

I’m here to report that never have I felt my desires so controlled as I do right now, sipping this 7.2 percent Double Deuce Imperial Ale, listening to the raw, calculated rock of Portland’s Wow and Flutter. And you know what? I don’t mind. In a stroke of music marketing genius, Wow and Flutter didn’t hesitate to go right for the jugular to get the word out about their new recordings: alcohol addiction! Buy their specially brewed concoction in specially labeled 22 ounce bottle—thanks to the efforts of Alameda Brewing—get a download of the tracks, and poof! Beer EP! And it’s probably the best extracurricular libation project foisted upon the public since Maynard James Keenan’s vino, or more recently, Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s organic Kona coffee. At least I can get my hands on the brew.

Also unlike its predecessor, this particular compilation feels more personal than scholastic. As McGonigal himself says in the liner notes, "It’s not a clinical sampler; these are the songs I’m most obsessed with, that if you dropped by my house I’d say 'you have to hear this.'" As such, it's a more motley and interesting listen, if also a trifle more inconsistent. These recordings feel particularly homespun, rawer and hoarier than the sometimes breathtaking tracks contain on Fire in My Bones. If there's nothing as joyously stirring, and if the recording quality is even spottier, there's plenty of shadow and mystery and musical left turns to keep things moving along.
What's most impressive to me is the fervor and depth with which McGonigal put the record together. This is someone who knows his shit, but even more importantly, gives a shit. His love of this music is impossible not to absorb after listening to even a few tracks, and the fact that he's sharing so much of it—putting all six discs of both compilations into my shuffle rotation reveals even more unexpected delights, not to mention how perfectly it complements the rest of the 20th-century rock and rhythm & blues that was already in there—makes This May Be My Last Time Singing seem like a near-bottomless bag of goodies.
FURTHERMORE: Mike McGonigal is hosting a program of rare, weird, raw gospel films entitled Shout Troubles Over tonight at the Hollywood Theatre. They are kind to warn us that "quality of some of the sources is funky at best," but there's little doubt there'll be plenty of hair-raising stuff, most of which you'd never see otherwise.
Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, tonight, 7:30 pm, $7

On his latest record, the portent We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, John Maus delivers on the premise that he is "nothing except the making of music" with a highly imagined and singular artistic statement. Now, Maus has been dinged for both his artificiality and zealousness in the past, but here he embraces those polar qualities, somehow escaping with his authenticity intact. Take the mercilessly inciting "Cop Killer" or the mature goth-pop love song "Quantum Leap" for instance. Maus cleverly employs dialectics and genuine sarcasm throughout the album to illustrate his own ambivalent nature.
Backed only by bass, keyboards, and a drum machine, Maus flames through 32 minutes of baroque electro-pop like a hypomanic evangelist, his high-gravity baritone scaring the hell out of anyone listening. I heard that if you repeat "John Maus" three times in front of a mirror with the lights out that he will appear and steal away your firstborn. But seriously, if the rapturous sincerity of album closer "Believer" doesn't make you one, nothing will.
Tracks like "The Cognitive Revolution" and "Paramilitaries" also invite comparisons to the cheerfully mopey sound of Belle and Sebastian, but New Century Schoolbook never sound quite so bogged down by life's day-to-day struggles as that forlorn Scottish band. Rather, lead vocalist Johnny Askew's plainspoken, sometimes comic vocals occasionally sound bled dry of outward emotion—or at least sound slightly impassive, as if he's explaining something to a young child and trying not to get emotionally involved. And the band finds steady grooves in heavier songs like "The Firmament," a loping song that becomess increasingly taut, to excellent effect. Elsewhere, the band sometimes plays a little too thumpily, lacking the delicate touch that some of the softer material requires. But if the songwriting is occasionally more consistent than the performances, that's definitely a good sign; the bones are sturdy, and New Century Schoolbook's pliant sound usually has a good grasp on subtlety—not often a common trait for a rock band. Here's Don't Hold Your Breath's most elegant and inviting track.
LISTEN:
New Century Schoolbook - "Paint by Numbers"
New Century Schoolbook play Sunday, May 15 w/the Caps and Johnny & The Bells; Ella Street Social Club, 714 SW 20th Place, 9 pm, FREE

That comparison has never made sense to me—Elvis never wrote a single note, while Diamond's legacy is that of a songwriter, much more than that of a singer or performer (or movie star, for that matter). Having come up through the Brill Building School in the '60s, Diamond became an unlikely pop star in 1966 with "Solitary Man," his first record for Bang Records, which set off a magnificent two-year string of recordings that should rightly be the bulk of his legacy.
Should be. But with the sole exception of a 1983 collection of 12 remixed and re-recorded tracks from Diamond's 1966-67 Bang heyday, that period of his career has remained woefully out of print, with many of Diamond's best songs remaining unissued for nearly 40 years. The long overdue The Bang Years, due out tomorrow on Columbia/Legacy, goes a good way of correcting this oversight, collecting the 23 original mono mixes that Bang! released in 1966 and 1967.
Two songs I can't stop listening to right now:

LISTEN:
The Parting Gifts - "Keep Walkin'"

LISTEN:
Birds and Batteries - "Strange Kind of Mirror"
Neither Birds and Batteries nor the Parting Gifts currently have Portland dates on their tour schedules.

Play It Strange is their third full-length (and first for In The Red), that finds the fervent self-produced band stepping out of their home recording studio for the first time in their still young career, and into Tim Green's Louder Studios. And boy, does Green clean them up nicely. But Green's impeccable ear for rich tones and textures doesn't deserve all the credit here. Much of the Fresh & Onlys brilliance can be attributed to key songwriter Tim Cohen. While he certainly wears his tender heart on his sleeve (The Fresh and Onlys have been on almost every mixtape I've made in the past year), he rolls those romantic sentiments into expansive guitar hooks and twinkling piano touches that walk off into a distant, cold, dark desert night, leaving you with a head filled with crystal-clear memories and a heart covered in dust.

Or so I thought until I heard Wolf People. I didn't know anything about this band when I put the CD in: where they were from, what kind of music it was. It had a Jagjaguwar label on it, which is an excellent stamp of approval, but that's as much as I knew. Then retro-stoner psychedelic prog began creeping out of the speakers, and I knew immediately that I loved this band.
Wolf People sound like a cross between Cream and Jethro Tull, with a chilly British-Isles folk twinge. But the guitars are heavy and blues-riffy, the drums swing, the lyrics swirl in mythic imagery, and the compositions move adeptly through several disparate pieces. The songs on their debut full-length Steeple bear ridiculous titles like "Cromlech" and "One by One from Dorney Reach," which is simply bad ass. In short, it's a Brit-prog nerd's finest fantasy (I don't not fit into that camp), but it's better than just a retro retread: It's inventive, dynamic, and a lot of the time, it fucking rocks.
Here's the single. It's not the best track on Steeple by a long shot, but it's still terrific. It's the only song on the record with flutes, if that ends up being a little to Tull-y for you.
LISTEN:
Wolf People - "Tiny Circle"
Wolf People come from London, and Steeple was recorded partly in Wales. They're fronted by a chap named Jack Sharp. They don't have any US dates booked yet, but you can expect that to change. They host an excellent blog which includes selections from drummer Tom Watt's vast collection of obscure Finnish records. They're one of my favorite new things I've heard in months. Expect big things. Steeple comes out October 12.

More review and an audio track after the jump.
There's been a lot of panicking over natural disasters and upheavals in the last couple of weeks. If you're feeling confused and scared, this press release should offer you some answers you're looking for:
Rising up out of the fertile soil of Southern Oregon's Rogue Valley, the group of Intergalactic Reggae Revolutionaries known as Indubious come straight from the heavens above to spread the word of love and light through their earthshaking sound. Leaving audiences stunned, and downright amazed, this genre-bending reggae power trio comes pumping a positive message, and wielding impressive instrumental skill. Their infectious reggae driven sound has exploded both national and international markets, igniting a revolution, and leaving in the wake a mob of loyal fans, affectionately called Indubians.
Don't be scared, fellow Indubians! That sound you hear is just the international markets exploding. The release goes on without hyperbole:
The band is comprised of bass virtuoso and lyrical acrobat, Spencer "Skip Wicked" Burton, the exceptional keys, sonngwriting, and lyrical ability of his brother evan "Evton B" Burton, and the newest addition, the drum phenom, Matthew "One Sock" Wells. They blend together a mix of authentic dancehall and new roots reggae tracks, visionary lyrical messages, and insane electro funk fusion jams to create a sound destined to change the face of music."Cosmic Seed," The highly anticipated followup album, is an undeniable powerhouse of a record... Cosmic Seed has a little bit for everyone in all age groups and for all musical tastes. Upliftment is eminent.
Oh man, I think I just came pure THC.


Ezra isn't the only one trumpeting the work of Laura "Two Beers" Veirs. The Portlander nabbed a "Critics' Choice" in today's New York Times. An except:
("Summer of the Champion" is) full of texture... You almost want to run your hands across it and feel the nicks in the wood grain, or order it off the appetizer menu in your town’s new warehouse-district restaurant run by a ruddy-faced genius with a beard. And so with the rest of Ms. Veirs’s new record, “July Flame,” named after a farmer’s market peach. It’s full of layered folk and indie-rock bucolia and plain-spoken but stretchy-thinking language, wherein everyday energies or objects transubstantiate into other, metaphorically richer ones.


Perhaps it's due to pressure from Vampire Weekend's recent revival of his legendary dad, but 37-years-young Harper Simon stopped slacking and finally released his debut album. Not surprisingly, Simon has a natural talent for writing hearty folk music and Harper Simon is a solid, impressive album that should turn heads regardless of whose sperm he is. Of course there's only so much Simon can do to escape sky-high expectations and his vocal chord's DNA, but he's clearly finding his own voice as a singer/songwriter. Sometimes Simon escapes his pop's short, prematurely bald shadow into sunny territory more like the rural South, where Elliott Smith is happily drinking a mint julip. Songs like "Wishes and Stars" and "Berkeley Girl" unfortunately just sound like re-planted Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme while songs like "All to God" and "Ha Ha" sound like cheerful echoes from Mister Misery's tomb. There's also plenty of barn burners like "Tennessee" and "Shooting Star" but the highlight is when he sounds like his own man on "Cactus Flower Rag."
LISTEN:
Harper Simon - "Cactus Flower Rag"
Harper Simon plays at Mississippi Studios (3939 N Mississippi) on Fri Dec 11, 9:30 pm, $12.

Ray Davies has not ultimately side-stepped the geezer syndrome that almost every rocker his age has succumbed to, but he hasn't tarnished his damn-near unbeatable legacy nearly as bad as some of his peers. In fact, his Portland show last year was one of the best concerts in recent memory, sounding vital and alive. But this... this has happened.
I don't know who this record is for. Kinks fans? Chorus fans? A song like "Waterloo Sunset" can't be entirely killed by a Christmassy sounding choir ooh-ing in the background, but some of the other songs don't fare so well.
LISTEN:
Ray Davies & The Crouch End Festival Chorus - "Picture Book"
Ugh. I need a hot bath and an original copy of Village Green Preservation Society, stat.

Two totally unrelated notes about Brighten The Corners:
The day the record came out, a little over a decade ago, my friend Jenny was enjoying it so much that she ran a red light and totaled her car while listening to it. I view this as a positive sign for the album, and a negative one towards her driving ability.
Also, my brother worked at Capitol Records when the album hit the streets, and I pestered him for a rumored--yet never confirmed--Brighten The Corners promotional nightlight. I swear, I don't need a nightlight anymore (not since I murdered my imaginary friend), but I was really enamored with Pavement. Failing me yet again, my brother never got me the nightlight, but he did get me a promotional chocolate bar for Spearhead's Chocolate Supa Highway album. Woo.
Anyway, Brighten The Corners has just received the deluxe, double-disc, reissue treatment courtesy of Matador. Having recently come off the commercially stifling Wowee Zowee--an experimental record released at a time when most fans just wanted Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain II--Brighten The Corners featured a more streamlined Pavement (see simpler, catchy numbers like "Stereo" and "Embassy Row" for proof of that), but ultimately failed to live up the mammoth expectations the band had been saddling since the early excitement of Slanted and Enchanted.
As far as the bonus disc goes, as expected, it's loaded with gems (24 tracks!) and more than a few songs that might have been best left alone; although the title "Neil Hagerty Meets Jon Spencer in a Non-Alcoholic Bar" is worth a chuckle (in a mid-'90s sort of way), the song isn't necessarily the best use of studio time. Better examples of the quality on the Nicene Creedence Edition bonus disc are Scott Kannberg's "Destroy Mater Dei," a sloppy little number with the enduring line "I'm Spiral Stairs and I Live in East Berkeley" (he does, or he did, since I used to know his neighbors--and here is where you'd refer to me as your "fact checking cuz"), and the band's wonderful, and meandering cover of Echo & the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon." Throughout, frontman, Portlander, and fantasy sports enthusiast, Stephen Malkmus demonstrates his ease for writing carefree little slack-rock jams--how songs like "Winner of The," "Nigel," and "And Then (The Hexx)" didn't make the final album cut is beyond me.
LISTEN:
Pavement - "The Killing Moon"
Pavement - "Type Slowly" (live)

Maybe you have heard by now that the new Paul McCartney album is, actually, weirdly, mostly good. Or, at least, not entirely terrible. It's actually not a Macca album, per se; it's the latest in his collaborations with producer and former Killing Joke bassist Martin Glover, who goes by the name Youth. The duo is called the Fireman, and their previous records were electronica experiments.
Hey, where are you going? Have I lost you already? Wow, this is a tough sell.
Anyway, the new Fireman album is called Electric Arguments, and it's the best thing I've heard from McCartney since Band on the Run. (Although I admit to being deeply affected by "Calico Skies" from the otherwise crappy Flaming Pie record, especially after Linda died.) I think the precise reason Electric Arguments is not the wobbly treacle-tart of competent but rote songwriting that we've come to expect from the former Beatle is that the nature of this project frees Paul McCartney up completely: He isn't being Paul McCartney. He's just being a freaky, creative musician who's ignoring his limitations, whether they be studio costs, or his public persona, or band politics, or any pandering to what he might think his record company wants. It approaches the courageousness and creativity of the Beatles' most fecund period.
Imagine these tunes were created by a coupla local hipsters with a laptop in their rented basement. Maybe I'm getting all carried away with holiday spirit, but these are actually good.
Tell me he's not pissing out some anger towards Heather Mills with this one:
LISTEN:
The Fireman - "Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight"
And this one just sounds nice:
LISTEN:
The Fireman - "Sing the Changes"

CD's come in the mail (note to PR people: not enough these days... I know the economy sucks but you've got to spend money to make money... so get in touch, eh?). Most of the yellow padded envelopes that arrive are filled with garbage, but every so often something brilliant shows up that I'd never have found.
(And for the matter of digital releases, I will say I find the physical copies easier to digest--it's easier to let them play out as I go about my business, rather than trapped in the world of computer headphones. I will also say that album covers and liner notes help immensely in sorting through the torrent of music.)
Anyway, thanks to the good ol' US Postal Service I received a stunning album from Nico Muhly--one I probably never would've found otherwise.
Muhly is a classical composer and a young one. He's 27, from New York, flush with degrees and a compositional voice all his own. Muhly is modern and old, beautiful and brooding, eccentric, and--to use I word I rarely do--brilliant.
Over his short career Muhly has embarked on a number of projects but produced relatively few recordings--two albums and a part of a film soundtrack. Mothertounge, Muhly's most recent, is staggering; classical instrumentation surrounds electronic flourishes, found sounds and chirping voices. The album is comprised of three disparate compositions, each congruent, unique and split into sub-sections.
On opener "Mothertongue," a four-part piece, Muhly is entranced by voice as words and numbers are layered and fired off at light-speed by mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer. It is frightening and energetic, paraniod and spiced with moments of occasional clarity and sunshine.
"Wonders" at times recalls The Books, only led by ridiculously dense, radical compositional hand. It's second movement, "The Devil Appear'd In The Shape Of A Man" begins almost as bedroom indie rock (sung, however, with god-given talent and deft precision) before inducing mind-bending scales, horns, harpsichord and a dizzying swirl.
Finally, with banjos and Sam Amidon's vocal rasp, "The Only Tune" harkens back to the era of field recordings and dusty Americana--again, warped through Muhly's twisted prism. Pt. 2 becomes perhaps at once the most traditional and modern piece of music I've heard in some time. After melting down "The Only Tune" blooms, reaching up to the air and sunshine on a dewy spring morning (think Sufjan Stevens).
Throughout Mothertongue Muhly maintains a frightening ability to blend and shift chords. A pecking, staccato sense of foreboding schizophrenia is suddenly and slyly covered by a blanket of warm gold. And back again. Muhly warps feeling with expert ease.
Although I'm going to, please know I'm loath to share excerpts from Mothertongue as the multi-part pieces should absolutely be listened to in their entirety for full emotional impact.
Really, you should just go out, get this album, turn the lights low, lie on the floor, maybe smoke some pot, turn this fucker up LOUD, and listen intently, front to back.
"Mothertongue Pt 3 - Hress:
"The Only Tune Pt 3 - The Only Tune":

Ryan Adams has made a point of producing consistent, vibrant and refreshing (if not arguably redundant) material since his late '90s split with alt-country darlings Whiskeytown. But where his earliest solo albums illuminated a minimalist Lennon-esque honky-pop, once the Love Is Hell albums came to be released, followed by the experimental foray into straight rock 'n' roll on Rock N Roll, it seemed a necessary artistic detour to hook in with a powerful session band. Enter The Cardinals. And ever since this marriage of reckless troubadour and steady-as-she-goes backing band, Adams has seen his most ambitious and varied musical ruminations yet.
Cardinology espouses this perhaps even more than last year's Easy Tiger LP or the Follow the Lights EP (also released in '07). The album opens with the Apache shuffle jam "Born Into A Light," with a pedal steel current rippling through waves of staccato melodicism.
"Magick" bulges with an eerie Stevie Nicks cadence, backed by the most aggressive tune forged by Adams since the horrid "Halloween Head," from Easy Tiger, a song that has never once not been skipped over in my late night bedroom whiskey-sipping sessions. Luckily, the strut hits stride early and carries you through to a bouncy chorus.
A majority of Adams' perceived formula for success seems oddly absent from this collection, despite the lack of any new sort of arrangements or instrumentation. The fact becomes apparent by the time you hit "Fix It," that Adams is just evolving so much quicker as a songwriter than history tells us is natural. Take away the prolific nature of his songcraft - the fact that he's put out 11 albums since 2000 - and it becomes obvious (almost painfully), that he's, simply, a better songwriter than his peers, and their peers. And sure, there are catalogued classic rock band points to reference song-by-song. There's the melody on "Magick" that sounds like it could be Fleetwood Mac, or the intro to "Cobwebs," which invokes visions of The Who, or even any number of foci derived from early '00 NYC retro rock. He's a sponge for only the most seminal of influences, yet he delivers them in a decidedly robust and varied manner. Cardinology, while far from being his most distinct or best work yet (that title would have to go to 2005's double-album Cold Roses), is another indication of the peaking Ryan Adams looming somewhere in the foreseeable future.

There is a fair amount of controversy in the Mercury office as to whether Frightened Rabbit is a good name for a band, or a very bad one. Similarly, the title of their brand new live album Liver! Lung! FR! could go either way. (For the record, I like both the band name and the album name.) There's no debate, however, about the fact that Frightened Rabbit is AWESOME, one of the very best bands around these days. The Scottish lads' second album, The Midnight Organ Fight (another good album title, think about it for a second) is already one of the year's best, and this new release translates almost all of Midnight Organ Fight into an acoustic setting in front of a live audience in Glasgow. (Oddly, the Fatcat Records page gives the name of the new album, being released today, as Quietly Now!, but makes up for any confusion by allowing you to stream the whole thing.)
Here's perhaps the most devastating tune on the album, a song so gloomy it'll make you feel like drowning your sorrows in a not-so-wee dram. Well, no one said the Scottish were jolly (see also: bagpipes, haggis, Trainspotting). If you haven't heard Frightened Rabbit, this live cut may not be the place to start (check out the aforementioned Midnight Organ Fight, or their slightly more upbeat, infinitely charming debut Sing the Greys) but if you're already converted, or morbidly curious, get ready to feel bad about yourself.
LISTEN:
Frightened Rabbit - "Poke" (live)
And here's some news of the ohmygoshican'twait variety: Frightened Rabbit are coming to Portland, playing Holocene on Thursday, October 30. Only nine more days!

I've been singing the praises--here, here, and way back in '05 right here--of Astronautalis for years now, but it's only recently that the Seattle-via-Florida emcee really hit his creative stride. His dismantled hiphop rhymes filtered through a solid mass of introspective indie rock has always been an acquired taste. It either hits you like a ton of bricks, or sails wide and comes nowhere close to making an impact. I'm in the smacked-in-the-grill-by-bricks category, a longtime fan who has abused this humble soapbox of mine to repeatedly swoon about the ways of Astronautalis.
Let's keep swooning.
Pomegranate (out today!) is the latest from Andy Bothwell (the man behind the Astronautalis moniker), and it documents time spent in his former stomping grounds of Denton, TX, where he collabroated with John Congleton (Explosions in the Sky, Modest Mouse) to further eschew his hiphop leanings and create something far more unique than just about anything else out there. I suppose the most untouchable of the Anticon crew, Why?, would be the closest comparison, but with his gravely delivery, Bothwell is closer to Tom Waits, had the junkyard troubadour been raised on a steady diet of '90s indie rock and the Def Jam catalog.
As a whole, Pomegranate is just as ambitious as his other recordings, but this time around (possibly with the direction of Congleton) Bothwell is more focused and direct than ever. Less attention is placed on navel gazing lyrics, and instead the record is assembled like a series of short tales--about everything from heartbreak and loss to opium runners--that work together to form one mighty collective work. I wish all records were this exciting.
LISTEN:
Astronautalis - "Two Years Before the Mast"
Astronautalis - "Trouble Hunters"
Photo: Jostin Darlington

Years back when Rilo Kiley came through the Meow Meow a slew of the band's fans presented them--mid-show--with a large homemade "We (Heart) Rilo Kiley" sign. Loved by most anyone with a pulse, they were the type of band you made arts & crafts for.
So what the fuck happened?
When Team-Love released Jenny Lewis' debut solo effort, Rabbit Fur Coat, in 2006, they made the record a free download (except the Traveling Wilburys cover, because the ghost of Roy Orbison will haunt your family if you download his music without paying for it). As expected, the record was a huge success, propelling Lewis to a larger position than her fellow Rilo bandmates and establishing her as a respected solo performer. Now Lewis is on the cusp of releasing solo album number two, Acid Tongue, but this time it's on Warner Bros, and there is a slight difference on how this record is being released...
First off, this is how the record arrived:
Uh-oh, looks like someone in Legal got to write the copy again. These vaguely threatening watermarked CDs are common these days, and while I understand why labels want them, they don't really function as intended (the album leaked this weekend). My watermarked copy of Acid Tongue does not play on my home stereo, nor will I even attempt to insert it into my computer. It works fine in my car stereo, which means I can listen to the album in a pair of six-minute intervals on my way to, and from, work everyday. Pray for traffic Jenny Lewis, because that is the only way I can listen to another song. This is one of the reasons why Acid Tongue won't be as successful as Rabbit Fur Coat.
The other? It's a pretty terrible album. Much like the audio trainwreck that was Under the Blacklight, the baffling 2007 release from Rilo Kiley, this album is directionless and confusing. Hell, Lewis doesn't even sound like herself until five songs deep, the title track is the first listenable moment of Acid Tongue, and the cameos (Elvis Costello, Zooey Deschanel, and the tall dude from Black Crowes) don't pull their weight. Songs like "The Next Messiah" and "Black Sand" aimlessly meander, and lack the charm and homespun charisma of her previous work. Perhaps I'm a little biased--seeing how I have to limit my listening experience to time spent behind the wheel--but all I think about when listening to this stale recording is how I miss that band who took the Meow Meow stage so many years ago.
LISTEN:
This is the part of the blog post where I'd normally post a song, but since the CD won't play on my computer, here is some audio of a kitten purring. Seriously.
"Purring Kitten"
Tomorrow marks the CD release of Tu Fawning's debut mini-album, Secession, on Polyvinyl Records, but the vinyl version has been available for a few weeks on Portland's own Discourage Records imprint. I've been meaning to get up a review for some time as part of End Hits' ongoing vinyl review column, and here it is, late to the gate but hopefully still relevant even though the record will now be available in non-vinyl formats.
It's a six-song release (well, five, really, since the opener "Tiptoe" serves as an instrumental introduction to "Out Like Bats"), somewhat awkwardly straddling the line between EP and LP, but its shadowy old-time quality is perfectly suited to the vinyl medium, containing, as the press release states, "echoed melodies from a tarnished Victrola." Nowhere is this truer than on the monumental "I'm Gone," a plodding, ghostly track ripe with vibrato, and crackling, yellowed hues from a sneaky muted trumpet and some static mellotron chords. Corrinna Repp and Joe Haege trade verses as the noir backdrop swells and swirls. When the drums come in on the chorus, the horror soundtrack becomes a slow-motion tango, cymbals buzzing louder and louder like perfume enveloping and overwhelming an airless room.
LISTEN:
Tu Fawning - "Out Like Bats"
"Out Like Bats," too, contains a sense of menace, but is the closest thing to a rock song on the record, with an ascending guitar line and eighth-notes chopping on a piano. Low, grumbling brass create a warlike fanfare before dropping out for Repp's opening verse. The song slowly gains momentum through its two-chord structure as instruments drop in and out. Soon, the electric guitar is accompanied by nothing but hand-claps, playing a circling riff that swoops and soars like the titular bats.

Although the record isn't due out for another few weeks (July 15th, to be exact), over at their Myspace page The Hold Steady currently have Stay Positive, in its entirety, streaming for free!
I have quite a few lengthy things to say about the brilliance of Stay Positive, so please continue on after the jump to hear me rant about why this record may prove to be the finest in their catalog, and why The Hold Steady are easily the greatest working band in rock and roll.