SCHOOLBOY Q
Oxymoron
(Top Dawg/Interscope)
There comes a point early in "Collard
Greens" where the album's progress to that
point makes you think, "It'd be straight if
Kendrick Lamar dropped a verse here,"
and then he does. Like his Black Hippy
cohort Lamar, Schoolboy Q's proper fulllength debut takes a semi-autobiographical narrative view of inner city L.A., focusing on Crips culture. Its only real oxymoron is that it pulls off a somewhat
touching ode to studio-booth blowjobs.
(OK, and that it frequently references WuTang sonics and grants a cameo to
Raekwon.) Otherwise, Schoolboy works
off a palate that would comfortably accommodate anyone from Trinidad James to T.I.,
or Kid Cudi to Lil Wayne, but instead opts
for the larger vision and only calls on his
homeboys like 2Chainz, Jay Rock, and
Tyler, The Creator to deal and deliver.
- Steve Forstneger
BIG BALLS
6
KAISER CHEIFS
Education, Education,
Education & War
ARCHIE POWELL
& THE EXPORTS
Back In Black
(Team Cool)
Considering the historical significance rock and roll has already
placed on it, you need to have
some pretty hefty marbles in your
man pouch to name your band's
third album Back In Black. But
Archie Powell & The Exports are
nothing if not overconfident.
In just over thirty minutes, the
quintet blast through twelve songs
like they're fleeing a crime scene.
The tempos on "Everything's
F*cked," "Tattoo On My Brain," and
"Lean" are over-caffeinated and
pushed along by a Godzilla-like
back beat. Vocals are barked with
such urgency, it's the audio equivalent of block cheese being shredded.
And when they do decide to
come up for air, mid tempo rockers
like "Electrocute My Heart" and
"Rodeo Crush" betray a tunefulness that the aforementioned compositions bury under their unique
brand of rage and arrogance. It's
no wonder they felt worthy of that
album title.
– Curt Baran
7
Archie Powell & The Exports
appear 5/2 at Subterranean, Chicago
(Record Release Show)
AFGHAN WHIGS
Do The Beast
(Sub Pop)
On "Parked Outside," the first track from
the first album from this band in 15 years,
Greg Dulli sings, "If they've seen it all/Show
them something new." Unfortunately for the
lyrics, the song is classic Whigs provocation,
not something new. But the soul/rock aesthetic perfectly embodies the Sub Pop-era
Whigs, so fans will forgive the lack of promised novelty - the song rocks. The guitar
28 illinoisentertainer.com may 2014
(ATO)
With a history of songs like "I Predict A
Riot" and "The Angry Mob," Kaiser Chiefs
have been known to dabble in political
activism. On their fifth release, Education,
Education, Education & War, they deliver
diatribes against institutionalized education and industrial pollution within massive arrangements that sound like they
could have sprung from a Broadway rock
musical. There are echoes of Pink Floyd
and XTC in the biting lyrics, but Kaiser
Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson has his own
distinct brand of showmanship.
Wilson's voice soars on lines like, "You
and me on the front lines" during the
catchy and off-kilter "Bows & Arrows," and
"We lost more than we saved" on the hardcharging "Ruffians On Parade." "The
Factory Gates," a song about how schools
ultimately prepare students for military
careers, opens with dramatic sound effects,
and the high-powered "Cannons" breaks
into a spoken word poem with almost
whimsical lines like, "There's a plan to
abandon the planet, one V.I.P. at a time." In
addition to songs about war and stress,
there's the lush, atmospheric ballad,
"Coming Home." Education, Education,
Education & War is a persuasive concept
album that might have the potential to
become an American Idiot type of theatric