Cover albums are usually a collection of songs that sound pretty much like the originals, with some really eclectic choices to show how cool the band is.  In other words, they’re about establishing credibility for musical tastes, but not so much for musical skill.  It’s much easier to be creative when someone else already did the creating part of the job.

But not so, “Turn Ons,” the debut album by Supergrass side project Hot Rats (starring Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey).  The songs here are more than covers—they take on the originals in meaningful ways, even changing the very composition.  The most obvious example is their falsetto, almost emo cover of The Beastie Boys anthem, “Fight for Your Right To Party,” which I didn’t even recognize until I did a double-take on the lyrics.  But there are subtler examples as well.  The Lovecats, for example, is beautifully reworked from goth to psychedelic punk, and Bike is reworked from psychedelic rock to psychedelic new wave, while Squeeze’s “Up the Junction” goes from soulless Europop to a song with painful meaning.  Honestly, I knew all the lyrics to that song and must have listened to it a hundred times at college parties, but I never realized it was a desperate song about an alcoholic who destroys his own marriage.

You’ll be curious about this album because it’s a covers album and, hey, who doesn’t love covers?  But you should get it because it’s very, very good.  And unlike most covers projects, it might actually surprise you.

Fight For Your Right to Party (YSI)

BONUS!

Party for Your Right to Fight-Atmosphere (YSI)

Last April, I prayed that a group of really obnoxious looking kids called The Strange Boys would get some hype and love. Sometimes, dreams come true.  In the Red Records (Black Lips, Jay Reatard, Mystery Girls) will release the Austin, Texas band’s latest foray into organ-driven, 1950s garage-style nasal punk this month. The band has grown a little bit, but they still sound a bunch of weirdos practicing in their basement.  And that D.I.Y. sound is what makes them so much fun . . . And so damn good.  It’s the kind of music where anything can happen.  The single, “Be Brave,” is freakin’ awesome.  And you gotta dig the lyrics, too, even if you have to strain to understand them sometimes.  A favorite is from the lead-off track, “I See,” which goes: “Tonight’s dinner is tomorrow’s shit/Enjoy it before it stinks.”  It sounds like it’s trying to be profound, but comes off as just rude.  Love that.

The album is already out in Europe, and I’m warning you: Don’t sleep on it.  The Strange Boys fucking kick ass.

I See

Video for “Be Brave,” with lightswitch-flickering strobe effects!

Punk like The Stooges or The Black Lips.  Retro like Nobunny or The Ramones.  Psychedelic like The Standells.  Grungy like The Electric Prunes or Wolfmother.  Splinters and blisters of songs, like “The Park (Dig It),” that could and should have gone on longer.  Fully formed but bizarre ballads that sound like they were recorded in someone’s basement.  Sudden bursts of crispy fuzz.  This, dear readers, is The Jacuzzi Boys.  The Florida band has released singles now and again, but it wasn’t until the end of the summer that they finally hit us in the mouth with a full record.  And how fucking cool is it?

Well, I’ve already counted the ways, but I can add a few more.  Many songs clock in at less than two minutes, and most combine all the various moods and genres that punk music has gone through since Iggy Pop began bleeding on stage: Surfer, psychout, grunge, fuzz (lots of fuzz), lo-fi, druggy, three-chord pop . . . The only one missing, really, is hardcore.  Most folks think of punk as three chords and a bunch of shouting or vocal effects, but Jacuzzi Boys have such a studious love of the genre that they can move seamlessly through its subtle style variations, all the while sounding laid back enough that this album could have come up in the 1960s as easily as today.  In short: This album is a party.

Planet Of The Dreamers

No Seasons

Do you miss the Bloc Party? And by Bloc Party, I mean the kind of exciting, unstable postpunk that made Silent Alarm the seventh best album of the last decade? Well, then, Kittens Ablaze might just be your thing. The band’s debut full-length is a collection of quirky, catchy tunes that mixes 2/3 postpunk with generous seasonings of Americana, dance-folk, and plain old indie rock and roll. Plus, they’re from Brooklyn.

The band is still raw–they haven’t been captured and homogenized yet, like what happened with so many great bands before them (see Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, etc.), so now is the time to catch them. This is a truly fantastic record.

Seventh Round (YsI)

ACOUPLEBONUSPOSTPUNKCOVERS

It Won’t Be long (The Beatles Cover)-Franz Ferdinand (ysi)

The Prayer (Bloc Party Cover)-KT Tunstall (ysI)