The latest CD releases reviewed
XIU XIU Women As Lovers Kill Rock Stars ****
Smart, arty, theatrical and occasionally wilful confrontational noise has served US west coast experimental rockers Xiu Xiu well over the course of their five albums to date.
In common with many of their US alt peers, Xiu Xiu dislike retracing their footsteps, and the forward leap on this new album is the addition of some rosy-cheeked songs.
You can see this progression in how the tension is manipulated on In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Falland in the ambitious, stormy tumult that rages on I Do What I Want, When I Want, making this an album that dances happily on the threshold between the bleeding- edge and the indie mainstream.
All in all, Xiu Xiu are sounding more and more glorious with every outrageously flamboyant step they take. www.xiuxiu.org - JIM CARROLL
Download tracks: In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Fall, I Do What I Want, When I Want
HAYSEED DIXIE No Covers Cooking Vinyl **
What do you do when you've exhausted all the comedic possibilities of playing hair metal songs in the style of a hillbilly hoedown?
Simple: you write a bunch of your own shitkickin' songs about "drinking, cheating, killing and hell", and hope that someone like Bon Jovi will cover one of them.
Hayseed Dixie's boss hog, Barley Scotch, aka John Wheeler, wrote these songs while on tour with the band over the past year.
Hence the Appalachian angst of Born to Die in France(dedicated to Camus, no less), and the animal collectivism of Donkeys in Morocco.
After six albums of twanging acoustic parody, the Hayseed have brought out the heavy guitar artillery for Bouncing Betty Boogie(inspired by a type of landmine), You've Got Me All Wrong, Babyand That's It I Quit.
Wheeler even expresses some very un-rednecklike opinions on gun culture, the war on terror and the election circus. www.hayseed-dixie.com - KEVIN COURTNEY
Download track: Bouncing Betty Boogie
HAM SANDWICH Carry the Meek Route 109 Recordings ***
Despite having a name that has been derided from the get-go, Ham Sandwich have refused to let such a trifle upset their rolling applecart.
Indeed, as if spurred on by the sneers, the Kells band seem to have constructed a suit of armour for themselves. What's in a name? Not much, they say.
Over the past year they've suffered from faffing around too much without an album to anchor them. Carry the Meek, then, is either their saving grace or their death knell.
As you can see from the three-star rating above, it sure ain't the funeral blues we're trumpeting here, as this record is yet another reason to argue that provincial bands often have the edge over their city counterparts.
Eclectic without being all over the place, judiciously selecting choice harmonies over dissonance, and boasting arrangements that favour subtlety over swagger, Ham Sandwich deliver, with an apparent minimum of fuss, a mini triumph. - TONY CLAYTON-LEA
Download tracks: St Christopher, Broken Glass
NADA SURF Lucky Barsuk Records ****
With 1990s über-hit Popular and the well-received The Weight Is a Giftunder their belt, Nada Surf flex their collective indie-pop muscle and land some punches with this, their fifth album.
Lucky amalgamates indie sensibilities with mainstream American pop/rock, incorporating the energetic optimism of 1990s rock with the sweet'n'salty flavour of the Beach Boys' retro harmonies and Death Cab for Cutie's cosy melancholia (Gibbard and Walla contribute here).
The album doesn't revolutionise so much as build on what the band does well: solid, accessible indie pop. Tracks such as the bluegrass-tinged The Film Did Not Go 'Roundand the dreamy Are You Lightningare sure signs of growth - Luckyis the chill pill that the angsty subject of Popularhadn't yet discovered. www.nadasurf.com - DEANNA ORTIZ
Download Tracks: See These Bones, Are You Lightning, Weightless
GOLDFRAPP Seventh Tree Mute ****
Closest in spirit to their Felt Mountain debut, the fourth album from Alison Goldfrapp and multi- instrumentalist Will Gregory is a complex affair.
Gone are the glam- infused dancefloor fillers and surreally sexual lyrics; instead, for the first three tracks at least, we get a psych-folk vibe, with Goldfrapp's vocal gymnastics in full flight on Little Bird(imagine a flower power Elizabeth Fraser).
From there the mood changes and the record reveals a plethora of elegant, cinematic and surprisingly heartfelt love songs.
A&E is akin to the kind of synth-pop perfection Erasure mastered in the 1980s and, while it's far more hit than miss, the sugar- coated Happinessand Caravan Girlmay prove too sweet for some.
Still, with a seemingly innate fear of repeating themselves, it's hard not to admire the challenging path pop's most intriguing duo have chosen to follow. www.goldfrapp.com - BRIAN KEANE
Download Tracks: Eat Yourself, A&E, Cologne Cerrone Houdini
