[music] WHY? - Elephant Eyelash (Anticon)

Eyelash starts with a little backsliding, some of the weedy hip-hop that Anticon's known for. It's not unforgivable or anything, but the EP Why? made this summer set it aside, which I guess I'd been hoping was permanent. It does set the mood, though-- the topics covered on the album are mostly downers, and Yoni Wolf associates (maybe subconsciously) hip-hop with moodiness and pop with exuberance. Things get brighter toward the middle of the record and then darken again...

At its best, this is what I wanted from Malkmus's Face The Truth-- fruit-salad production with flourishes that come out of nowhere, and lyrics like "Weeping backstage with the pretty plus-ones". Actually, in its weaker parts it may be what I wanted from Malkmus too; the sad-happy-sad sweep of the record makes it easy to listen to the whole thing, while Face The Truth left my CD player quickly because I hated having to skip tracks that often.

One thing Wolf got from hip-hop was the inclination to crank out hybrid metaphor-puns as punchlines: "You get stoned like death in the Bible" is the lamest, but none of them on this record justify their own existence. Still, a little awkwardness ends up not out of place; with this many songs about death and loneliness set to catchy tunes, you can go the Beautiful South route (ha! it's a juxtaposition! get it?) or you can do what Why? do and hope muddling things a little evokes the fact that emotions in life aren't as simple as you have to make them in songs.

It's too bad Why?'s current tour isn't coming to Boston; the more I listen to this the more I like it.

[Out tomorrow. Anticon has an mp3 of "Rubber Traits" up.]

[music] THE FALL - Fall Heads Roll (Narnack)

A few months ago this record was announced with the name The Fall Head's Roll, like that, with the apostrophe. At least, I think it was. That's how the name appeared all over the web; it's a testament to Mark E. Smith's enduring idiosyncracies that pretty much anyone who had a passing acquaintance with his music was ready to think he'd put stray punctuation in an album title and that it was Very Very Important. Now the record's nearly out and the apostrophe isn't there.

You might well ask who cares about this, but after two times through Fall Heads Roll, I find it more interesting than the music. Another high-school favorite falls off the list.