Metro Pulse/Platters/Grandaddy, Old 97s

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Sound Bites

Belle & Sebastian
fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant
(Matador)

Still searching for the perfect balance of pop dreaminess and schoolboy (and girl) sulkiness. And damned if they don't get close to it—wispy, sad, and lovely, drowning in strings and faux '60s naiveté. It's hard to sustain this sort of gossamer insularity four albums in, and sometimes the strain shows. But even if Belle & Sebastian resolutely refuse to come out and play, they're fun to watch through their windows.

Steve Earle
Transcendental Blues
(E-Squared/Artemis)

Sure, he can still write and sing his ass off. He can do that in his sleep. Ditto the rock 'n' folk 'n' country genre-hopping. Some of these are nice additions to the canon ("Another Town," "When I Fall"). But this is the first time since his early Nashville days that Steve's really sounded like a "professional," and that's not necessarily heartening. No bad songs, but no surprises.

Eminem
The Marshall Mathers LP
(Interscope)

Oh boy. I guess we deserve this. The guy makes an album full of bitch-slapping, gay-bashing, and brutal fantasies, everybody (including me, I admit) loves it, it sells millions, so what does he do for an encore? More of all of the above. It's not a marketing move, I don't think—part of him genuinely craves our disgust. The other part wants us to kiss his ass. There's stuff here I can't listen to (raping his mother? killing his wife? for the second album in a row?). But he's still a smart sumbitch, he can rhyme like nobody's business, and the single's catchy as hell... Like he says, "Will Smith doesn't have to curse to sell records/Well, I do/So f—k him, and f—k you too." And, uh, the album's number one in Billboard. Is this a great country or what?

—Jesse Fox Mayshark

Looking forward and back with two groups with strong roots

Grandaddy
The Sophtware Slump (V2 Records)

Put away the Pavement comparisons, please; with their third record, The Sophtware Slump, lo-fi Central Valley guys Grandaddy have expanded their frame of reference—indeed, this is the very American, bare-bones answer to Radiohead's galactic dream. In fact, the Pavement similarities are abandoned from the very first song, the lost-in-space story ("Adrift again, 2000 Man/You lost your maps/You lost your plans") and gorgeous, schizophrenic musical portrait that is "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot"; it all starts off like Neil Young stripped bare and underscored with haywire circuitry, then shimmers like Radiohead gone country, a simple little symphony of futurama technophobia.

Blips and bleeps are nothing new in the world of Grandaddy—Under the Western Freeway hummed and chirped with such—but they've also expanded their lo-fi tendency, blossoming from Casio camp to a multi-layered sonic cocoon that hints at both '80s arcade games ("The Crystal Lake," the aural equivalent of twinkling stars) and the Flaming Lips' most accessible work ("Broken Household Appliance National Forest," which soars and fades like some sort of otherworldly tide). As imagined within The Sophtware Slump, space is a lonely place, not unlike this Earth, where nothing is certain, neither love nor life nor technology ("Fifteen years is almost done/and I don't recognize anyone/ Should never have left the Crystal Lake/For areas where trees are fake"). This is a concept record, yes; but while loopy/dreamy psychedelic pop bands like the Lips and Mercury Rev are busy making grand gestures, Grandaddy has found a way to achieve the same effect with subtle underdog charm. When, during the latter half of the deceptively delicate song cycle "Jed the Humanoid"/"Jed's Other Dream (Beautiful Ground)," Jason Lytle sings "I try to sing it funny like Beck, but it's bringing me down," you want to reassure him he's on the right path—even melting, plastic never felt so warm.

—Shelly Ridenour

Old 97s
Early Tracks (Bloodshot Records)

God (or Hank) bless Chicago-based Bloodshot Records. This smallish label has almost single-handedly brought insurgent country—like Mekon Sally Timms, Alejandro Escovedo, The Waco Brothers, Neko Case, and Whiskeytown—into the public's ear and has pretty much defined what this sub-genre of punk/rock/old-time country is.

'Course, this means that Bloodshot winds up with a boxful of out-takes every time one of their acts gets called up to the majors, like Dallas' Old 97s, who are now firmly ensconced at Elektra for the good of both parties. Bloodshot got only one chance to push product by these four likable guys—1995's Wreck Your Life. That CD plays like a house afire, so much so that it could probably power your boom box for a month.

Still, there's that box of tracks that didn't make it on to Wreck and Early Tracks seems to include most of them. Four cuts were heard before on singles and the other four range from never-before-heard-outside-of-Bloodshot's-attic to retakes on Old 97s standards. The 25 or so minutes are heaven for a fan, who is given the chance to hear bass player Murry Hammond's stellar harmonies on "W.I.F.E.," drummer Philip Peeples hard-driving beat on "Ray Charles," Ken Bethea's adrenaline-fueled lead guitar on just about every track, and singer/guitarist Rhett Miller's Walser-lite yodel on "Cryin' Drunk." Miller's lyrics—while not up to his current standards of wit and pathos—are still sharp, catching feelings and moments with hard-edged grace. "You're an ice cream cone in a minidress," he intones in "Eyes for You" and you can almost see the girl yourself.

Still, Early Tracks is really best for Old 97s fans who feel compelled to complete their collection and/or ache to hear how loose, young, and swagger-filled the band is on this short collection compared to 1999's tightly produced Fight Songs. And, like any collection of previously unreleased material, you realize that most of these tracks were culled from Wreck for a reason, usually because the rhythms and melodies start to sound eerily alike on repeated listenings. But, above all of that, Early Tracks captures the moments when these four weren't under extreme pressure to produce and Texas-style rock was just pouring out of them, as Miller boasts in "Ray Charles:" "I'll play until the whole damn tape runs out."

—Adrienne Martini