Post-punk, aka electro-punk, aka avant-garde rock. Who the hell is Les Georges Leningrad (not to be confused with the notorious gypsy punk band from Russia, Leningrad), and what the hell are they doing to my headphones? Self-proclaimed "petrochemical rockers," Les Georges Leningrad are a trio of bohemian all-stars from Montreal who, on their latest album, Sangue Puro, have adopted a largely unexplored genre of electronica that sounds like it was conceived as the bastard child of Blondie and Fugazi at a Bad Boy Bill concert.

With a radical percussion attack, the group throws down hardcore beats on almost every track on Sangue Puro and matches them with psycho feedback, chain-saw guitars, and fax machine/Matrix-y sounds, to boot. Meanwhile, lead singer Poney P. growls and shrieks over the loud, gritty chaos composed by the other two members, Bobo Boutin and Mingo L'Idien. Between progressive post-punk songs of filth and fury, however, Sangue Puro offers sophisticated experiments in world beat rhythms. Songs like the African-oriented "Eli Eli Lamma Sabachtani" and the old-school, punky hip-hop groove of "Sleek Answer" provide interesting forays into roots music, giving listeners a view of where the band is going based upon its influences.

Despite lyrics unintelligible and music that's as frantic as it is weird, this album really does hit the mark as far as what makes interesting music interesting. Sangue Puro provides a unique energy without losing its frame of reference, giving it an especially fresh sound. I like the album because, much like the modern world, despite the violence, despite the eccentricities, through it all blindly, it almost actually makes sense in the end. (Alex Ross // 11/14/06)

At first listen, I didn't care much for Brooklynites Parts & Labor's latest album, Stay Afraid. It kicks off with a heavy dose of skronking feedback and noodly guitars and, well, pretty much keeps right on going that way. Then there's the reference to "the bluster of the Boredoms" in the press materials; thanks, but no thanks. Going by initial impressions alone, Parts & Labor looked to be a deadly serious bunch of bearded guys (to make matters more worrisome, drummer Christopher Weingarten writes the "Skzzz!" noise music column for CMJ) playing utterly meaningless, barely listenable no-wave.

And that first impression's not entirely off the mark. Stay Afraid is at its core a noise-rock album, to be sure, and it's got enough screeching guitars and snarling electronics (it took me five tracks to realize that there's a keyboard in there somewhere -- it's a fucked-up, overdriven, Magnetic Fields-gone-insane keyboard, but still, it's there) to deliver a king-sized motherfucker of a headache if you're not ready for it.

But then there're the hooks. Unlike noise purveyors like The Locust or Wolf Eyes, here the pummeling, punishing, unrelenting drums, distorted vocals, and barely-controlled guitars mask a subversive sense of melody and dynamics lurking just beneath the surface. Tracks like "Timeline," "New Buildings," or "Drastic Measures" owe as much to the fiery punk anthems of Hüsker Dü as they do folks like Melt Banana or Black Dice. Think the live version of "New Day Rising" off of The Living End, and you'll get the picture -- ferocious, dangerous, and pounding.

And against all odds, the songs work -- "A Great Divide" and "A Pleasant Stay," in particular, are heady blasts of rampaging indie-noise-rock glory, mashing up crazed guitars, raygun sounds, and defiantly shouted/sung lyrics about alienation and disenfranchisement. And the songs (which recognizably are songs, and even stick to a decent length) are majestic, roaring and blasting along fearlessly like music crafted by lions. It's crazy, but it definitely works. And then somehow, I find myself smiling like an idiot. Go figure.

(Parts & Labor will be performing at The Proletariat on Saturday, Dec. 2, along with Ume and The Skullening.) (Jeremy Hart // 11/28/06)

I recently watched Martin Scorsese's fascinating, very nearly illuminating Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home, and between the clips of British fans denouncing him, the chaotic and mythical Newport Folk Festival performance, and the withering disdain Dylan seemed to have for the press that attempted to turn him into the story they wanted to tell (rather than reporting the story as it actually was), I found myself wondering whether it would even be possible for a modern musician to provoke the same degree of anger, the same sense of betrayal. (I'm talking through nothing but music; the Dixie Chicks' supposed transgressions were entirely behind the scenes.) We're pretty open-minded these days, and if Jay-Z wanted to make a country CD or Dashboard Confessional released a collection of booty-shaking jams, it might provoke apathy or mockery, but it would hardly be cause for generational alarm. Selling out still certainly happens and is disheartening (as I write this, I hang my head in embarrassment for Nelly Furtado), but it's generally viewed as personal weakness rather than an act of aggression.

But then I remembered: Liz Phair. The howls of disdain for her homonymous last album were so assaultive and widespread that I confess to being somewhat surprised when, on seeing her live in support of the thing, nobody replicated the legendary moment (captured in No Direction Home and on Dylan's Live 1966) when, between songs, a bitter British Dylan fan screamed out, "Judas!" Maybe it surprised Phair, too; she followed up the sexually explicit "Flower," one of the songs that established her persona and approach, with the glossy and Billboard-targeted "Extraordinary," which had been held up as emblematic of her traitorousness to a scene that, if anyone had bothered paying attention, she already spent her entire first album subtly taking swipes at. That sequence was a deliberate decision, one designed to force her audience into making a choice, and it was, in its way, as much of a middle finger to her detractors as was Dylan telling the Band to "play fucking loud" right before tearing into damn near the most caustic version of "Like A Rolling Stone" imaginable.

Picking up right where Liz Phair left off, with "Leap Of Innocence" continuing the rootsy, organ-laden pop of "Good Love Never Dies," Somebody's Miracle finds Phair in a less combative mood. It's quite possibly the most unabashedly joyous album of her career. If Liz Phair was a fine album wrapped in a package that most of her fans wouldn't even open, it was still moderately disjointed and maybe even a little tentative, as though Phair knew that she was walking into a snake pit as she was recording it. Not so for Miracle, which takes the frisky ebullience that she applied to her sex life in "Supernova" and sets it loose on a wider experiential map. "Everything (Between Us)" ends up both soothing and soaring as a result, while the effortlessly ecstatic "Stars And Planets" owes a debt to the psychological uplift of "Instant Karma." "Lazy Dreamer," meanwhile, skitters across the sand so quickly and so smoothly that while you know logically that it's just the waves of heat radiating from the surface, you could still swear that you can't see the thing actually touching the ground.

The other great revelation of Miracle is in just how accomplished a record-maker Phair has become. Where her early work was distinguished by an offhand approach that seemed to prefer a distinct lack of fuss, Miracle builds on the more involved productions of Liz Phair to showcase a performer unafraid of actually using the versatility that a studio provides. It comes through in elements like the string section that sweetens the choruses of "Everything To Me" and "Everything (Between Us)" without smothering them, but it's most invaluable in the songs that rely on nothing more than a straightforward band. There's a nice balance between organic and professional all over the record, with a feel like underground Memphis or Nashville (especially pronounced on "Leap Of Innocence," "Lost Tonight," and the title track), where there are subtle country inflections but with more edge.

With increasing mastery over the studio and a palpably upbeat approach, Phair has produced what sure sounds like her most intimate album to date. And not intimate in the sense of getting a glimpse of her most private moments, either, but intimate in the sense of her private moments being our private moments as well. It comes through ironically enough in "Table For One," an otherwise closed-off portrait of an alcoholic where the music acts as a lifeline, and in the Stonesy "Why I Lie," where it's lovely to hear Phair's voice, and the melody it's singing, in full bloom. But it reaches its zenith during the chorus of "Everything (Between Us)," which may be the first time Phair has used sex in the service of love, rather than just screwing.

The album isn't perfect: the soulful Telecaster-sounding guitar licks and Garth Hudson-style organ of "Wind And The Mountain" go on at least a minute too long, and the respectable "Everything To Me" is less interesting than the reviled "Extraordinary" despite being, arguably, an objectively better song. And there's an argument to be made that the album might be her most lyrically inconsequential, with a few slogans cutting through the clutter but nothing really demanding examination the way that Exile In Guyville did, constantly and with malice aforethought.

Even so, Miracle shows that Phair is capable of making the music she wants under her own terms. It's possible that her fans would have accepted something like "Giving It All To You" as her dedicated assault on the pop charts instead of "Why Can't I," but she probably couldn't have done the former without Liz Phair paving the way. Even if her last album is dismissed as a pure head-clearing exercise, Miracle puts it in context, showing that both are a part of the same progression. "Can't stop thinking about all the crazy possibilities," sings Phair on the last line of the album, and if she ever did, her songs would still be stuck in Guyville. And Liz Phair would be worse off for it. (Marc Hirsh // 11/23/06)

As huge of a Superchunk fan as I am, I've never really jumped on the Portastatic bandwagon. (Obligatory explanatory digression: Portastatic is the side-project of Superchunk frontman Mac McCaughan. We now return you to the review, already in progress.) After a few albums of widely divergent style and quality, I didn't pay much attention; from most reports, further albums went even farther afield, including film scores and an EP of tropicalia. But new Superchunk releases are harder to find than bin Laden these days, and when I heard the surprisingly Superchunk-esque "Through With People" off of last year's Bright Ideas, it seemed like, just maybe, Portastatic could fill the large Superchunk-sized hole in my heart. (Or ears. Not sure how that metaphor should play out.)

Sadly, though, Be Still Please is two sizes too small to fill that hole. There's some moments of very un-Superchunk-y quiet but lush beauty, such as "Like A Pearl," and there's no question that Mac can dig out a catchy chorus when it pleases him, as in "I'm In Love (With Arthur Dove)" or "You Fuckers." (Okay, it's called "You Blanks," but it's clear what the title should be from the song. What, was there a worry about Wal-Mart not carrying this?) But more often than not, Be Still Please betrays a musical tourist of sorts, playing around with a bunch of different styles without concern for the overall experience. "Sweetness and Light" digs out a tropicalia groove, while other tracks seem indebted to acts on his label, Merge Records -- "Black Buttons" evokes Lambchop in parts, while the epic "Getting Saved" mines a heavy Crooked Fingers vibe. (Although they might both just be referencing Bruce Springsteen.)

Unfortunately, the variable approaches aren't always ones that fit McCaughan equally well; the raspy debauched persona that fits Eric Bachmann so well in Crooked Fingers, for instance, is almost comically out of place here. Don't get me wrong -- there's an overarching laidback vibe and yearning for beauty that (along with copious strings) loosely ties the album together, but it still feels like a rambling, unfulfilling walkabout to me. The liner notes mention a dedication to the Go-Betweens, who I'm not particularly familiar with, so perhaps they're the secret key to putting this album together.

But not every record is going to be No Pocky for Kitty or Indoor Living, and you have to let your heroes go on these sort of walkabouts. And I suspect it's an album that those less blinded by history than I will find much to admire in, perhaps an album that with time I'll find myself much fonder of. So I will remain patient and optimistic, and hopefully someday I will be rewarded for this patience. Stranger things have happened. (Doug Dillaman // 11/14/06)

I've wondered for years that what would've happened if My Bloody Valentine had followed up 1991's Loveless with some further step in the evolution of overdriven, fuzzed-out shoegazer rock; now I think I know. With Carnavas, California's Silversun Pickups steals Kevin Shields' amps and throws them into the back of a beat-up Dodge Charger, driving them way out into the desert and proceeding to blanket the sunbaked landscape with a sound that rides the line between stoner-rock and MBV's shimmery, candy-like sheen.

On tracks like opener "Melatonin," "Rusted Wheel," and "Checkered Floor," the band plays swirling, overfuzzed, noisy-as-hell pop-rock that hovers on the edges of dreampop territory, orbiting somewhere near to the Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, or other early Britpop cohorts. "Floor," in particular, sounds like nearly a direct rip from Loveless, but to the band's credit, it feels far more like a tribute than a ripoff. The track is like the ethereal majesty of MBV heated up and made solid, coalesced into something far meatier and (yeah, it hurts just to type this; I may have to kick my own ass later) substantial than Shields and co. ever came up with.

Silversun Pickups' closest contemporary musical kin are probably Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Secret Machines -- both make music that's moody and shimmery but that you can blaze down a darkened highway to. "Waste It On," in particular, brings to mind Secret Machines; it starts off quiet and meditative, but builds hypnotically and gets more and more elaborate until it practically explodes into orbit. There's also "Dream at Tempo 119," which sounds like a Death Cab For Cutie track if Ben Gibbard were to suddenly develop a major Sabbath obsession. It's sludgy and relentless, not to mention dark as all hell. "Three Seed," on the other hand, is gentle and quietly melancholy, with spiraling guitars that sparkle rather than hum and a melody that sounds a heck of a lot like the Get Up Kids' "Lion and the Lamb" (the intro, at least). "Future Foe Scenarios" takes a darker turn, remaining menacing and tense throughout and climbing to a climactic heavy groove with Aubert howling Jeremy Enigk-style over the top.

Beyond those disparate influences/resemblances, though, the real touchstone for this album is Smashing Pumpkins' underrated pre-breakout disc Gish. "Lazy Eye" is nothing but Pumpkins-esque, restrained but still driving, with Aubert sounding vocally a heck of a lot like Billy Corgan. The whole thing chugs along until the halfway point, when it switches on the turbo boosters and rips into an extended psych-rock jam, blowing the band's erstwhile progenitors out of the water. On the flip side, "Little Lover's So Polite" is a slinky, propulsive pop-rocker with lilting, Giant Drag-esque vocals, and it bears a resemblance to the Pumpkins mostly in its complete and total catchiness; the song sinks itself into your head like the hook Billy Corgan forgot how to write back in, oh, 1992 or so.

The album's absolute highlight, "Well Thought Out Twinkles," surges and stomps, grooving along at 100 mph while radiating a warm, beatific glow. Singer/guitarist Brian Aubert's high-pitched, almost girlish vocals (seriously, before I read the band's bio, I would've sworn to you that bassist Nikki Monninger was the one singing, not Aubert) lilt and sway between the chunky, thick-sounding, "Third Stone From the Sun"-esque guitars with a nearly somnolent grace 'til the song's climactic moments, when his voice becomes a desperate, defiant roar. What's he singing about? Not a clue, and frankly, I could care less -- with Carnavas, I find myself far more interested in the overall mood than in the lyrics.

Taken as a whole, Carnavas is possibly the coolest slab of neo-psych-rock I've heard in quite some time. It's trippy and strange, alluring and hypnotic, but at the same time unafraid to be full-on rawk-n-roll with the amps cranked up as high as they'll go. It's been a long time since I saw somebody take something as delicate and fey as late-'90s shoegazer pop and inject it with this much balls and ferocity, all the while maintaining that heavy-lidded cool detachment. Let's hear it for beating your idols at their own game.

(Silversun Pickups will be performing at The Meridian on Tuesday, Nov. 28, along with Wolfmother and Dead Meadow.) (Jeremy Hart // 11/28/06)

The Slits are back! After making us wait for 25 years, they've rewarded our patience with a new record. The Slits' new EP,Revenge of the Killer Slits, shows them in fine form. With two new songs and one unreleased old one, Revenge is a look at where they've been as well as where they're headed, showcasing a heavy hip-hop feel to the new songs and showing the Slits moving in yet another new direction.

Fortunately, they justify their return with this album. "Slits Tradition" extends the Slits' previous dub reggae and Afro-pop explorations with a full-fledged hip-hop track featuring quavering, out-of-tune keyboard samples matched perfectly by Ari Up's slightly dissonant vocals. When singers decide to reinvent themselves as rappers, they're usually not able to pull it off. Given that, we should naturally be worried when someone who hasn't recorded in 25 years does it, but here she really pulls it off -- she's exciting, dancing and dodging around the words. Maybe she took the time off to listen to hip-hop records?

The other songs are good, too. "Kill Them With Love" is a dancey, keyboard-heavy, almost '80s-style track (and before you think "oh, how retro," consider that for this band the '80s would still be a step forward, chronologically speaking) with a big drum machine beat and rapped interludes. Every one's having fun, Ari in particular -- she gets to do her old thing during the choruses, which keep getting bigger and bigger. Tessa contributes a springy dub bass line that complements the dance beat. "Number One Enemy," dating from 1976, starkly contrasts with the rest of the record, although not in a bad way. It's solid energy, an old-school punk rock tune that's probably one of the most straightforward songs they've done. And yet the driving groove and intense bass line anchor the songs in classic Slits style.

Another interesting development is that here Ari uses her vocals to complement the songs more than on previous records. Her free-floating vocals serve each song more than before, when she'd use them to break the songs apart. Her vocals here help make each song distinctive. Those who were looking for her old soaring vocals, though, will be somewhat disappointed with Revenge. On "Slits Tradition," she sings some of the background vocals, but the rest is almost entirely rapped, and "Number One Enemy" is three solid minutes of sneering. We do get a taste of the "soaring" stuff on "Kill Them With Love," but even there the singing is mostly straightforward.

If they were going to make a comeback record, they couldn't have done much better than Revenge of the Killer Slits. It's a remarkable record. Here's hoping we won't have to wait another 25 years for the followup -- of course, if it's as good as this one, it'll be worth the wait. (Henry Mayer // 11/23/06)

With a heavy-duty Boston punk pedigree (singer Mike McColgan used to front the Dropkick Murphys before quitting to be a firefighter, while drummer Joe Sirois used to be in the Mighty Mighty Bosstones), tough-looking guys in black t-shirts, and a name like "Street Dogs," it shouldn't really be too surprising that Fading American Dream is a hard-edged, fiery blast of Dorchester-bred streetpunk. On tracks like "Common People," "Sell Your Lies," or "Tobe's Got a Drinking Problem" (which is a friendly-but-firm warning to guitarist Tobe Bean that he's headed for trouble with the bottle), the Street Dogs blaze away like they're channeling Sham 69 and Stiff Little Fingers, with a bracing shot of Southie pride and fury added to the mix. Good stuff, yes, but again, it's not hard to figure out how they got there.

The real surprise, then, is that Fading American Dream also happens to be a smart, heartfelt ode to the death of the middle class. A lot of the tracks, particularly "Common People" and the two pro-union songs, a reverent cover of "There is Power in a Union" (which sticks remarkably close to Billy Bragg's classic version) and defiant closer "Katie Bar The Door," show a seriously populist streak. The band may be blue-collar to the bone, but its members are fiercely political.

It's a little odd, by the way, to hear a bunch of blue-collar South Boston Irish punks bemoaning the death of the middle class. Not that I disagree with the sentiment, mind you, but that what once was the music of the disenfranchised underclass has essentially transformed into the music of the bourgeoisie. Now that I think about it, though, does that shift mean that the music's moved upward, or that the middle class has become the disenfranchised underclass? I'll leave that one for the pundits to hash out.

At any rate, beyond the politics Dream is also nicely intelligent and lyrical in the vein of the Pogues or Tom Waits (or the Dropkick Murphys, for that matter) -- despite the streetpunk bent, this isn't music for meatheads who can only remember a few words of each song. The speeding, urgent "Not Without A Purpose" harnesses some of The Clash's spirit for a vibrant rallying cry to all punks everywhere, while "Shards Of Life" is rollicking Celtic folk-punk with its heart tattooed on its sleeve. A few of the tracks are reminiscent of more recent punk icons Rancid (the catchy "Rights To Your Soul"; nice sing-along chorus, there) and Social Distortion (the furious, impassioned title track), and "Fatty" and "Hardluck Kid" remind me of Texan pop-punks Dynamite Boy.

The real "experiment" of the bunch, though, is "Final Transmission," a countryish, almost Johnny Cash-like tune sung partly from the point of view of a young G.I. killed by an IED while on patrol in Iraq. Which is weird, because politico-punks Anti-Flag attempt nearly the same conceit on their latest album, and it didn't fly, at least not for me -- it felt somewhat ham-handed and ridiculous.

Here, however, it works; maybe it's the utter sincerity with which the band tackles the song, the gentle country lilt to it, or the fact that Mike McColgan himself is a vet of the first Iraq war and knows what the hell he's singing about, but whatever it is, it's actually pretty touching. Congratulations to McColgan and company for making me view Boston punk in a whole new light.

(Street Dogs will be performing at Numbers on Sunday, Dec. 3, along with the Bouncing Souls, Whole Wheat Bread, and Left Alone.) (Jeremy Hart // 11/30/06)

A volatile musical adventure through interplanetary influences such as David Bowie and Radiohead, Tokyo Police Club makes their first mark on the new millennium with their new CD, A Lesson in Crime, making futuristic indie-rock hip once again. Listen to the Tokyo Police Club, and they might remind you of the Decemberists, Arcade Fire, or The Killers. Hell, they might very well be almost inseparable from the multitude of indie-rock bands that have capitalized on the trend of new millennium rock. I mean, with all of the ingredients here in such good measure, buy A Lesson in Crime and you might as well be buying a modern-day Clear Channel Big Mac.

Tokyo Police Club's four members play in perfectly measured synchronicity, balanced between mellow atmospherics and excitement. Singer/bassist Dave Monks splits the two sides of the band between his vocals, which he drones in disenfranchised wonder, and his bass playing, which seems relatively aggressive. Meanwhile, guitarist Josh Hook interweaves slow, progressive melodies through the tapestry of Graham Wright's atmospheric keyboards like a fast jet flying through low-lying smog. The drums, played by Greg Alsop, are balanced between a kind of Britpop staccato and simple rock riffs, creating a mixture of suspense and propulsion. All together, the group's subtle and refined style brings with it many explosive moments on A Lesson in Crime.

Unfortunately, this album lacks individuality and daring. While Tokyo Police Club rides the waves of fortune that have brought numerous indie-rock bands to the forefront over the past decade, with A Lesson in Crime, they have stolen too much from their predecessors and contemporaries, creating an amalgam of benign indie clichés. (Alex Ross // 11/28/06)

Hair: Chicago Punk Cuts, as you would expect from the title, compiles fourteen unreleased songs by different Chicago punk bands, spanning the range of punk and hardcore. From Explode and Make Up's '90s pop-punk, to The Killing Tree's hardcore thrash to the Felix Culpa's soundscapes, the compilation covers a lot of territory, even though it's a relatively narrow niche to begin with.

There are some good songs here. The Bomb's "Spaceman," buried near the end, is a fun, catchy, song about a total space cadet who shouldn't deserve any sympathy, but they give it to him anyway in the form of a great song. Explode and Make Up's "Lion in a Cage" switches effectively between a shouted verse and a great melodic chorus, all at top speed. Ryan's Hope presents "Condemning Race," combining a great ragged vocal and melody with some great guitar parts. Much the Same, on "The Greatest Betrayal," combines a thrashy feel and blistering tempo with a great chorus and some of the best drumming here (though the one thing none of the bands lack are good drummers).

Unfortunately, the good songs are outweighed by the bad ones. "West Palm Sand," by Split Habit, tries to be big and grand, but the melody is clichéd, and the singer puts in one of the most pretentious performances I've heard in a long time. Cougars, on "We Blog the Hardest," are irritating all the way from the guitar parts to the changes in texture to the singing. The Killing Tree's "Dressed to Fuck" adds a melodic chorus to a Rage Against the Machine feel, but nothing can redeem a Rage Against the Machine feel. "Give Me a Tropical Contact High," by Colossal tries to be amusing, with its cross of calypso and punk rock, but it doesn't really work -- the idea's good, but the execution falters.

One particularly disappointing thing about the bands on the CD is that there is exactly one female on the entire record -- Emily Schambra of Holy Roman Empire. (I should note that there's one female backing vocal on one other song, and Schambra does that one, too.) Fortunately, Holy Roman Empire's "Hail Mary" is a great song; Schambra sounds something like Corin Tucker without the vibrato or Elizabeth Elmore without the helium. The band sounds like your standard soft-to-loud punk rock, but the song has a great melody, and her singing is beautiful. Plus, they have the best credits in the insert.

True to the nature of compilation albums, there are some good songs on Hair: Chicago Punk Cuts and some bad ones. If you haven't heard any of these bands before, this isn't a bad way to hear them, both the good and the bad. And because the songs here aren't on any of the bands' own albums, it may be worth picking up, especially if you're a fan of one of the bands. But considering that less than half the songs here are good, I'd be wary of this album. (Henry Mayer // 11/23/06)