No confidence in my opinion of this. A friend of mine was saying, regarding an ostensibly highbrow joke about Moby Dick on NPR, “I shouldn’t be able to get this! I mean, I haven’t read Moby Dick, so if I get this joke, there’re no grounds for the writers’ obvious back-patting about their erudition.” So it is, albeit slightly less so, with me and hot crossover records I appreciate from cultural arenas that I “should” appreciate but don’t.

Sounds like Robert Pollard wants to either ask for or offer forgiveness. I’ve always liked his lyrics (many of them) but with this added weight it becomes clearer they have nothing to do with the music. It also seems that having consumed way too much Pollard in the past diminishes the replay value of each new record while leaving the novelty of the first few listens intact.

Zeugma: the rhetorical device of applying a verb to multiple objects at the same time, usually with a different sense for each object. For example, “Ever since meeting that professor, I have wanted to get into his pants and graduate program.”

Bands should make covers “their own”, I suppose, but the half of this album composed of other people’s songs features singer Suran smugly declaiming (mostly-)political lyrics as though she thought of them herself and, more to the point, wants to *educate* us all. Self-indulgence is fine with me, but not when it’s conceived as the apotheosis of community service.

Enticingly close to breaking through my resistance to instrumental music. Seems like it might be wasted if played when the sun wasn’t out.

I can see why they had (have?) a little cult following distinctly separate from Beat Happening’s or Built To Spill’s. This album’s got It.

Often sounds like New Order, who are nearly unique in that nothing ever reminds me of them and displeases me at the same time.

That Manhattan gypsy-carnival-and-hair-gel clatter sound. The singles compilation (East Coast Super Sound Punk) could be better, but the two albums maybe couldn’t. I won’t rest until the new one is as unavoidable a party record in my social circle as the New Pornographers were last year. (I’ve had bad insomnia lately, so I can safely say this.)

Oh, right: it’s free! You can get ratty-sounding mp3s of all three records at www.worldinferno.com. Let me know if you find that this impeaches my credibility.

Not that I think the former members of Heavenly should stay out of pop music entirely, but there’s something seedy about hearing a decent, too-mellow pop record in the Heavenly vein and then noticing Peter Momtchiloff’s name in the credits. It deflates the faith I need for a second listen; I’m no longer sure that even one person loved this record enough to stake money on its appeal in itself, which is the usual benefit of buying from indie labels.

So, right, putting out records with Momtchiloff playing bass is hardly a cash-in (at least, not a good one), but the critical faculty must loosen a bit when you know you have a built-in audience.

I don’t remember hearing about any of these hip-hop crew brand-extension/farm-team things that turned out to be any good, so this disc’s dullness doesn’t surprise me. I was thinking, though… musical smoooothness with gangsta lyrics appeals to me a lot more than weepy tough-guy rock. But, same concept.