A-
80%
Jesse Keeler’s and Al-P’s death disco duo MSTRKRFT descends from thrash pop machine Death From Above 1979, where Keeler plays bass and Al-P has produced all of the band’s releases to date. After tweaking some tracks on DFA79’s 2005 remix album, Romance Bloody Romance, MSTRKRFT leaves DFA79’s heavy, bass-and-drums assault behind on their debut album in favour of a more careful eye to the dance floor.
The Looks operates in the Daft Punk vein of electronica, incorporating robotic voices, steady percussive backbeats and a strange, yet appealing, foreground of electronic meanderings. If you’re not already dancing, The Looks will inspire visions of a crowded, sweaty dance floor surging with bodies and rippling lights. The album is a solid set of stripped-down, simple dance numbers. Its standout track, “Bodywork,” though not radio-friendly, repeats the words “makes your body work” in different tempos over a layered background of disco-era rhythms and synth-pop melodies.
MSTRKRFT marks Keeler’s break from his indie rock roots of DFA79. The result is a danceable and accessible album.
—Lauren Raham
A
87%
With his second full-length album and third release, Montreal rocker Sam Roberts delivers a mixture of rock edge and folk ideology reminiscent of the politically-driven protest pop of the late ’60s and early ’70s, combined with that era’s psychedelic tendencies. With song titles like “An American Draft-Dodger in Thunder Bay” and “The Resistance,” Roberts isn’t trying to escape the association with that time period.
The disc balances the poetic and political lyrics that fans have come to expect from a Sam Roberts song, but with a more subtle and mature touch. Instead of spelling out “S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-M” (as he did on “The Canadian Dream” from We Were Born in a Flame), Roberts opts for lines like “There’s a heartbeat missing in the city” from the album’s first single, “The Gate.”
Songs lamenting pollution, war and religious inconsistency are nicely complemented by softer, slower songs, such as “Uprising Down Under.” The surprisingly raw emotion and simple message of love recall The Beatles’ hit “When I’m Sixty-Four.” After all, “Who ever said you can’t be saved by a song?”
More than just a summer record, Roberts has created an album that makes you feel at home all year-round.
—Angela Hickman
C+
62%
Managing to sow doubt while preaching to the converted likely wasn’t Sufjan Steven’s aim on this collection of material excised from his critically acclaimed Illinois album, but that’s exactly what he achieves. After four strong opening tracks, the rest of the album—like Illinois, clocking in at almost 80 minutes—congeals into an indistinguishable mass of gentle, tinkling baroque arrangements, hushed vocals and bite-sized histories. Stevens begins to come off more like a travelling tonic salesman than a missionary, but the real blasphemy is that The Avalanche’s undeniable similarity to large sections of Illinois also diminishes the accomplishment of its parent album. Symptomatic of his stagnation is “The Henny Buggy Band,” whose horn section considers getting funky before deciding it would be impolite. It’s an entirely pleasant listen, but that’s part of the problem—Stevens’ considerable talent seems increasingly constrained by his 50 States experiment, and lacking the heart of Illinois tracks like “Casimir Pulaski Day,” The Avalanche is too uneventful to make heaven’s rotation of elevator music. Recommended only to Stevens’ most devoted disciples and completists who need three inferior versions of “Chicago.” For those who have already visited Michigan and Illinois, but are still looking for more Sufjan, try 2004’s folkier, more structured Seven Swans instead.
—Meghan Harrison
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