CMX - Aura (1994)

1) Mikään ei vie sitä pois; 2) Sametinpehmeä; 3) Elokuun kruunu; 4) Ruoste; 5) Nainen tanssii tangoa; 6) Turkoosi; 7) Kultanaamio; 8) Raskas; 9) Talvipäivänseisaus; 10) Työt ja päivät; 11) Pilvien kuningas; 12) Aura

More focused and unafraid to be beautiful at times - practically a reinvention for the band, and it's now time to take them seriously.

Key tracks: "Elokuun kruunu", "Ruoste", "Kultanaamio"

I've sometimes seen Aura described as the Finnish OK Computer and while that's a slightly hyperbolic sentiment and the two albums have very little in common musically, there is a seed of truth in there as they do both represent a turn of the tide in the popular pop culture context. Much like Radiohead's epic third album signalled the shift from the bright-eyed optimism of Britpop to the anxiety-exhausted final years of the 1990s in the UK, Aura has become the representative of the shift in Finnish rock music, with the general audiences well and truly adopting the nearly endless wealth of weird rock bands that the late 80s-early 90s Finland was giving birth to. In the wider scheme Aura didn't start the revolution, but it became its face, representing the upgrade from cult success ti actual success for CMX and many of their peers, as all these lyrically adept and musically unique acts who had been bubbling underneath became unlikely radio stars and shaped the Finnish nineties in their own characteristic ways.

The wildest thing about Aura is where it came from. Keep in mind that up to this point CMX were a chaotic group of grizzly Northern men who were always restlessly stirring their own pot, intentionally awkward to adore. They were prog-rockers doing hardcore punk, a band who found it hilarious and thrilling to pervert their hooks with abrupt twists and whose albums ran amok. After a string of three erratic albums each one more unpredictable than before (and not necessarily always in the best way), they were incredibly unlikely heroes to ever get a real break - if they ever even wanted it. CMX were a band in a constant flux, a maelstrom of wild ideas and wilder energy. But they were also talented, ambitious musicians who were growing out of the playpen they had started in and though they had tried to fight change in Aurinko, eventually it became too tempting to resist.

Aura is where CMX took a deep breath and focused. If you want to keep drawing parallels to OK Computer, then Aura bears the same notion of the band putting their heads together to plan for something greater than the sum of its parts, something that would take them to the next level artistically and musically. In Aura's case, that move was allowing ideas to represent themselves calmly and slowly if needed. The old fire hasn’t disappeared: "Sametinpehmeä" is perhaps a bit too much of a throwback to the last two albums that's a little ill-fitting in its current company and only seems to be on the album to remind any old fans right from the start that yes it's still the same CMX, but "Raskas" is just as positively punchy as anything before and the delightfully bonkers tango/heavy metal hybrid "Nainen tanssii tangoa" is fueled by the flashes of complete insanity that was the main characteristic of early CMX. Even the shaman drum jams that were synonymous with the band are still intact as far as actually opening the album, but "Mikään ei vie sitä pois" immediately highlights the changes in the band's songwriting. Unlike all the other previous drum circle anthems it's guided by melody, and rather than just standing out as a weird novelty, it makes not just for an effective intro but stands out as a song in its own right, mystically leading into Aura's world. 

Those familiar throwbacks are largely there to bridge gaps though, and for most of its duration Aura looks both forward and elsewhere entirely. It is a gentler and softer record than the first three, undeniably; but it’s also more expansive and cohesive, and quite frankly more thought-out. Many of the songs are built around acoustic guitars and four tracks - a quarter of the album - are effectively ballads or mood pieces with A.W. Yrjänä's voice in the forefront in a manner it hasn't been before; among them are the elegant and softly spoken “Ruoste” that became the album’s runaway hit and the deceptively beautiful and secretly tragic “Talvipäivänkumous” that's like a light in the middle of the coldest winter night. At the center of it it's CMX embracing the concept that you can create something beautiful with a honest heart, and it opens so many paths for the band across even the harder songs. Arrangements are expanded with more keyboards and most notably a set of strings, which land a central role in every song they turn up in thanks to some sublime string arrangements that are overy and beyond the generic rock band orchestral wallpaper. The band’s prog influences are rising right to the surface as well, with the Pink Floydian “Pilvien kuningas” resting in its keyboard-trodden groove for a good nine minutes as the band lose themselves in the kind of instrumental jamming that they’d shy away from previously. “Elokuun kruunu” and “Kultanaamio” complete the band’s transformation into 90s alternative stars: they're two towering guitar anthems that sound as majestic on the hundredth listen as they do on the first, boldly soaring. "Elokuun kruunu" is fantastic in its own right, showing a little restraint even as it goes for the jugular in its anthemic chorus, but "Kultanaamio" is the album's centrepiece - you can predict right from the simple bass intro that the song is eventually going to explode and when it does, with the string section swooping in from the shadows like a gust of wind that just gave the song's wings flight, it's truly incredible. It's CMX well and truly reincarnated, unafraid to be a little more open towards its listeners but backing that notion up with a melodic abundance that begs to be heard.

As a first for CMX, it's also a set of songs that hold together remarkably. Aura is an album, a statement of intent for CMX's brand new form. It’s exciting in its cohesiveness, how dramatic arcs are built and sustained through several songs, where everything builds up on what appeared before. “Mikään ei vie sitä pois” and “Sametinpehmeä” bridge the gap from the past to the present, “Elokuun kruunu” reveals the band’s new more elegant side, “Ruoste” digs deeper into that and introduces the strings, “Nainen tanssii tangoa” incorporates those strings in something more conventional for the band, et cetera. They're also, for the most, part great songs. There's a few that truly make a stand - "Elokuun kruunu", "Kultanaamio", "Ruoste", "Talvipäivänseisaus" - but the overall flow is not only cohesive, but consistent. There was a lot of potential as well as flashes of greatness across the past three albums, but it's like it finally clicked for the band themselves what exactly those moments were, and they've removed the chaff around them. There's grace, there's fury and there's a constant sense of surprise and excitement, and it's not easy to understand why this album in particular lifted CMX on a pedestal. For me personally Aura is a few small steps away from being a truly classic album, but it is still undeniable in so many ways.

Rating: 8/10

Lambchop - How I Quit Smoking (1995)

1) For Which We Are Truly Thankful; 2) The Man Who Loved Beer; 3) The Militant; 4) We Never Argue; 5) Life's Little Tragedy; 6) Suzieju; 7) All Smiles and Mariachi; 8) The Scary Caroler; 9) Smuckers; 10) The Militant (Reprise); 11) Garf; 12) Your Life as a Sequel; 13) Theöne; 14) Again

This is where Lambchop set their form, and if you're familiar with that form you'll already know exactly what to expect. In good and bad.

Key tracks: "We Never Argue", "Suzieju", "Theöne"

The Lambchop formula, if you will, finds its footing here. Their first album saw Kurt Wagner and his gang with one foot in alt country and one foot in slacker-esque alt rock, and now the weight's started to shift towards the former. "Americana" is arguably a better descriptor than country through: Lambchop doesn't really have the twang of a country act, but the sweeping strings, smooth orchestration and quiet acoustic murmurs all have their roots in the vintage American songbook, which Wagner interprets through his own peculiar personality traits. Lambchop albums differ by tiny factors usually detectable only by seasoned veterans of the band's music, and on How I Quit Smoking that factor is the mere act that it lays down the tracks for the next two decades. The influence of the first album is still deep in the album's psyche, though. You know how on early 90s alternative rock or indie rock albums you've got that one much slower song - sometimes with strings - that isn't really a ballad but more of an introspective moment of calm that's there to balance the album's flow? Imagine an entire album of those back to back, just remove the excess rock artistry from the equation (I can’t imagine this was a particularly exciting time to be a drummer for Lambchop, for example).

In general though, if you know Lambchop you know how this goes. Wagner mutters surrealist everyday vignettes (which often elicit a genuine chuckle), the tempo barely ever goes beyond calmly trodding ("All Smiles and Mariachi" is the only uptempo number here and I use that term extremely loosely) and overall it all goes on for a little too long while sounding a little too similar throughout, but it's nonetheless all very pleasant to listen to. How I Quit Smoking isn’t really about the power of songcraft or individual set pieces, it’s one long sustained mood where barely anything happens unless you view it through a microscope. At their most Lambchoppiest the band's music can get downright samey, and How I Quit Smoking is what you'd point towards as a solid example of that. It sets the band's norms but because of that, it also doesn't tinker around with them like some of the later albums do and so it is particularly one-note. Its charms are practically passive, the songs more of a mindset and a moodscape that present themselves without causing a stir - but if you're in a Lambchop mood it works wonder. That near-perfect collaboration between mood and music is likely why there are so many people who like this band, including me - sometimes there's no other music that would work better than Wagner's quiet grace. 

Nonetheless, to give How I Quit Smoking some credit of its own there are a few particular pieces of excellence that do stand out. "We Never Argue", "Life's Little Tragedy" and "Suzieju" forms the album's charmingly swooning core, full to their brim with the kind of elegance that would become more familiar across some albums down the line. "We Never Argue" also presents the album's catchiest vocal melody and the flute hook of "Suzieju" is the musical equivalent, so they're the bops of the record if you will, if that makes a difference. "Theöne" is a superlatively beautiful string-laden number which ends the record with an honestly touching way, with "Again" serving as its quick all-strings reprise to officially close things down. Those aren't the only parts of the album that jump out, but they're the notable ones in a sea of gentle guitar melodies, Wagner's murmur and barely-there percussion hits from one song to another, some of which are nicer than others. The only real point of criticism is that "The Militant" doesn't need to appear twice, because even if the "reprise" version has a different tone to the first version and so arguably justifies its existence, it's still the same song and bloats a tracklist that already feels like a dragging Sunday afternoon at times.

Otherwise though, unless you're insistent on listening to things chronologically (or you feel particularly inspired by this review to listen to this out of the blue, in which case, why?) by the time you get to this album you know the drill, and you'll likely have accepted it already. Lambchop have done better albums - many genuinely great - and then they've done albums like How I Quit Smoking that offer exactly what you expect and which works exactly how you'd like it to. Regardless of whether it's actually a truly memorable album is almost a moot point - it's comfortably Wagnerian at its most base form.

Rating: 6/10

Various Artists - Smash 11 (1992)

1) Erasure - S.O.S.; 2) Was (Not Was) - Shake Your Head; 3) Dr. Alban - It's My Life; 4) Shakespear's Sister - I Don't Care; 5) Elton John - The One; 6) Felix - Don't You Want Me; 7) Kim Wilde - Who Do You Think You Are?; 8) Chyp-Notic - Still in Love with You; 9) Take That - I Found Heaven; 10) U96 - Das Boot; 11) Ringo Starr - Weight of the World; 12) Indra - Misery; 13) Del Amitri - Always the Last to Know; 14) Glenn Frey - I've Got Mine; 15) Blue System - I Will Survive

One from the personal archives, a childhood favourite compilation from the years before the music nerd instincts truly kicked in. Erratic at places but some of this music is timelessly great.

Key tracks: Erasure - "S.O.S.", Was (Not Was) - "Shake Your Head", Indra - "Misery"

I grew up on V/A hit compilations before I started getting into music on a more artist-focused basis, and prior to the start of my own collection of more contemporary collections I would borrow my sister's old CDs that she had left lying around. I didn't really know anything about any of the artists or 90% of the songs on Smash 11 when I first heard it, but this was one of my most played albums when I was much, much younger.

I was also a lot more skip-happy as a child than I am now and in fact, the pre-pubescent version of myself has kindly marked the tracks officially decreed as worthy of listening in the liner notes with a ballpoint pen. There's not too many of them, and revisiting this collection a decades later it becomes clear why, i.e. because this is a rather random selection of songs. The bulk of the tracklist is very heavily based on early 1990s dance and pop - lots of classic looped beats, gorgeous house pianos, nascent eurodance synths - but then there's also a sappy Elton John MOR ballad? Del Amitri's cowboy rocking? Kim Wilde kicking it like it's still the 1980s (shocked to find out "Who Do You Think You Are" was in fact released in 1992)? Ringo freaking Starr!? Smash 11 takes a direction and then throws in wild curveballs when you least expect it. Even some of the songs more in line with the general theme stand out, with choices like U96's techno remix of the Das Boot theme (apparently a top 10 hit in Finland and a massive German smash?) or songs like Indra's "Misery" or Blue System's  "I Will Survive" (not the cover you'd expect) which I don't think ever were actual hits. This feels more like someone's personal mixtape rather than a various artists compilation of chart-toppers that I'd expect to see in store shelves, though for what it's worth I have no idea what the actual lineage or concept behind the Smash series is - the cover says "familiar from TV" but I've no idea what the program was?

Whatever the idea behind this was it's full of classics big and small, and I'm happy to say that the past version of myself already had a great taste because of each of those marked tracks are still top tier. "It's My Life" and "Baby Got Back" are of course iconic and evergreen, the former one of the finest anthems of eurodance and the latter a true refuge in audacity that wins over by embracing its own over-the-top horniness. Of the lesser known cuts, Shakespear's Sister's rollicking "I Don't Care" comes with that excellent early 90s rock energy and has a real unique flair to it with its ethereal high pitch vocal hooks, a bizarre spoken word interlude and some fantastically corny MIDI horns. The "Das Boot" techno remix is also a hoot - sometimes a way to make a famous film theme even better is to run it through a 1990s club filter and marvel at how perfectly the melody works within a dark, claustrophobic groove full of orchestral hits and robotic vocals. The most significant unearthing of the old favourites is Indra's "Misery", a song I had no recollection of but which reveals itself to be a stellar early 90s dance pop jam full of rad attitude and neon colour cool. It doesn't look like it was ever anything more than a minor regional hit, but it's one of those songs I wish would have a stronger legacy or a bigger name attached to it, because it's got such a good groove to it. As I said, I clearly already knew what's good when I was young.

There are two very big personal favourites though, right there at the start. Erasure's version of ABBA's "S.O.S." was the first version I heard of the song and to me it's the definitive one, with no disrespect to the original creators. The cold and dreamy synth pop production and Andy Bell's emotionally distant vocals work so flawlessly with that killer melody and the lyrical tone, to the extent that the warmth in the original version now sounds jarring to my ears. This is my "S.O.S.", and it's one of the finest synth pop songs of the 1990s. The "Walk the Dinosaur"-hitmaker Was (Not Was)' "Shake Your Head" on the other hand is a fever dream which I can't believe exists but I'm sure glad it does. Kim Basinger and Ozzy Osbourne trade non-sequiturs with increasing surreality, somehow escalating into "let's go to bed", under a near seven-minute dance production (thanks to the extended mix featured here) with an off-kilter vocal loop hook. It's mad but very specifically it's mad genius - it's one of the most off-kilter chart cuts of the 1990s through its star power alone. I already respect how off the rails it is, but it's just a killer in general, a gem of a pop song with the most infectious hooks in the entire collection.

Beyond the classic favourites, this is definitely a mixed bag but maybe not in the way you'd expect. This is a really solid collection of both classics and lesser known examples of early-mid 1990s pop/dance sound, if you are into that at all - which I absolutely am, even without the nostalgia filter - and e.g. the tracks in the middle from the likes of Felix, Chyp-Notic et all work excellently as part of that stylistic suite. It just also comes with a caveat because of its more awkward side tracts. Not all the non-dance cuts are by no means bad (I've already attested my love for "I Don't Care" and the Kim Wilde cut also slaps) but like all hits compilations it could do without anything close to a ballad (hi Elton), and the classic rock dinosaurs certainly don't have a place here (again, hi Elton here too). The album also starts running out of steam towards the final third when it starts pouring the MOR superstars from Ringo to Del Amitri to Glenn Frey's poor man's "Another Day in Paradise", with only Indra there in the middle to save the day and Blue System's euphoric "Go West" -esque "I Will Survive" closing the record off with a bang; though as a mea culpa I don't actually think they are bad tracks per se, I appreciate their warmly dated vibe to some extent, but they're in the wrong company. I also have this irrational aversion towards Take That that I've never been able to cure myself of, and so they still go on the skip pile. Some of the strays aside though, a good amount of this set is simply excellent pop music that time has gilded. I'm not going to say this random chart compilation is a lost classic, but it's a footnote in my own musical history and so it comes with a lot of personal weight. That said, the best rediscovery ever since I brought this album back in my collection is that solid gold jams are timeless regardless of any nostalgia.

Rating: 7/10

CMX - Aurinko (1992)

1) Pyhiinvaeltaja; 2) Härjät); 3) Aivosähköä; 4) Katariinanpyörä; 5) Todellisuuksien ylhäiset luokat; 6) Tähteinvälinen; 7) Manalainen; 8) Ainomieli; 9) Kaksi jokea; 10) Timanttirumpu; 11) Marian ilmestys; 12) Yö ei ole pimeä päivä

A lot of vigour and noise, but they're at the crossroads and uncertain where to go.

Key tracks: "Manalainen", "Ainomieli", "Marian ilmestys"

Aurinko was CMX's first album on a major label, and it has the overwhelming feeling of the band doing their darnest to convince their existing fans that they've not sold out. Or, at least that's how its downright stubborn attitude comes across for me. Its more energized moments are full of spit and brawn like the band's earliest recordings and its experimental side is drawn out to extremes to test the audience's patience, all in service of an uncompromising major label debut: a case of a band sticking it to temptations and label suggestions upon receipt of creative freedom for their big audience debut.

That's not necessarily good, or at least Aurinko is a surprisingly lackluster album after the interesting twists and turns the preceding Veljeskunta and its follow-up EP suggested. Aurinko tries to have its cake and eat it: it's absolutely a more self-assured record in its presentation than either of its predecessors and the band's vast range of influences is starting to creep through more clearly, but despite that Aurinko still sounds like a step backwards. It's a record that makes a lot of noise but wields it aimlessly, sounding feisty and raucous but trampling its song material underneath, and the first half makes it abundantly clear. Bar the calmer "Katariinanpyörä" which strums along with Veljeskunta-esque goth cool, the initial run of songs are more or less the same cranky rock gremlin repeated over and over again, barely distinguishing themselves from one another. There's an effort to sharpen the band's dynamic but the single-minded storming ahead is underwritten each time and despite their punk-meets-alternative volume, very few of these songs are any interesting or exciting at all. The only one that sticks with me is "Aivosähköä" because of its admittedly quite hilarious full stop in the middle of a chorus before a sudden breakdown occurs, but the rest is a series of copy/paste songs that sound desperate to prove CMX are still CMX, even under EMI. Problem is, it was more engaging the last time around.

Aurinko is an album with clear two distinct halves though and bar "Kaksi jokea" that's like a straggler epilogue to the first five songs, the second half is where CMX start branching out their ideas. It brings some life to the record and paves the way forward, but the issue is, I still don't think it makes for a particularly great set of songs. Many of the songs on the second half are either underbaked or they pick a shtick and stretch it until it's thin. That's we get the completely atonal and unbearable shaman drum jam "Timanttirumpu" (the worst of early CMX's many folklore drum circle bangers) and "Tähteinvälinen" which on paper sounds great - a beautiful interstellar declaration of love driven by organ and woodwind - but instead drones on and on, like it was threatening to be something too soft and just had to be dirtied up. The most interesting parts are the ones that clearly hint towards the next album, by way of the angry "Manalainen" that does what the first album tried to do but pulls it off and throws a surprising and impressively oppressing string section underneath itself, and the prog rock mood piece "Marian ilmestys" and its chopped off outro "Yö ei ole pimeä päivä" though you'd hear better versions of both songs in the near future. Unlike the first half of Aurinko the second half is actually memorable; they're still songs that all come with a 'but' attached to them when you describe them, but it's where CMX start brushing off the past and get ready for something unexpected and new, and that counts for something.

And then there's "Ainomieli", a genuinely excellent alternative radio pop gem, sitting in the middle of this mess. "Ainomieli" is the antithesis to everything else on Aurinko - self-composed, polished, welcoming and honestly a ton of fun - and that's why it's beaming with more confidence and boldness than anything else on the record. It's the exact kind of thing that CMX try to avoid for the rest of the album - it's the kind of radio-ready hit single that the band proactively reacted against by never making it one despite label pleads - but you can hear how much more focused and passionate they are about it compared to anything else around it. Its riotously jolly rapid fire chorus is one of CMX's key iconic moments and the rest of the song builds up around that centerpiece section with clarity and an understanding of melody which prior to this the band had often obscured under their raw approach. "Ainomieli" is a classic and singlehandedly rescues Aurinko: it's the song you want to return to, the song that keeps you going and the song that invites you to give a second chance to everything else around it.

I've given plenty of those second chances to Aurinko and over time it's warmed up to me slightly to the extent that I feel self-conscious when I'm harsh about it, but it is so obviously CMX in growing pains. If they had actually made an abrasive or difficult album to go with that ethos than fair play, but the cardinal sin of Aurinko is that for good parts of its duration it just isn't as interesting as the ruckus it tries to raise makes it out to be. It sees the band take cautious step back while building up the courage to take the leap forward, and I'd rather just listen to the truly wild early days or the confidently forward-thinking albums afterwards instead rather than the awkward in-between years.

Rating: 5/10

Magenta Skycode - IIIII (2006)

1) Hands Burn; 2) People; 3) Compassion; 4) Open Air; 5) Pleasure of Love; 6) I Know You're Sleeping With Your Dolls; 7) Go Outside Again; 8) Luvher Oh Hater; 9) Red Eyes; 10) This Empty Crow

Big songs, big production - enough to create emotional heights from those grand swoons alone.

Key tracks: "People", "Compassion", "Luvher Oh Hater"

Jori Sjöroos is a man of many hats. Since the 1990s he’s been splitting his abundance of time between a vast amount of different names, restlessly starting and ending projects on a whim and in process quietly become one of the most ever-present names in Finnish music while largely keeping himself out of the actual spotlight. He's gone from the doom metal of Thergothon to the trendy and radio-friendly club beats of Fu-Tourist, and from cult success with This Empty Flow to actual critical and commercial success as the invisible third member of PMMP. Sjöroos has stretched his wings far and wide across his career, launching new projects each time he wants to try doing something new but most of the time he’s remained intentionally in the background for each of them, the connections between the albums only clear for those who read liner notes. Magenta Skycode is one of the few times when Sjöroos earnestly became the leading star in one of his CV entries, taking on the role of the frontman of a band though in reality he wrote and recorded everything by himself behind the scenes anyway. Magenta Skycode's relatively short period of existence is in tandem with the rise of PMMP where Sjöroos wrote and produced some of the catchiest and most openly direct music of his career for entirely different front personnel to put their lyrics to, and though different from a genre perspective Magenta Skycode comes across like a way present that more melodic direction he'd been immersed in with his own voice front and center.

The widescreen sound of IIIII has its roots in both 80s goth rock and the bombastic indie of its time period, but its core lies in pop-like instancy of its melodies. With Sjöroos being a producer first and foremost, he coats his melodies in kitchen sink antics and a pristinely perfect, multilayered sound. It’s all unashamedly high and mighty, but it’s guided with a vision - each layer highlights the strengths of the melodies churning in the core of it all and the production makes all those layers apparent. The one thing that Sjöroos does bury is his own vocals, which appear as largely incomprehensible series of syllables following a melody (with no lyrics in the booklet to help decipher them); thus the attention moves completely to the actual sound and the strength of the rest of the songwriting, both of which can withstand the extra scrutiny. IIIII sounds really beautiful, from the light twang of the bass groove to the shimmering guitars and shining keyboards - the band line-up may be a facade but Magenta Skycode do somehow sound like a genuine group of musicians banded together with a real dynamic based on the way the instruments interact (the drums are a constant highlight especially). They're lush and clear, while still having the type of warmth these studio-perfected records sometimes miss.  

The dark-clad visuals of IIIII are a red herring: Magenta Skycode is Sjöroos' vehicle for indulging in any stadium torchlight anthem fantasies he has and so he plays them bright and loud. It's exciting and exhilirating in a way pop music does best, where each regal melodic swoon comes like a moment of victory worth cheering for, where each grabbing chorus is a rollercoast riding the thrilling downhill. It's all really confident in its own skillset, and Sjöroos has got the songs to back that ego up. His creativity was at its peak during this time as evidenced by the music he was writing for PMMP simultaneously, and IIIII comfortably rides that same imperial phase train. “People” and “Compassion” stomp with a rhythm-driven urgency as they throw in new hooks and layer old ones with each go-around, “Open Air” and “Go Outside Again” harmoniously reach out in wide open gestures in accordance with their titles, “Hands Burn” is the kind of a majestic slow-burn opener that would make any major publication’s year-end song list, (the horribly titled) “Luvher Oh Hater” and “Red Eyes” lean fully into the album’s ambitions of grandeur and present real stadium soarers, the former with one of the album’s biggest choruses and the latter with a fantastic instrumental finale with Sjöroos indulging in dramatic guitar solo gestures. Each song on IIII strives to be a capital Moment, even the slightly filler-adjacent vibe check "I Know You're Sleeping With Your Dolls" which brings the album to a moment of quiet before a sequence of multiple epic finales in a row in its back half. The excellent thing is, he manages to pull that off for most of the record.

I do readily admit though that my love for IIIII is purely superficial. The production is beautifully perfect in a strictly hifi-ist way, and that's an approach that works for me by default when it's done this well and the songs themselves have rich melodies for days - strictly as a piece of music, IIIII simply sounds great. The superficiality comes in on how I don't find this a particularly deep record, and that’s largely in part to how the music is constantly fixated on delivering those instant highs while the vocals are pushed to the back, so the intended emotional tone remains a mystery and the songs only speak with the exciting rush of cinematic hooks exploding in the sky. I don't think that's an indictment against Magenta Skycode or IIIII - the second Magenta Skycode album opens up by stating "the simple pleasures are the greatest" and I feel like that's a motto that speaks for the whole project. The songs on IIIII pull towards their exciting dramatic archs with staggering intensity every time the album is on, and that is absolutely more than enough to create a completely captivating record. If you're a fan of maximalist melodies and grand gestures, then IIIII is an easy bet.

Rating: 7/10

CMX - Veljeskunta (1991) / Veljeskunta [Gold] (2002)

1) Kulje vasten; 2) Neljäs valtakunta; 3) Metallipurkaus; 4) Kuu; 5) Veljeskunta; 6) Rytmitehdas; 7) Helvetin hyvä paimen; 8) Vaskiperse; 9) Ääni ja vimma; 10) Tanssitauti; 11) Kätketty kukka; 12) Enteitä; 13) Täynnä naisia; 14) Tulikiveä; 2002 Gold Edition Bonus Tracks: Tanssitauti EP (1990): 15) "Matti"; 16) Tanssin jumala; 17) Hän on tullut; 18) Pimeä maa; 19) Pornogeneraattori; Musiikin ystävälliset kasvot EP (1991): 20) Musiikin ystävälliset kasvot; 21) Vieraita avaruudesta (I); 22) Polyhymnia; 23) Vieraita avaruudesta (II)

A new line-up arrives with a desire for a new sound. Not quite there yet, but close.

Key tracks: "Veljeskunta", Helvetin hyvä paimen, Kätketty kukka

Veljeskunta brings with it a few shake-ups to the CMX story. One is that after a few guitarist shake-ups the band now features both Timo Rasio and Janne Halmkrona, fixing in place the band's double-guitarist format with the two axemen that would continue with the band for the decades to come. The other, somewhat relatedly, is a change in sound. The band's crooked idea of punk had ran its course and inspired by the addition of fresh blood in their ranks and their respective skillsets, the band decided it was time for a change. A firm change, as well: Veljeskunta would turn out to be CMX's last album on Bad Vugum, and there's a great anecdote about the label head having a chat with the band after the release of the record and the subsequent Musiikin ystävälliset kasvot EP, and how he had started to feel the band was getting a little too commercial for the label.

The familiar zeal and fury of Kolmikärki is well and present on Veljeskunta but CMX have, indeed, largely given up the old punk aesthetics in favour of other ideas. Calling this close to mainstream is a reach, but it's inarguable that the band is moving to a more digestible direction compared to their first EPs and album, including a couple of attempts at more direct alternative rock cuts which would comfortably slot in many of the band's later albums: “Kätketty kukka” unofficially sets the blueprint for many CMX radio singles to come and A.W. Yrjänä’s more dissonant chorus vocals come across as an intentional attempt to tone that friendliness down, and “Helvetin hyvä paimen” shifts to an acoustic gear while retaining the angular nature of the record, and it sounds closer to classic CMX than the acoustic experiments on Kolmikärki. Other, similarly non-abrasive influences are starting to also come through more audibly - there's more keyboards and in particular the atmospheric closer "Tulikiveä" leans on them entirely, and "Täynnä naisia" has a clear hint of early R.E.M. to its swing. Alongside these is a scattered number of wildly varied pieces which are least awkwardly described as post-punk, with the band’s hardcore past making cameos at best even when the throttle pedal is pushed all the way down. Veljeskunta is a transitional record where the band are flexing new ideas and throwing out suggestions of new ideas to intake, and like so many transitional albums it's a little unfocused, slightly overlong and somewhat chaotic.  

That means that overall Veljeskunta is where the pieces start clicking in place, but the wider picture is still being sketched and we’re only getting excerpts of something greater. You can hear the potential, most vividly in the excellent middle section run, featuring the gothic post-punk of the title track with Kikke Heikkinen’s manic backing vocals, the steady and solid “Rytmitehdas” and “Tanssitauti” which remind me of the similarly chaotic enthusiasm of Manic Street Preachers’ very early years, “Vaskiperse”  and “Ääni ja vimma” with their bizarre but exhilaratingly contrasting surprises thrown in (the car chase soundtrack breakdown complete with a ridiculous MIDI horn section on the former, the wild backing vocals on the latter), and the aforementioned "Helvetin hyvä paimen" and "Kätketty kukka". After a relatively stiff and somewhat forgettable start, that central third is the album’s peak where its energy, brutality, melody and sense of humour (still intact from the debut, wonderfully) are in perfect balance; the same pace carries through to the album's end, but by that point the 14-track length is starting to show its length. Veljeskunta isn’t a long album - only 38 minutes - but it doesn't quite justify the amount of songs it has, because while it's got its strengths none of its songs are so good they'd carry the album. Veljeskunta is an acquaintance you see every couple of years and you enjoy spending time with when they do turn up, but who you don't really think about in the meantime and you've never felt a connection with to consider a friend. Maybe if it had been condensed into a tight ten-track movement (probably without the first four tracks, all of which are rather superfluous and starts the record off on the wrong note), we could be talking about a breakthrough record. It’s on the verge though, waiting for a nudge, and the band wouldn’t take too long to make that leap.

The 2002 “Gold” re-release of the record adds in the album’s surrounding EPs as the bonus tracks and they very much equal the main album in interest, giving the listener a sense of chronology and development in action as they fill in the gaps in the story. 1990’s Tanssitauti EP is the bridge between Kolmikärki and the band’s then-established hardcore punk sound, treating the listener to three snappy punk cuts (most famously the originally untitled but now officially nicknamed “Matti” which has become a fan favourite due to its brutally dark humour), glued together by two songs hinting at the wider sonic experimentation of Veljeskunta. The hysterical “Tanssin jumala”, with a piano section that sounds like an early 90s house piano approximated through the Sega MegaDrive soundboard and it's the best song on the EP, and the gothic gloom of “Pimeä maa" comes close in its bold, booming presence. 

But out of the two EPs, Musiikin ystävälliset kasvot is the one to really pay attention to. Prior to its original release Bad Vugum objected to its direction (see also the anecdote from the beginning of this review) and they cropped it to a two-song single release with the title track and the second "Vieraita avaruudesta". The Gold edition restores it in its originally intended four-track form, and you can hear why the proudly confrontational label was starting to think it was time for the band to move on. The entire EP has a heightened sense of melody compared to anything that the band had released before, and more adventurous arrangements and deeper songwriting are starting to regularise in their output. The first "Vieraita avaruudesta" has a brilliant bridge section that feels practically revelatory after such sections being glaringly absent from the last two albums, the second one moves the song into slower and darker waters with a heavy, processed sound (and a wonderfully crunchy bass) that acts as CMX's first attempt at using the recording studio as another instrument layer of its own, and the stripped down "Polyhymnia" breaks through its distorted chords with some actual beauty. The title track is a bonafide CMX anthem and absolutely the best song of their Bad Vugum years: a distinct lead guitar part that hooks instantly, the Kalevala-reminiscent lyrical meter in the verse that gives the vocals an eccentric but captivating melody, and the whole concoction thrashes through with a near-metal stomp under its feet. The whole EP is unmistakenly, thoroughly CMX and it's the starting line for the rest of their catalogue.

I'd probably give Veljeskunta itself a solid, positively leaning 6/10 but this is definitely one release where the extras go above and beyond adding value to the whole package. Knowing these EPs and especially Musiikin ystävälliset kasvot are essential to any CMX fan from a historical and from a pure song quality perspective, and so the final 7/10 really is for the entire 23-song package.  

Rating: 7/10

CMX - Kolmikärki (1990)

1) Johdatus salatieteisiin; 2) Sika ja perkele; 3) Nahkaparturi; 4) Kaikki nämä kädet; 5) Götterdämmerung; 6) Kuolemattomuuden ääni; 7) Pyydä mahdotonta; 8) Pyörivät sähkökoneet; 9) Taivas ja helvetti; 10) Voittamaton; 11) Suuri äiti; 12) Kolmas Johannes; 13) Hiljaisuuden pelko; 14) Liekkisusi ja sulkakäärme; 1993 CD Edition bonus tracks: Raivo EP (1989): 15) Lintu; 16) Rituaali; 17) Syvä vesi; 18) Jumalan ruoska; 19) Raivo; 20) Hiki; 21) Kolme näkyä; 22) Anathema; 23) Maailmoiden välissä;

A weird ass punk album which, while fun, is not something I unfortunately vibe with.

Key tracks: "Sika ja perkele", "Nahkaparturi", "Taivas ja helvetti"

It's a hard one for me to rate, this, because Kolmikärki is one of those cases where I understand its aims and respect it for them, but its chosen style just happens to be one I don't particularly bat for. CMX in 1990 were still a trio without any of their key members except for the lead man A.W. Yrjänä, and they were three eccentric and furious lads with a crooked sense of humour and a background in extreme punk. By their debut album CMX had already calmed down slightly (compare this to the hardcore punk blast of the Raivo EP from a year earlier, served as the bonus tracks, to hear the difference), but that's calm in a relative sense: for most parts this is still an explosive slice of art-minded punk recorded raw and rough, which isn't a realm I frequent.

Simplifying Kolmikärki by calling it "just" a punk album would be doing it a massive disservice though. Yrjänä, the key songwriter, has always had a love for prog rock and that love would colour so much of their later work, but even this early on and within the most anti-prog of genres, it's leaking to a point that it makes perfect sense how the band would turn out how they did. CMX on Kolmikärki are more like a prog or art rock band doing a punk experiment and while its foundations are in high-speed fury, a smattering of other sounds and genres from completely different ends of the spectrum keep appearing in Kolmikärki like they're leaks from another timeline. It makes for a seriously strange little record - one that starts with four minutes of shaman drums and throat singing ("Johdatus salatieteisiin", translated as "Introduction to the Occult" which is the best song title the first song on the first CMX album could have), and ends similarly with the moody "Liekkisusi ja sulkakäärme" which throws Yrjänä's murmuring vocals into the pile and melodically sounds like someone wrung R.E.M.'s "Time After Time" through a demonic portal. The brightly acoustic singalong "Pyydä mahdotonta" and the oddly earnest stadium torchlight (but not really) moment "Suuri äiti" are possibly even more perplexing given what they're surrounded by.

I didn't mention CMX's particular sense of humour for no reason in the first paragraph, and the combining element across the board is cheeky streak of erratic, risk-averse fun running throughout the record. For all its occasional aggro Kolmikärki never sounds particularly angry and rather, it's nearly fun, with even the more traditionally punk-esque songs being fuelled by an unholy sense of outrageousness and fun, the band coming up with both the wryest and the most over the top ways of expressing Yrjänä's cryptic lyrics. And then occasionally you can almost hear the band having a mad giggle in the studio at their own tricks, or how else could you explain the hilariously upbeat horn section in "Taivas ja helvetti"? Or the entirety of whatever the hell "Sika ja perkele" is doing, where the fake-out alternative rock intro moves right into a steamrolling punk blast, and just as suddenly it erupts into a funk rock section that wouldn't be amiss on an early Red Hot Chili Peppers album - and the fact that I'm comparing CMX with the Chili Peppers (and on their punkiest of punk days nonetheless) is just as mad as the song itself.

So it is fair to say that I do derive some enjoyment out of Kolmikärki, and it isn't so far removed from the band's later alternative rock/prog days as to completely alienate any listeners who got into them through those records (like me). Even some of the more straightforwardly delivered cuts like "Nahkaparturi" (its titular chant another tick in the bizarre sense of humour list) and the chugging metal-churner "Pyörivät sähkökoneet" do hit in varying degrees. The thing is, this isn't a sound or a genre that in the wider frame excites or resonates with me all that much and towards the last third the album starts losing me completed as it's shown everything it has to offer and even the quirkiness has become less interesting. It's an album I can comfortably listen to but the main question that keeps coming to my head is why would I, when I prefer what CMX have done with all these same quirks later down in their career, and the parts of Kolmikärki that belong to it alone are not ones I get much out of? As far as I can gather Kolmikärki has a positive reputation among people who are generally attuned to this sound and I don't doubt for one moment that the album doesn't deserve any of its accolades. But for the most part, it just isn't doing things that strike a chord with me and the main feeling I take away from it is no feeling whatsoever.

So, the harsh rating here isn't really a condemnation of Kolmikärki, if anything it's a condemnation of my music tastes - these songs and this sound aren't ones that resonate with me, and some kind of resonance is one of the main things I seek in music - so this friendship was unlikely ever really to be. If this didn't belong to the discography of a band whose works I generally really enjoy, I wouldn't have ever felt the need to write any thoughts down about this. So it's not you Kolmikärki, it's me, sorry.

And regarding the bonus tracks, i.e. the Raivo EP, if you take into account everything above and then understand that Raivo is effectively a more primal version of this album and more rooted in the hardcore scene, you can decipher where I stand with it. "Hiki" is the highlight, if you want to call it that. Just not my thing.

Rating: 4/10

Lady Gaga - Joanne (2016)

1) Diamond Heart; 2) A-Yo; 3) Joanne; 4) John Wayne; 5) Dancin' in Circles; 6) Perfect Illusion; 7) Million Reasons; 8) Sinner's Prayer; 9) Come to Mama; 10) Hey Girl (feat. Florence Welch); 11) Angel Down

Gaga tries to go for her roots but loses track of the road on the way there.

Key tracks: "Diamond Heart", "Joanne", "Perfect Illusion"

Fame was the drug, Artpop was the binge and the painful comedown, Joanne was the detox. The whole Artpop period was a notoriously difficult time for Lady Gaga mentally and physically, and to recover she needed to distance herself from everything associated with her career so far that had lead her down that path. She started to hang out in different crowds, started her acting career, there was a jazz standards album with Tony Bennett, and eventually she went home to her family for inspiration. Joanne, titled after her aunt, is an intentional clean break from everything that had come before, aiming for a rootsier sound more at home in dive bars than dance clubs - somewhere as far away from Hollywood glamour as possible.

Joanne isn't a rock or a country album even though it seems to have a reputation of being one, but that's precisely its problem: it exists in this awkward middle ground that doesn't strongly commit to anything, and so near everything featured on it sounds half-hearted or half-baked as a result. Its rock songs are weighed down by a pop production that fails to give the instruments the kick they need, its pop songs are let down by a wishy-washy need to strip things down when they would need to pop off instead, and its homebound country heart simply just means that there's more acoustic guitars in the back of the mix. You can't shake the pop away from Gaga no matter how much she tries and Joanne primarily acts as a testament to that as it tries to establish an identity completely separate to the previous albums, but is incapable of shaking off old habits. There's no doubt that it's an album that means a lot to Gaga herself, and so it's doubly awkward just how non-committed it sounds to everything it tries to do. Towards the end of the album there's an inexplicable retro tract where Gaga first flirts with a motown-esque 60s MOR flair ("Come to Mama") and then embraces 80s synths as she duets with Florence Welch in the out-of-nowhere J-folk pastiche "Hey Girl" (seriously, this sounds like an Off Course cut and the song is unexpectedly in my good books because of it), and it just highlights how disjointed the whole affair is. I just want Joanne to be something, because being in this weird partway point between everything in its DNA isn't doing any of its ideas a service.

I use 'ideas' very deliberately there because even if you were to add a little more focus to the record, I still don't think the material would be near her past peaks. Joanne is an album largely composed out of the kind of late-album filler you'd find on an average pop album, awkwardly trying to maintain a presence as they're pushed onto the centre stage. "A-Yo", "Dancin' in Circles" and "Sinner's Prayer" mash together more club-friendly beats with the country house aesthetic but they're tired on arrival and sound like microwaved leftovers of better Gaga ideas from the past few albums with some acoustic guitar slapped on top, and "Million Reasons" and "Angel Down" represent the weakest parts of Gaga's balladeering. The confused production - which sounds weak no matter what musical angle it's trying to pander to - is a big part of the blame here but it would take a lot more workshopping to bring these songs alive in the first place. So much of the record feels like it's fighting with itself and at worst, the result are quite frankly boring, which Gaga should never be by her very nature. Even some of the album's bigger successes feel like compromises. "John Wayne" is a country disco stomper which is exactly what you'd expect from the concept of Gaga putting on an Americana cosplay and it's a really stupid and in some ways a cheaply obvious song, but it's also as raucously fun as it is camp; meanwhile "Perfect Illusion" features Kevin Parker, Josh Homme and Mark Ronson as Gaga's indie cred backing band but you'd never be able to tell because any rock edge it's meant to have has been polished off so as not to scare away the audiences too much - which is a big shame because it's the most impassioned and envigorated performance across the entire album and it just begs to explode louder.

I have absolutely no doubt that Gaga had the best intentions with Joanne, that it was meant to be something more insular and act as a quiet sweep to clean the slate so she could restart afresh; there was definitely a different kind of swing to her general comings and goings after Joanne (for better or worse) and it's undeniable that the process helped her find a new spark. "Diamond Heart" and "Joanne", the album's two best songs by far, even back up the notion that the general direction for the album could've worked very well - the former is the rough and gutsy rock anthem which embodies the album's more rebellious side perfectly, the latter a gentle and genuinely lovely ballad where the album finds its heart. But for an album that comes across like an attempt to refocus, it gives the impression that the attention span of everyone involved faded away partway through and what was meant to have been a cosy homecoming country rock album became what it is now because leaning into old comfort zones was a quick and easy way to wrap it all up. Joanne has gained an ill reputation in some parts for Gaga ignoring the dance and pop sound that she made her name with, but had she actually done so we probably could've had a more divisive but absolutely a more interesting record.

Rating: 5/10

The Shins - The Worm’s Heart (2018)

1) The Fear (Flipped); 2) So Now What (Flipped); 3) Heartworms (Flipped); 4) Dead Alive (Flipped); 5) Half a Million (Flipped); 6) Rubber Ballz (Flipped); 7) Mildenhall (Flipped); 8) Fantasy Island (Flipped); 9) Cherry Hearts (Flipped); 10) Painting a Hole (Flipped); 11) Name for You (Flipped) 

An equally baffling and exciting run of increasingly out-there alternative versions that turn out to achieve something the original songs didn't.

Key tracks: "Heartworms (Flipped)", "Cherry Hearts (Flipped)", "Name for You (Flipped)"

I can’t say I’ve encountered another album like The Worm’s Heart. Artists re-recording and reinterpreting their old songs is nothing new and in fact is almost expected at this stage as the big anniversary numbers roll in. It’s not too uncommon either to hear a specific album with a new sound: e.g. Jim James, Conor Oberst and Manchester Orchestra among many others have released twin versions of a particular album of theirs to showcase the same songs in a different way. But then there’s The Worm’s Heart, borne out of James Mercer’s absolutely bizarre whim to create two completely unique versions of each song written for 2017’s Heartworms. And it's unique in the very definition of the word: these aren’t acoustic versions or slightly tweaked arrangements or anything even remotely similar to what was heard on Heartworms. The hooks and melodies on this album are the same as they were on Heartworms, but the rest is something completely new and off the wall. The sunshine pop of “Name for You” has become a 80s Depeche Mode indebted synth brooder, the formerly acoustic “Mildenhall” has found a fuzz pedal and a goofball garage rock attitude, “Dead Alive” is a goth ballad now, “Half a Million” goes reggae. Anything is a fair game and Mercer turns the previous The Shins album into a series of stylistic experiments of any genre or idea he could never incorporate into actual proper album of his, but this time? This time he's indulging in his wildest ideas.

The Worm’s Heart is obviously a mixed bag - how on earth could it not be? - but it's actually shocking how rarely the "flipped" versions stumble completely despite everything that's going on. In fact, in some measures this is arguably a better album than the actual Heartworms and that's because Mr Mercer's wild ride has a really infectious sense of fun. Heartworms was a weird album but it held itself back in some ways - in comparison, this is completely unhinged and I'm really responding to it. It's a complete mess of course, but in a positive way - in a manner that makes its incohesiveness its own mad rabbit hole that holds together by the sheer audacity of it. I don't think anyone could argue that this album represents Mercer or The Shins at their best, and at the end of the day as the melodies and hooks remain the same there's only so much that these transformations can do to uplift them - but it's simply so much fun whenever artists just have a go at whatever the hell they want and this is an album dedicated to that forbidden fruit of playing songs in styles you would never dream of otherwise recording because of some take on self-imposed artistic integrity preventing it.

 

Honestly, quite often The Worm's Heart downright improves Heartworms because Mercer's fearlessness gives him the means to break out of his creative shell in a manner most positive. Take "Heartworms" itself, and how its chorus finally gets the chance to jump out like it shyly backed out of doing on the milquetoast original version, jolting into the front of the race as a warbling, hyperactive synth pop number that’s a blast of energy and joy. I called "Rubber Ballz" one of the weakest songs released on a Shins album in my review of the original album and now its gently thumping acoustic form has a heartfelt sincerity that underlines the strength of the core melody that was practically buried originally. The too-cool-for-school synth pop vibe of “Name for You” is marvellous and an honest delight, a true love letter to a sound Mercer evidently has a great deal of affinity for, and it's actually more engaging than the very typically Shins-esque original version. “Cherry Hearts”, too, has simply evolved and it's now the jangly college rock number that it really should’ve been all along. There are also plenty of takes that simply stand on their own, including that reggae'd up "Half a Million" that starts out like a heart attack as it demonstrates why white indie nerds maybe shouldn't touch reggae, but it shifts and changes shortly thereafter to incorporate so much more than just a store value band island groove and by its end it's neck to neck with the excellent original; and similarly the new comically funereal "Dead Alive" is just so out there compared to the original (or anything else) that I respect it for it. 

 

As mentioned there are stumbles, but I'm still surprised just how few and far between they are. Namely, "Fantasy Island" has had the least changes and it's a little better than the dire original but not exactly notably so, and "Mildenhall" is responsible for a light chuckle when the loose and ramshackle rock riffs start but it takes about half a minute for the joke to grow old: the whole "make an acoustic song into a raw rocker" shtick is the kind of obviousness the rest of the album avoids and it's the most awkward fit in its new guise. "The Fear" is another bar rocker and while a little better, it doesn't really hold up for its whole five-ish minutes. But for a random pick 'n' mix album like this, roughly a quarter of weaker cuts is an unexpectedly high batting average - and even they're, y'know, memorable which is something I can't say from everything on Heartworms. The original album is one I'm still not entirely sure where exactly I stand on it even though I've reviewed and rated it and all, and yet I am increasingly confident in saying that this is the better version of the two despite how it's got the air of a weird alternate universe bootleg album instead of the artist's genuine vision. I've got a soft spot for albums that make it their central motto to keep surprising and which revel with a kind of creative frenzy that spray their inspiration everywhere and pray it hits the goal; but where even the misses have a rush of excitement to them. I repeat the word "fun" a lot with The Worm's Heart but that's ultimately why I appreciate it so much - it removes some of the self-seriousness that Mercer's been crippled by since Port of Morrow, and as a result his musical touch has grown warmer again even when he's doing a whole album out of cosplaying as his personal favourite acts.

Rating: 7/10

The Shins - Heartworms (2017)

1) Name for You; 2) Painting a Hole; 3) Cherry Hearts; 4) Fantasy Island; 5) Mildenhall; 6) Rubber Ballz; 7) Half a Million; 8) Dead Alive; 9) Heartworms; 10) So Now What; 11) The Fear

Charmingly erratic and surprisingly consistent return, but also lacking in the sort of highlights you'd rave about whenever Mercer's got a new album out.

Key tracks: "Painting a Hole", "Dead Alive", "So Now What"

Port of Morrow saw James Mercer officially turn The Shins into a fully autocratic venture for his own whims, but it's the Shins album with the least of Mercer's own personality and that's in good part thanks to the radio-friendly big name production. Heartworms, then, sounds closer to what Mercer perhaps intended all along, tying his musical language inseparably together with his quirks and influences. It's self-produced, a whole lot more idiosyncratic than Port of Morrow and Mercer's pulled together a strictly limited number of collaborators to act as a band of sorts for when he needs something to sound like a group effort instead of pure studio craftsmanship. Its inspiration also stems from the whole spectrum of James' singer/songwriter past, The Shins' melodic jangles, his electronically oriented Broken Bells side project and the 1980s indie acts that he worships, and it splices them all together into a genuinely somewhat weird concoction; that at-first uncharacteristic cover art makes perfect sense in context because there's that streak of unpredictable surreality to Mercer's operations here.

I honestly have a lot of admiration for Heartworms conceptually and it's especially clear why if you spend a good time with Port of Morrow and then this album right afterwards: there's simply so much more excitement to what Mercer is doing here and the album is full of surprise. The main thing is that it, as in a blink of an eye Mercer can move from his trademark stylistics with e.g. the reliably Shins-like singalong ditty "Name for You" and the cosy acoustic daydreaming of "Mildenhall", to something as neurotic and twitchy as "Painting a Hole" or the string-swept resignment of "The Fear". There's a constant momentum to Heartworms that's the result of it being a jumble of influences and ideas which  form a sum that makes a strange logic out of its disparate strands. It's the most varied album released under The Shins moniker so far

What's also apparent if you come into this directly after Port of Morrow is how Heartworms lacks a real stone cold classic or two, when even Port of Morrow had its title track and "The Rifle's Spiral" which kept you coming back to the album and contribute to why I do actually like that album to some extent despite how harsh I'm towards it here. Heartworms is arguably one of the most interesting Shins albums, but it's not got its own killer hit that Mercer has always managed to sneak into any album he's released. The closest we get is "Dead Alive", a throwback to the early Shins sound laced with a barking mad Halloween spookiness twist which works incredibly well - but as fun as it is it's not the kind of first place trophy song that becomes synonymous with the Mercer project it's associated with and draws you back in. I like plenty of songs on Heartworms - "Mildenhall" is quaintly heartwarming in its earnest and happily cheesy nostalgia, "So Now What" stretches the kind of lush centrepiece swoon moment most songs save for the finale into a full song length and it strikes a particular level of beautiful as it does so, and both "Painting a Hole" and "Half a Million" are great examples of the more hyperactive mad genius concoctions Mercer is comfortable cooking under the reimagined Shins. None of them are songs you'd rave about to anyone who cares to listen though. There's no "New Slang", no "Mine's Not a High Horse", no "The High Road" that you'd truly fall in love with and which would pull you into the album as a whole even when the rest doesn't match it, and while that might perhaps be a high ask it's something that Mercer has always been reliably solid with otherwise. Heartworms' curse is that while it's consistent, it also doesn't plateau particularly high. And then on the other hand, it houses a couple songs that are actual stinkers: the bubblegum float of "Fantasy Island" with its irritatingly coy chorus and the wishywashy indie-pop-by-numbers "Rubber Ballz" are probably the worst two songs in The Shins' back catalogue so far, going beyond plain forgettable and actually being a little annoying.

Heartworms is a decent album but it's the worst kind of decent album: one with the potential to be great. A lot of it is delightfully quirky and it marries well with the more conventionally Mercer-like songs, but it's all a step or two away from being something truly great, something that would stick around. During the Heartworms sessions Mercer had the bonkers idea of doing an alternative version of each and every song, one as the songs were 'intended' to be (i.e. the ones here) and another where he went completely wild and which he would later release as the companion album The Worm's Heart. The two are inseparably linked as much as I'd like to judge them on their own, and while Heartworms is the more cohesive and sensible of the two, some of the ideas from the alternative takes could have taken these songs to the next level when transported over and converted into the type of vision James had here. So not only is it an album with potential but you can practically touch that potential. But that's all could've would've should've,  and the reality is that Heartworms is another appealing yet flawed album into The Shins canon - though at least you can give Mercer credit that he always lets you down in a different way, at least.

Rating: 6/10