Aging Gracefully: Queens Of The Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

Queens of the Stone Age, former Kyuss guitarist Josh Homme's fluidly-personelled Stoner Rock outfit, feels surprisingly yet refreshingly backward-looking a mere 15 years into its existence. It's all right there in the name. "Stone Age" denotes the adherence to the crunchy, riff-heavy stuff that barely any act with talent attempts these days while "Queens" is a deliberate subversion of the lunk-headed machismo that Glam was never able to fully extinguish from album-oriented Guitar Rock. Pair those attributes with a clever, often filthy smirkiness which works to deflate the inherent pomposity of those monster riffs and what you've got is a band making wholly modern, darkly sexy Hard Rock.

On ...Like Clockwork, the band's sixth LP, Queens' latest lineup, not to mention a slew of subtly integrated guest musicians, curb their winking, self-effacing tendencies just enough to deliver a deadly serious record that never feels oppressive or overwrought. Though it careens from restrained beauty to all out shredding (often within the same song, as on the twinkly, spacey "Kalopsia") there's a palpable fear tangled up in the weariness and buttressed by a frankly inspiring sense of awe. The record and the preceding promotional rollout (no to mention the lovingly detailed vinyl packaging) leaned heavily on the craggy, herky-jerky illustrations and animation of artist Boneface. His images depict a hellish, post-apocalyptic dreamscape, populated by characters both monstrous and despairing with those lucky enough to survive hardened to the point of inhumanity. The art is, at its best, effective and evocative (check out the 15 minute sampler video to see how satisfyingly the art interacts with the songs) even though the album surrounding these nightmares doesn't always read so overwhelmingly bleak. By turns gorgeous and grim, ...Like Clockwork is probably best encapsulated by its cover art: an innocent, suffused by the embrace of a gaunt spectre, is comfortably lulled into unconsciousness by the hope that behind the grotesquerie lives a compassionate soul.

Best Music Of 2012

10) Royal Headache - Royal Headache

Australian Garage quartet Royal Headache's eponymous debut is, if nothing else, a minimal investment at just over 26 minutes. It's significant praise then, to say that the record's considerable charms far outlast its scant run time. With their scuzzy guitar and lead singer Shogun's soulful vocals, Royal Headache do an admirable job of filling in the gaps between Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke and The Ramones. While the lack of definition makes the record less a distinct statement than an agreeably uptempo pastiche, it's that very fluidity that helped the band garner an opening spot on The Black Keys' most recent tour. Lo-Fi but high energy, Royal Headache is especially suited to vinyl; analog warmth being the best conduit by which to experience its spunky, Punk-y "Maximum R&B" vibe.

09) The Men - Open Your Heart

String-horny folksters and sonically masturbatory Indie acts may be winning all the Grammys and booking all the car commercials but bands like Brooklyn's The Men are doing their part to keep raucous, raunchy Rock music alive and well. Comfortably settling in somewhere between Garage, Hardcore and Punk, Open Your Heart is the kind of record that's impeccably recorded and mastered even though a hot mic or broken string would feel as welcome as the thunderous drum fills that propel this awesomely ungainly record. Though there are forays into Psych-Rock instrumentation and anthemic harmonizing (often in the same song), this is clearly a work born of blistered fingers and hoarse throats. Open Your Heart isn't just the name of the album and the B-side opener, it's a plea to the listener. In an era where even the most candid Rock music feels antiseptic and cold, The Men just want to let a little love in, and blast a little of their own out of your speakers.

08) Ty Segall & White Fence - Hair

With a release schedule that rivals that of Jason Statham (see Ty's Twins or Ty Segall Band's Slaughterhouse for further evidence of 2012 pervasiveness), Garage-Rock's patron saint Ty Segall made his most indelible statement of the year during his collaboration with fellow Psych stalwart White Fence (nee Tim Presly). The draw of the perfectly matched duo's Hair isn't so much the allure of a perfect marriage (though it is a match made in Lo-Fi heaven) as it is a spacey game of fantastic one-upmanship. Each artist draws the other to his ramshackle extreme as they careen through tasty Nuggets-era morsels, matching tinny, squeal-y guitar work to twitchy drums and hastily-sung, after-thought choruses. Nostalgia is an inextricable aspect of such old-fangled music, but Ty and White Fence bring the appropriate amount of goofy commitment to the proceedings. Hair is both a testament to, and a propagation of the spirited Pop genius of Rock music's druggy, shrug-y past.

07) Future Of The Left - The Plot Against Common Sense

At this point, Punk is so invariably tied to its ostensible aesthetics that it can be hard for a modern band to subsist outside the cacophonous confines of pounded power chords. Welsh outfit Future Of The Left, reformed out of, but never more than spitting distance away from the Post-Hardcore of late-90's three-piece Mclusky, harbor no such concerns about being boxed into a genre that loses legitimacy with each successive Green Day greatest hits collection. These gents know that first, foremost and forever, Punk is a state of mind. An attitude awash in an endless morass of style-spanning diligence that traces back to Elvis and forward to their latest LP, The Plot Against Common Sense. Armed with axes to grind and an acute sense of humor, Future Of The Left's music is as playful as it is assaultive, often in the same breath. Their sound is "Alternative" in an era in which the label is both meaningless and more important than ever in the face of so much co-option and flightiness. While the band's unrelenting sarcasm at times feels outmoded (though no less joyous in its conviction), it's refreshing to see a band that gives enough of a damn to put everyone in their place.

06) P.O.S. - We Don't Even Live Here

The ascension of Kanye West to the proverbial throne may have brought the popularity of Kingpin Rap to an all-time high, but for all his bluster Kanye also brought an earnestness and susceptibility that tends to deflate some of the hot air that buoys his impressive ego. While the moguls of the Hip-Hop world have learned that emotion and bravado aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, Minneapolis rapper P.O.S. appears to have learned (finally) that message music can be just as potent when hung on a dance-able beat. A thoughtful and dissident lyricist, P.O.S.'s output thus far has been at times punishingly aggressive. Spitting his rhymes (in as literal a sense as that's possible) over speedy guitars and heavy drums and bass (its no mere coincidence that he fronts a Punk band on the side) P.O.S. seemed destined to scribble in the margins with his like-minded MC/producer collective Doomtree. Oddly enough, We Don't Even Live Here is both P.O.S.'s most accessible and most explicitly anti-establishment statement. As evidenced by the terrific, Lazerbeak-produced single "Fuck Your Stuff", P.O.S. hasn't lost any of his edge. He's brought in the aesthetic funk and still kept the philosophical noise. He seems more resolutely contrary than ever, but his music has never been this wonderfully addictive.

05) Titus Andronicus - Local Business

Considering their previous record, 2010's epic The Monitor, was a concept album loosely incorporating references to landmark battles from The Civil War and named for an early ironclad warship, Local Business can't help but feel a little less substantial by comparison. That is, until repeat listens reveal just how meticulously arranged and thematically dense a work it actually is. Local Business manages the neat trick of each track feeling absolutely inseparable from the next. At certain points the transitions between songs pass without much delineation and at others the band will change time so often that it feels like an entire side has passed in the space of a single song. Titus Andronicus display a conscientiousness that, while at odds with the tossed-off, DIY production and performances, won't dissuade the listener from the conviction that the band are Punk to the core: as incensed by complacence and cliche as they are impassioned by speaking truth to whomever might be in earshot.

04) Frank Ocean - Channel Orange

It's the rare artist that can handle a major label release, a Saturday Night Live appearance, the reveal of a same-sex infatuation, a parking lot brawl and multiple grammy wins with equally humble aplomb. But Frank Ocean, independently successful and far enough removed from the multifarious Odd Future collective to be counted as his own rising star, is just that sort of cat. Despite glimpses of brilliance from a universally lauded mixtape (Nostalgia, Ultra), contributions to one of the biggest releases of 2011 (Watch The Throne) and multiple high-profile writing and guest appearance gigs, Ocean's Channel Orange still feels jarring and wondrous; a seemingly effortless plunge into what could easily be billed Neo-Soul or R&B if those tags weren't such woeful understatements. Equipped with a trembling tenor, a flawless falsetto and an ear for gorgeous hooks, Ocean's lyrics and themes can border on the overly simplistic, but when they're scattered throughout such a resplendent collage of crepuscular electro-funk and delivered with such measured intensity, one tends to forgive the odd cliche or two. It's one thing to offer an exemplary entry into a perpetually-mired genre, quite another to transcend it altogether and make it feel like something revolutionary.

03) Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Youthful exuberance and reckless enthusiasm power Indie Rock duo Japandroids' sophomore record. Shout-y, almost naively ecstatic choruses anchor each song and though the album whiffs by it makes a more enduring impression with each listen. Such is the insidiousness of the earworm-y anthems from this Canadian drummer and guitarist. At first glance, Celebration Rock appears to be a balls-out party record (and it is certainly that) but there's a pervasive sense of longing and nostalgia at play as well. It's as if these fellows are mourning the moments even as they're existing in them, steadfast in the knowledge of the impermanence of even the most epic revelry. Not that the record need carry such subtleties. Those looking for a good time with no strings attached will find much to pump their fists to without the burden of considering the weightier themes. Still, it's rare to find a thinking man's Rock album so eager to gleefully tear down its own elegant construction.

02) Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Plenty of ultra-hyped MCs have torpedoed their own coming out party by committing the understandable sin of giving away the milk for free. In the age of mixtape-launched superstars, a rapper's first official release often pales in comparison to the gratis music they released while young and hungry (just see Big K.R.I.T., J-Cole or even post-Pilot Talk Curren$y's major label efforts for prime examples). Lucky for pretty much anyone interested in the survival of thoughtful yet eminently listenable Hip-Hop, West-Coast maestro Kendrick Lamar's Interscope debut delivers on the potential hinted at on his numerous mixtapes and last year's largely laudable Top Dawg full length Section 80. Though inextricably linked to the good Dr., Lamar's Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City resembles Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy more than Dre's The Chronic; its collaborations inspired where they might have lapsed into stunt-y distraction. Much of the credit is due to Kendrick himself, whose wavering vocal inflections suit the ghetto-mosaic style that serves to bring the listener deep into a Compton rendered soulful, sad and fascinating by the vivid storytelling. The record's most admirable achievement (and clearest link to Kanye's transcendent oeuvre) is that it succeeds as much with hooks ("Money Trees" and "Swimming Pools (Drank)" are two of the year's best singles) as it does with character sketches and dense sagas. Anyone who can cater to both the iTunes set and the album junkies should enjoy a lengthy, fruitful career.





01) Lee Fields - Faithful Man

It's apparent from the impassioned howl on the final refrain of Faithful Man's lead-off/title track that Funk/Soul also-ran Lee Fields has spent the decades since arriving on the Soul scene (just a few years shy of the watermark) paying his dues and honing his craft. In a live setting, the diminutive Fields' is even more of a firecracker. Strutting like a show horse and shimmying like a tent church preacher, he possesses the presence and charisma of a certain departed godfather. The one from which his nickname "Little J.B." is so generously yet deservedly derived. Clearly energized by the renewed interest in Soul music both retrograde and au courant, not to mention his collaboration with a group of similarly minded and talented musicians (the absolutely brilliant ensemble known as The Expressions), Fields commands Faithful Man like one of the great Soul troubadours, powering through a song cycle about temptation, guilt, loss, regret and resilience as if he wanted the world to remember him for it. But Faithful Man is every bit as much a showcase for the songwriting and arrangements of The Expressions as it is for Fields. Younger, if not necessarily hipper than their frontman, this crack band employs the fifty some odd years of Soul music's history across the album's ten tracks. Layering in the severe strings of Isaac Hayes "Walk On By" in one song, floating a chorus on top of a horn chart that could have been lifted from one of Otis Redding's posthumous albums on the next. Faithful Man doesn't just ape classic Soul albums, it deserves to be considered alongside them.

Darkest Before The Dawn: The Dark Knight Rises

There's a small stretch late in The Dark Knight Rises, the third and final installment of Christopher Nolan's grimly fascinating Batman series, that will give even the savviest, most jaded film-goer reason for bated breath. Or it would, were it not for the inclusion of an early plot point so brazenly Chekovian that even the two hour's worth of breakneck plotting that ensues isn't enough to dull the memory of it's conspicuous introduction. It's an amusing case of Nolan's own fastidious film architecture undermining his cocksure showmanship. Without the earlier allusion, the meager payoff would just seem like a cheat, something purposefully obscured in order to goose expectations in the finale. As it stands though, the ambiguity barely registers anyway. That's in part due to Nolan (fairly) tipping his hand but more so because a multi-billion dollar movie franchise (despite its edgy reputation) is only allowed to go so dark and those in charge of ensuring its grosses aren't necessarily willing to give audiences enough credit to know the difference between a happy ending and a satisfying one. But just because the bow used to tie up this oft-thrilling, maddeningly ambitious trilogy is more gossamered than gilded doesn't make its conclusion any less remarkable for the chances it does take.

Picking up roughly eight years after the events in The Dark Knight left Batman falsely defamed and Gotham's White-Knight-turned-Black-Hat Harvey Dent posthumously lionized in his stead, a quick nod is given to Commissioner Gordon's eulogy for Dent before Nolan plunges headlong into the film's first (and arguably best) big action set-piece: an artfully staged and impeccably-shot mid-air sabotage that is no less exhilarating for having been unveiled in theaters seven months ago. Concurrently we're introduced to the film's main antagonist, Bane, a militaristic brute with a painkiller-dispensing gas mask that resembles a gruesome metal maw. Played with a hulking determination by Tom Hardy, Bane stomps and lurches with terrifying purpose, wheezing out orders and ominous proclamations like a Darth Vader assembled out of Pawn Shop parts and raised on Muscle Milk, emphatically cracking necks and spines as he engineers Gotham's demise. It seems that in the years since Dent's death, Gotham has experienced a period of heretofore unrivaled lawfulness through implementation of The Dent Act, a law which has allows Gordon and his police force to keep the city's organized crime incarcerated without parole. Of course, even with the city's brazen criminal element behind bars, Gotham is far from utopian. The city's wealth is more concentrated than ever (Nolan's timely nod to the One Percenters) giving Bane and his sizable, maniacally loyal underground army reason enough to hatch a plan that's at once deliriously complex and brilliantly self-perpetuating. Isolate the city, unburden it of the thin veil of order that keeps the disenfranchised from overtaking the elite, and let Gotham destroy its decadent self. It's the culmination of the plots from the first two films, the Joker's anarchic terrorism matched with Ra's Al Guhl's moralistically entitled devastation.

New allies appear in the form of Joseph Gordon Levitt's doggedly honorable policeman and Anne Hathaway's feisty thief and both feel integral to the action, struggling and fighting in their own way alongside Bale's aging crusader while Bane's plan comes to horrible fruition. It's when Gotham is all but lost (and, ironically, before the titular hero begins the titular ascent) that the film truly starts to soar. Christopher Nolan, screenwriter brother Jonathan and longtime superhero scribe David S. Goyer's willingness to rip the guts out of the world they've spent the last seven years building is a big part of what makes The Dark Knight Rises a cut above other comic book adaptations out there, including the first two in their trilogy. It's fanboy blasphemy to suggest that anything could top the heralded second film, what with the inherent tragedy tied to Heath Ledger's star-making performance and the audacious gamble of a superhero film as dedicated to theatrical speechifying and allegorical resonance as it is to expansive action sequences. But where The Dark Knight occasionally overreached and underwhelmed, its sequel shows very little strain in either its plotting or its staging. The action scenes are more naturally gripping where many of The Dark Knight's felt obligatory or muddled, and the themes feel fully explored rather than hurried over and endlessly espoused by the characters. It's as if Nolan took a long look back at a film most fans and critics called a masterpiece and decided "I can do better". If there's anywhere The Dark Knight Rises is lacking, its in a conclusion that's just a touch too pat for the refreshingly adult, relatively complex storytelling that propels it there. A cut or two in the final couple of minutes would have done well to give the series the less simplistic ending it deserved, it's just a shame that no one involved with that responsibility took the time to realize that the film earns its hopeful ending long before the happy one is tacked on. 

Bit Of The Old Ultraviolence: God Bless America

The collected log lines of comedian-turned-actor-turned-arsonist-turned-director Bobcat Goldthwait's films reveal (or at the very least imply) a tendency to revel in the grotesque and the transgressive, akin to those controversy courters who ever so often rile up film festivals by masquerading empty shock as art and draw press coverage from mass walk-outs at screenings. But a more apt description of Goldthwait's talent is that of a Hal Ashby-esque maverick, one making smart and soulful films under the guise of salacious premises. Much like Ashby's Harold & Maude, in which a May-December romance provides the sensational hook on which to hang a sweetly disarming story of an odd friendship that helps expose a disaffected young man to a brighter world, Goldthwait's films are more thoughtful and less licentious than the sum of their IMDb keywords. In his 2006 film Sleeping Dogs Lie, the revelation of an act of bestiality provides the impetus for a sincere examination of the inherent dangers of full disclosure while in 2009's Father Of The Year, an exploration of emotional dishonesty and ghoulish self-centrism pivot on the auto-erotic asphyxiation death of a teenager. In his latest, God Bless America, Goldthwait extols nothing less than the virtues of basic human decency through the murderous exploits of a harried schlub and his underage accomplice who've had just about enough of American society's shameless descent into asininity.

Joel Murray (best known as everyone's favorite alcoholic copy writer Freddy Rumsen on AMC's Mad Men) stars as Frank, a sensitive, intelligent divorced dad whose fantasies of slaughtering his thoughtless idiot neighbors and his seemingly innocuous interactions with the office receptionist serve to keep his exasperation at the woeful state of modern culture from boiling over into something more severe. By the end of one particularly hellish day, Frank has lost his job, been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and come to the realization that his adolescent daughter is fast on her way to becoming as monstrous as the spoiled, spiteful teen on a popular reality show. Bottomed out and terminal, Frank puts a pistol in his mouth, but as he prepares to paint the walls in his viscera, the screeches and bleeped curses of that horrible teenage girl rattle around his head until you can all but see the light bulb appear: why not rid the world of part of the problem before checking out? Of course, it's an inherently lame-brained scheme because, as noted by Roxy, the feisty, equally fed-up teen girl who weasels her way into his crumbling world, killing a high school girl and then himself will only paint him as a pervert obsessed with a minor (and Minor) celebrity. The clear solution (and Goldthwait does his part to make it seem a plausible one in this heightened world) is to keep the killing streak going once the little harpy has been dispatched. And so Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr) and Frank become a modern day Bonnie & Clyde, like a platonic version of Badlands' Kit and Holly but with a more specific agenda.

Frank and Roxy make a pretty terrific team, and the scenes in which they let loose with murderous glee strike that perfect balance so crucial in keeping Comedy this black from souring the message. Roxy (who's played with a maturity and spunk that belies Tara Lynne Barr's kiddie-show roots) is ready to take out anyone even slightly obnoxious. From hi-fivers to Diablo Cody, the minutiae that triggers her malice at times seems positively Seinfeldian. Frank on the other hand, just doesn't get why everyone is so mean all the time, he's just looking for a little compassion from people who are all too comfortable mocking the weak and downtrodden. Frank's quest, and indeed the film's raison d'etre, is a little like Billy Wilder's "be a mensch" message from The Apartment. It's a call for decency and morality projected outward as a warning and a threat, you could call it "be a mensch, or else...".

One of God Bless America's great jokes, beyond the fact that it's depictions of the sickening behavior that sets Frank off just barely need embellishing beyond reality, is that even once Frank and Roxy's spree is in full swing, their motives are grossly misinterpreted. A massacre at a movie theater is blamed on the documentary film being shown and later when the pair cut down a blowhard conservative talk-show host they only strengthen his cause. It's touches like that that make Goldthwait's script so fleet and funny, and though Frank and Roxy's rants can occasionally feel like they're coming straight from the director's mouth, he doesn't sell out his characters, they always feel like real individuals even when, satirically speaking, they don't have to be. God Bless America is another fine film from a director with a smart sense of comic timing and plenty on his mind, and in this age of fame whores and dimwitted discourse, that's something to be cherished.

Yell Like Hell: Japandroids - Celebration Rock

There are those special moments in certain genres of Western music in which a performer, during specific instances of rhythm-induced elation, will drop any pretense of poetry to engage in a flight of vocal jubilee, as if a melody is so overpoweringly effervescent that mere words aren’t sufficiently expressive. Jimi Hendrix was known to throw grunts and yowls around to punctuate particularly righteous guitar licks, while several of Charles Mingus’ more swinging sessions featured audible hollering on otherwise vocal-less compositions. The infectiously anthemic second album from Canadian Rock duo Japandroids (comprised of singer/guitarist Brian King & drummer/vocalist David Prowse) takes this lively tradition to its logical apex by making such gleeful utterances more the hook than the actual choruses. In that vein, their shouts and barks recall The Band’s tendency to use extra-linguistic vocalizations (including the all powerful yodel) to complement their playing and give a jaunty stride to the refrains in songs like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "Up On Cripple Creek".

That isn't to say that these two punchy lads aren’t capable lyricists; quite the contrary. Their songs, single-minded though they may be, possess a wonderfully bruised sense of nostalgia, recounting bleary-eyed mornings and the wild nights from which they spring. In that sense, Celebration Rock's stories are heavily self-referential; they're Rock songs about the ineffable allure of iniquity, the live-in-the-moment, do-what-feels-good ethos of the mythical Rock N' Roll lifestyle, belted out and driven to excess by unruly drums and unrelenting guitar that sound as if they're forever trying to outrun each other. The blistering pace at which Celebration Rock unfurls is only lessened in the final moments, when the closer "Continuous Thunder" slows the breakneck clip just long enough for the band to contemplate the din that was the previous half hour of rangy, clamorous tunes. 

Midway through the record, King and Prowse take on a cover of LA Blues-Punk outfit Gun Club's "For The Love Of Ivy". Faithful and generally enjoyable as it is, the song's inclusion can't help but feel like filler on such a short album, but it invites an interesting comparison between Japandroids' music and the Punk aesthetic, as if the band are eager to bottle the infectious energy of Punk but just can't bring themselves to embrace the genre's inherent nihilism; they're far too precise and passionate for that. During the opening cut "The Nights Of Wine And Roses" King muses whether "we have anything to live for?" and quickly rejoins that "of course we do, but until it comes true, we're drinkin'". That seemingly thrown off line is part and parcel of Japandroids' philosophy: that living fast and dying young is for suckers. Why not live fast and prosper, and figure out the details once the house lights come on?

Art Of The LP: Ten Awesome Gatefolds

There are few greater pleasures for a vinyl collector than stumbling upon a cherished record in playable shape and finding that its cover opens to reveal hidden wonders or expanded artwork. Some house lyrics, some sport recording session photos, others offer no more than a few credits and some stock images, but there's just something special about a gatefold album that makes it feel like such a worthwhile purchase. The best of these treasures are those that contain hardly any text at all, the ones that treat the gatefold as a canvas over which to expand or accent the cover art. Below are a handful of notable gatefolds and how the accompanying music measures up to the packaging. (click on any of the images for a larger pic)

10) The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love (1967) 

Legend has it that Hendrix himself was disappointed in this cover (a popular Hindu painting with images of the band superimposed over the foreground characters). Jimi wished the art to reflect his "Indian" (read: Native American) ancestry and not what the publishing company confused as actual Indian roots. Nevertheless it remains one of the most recognizable and reproduced images in Rock history, Target sells tees emblazoned with it). The gatefold differs from most in that it's properly viewed vertically rather than the traditional horizontal alignment. In spite of it's religious connotations, the vibrant color scheme and inherent mysticism are a perfect representation of the Psychedelic Pop of the band's sophomore album, much in the same way that The Beatles Sgt. Peppers cover had been mere months before. Little needs to be said of the music itself, as any of Hendrix's three releases are absolutely essential to a serious music collection, but Axis is also probably the best introduction and the purest distillation of the group's sadly abbreviated output. 

09) Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (1970)

The primal, sinister Voodoo-Funk Fusion of Miles Davis' electric period gets an apt illustration from artist Mati Klarwein for his Jazz-Rock opus Bitches Brew. Klarwein produced another album cover on this list along with those from major releases by Santana, Eric Dolphy and Earth, Wind & Fire and gets the both the druggy, spooky atmosphere of the album and the stylistic advantages of the double LP gatefold (again, an outer cover) pitch perfect. Bitches Brew itself is, of course, a landmark album, one that both ignited the Fusion genre and concurrently rendered the bulk of it inessential. Who else but the "The Prince Of Darkness" could define and conquer a genre of music in one album, and who but Klarwein could balance Davis' afro-centrism with the progressive musical spirit that still feels revolutionary four decades later.     

08) The Allman Brothers Band - Eat A Peach (1972)

It's a mighty dark shadow that hangs over The Allman Brothers Band's seminal double LP Eat A Peach in the form of guitarist Duane Allman's tragic death, particularly considering how joyous and vibrant a record it is. Even more incongruous is the wildly psychedelic illustration on the inner gatefold when compared to music that is, while at times jam-driven and exploratory, sonically quite straightforward. A depiction of an alien landscape filled with stoned androgynes and mythical beasts surrounded by an impressive array of what are no doubt meant to be Psilocybin Mushrooms, the picture represents the era more than the Southern Blues Rock at the album's core. The record is still a masterpiece of course, and rewards contiguous listens despite being weirdly split between live covers and Allman originals (written both before and after Duane's passing) and centered around a spacious thirty plus minute jam session.    

07) Bob Dylan & The Band - The Basement Tapes (1975)

Lest anyone accuse them of being too clever, Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and the recently departed Levon Helm piled into a basement with a photographer, some like-minded freaky folks in various costumes (among them a ballerina, an old-timey strongman, an eskimo, a newsie dwarf) and a reel-to-reel machine to snap the cover photo for the 1975 mish-mash marvel The Basement Tapes. The tape deck and the shot location are obvious allusions to the album title while many of the characters are straight from the songs. The few that aren't don't seem out of place on a record that sought to funnel every piece of classic American music from Chain Gang songs to Sea Shanties into a cohesive whole (and largely succeeds). The songs on The Basement Tapes are all of a piece, steeped in tradition and endearingly ramshackle, but the transitions between lead vocalists is occasionally bracing when all the singers (mainly Dylan, Danko and Helm but also Manuel and Robertson) have such distinctive voices. What's so great about The Basement Tapes beyond it's storied history in the Rock canon is that (particularly if you've never heard it) it's like having a bonus album of both Dylan and Band songs, which is Manna for any worshiper of great American music. What makes the album's outer gatefold so memorable is how easy it is to imagine just this sort of scene playing out during the album's numerous recording sessions.           

06) Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy (1973)

The expansive outer gatefold cover of Led Zeppelin's fifth LP is like something out of dystopian Science Fiction (and in fact was inspired by an Arthur C. Clarke story in which a similar scene takes place) but what's most notable about it's eerie composition is that it's all achieved through photography and the use of multi-printing and tinting effects. The cover, designed by popular British art group Hipgnosis, looks every bit like the illustration on the jacket of a pulp novel and is imbued with a pseudo-religiosity that jibes perfectly with the group's ascendancy to Rock-God super-stardom. Technically the first Zeppelin album with all original compositions (though Led Zeppelin IV came close) Houses Of The Holy feels a full step removed from the band's Blues-y roots and musical debt to Black Americans as well as the last truly great Zeppelin album before their gradual, inevitable decline. Despite how appropriate the cover image is in representing the Celtic Folk Metal at play on much of the album, many songs on Houses are far more varied than the striking cover would suggest, a testament to the band's musical ingenuity and the specificity of the design.

05) The Black Keys - Chulahoma: The Songs Of Junior Kimbrough (2006)

Before the The Black Keys were selling out some of the nation's most hallowed arenas in a matter of minutes, they were Rock geek darlings, the band that your friend who's really into music and vinyl always wanted you to come see (one wonders how many fans were converted in this manner before the job was outsourced to car commercials and radio DJs). Following their breakthrough album (artistically, if not commercially), 2004's Rubber Factory, and shortly before the release of their fourth full length, Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney paid tribute to the most significant influence on their sound, Delta Bluesman Junior Kimbrough, with a six song EP of covers (not including the two Kimbrough covers already on their first two albums). This outer gatefold is highly representative of Kimbrough's dark, hypnotic Blues and The Black Keys' spare, spooky interpretations of some of his better known songs. It's also just totally badass and wouldn't look out of place hanging on a wall in a music room even without band or album identifiers.          

04) The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland (1968)

Some gatefolds are dazzling in their intricate detail or iconic imagery, others possess a more subdued, indecipherable beauty while still others are memorably outlandish, trading in subtlety for garish extravangance (as with pretty much any Prog Rock album cover). And then of course there are covers with naked women. From the see-through lingerie of Roxy Music's Country Life to the unkempt pubis swathed in an American flag bikini on The Black Crowes' Amorica to pretty much any Dwarves' cover, nude females have a rich history in the artwork of Rock, Soul and Jazz records. While there may be covers more explicit than the cover of The Jimi Hendrix Experience's final record Electric Ladyland, there aren't many with more bare flesh per square inch than the original UK pressing's outer gatefold assemblage of nineteen completely nude (though demurely positioned) ladies. For all the borderline misogynistic uses of the female form (see: every Hair Band ever), the nudes on Electric Ladyland seem highly appropriate given the title of the record and how generic the replacement cover turned out (a blurry red and yellow shot of Jimi's head, issued worldwide with each subsequent reissue). What keeps the cover tasteful is the diverse array of ethnicities and body-types, there isn't a supermodel nor an arched back to be seen, just some electric ladies, some with Hendrix albums in hand, not a one straddling a giant serpent or licking a handgun or some other hetero-fantastical nonsense. Though it's intent is all but opposite of what Jimi envisioned (a color shot of the band sitting with children by a Central Park sculpture) the original cover is a nice find for collectors and suitable packaging for the beautiful music contained therein.        

03) David Bowie - Diamond Dogs (1974)

If you were to only glance at the front cover for David Bowie's 1974 concept album, you might not even realize that Bowie is meant to be represented as a half-man, half-canine creature. You'd certainly be surprised to find, if you're lucky enough to possess one of an extremely limited number of copies of the non-airbrushed gatefold, that Dave's diamond dog has a diamond dong. It's a little silly how quickly the original artwork was pulled in favor of a version with a shadowed crotch, especially since the ambiguity leaves open the possibility that this monstrosity might have human genitals. Even without it's anatomical correctness, it's an unsettling image and though it has little to do with the album's literal content it's a hilariously spot-on assessment of the album's hybrid construction. Half an aborted attempt at adapting Orwell's novel 1984 via 70s Glam Rock and half the tentative steps into what would become Bowie's "plastic soul" period, Diamond Dogs is fractured but highly enjoyable, and features what is probably one of the greatest Pop songs of all time, the classic "Rebel Rebel".

02) ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (1973)

Something of a sentimental pick from a lifelong Houstonian, but the glorious Tex-Mex spread on the inner gatefold of ZZ Top's 1973 classic Tres Hombres never fails to make my mouth water. More than gulf-caught seafood or succulent BBQ, there's nary a meal that's more of a birthright to coast-dwelling Texans than a spicy plate of lovingly lard-infused, grease-tastic Tex-Mex washed down with cheap Mexican cerveza. The album is stellar too, as the boys in beards were able to do what a hundred boozy bar bands before and since have failed to do, make generic Blues-Rock sound like something more important than just background music at a tailgate.

01) Buddy Miles - Message To The People (1971)

There are albums in which the artists are content to stuff assorted ephemera, lyrics or random snapshots into a gatefold and there are those that make use of the format's wide canvas, and then there's this awesome little oddity from former Band Of Gypsys' member Buddy Miles that takes all four 12" spaces and connects them into one massive mural of righteously afrocentric fantasia that can't help but dwarf the excellent Funk-Rock of Miles' post-Hendrix period that's spread across the album's nine tracks. A Message To The People is the shining example of a record you buy simply on the strength of the cover and a vague sense of name recognition and are glad you did once the needle hits the groove. Compiled from a handful of Miles originals, a couple Allman Brothers' covers (that more than do justice to the originals) and a pick from the final posthumous Otis Redding album, the record is maddeningly brief but thoroughly enjoyable, and the four piece artwork (courtesy of gatefold genius Mati Klarwein) would look great in a frame provided one can pull the sucker apart and decide which way to orient it.

Stabbin' Cabin: The Cabin In The Woods

It was inevitable that Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's piss-taking Horror-Comedy The Cabin In The Woods would draw comparisons to Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson's Scream franchise. Both are the work of a genre veteran (in collaboration with a brash young screenwriter) looking to spook new life into a tired genre by subverting and skewering its tropes. Scream seemed positively invigorating in 1996, partly because no one was really bothering to make mainstream Horror movies anymore, and partly because all its self-aware mugging and in-jokes were like a shiny coat of paint on an old jalopy. The guts remained the same (after all, Scream is still essentially a by-the-numbers slasher pic with a few extra twists thrown in) but by acknowledging and upsetting the "rules" of the genre, the filmmakers were able to pay homage without completely rehashing the past. If Scream (and its numerous, appropriately diminishing sequels) was a wink and a nudge, a zing to the nose of the Slasher pic canon, then The Cabin In The Woods is a full on pantsing of the entire Horror genre. Whedon and first-time director (and long-time Whedon cohort) Goddard aren't content that their film is knowing and knowingly iconoclastic, they're out to upset and undo over a hundred years of cinematic history in one riotous, gore-soaked free-for-all.

Cabin gets off to a gleefully unnerving start, with a pre-credit sequence featuring Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins that is so blandly innocuous it can't help but seem sinister. At the scene's completion, a blood red title card is abruptly emblazoned across the screen to the familiarly screechy strings of a thousand forgotten fright movie scores; it's the first in a number of big laughs and the initial hint (at least for those going in spoiler-free) that the filmmaker's aren't exactly playing it straight. From there we're introduced to the requisite group of pretty, vacuous youngsters who are no doubt to be methodically dispatched and yet, here again, Whedon and Goddard toy with our expectations. The jocks aren't rape-y and dim-witted, the heroine is less virginal and her gal pal is less whore-ish than, say, your average gang of Crystal Lake counselors. Even the stoner is less a burnt-out scofflaw than a clever, dope-smoking subversive with some wild conspiracy theories that may not be as crackpot as they seem. When the group reaches the titular getaway and the blood-letting begins, it's a pertinent plot point that these kids start to revert back to their 80s archetypes.

Though promotional materials have leaked a few of the surprises, and it's best to go into The Cabin In The Woods knowing (and perhaps expecting) as little as possible, it's really the third act where the film distinguishes itself. The entire premise is sent off into the stratosphere once our beleaguered vacationers (their numbers gradually but reliably lessened by loosed terrors) figure out the true source of their troubles. They set about a path of revenge that catapults the movie from provocatively sly to bat-shit insane. With the literal and figurative push of a button, both the dangers and the stakes are increased immeasurably and the whole thing culminates in go-for-broke climax that rivals Peter Jackson's zombie opus Dead Alive for casualty count and variety of colorful beasties. If you're amongst The Cabin In The Woods' target audience of jaded but receptive Horror fan then go for the clever deconstruction and stay for the ridiculously joyful cataclysm.

Grab Your Gris-Gris: Dr. John - Locked Down

As evidenced by John "Mac" Rebennack's salty, at times unintelligible guest appearances on HBO's Treme, the inimitable Dr. John is just as wily at age 71 as he was forty years ago when the self-monickered "Nite Tripper" was recording and touring with equally legendary backing band The Meters. Rebennack's output in the late sixties and early seventies is as important as anything to come out of The Crescent City since the nascency of Jazz and while it would be heretical, histrionic and just plain wrong to place his latest release in such sterling company, Locked Down is possessed of an immediacy and artfulness on par with those heralded releases, if understandably lacking their startling originality. Certainly a measure of the record's success is owed to the production of The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. If there's a gilded lining to the band's recent leap into ubiquity, it's that Dan, no stranger to the producer's chair (see The Black Keys' Junior Kimbrough tribute EP Chulahoma or any Hacienda or Radio Moscow album as proof), can now wield his estimable skills in the same league as Jack White. It's little surprise that the two's tastes meld so well, Auerbach's penchant for scouring the dark depths of the traditional American music is kissing cousins with Rebennack's groovy Gumbo Funk, a hybrid of R&B and Creole and Voodoo music. What is surprising is how much of a party is raised behind Rebennack's rasped out screeds against everything from Wall Street avarice to institutional incompetence. Locked Down is fairly heavy on the messages, but in balancing Rebennack's indistinct spirituality and fierce politics with Auerbach's layered production (and occasional, incendiary guitar spots) the voice of the old Nite Tripper is never anything but welcome in the front of the mix, while the talented collection of young session players and backing vocalists keep that infamous Voodoo stew roiling and bubbling for a new generation.

Softening Up: The Men - Open Your Heart

Easing up on the thunderous Post-Hardcore of their previous record, The Men take a step back from that wall of noise and deliver a gut check of an album. What they lose in banshee vocals and breakneck riffs they more than make up for with their beefed up rhythm section (an absolute monster and easily the star of the show) and their grab bag approach to heady, muscular Rock. There are hints of everything from The Stooges to Sonic Youth to The Velvet Underground across Open Your Heart's earnestly mismatched ten track run, it's as if the band went picking through their record collection, snatching up all the bits that got their heads bobbing and tossed it haphazardly into a glorious musical stew. The album is reminiscent of Garage Rock heroes Thee Oh Sees' 2011 release Carrion Crawler/The Dream in that they're unapologetic Rock records: both free of thematic aspirations (no slight to Fucked Up's brilliant 2011 opus David Comes To Life, but Rock is often at its transcendent best when uncomplicated and raw), both early contenders for Rock album of the year and each distinguished by a devotion to deep grooves over which guitars are free to splatter and careen. If impressions from an opening track can be said to speak to a record's worth, then "Turn It Around" is on par with something out of The Hold Steady's notable run. It's loud, catchy and a buoyant harbinger of pleasures to come. The Men may not have resolutely carved out an identity with Open Your Heart, what with it being their first steps towards a more polished, palatable sound, but such a strong effort is sure to open up some ears.

Minor Morris: Tabloid

Acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris' latest film Tabloid feels like perhaps the most Errol Morris-y of any of his work. A perfect marriage of two of the director's favorite subjects: the elusive nature of truth and outsider eccentrics who exist proudly (though often obliviously) on the fringe of normalcy. Morris reassembles what principals he can to dredge up the conflicting accounts of the "Case of the Manacled Mormon" in which southern former beauty queen Joyce McKinney assembled a team of specialists (shades of James Gunn's equally engrossing 2008 doc Man On Wire) to travel to England to reclaim her wayward fiancee from Mormon fundamentalists. Once across the pond, McKinney and her cohorts allegedly abducted her betrothed and kept him shackled to a bed in an attempt to conceive a child, ultimately leading to criminal charges and a flight from justice. Morris gets the usual talking head blow-by-blow from one of McKinney's associates and two reporters from the dueling tabloid rags that turned the case into a national and international sensation for a brief period in the late seventies, but it's the accounts from McKinney herself that prove the most compelling. An obsessive naif turned spinster recluse, McKinney projects the air of someone's kooky aunt, devastated by failed romance and content to live out her days with her five dogs, each cloned from the feisty, departed Pit Bull who supposedly saved her life from a vicious guard dog. As McKinney retells her story to Morris (who's as oblique as ever, though his boisterous prodding and cackling from behind the camera illustrate just how much fun he's having with the material) she seems alternately energized and heartbroken, squealing with joy over an amateurish ruse in one breath and mourning her disability to ever love another man in the next. The most telling moment comes midway through the film when McKinney equates Mormon "brainwashing" with intense self-delusion. The idea that telling oneself a lie so forcefully that it, for all intents and purposes, becomes the truth, may speak more to McKinney's recollection of the events than to the alleged agenda of the sect that absconded with her would be husband. Tabloid isn't as socially relevant as The Thin Blue Line (which helped to overturn a murder conviction) nor as groundbreaking as Gates Of Heaven (which ignited Morris' love/awe of oddballs) so by that measure it's minor Morris, but in the hands of such an accomplished filmmaker even a breezy effort is well worth investing one's time in.