MUSIC

Album Reviews

Published: Jun 16, 2010

Out loud

Nina Natasia, Outlaster

First things first: With her five previous albums, Nina Nastasia painted an unsettled, often violent landscape with an increasingly minimalist musical palette. She managed to root through the underbelly of rural life without ever sounding like a Southern gothic cliché. What now?: Outlaster runs in the opposite sonic direction, with swelling strings, rumbling drums and Nastasia's newly sweeping voice taking on a cinematic scope. "This Familiar Way" tosses a coy glance at 2002's The Blackened Air, but who could've conjured such a fiery tango then? Lasting legacy: Ten years into a solid career, Nastasia turns up the volume but doesn't sacrifice an iota of intimacy.

-M.J. Fine
The Princess Is In Another Castle
Crystal Castles, self-titled

Hey: Wasn't their 2008 debut also called Crystal Castles? Yep. Everything this Canadian ravergeist ouijapop duo does is a test. They're poking, grating, beeping at you, saying does this annoy you? How about this? But, hey: It's when Ethan Kath's haunted NES beats and Alice Glass' barely human moans are really sawing away at your last nerve that Crystal Castles is most effective. I mean, hey: It's kinda harsh for headphones, too obnoxious for the morning commute, but there must be some occasion for which this cold, echoey, blippy shit is appropriate. Let me know. So: Annoyed yet?

 

- Patrick Rapa
Dot Matrix
Dot Allison, Room 7 1/2

Call it: a career retrospective of new music. Scottish chanteuse Dot Allison's fourth solo outing, getting its digital U.S. release Tuesday, echoes her early '90s band One Dove and all she's done since. Here: we find the heavenly pop of her 1999 tour de force Afterglow ("Room 7"), techno much improved from 2002's electroclash stab We Are Science ("Portrait of the Sun") and the earnest Fairport folk heard on 2007's Exaltation of Larks ("Jonny Villain"). Collaboration: She wins with Paul Weller on the breezy "Love's Got Me Crazy," but not so much with Pete Doherty on the sloppy "I Wanna Break Your Heart."

 

- John Vettese

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