Washington Social Club *** 1/2 "Catching Looks" (Badman Recording Co.) Sounds like: Your favorite pair of worn-in jeans gave birth to a rock band.
D.C.'s Washington Social Club could be mistakenly construed for one of those pretentious "it" bands based on its under-produced punk-driven indie rock. But luckily, WSC has something that the likes of the Vines and the Hives don't have - a true sense of fun. WSC is not brooding or angry or charmingly mysterious; it offers a refreshingly happy sound that suggests its members don't dress in matching white suits or trash hotel rooms.
"Catching Looks," the band's debut album, is a concise and catchy spin through the band's world of poppy, upbeat rock without traces of the overproduction so many albums today enjoy. Songs like "Are You High?" and "Breaking the Dawn" sound a little garage-y, but are filled with intoxicating hooks that grab you with lyrics like "when you turned on your radio/ your radio turned me on/ so let's do it one more time before dawn."
This release has garnered WSC an immense amount of attention in a rather short period of time. Based on the simple perfection of the album, the attention is much deserved.
-EMILY ZEMLER
Muse *** "Absolution" (Warner Brothers Records) Sounds like: Placebo fused with Thom Yorke's more rockin' twin.
Muse's latest CD, "Absolution," which has recently come to visit from the U.K. where it has been on the shelves since last year, is like a bi-polar patient whose lithium hasn't kicked in yet. The album is a careful blend of throbbing rock and soft, emotional melodies that all feature one common thread - frontman Matt Bellamy's yearning vocals. Jumping manically between guitar-driven rock to synth-y ballads, "Absolution" still manages to maintain a semblance of seamlessness that would seem impossible considering the rapidity of the album's mood swings.
"Absolution" features Muse's most recent hit single, "Time is Running Out," a Brit-rock song that could be mistaken for fellow Brit-rockers Placebo. It is on the more driving songs like this that Muse succeeds on this album. "Hysteria" and "Butterflies and Hurricanes" are highlights that toss the listener around like a ship in a storm. The crashing keyboards and descending guitar riffs are augmented by Bellamy's affecting vocals in a way that is much more interesting than the album's slower tracks, all of which end up sounding like Radiohead knock-offs.
"Absolution" is a truly solid release that offers more variety than consistency, keeping the listener guessing as to what Bellamy and his minions will attack with next. Muse should keep its music off the meds - it is "Absolution"'s manic-depressive madness that keeps this album interesting.
-E.Z.
Bad Religion *** "The Empire Strikes First" (Epitaph) Sounds like: "Stranger Than Fiction" + "The Grey Race"
For a quarter of a century, Bad Religion has been the trademark of Southern California punk, outliving and outshining peers including the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, and though on "The Empire Strikes First" the band's age impeaches its youthful exuberance at points, at others it germinates the seeds of growth, in the end leaving a record that is sure to turn off some and enrapture others.
The build-up of "Overture," an instrumental that begins with a marching drum beat, arpeggios and single-note riffs, makes the perfect lead-in for "Sinister Rouge," a polarizing diatribe against the Catholic church, sure to put off a number of the band's fans whose anti-war beliefs stem from the castigated religion. If there were to be an album from which Bad Religion's name might be drawn, "The Empire Strikes First" is the frontrunner - at least seven of the tracks deal with religion.
Beyond the tried and true focal point of the lyrics on "The Empire Strikes First" is the tried and true backbone of a Bad Religion record - the instrumentation. Disregarding David Bragger's violin, John Ginty's Hammond - both instruments are present on that bastard of a record "Into the Unknown" - as well as programming, what is referred to as a gothic choir, and this reviewer's favorite musical addition, Leopold Ross' "sonic alienator" on "Beyond Electric Dreams," "The Empire Strikes First" sounds exactly like the record you would expect Bad Religion to put out if a new record was announced by the band. Though Brooks Wackerman's drumming could just as easily be digitalized tracks of former drummer Pete Finestone, Bad Religion is beyond the point where each record needs to be an experiment in the routine. Bad Religion is beyond that routine. A change in sound would not have made "The Empire Strikes First" any better of an album; in fact, it might have done just the opposite.
What makes "The Empire Strikes First" a good album are tracks like "All There Is," "Let Them Eat War," which features emo-rapper and neo-Epitaph Records member Sage Francis, and "The Quickening." Tracks that have strong lyrics, strong beats and truncated lengths are what made and continue to make Bad Religion the most important band in both the current punk scene and in the annals of punk history.
-ALEX KARGHER
