Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham. L'Avventura (Jetset, 2003)

"You can cut my hair, you can fill my cup/ You can tell me lies, you can make it up/ We're gonna make it after all."

In addition to jazz, bourbon, and napalm, America invented cool. The current distillation of the concept arrived early in the second half of the 20th century, a mix of Miles Davis, James Dean, and heroin. Today, it's our number one export behind political instability and ill will. And even though he's originally from New Zealand, I always think of Dean Wareham as having a voice that embodies cool, specifically of the NYC variety. Wareham's laconic baritone is the sound of nonchalance and tossed-off elegance, all inspiration, no perspiration. He cops his style and limited vocal range directly from proto-hipster Lou Reed, and over the years has evolved from a spaced out Harvard student playing murky dream-pop into the picture of sophisticated (if a bit ghoulish, judging by recent photos) Gotham cool.

Wareham headed up Galaxie 500 from 1986 to 1991, and broke up the band after releasing three pretty good records. I like Galaxie 500 (you can buy all of their albums separately or in one box set) but they had a tendency to wrap decent melodies in a heavy layer of audio fog and wear the welcome out of good ideas through repetition. Listening to those guys is like having a boring fever dream. In 1992, after giving the heave-ho to Galaxie 500's rhythm section (who stayed together to form Damon and Naomi), Wareham put together Luna, a group which traded in Galaxie 500's sonic narcotics for a sharper, more polished, and way hookier sound owing a lot to the Velvet Underground and late-'70s downtown guitar gods Television. As if to drive home the point of their influences, Luna collaborated with both the Velvets' Sterling Morrison (on 1994's great Bewitched) and Television's Tom Verlaine (on 1995's even greater Penthouse -- seriously, if you haven't heard Penthouse, go buy it).

I loved Luna, even if they never really changed their sound or pushed any real boundaries. At their worst, they were pleasant, and at their best, they were awesome. Plus, they sounded like a warm bath, so comforting, so soothing. Perfect for chilling out or coming down. When Luna finally called it quits in 2005, I would have been a lot more bummed had Wareham not already started putting out records with Luna's final bassist, stone fox, and voice of the animated female rocker/superhero Jem (it's true; look it up), Britta Phillips. The duo's 2003 debut L'Avventura is an electro-poppy hit parade, full of sparkling melodies and lush arrangements, and it sounds like a Dean Wareham record.

L'Avventura is bright and shiny, which has a lot to do with fact that it was produced by Tony Visconti, who has worked with folks like T. Rex, Thin Lizzy, Morrissey, and loads of others. He clearly knows what he's doing. Everything in its right place, so to speak, and it feels pretty good. Lots of strings, too, to class it up a bit. The vocals take center stage, and Wareham trades off singing duties with Phillips. She sounds sexy. Really, really sexy. And smoky. And a little tired, maybe, but really, really sexy all the same.

There are a lot of covers on this record, which I guess has become Wareham's thing. Luna did a version of "Sweet Child o' Mine" a few years back, making it sound like a Luna song, and that was ok. They did a version of Serge Gainsbourg's "Bonnie and Clyde," too. So I guess Wareham fancies himself somewhat of an interpreter, which is fair, because he has a distinctive sound and leaves his mark on whatever he touches. Or maybe he's just running out of his own ideas. At any rate, he covers Madonna's "I Deserve It," making it a far better song, in my opinion. And he does a great version of the Silver Jews' "Random Rules," which is a bold move because "Random Rules" is one of the strongest tunes from a really strong band. But Wareham makes it his own, so hats off. He also does the Doors' "Indian Summer" here, which works mainly because Wareham sings in the same octave as Jim Morrison and otherwise nails the blissed-out/junksick vibe of the original. The best cover here (and an album highlight) is "Threw It Away," first recorded by some band called Angel Corpus Christi, who I've never heard. Anyway, this one gives Wareham a chance to show off his formidable guitar skills, which are, uh, formidable.

And between the covers, the originals on this album stand out. Album opener "Night Nurse" sets the tone of the record right away: shimmery, dreamy, easy on the ears. My favorite song here by a wide margin is "Ginger Snaps," which brings a crisp four-on-the-floor beat, rubbery bass, and crybaby guitar together with a once-in-a-blue-moon melody. Plus, like many of the tracks here, it's a duet, and Wareham and Phillips (who are married, by the way) sound like they're getting ready to go to bed. It gives you ideas. On her own, Phillips knocks the sleepwalking cadence and lilt of "Out Walking" out of the park; it's a perfect vehicle for her seductive chanteuse pipes.

Check out L'Avventura if top-shelf melodies and a slightly loungey sound are your thing. So what if Dean Wareham looks like a fancy zombie, sings like he's asleep, and ditched his wife and kid (true story) to shack up with the cartoon character who plays bass in his band? He's cool, man.

The Mountain Goats. We Shall All Be Healed (4AD, 2004)

"There must be diamonds somewhere/ In a place that stinks this bad/ There are brighter things than diamonds/ Coming down the line."

The voice of John Darnielle, onetime mental hospital attendant and perennial primary personality in the Mountain Goats, can be an acquired taste, I'll grant you. His thin, nasally tenor is a close cousin to the high-lonesome wail of old-timey bluegrass and mountain music, pitched somewhere up above reedy and marked by a wavering shakiness that's pretty unsettling at times. It's a haunted voice, custom built for ghost stories and murder testimonies. But I've gotta tell you, from the first few listens of We Shall All Be Healed -- the Mountain Goats' brilliant 2004 addition to a lengthy catalog stretching back to 1991 (sixteen LPs and counting, and way more EPs and singles) -- it's a taste that I acquired, and I've come to consider Darnielle one of the best personal musical discoveries I've made in recent years.

Like I say, Darnielle has been recording as the Mountain Goats for nearly two decades. The king's ransom of his catalog is exceedingly lo-fi, in the "I've got this guitar and this boombox and I'm not too sure if the boombox's mic works right" vein. By the time I stumbled onto them (having never really been aware of the band until coming across We Shall All Be Healed basically by chance), the Mountain Goats had a vibrant fan base of folks dedicated to collecting Darnielle's sounds as quickly as he could release them. Only rarely did other instruments or voices join Darnielle and his acoustic, and the poor recording quality gave many of his albums an almost found art feel.

With 2002's Tallahassee, the Mountain Goats acquired a major label (4AD), a comparatively sophisticated studio sound, and the occasional bass, drums, and piano to keep the still mainly acoustic guitar company. Tallahassee proved that Darnielle wasn't hiding behind the lo-fi approach, passing off crap songs as something better by wrapping them in tape hiss and background noise. We Shall All Be Healed, the follow-up to Tallahassee, saw Darnielle and company sticking around the studio, and we're all better off for it: it's as memorable a batch of catchy, quirky genius as you're likely to find.

The Mountain Goats often work unifying themes into their records (a collapsing marriage in Tallahassee, child abuse in The Sunset Tree), and the loose theme of We Shall All Be Healed is meth and meth addiction. Many of these songs focus on how meth affects its users, making them fixate on the bizarre minutiae of the everyday. Sad and disturbing, sure, but fascinating and eerily hilarious, too. "Send somebody out for soda/ Comb through the carpet for clues/ Reflective tape on our sweatpants/ Big holes in our shoes," wails the narrator of "Palmcorder Yanja" (incidentally the first Mountain Goats song I ever heard, and the one which made me want to investigate further). Later, the loping fever dream of "Letter From Belgium" talks about "Susan in her notebook/ Freehand drawings of Lon Chaney/ Blueprints for geodesic domes/ Recipes for cake," before Darnielle announces, "When we walk out in the sunlight we tell everyone we know it hurts our eyes/ When the real reason we don't like it is that it makes us wonder if we're dying."

I've mentioned Darnielle's voice, but his guitar playing and sense of arrangement are something to behold, too. He's got a straightforward, expressive style which captures the mood and tone of the songs perfectly. Check out the urgent, desperate strumming of "Home Again Garden Grove," pulling the listener along as the car barrels past the strip malls and convenience stores, as the narrator draws closer to his destination, exulting in his imminent victory/self-destruction, crowing "I can remember when we were in high school/ Our dreams were like fugitive warlords/ Plotting triumphant returns to the city/ Keeping Tec-Nines tucked under the floorboards!" Ditto the syncopated rattle of "Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph Of," which finds an exultant Darnielle explaining "But you're going to do/ What you want to do/No matter what I ask of you/ And you send your dark messengers to tempt me/ I come from Chino, so all your threats are empty."

There's a lot of Mountain Goats out there to discover. John Darnielle has a pretty unique (not to mention prolific) vision and talent, and it would be a shame not to check out at least some of it. We Shall All Be Healed -- in all its addled, adenoidal glory -- is a great place to start.

The Thermals. The Body The Blood The Machine (Sub Pop, 2006)

"God reached His hand down from the sky/ God asked Noah if he wanted to die/ He said 'No, Sir. Oh no, Sir'/ God said 'Here's your future/ It's gonna rain...'"

My disdain for overtly political bands can be neatly summed up in this anecdote I heard about a U2 concert in Glasgow: At one point during the show, Bono steps to the edge of the stage and, clapping along to the beat (I don't know which song, but I always imagine it to be "Bullet the Blue Sky") announces to the crowd, "Every time I clap my hands, a child dies in Africa," to which a dude in the front row shouts, "Stop fuckin' clappin' 'em, then!" Too right. In the words of the Hold Steady (a band that could never be accused of being too political), "This was supposed to be a party." Lighten up.

Of course, there are some bands whose overwhelming rockingness more than makes up for their occasional preachiness. The Clash, of course. Fugazi. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. And add to this list the Thermals. Man oh man, can these guys kick ass. 2006's The Body The Blood The Machine is a record about 1) God, and 2) Republicans. The Thermals have a lot to say about both, most of it (you guessed right!) critical. But the message comes drenched in some of the most energetic, jagged, hook-filled punk I've ever heard, so I swallow it every time. Spoonful of sugar and all that, I suppose.

The Thermals, a three-piece from Portland, Oregon (which somewhat explains the lefty leanings), fill The Body The Blood The Machine, their third LP, with religious and political themes and loads and loads of catchy, bouncy tunes. I've always been a fan of the power trio approach (to include early ZZ Top. I'm serious. Ask my wife), 'cuz I think it forces bands to do more with less. And the Thermals definitely do more. Singer/guitarist Hutch Harris strums his guitar furiously, picking out solos catch as catch can from between the thrashing chords. Lots of single note riffing and wailing sustain, nothing too fancy. "A Pillar of Salt" and "Here's Your Future" offer perfect examples of this brilliance-through-forced-simplicity phenomenon. The rhythm section pushes everything right along, the drummer not taking it too easy on the snare or the cymbals. Harris sings in a nasally whine, sounding like a pissed off radical librarian, or maybe a deranged street prophet.

Fugazi's Brendan Canty manned the boards on this one, and his production captures the rushed urgency of the music real well. The whole record's got a compressed, pressurized sound, with lots of punchy midrange, especially on the drums and bass. The vocals are right up front, too, so the music connects like power pop. It's not exactly a Cars record or anything, but still.

And now, the Message. The Thermals are pretty preoccupied with the Bible here, and use Biblical stories (Noah's ark, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah) to comment on the American political scene, as they see it, in the first decade of the 21st century. Christianity as a tool used by the haves to keep the have-nots down, essentially. Lines like, "We are old as hell/ We are old and tell the children/ When to kill, when to sit still," from "Power Doesn't Run on Nothing," or "Good luck getting God on the phone/ Good luck getting even a tone" from "An Ear for Baby" sum it up pretty well. That said, these guys seem to disdain a complete rejection of religion, as well: in album highlight "Returning to the Fold," Hutch laments "I regret leaving at all/ I forgot I needed God/ Like a big brother." Complicated!

Bono is annoying. He's insufferably self important and his band is nearly 20 years past its prime. The Thermals have a lot to say, too, but their music -- stripped down, vital, endlessly compelling -- is the utter antithesis to U2's bloated dad rock. So if you want a political lesson, look to Oregon, not Ireland. You won't be sorry.