Hot Snakes, Jericho Sirens

[Sub Pop]
Grade: A-

Although Hot Snakes ostensibly broke up in 2005, nothing’s final in the 30-year Rick Froberg-John Reis partnership, so it wasn’t surprising when the band reunited for shows in 2011 or announced a new album last year. Nor is it surprising they haven’t lost a step. Hot Snakes’ jittery, slyly melodic strain of rock—which draws from punk, post-hardcore, and garage rock—is based on rock ’n’ roll fundamentals, and lends Hot Snakes a timelessness. Where 2004’s Audit In Progress was (relatively) restrained—Froberg wasn’t howling through every song—Jericho Sirens sounds more unstable and aggressive. Reis sought dissonance, according to press materials. Other Hot Snakes albums had tension and release, “but this one is mainly tension.” The palpable anxiety of “I Need A Doctor” opens the album, segueing into the dissonant dread of “Candid Cameras” and the ferocious 78 seconds of “Why Don’t It Sink In?” “Death Camp Fantasy” is a vintage Hot Snakes pounder, and Froberg howls like Brian Johnson in “Psychoactive.” It all works. Whenever Hot Snakes decide to get together, they will always be welcome.

RIYL: Hating on the deficiency of rock in contemporary pop music. The discographies of John Reis and Rick Froberg. Loud guitars and pounding drums.

Start here: “Death Camp Fantasy” hits a sweet spot of power and hooks, its palm-muted aggression giving way to a catchy chorus. [Kyle Ryan]

The Decemberists, I’ll Be Your Girl

[Capitol]
Grade: B-

After seven previous studio albums and nearly 20 years together as a band, The Decemberists turn in their most divisive catalog entry with album No. 8. On I’ll Be Your Girl, the Portland group adopts new-wave synths, glam-rock poses, and studio trickery that warps Colin Meloy’s voice, underlines keyboardist Jenny Conlee’s role as The Decemberists’ secret weapon, and steeps the album in smoke-machine-and-lasers atmosphere. The mood is grim even by past standards, overseen by Texan gore hound John Congleton and only occasionally punctuated by the likes of lovely little lullaby “Tripping Along”—the cheeriest number here pirouettes around the title “Everything Is Awful.” First single “Severed” is a thundering warning shot, and the eight-minute “Rusalka, Rusalka/Wild Rushes” argues that the band should get a do-over on 2009’s The Hazards Of Love with Congleton at the boards, but the sense of character and storytelling in those songs is missing elsewhere. I’ll Be Your Girl is a welcome sign of a veteran band eager to experiment, but it’s also the first Decemberists album where the sounds are more interesting than the songs.

RIYL: The parts of Roxy Music’s Avalon that you can’t make out to. Mid-career departures. Slavic mermaid myths.

Start here: “Severed” serves up the heaviness of The Decemberists’ prog-rock detours in a more compact form, with a sense of foreboding instilled by creepy-crawly synth arpeggios and sideways allusions to creeping American authoritarianism. [Erik Adams]

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