Hot Buttered Rum
Limbs Akimbo
(Hot Buttered Rum)
Hot Buttered Rum are the kind of band that could drum up a toe-tapping, head-bobbing crowd in no time, just through the sheer magnitude of their enthusiasm. It sounds like all five of these guys (and their various talented guests) were smiling through the whole recording. There's an urgency to the pop and the twang in their new album Limbs Akimbo, perhaps best expressed by the line "I'm moved by a strange new wind instead of the old one," from the laidback rock track "Brokedown." Even when they take you back in time with honky-tonk, they still sound as fresh and fun as rum in the summertime. The album is tough to categorize as anything other than a good time; it's romping pop with a bluegrass edge and occasional moments of jam band ecstasy. The first track, "Two Loose Cannons," suggests: "Let's all fly free from the balcony," and that's precisely the spirit that Limbs Akimbo inspires. Not that it's going to make you want to jump off a porch—but you might feel inclined to flail and thrash your limbs to the beat, as the album title suggests. —Amy Littlefield
Grant-Lee Phillips
Little Moon
(Yep Roc)
Grant-Lee Phillips has made a career out of writing emotional songs that showcase his vocal talents. Here he combines his critically acclaimed pipes with a strong backing band. Together they produce an album's worth of folk and rock gems that brim with joy. Stomping drums propel the music forward, and the tracks all share an organic feel—they sound well-lived in, and sound almost completely unadorned with studio trickery. A string quartet appears on the title track, along with piano and organ, and horn flourishes grace the theatrical "It Ain't the Same Old Cold War Harry." Lyrically, the record deals mostly with the tribulations of growing old and the simple pleasures of parenting. Phillips recently became a father at the age of 44, but he hasn't lost his sense of the whimsical, as evidenced by the closing "The Sun Shines on Jupiter." —Michael Cimaomo
Major Stars
Return To Form
(Drag City)
What happens when Stevie Nicks joins Black Sabbath? Alas, nothing good. Major Stars has gone and shat some 40-odd minutes of someone's high school basement rehearsal tape all over a perfectly good CD, not only without apology but with the expectation that you will actually buy this from them. They have succeeded only in creating an abomination in the eyes of Apollo, or at best a soundtrack to teenage mullet-grooming in a trailer bathroom that doubles as a meth lab. Their songs are composed of thinly-disguised classic rock riffs peppered with arbitrary, self-indulgent time changes and descents into ill-conceived sonic pastiches of guitar feedback. The vocals ride that low vibrato that's so Nicks, but also showcase awkward, amateurish phrasing and cadence, and seem modeled after those of the worst male metal singers (Creed, anyone?). The only place they will likely be major stars is in their dreams. —Tom Sturm
