Today's featured shit

These songs have a lot of energy, and, yes, screaming females. That’s one for the lead singer and another for the backing vocals. This makes two, and that proves the necessary pluralization of “female.”

“Sour Grapes” sounds like Kristin Hersh. You can tell that this track plays well live, because it is a good song that is mixed poorly on the album. During the chorus, the guitar is too loud, and because the lyrics are mixed high the rest of the time, you are expecting to hear a chorus whose lyrics are to jolt you like you’ve got on a pair of corduroy pants while walking on a shag carpet.

“Treacher Collins” must be a Tom Collins made with wine coolers. On iTunes it is spelled “Teacher.” This track sounds like L7. The mixing is more logical on this song. It stands up well, and it could only be improved with some more distortion. “Starving Dog” is frenetic but not out of control. The drums remind me of “This is Radio Clash.” The guitar reminds me of Primus.

“Lights Out” sounds like an old Gossip song, “Bring Back the Revolution.” I really like the guitar in “I Believe in Evil,” especially at the beginning. “Halfway Down” sounds like the mic is halfway down her throat. It takes guts to be that guttural.

Some catchy poppy stuff here. “Din” has Dambuilders music with nondescript 1980s male vocals. Like Peter Murphy, maybe? The bass is mixed really loud, but that seems intentional.

“Terra Fuego” sounds a lot like “Din,” only with Doors-era keyboards. It’s a fun song although a bit silly. “Another Monkey on the Vine” is not about KVYN DJs. This one has fuzzier guitar and more of that underground Reagan-era modern rock.

“Knockoff” is slower but still good. It leaves me with a sudden urge to wear a jean jacket. The keyboards are not central to the song but complement the rest of the music nicely.

“The Diz” is not about the kid in Wee Pals, although it would be awesome if it were. I always thought that “The Diz” was a good nickname for The Disney Channel, but some boardroom execs must have thought otherwise. This song is really long and would good for talking over.

This album is fucking awesome. If you like female-fronted semi-punk bands, this is the way to go. The songs are all short and leave you wanting more. The recording is a little raw, which makes perfect sense for this act. They are amazing here. “Buzz Buzz” starts off and knocks you down, and then all of a sudden it is “Afternoon,” which has great whistling and male backing vocals. And then there is “Hokay,” which is what Elida would always tell me when we worked together at Arby’s. She’d also call me “Jose.”

“Earthquakes” has that mid-’90s up-and-down feel, although I admit that the vocals sound as if they belong on another song. Maybe it’s like that milk in the glass bottle at Whole Foods with a yellow lid. Maybe I need just a wee bit of pasteurization in my music.

“True Story” is short enough (49 seconds) that it might be one. It’s fun. So is “Talk Shit, Get Hit.” The songs are all really short. So is this review.

This album is precious. It has a song called “Tucheses and Nenes.” What’s not to like? (This song really gets them going on the dance floor by the way. You can tell just by listening.)

There are two singers, one male and one female. The female songs are more amusing, but they are all good. “Mirror Mirror” mentions toilet paper. I bet it’s the two-ply kind.

“Meat Street” has accordion out the ass. It’s a lot of fun. You wish you could sing along, but the words aren’t in English, so you just drink more beer. “Tell Her You Love Her” should be covered by They Might Be Giants.

“Citizen Boris” asks questions that prospective U.S. citizens have to answer. They answer them too. Let them vote! “Chervona Ruta” puts a little more emphasis on the female singer, and it is something you would hear, perhaps, while hanging out with wild and crazy guys, while you all scheme ways to grab some great big American breasts.

Slightly sleepy and with a dreamy voice up front, Joker’s Daughter are another mellow indie pop band. Helena Costas as a great voice, even if the songs do not exhibit overly strong pipes. Quality is always better than quantity anyway.

“Go Walking” has all kinds of accompaniment and seems to be telling a great story. There’s a little more effort felt here. Sometimes it almost feels that the band is too clever for its medium. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll, after all.

When properly metered, however, you can find some genius. “The Last Laugh” has an ambient feel and is a departure from the other tracks on the album. It may not appear in a club anytime soon, but it does provide some welcome synths and a fun perspective for fans of One Dove, of all bands.

“Under the Influence of Jaffa Cakes” is the rock song that puts it all together. It brings to mind wandering minstrels with Fleetwood Mac melodies. “Jelly Belly” is another story song and is easier to follow than the others. It also has some hidden keyboard stuff. It must be the Danger Mouse influence. Cor!

“Cake and July” is good for fans of Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe they can play this in the background while they take turns letting everyone hit each other.

“The Bull Bites Back” also tells a good story and should make you want to sit patiently on your yarn loops.

The tracks certainly don’t sound all the same. “No Home” sounds like a Yeah Yeah Yeahs ripoff. “Lo and Behold” has nothing magnetic about it, but it does have that girl group sound I love, whether it’s The Kirby Grips or The Jolenes. “Subject” is more in the Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Pretty Girls Make Graves vein.

“The Rules” is a live song from 2004 in Los Angeles. It has harmonica. Definitely the honky-tonk sass of some other generation. Finally is “I Heard Tell,” which is a live recording from New York City in 2008. It also has the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound, even more than the others. I guess it is pretty clear what they are trying to do here. They could pick a worse band to emulate; that’s for sure.

Stella Schindler’s list of 11 songs runs a bit long, but her above-average voice brings to mind an evening of making your own pasta sauce with your girlfriend. It’s clearly a bonding activity, but when Ragu is $2 a jar, isn’t there a better way?

The music reminds one of early 2000s female-front mellow indie rock, such as the Softies’ rockier stuff. The lead singer is an octave lower than the Softies, but it has vocal range, and sometimes that’s more important.

“Broken Glass” and “Distant Hum” are slower tracks but are simple and efficient. “Simon Montgomery” sounds like a Lisa Loeb song. “Death Valley” is about as country as that Jack in the Box ad, which is to say it has midgets and is not as entertaining as you’d like it to be.

The tracks have a natural progression to them, so three cheers to Schindler to putting thought into this. The country parts are definitely entrenched in the middle tracks. You’re then listening to a waltz called “Walk a While.” This has the best singing on the album. Yeah, I still call it “singing.”

Superchunk have been around for so long that I bet they first tried to call it a maxisingle. There are five tracks. “Learned to Surf” leads off and should remind you of Superchunk of yore. They’ve aged a bit. They almost sound a bit tired in the vocals, but the accompaniment is full of energy and proves that you can recreate the 1990s sound without being boring.

“Misfits & Mistakes” offers more of the same. Maybe it’s a little better. “Screw It Up” is a lot better. Every track on this EP is worth a listen, really.

“Knock Knock Knock” maintains the same trend: Mac McCaughan seems a little tired, but musically the track is superb.

The last track is the acoustic demo of “Learned to Surf.” Back in the proverbial day we called this “Unplugged.” It sounds better than the juiced up version, but really these are minor quibbles. We should be so lucky to have any new Superchunk to listen to at all!

It’s another mid-1990s fuzzy guitar occasionally female-fronted last-name-Deal knockoff. That’s fine. I always want more pseudo-Amps music. “29 Acts of Love” is as good a song as any, I suppose. Stay away from the longer tracks, though. A lot of these songs run a bit more than they should.

“Sleep” is an example of this, clocking in at 5:09, but the melody makes it worth it. Still, the tempo could be increased a bit without taking anything away from the song, and we’d all be better off. “Sad Eyes” sounds like Suffrajett. It has some hootin’ and hollerin’, but otherwise it’s still a bit tired.

“Love Songs” has smoother guitar and reminds me of Catherine Wheel. It’s understandable considering how the rest of the album sounds. All this album does is remind me of how depressing the music was when I came of age. That’s not exactly the best selling point.

Pass.

They’re definitely going for that Neko Case alt-country thing. These songs have all kinds of instruments of them, including trombone, trumpet and glockenspiel, which is much easier to type than to say. “He Went Down” puts it together fairly well. The melody on this track is weird. You can’t really tell when a line ends, because the last word always ends on an up note.

“How Many Hours Can a Cat Stay Asleep” is a piano-based ballad with sobering lyrics about cocaine and fish and other nouns of emotion. It’s very beautiful at what it’s trying to be. It is the only track longer than three minutes, too. “Allison” is a waltz and features a lot of piano.

“He Said That I Was Crazy” is peppy and fun to listen to. The backing vocals give it a bit of a Britpop feel. But the song that puts it all together is “Just Another Feeling.” The melody makes perfect sense and does a lot of what a Billy Joel song would do. Who needs any stinkin’ guitars? Not Doctors & Dealers during this ditty.