Album Reviews: Avi Buffalo, Homeboy Sandman, Loudon Wainwright III

There’s no running theme with these three albums: an underrated Sub Pop band that I’ve been talking up since 2010, a socially conscious rapper from Queens, and a legendary singer-songwriter whose last album was a pretty great look at growing old. They all have new albums out, and I’ve been listening to them all quite a bit. Here are my thoughts.

Avi Buffalo: At Best Cuckold (Sub Pop) Everything about my usual taste says that I should have been completely turned off by their 2010 debut. Instead, it’s one of my absolute favorites of the decade. Since that album was released when Avi Zahner-Isenberg was just 19 years old, it would be expected that the follow-up would show more maturity, especially since it’s been released over four years later. Instead, he’s doubled down on everything that the band’s detractors dislike about them, from the abrasive falsetto to incomprehensible lines like “I’m a cheeseball on fire” and “A couple nights ago, I ran over two dogs/And then I ate them after/I think it’s gonna happen again.” This exaggeration of the bizarre qualities that were already pretty exaggerated to begin with can be a little hard to take (“Memories of You” is the closest I’ve come to actually hating an Avi Buffalo song). But there’s still plenty to love here, like the gorgeous production on “Overwhelmed with Pride,” the standout melody of “Can’t Be Too Responsible,” and a memorable piano part in “She is Seventeen.” And if it lacks a key track at the level of the debut’s “Coaxed” or “One Last,” well, that’s because he opted to leave off “Good, I’m Wishing,” the band’s greatest song and one of the finest b-sides I’ve ever heard. A-

Homeboy Sandman: Hallways (Stones Throw) Few rappers have had as good a year as Homeboy Sandman’s 2012, when he released two terrific EPs and an even better full-length album. It was such a strong year for him, in fact, that what followed couldn’t help but disappoint. After First of a Living Breed, Sandman released a series of EPs, each less satisfying than the last. It was hard to tell if he was going through a slump or if he’d lost his edge. As it turns out, he was just preparing for this magnificent album. It’s obvious that this is a step up as early as track two, “America, the Beautiful,” where he remarks, “We are the 99 percent locally/We are the one percent globally.” It’s one of the strongest and smartest tracks he’s ever done, and it’s topped not long after by the hilarious, self-deprecating “Personal Ad.” Even compared to his previous peaks, this is a triumph. A-

Loudon Wainwright III: Haven’t Got the Blues (Yet) (Proper) Two years after his concept album about old age, he’s back with a record intended to showcase more conceptual variety. In doing so, he proves how essential the concept was to Older Than My Old Man Now, which I never really bought as a masterpiece to begin with—just a seemingly important collection of hit-or-miss tracks. This is another collection of hit-or-miss tracks but, without the theme to hold them all together, the misses are far more disposable (especially true of the opening track, with its embarrassingly typical throwback horn section). Some tracks work quite well—the gorgeous music of “I Knew Your Mother” makes me wonder if Loudon’s a fan of Jens Lekman, while I hope “Harlan County” appears somewhere in the final season of Justified. But the record’s stupid moments lack the self-awareness of Older Than My Old Man Now’s “I Remember Sex,” resulting in “I’ll Be Killing You (This Christmas),” a god-awful piece of satire that makes Randy Newman’s “I’m Dreaming” sound like “Rednecks.” If stupidity is at its most irksome when it’s under the guise of saying something substantial, then I’ve found the musical equivalent of Fight Club. B-