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Duran Duran Astronaut (Epic)
In their decadent heyday, the pretty boys of Duran Duran were the crown princes of a fledgling MTV, but drugs, hubris and a few dodgy albums reduced this supergroup to has-beens. Now, twenty-one years since the original Fab Five's last studio album together, the band's classic lineup has returned. The bleach jobs and posturing remain, but the band has thankfully ditched the "Wild Boys" pomp rock that was its undoing. Instead, Astronaut revitalizes Duran's early synth-pop magic. The lush, moody tones of "Point of No Return" and uplifting charm of "Finest Hour" recall the seductive sounds of Rio and remind us that Duran always had a knack for radiant melodies. On "Sunrise," the catchy first single, only Simon LeBon and Co.'s sneering harmonies could turn unabashedly ridiculous lyrics such as "Put your hands into the big sky. . . ./Feel the new day enter your life" into rousing stadium fodder. Astronaut's feel-good pop just made the dawn brighter for Duranies. (SARAH PRATT)
American Music Club Love Songs for Patriots (Merge)
"Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for all the good that's in you to shine," announces American Music Club singer-songwriter Mark Eitzel at the outset of the band's first album in about a decade, four original members (plus newcomer Marc Capelle on piano and trumpet) still on board. So, has one of alternative rock's longest-lived mopers turned over a new leaf? Not really -- he sings that line, and some others on this record that might appear optimistic on paper, in a despondent if muted death wail rather at odds with the sentiments of the words. Yet that shades-of-gray (mostly gray) collision of music and lyrics is part of what makes AMC both interesting and energy-sapping. Eitzel fearlessly details the downbeat in articulate songs about depression, male strippers, guilt and doomed affection as the band shadows his moves with appropriately lurching, artful sluggishness, like a ship determined to sink with dignity. (RICHIE UNTERBERGER)
The Blood Brothers Crimes (V2)
Seattle screamo outfit the Blood Brothers are known for their ferocious live show, but, for their fourth album, they wanted to make music that wouldn't wear them out on the road. Crimes offers slightly less larynx-endangering wailing than 2003's Burn Piano Island, Burn, but it still brims with enough rhythmic diversity and vocal gymnastics that the group is going to need a long rest after its upcoming tour. "Feed Me to the Forest" creeps in on tepid, angular, Hives-like guitar before co-frontmen Johnny Whitney and Jordan Blilie ravage their tracheas. Later the Brothers show their pop sensibilities as jangly guitars back "My First Kiss at the Public Execution," before the breakdown bleeds from their tortured cacophony. In their continued push at diversity, the Blood Brothers commit no artistic offense. (JOLIE LASH)
Victory at Sea Memories Fade (Gern Blandsten)
Buoyed by a throaty chanteuse and a prickly sense of humor, Boston's Victory at Sea triumph, keeping cool and dry as they ride out the choppy waves of their dramatic, squall-on-the-Atlantic rock. Scissoring violin strings, clattering drums and Mona Elliott's deep voice cast an occasional prism of light on bleak numbers like "Logan Way," which praises the virtues of lying. Some languid songs let the air out of their sails, but when Victory at Sea are at the height of their powers, obsidian humor colors every stroke of their epic music, as in "The Birthday Song (Death March)." Does it get much blacker than offering to celebrate a birthday by jigging on her grave? (MARGARET WAPPLER)
Chris Thile Deceiver (Sugar Hill)
He's got some of Jamie Cullum's sound, Bela Fleck's post-bluegrass virtuosity and Rufus Wainwright's theatrical delivery, but on Deceiver, Chris Thile nearly enters rock-opera territory -- Broadway style, orchestra and all -- if one guy playing more than twenty-five instruments can be called an orchestra. On his fifth solo album, the twenty-three-year-old Nickel Creek mandolinist crams classical, jazz, folk, rock and even a little bluegrass into an opus that fulfills his definition of music: tension and release. He lunges for dramatic moments and choruses made to be belted out by perky young singer/dancers, then backs off with little whispers like "Waltz for Dewayne Pomeroy," which sounds like a Christmas madrigal (uh-oh ... tights alert). That's followed by the pop-rock punch of "Empire Falls." "Jessamyn's Reel," a sweet bluegrass instrumental, comes right before the climax-building electric-guitar crank of "The Believer." In some odd way, it all fits together. (LYNNE MARGOLIS)
Straylight Run Straylight Run (Victory)
In leaving the burgeoning emocore outfit Taking Back Sunday to form Straylight Run, Shaun Cooper and John Nolan have done more than switch bands -- they have switched genres. The guitar-heavy pop-punk melodies, tormented vocals and occasional screams that populate TBS's music are all absent from Straylight Run's self-titled debut. In their place are dreamy piano-centered pop tunes embellished by a glockenspiel, tempered harmonies and lyrics that evoke more melancholy than angst. There is even the addition of a female voice -- compliments of Nolan's sister. Michelle Nolan, who mostly sings backup to her brother but takes the lead on two songs, adds a softer dimension with her sugary vocals. Former Breaking Pangea drummer Will Noon creates the pace but knows when to hold back. In other words, Cooper and Nolan have recruited wisely and made a successful transition, yet one that promises to alienate more than a few of their former fans. (KRISTIN ROTH)
The Hidden Cameras Mississauga Goddamn (Rough Trade)
Fusing violin, cello and tambourines with homoerotic imagery may not be the easiest way to win over mainstream rock fans, but celebrated gay rockers the Hidden Cameras take a half-assed stab at it anyway on the follow-up to 2003's The Smell of Our Own. "I Believe in the Good of Love" shimmers with a Phil Spector-like beauty, while the catchy burst of energy known as "Fear Is On" belongs on the FM dial between Interpol and the Killers. But Cameras mastermind Joel Gibb doesn't exactly tone it down for the masses -- see promiscuous prose like, "I drank from the wine that came from inside/The heart of his meat and the splurge of his sweet." And tracks like "I Want Another Enema" should ensure that Gibb's cult will remain manageable.