Knut destroys.  Wonder is the new Knut album.  Therein, it also destroys.  Wait, if Knut destroys, and this is a creation of Knut, is Wonder therein a destructive force by proxy? Or is it allowed to breathe on its own and be destructive? Is proxy relative to the Knut-ish whole or a creation of force? What is force? Who are we if we are not Knut?  We are but simple humans caught in the metallic whirlwind that is Wonder. And so it shall be: we cannot attain Knut, though we can own it.

Here’s the deal: 5 years ago, Knut was a band, then I assume there weren’t for awhile.  They were out in Switzerland, and due to my limited knowledge of the area, I assume they were kicking asses and devoting their time to neutral stances on world politics.  And doing cool-dude shit.  I assume they did some drinking and drugs and laughed at the poor, lifeless souls using metal as a brand name rather than a conquest portal.  Then, in 2009, they decided they’d had enough, rose from the dusted pavements of their metropolis to reign down significant riffage and power upon us.  And, in return, we cower and kneel before their power, as we should.

All that said, I’m sure these are just some dudes who are amazing at making records and do it when they feel like doing it.  But this records beckons my hyperbole center.  The big red buttons labeled “YES” and “WOAH” are flashing.  The dexterous, yet solid, walls of guitars do not entrap, but invite.  The aggressive screaming boils the blood.  The ultra-loud drumming vibrate the inner-ear.  All the while, you look at those around you and, ahem, wonder what they would think of the hull-crush depth and drone of such animated brilliance.

I mean, how can I stop from slipping into unadulterated worship when I like an album this much? Genre be damned.  “Ultralight Backpacking” rips through the listener with an intro that slowly and creepily builds, wave-like– best seven minutes of the morning commute. “Damned Extroverts” is a study in perfectly-calculated stop-start fury.  “Suckers” is a full-noise barrage, scientifically proven to give you adrenaline without any effort on your part.  Then, there’s “Fast Forward Bastard.”  It’s so amazingly sludgy and weighed-down in demolition, it’s impossible to tell the precise point you give yourself over to the band fully.  There’s something about a Northern European man screaming “Such a Bastard” at the top of his lungs that motivates me. Wonder is hard as bone, but just as easily shattered force.

Wonder is weighted and freeing.  Purposeful, sure, but that is minimalistic thinking for this array of slaughtering sounds.  Manic, demonic, marinated in loathing, but ultimately cathartic and jarring, Knut leaves nothing to be desired when they decide to create.  The listener is not left with their hate or their barrage of sound.  Instead, the listener is left with a montage of labor and stimulation.  The last word is key: Knut stimulates rather than tries to bog the listener.  Perhaps it’s unintentional, but in hearing “If We Can’t Fly, We’ll Take the Boat” the destruction-by-way-of-calculation is there.  I challenge you to defy it.  You’ll fail and that might bring you closer to the level of damning brilliance Knut’s genre calcifies. We are not Knut, but we know they exist. We observe their method.  If metal is to be ignored so widely, then why does it exist in such a grand form? The answer, my friends, is swirling in the fantastical Wonder.

Once I got wrapped up in college, however, me and The Eels- not unlike me and most of my high school pals- drifted apart.  We didn’t have a falling-out or anything.  It’s just that there were so many new friends/bands to discover that our relationship slipped through the cracks.  I made a date with Souljacker but I was so distracted with other things that, I’m sorry to admit, I could barely pay attention to what it had to say.  A couple years later I ran into Shootenanny when I was DJing for the college radio station, but I only had time to squeeze in a couple of tracks in between listens of the new Deerhoof and Fiery Furnaces records.  When the double album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations came out in 2005, I didn’t even realize it existed until months later.

Tomorrow Morning is the 3rd part of a trilogy that the band has released in just over a year’s time (after Hombre Lobo and End Times), but it’s the first Eels album I’ve sat through in something like a decade.  I’m happy to hear that Everett is basically the same old, dear friend I grew to love all those years ago.  Sure, he’s been through some shit in the meantime- thankfully, nothing seemingly as bad as what he went through during Electro-Shock Blues.  He appears happier this time around; of course, even when he’s happy he still sounds a little sad, and when he’s sad he still has a pretty good sense of humor about it.  He can still write a handful of memorable songs like “Oh So Lovely” and “Mystery Of Life;” he still writes plenty of lyrics that make me laugh out loud (”The bad girls think I’m just too nice/ and the nice girls call me Dick”); and he still occasionally finds new ways to tweak his trademark style, like in the muted gospel of “Looking Up.”

Alas, I doubt I’ll be able to spend much time with Tomorrow Morning.  It made a fine first impression and all, but…I’ve just got a lot going on these days and…yeah I know you understand, Eels, I just thought I’d explain…yes of course we’re still cool.  We’ll always be cool.  You’re like a brother to me.  And hey, in another year or two when you put out a new record, we’ll totally get together again and have some cold ones.

These are unnatural greys. Interpol have sold us something untenable. There is bass and there are drums, and they meet somewhere in the night to receive wind and subterranean pulse. These instruments still function. The new record terminates at voice and guitar, which are now dispersed, abstract, bad carbon. On everything they leave black marks that signify how they are compromised. Paul Banks is not one but many; he throbs in and out of the mix in blunt choirs. He is approximating what it must feel like to have your head cratered by a rock. This rock is not even a particularly exceptional rock. It captures no peculiar strain of light. It travels in no specific arc. In its wake, a mess of blood and bone. An obtuse, grey pain. No economy, just dull muscle.

Black Mountain’s In The Future was one of my favorite records of 2008, so for over 2 years I’ve been eager to hear what this band would do next.   And maybe I anticipated a little too much, because my first spin through Wilderness Heart was missing something.  I still dig their uncannily ’70s lava lamp rock, which manages to feel mellow even when it drops Zeppelin and Sabbath-caliber riff-bombs.  Only this time around it didn’t seize me as immediately.  It seemed more generic and less adventurous.  Yet because In The Future has continued to reward me long after 10 listens, I’m going to stick with Wilderness Heart a little more.  Besides, I’m also partially to blame for my disappointing First Listen; I chose to do it in my apartment after midnight, which means I didn’t listen to it very loudly- which is rather unfair to a band that can rock as hard as Black Mountain can.  I’ll get back to you guys after I’ve really had a chance to blast this thing.

Wow. The new Of Montreal album is getting some juice from its guest stars (bionic robo-soul singer Janelle Monae and the indie Knowles, Solange), but I suspect it will go down in history as one of the most acerbic, self-loathing, bleak albums. Which is to say: It is an Of Montreal album of recent vintage. While there are no tracks as fierce and shaggy as “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal,” the record features its share of cutting songs. While the musical mood of False Priest is somewhat bubbly, bouncy, and effervesescent, it has its share of claustrophobic neurosis vehicles. “Around The Way” sounds like a particularly demented Aladdin Sane-era Bowie track. “Godly Intersex” sounds vaguely chillwave-y, without the lack of substance and philosophic verve the genre typically displays. “Hydra Fancies” uses the deranged, multi-track voice effect to, well, great effect. The entire album is made of recriminations aimed squarely at self and chunky barbs that hurt everyone. While I can’t hardly imagine the amount of psychic pain that propels the creation of such a document, False Priest seems to make it sound pretty fun.

I don’t know how to recommend this album to people.  Is it a pop record? Is it a rock record?  Is it dancey and fun?  Is it a serious record? Who are Tokyo Police Club, exactly?  I so eagerly anticipated this album’s release, I tweeted that it would be one of the most-hyped albums this year.  I believed it would be their breakout– the album that launched them into pop-rock iconography.  Then, I was removed from the world upon it’s release.  In an internet-less haze, I’ve not heard word one about how the album has done or what people think of it.  Even friends who love the band have moved on to rant and/or rave about new, exciting albums.  And I’m stuck in the (month-long) past, still plugging along with one of the better records to come out this year.

Champ starts with an atypical sad song.  “Favourite Food” is fashioned around a set of hospital images and child-like descriptions as the song ricochets from slow and moody to a fever pitch.  The lyrics are a series of injuries and innocence, downgrading what seems more serious to the listener.  That’s sort-of how Tokyo Police Club rolls– the stories are usually more magnanimous than the lyrics portray.  There’s a lot going on, though maybe not at the surface level.   “Favourite Color” follows with a big riff/catchy keyboard combo overlaying a lighthearted “getting to know you” atmosphere. This dynamic pair of songs (despite the banality of the line “You’re Tina but I’m not Ike” in “Favourite Color”) sets a rapid-fire tone for the album.  TPC tell wonderful short stories in three-minute time-frames.

Perhaps that’s why it’s difficult to pigeonhole them.  They create delicate songs, but play simple catchy riffs.  There’s nothing innately complex about their music.  There’s nothing too challenging about their lyrics, really.  Sometimes vague, sometimes cold, sometimes inviting, sometimes just a simple list, but everything is well-placed and well-timed.  Tokyo Police Club own their sound and hone their craft.  It’s that simple.

The record tears along, spitting gem after gem: “Breakneck Speed” is a midtempo jam worthy of being the opener or closer of the album– a rare song that carries momentum forward without overshadowing.  “End of a Spark” hardly feels like a middle-of-an-album play.  It’s a big-city story with an easygoing beat that Max Weinberg would nod politely to.  Then, “Hands Reversed” changes everything.  While not compromising the record, the style or the lyrical playfulness, Tokyo Police Club wrote an overwhelmingly emotional song with words just vague enough to give context without giving away the story. More correctly, the lyrics lead without forcing the listener to follow.  Sometimes, these are the best songs.  Obviously meaningful, “Hands Reversed” is an exercise on how to be objectively emotional while not revealing a natural cause.  It’s the best-written song on the album, and a terrific lead-in to the end of Champ.

They can’t all be gems, though.  “Gone” is a poppy head-nodder, but ultimately falls flat as a vacation song; a hokey rocker.  It’s not terrible, nor is it good.  It’s just there and does not translate well on an album this good.  So, when “Big Difference” starts in with it’s choppy-then-vibrant riffs, it’s a huge relief that the end of the album doesn’t sag its sails.  The song’s a great uptempo play and with “Not Sick” following, “Gone” is forgiven and forgotten.  “Not sensible/ I wanna marry a dancer/ A vegetarian/ Who can’t stand to be wrong.”  It’s glimpses into characters like this that make the album a worthwhile listen.  Closer “Frankenstein” is a fantastic model of TPC’s songwriting: simple, graspable, midtempo, well-written and one of the best songs they’ve constructed.  It’s a hodgepodge of what makes TPC a good band– a Frankenstein of creative flow.

It’s not that Champ is the best album of the year (as I incorrectly predicted), it’s that Champ is a solid record with few flaws that will remain good.  Tokyo Police Club could put out records like this and Elephant Shell over and over again– not really straying from the overall aesthetic while taking chances only visible after multiple run-throughs– and I’d be happy.  And I’d still struggle to tell people how they sound.  I’d still be strange when playing their records publicly.  Initial reactions can be brutal to a poppy record like this, but I’ll happily keep plodding along and listening.  It’s what I do, and Champ makes reviewing that much easier.

The evils of classic rock are laid out beautifully on the radio: long guitar solos, brash body worship, clueless love lyrics that equate to unintelligent, formless limerick lines and dude-centric bullshit littering the American Dream. Sure, I like some classic rock, but for every Tom Petty there’s a .38 Special and for every early Chicago, there’s, well, a late Chicago.  I struggle to find intellectual balance in classic rock. One part of me just wants to rock out and bang my head for metal health, the other wants to analyze this thing that’s called radar love.  The middle ground, for me, lies within the beast itself: meaning.  Is there a purpose to the rambling and rollicking? Why is this solo here? Are these lyrics really worth the time to sing them?

Phosphorescent seems to care quite dearly about this issue.  Here’s to Taking It Easy is a rock record with lots of jamming and solos and a dude lamenting this life.  I love that about it.  It’s also a lazily-phrased record about the recognition of simplicity; the idea of letting ideas run amok. I love that about it.  It’s a record full and teeming, but just as a simple as it needs to be. Nothing is complicated, nothing is compromised. I love that about it.  The style is up-front and unapologetic, but the lyrics are seemingly background meanderings of a scattered mind.  The lyrics focus intently at times (”Hey, I’m light” is repeated for an entire song and it majestic, sweeping and brilliant) and tell deeply involved stories at others (”Mermaid Parade” has my vote for song of the year, maybe). I love this about it the most.

See, the problem with writing a classic rock record is the temptations. It must be so tempting to dumb down a lyric or a story to sound as far-out as Zeppelin or hold notes like Skynyrd.  It must be tough to not feel the comparisons mounting as you drive through each note, each chord, each phrase.  The weight of a million boring musicians weighs on Here’s to Taking It Easy. Yet, Phosphorescent sheds these demons:  the licks are tired retreads, the harmonies are easy to maintain, etc., but somehow they sound refreshing.  How does Phosphorescent take a formula tired as classic rock and inject it with life? If I asked that question to any band, they’d likely shrug and say they like playing music.  This may have been just one of those “magic” recording sessions that produced a great album or one of those times when everything “clicked” or “came together” at the right time. I don’t entirely believe in those situations, though I agree they might exist.

I could just say, “I guess it doesn’t matter why the album is awesome. It just is.”  Too often, though, I dismiss good albums with the “it is what it is” mantra.  Hell, once is too many.  Perhaps it’s the high stress I’ve been under, perhaps the need for the refreshing take Here’s to Taking It Easy provides.  Copping out is so easy for a musician– “Baby, I miss the way you look in that dress” often replaces the stellar line in “Mermaid Parade,” “I’ve got a new friend too/ and yeah she’s pretty and small,/ but goddamn it Amanda./ Oh, goddamn it all.”  The latter line represents a bitter resentment not often seen in the genre, one that has been missing for so long that classic rock has become, in and of itself, an ironic American ideal like renegade cops or car chases.  The line also cops out– there’s no “I love you, I miss you, baby,” just a sign of ill-content and a nice long solo-filled outro.  This album is filled with amazing lines and perfectly placed filler.  I could go through it all, but, for once I think maybe I don’t want to ruin something by talking about it so goddamn much.  Sure, that’s a cop-out, but I’d bet Phosphorescent would agree with me on this one.

As a follow-up of sorts to our Zilla Rocca interview, here is a new video from the 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers for the “No Resolution 2.” The video is a tribute to 12 Angry Men. It does a good job marrying the intense film to an equally intense song, which turns the Velvet Undeground’s”Venus In Furs” into a raucous party jam beat. The song can be found on the Broken Clocks EP (and downloaded here, for free). Enjoy.

Zilla Rocca is a busy man. He is a Philadelphia-based rapper who’s been writing and rhyming for more than thirteen years. From 2003 to 2006, he was a part of the experimental hip-hop group Crooked Souls, which released Break Bread & Nails. In 2004, he teamed up with Nico the Beast to make the rap duo Clean Guns.  He created Beat Garden Entertainment, a Philadelphia rap consortium, with Nico and Octavius “Big O” Mitchell. And then in 2008, Zilla Rocca teamed up with producer Douglas Martin (aka Blurry Drones) to create the 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers. With Martin on production and Rocca on the mic, they released a breakthrough album, The Slow Twilight, which was loosely based on the noir film Blast of Silence. Earlier this year, 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers released an EP, Broken Clocks.

The 5 O’Clock Shadow Boxers have gained a considerable online following by working unconventional (read: Indie Rock) influences into a gritty, East Coast rap sound. Rocca’s verses center around the feelings attendant to living among the urban decay and uncertainty of the burgeoning 2000s. You can stream the album and EP by hitting the links above. Earlier this week, Zilla Rocca took a break from rapping, blogging, Tweeting, and Tumblring to answer a few questions via email.

10 Listens: I have to admit, I first got into the 5 O’Clock Shadowboxers because of the song “Eric Lindros,” which samples Cat Power. It seemed like a novelty song. But after listening to the complete album, it definitely hangs together pretty cohesively. Did you and Douglas Martin plan on making an album that combined traditional indie-type music (Cat Power, Velvet Underground, Elliot Smith, etc.) with hip hop?

Zilla Rocca: I don’t think we planned on doing a whole album in that style.  It just happened to be the way Douglas was throwing beats together, and everytime he sent me something of that ilk, it spoke to me moreso than “traditional” hip hop sounding tracks, so to speak.  I think after 4-5 songs, we realized this would be the sound of Shadowboxers, but then again on our new EP, Douglas sampled Fela Kuti and pulled it off.  Whatever he’s listening to usually ends up in the beats I get from him.  During that stretch, I’m assuming he was heavily into the artists that ended up on the LP.

10L: You mentioned in an earlier piece that you hadn’t even met Douglas before you came out with the album. Have you met Douglas Martin yet?

ZR: We still have not met yet!  He doesn’t exactly live around the corner, but we are supposed to be meeting in LA at the end of September.  I have a show out there on the 26th I believe and I think that week is his birthday, so he’s coming down from Seattle.  I’m sure we’ll hit off like 2 old maids.  And I owe him a beer for putting me on the map I guess.

10L: I get the sense that you listen to indie music. Who are some of your favorite musicians?

ZR: Shabazz Palaces, Why?, Dose One, Aesop Rock, the chick from the Kills, the drummer from Bloc Party, Javelin, Bonobo, El-P.  I’m sure there’s plenty more but I haven’t been keeping up with the indie stuff.  Too stuck on songs like “Crooklyn” and “Stress” by Organized Konfusion.  I’m getting back into great rap from ‘94 again.

10L: This might sound corny, but who are the nine rappers you relate to? (Or is that a Wu-Tang reference?)

ZR: The nine rappers I ACTUALLY relate to?  Hmmm….Worshipping, studying, and relating are three different things.  Let’s see…I always related to Andre 3000 because he was a brilliant introvert who came out of his shell through music.  That one line he said in “A Life in the Day of Benjamin Andre” about being the quiet kid in class who kept his head and was always drawing–that was me.  I relate to Ghostface in his storytelling mode; he reminds me of my uncles in how vivid and hilarious and detailed his stories are.  Irish uncles are the best at that.  I relate to Mos Def because now he almost never writes a third verse and toys around with traditional hip hop song structure.  Eff a third verse, man–always hate writing third verses!  Geechi Suede of Camp Lo because sometimes I like to just put words together that sound killer and figure out the meaning later.  I like guys that are into words because I love words more than anything.  Raekwon, Roc Marciano, Palaceer Lazarro from Shabazz Palaces, Aesop Rock, Dose One, GZA.  I think that’s about nine, right?

10L: You call yourself the “rap Jack Bauer” a few times. This seems like a good image, since a lot of times your lyrics are violently intense, but you seem to have a pretty rigid moral character in your songs. I mean, you’re not saying people should sell drugs, rape women, and murder people. You’re clearly expressing yourself vis-a-vis the political, social, and economic climate. But again, you’re not really anything like Eminem, anger-wise. The song ‘No Fury’ teases out a relationship between fire and fury, and you seem to remain on a side other than unmitigated anger. Then again, rather than it being for the ladies, the song says it’s “for the drunk dude by himself.” How do you see anger being used in your songs?

ZL: “No Fury” really sums up how I am when dealing with conflict or unpleasant things.  It takes ALOT for me to snap or flip out.  I have tons of patience and an open mind, and I always prefer to figure out a resolution rather than rock the boat for no reason.  In my songs though, sometimes the music I get pulls out a primal urge to just destroy things.  It’s pretty great to get lost in the mindset of someone who WOULD do all the things I wouldn’t do.  I think I’ve actually been angrier this year then I was at any point when making the Shadowboxers joints. And the new stuff I’ve written is darker.  But I’m not into shocking people like Eminem.  I try to do what Alice Cooper did: I’d rather suggest what can happen than fully outline the pistolwhipping of a defensless nun on the 61 bus.  It’s hard for me to be outright crude and vulgar.

10L: There’s a verse in “Dirt Naps” that goes,

My pops had a heart attack scare, why bother?

To worry about some internet love (Who the hell is this?)

The blog boys got holes and can’t fill ‘em up

Cause a Zshare link don’t equate to real buzz

which makes an interesting point (and actually similar to the point TI argues against a lot in Fuck A Mixtape). Clearly, the Internet has had an interesting effect on yours and a lot of other contemporary, up-and-coming rapers’ careers. It seems to me that the Internet has probably helped rappers pretty spectacularly in some cases, but it’s also created a kind of race to the bottom, oversaturation of tracks, and mixtapes that are just rushed out at a frenetic pace that often means a sharp dip in quality. How have you worked the Internet in your career, and what do you think are some of its ups and downs?

ZR: Without the internet, there’s no way you’re interviewing me, so I have to appreciate it.  I think the biggest problem with the internet is the instant access of everything: information, news, porn, shopping, sports, rap shit, etc.  It gives people unrealistic expectations when it comes to their music, as if people will magnetically cling to their stuff by virtue of it being a Zshare link or a retweet or a blog post on 2dopeboyz or whatever.  It also gives way to unprecendented charading–suddenly, everyone is on the same level.  If I logged onto NahRight.com with only a passing interest in mainstream rap, by default I’d have to assume Blog Rapper X is just as big as Lil’ Wayne because they’re both on the front page.  When we used to only go to record stores, the big name cats would have all their stuff in the front, posters everywhere, display racks with their record/CD/tape, etc and if you were a newjack or local cat, your music was buried in the bins and forgotten.  Now, there really is no shelf to create a natural order of importance.  Superstars are featured right next to openers and vice versa.  And the openers think THIS IS MY TICKET! MY SONG IS FEATURED RIGHT BELOW LLOYD BANKS!  MY INTERVIEW IS RIGHT NEXT TO SNOOP DOGG’S YOUTUBE CLIP!  No one wants to work, to slave away, to polish and refine and try and fail and fail and fail again and then MAYBE succeed.  But that’s how it was for a looooong time.  15 blog posts on NahRight doesn’t mean you’ve actually accomplished anything–it just means you have a good publicist.

The good thing about the internet is now people have choice, albeit too much choice at times, but if you don’t like what’s on TV, or the radio, or at the movies, you can literally spend 10 seconds and find whatever YOU like.  I try to approach my fans like that.  I hate selling stuff because I don’t like to be sold anything.  I like to digest information and experiences then make up my own mind.  I’m very accessible to people, and it’s cool to talk to a fan from Singapore via Facebook, or have Twitter debates with cats in Detroit about why LeBron is a born loser.  Internet users now are very sophisticated and savvy–they know how to find things.  If people want to find me, that’s awesome.  I try to keep a respectful distance in terms of the musical output and promotions because I know when an artist turns into a self-promoting spam machine, I’m gone.

10L: A sort of follow-up. I didn’t listen to a lot of rap growing up. In fact, I came to it at a pretty late age (when I was almost done with college), and I’ve only gotten really into it over the last few years. In a lot of ways, I don’t think about it in a geographic sense, which seems like the traditional way to carve it up. I more think of rappers as Internet Rappers versus (I suppose) Traditional Rappers. So in this way, I situate 5 o’Clock Shadowboxers with artists like Cool Kids, Wale, and Das Racist, even though you all come from across the country. Do you think this is a kind of, well, stupid way to think about rap music? Do you feel a sense of competition with other rappers coming up on the Internet? Do you follow their careers?

ZR: I used to trip and get salty about internet competition with other rappers 3-4 years ago when I first started getting press. But after a while I realized the folks who I love and respect the most, whose career paths I’d like to follow, would never give a shit about blog coverage.  They would only be interested in doing something cool and sharing it with other cool people who might like it.  And after they got really good at it, maybe more people would notice.  And they would take it from there.

In my mind a Blog Rapper is worthless.  They put out so much music and are basically saying, “Here–YOU sort through all this trash and figure out what’s good”.  A Blog Rapper drops 100 songs before they drop a physical, actual release.  They are egotistical, entitled assholes.  They’re not concerned with making a GREAT album, making a GREAT song, putting on a GREAT show–they want hits and downloads and more Twitter followers than you and YouTube comments and all this other secondary, childish junk.  To them, it’s a new toy, it’s not an obsession or a vocation or a way of life.  For you, the only thing I would say is understand the difference between a Blog Rapper and a Traditional Rapper–a Traditional Rapper puts the craft and the art and the fans and the live show and the cohesive album FIRST.  A Blog Rapper puts HIMSELF first–he always needs attention.  A Traditional Rapper can be all over the internet–look at Bun B; he’s been dropping music since ‘92.  But look at the decisions he makes with his career and why.  Then look at the decisions Charles Hamilton makes.  Blog Rappers are the Reality Show contestants of music.

10L: Can you let us in on any information regarding upcoming projects?

ZR: Well we dropped the Broken Clocks EP in March with videos coming shortly for “No Resolution 2″ and “Dirt Naps”.  Just dropped a homage to Cannibal Ox called “Life’s Ill: The Redux” over on Bandcamp.  We also just partnered with World Around Records for a maxi-single/EP for “Weak Stomach” that’ll be a joint project between Shadowboxers, Alex Ludovico, and Curly Castro–tons of remixes, some new stuff, some old stuff built around the song “Weak Stomach”.  That’ll be out in late summer/early fall.  I know Douglas is working on his first instrumental release Legit Punks.  I’m doing a mini-project with DJ Dylan, a wellknown and respected drum n bass pioneer from England.  That’s coming along pretty well.  I might drop an EP of either drum n bass, dubstep, downtempo stuff or my long awaited proper solo project Fall Back Friday.  Haven’t figured out which way to go yet.  And myself, Small Professor, and Curly Castro are doing a project inspired by The Wire called Major Crimes.  I might do another end of summer mix.  Essentially, whatever is cool that day, that’s what I work on.

10L: Do you watch It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia?

ZR: I do watch it.  The coffee shop they shoot in is 3 blocks from my front door.  And I’ve been drinking at Mac’s Pub–used to be this awesome shitty hole in the wall called Skinner’s that looked like Milwaukee in 1983, then Mac from the show bought it and spiffed it up.  I always miss them when they’re filming in the city.  And I do practice the D.E.N.N.I.S. System quite accurately.

10L: Are you working a dayjob, or is rap a full-time career at this point?

ZR: I do have a dayjob.  With the economy and the internet, I’m not sure how to make rap a full-time career just yet.  I know maybe 2 people who pull it off.  I have some power moves coming down the pike that might change all of that.  Or it might not.  Either way, I’ll be doing this for a long time.  A pesky little thing like a 40 hour dayjob will never get in the way of me spending (and wasting) time and money to do this.

10L: What do you think of Kanye’s Twitter?

ZR: It’s like giving Ryan Adams speed–don’t we already get the maximum amount of Him just from Him being Him already? Do we need more enabling devices?  I was pretty good with my 3-4 ridiculous Kanye Moments every year doing it the old way: letting one of the biggest stars in the world open his mouth to the 24 hour newscycle.  I love Kanye though; I should’ve put him in my list of the 9 Rappers I Actually Relate To.

10L: You really don’t follow hockey? Did you make the song “Eric Lindros” because of the man’s huge presence in Philadelphia sports?

ZR: Douglas named the song “Eric Lindros”.  I was here for his entire era though.  It was madness–he was a god.  And then, he was not.  And then he was hated.  And then he was traded.  Superstars in Philly rarely leave on good terms.  The people here hate greatness; they don’t like it when it looks like things are too easy for someone.  Iverson was great but it looked hard.  Same thing with Chase Utley.  McNabb–not so much.  Definitely with Lindros either.  But I did love watching the Flyers in the playoffs this year. And I will always hold a place in my heart for NHL ‘96 for Sega Genesis.  Radek Bonk WHAT UP!

10L: Are there any collaborators you’d really love to work with?

ZR: I need to work with Shabazz Palaces.  And Why?  And Mos Def.  I need to be working with guys who can rap their ass off and choose not to do it as much; conserve the greatness.  Stretch that shit out!

I suspect that this will be a divisive record, and it’s easy to see why. The Suburbs seizes occasionally, like an epileptic, recalling the jarring, fresh sensibility of the Arcade Fire’s debut, Funeral. And right now, book it: “Sprawl II” is the second-best song of the year. The title track and “City With No Children” each proceed with a stylish shuffle. Songs like “Empty Room” and “Half Light II” rush out as towering, four-on-the-floor vehicles for propulsion. They offer what Arcade Fire is good at: melding the classy, high-register foliage of strings to slick, crashing guitars. You kind of expect frontman Win Butler to proffer one of his silly, winsome yelps. But Win doesn’t yelp anymore. Win doesn’t yelp anymore because Win is epically bummered. You see, after leaving his Québécois paradise to tour America, Win witnessed the great tragedy that threatens constantly the very edifice that makes us human in the most transcendent sense: Urban Sprawl.

It’s such a common criticism that it’s practically no criticism at all. I mean, you don’t need signs posted everywhere telling you not to rush out in front of traffic. Nonetheless, it is more true for The Suburbs than for many recent works: There is an album in here, somewhere. But what got pressed onto vinyl/laser etched onto compact disk/ encoded into mp3 is emphatically not an album. There are heavy makeout sessions, limbs striking walls and breathing like gasping, that are more of an album than The Suburbs. Clattering pans and chefs pratfalling on spilled olive oil may sound more like an album than The Suburbs. No, The Suburbs sounds like the lifeless reflections of a chastised middle schooler set to a funereal caricature of this band I heard about a few years ago. They released a great debut called Funeral. It’s not an album so much as a boring lecture set to forgettable background music. It sounds like getting your pant leg stuck in the bike chain and you dump and have to go home to your mom yelling at you about grass stains. It sounds like an Elk’s Club essay about the topic Modernity. There’s something alive in it, but it’s buried deep.

This third Arcade Fire record weighs in at a long 16 songs, spanning an interminable 65 minutes. There are songs on the record, but they don’t sound like songs. If a Las Vegas bookie offered me an over/under of 20% for the percent of the words coming out of Win Butler’s mouth that are “suburb(s),” “cars,” “sprawl,” and synonyms for darkness, I would take the over. The album is maniacally focused on disliking the suburbs, discovering that the world is a shopping mall, and feeling bad about either being from the suburbs or having to drive around the suburbs once you’ve gotten out of the suburbs. From a lyrical perspective, I don’t think I have ever heard such a poor album from such a talented band. A verse from “Modern Man” goes,

Oh I had a dream I was dreaming
And I feel like I’m losing the feeling
Makes me feel like
Like something don’t feel right
I erase the number of the modern man
Want to break the mirror of the modern man
Makes me feel like
Makes me feel like

which, I think we can all agree, is a terrible verse. “I had a dream I was dreaming” is an unacceptably hamfisted way to convey any sort of feeling (or feeling of a feeling), even if it is profound and incisive feeling. And this feeling doesn’t feel, you know, like a profound feeling. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. There are some very simple lyrics that wonderfully convey commonplace feelings. That effect is arguably what pop music is primarily about. The Suburbs doesn’t do this. The album is like a nagging, whinging expression of modern man’s powerlessness over getting papercuts. Its effect and sentiment is actually what the phrase “banality of evil” should have been meant to mean. The sophistication with which Butler tackles problems is so childish and effete that it seems like it could actually be a really clever ‘meta’ joke. It’s like a 65 minute version of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic,” if only she actually knew what “irony” meant and she was just fucking with us the whole time. Because that would have been ironic. But I really don’t think Butler is self-aware enough to know that neither his subject matter or the form of his denunciations are about as sophisticated as a baby wearing a lab coat and a gray wig, sitting in front of a chalkboard that says E = mc^2.

I mean, unemployment is destroying America. People are losing their homes. And Win Butler has released an album shitting all over the idea of “punching a clock” and having a nice home. The whole shitty mess is so privileged that, I mean maybe Butler should have his artist card revoked for a while. There’s a climactic moment in “The Sprawl” where, over dramatically buzzing strings, Butler complains about curfew: “Cops showing their lights / On the reflectors of our bikes / Said, ‘Do you kids know what time it is?’ / ‘Well sir, it’s the first time I’ve felt like something is mine’.” Life is really hard, I know. Getting hassled by the suburban cops to get off the well-maintained suburban street and ride your suburban bike back to your suburban house where your suburban family has prepared a suburban dinner for you to suburbanly eat before you study for your suburban algebra test and go to suburban bed is emphatically not how life is hard. In “Wasted Hours” Butler sings, “We’re just kids in buses longing to be free,” and that line seems true. His problems are of such an unsophisticated, boring, and kind of offensively bland nature that a lot of The Suburbs sounds like some kids on a school bus doodling in their notebooks, singing, and making a ruckus until their bus is in position to let them off to school. To the sixth grade. In which they’re eleven years old. The Suburbs is about eleven-year-old problems. I mean, come on. Grow up.

It’s nice to end on a high note. This is the end of the review, so I will say again that “Sprawl II” is a really great song. It recalls Abba in pleasing ways, and for some reason the banal lyrics sound better when Régine Chassagne is singing them. It’s a mystery why Régine is only used for about a third of the songs. Practically all her contributions are fun and good. The rest of the album is, well, the opposite: tedious and bad.

[Purchase the Arcade Fire's The Suburbs (mp3) for $3.99 from Amazon. That's about what it's worth.]