NextDoorLand
THE SOFT BOYS
Matador

The Soft Boys broke up in 1980 after having recorded the now-classic, then commercially unsuccessful Underwater Moonlight. The band's John-Lennon-meets-Syd-Barrett-and-Captian-Beefheart-in-a-dark-alley approach had its share of fans but didn't catch on with the three-chord-punk savants of the time. With complicated, snarling guitar lines meshing into vibrantly catchy choruses, the Boys had run out of steam by the time reality caught up with them in the anti-Beatles wave of the late 1970s. Later, in the early '80s, critics caught on to the erstwhile group, as did indie rock heavyweights R.E.M., Lets Active and The dBs. Frontman and primary singer/songwriter Robyn Hitchcock went on to a successful solo career, venturing into the strange waters of cult rock icon, recruiting former Soft Boys along the way. Meanwhile, lead guitarist Kimberly Rew went on to pen the sports bar pop classic "Walking on Sunshine" and become the creative force behind Katrina and the Waves.

Though many of the new CD's songs would not be out of place on any solo Hitchcock release, NextDoorLand's guitar work sets it apart. Pushed to the front, the Beatles/Byrds jangle of "Queen of Eyes" returns after Hitchcock's 22 years as a one-man ax shaman, reeling in seemingly unwieldy lines into his fractured, surrealist pop framework. With Rew back on lead, the two now sound like Siamese twin brothers relying more on telepathy than ability to create an intertwining guitar temple that is perhaps better than its original incarnation.

"I Love Lucy" and "Strings" are the most Soft Boys-esque tunes, which might leave the die-hard fan either disappointed or eager for more. But make no mistake, the creepy edge of early guitar swashbuckling tracks like "Kingdom of Love" and "I'll Have to Go Sideways" is merely tempered, not tainted, with age and an unhurried competence. From the radio-ready pop jangle of "Mr. Kennedy" and "Sudden Town" to the meditative strains of "My Mind is Connected," Robyn breaks free a little from his post-Egyptians funk and gets back to basics.

The lyrics on NextDoorLand are some of Robyn's best. Always one to mince words, if not completely puree them, Hitchcock maintains his predilection for the unusual, even among the commonplace. "You can set your watch by me/ I'm a regular guy," he proclaims in "Pulse of My Heart." But, by the time the album reaches the cryptic breakdown of "Strings," the listener is back in familiar disturbing territory: "Take your partner by the middle/ Like a burger on a griddle/ If you would retaliate/ Just remember love is hate." —Mike Fuller

Shut Up, You Fucking Baby!
DAVID CROSS
Sub Pop

It's finally OK to dig stand-up again. David Cross, hipster comedy favorite and co-creator of HBO's Mr. Show with Bob Odenkirk, has offered up a double-disc's worth of scathing and socially insightful banter good enough to stand with the genre's most provocative names. Obviously an acolyte of the late, great Bill Hicks (who himself took a cue from immortals like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Eric Bogosian), Cross eschews polished inoffensive patter in favor of a rambling, slightly buzzed social discourse that cagily uses shock to break down the politically correct facade of cultural conditioning. But Cross isn't a sociology teacher, and he's just as funny when taking on America's insubstantial post-9/11 patriotic lip-service ("If Gabriel doesn't Rollerblade to Chelsea Piers, then the terrorists have won") as he is when talking about getting fucked up with Bands on The Run losers Harlow. Religion, youth marketing ("Squagles! Fuck your round bagels, grandpa!"), cliched morning DJ teams, The Promise Keepers and much more are raked over the coals, though his comfortable, conversational persona keeps things from ever lapsing into a tiresome rant about how the world is going to hell. Cross' facility with overblown accents helps create a unique dynamic that presents the most mundane anecdotes in hilariously hyperbolic style. Sure, the disc drags a bit at points — what comedy CD doesn't? But those lows are few, and the space between them is packed with material that elicits everything from gut-laughs to the best kind of revulsion. Highly recommended, so long as you're not a Christian, a lemming or instinctively repelled by repeated use of the word "motherfucker." —Scott Harrell

Lean Beat
RETISONIC
Silverthree Sound Recordings

After four albums with Bluetip for seminal Washington, D.C., artcore label Dischord, songwriter Jason Farrell joins forces with ex-Garden Variety drummer Jason Gorelock for an EP of sinewy, somewhat disconcerting posthardcore. While the inventive rhythms are engaging enough, Farrell's odd combination of eccentric riffage and flamboyant vocal delivery come off as strange bedfellows; one tends to associate such a distinctive singing style with more straightforward, dated song structures (see classic Bowie), and it's a bit tough to get one's ear around Retisonic's admittedly daring results. "Filthy Way to Lose Yourself" is probably the most accessible thing here, but none of the tunes, from the stop-and-go "Caught in The Light" to the raging "Unrepentant," are short on energy or execution. It's just that, at the end of the day, Lean Beat sounds a bit too much like a less subtle Burning Airlines, albeit with an extremely extroverted and stylized vocalist, for comfort. (www.silverthree.com) —Scott Harrell