St. Vincent and David Byrne “Weekends in the Dust”

My feelings about Love This Giant are pretty close to that of my friend Eric Harvey: Annie Clark and David Byrne are a smart match on paper, but their ideas don’t quite gel on this record. I find myself getting bored with Byrne’s songs and waiting impatiently for Clark to sing again, and I’m generally fine with late period Byrne. I could see myself warming to the album over time, but at this point in time listening to it in full can feel like a chore, which I really was not expecting. I do love portions of it, though, most especially “Weekends in the Dust.” The horns on the record can get a little heavy-handed and monochromatic, but they’re used really well here, rooting the neurotic scratch of the guitar to James Brown-style funk and add a more fluid melodic element to a piece that is otherwise stiff and reserved. The canned percussion makes sense here – it disconnects from the core funk, and indicates an emotional and intellectual rigidity. Clark’s vocals in this context remind me of Janet Jackson, who has always been good at playing it cool yet subtly soulful and dynamic in the context of rigid, mechanical funk.

Buy it from Amazon.

Swearin’ “Kenosha”

Swearin’ excel at a very particular sort of 90s rock. I’ve seen some people compare them to Superchunk, but to my ears, they are nearly a dead ringer for That Dog, but with a sassiness similar to a U.K. indie band like Sleeper. Of course, these reference points will only make sense if you’re kinda old! The appeal of this is really basic: The chords convey a passive-aggressive angst while feeling just a bit cozy, and Allison Crutchfield’s vocal performance adds subtle dimension to lyrics that could just as easily come across as straight-up bitterness and spite. She’s very sour and cutting on the chorus – “I hope you like Kenosha so much that you stay there,” directed to an ex-boyfriend who has gone back to his college town to visit old friends – but at other points, she sounds genuinely wounded and insecure about the whole situation.

Buy it from the Swearin’ Bandcamp page.

The xx “Angels”

The xx broke big because people connected with their sexy minimalism, so in their own way, opting to go softer and more intimate on their second record is the equivalent of a rock band aiming for something bigger and louder. Coexist sounds like what you expect from the xx, but even more so. I imagine a lot of people will be thrilled with this, but I have mixed feelings about this record. While a few of the songs have melodies and motifs strong enough to be presented with almost no accompaniment, a good chunk of the record is lacking in dynamics, so large portions of the album just sound like some codependent couple murmuring at one another in the middle of the night. It can be so airy that there’s no implication of physical contact, so the types of duets that seemed almost lurid on the debut are charged with a less compelling sort of tension.

“Angels,” the opening track and first single, is my favorite, and it’s mostly because Romy Madley-Croft’s vocal part is so gorgeous and emotionally potent that anything other than a barely-there arrangement would’ve been overkill. While other songs on Coexist sound like the arrangement style was a foregone conclusion, this is an example of a song being perfect for their approach regardless of whether or not they’re the performers.

Buy it from Amazon.

Cat Power “Manhattan”

“Manhattan,” intentionally or not, echoes the sound of one of my all-time favorite New York City songs – Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out.” Both songs pair a steady electronic pulse with bright, sparing piano chords, and somehow imply a grand, highly detailed urban landscape with those simple musical gestures. But while “Steppin’ Out” depicts the ritzy glamor of a night out in the big city, Chan Marshall evokes the feeling of the city just a few hours later, as the sun slowly rises and people get back to work. It’s not morning rush hour; it’s just before that – the first wave of the coming day, and you can still feel the stillness of the night around you. Yeah, she’s singing about the night, but it’s from this perspective. Sober, bleary-eyed, pensive. Like all of the songs on Sun, it cuts deep because she’s singing from this distance – the balance of softness and crispness in her voice signals a lot of wisdom.

Buy it from Amazon.

The 10th anniversary celebration of this site comes to a close with this collection of 2009’s best and most notable music. This is, of course, the very recent past, and I can understand if you’re feeling kinda “uh, who cares?” about this one. But! 2009 is a pretty incredible year, one of the best of the past decade, and with this set, I have anthologized a full decade of music. All of previous surveys are still up – 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 – and in December, I will put up a survey of this year’s music. In the meantime, I may get around to putting together a mix of great songs that fell through the cracks in putting this project together, but no promises!

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Phoenix “Lisztomania” / Neko Case “This Tornado Loves You” / St. Vincent “Marrow” / Bat for Lashes “Siren Song” / Raekwon featuring Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah and Method Man “House of Flying Daggers” / Lil Wayne and Pharrell “Yes” / Big Boi and Gucci Mane “Shine Blockas” / Kid Cudi featuring Kanye West, Common and Lady Gaga “Make Her Say” / Discovery featuring Angel Deradoorian “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” / Evil Cowards “Soldiers of Satan” / Charlotte Hatherley “White” / Florence and the Machine “Dog Days Are Over” / Shakira “She-Wolf” / Rick Ross featuring The-Dream “All I Really Want” / Beyoncé featuring Kanye West “Ego (Remix)” / Little Dragon “Feather” / Basement Jaxx “My Turn” / Animal Collective “Brother Sport”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Lady Gaga “Bad Romance” / Fever Ray “Seven” / Washed Out “Feel It All Around” / The xx “Basic Space” / Maxwell “Pretty Wings” / HEALTH “Die Slow” / DOOM “Gazzilion Ear” / J Dilla featuring Raekwon and Havoc “24K Rap” / Shabazz Palaces “1055 32 leaves dipped in blackness making clouds forming altered carbon” / Joy Orbison “Hyph Mngo” / Royksopp featuring Robyn “The Girl and the Robot” / Bear In Heaven “Lovesick Teenagers” / Wild Beasts “Hooting and Howling” / Wilco “Bull Black Nova” / Junior Boys “Parallel Lines” / The Big Pink “Dominos” / R. Kelly “Echo”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

Dirty Projectors “Cannibal Resource” / Grizzly Bear “Cheerleader” / Tune-Yards “Hatari” / The Breeders “Fate to Fatal” / Micachu and the Shapes “Calculator” / Jay-Z “On to the Next One” / Ke$ha “Tik Tok” / La Roux “Bulletproof” / Metric “Help I’m Alive” / Handsome Furs “I’m Confused” / Thunderheist “Jerk It” / Rihanna “Rude Boy” / Sleigh Bells “Crown on the Ground” / Frankmuzik “3 Little Words” / Amerie “Tell Me You Love Me” / The Very Best featuring Ezra Koenig “Warm Heart of Africa” / El Parro Del Mar “Change of Heart” / Felix “You Are the One I Pick” / Kings of Convenience “Mrs. Cold” / Antony and the Johnsons “Kiss My Name” / Frida Hyvönen “Jesus Was A Cross Maker”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

Das Racist “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper RMX)” / Ciara featuring Missy Elliott “Work” / Lily Allen “The Fear” / Atlas Sound featuring Panda Bear “Walkabout” / jj “Ecstasy” / Young Money “BedRock” / Passion Pit “Sleepyhead” / Matias Aguayo “Rollerskate” / AC Newman “Submarines of Stockholm” / Rose Elinor Dougall “Fallen Over” / The-Dream “Mr. Yeah” / Annie “Anthonio” / Dominique Leone “I’m the Police” / Slow Club “Trophy Room” / Taken By Trees “Greyest Love Of All” / Girls “Lust for Life” / Jay Reatard “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” / Telekinesis “Tokyo” / Pissed Jeans “R-Rated Movie” / Julian Casablancas “4 Chords of the Apocalypse”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

The Flaming Lips “Convinced of the Hex” / Spoon “Got Nuffin” / Au Revoir Simone “Shadows” / Drake “Best I Ever Had” / Mos Def “Supermagic” / Zomby “B With Me” / U2 “No Line on the Horizon” / Morrissey “Something Is Squeezing My Skull” / PJ Harvey “Black Hearted Love” / Jarvis Cocker “I Never Said I Was Deep” / Future of the Left “Arming Eritrea” / The Pains of Being Pure at Heart “A Teenager In Love” / God Help the Girl “Act of the Apostle” / Music Go Music “Light of Love” / Golden Silvers “True No. 9 Blues (True Romance)” / Thao “When We Swam” / Pearl Jam “The Fixer” / Electric Six “Egyptian Cowboy” / UUVVWWZ “Castle”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Zero” / Kelly Clarkson “My Life Would Suck Without You” / Miles Fisher “This Must Be the Place” / Anni Rossi “Ecology” / Solange “Stillness Is the Move” / A Sunny Day in Glasgow “Close Chorus” / Gigi “I’m Not Coming Out Tonight” / Real Estate “Beach Comber” / Jeffrey Lewis “If Life Exists (?)” / James Rabbit “In Love with the Idea” / Chain and the Gang “Unpronounceable Name” / Weezer “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” / The Decemberists “The Rake’s Song” / Sonic Youth “Sacred Trickster” / YACHT “The Afterlife” / Clipse featuring Kanye West “Kinda Like A Big Deal” / Cooly G “Love Dub (Refix)” / Beak “Backwell” / Avett Brothers “I and Love and You”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Major Lazer featuring Vybz Kartel “Pon De Floor” / Swedish House Mafia “Leave the World Behind” / The Lonely Island featuring T-Pain “I’m On A Boat” / Silkie “Purple Love” / Joker and Ginz “Purple City” / Adam Lambert “Music Again” / Nine Inch Nails “Non-Entity” / Peaches “Talk to Me” / Think About Life “Havin’ My Baby” / Japandroids “Young Hearts Spark Fire” / The New Pornographers “Hey Snow White” / Green Day “21 Guns” / Fight Like Apes “Tie Me Up With Jackets” / Cornershop “Who Fingered Rock & Roll” / Cam’ron “My Job” / Ghostface Killah featuring Fabolous “Guest House” / Alchemist featuring Three 6 Mafia and Juvenile “That’ll Work” / Oh No Ono “Internet Warrior”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

The Dead Weather “I Cut Like A Buffalo” / The Fiery Furnaces “Lost At Sea” / Cymbals Eat Guitars “And the Hazy Sea” / The Joy Formidable “Cradle” / Miley Cyrus “Party in the USA” / Lacrosse “It’s Always Sunday Around Here” / Super Furry Animals “Inaugural Trams” / Neon Indian “Deadbeat Summer” / Tegan and Sara “Arrow” / MEN “Off Our Backs” / Dizzee Rascal “Bonkers” / DJ Quik and Kurupt “Hey Playa!” / Yo La Tengo “Here to Fall” / Alicia Keys “Empire State of Mind (Part II)” / Cotton Jones “Gotta Cheer Up” / Julianna Barwick “Choose” / Fuck Buttons “The Lisbon Maru” / Franz Ferdinand “Ulysses” / Portishead “Chase the Tear”

Animal Collective “Moonjock”

Centipede Hz is like one of those Magic Eye posters – at first, it’s hard to find its form in its treble-heavy clutter, but once you acclimate to its tonal range, you “see the boat,” and from that point onward it just sounds like a bunch of pop songs. Or, at least, Animal Collective-style pop songs. That said, while I’ve had some time to live with the record and its melodies have sunk deep into my brain, I’m still not crazy about its tinny frequencies and near total lack of low end. It makes the album unnecessarily exhausting, even when played on a good stereo. The sound of it makes sense on a conceptual level, though – the band is emulating the sound of radio, and seeking to capture that feeling when you’re a kid and you’re still figuring out what music is and it all sounds a bit strange and alien. “Moonjock” makes this theme explicit in the lyrics, as Avey Tare recalls going on family trips in his childhood, and listening closely to tapes and radio signals on a Walkman in the back seat. I strongly relate to this memory, and also to its odd balance of idealizing a shared moment with his family that coincides with a totally private experience with headphones. They perfectly capture the spirit of this in the music, which conveys a sense of adventure and imagination, but scaled down to something small and safe.

Buy it from Amazon.

Corin Tucker Band t”Groundhog Day”

I like Wild Flag, I do, but I can’t listen to them without yearning for Corin Tucker’s voice. Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss brought a lot of power to Sleater-Kinney, but Corin was the soul, and her mountain-blasting vocals gave the band its urgency and emotional potency. Tucker’s first solo record did little for me, but this cut from her forthcoming followup is exactly what I’ve been missing. “Groundhog Day” gives voice to her frustration with the state of feminism, and wondering why it seems as though there’s been almost no progress in the past decade. In a way, it’s a sequel to the All Hands on the Bad One track “#1 Must Have,” which had the same balance of disappointment and bleak wit, and similarly urged other women to take action. In both cases, it’s a song that does its best to shake the listener out of complacency, and remind them that you can’t rest on your laurels after a bit of incremental – or worse, purely superficial – progress.

Buy it from Amazon.

Tame Impala “Elephant”

The previous Tame Impala record was notable for its bold rhythm section, but this cut from their forthcoming followup goes a few steps further, with the bass and guitar parts sounding especially thick and chunky, like lines drawn on with an extra-wide marker. The combination of vocal tone and melodic turns with the sinister schaffel beat makes it sound like John Lennon in his Plastic Ono Band phase writing his own version of Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2.” And really, how is that not enticing? It’s a perfect blend of glam imperiousness and chilled-out psychedelia. I’m kinda surprised I’ve never encountered a song quite like this one before.

Pre-order it from Amazon.

Deerhoof “Breakup Songs”

Deerhoof pull off a tricky balancing act on Breakup Song: They’ve significantly changed their sound while retaining their very distinct character. The glitchy electronic textures are jarring at first, but it quickly becomes apparent that that their rhythms and melodies have only been changed on a superficial level, and there is a clear aesthetic through line from any point in their creative evolution to where they are right now. “Breakup Songs” is particularly strong – jumpy, jittery and absurdly generous in its variety of tones, but oddly mellow at its core. I can see why this is a “breakup song” – it sounds like being shaken up by a sudden change in status quo, but also understanding on some level why it had to happen.

Buy it from Amazon.

Divine Fits “Would That Not Be Nice”

Britt Daniel and Dan Boechner are such fully formed artists that it’s not much of a surprise that they can only really sound like themselves as Divine Fits, their new band with drummer Sam Brown. The Britt songs sound like Spoon; the Dan songs sound like Handsome Furs, and the reason it fits together is mainly because their aesthetics are complementary – they dress up a similar sexy, hyper-masculine character in different forms of studio gloss and caustic wit. “Would That Not Be Nice,” the only track on the record credited to all three members, is also the number that sounds most like Spoon, with its rumbling funk and liberal use of processing on Britt’s vocal. I really like the sound of that effect here – it kinda swallows up parts of his lines, blurring his meaning and sharpening his delivery. The slapback sounds like a literal slap back at points, which suits the performance rather well: There’s a touch of affection in Britt’s words, but it’s mostly a bit caddish, as he’s working to seduce a woman he seems to resent and fear. But as much as she’s “destructive, alien and deranged,” that clearly turns him on.

Buy it from Amazon.

Teengirl Fantasy featuring Romanthony “Do It”

Romanthony is most famous for being the singer on Daft Punk’s “One More Time,” which is, of course, one of the most widely beloved dance songs of the past 20 years. He brings a similar presence to this new song with Teengirl Fantasy – joyful yet serene, soulful but devoid of angst. The lyrics, about living it up at a dance club, are totally banal, but he elevates them by virtue of total commitment. You hear Romanthony sings these words over these beats, and you know he’s a true believer. He brings an absurd gravitas to it, as though he’s the High Priest of Dancefloor Optimism.

Buy it from Amazon.

Ellie Goulding “Anything Could Happen”

The big keyboard hook in “Anything Could Happen” is so bright and bouncy that it seems to make the whole world sparkle. The song is arranged like a fireworks display, with the big moments bracketed by verses and breakdowns that only seem smaller in scope and intensity because of their proximity to that ecstatic chorus part. At one point, a bridge leads directly into another breakdown, just for extra dramatic flair. This isn’t empty bluster, by the way: This song is a direct descendent of The Knife’s “Heartbeats” on both a musical and lyrical level, and taps into the fierce emotional energy of Björk in her early solo career. Goulding’s wide-eyed optimism is contrasted with lines that soberly accept the worst possibilities implied by “anything could happen,” and in the bridge, she comes to an important realization that while she’s willing to give her lover everything they need, she might not actually need them. The beauty at the core of this song is in how she doesn’t need to know, and how she’s equally open to the possibility of things succeeding or failing. She just wants to be fully alive in every moment, and to avoid the sort of neuroses that stand in the way of true romance.

Buy it from Amazon.

Jessie Ware “Still Love Me”

The music in “Still Love Me” sorta creeps and slinks around, echoing lyrics that pose questions about a romance that’s gone a bit sour. It’s a song that is, on every level, about uncertainty, but Jessie Ware’s phrasing on her lead vocal parts goes against that grain – she lets on a bit of wounded defensiveness, but her tone is stern and sure. This relationship may be a mess, but she knows her love is real, and you can tell she really wants to know if her partner still loves her too. She sounds willing to fight for this, at least if they’re up to the challenge as well.

Buy it from Amazon.

She Does Is Magic “Sing With Me”

A lot of guys write sweet songs about girls, but not everyone can sell it. Chad Serhal, the singer and guitarist for She Does Is Magic, is quite good at it – his voice has a handsome richness, but it’s not slick and studied, like a guy who is obsessed with his own sexual power. There is warmth and wear in his tone and phrasing – at some points he sounds like a more polished version of Lee Ranaldo. He just sounds like a good dude with a kind heart, and that extends to the sound of his guitar, which on this song, alternate between Strokes-y rhythms and pretty lead lines that, if rendered in light, would kinda sparkle softly in the air. This is summer love music, gently easing into the fall with a vague fear that the magic may soon fizzle out.

Visit the She Does Is Magic page on Bandcamp.

King Krule “Rock Bottom”

I used to have an elaborately curated and sequenced iPod playlist that I labelled “Night Town,” and it featured something like four hundred songs from across many genres and eras that…uh, sounded really great late at night. I listened to the playlist mostly when I was traveling home from somewhere late at night. It wasn’t all slow and quiet songs, and it wasn’t all ambient and vibe-y or anything like that. A lot of it rocked, some of it was pretty, and a lot of it had some kind of groove. It all made intuitive sense to me, at least, and I’m sure it would make sense to you if I recreated some stretch of it from memory and shared it with you. It’s a feeling, a resonance, and maybe something tied to memory, as a lot of it came from the 70s and 80s and those sounds formed my childhood. I can say without question that the sort of songs I put on that playlist are among the most evocative and moving pieces of music I know, and I wish that when people ask me what kind of music I like most, I could just say “well…up-tempo pop, cryptic rock, and stuff that would be on my old “Night Town” playlist.” It’s true, but no one would get it.

King Krule’s small but intensely amazing body of work is as “Night Town” as it gets. There are elements of his music that remind me of the Clash – not just his Joe Strummer-esque voice, but that goes a long way – and the Clash is a band that only ever sounds right late at night. Krule goes further with that, giving everything a sort of loose, vaguely impromptu vibe and leaving a lot of space in the music for notes to hang in the air, a bit the way sounds seem more slow and still when streets are empty and there’s not so much light to distract your senses. “Rock Bottom” isn’t quite as bleakly romantic as the cuts from his first EP last year, but the mood is just as potent – more confrontational, a bit more jagged, and the structure meanders a little. He says so much with just the sound of his rasp, I can sometimes forget he’s actually singing words.

Attempt to buy it from Rinse.

Blur “The Universal (Live in London, 8/12/2012)”

As of this writing, I have purchased six official Blur live releases and have acquired at least five other high-quality quality recordings of the band in concert. (I spent money on a few of those too, because it was the 90s, and you had to pay for that sort of thing back then.) I can say with some confidence and a high degree of authority that Parklive, the band’s latest live album, is the best of the lot, or at least on par with my beloved Art School Rocks in Feedback Frenzy! bootleg from the 1997 tour.

The performances in Parklive are great, but the quality really comes down to an excellent engineering and mixing job that captures the energy and sound of the band as well as the vast open air audience, who sing along and elevate the performance with their enthusiastic participation. Capturing the sound of the audience is crucial in a top-quality live document – ideally, the power of a live show is about the dynamic between what’s happening on stage and in the crowd. All through Parklive, you can hear this extraordinarily excited audience egg on the band, resulting in the best and most ecstatic live rendition of “Song 2” I’ve ever encountered, a gloriously goofy “Parklife,” and a heartbreakingly sweet extended breakdown at the end “Tender.” You can go back to the band’s previous live album from 2009, recorded at the same venue and featuring mostly the same songs, and while it’s a good performance, the people are so much more faint. The power isn’t there.

“The Universal” has pushed me to the edge of tears a few times recently, and each time it was kind of a surprise because I was in a good, stable mood until its sentiment stirred something in me. The tone of the song is very bitter and ironic, but somehow the phony optimism of the chorus goes full circle to earnest hopefulness, and the cynicism gets purified by the schmaltz. It’s a very English sort of thing – having those defenses up, but embracing it when the thought of accepting misery becomes too much to bear. Hearing all these people sing along to “it really really really could happen” is both heart-warming and tiny bit soul-crushing, because you just hear all these people affirming their connection to this painful emotional compromise.

Buy it from iTunes.

Garbage “Felt”

So, as it turns out, Garbage can be an exceptional shoegazer band when they want to be one. I kinda wish they wanted to be one more often – whereas a lot of their new comeback record sticks to very familiar ground for them, “Felt” highlights aspects of their sound that were always in the mix, but never quite on the surface. I appreciate Shirley Manson’s bold, snarling personality, but it’s nice – revealing, even – to hear her go soft and ethereal. She conveys a lot of uncertainty in this song, questioning whether her lover “felt anything” with her, and whether she was being fair with their relationship, and whether any of it matters at all. It’s all so open-ended that it’s hard to tell whether she’s still in the thick of this drama, or looking back on it and attempting to figure out what went wrong. It’s a pensive mood and a hazy vibe, but the song has a very solid form – all of the most shoegaze-y moments are punctuated by bold, more typically Garbage-like alt-rock hooks that sound like a mind resetting momentarily to a default position.

Buy it from Amazon.

Opossom “Blue Meanies”

Kody Nielson pulls off something really impressive on the first Opossom record, but it’s rather subtle: The record keeps up a consistent and specific vibe – a relaxed psychedelic funk that falls somewhere between the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and the Avalanches’ Since I Left You – but the music itself is constantly shifting its dynamics, so it remains compelling for a solid half hour. This shouldn’t seem like that much of a miracle, but if you hear enough records – especially on the chill end of indie – it’s actually quite rare. “Blue Meanies” is particularly great as its bass line slinks and bobs around a fill-heavy beat that provides a steady form but implies no solid shape. Like everything on the record, it’s clearly defined but feels loose enough to change course completely at a whim.

Buy it from Amazom.

Domo Genesis and the Alchemist featuring Smoke DZA “Power Ballad”

Domo Genesis is a strong rapper, but he’s probably doomed to be forever overshadowed by the more charismatic and/or controversial members of the Odd Future crew. This is a common plight in hip-hop – just look to Inspectah Deck and Masta Killa in the Wu-Tang Clan as a rough analog – and it’s even more common on sports teams and most offices. Like Earl Sweathshirt and Frank Ocean, Domo has made a significant artistic leap this year, but compared to those guys’ breakthroughs, it’s kinda minor. There’s nothing jaw dropping on his Alchemist-produced mixtape No Idols, but his skills have improved considerably, and he’s found a musical context that flatters the tone of his voice and the particular cadences of his rhymes. “Power Ballad” is the standout; he sounds like a harder, more verbally nimble version of Drake framed by a looped lead guitar lick that sounds like it could be lifted from a particularly corny Cinemax skin flick.

Get the mixtape for free from DatPiff.

The Kills “Dreams”

Jamie Hince doesn’t get a lot of credit for being one of the most inventive and distinct guitarists of the past decade, which is sort of aggravating because I get the sense that he’s often underrated and overlooked primarily for his close proximity to the fashion world. But while most every other notable act through the majority of the 00s did their best to either obscure or eliminate the guitar, he obsessed over tone and attack, and tinkered endlessly with digital effects.

This cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” is, sort of unexpectedly, a fine showcase for his style as he basically eliminates every trace of Lindsey Buckingham’s aesthetic in favor of exaggerating his own, emphasizing blunt physical force on the instrument and highly abstracted distortions. Sometimes it just barely sounds musical, but as much as he goes in for this industrial clanging, he never loses the structure of the song itself, so the noise has a loose, gestural quality that suggests the shapes that Buckingham articulated very, very clearly.

Alison Mosshart’s vocals are just as important here: Unlike a lot of singers on this new Fleetwood Mac tribute album, she is actually up to the task of inhabiting a Stevie Nicks song, and can do it without doing an impression. Mosshart comes off a lot tougher than Nicks, who exposed more vulnerability in her earth mother persona, but the moments where she cracks that facade a bit convey so much emotional nuance. There’s a lot of ache just under the surface of her performance.

Buy it from Amazon.