NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS - "DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!!"

Once you get a feel for Nick Cave, it seems you can't ever shake it. Musician, composer, author, screenwriter Cave reconvenes with his Bad Seeds bandmates, after dipping into several other projects since the 2003 release of the band's previous album 'Nocturama'. Among these projects is last year's Grinderman, with a self-titled record that made many people's 2007 best-of lists. The subsequent tour made a most memorable stop at the Metro..easily the most intense show, and perhaps the best, that I saw all of last year. Cave also emerged with the '05 film "The Proposition", starring Guy Pearce, which marked his screenwriting debut, and a soundtrack penned by himself.
So what are we dealing with in terms of an album, here? Well, while some slammed him for going through the motions and simply "being" Nick Cave on 'Nocturama', we now see (as we did on 'Grinderman') a return of his typical urgency, energy, clever songwriting, and stream-of-consciousness lyrics on 'Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!' To boot, where Grinderman was about as close as we've come in a long time to the rawness in his original work of his post-punk outfit The Birthday Party, I'd say this release is a happy medium between that sometimes abrasive early sound, and the weak-knee-inducing crooning melodies of more recent Bad Seeds releases.

THE BREEDERS - "MOUNTAIN BATTLES"

Ok, right off the bat, most people will say, "What?!?! The Breeders are back??!". And for the most part, you'd be correct in assuming the group died right along with the "alternative" heydays of the early and mid-90's. It's been six years since their last release, 'Title TK', which is a vast improvement over the near decade it took to put out that record after 1993's platinum-selling 'Last Splash', which of course contained the smash single "Cannonball". 'Title TK' was a decent record...about as good as it could be considering the 9-plus year absence...but it went largely unnoticed.
It makes sense that "Mountain Battles" was a long time in coming, especially since Kim Deal spent practically half of those said 6 years involved in the earth-shattering Pixies reunion. The core of The Breeders continues to be Kim and sister Kelley Deal. I was hoping to see a return of founding member Tanya Donnelly (of Throwing Muses), who left The Breeders right before the group hit it big with 'Last Splash' in order to form the band Belly (remember the tune "Feed The Tree"?).
All in all, we've got a quality batch of music here. The track "German Studies", as typical as it may seem for me to say so given the song's title, is an uptempo take on Krautrock; then the girls throw you for an even bigger loop with the soft acoustic Spanish-language number "Regalame Esta Noche". Lead-off track "Overglazed" is pretty much what you would expect to hear from them, as its lo-fi approach most resembles their work of the 90's.
The Deal sisters' habits of unique and innovative studio techniques can be heard, and even if they had released five records since 'Last Splash' instead of just one, this would still likely be the best of them.
So if you're a former alternateen like myself, or perhaps The Breeders are something completely new to you, 'Mountain Battles' is a worthwhile listen either way.
I'm definitely looking forward to their upcoming gig on 31st May at The Metro.

WYE OAK - "IF CHILDREN"

Baltimore's Wye Oak have this collection of shoegaze indie pop out, and it's just the sort of stuff that on grey spring days reminds you of the coming summer pleasantries ahead. If you're *really* astute, you might have caught onto this record when the male/female duo self-released it last year. It's ok, I didn't either. But the folks at Merge Records did, and if you're an idie group, Merge is a dream come true of a home, considering it was/is home to the likes of The Arcade Fire, Teenage Fanclub, Spoon, Dinosaur Jr., the list goes on. So what you have is the sort of primitive sound that can only come from making a record in your bedroom. Jenn Wasner's vocals are delicate and cheery despite being full of reverb, and the melodies are catchy amidst a good amount of fuzzy guitar.
And if you're standing at a Wye Oak gig someday, and would like to impress your friends around you, here's a quick fact: The Wye Oak (from which the band takes its name) was the 96 foot high honorary state tree of Maryland, located in Wye Mills, MD, and was estimated to have been over 460 years old at the time of its destruction due to a hurricane in 2002. More useless knowledge!