres. 6 (LC)

JJ No. 3 (Secretly Canadian) The Swedish duo’s quickie follow-up to their hyped 2009 debut is 27 minutes of dance-pop so vague and wan, it’s barely distinguishable from silence. 5 (LC)

>> Music Listings