[the best of the year]
Dears – Gang Of Losers
Be Your Own Pet – Be Your Own Pet
Pipettes – We Are The Pipettes
Essex Green – Cannibal Sea
Blow – Paper Television
Rose Melberg – Cast Away The Clouds
Sonic Youth – Rather Ripped
Laura Barrett – Earth Sciences

[the honourable mentions]
Erase Errata – Nightlife
Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Yo La Tengo – I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
Viva Voce – Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
Miho Hatori – Ecdysis

[the odds and ends]
Beth Orton – Comfort of Strangers
Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins – Rabbit Fur Coat
Fiery Furnaces – Bitter Tea
Magneta Lane – Dancing With Daggers
Dear Nora – There Is No Home

[the disappointments]
Built To Spill – You In Reverse
Rainer Maria – Catastrophe Brings Us Together
Pretty Girls Make Graves – Elan Vital
Cat Power – The Greatest

No one should have to live all of their life on their own.

For a band so totally invested in the fortunes of melancholia, “no one should have to live life on their own” is an impossibly optimistic statement for the Dears to make. And yet there it is, not just a throwaway line but repeated over and over in the chorus to “Ballad of Humankindness,” a passionate refrain that may as well be a rallying cry. It is the living heart of Gang of Losers, an album not far removed from 2004’s No Cities Left and yet an entirely different beast.

In the run-up to No Cities Left and in the wake of the Protest EP, a lot of people paid a lot of attention to the band from Montreal that arguably kickstarted the Canadian indie music renaissance. How, exactly, do you follow up the grandiose, melodramatic statement that was the Dears’ debut album, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story? No Cities Left answered by trumping the debut on nearly every metric. The sound was bigger, the subject matter weightier, the mood darker, the delicious agony more acute. As a result, No Cities Left was quite accomplished and yet just a bit hard to love; occasionally, the melodrama was just a bit too over the top, a bit much to cope with. Some parts of the album, like the beginning of “Expect The Worst/’Cos She’s A Tourist” and the end of “Never Destroy Us,” felt more like assaults. In the end, No Cities Left seemed to creak ever so slightly under the weight of its own hubris.

Fast forward to the opening of Gang of Losers two years later, and the shift is not so much perceived directly but rather felt on a subconscious level. Yes, the orchestral arrangements are toned down, and yes, the songs seem less ponderous, more lightfooted. But neither of those explanations seems sufficient to explain why Gang of Losers feels so different. But it does. Somehow the Dears have evolved, their outlook more optimistic, their music more hopeful.

“Ticket to Immortality” is a surprisingly lush opener that helps to set the tone for the whole album. Amidst a sea of warm backup vocals, singer Murray Lightburn enters with a spring in his step and a soulfulness in his voice that surprises. By the time Lightburn starts in with another bold statement, “the world is really gonna love you,” you can tell things are going to be different this time around. And though “Death Or Life We Want You” is a bit of a throwback to the Dears of old (though a very good throwback), we’re back to the new regime on “Hate Then Love” and the sparkling “There Goes My Outfit.” The latter especially is the closest, I think, the Dears have ever come to sounding seductive—though clearly the lyrical content is at odds with that particular interpretation.

“We’ve got the same heart,” Lightburn sings on “You and I Are a Gang of Losers,” but strangely it’s not until Valérie Jodoin-Keaton and Natalia Yanchuk chime in after the bridge with the same line that you feel the impact. And then finally, another statement of hope, “Ballad of Humankindness,” a typically conflicted song where Lightburn plays the role I have to think a lot of us have played before—the guilty and frustrated individual that sees everything that is wrong with the world and feels powerless to change things. Finally spurred into changing his ways, Lightburn sings the line that is at once a sign of outrage and a declaration of action: “no one should have to live all of their life on their own.”

Gang of Losers is not simply a hopeful album or a passionate album. It demands the sorts of things many of us have felt were missing from our own lives without really realizing it—a sense of belonging, a sense of community, a sense of things set right. Lightburn and the Dears make references to Us throughout the album. It’s clear that they’re not just talking about themselves, but also their audience, who share many of the same hopes and dreams for tomorrow. We’ve got the same heart. You and I are a gang of losers, indeed.

I read a Pitchfork review of a Be Your Own Pet show that included this passage:

Being a late twentysomething at a BYOP show is an unavoidably anthropological experience, and anthropology, with its subtext of superior vantage, always carries a whiff of condescension. Being a teenager is something I’m irrevocably outside of, and being a teenager is exactly what a BYOP show is about.

Well, okay, sure. The members of Be Your Own Pet aren’t even of legal drinking age yet, and their music is essentially one giant, seething mass of fuck you. But last I checked, a giant, seething mass of fuck you isn’t something you have to be under 18 to enjoy. I was at the Toronto show and let me tell you, there were plenty of late twenty-somethings smashing elbows into other people’s chests and generally beating the shit out of themselves and each other, and it was awesome. And all this in Toronto, a city where the standard hipster dance is to remain as deathly still as possible.

You know how Pixar manages to make millions of dollars making terrific animated movies that appeal to little kids and adults alike? Be Your Own Pet is a lot like that, except instead of cute animated fish they’ve got punk guitar and Jemima Pearl, a tiny near-college-age woman who shrieks and shakes as if she’s possessed. Teenagers probably like Be Your Own Pet because they can smash shit in their rooms and rock out, because Be Your Own Pet bring the rock like so few bands can these days. Thing is, I like them because I can smash shit in my room and rock out too, and I ain’t no teenager. How can you listen to a song like “Bicycle, Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle” and not immediately want to yell “We’re on two wheels, baby!”? (On a side note, how is this not already the theme song for every Critical Mass group in existence?) There are plenty of ready-made slogans that should appeal to anyone with a healthy sense of rebellion. If you can’t appreciate a line like “Have fun, and be safe with it—just kidding, FUCK SHIT UP!” then you’re not allowed to be a part of my revolution.

I suppose you could make a comparison to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Karen O, but to be honest I don’t remember the Yeah Yeah Yeahs having nearly the same amount of energy. This is an album where the stompin’ good time that is “Adventure” is practically a ballad compared to the other tracks, an album where the one real ballad contains the line “We’re not out of ammo yet!” And in case the rallying cries of “I’m an independent motherfucker!” and “Get outta my skin, get outta my skin!” or the spine-dislocating jostle of “Let’s Get Sandy (Big Problem)” or “Girls On T.V.” don’t do it for you, there’s the final masterpiece: “Ouch,” an awesome punk tribute to Dawn of the Dead, complete with a chorus that includes the seminal line “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

Be Your Own Pet will rip your face off and kick you in the shins if you give them half the chance, and man is it ever worth it.

The Pipettes may or may not be manufactured; they may or may not write their own songs; they may or may not be a retro-chic one-trick pony. These are all questions to be considered the next time the Pipettes release an album, if these questions are considered at all. What matters this time around is We Are The Pipettes is a smashing success—few albums this year were anywhere near as fun, charming or giggle-inducing as this one.

To begin to understand what makes the Pipettes so irrepressible, take a look at Pitchfork’s write-up from their Top 100 Music Videos feature:

When I first watched this concert clip, I wasn’t feeling the whole “in the crowd” filming technique; just let me see the Pipettes do their synchronized gestures in their signature polka-dotted dresses—not the back of some guy’s head. But after the initial annoyance wore off I realized that almost every member of the (albeit small) audience was mimicking every Pipette point and hip twitch exactly, giving this low budget video a charming two-way authenticity that helps to advance the group’s 1960s schtick past trivial novelty.

This is going to sound stupid, but even when pointed out beforehand, the “crowd does the hand motions” move still catches you by surprise. But Ryan Dombal, astute as he is, missed the real reason why the video for “Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me” is so great. It’s not because the audience is doing all the hand motions and hip twitches; it’s because you’re doing all the hand motions and hip twitches. When the audience does it in the video, it’s like you’ve been caught dancing in the shower. Except there’s no reason to be embarassed; everyone else is dancing too, your own silly grin flashing back at you on each of their faces. The Pipettes this year are what the Go! Team were in 2004: torchbearers for audience participation chic. Is it any wonder they’re labelmates?

The opening title track is a campy sci-fi intro to the band, but “Pull Shapes” is the real litmus test. On paper, there are a couple of things working against the Pipettes—it sounds a bit like the Spice Girls channeling Ronnie Spector, and the introduction to “the girls,” aka Rose, Gwenno and Becki, is incredibly cheesy, right down to the canned personalities (”I like to disco,” “I like to rock n’ roll!” “well, I like to hip-hop!”). A lesser band would wink at the proverbial camera, but for the Pipettes, ironic detachment is completely missing the point. “Pull Shapes” is ingenious because instead of compelling you to laugh knowingly, it gets you to embrace the cheese wholeheartedly. And damned if it doesn’t work, between the glorious strings and the beautiful harmonies and the “clap your hands if you want some more.” “Pull Shapes” is an outstanding song, right down to the bare essentials; this acoustic version is proof. If “Pull Shapes” doesn’t infect you with its gleeful enthusiasm, you may be medically unable to feel joy; consult a doctor.

After “Pull Shapes” sucks you in, the rest of the album exploits the advantage. “Why Did You Stay?” is all sockhops, tailfins and diners, probably the closest the band gets to actually recreating the 60s as opposed to riffing off it. “It Hurts To See You Dance So Well” is loneliness wrapped in envy wrapped in bitterness, all surrounded by a candy-coated shell of harmonies. And of course there’s the aforementioned kiss-off of “Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me,” a deliciously bratty showcase for the band that makes perfect sense as a single. But really, aside perhaps from the off-kilter opener (which really doesn’t fit very well with the rest of the album), every song on We Are The Pipettes delivers. It’s the gift that keeps on giving; it’s fun to listen to, it’s fun to sing along to, it’s fun to dance to. It’s just fun, wrapped in pink and black with white polka dots.

For a while there, at the beginning of the year, it looked like everyone had forgotten how to have fun. It seemed like every album I picked up would feel oddly restrained, composed—a bit sterile, to be blunt. This was a bad sign: every year, music critics take one of two stances when looking back on the Year In Music: either it’s “this was the worst year for music ever,” or “I know it looks like the worst year for music ever, but…” Things came to a head one day in April, when I picked up a stack of albums in the hopes that I’d find something out of the 2006 crop to like. Out of four albums, three fell disappointingly by the wayside. For the first time, I was genuinely concerned that I’d stumbled into the worst year for music ever. I thought of packing it in, shuttering the website and dropping my CD addiction cold turkey. I thought that maybe I was too old and too cynical to listen to music any more. I thought of cashing in pension cheques and taking up lawn bowling, resigned to a fate of yelling at kids to turn that racket down and get off my lawn.

I would’ve done it, too, if not for the fourth album I bought that fateful day in April, the album I didn’t even know existed until I saw it on the shelf, the album I almost didn’t buy, the album that quite literally saved 2006 for me: the Essex Green’s Cannibal Sea. The opening strains of “This Isn’t Farmlife” hit like the sun splitting the overcast sky in two, Sasha Bell’s gorgeous voice singlehandedly breathing life into the drab, concrete grey landscape that was my universe of music circa mid-2006. Maybe the emergence of spring had something to do with it too, I don’t know, but Cannibal Sea was my soundtrack for a solid month.

Previous Essex Green output stuck fairly closely to the fey 60s pop template that fit nicely into the Elephant Six universe; in fact, you may recognize Bell and Jeff Baron from Ladybug Transistor, which is nominally the parent band to the Essex Green’s side project. Both bands were marked by a double dose of effete charm and refined pop sensibilities, but their chamber pop oeuvre was an acquired taste—the most successful Ladybug Transistor album, The Albemarle Sound, could be described as charmingly unhurried if you were the generous sort, or precious and quaint if you weren’t. Not so with Cannibal Sea, a far more upbeat album that might faintly recall folky 60s pop but never crosses over into precious territory.

Though Cannibal Sea is apparently not much different from their previous album, The Long Goodbye, the Essex Green have evolved substantially from their early recordings. The renewed sense of energy and vigour is especially evident in the first half of the album, a freight train of pop momentum from “This Isn’t Farmlife” all the way through to “Cardinal Points.” With a definite decrease in the flute quotient and a corresponding increase in rawk guitars, Cannibal Sea sounds meatier than the Essex Green I used to know. And then there’s the matter of Sasha Bell, whose vocal performances are a compelling mix of schoolgirl innocence and sly confidence. Her warm, friendly presence on the album is an absolute joy.

But those are just two especially great elements in what is an outstanding listen overall. As a pop album seemingly custom-made for springtime, Cannibal Sea is absolutely perfect. And though I can’t enjoy glorious bike rides with the strains of “Rue De Lis” or “Uniform” in the cold of winter, Cannibal Sea still stands up surprisingly well six months later. Yes, it’s “just” an indie pop album, and it’s not doing anything particularly innovative. But the Essex Green have recorded an album worthy of enthusiastic approval—the first genuinely lovable album I heard this year, and still one of the best.

A friend of mine went to see the Blow this summer, just before the release of Paper Television. Khaela Maricich apparently introduced a song with an admission: the next album was going to be their pop album, something they could actually make some money on for once. At the time, everyone probably thought she was kidding, but now we know otherwise: Paper Television is the closest thing the Blow has to a pop album.

Of course, no one in the K Records stable really has much to spend on things like big-name producers or lavish, fully-equipped studios in Hawaii, so when the Blow decide to make a pop album, we’re not talking Timbaland and Christina Aguilera. We’re barely in the territory of I Am The World Trade Center, the last indiepop duo (or maybe the only indiepop duo) to garner the half-joking dubious title of “the indie Britney Spears.” They at least had an array of laptop-powered synths and samples at their disposal; whether intentionally or otherwise, Maricich and partner-in-crime Jona Bechtolt work with a smaller palette of sonics to spin their minimalist electropop magic.

If you’ve ever heard a Blow album before this one, however, you’ll think the sound much fuller than before. Bechtolt’s instrumental talents have worked wonders for Maricich, who previously ran the Blow as a one-woman show. While Maricich’s coyly innocent vocals have always been a Blow trademark, Bechtolt’s contributions provide a vital counterpart that has, until now, been missing: sexy lo-fi beats and bleeps that sound just as juicy as Maricich’s best lines.

Accompanying the reinforcement in the production department is a newfound focus in the songwriting; nearly all of the experimental scribbles from older albums have been dropped in favour of—gasp!—fairly straightforward verse-chorus-verse pop structures. And again, the Blow score a bullseye. The slinky, seductive qualities of earlier Blow albums tended toward the subliminal, expressed most effectively in breathy sighs and burbling electronic riffs. On Paper Television those qualities get more play, especially on songs like the siren’s call of “Pardon Me,” aka “The Blow’s Late Night Dance Party Extravaganza.” Everything about this song is sex, from the lyrics (”there was a lot of sweat” indeed) to the relentless beats to the awesome flute-loop breakdown.

The biggest problem with earlier Blow albums was the faint whiff of awkwardness about the proceedings; Maricich could never quite sell material like “What Tom Said About Girls,” a rap track that couldn’t escape the occasional hints of hesitation and the bedroom-pop sound. But Paper Television hits the ground running and almost never lets up; “Pile of Gold” and “The Long List of Girls” more than make up for the lost potential in “What Tom Said About Girls.” On the more traditional indiepop side of the ledger, the Blow offer up “Parentheses” and “Babay,” the closest they’ve come to the ideal Maricich has been chasing with earlier songs like “Jet Ski Accidents” and “A Night Full of Open Eyes.”

“You don’t know this,” Maricich once said during a show, “but most songs by pop stars are written by indie girls.” The crowd probably thought that was a joke too, but listen to Paper Television and you’ll come away a believer.

After years of releases with several prominent bands in the Pacific Northwest, Rose Melberg disappeared. The Softies released and toured with their final album, Holiday in Rhode Island, and then Melberg and co-conspirator Jen Sbragia went their seperate ways. Sbragia went on to play with the All-Girl Summer Fun Band, but from Melberg nary a peep was heard for four years. As it turns out, Melberg also happens to have a child that’s about four years old.

Through perseverance and probably a lot of juggled schedules, she finally managed to write and record new material, her first since the beginning of the decade. Recorded with a few friends in Vancouver, Cast Away the Clouds sounds more like a product of the quiet lakeside town she calls home. Hushed, intimate and organic, Cast Away the Clouds bears a resemblance to Melberg’s work with the Softies and her previous solo album, a 1998 collection of loose ends called Portola, but the mood is subtly yet strikingly different.

The Softies relied on electric guitars and hushed vocals to weave their magic, a simple yet potent configuration. For Cast Away The Clouds Melberg has expanded her repertoire. This is a mostly unplugged affair, with an acoustic replacing the electric guitars (though if you listen closely on “Cold Sea,” you might get a twinge of Softies nostalgia). Melberg also plays piano on several songs, which works so well on songs like “Take Some Time” and “Irene” that it’s a surprise she hasn’t really done much piano work before now (that I know of, anyway). At the same time, her hushed vocals aren’t quite so hushed anymore—not only does Melberg sound stronger and sing with more conviction, she also harmonizes with herself throughout the album to great effect.

Throughout her long and storied career, Melberg has covered a lot of bases. Her work with the Softies consisted of quiet ballads and soft tones, a big change from the more straightforward and traditional indie-pop oeuvre of Tiger Trap and Go Sailor. If those two stages of her career represented emotional extremes, exuberance and heartbreak, then Cast Away the Clouds is perhaps an attempt to reincorporate a tiny bit of the former into her music. The album wavers back and forth between guarded optimism and bittersweetness, a more complex mix of emotions that feels more complete, easier to embrace than the limited palette the Softies used to paint with.

Five years is a long time to wait, but Cast Away the Clouds sounds more intimate and personable than anything Melberg’s done to date. After all these years, she can still put you under her spell with nothing but a guitar and the sound of her angelic voice. Cast Away the Clouds isn’t just an album you can love; it’s an album that loves you.

The opening strains of “Reena” sound strange to me. The Sonic Youth albums I’ve grown up with—which is to say the tail end of Sonic Youth’s career, beginning with A Thousand Leaves—either start with glorious blasts of noise (”Pattern Recognition,” “Contre Le Sexisme”) or relaxed, languorous noodling (”Free City Rhymes” and, to a certain extent, “The Empty Page”). “Reena” is neither of these things; it’s a propulsive track that nevertheless manages to sound a bit mellow. The overwhelming sense is one of warmth and openness, which is certainly a change of pace.

It’s a theme that runs through Rather Ripped, the band’s twentieth album for anyone still keeping count. Despite the presence of “Sleeping Around” and “What A Waste,” two of the album’s rowdier numbers, the general atmosphere is quieter and less overtly aggressive than most of Sonic Youth’s recent catalog. This is especially evident in the songs where Kim Gordon fronts the band; for a couple of years the running joke was that Kim Gordon songs were the wilfully annoying rants you skipped past to get to the good bits, but nearly every Gordon song on Rather Ripped is exactly the opposite: dreamy, peaceful numbers that represent some of the album’s best work. “Turquoise Boy” is one of the few songs that stretches well past the four minute mark—another Rather Ripped theme is brevity—but as an epic, most of the song falls into the tranquil category rather than the dissonant category. There’s just enough noise to remind you that Sonic Youth still recognize the value of distortion, and then it’s back to crisp, clean tones and Gordon’s reassuring vocals. “The Neutral” goes one further; it’s one of the sweetest songs I’ve ever heard from Sonic Youth.

But perhaps the best masterpiece on the album is “Incinerate,” an effortlessly perfect song that seems to combine the best tendencies of the past few albums and beyond. It’s Sonic Youth at its most carefree, the closest thing on the album to pure bliss. That it essentially rejects the epic structures of my favourite Sonic Youth material makes “Incinerate” that much better; tightly written three-minute songs are not Sonic Youth’s forté, and yet here’s an entire album of decent-to-amazing specimens, with “Incinerate” sitting atop the heap.

The band are beginning to enter their fifties; in a couple more years they’ll start to cross over into Rolling Stone territory. But it’s hard to imagine Sonic Youth playing “Bull in the Heather” and “Kool Thing” to crowds of physicians and lawyers in their old age, more corporate entity than rock band. It’s thanks to albums like Rather Ripped that the mere idea of Sonic Youth as anything other than a vital creative force never gains much traction. Already you can see the touchstones for the next progression—the hushed tones of “Or,” the soft guitar tones of “The Neutral,” all pointing towards a more tranquil, relaxed Sonic Youth. Now that they’ve apparently decided to tone down the lengthy jams and the explosions of noise, what’s next?

Finding new music is occasionally a chore. It’s certainly not as easy as it used to be, when I was a teenager and all I did was suck down MP3s from random FTP sites and read the now-defunct Addicted To Noise and Wall of Sound. So whenever I find someone in a place I didn’t expect, it’s cause for celebration. I picked up the latest Essex Green album on a whim and loved it, found Handsomeboy Technique from a single MP3 posted on a message board I frequent, and essentially discovered electronica years ago thanks to a video game.

One of my volunteer gigs was holding a launch party, and we had a couple of bands lined up, as you do for these sorts of things. Some of the names I recognized because we’d seen them before at other launches or in the magazine I volunteer for, but Laura Barrett’s was one I’d never heard before that day, when I showed up to do merch. When I met her I thought she was just someone who showed up really early; someone else who was just a fan of the magazine had already found us about an hour before we were slated to start. I didn’t realize she was slated to perform until she gave us some expert help with the PA system.

Barrett was the headliner for an evening show, and after seeing what she was going to play I was a bit worried: it was a kalimba, basically a very small piano you play with your thumbs. Barrett was going to follow a punk band and a high-energy dance troupe, and she was going to have to compete with one of Toronto’s many jazz festivals just outside the art gallery where we’d set up shop. How on earth was this small woman and her quiet kalimba supposed to keep anyone’s attention after all that? As the sun went down and the outside noise level went up, I started to worry a bit.

I shouldn’t have been concerned, because two songs into her set she had her entire audience sitting crosslegged on the floor in rapt attention. With her combination of charming stage banter, slightly loopy lyrics and breathtaking artistry, she’d managed to cast a spell on the audience that even the flamenco band just outside the doors couldn’t break. She’d brought ten CDs to sell that day, and sold them all in a flash. Luckily for me, she kept number eleven tucked away just in case, its ornate packaging slightly defective but otherwise in fine condition.

I honestly have no idea whether Barrett intends to make her solo career a going concern, as she’s already got a pretty full load; she’s a touring member of the Hidden Cameras and she also plays with Henri Fabergé and the Adorables. If Earth Sciences is all we get, it’ll be a shame—five gorgeous songs just isn’t enough. Barrett weaves intricate songs like musical labyrinths in which you can lose yourself; despite only picking up the kalimba less than two years ago, she sounds like a pro, spinning complex note patterns as if they were nothing. She’s similarly adept at singing, her dulcet tones a lush counterpoint to the music. But Barrett’s music isn’t just beautiful, it’s also just a bit absurd; she covers Weird Al and sings about robot ponies, two obvious nerd pride badges. Is it any wonder that she’s opened for Final Fantasy in the past?

Give Laura Barrett half a chance and she’ll put you in a trance. Earth Sciences is an intimate and alluring listen, flawed only by its brevity. Apparently there’s a second EP in the works. One can only hope.

After writing this review, I discovered that Earth Sciences actually came out last year. For anyone keeping score, that’s twice so far this list. But it’s a great EP and I really do think it’s worth your time, so forgive me if I decide to fudge this one a little. Dating self-released material is always a bit sketchy anyways.

Also, if you’re interested in hunting down a copy, her MySpace profile says e-mailing her is your best bet. Or, if you live in Toronto, hit up Soundscapes.

Faced with the loss of their guitarist, Erase Errata had a choice: adapt or die. Lead singer Jenny Hoyston had already started playing guitar on the band’s 2003 release At Crystal Palace, so she decided to take over full guitar duties. Erase Errata was saved!

Well, yes and no. The band still existed, yes, but Nightlife is clearly a different beast than earlier albums. Part of this must be out of necessity; the deliciously warped and distorted riffs that made up Erase Errata’s signature sound must have taken a hit when the guitarist largely responsible for those riffs left for grad school. And so we find on Nightlife a more straightforward guitar sound that only occasionally attempts the frenetic acrobatics of yesteryear. But instead of simply reacting to Sara Jaffe’s departure, the band took the time to figure out their new approach, and as a result Nightlife fires on all cylinders.

It’s not at all a bad thing that this is the most conventional Erase Errata album to date; while the seething menace behind Hoyston’s ominous half-yelled vocals and Jaffe’s angular guitar work is diminished, in its place is a more pointed and direct aggression. The most obvious case is “Tax Dollar,” the best Erase Errata song I’ve ever heard and one of the best songs of the year. It’s much lighter on its feet than the Erase Errata of old, with Hoyston playfully singing (!) some of the verses before pouncing with fury. Hoyston’s guitar licks are razor sharp, the rhythm section insistent; it all races along nicely until the band shift into high gear about two-thirds into the song, and then again with the searing final refrain, “murder with your tax dollars!” It’s a massive knockout punch that the band never quite manage to equal.

The rest of the album falls into two categories: surprisingly catchy and slightly awkward. Into the former category fall most of the faster and meaner songs like most of the album’s first half and “Wasteland.” The sole disappointment is “Rider,” which tries for some sort of wild west motif and fails until halfway through the song, when the band suddenly regain their senses and drop the shtick. “He Wants What’s Mine” shambles along nicely, but Hoyston’s pseudo-beat affectations aren’t as effective as the rest of the album.

So Erase Errata arrive on the other side of the gaping maw completely intact and more vital than ever. Nightlife is the sound of a band that still has plenty of things to say, and has plenty of convincing ways to say them.