Paramore, ‘This Is
Why’
Paramore has regrouped after
Hayley Williams’ 2020 and 2021 solo albums showed how far her music could
stretch beyond punk-pop and new wave. On the title song of its first LP since
2017, “
This Is Why” (due in February) Paramore goes for wiry syncopation, not
punk drive and power chords. “If you have an opinion, maybe you should shove
it,” Williams sings, with biting mock-sweetness, over a backbeat, and a hopping
bass line. Choppy, clenched guitar chords — with more than a hint of INXS —
goad her as she sneers an irritated response to a sourly divided national mood:
“This is why I don’t leave the house.” — Jon Pareles
اضافة اعلان
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, ‘Fleez’
For much of their smoldering
new album, “Cool It Down,” the once hyperactive
Yeah Yeah Yeahs effectively
reinvent themselves as purveyors of lush, slow-burning art-rock (see: the
apocalyptically gorgeous, almost “Disintegration”-like leadoff single “Spitting
Off the Edge of the World”). “Fleez,” however, harkens back to the barbed sound
of their 2003 debut, “Fever to Tell,” and to the glory days of the indie sleaze
sound the New York trio helped pioneer. Ironically — or perhaps as a reminder
of how indebted that aesthetic was to the echoes of downtown past — the Yeah
Yeah Yeahs do this by interpolating the funky groove and titular refrain of South
Bronx greats ESG’s 1983 single “Moody.” “I make my transformation, and it feels
ni-i-i-i-i-ce,” Karen O vamps atop a chunky Nick Zinner riff and a shuffling
Brian Chase beat — still, after all these years, a chemistry experiment that
produces singular sparks. — Lindsay Zoladz
LCD Soundsystem, ‘New Body Rhumba’
LCD Soundsystem’s first new song since 2017, for the soundtrack of Noah
Baumbach’s film of the Don DeLillo novel “White Noise,” is the band’s latest
jaunty, motoric complaint about money and mortality. “I need a new love, and I
need a new body/to push away the end,” James Murphy proclaims. LCD Soundsystem
digs in, once again, to the late-1970s moment when punk, minimalism and dance
music found a common stomping ground. “New Body Rhumba” is brawny and
discordant, juggling sarcasm and sincerity, taunts and yearnings. Its final
stretch, tootling and pounding over an insistent drone, may be a deathbed
revelation, as Murphy belts, “Go into the light!” — Pareles
Caitlin Rose,
‘Nobody’s Sweetheart’: It’s been nearly 10 years since the country-influenced
indie musician Caitlin Rose’s most recent album, the whip-smart 2013 release
“The Stand-In.” Later this year, she’ll break that long silence with her third
record, “Cazimi,” out November 18. The latest single, the stomping, sassy
“Nobody’s Sweetheart” finds the silver lining in the single life, with Rose
musing in her knowing drawl, “When you’re nobody’s sweetheart, you make the
rules.” Even better, she adds, you’re “nobody’s fool.” — Zoladz
Frankie Cosmos,
‘F.O.O.F.’
Robert Smith was in love on Friday, Rebecca Black had to get down on
Friday and now Greta Kline — leader of the indie-pop project Frankie Cosmos —
freaks out on Friday. That’s what the playful acronym “F.O.O.F.” stands for
and, accordingly, the latest single from Frankie Cosmos’ forthcoming album
“Inner World Peace” is alive with Kline’s signature wry, muted humor. “It’s
still Wednesday, I have to wait two more sleeps ’til I can freak,” Kline sighs,
while a mildly noodly guitar solo saves up its most raucous energy. That the
brief song ends before that promised freakout is the point: Kline is more
interested in capturing that hopeful, anticipatory feeling — usually a
comforting fiction — that everything will be all right once the weekend comes.
— Zoladz
Nisa, ‘Sever’
“How many breaks will it take until we can’t fix it?” Nisa Lumaj sings in
“Sever” from her new EP, “Exaggerate.” The modest, bedroom-pop-like production
stays patient and contained until it isn’t. Nisa muses, at first just above a whisper,
about a deteriorating relationship; her voice is cushioned by synthesizer
chords while guitar lines poke at her like unwanted realizations. But when the
distorted strumming starts, the explosive breakup is inevitable. — Pareles
Dram, ‘Let Me See Your
Phone’
The digital era enabled countless new avenues for surveillance and
jealousy, and R&B songwriter Dram sings about one in “Let Me See Your
Phone.” The track uses slow-rolling, vintage soul chords, and Dram switches
between earnest soul tenor and falsetto as he details an accusation — “When I
look in your eyes/they don’t shine as bright as they used to” — and demands a
forensic investigation: “Type in your passcode so I can see inside your soul.”
Cheaters, by now, should understand that they should keep certain
communications offline. — Pareles
Oren Ambarchi, ‘I’
“I” is the first and most austere segment of the 35-minute composition
(and album) “Shebang” by guitarist, composer, and digital manipulator Oren
Ambarchi. Although he is joined by other instruments in the rest of the piece,
most of “Shebang I” is guitar alone: restless staccato picking that’s
multitracked, looped and digitally edited, building hypnotic polyrhythms around
an unchanging chordal root. In the last minute, cymbals and other sounds join
him, only hinting at what the rest of the piece will become. — Pareles
Bill Frisell, ‘Waltz
for Hal Willner’
Guitarist Bill Frisell’s tribute to a longtime friend, high-concept
producer Hal Willner, brings the lightest possible touch to an elegy; it’s from
his new album, “Four.” The harmonies are a slow, transparent cascade of
clusters from Gerald Clayton on piano, while drummer Johnathan Blake scatters
cymbal taps against the waltzing lilt. Frisell shares the melody with Clayton
and Gregory Tardy on tenor saxophone; each of them departs from the tune in
brief, conversational asides before returning to what sounds like a fond,
shared reminiscence. — Pareles
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