More lazy quickie album reviews...

Some of these I should have written about months ago. I don't care. Here we go:

Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass - I thought Mogwai were a lock for the year's funniest album title with Mr. Beast, when along came Yo La Tengo with this sentence that looked for sure like it had to be a joke. Sonically, the album is all over the place in a way that they haven't been since 1997 (when you-know-what landmark album was released), but Yo La Tengo are about as good at ten minute guitar freakouts as they are at three minute pop gems and subtle, introspective ballads. It makes from some strange juxtapositions here and there ("Daphnia" into "I Should Have Known Better," which isn't a cover of the Beatles song, is particularly jarring), but all of it works.

Paul Simon - Surprise - Paul Simon is not exactly en vogue among the nation's youth, or anybody under the age of 50, probably, but I love him just the same. Even so, who could have seen this coming? That it's his best solo album since Graceland is a given, but that doesn't quite express how good it is, even if it's an appropriate comparison, since, like Graceland, it comes as a somewhat radical reinvention and a new direction for an artist who needed one. And this from a guy that pretty much everybody thought was over the hill after Rhythm of the Saints was released. Surprise is quite a... well, you know.

Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds - I'll admit it! I like it! Ok, I like the first half, really, and most of that credit should probably go to Timbaland, who still has a great flair for making some very weird things sound very accessible. The best moments are fascinating because the in-your-face sexuality is betrayed by the weird, robotic, and sometimes abrasive grooves. Seriously, "Sexyback" is not sexy at all, but I love it anyway for the heavy distorted disco beat and those weird filtered vocals. Meanwhile, "My Love" is probably the coolest song I've heard all year, and "Love Stoned" is a great experiment in how the same words can change meaning with context. The lyrics are often laughably bad, and the second half drags to the point where I can barely finish it in one sitting, but it's a lot more than I ever expected from the star of *NSYNC.

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America - Blah blah blah liquor blah blah blah anthem blah blah Springsteen. I never thought I'd see the day when it would be hip to be influenced by Bruce Springsteen, but here we are. I will gladly welcome it. This is big, huge rock and roll done right, and everybody needs a fix of that once in a while. And if it eventually results in a few more hipsters with whom I can talk about the genius of "Jungleland," I have no problem with that either.

Zero 7 - The Garden - I honestly can't recall whether or not I've talked about this one on this blog before, which seems about right. Jose Gonzalez (the man with the most generic Hispanic name in the world) is a great fit for Zero 7, and Sia Furler is still churning out her soul-by-numbers, but they've lost their charm since Simple Things as they've veered away from down-tempo jamming and more toward faceless adult contemporary pop. That said, "You're My Flame" and "Futures" are still great, and their version of Gonzalez's "Crosses" is about as good as the original, which was outstanding itself.