Reviews of new releases by The Breeders, Ultimate Fakebook, Lauryn Hill and The Hackensack Boys.
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The Breeders
Title TK
The Deal sisters and Co. are back after nine years, with their first release since the college-chart smash Last Splash.
In the interim, Kelley Deal has undergone rehab for heroin addiction and traded her hypothermic for a knitting needle (she sells handbags online at www.kelleydeal.net/handbags1.htm). While Kelley's habit interfered with The Breeders' attempt to record a follow-up, ex-Pixie Kim Deal toyed with recording a solo record on which she'd play all the instruments a la Prince, but that project tanked as well.
Things slowly returned to a relative normalcy. In 1999, Kim met guitarist Richard Presley and bassist Mando Lopez of the L.A. punk band Fear in a New York bar, and teamed up with them, Kelley and drummer Andrew Jaimez, to rehearse and write songs throughout 2000. Those songs appear on Title TK, with Steve Albini (producer of Pixies' Surfer Rosa) at the helm.
The end result will disappoint Breeders fans expecting the catchy punk percussion, angular power chords and surf rock-ish melody they came to love since the days Tanya Donnelly threw her muse with the band. Title TK is much more monotonous and bare bones (a couple tracks, however, pleasantly recall The Pixies and early Breeders). It's a completely analog recording, the benchmark of a new movement/philosophy Kim coined "All Wave" (similar to filmmaker's Lars Von Trier's Dogme 95 school of new realism) wherein digital manipulations are eschewed for a more raw sound. This approach does work — for listeners with patience and appreciation for subtlety. There's a purity and simplicity at work here that's utterly breathtaking at times, from the strong-armed "Little Fury" and rocking "Full on Idle" to the chilling ballad "London Song." Yes, there are hooks, but they're less prominent, with fuzzy guitars, synths and primitive drumbeats in very spare arrangements. Kim, now 40, has lost a little of the sweetness to her voice, but hard living has lent a rough-hewn charm to her talky delivery.
Picture the record label execs referencing The Strokes and using finger quotes, proclaiming, "This is a very now CD." Because it is — for better or worse. (4AD/Elektra)—Julie Garisto 
Lauryn Hill
MTV Unplugged 2.0
This is juice, people, this is power. Lauryn Hill announces to the suits at Columbia that she's going to take a whole batch of new songs and perform them live on an MTV Unplugged show with just an acoustic guitar — and that's going to be her new album. And Columbia says yes, or perhaps has no other choice. Sad to say, the project is a failure. Unplugged 2.0 is Hill's anti-star trip album; for anyone who gives a shit, its heavy-handed theme chronicles her personal awakening about, basically, keepin' it real. She hammers this home not just in the lyrics, but in long, between-song speeches. Twenty-seven minutes and 53 seconds of the double disc's 106:46 are of Hill talking — pontificating, cajoling, complaining, self-examining. There are some diamond-in-the-rough tunes here, but they fail to coalesce around Hill's excessively ragged voice and percussive guitar work. To be fair, Unplugged contains a bunch of potent lyrics about self-determination, spirituality and love, as well as a couple of good protest raps. This show might've been pretty hip to witness live, or even watch on TV, but as an audio document, it's a major misfire. (Columbia)—Eric Snider 
Ultimate Fakebook
Open Up and Say Awesome
Perhaps the most terminally underrated act to come out of the Midwest's once-burgeoning indie pop-rock scene, the Kansas trio Ultimate Fakebook emerges from a major-label deal gone sour with its songwriting savvy intact. Their debut disc avoided emo cliches in favor of ballsy, Elvis Costello/Cheap Trick-flavored power-pop and fond remembrances of a wayward glam-metalhead youth. Despite its Poison-nicked title, Open Up largely forgoes the lyrical glam-rock nostalgia, but the hooks are still here. The disc also finds UFB stretching their stylistic legs a bit. While tracks like "When I'm with You, I'm OK," "Before You Leave," "Goddamn Dance Craze" and "Valentines" successfully mine the same peppy, infectious vein as their debut, the programmed rhythms of "Inside Me, Inside You" and the acoustic-laced potential smash "Combat Fatigue" (featuring Get Up Kids/New Amsterdams principal Matt Pryor) showcase a band maturing and becoming comfortable with branching out. Nothing here falls short, and several cuts, including the harder-edged opener "Wrestling Leap Year," top their first record's best moments. Check it out — it's not exactly a daring foray into undiscovered musical territory, but very few young rock 'n' roll bands are writing tunes this immaculate, energetic and fun. (Initial, www.initialrecords.com) Ultimate Fakebook appears at The Orpheum on May 23.—Scott Harrell 
The Hackensaw Boys
Keep it Simple
If twang's your thang, Then The Hackensaw Boys latest offering will sate your appetite like a warm slice of homemade cornbread and a cool glass of ice tea. Based in Charlottesville, Va., The H-Boys are a 10-piece collective who provide balmy, nasal mountain vocals across a sonic tapestry of accordion, banjo, dobro, fiddle, mandolin, harmonica, double bass and washboard. Keep it Simple is a taut 14-song assembly of originals heavily informed by the Appalachian sounds of acts such as The Stanley Brothers. Throughout the album, The H-Boys deftly alternate from foot-stomping, danceable fun to tender, emotive, high-harmony ballads. If you're one of the 5-million who purchased O Brother — and actually enjoy listening to it — The H-Boys latest lo-fi, campfire recording should bode well. (Harvest Moon, www.hackensawboys.com) —Wade Tatangelo
This article appears in May 22-28, 2002.
