Glass Animals - ZABA - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
The first signings on multi-platinum producer Paul Epworth's new Wolf Tone label hail from Oxford and fuse glacial electronics and atmospherics with plaintive mini-anthems. Nothing new then? Well, perhaps not but Glass Animals' debut does have a certain resonance about it. The opening trio of Flip, Black Mambo and Pools display a clever knack of cross-pollinating minimalism with emotion, a tricky skill at the best of times, not far removed from Animal Collective, Alt-j et al. However, after ingesting those three songs on my travels towards the centre of the album, I'm not feeling charmed or joyful at the prospect of seeing out the rest of it. Y'see, there's not much in the way of soul. Sure Gooey sounds vaguely funky - they clearly like a bit of Flying Lotus I'd say, perhaps even James Blake - but it's a cosy groove, a metropolitan pulse that shivers rather than sweats out its existence. There's a vast improvement on Walla Walla, a sort of sub-bass samba for the disenchanted and Intruxx, as you might gather from its title, is an interlude formed of aquatic effects and sweeping synths - 'tis good, too. Hazey is rather pretty as well, a drunken canter that works better when played VERY loud - singer Dave Bayley declaring that he's 'fuckin' loco'. But as the album plays out, I'm yearning for a bit of action, a bit of assertion, energy, even heart-wrenching regret. Instead, for all of the interesting sounds and earnest efforts here, I'm left wanting and ZABA slips quietly out the door and onto the pile tagged 'done and dusted'.
Jack White - Lazaretto - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Lord of the riffs or just another fret boy? Certainly the latter, as his second solo opus seeks to prove from the off. Lazaretto is perhaps a little more focussed than predecessor Blunderbuss but still a little rough around the edges. It sounds vintage enough, but with a contemporary blueprint slick enough to appeal to audiophiles and fans alike. Three Women is funky-blues hokum that borders on parody - lyrics are mildly misogynist and simplistic to the point of hilarity, so it's up to the title-track to brush this nonsense aside and kickstart the album properly. Blessed with a fearsome riff and borne of a template straight out of psychedelic soul and frat-rap - imagine Beastie Boys, Cream and Os Mutantes locked in a studio and you're someway there. Of course, White frequently draws source-material from around the globe for his material. Temporary Ground has a modicum of bluegrass about it, while Southern rock features on the hoodoo strut that is High Ball Stepper. I Think I Found The Culprit has some typically oblique lyrics - try "...birds of a feather we lay together/ but the uglier one is always under the gun..." - and album-closer Want and Able rounds things off in melodramatic piano-thumped style, not unlike the Stones in fact. It's a Jack White album, neither ground-breaking nor boring - buy or pass by.
Chrissie Hynde - Stockholm - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Active in music for nigh on forty years (if you count her formative years), the iconic Pretenders singer has assembled her first solo album of her colourful career. With guests including Neil Young and as sharp an imagination as any powerful woman in rock these days, you might be expecting Chrissie Hynde to break the mould with Stockholm. Not so. Of course, her resonating tonsils do the trick as usual and the melodies scale a few heady heights, especially on the singles Dark Sunglasses and You Or No One, but Stockholm is a low-key intimate affair that encompasses different styles - soft pop on In A Miracle, acoustic-rock on Adding The Blue and ballsy blues in the style of Tom Petty (or Neil Young) on Down The Wrong Way, the album's pistol-packin' highlight. Hynde's got more sass than most of the preening chart divas, with most of this first new material in six years hitting the mark.
Taylor McFerrin - Early Riser - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Somewhat inevitably, given that this man is vocalist Bobby McFerrin's son, Early Riser is very much about the harmonics of the human voice, as much as its RnB roots. Suffice to say it's true to the current wave of future soul hitting our shores. Taylor's oeuvre takes his father's cosmopolitan template, gives it a shake and pours it out as a cocktail of hazy psychedelia, out of beat street funk and occasional studio trickery. Thankfully rapping and singing doesn't swamp McFerrin's subtle layers of rhythm, as so often happens when 'guests' are invited to contribute on similar albums - tracks such as Already There and Decisions come out relatively unscathed, the latter not rhythmically unlike Zomby's work of late. Dad Bobby turns up on Invisible/Visible to add some unmistakable falsetto accompaniment before the track becomes submerged in a jazz fug that doesn't quite gel. Early Riser is an odd beast, truth be told. Play this to anyone without first clocking its creator's surname and you'd be forgiven for thinking, 'oh it's Sun Ra being remixed by Red Snapper'. There are bursts of sun-drenched soul spiked with frisky beats that work frequently, mis-fire occasionally and enthral often enough, so much so that Taylor McFerrin ends up as an entity without a pigeonhole. Believe me, that's a good thing.
Glitterbug - Dust - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
German electronica artist Till Rohmann has been knocking out wintery soundscapes for the best part of six years. Three albums in, plus a swathe of remixes and EPs, Glitterbug seems destined for restrained acceptance and undoubted acclaim. Album four is unlikely to change his current fortunes but it's a riveting listen. OK, there aren't heavy bangin' beats or the kind of sub-bass to jettison your eyeballs across the room - this is all about headphone-listening, the calm down, the come-down and being inspired enough to invest in some laptops and synths. Like Fennesz and Boards of Canada before him, Rohmann's alt-moniker creates soundtracks to climbing mountains, exploring fjords, sailing around Icelandic coastlines etc, using layered tidal surges of synths and the merest hint of threat. And while hardly a party animal, Rohmann's charged atmosphere's recall the morning after and the long walk home, through unfamiliar streets. There's a track called When The City Was bare - it's a fitting description for a piece that shimmers and pulsates like a town on a cold Sunday night - while The Stars Behind The Light is the closest we come to a 'dance track', resembling Pantha du Prince's slight take on club-music. What sounds like the end of days finishes this intriguing album - Look Around is almost musique-concrete for abandoned subways, a nine-minute post-apocalyptic concerto that slowly drones to an unnerving conclusion.
Dolly Parton - Blue Smoke (The Best Of) - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
By my reckoning, this is Parton's 42nd studio-album and ties in very nicely with her upcoming Glastonbury Festival appearance and much-touted world tour. To celebrate the occasion, certain copies of Blue Smoke come attached with a greatest hits of sorts, featuring a few re-recordings and classic renditions of Butterfly, I Will Always Love You, Little Sparrow and Jolene. As a standalone album, Blue Smoke does what every Dolly Parton album does - it swings, it twangs, it smooches, it wiggles its hips and it trills 'c'mon git me boys, I'm a whole lotta song for you'. Well, maybe. Glasto will love her and if she performs any of this, they'll love her more. The title-track is cheery hoedown hokum with cheesy lyrics like 'choo-choo-choo-woo-woo-woo...' etc, Lover Du Jour is Dolly wagging her finger at all the randy bad boys in the audience and You Can't Make Old Friends sees a returning duet with last year's Glasto triumph, the silver fox Kenny Rogers. Who's betting against a Glasto reunion? Crikey, she gets all funky on the stomping rocker Lay Your Hands On Me (yes, the Bon Jovi song) and calms things down on the sweet ballad Miss You-Miss Me. She'll own the UK in the next fortnight so you'd best get used to her cooing tunes at you, left right and centre. Blue Smoke is a decent album, truth be told, and certain to follow its predecessor Better Day into the Top 10.
Janet Devlin - Running With Scissors - ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Previously placed fifth on 2011's The X Factor series, this Irish folk-pop warbler's debut-album proper has been on the boil for some time. It isn't entirely new either - around half of the album has appeared on limited EPs and the Pledgemusic dry-run long-player issued last year. Has she missed the boat? Question is, was there even a boat to miss? Devlin's propensity to sing like an infant is oddly off-putting and the arrangements on Delicate (co-written with Jack Savoretti), Hide and Seek (vintage vinyl crackles included, ho hum) and the twee opener Creatures Of The Night all sound like future DFS adverts, mercifully minus ukuleles. Oh and there's a truly insipid version of my least-favourite Cure song, Friday I'm In Love. It was at this point I felt a sudden urge to throw my sofa out of the window. After all, it wouldn't be a problem getting a new one - I could just pop Janet's new album on and imagine I'm choosing a replacement in a showroom in my mind. The album's saving graces are the melodies - Devlin and co can write them for fun, to be fair - and at least she doesn't resort to cheapening her art with 'explicit' versions in order to be down with the kids. Otherwise, not for me.
Passenger - Whispers - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
And here's another singer with a penchant for cutesy vocals. He and Devlin should hook up and make sweet music together. Actually, I'm being glib. For all of his twee Mumfordian anthemics, songwriter Mike Rosenberg can really turn a tune without breaking sweat and I can see why this man will be selling out yet more shows later this year (if he hasn't already). In fact throughout Whispers, Rosenberg gets quite wound-up about a few things. On Scare Away The Dark, he cites technology and reclusive behaviour for the human-race's ultimate demise - 'we're all slowly dying in front of fucking computers', he rails, almost earning one of those tiresome Parental Advisory stickers for this and indeed a couple of other songs. Arrangements are pin-sharp, strings swoon throughout and the overall mood on Passenger's second album is one of hope - perfect for warming-up crowds at festivals, you'd wager. It won't be long before he's headlining them but until then, an entire album of Rosenberg's odd vocals is still a bit of a bind.
Felice Brothers - Favorite Waitress - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Right at the beginning of the country-rockers' tenth album in almost as many years, a dog soundbombs the band's sessions causing much mirth among the members. And it's this informality that continues throughout Favorite Waitress. Perhaps their most accomplished recording to date, FW starts as it means to go on with the woozy Bird On a Broken Wing (after four minutes of which, the band continue its howling dog impressions to fade) and rockier REM-like Cherry Licorice, both prime examples of the siblings' ability to turn a tune on a dime. Lovers of Wilco, Jayhawks and Cracker will buzz around this honeypot of melodies like eager bees, packed with lyrics referencing box-cars, cigarettes, factory whistles and generally taking life slow. The album's pace wanes in the middle but there's enough to be going on with.
Neil Cowley Trio - Touch and Flee - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
When an award-winning alt-jazz outfit launches a fan's competition centred around the sleeve's artwork, you know you've hit witty paydirt. The cover of Touch and Flee presumably features member Rex Horan's extensive facial forest, possibly the focus of too much attention, hence the album's title. Well, let's hope that's the case, it sounds fun. As indeed does Touch and Flee itself. A smorgasbord of styles from many genres, mostly from a jazzy archetype although there are elements of Nils Frahm (the mood), Talk Talk (discordant rhythms) and other Naim Jazz stablemates, Kairos 4Tet (overall) throughout. Add in Neil Cowley's classical training and a bias towards the imaginative and Touch and Flee is the sum of its many parts. This is particularly so on Mission which is just about two and a half minutes in length but rather engaging nonetheless (it's a shame it's not twice the length - oh well, play it twice in succession, no-one will quibble). Sparkling isn't unlike an Atoms For Peace/Thom Yorke experiment, while Couch Slouch could be from a Herbie Hancock archive given its funky piano-led motif. Short (at 35 minutes) and sweet for the most part, Touch and Flee lacks a surefire belter but meanders pleasingly and playfully enough.
Kasabian - 48:13 - ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Gah! I was enjoying track 1 - a sort of ambient intro with spacey atmospherics. But then, bludgeoning its way into earshot after a minute or so is Leicester's version of Jump Around, otherwise known as (sic) bumblebeee. Laboured lumpen '90s beats, lyrics sputtering gems like 'when we come together, I'm in ecstasy' and 'can't geddenuff of the sunshine' - we had all this with Primal Scream didn't we? Apollo 440 (when they weren't very good)? The Music? Kasabian? With little exception, everything about this unlovable album is disappointing, tired and half-baked. The title (the length of the album), the music (covered already) and the fact they couldn't even be bothered to put capital letters at the beginning of the track-names. If Kasabian really have slaved over this album with blood, sweat and tears, what has happened to the virile band of old? The band you'd jump into a crowd for? It's great to move on and all that but... Have a listen to Explodes, sorry, explodes - that's a misleading moniker for a start. More like Farts (sorry, farts). And don't get me started on eez-eh - the perfect yobstep banger for your local provincial pub disco. Only stevie rewards your patience on an otherwise perplexing project that's a smear on pop's already overladen toilet. Shoot the runner? Shoot the band.
The first signings on multi-platinum producer Paul Epworth's new Wolf Tone label hail from Oxford and fuse glacial electronics and atmospherics with plaintive mini-anthems. Nothing new then? Well, perhaps not but Glass Animals' debut does have a certain resonance about it. The opening trio of Flip, Black Mambo and Pools display a clever knack of cross-pollinating minimalism with emotion, a tricky skill at the best of times, not far removed from Animal Collective, Alt-j et al. However, after ingesting those three songs on my travels towards the centre of the album, I'm not feeling charmed or joyful at the prospect of seeing out the rest of it. Y'see, there's not much in the way of soul. Sure Gooey sounds vaguely funky - they clearly like a bit of Flying Lotus I'd say, perhaps even James Blake - but it's a cosy groove, a metropolitan pulse that shivers rather than sweats out its existence. There's a vast improvement on Walla Walla, a sort of sub-bass samba for the disenchanted and Intruxx, as you might gather from its title, is an interlude formed of aquatic effects and sweeping synths - 'tis good, too. Hazey is rather pretty as well, a drunken canter that works better when played VERY loud - singer Dave Bayley declaring that he's 'fuckin' loco'. But as the album plays out, I'm yearning for a bit of action, a bit of assertion, energy, even heart-wrenching regret. Instead, for all of the interesting sounds and earnest efforts here, I'm left wanting and ZABA slips quietly out the door and onto the pile tagged 'done and dusted'.
Jack White - Lazaretto - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Lord of the riffs or just another fret boy? Certainly the latter, as his second solo opus seeks to prove from the off. Lazaretto is perhaps a little more focussed than predecessor Blunderbuss but still a little rough around the edges. It sounds vintage enough, but with a contemporary blueprint slick enough to appeal to audiophiles and fans alike. Three Women is funky-blues hokum that borders on parody - lyrics are mildly misogynist and simplistic to the point of hilarity, so it's up to the title-track to brush this nonsense aside and kickstart the album properly. Blessed with a fearsome riff and borne of a template straight out of psychedelic soul and frat-rap - imagine Beastie Boys, Cream and Os Mutantes locked in a studio and you're someway there. Of course, White frequently draws source-material from around the globe for his material. Temporary Ground has a modicum of bluegrass about it, while Southern rock features on the hoodoo strut that is High Ball Stepper. I Think I Found The Culprit has some typically oblique lyrics - try "...birds of a feather we lay together/ but the uglier one is always under the gun..." - and album-closer Want and Able rounds things off in melodramatic piano-thumped style, not unlike the Stones in fact. It's a Jack White album, neither ground-breaking nor boring - buy or pass by.
Chrissie Hynde - Stockholm - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
Active in music for nigh on forty years (if you count her formative years), the iconic Pretenders singer has assembled her first solo album of her colourful career. With guests including Neil Young and as sharp an imagination as any powerful woman in rock these days, you might be expecting Chrissie Hynde to break the mould with Stockholm. Not so. Of course, her resonating tonsils do the trick as usual and the melodies scale a few heady heights, especially on the singles Dark Sunglasses and You Or No One, but Stockholm is a low-key intimate affair that encompasses different styles - soft pop on In A Miracle, acoustic-rock on Adding The Blue and ballsy blues in the style of Tom Petty (or Neil Young) on Down The Wrong Way, the album's pistol-packin' highlight. Hynde's got more sass than most of the preening chart divas, with most of this first new material in six years hitting the mark.
Taylor McFerrin - Early Riser - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Somewhat inevitably, given that this man is vocalist Bobby McFerrin's son, Early Riser is very much about the harmonics of the human voice, as much as its RnB roots. Suffice to say it's true to the current wave of future soul hitting our shores. Taylor's oeuvre takes his father's cosmopolitan template, gives it a shake and pours it out as a cocktail of hazy psychedelia, out of beat street funk and occasional studio trickery. Thankfully rapping and singing doesn't swamp McFerrin's subtle layers of rhythm, as so often happens when 'guests' are invited to contribute on similar albums - tracks such as Already There and Decisions come out relatively unscathed, the latter not rhythmically unlike Zomby's work of late. Dad Bobby turns up on Invisible/Visible to add some unmistakable falsetto accompaniment before the track becomes submerged in a jazz fug that doesn't quite gel. Early Riser is an odd beast, truth be told. Play this to anyone without first clocking its creator's surname and you'd be forgiven for thinking, 'oh it's Sun Ra being remixed by Red Snapper'. There are bursts of sun-drenched soul spiked with frisky beats that work frequently, mis-fire occasionally and enthral often enough, so much so that Taylor McFerrin ends up as an entity without a pigeonhole. Believe me, that's a good thing.
Glitterbug - Dust - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
German electronica artist Till Rohmann has been knocking out wintery soundscapes for the best part of six years. Three albums in, plus a swathe of remixes and EPs, Glitterbug seems destined for restrained acceptance and undoubted acclaim. Album four is unlikely to change his current fortunes but it's a riveting listen. OK, there aren't heavy bangin' beats or the kind of sub-bass to jettison your eyeballs across the room - this is all about headphone-listening, the calm down, the come-down and being inspired enough to invest in some laptops and synths. Like Fennesz and Boards of Canada before him, Rohmann's alt-moniker creates soundtracks to climbing mountains, exploring fjords, sailing around Icelandic coastlines etc, using layered tidal surges of synths and the merest hint of threat. And while hardly a party animal, Rohmann's charged atmosphere's recall the morning after and the long walk home, through unfamiliar streets. There's a track called When The City Was bare - it's a fitting description for a piece that shimmers and pulsates like a town on a cold Sunday night - while The Stars Behind The Light is the closest we come to a 'dance track', resembling Pantha du Prince's slight take on club-music. What sounds like the end of days finishes this intriguing album - Look Around is almost musique-concrete for abandoned subways, a nine-minute post-apocalyptic concerto that slowly drones to an unnerving conclusion.
Dolly Parton - Blue Smoke (The Best Of) - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
By my reckoning, this is Parton's 42nd studio-album and ties in very nicely with her upcoming Glastonbury Festival appearance and much-touted world tour. To celebrate the occasion, certain copies of Blue Smoke come attached with a greatest hits of sorts, featuring a few re-recordings and classic renditions of Butterfly, I Will Always Love You, Little Sparrow and Jolene. As a standalone album, Blue Smoke does what every Dolly Parton album does - it swings, it twangs, it smooches, it wiggles its hips and it trills 'c'mon git me boys, I'm a whole lotta song for you'. Well, maybe. Glasto will love her and if she performs any of this, they'll love her more. The title-track is cheery hoedown hokum with cheesy lyrics like 'choo-choo-choo-woo-woo-woo...' etc, Lover Du Jour is Dolly wagging her finger at all the randy bad boys in the audience and You Can't Make Old Friends sees a returning duet with last year's Glasto triumph, the silver fox Kenny Rogers. Who's betting against a Glasto reunion? Crikey, she gets all funky on the stomping rocker Lay Your Hands On Me (yes, the Bon Jovi song) and calms things down on the sweet ballad Miss You-Miss Me. She'll own the UK in the next fortnight so you'd best get used to her cooing tunes at you, left right and centre. Blue Smoke is a decent album, truth be told, and certain to follow its predecessor Better Day into the Top 10.
Janet Devlin - Running With Scissors - ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Previously placed fifth on 2011's The X Factor series, this Irish folk-pop warbler's debut-album proper has been on the boil for some time. It isn't entirely new either - around half of the album has appeared on limited EPs and the Pledgemusic dry-run long-player issued last year. Has she missed the boat? Question is, was there even a boat to miss? Devlin's propensity to sing like an infant is oddly off-putting and the arrangements on Delicate (co-written with Jack Savoretti), Hide and Seek (vintage vinyl crackles included, ho hum) and the twee opener Creatures Of The Night all sound like future DFS adverts, mercifully minus ukuleles. Oh and there's a truly insipid version of my least-favourite Cure song, Friday I'm In Love. It was at this point I felt a sudden urge to throw my sofa out of the window. After all, it wouldn't be a problem getting a new one - I could just pop Janet's new album on and imagine I'm choosing a replacement in a showroom in my mind. The album's saving graces are the melodies - Devlin and co can write them for fun, to be fair - and at least she doesn't resort to cheapening her art with 'explicit' versions in order to be down with the kids. Otherwise, not for me.
Passenger - Whispers - ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
And here's another singer with a penchant for cutesy vocals. He and Devlin should hook up and make sweet music together. Actually, I'm being glib. For all of his twee Mumfordian anthemics, songwriter Mike Rosenberg can really turn a tune without breaking sweat and I can see why this man will be selling out yet more shows later this year (if he hasn't already). In fact throughout Whispers, Rosenberg gets quite wound-up about a few things. On Scare Away The Dark, he cites technology and reclusive behaviour for the human-race's ultimate demise - 'we're all slowly dying in front of fucking computers', he rails, almost earning one of those tiresome Parental Advisory stickers for this and indeed a couple of other songs. Arrangements are pin-sharp, strings swoon throughout and the overall mood on Passenger's second album is one of hope - perfect for warming-up crowds at festivals, you'd wager. It won't be long before he's headlining them but until then, an entire album of Rosenberg's odd vocals is still a bit of a bind.
Felice Brothers - Favorite Waitress - ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Right at the beginning of the country-rockers' tenth album in almost as many years, a dog soundbombs the band's sessions causing much mirth among the members. And it's this informality that continues throughout Favorite Waitress. Perhaps their most accomplished recording to date, FW starts as it means to go on with the woozy Bird On a Broken Wing (after four minutes of which, the band continue its howling dog impressions to fade) and rockier REM-like Cherry Licorice, both prime examples of the siblings' ability to turn a tune on a dime. Lovers of Wilco, Jayhawks and Cracker will buzz around this honeypot of melodies like eager bees, packed with lyrics referencing box-cars, cigarettes, factory whistles and generally taking life slow. The album's pace wanes in the middle but there's enough to be going on with.
Neil Cowley Trio - Touch and Flee - ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆
When an award-winning alt-jazz outfit launches a fan's competition centred around the sleeve's artwork, you know you've hit witty paydirt. The cover of Touch and Flee presumably features member Rex Horan's extensive facial forest, possibly the focus of too much attention, hence the album's title. Well, let's hope that's the case, it sounds fun. As indeed does Touch and Flee itself. A smorgasbord of styles from many genres, mostly from a jazzy archetype although there are elements of Nils Frahm (the mood), Talk Talk (discordant rhythms) and other Naim Jazz stablemates, Kairos 4Tet (overall) throughout. Add in Neil Cowley's classical training and a bias towards the imaginative and Touch and Flee is the sum of its many parts. This is particularly so on Mission which is just about two and a half minutes in length but rather engaging nonetheless (it's a shame it's not twice the length - oh well, play it twice in succession, no-one will quibble). Sparkling isn't unlike an Atoms For Peace/Thom Yorke experiment, while Couch Slouch could be from a Herbie Hancock archive given its funky piano-led motif. Short (at 35 minutes) and sweet for the most part, Touch and Flee lacks a surefire belter but meanders pleasingly and playfully enough.
Kasabian - 48:13 - ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Gah! I was enjoying track 1 - a sort of ambient intro with spacey atmospherics. But then, bludgeoning its way into earshot after a minute or so is Leicester's version of Jump Around, otherwise known as (sic) bumblebeee. Laboured lumpen '90s beats, lyrics sputtering gems like 'when we come together, I'm in ecstasy' and 'can't geddenuff of the sunshine' - we had all this with Primal Scream didn't we? Apollo 440 (when they weren't very good)? The Music? Kasabian? With little exception, everything about this unlovable album is disappointing, tired and half-baked. The title (the length of the album), the music (covered already) and the fact they couldn't even be bothered to put capital letters at the beginning of the track-names. If Kasabian really have slaved over this album with blood, sweat and tears, what has happened to the virile band of old? The band you'd jump into a crowd for? It's great to move on and all that but... Have a listen to Explodes, sorry, explodes - that's a misleading moniker for a start. More like Farts (sorry, farts). And don't get me started on eez-eh - the perfect yobstep banger for your local provincial pub disco. Only stevie rewards your patience on an otherwise perplexing project that's a smear on pop's already overladen toilet. Shoot the runner? Shoot the band.