Holy Fuck, LCD Soundsystem and Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody

Holy Fuck

Latin
(XL Recording)
*7.7*
Goes well with: Caribou,
Broadcast, Infusion

Holy Fuck have always been more equipped for the stage than a record, and anyone who’s caught their live show can attest to the massive, crest-heavy slabs of electronic improvisation they crank out in a mere 45-minute set.
But Latin might be the closest the band has come to capturing that enthusiasm on tape, as they embrace the druggy club-dance their previous albums only flirted with—almost no guitars and a heavy dose of gloppy acid-house. They manage to reduce their marathon jam-band tendencies to highly diplomatic four-minute chunks. What results is an album so full of gigantic hooks, it’s really hard not to like.

Despite any sonic divergence, Latin is still very much a Holy Fuck album. Their trademark hyperactive electro and crusading stance against sequencing and splicing is still very much evident, even if it’s more attuned to dance-music traditions than before. In any case, it’s impressive a band so young is already so easily identifiable.

LCD Soundsystem

This is Happening
(DFA)
*8.9*
Goes well with: !!!, Liquid Liquid,
anything on DFA Records

And so, in 2010, the supposed final LCD Soundsystem album arrived to the ridiculously eager indie landscape. James Murphy, the man who began his career losing his edge, who wondered where his friends were on the seminal Sound of Silver and who almost single-handedly invited the self-conscious hipster realm to the dance floor, has made his final musical statement for the foreseeable future.

So, naturally, This is Happening is easily the most sincere of the LCD catalogue—entirely without concession, attached to some of the most legendary bands in rock history and featuring only one single-worthy track. This is music from Murphy’s head. “All I Want” is a pretty obvious love letter to Bowie’s seminal “Heroes,” but the other nods (dance sequencing, chintzy drum machines) pay homage to the bottom of dollar-crates everywhere.

Everything leads up to the credits-roll closer “Home,” which has Murphy at his most relieved and, not coincidentally, most smile-inducing; you can almost hear the weight being lifted off his shoulders. It truly does sound like an end of an era.

Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody

I Could Sleep For a Thousand Years
(Second Motion Records)
*8.4*
Goes well with: Swervedriver,
Smashing Pumpkins, The Beatles

If Adam Franklin keeps releasing albums, he’s gonna give Robert Pollard’s prolificacy a run for its money. It seems like just yesterday that his last solo album, Spent Bullets, came out, and now he’s given us a dozen more offerings of shoegaze bliss.

Maybe it just seems like a lot of output because we heard very little from the guy between the last Swervedriver album and his first proper solo disc in 2007. And speaking of his former band, for anyone who’s never heard Swervedriver, log on and download Mezcal Head immediately. Funny enough, Franklin’s first solo album was followed by a Swervedriver reunion tour, a second solo album, a Magnetic Morning album (Franklin’s project with Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino) and now this new disc with a brand-new band.

Bolts of Melody prove to be an apt complement for Franklin’s current mode of song construction. They can bring out the rock when it’s warranted and can easily shift down to accommodate Franklin’s increasing affinity toward ’70s pop à la Big Star. The most exciting aspects of this disc are certainly its manic moments. “I’ll Be Yr Mechanic,” a spaghetti-western-tinged nugget, stands toe to toe with Swervedriver’s best early-’90s output, even though the majority of the material here feels like a logical extension of the band’s swan-song, 99th Dream.

All that really matters is that this is Franklin’s best post-Swervedriver release yet and more proof that an actual band almost always trumps “solo project.”