Tuesday, March 18, 2008

GET THE PARTY STARTED

Dame Shirley Bassey

Dame Shirley Bassey once seemed destined to fade into the sort of genteel obscurity reserved for singers of mid-period James Bond themes and retired Supreme Court justices. But after an unlikely career resuscitation courtesy of the Propellerheads, who used her vocals on their 1997 hit "History Repeating," the 71-year-old Bassey has, like Tony Bennett, become the sort of old-timer whom hipsters find cuddly.

"Get the Party Started," a curious combination of primer, remix disc and covers collection, makes an aggressive case for Bassey as a club/camp icon. "Party" sets loose remixers like the Glimmers and Bugz in the Attic, who roam freely among new and catalogue tracks but don't do too much damage, adding subtle elements of dub and heaping helpings of drum machines but frequently leaving the arrangements fairly intact.

"Party" omits such Bassey Bond classics as "Goldfinger" and "Diamonds Are Forever" (too sacred -- or too expensive?), substituting instead a particularly fiery version of Nancy Sinatra's Bond theme "You Only Live Twice." Standards like "Big Spender" and "I Who Have Nothing" are given boisterous electro-makeovers, and, like most everything here, are constructed in a way that emphasizes the essential archness, the vaguely disapproving dame-liness, of Bassey's delivery. A sludgy, buzzy cover of Lionel Richie's "Hello" is perfect for the chill-out tent, and the title track (a cover of the Pink hit) manages to be endearingly awkward, off-puttingly regal and slightly terrifying, all at the same time.

-- Allison Stewart

DOWNLOAD THESE:"Big Spender," "Slave to the Rhythm"

TROUBLE IN DREAMS

Destroyer

Aglam rock aura has persistently dogged Dan Bejar, the 35-year-old Canadian who's recorded as Destroyer for over a decade. Yet Bejar has always been more bookish rock-and-roll historian than sexy space man. His ninth album, "Trouble in Dreams" offers more cherry-picked moves from a knowing collector of quotations with a vast library of vintage psychedelic folk.

Bejar's precious taste in the prog end of pop history can get queasy. But he's often a good enough bricoleur to excuse his affectations. On "Trouble in Dreams," "good" means drowsy tunes such as the opener, "Blue Flowers/Blue Flame," which drifts on lonesome tremolo guitar and cascading piano. Bejar's best songs pick up at the moment when the Summer of Love's rainbow bubble popped and rock went both wistful and outsize. And though he shines when mopey, moments like the downcast guitar heroics closing out "Rivers" suggest those '70s rock epics he studies so intently are not necessarily beyond his grasp.

Except Bejar's at his worst when it comes to songs like the needlessly baroque "Shooting Rocks (From the Desk of Night's Ape)," where he warbles somewhere between a Lloyd Webber lead and a character in a "Monty Python" sketch mocking post-hippie pretentiousness. Such lyrics as "I'll tell you what I mean by that/Maybe not in seconds flat/Maybe not today" suggest the sort of songwriting philosophy that attracts a fervent cult. The question for new fans might be whether they'll struggle through Bejar's pinched delivery to get to goods like the breakneck piano/guitar duel on "Plaza Trinidad."

Destroyer will perform at the Black Cat on April 25.

-- Jess Harvell

DOWNLOAD THESE:"Rivers," "Leopard of Honor"

MIDNIGHT BOOM

The Kills

Onstage, the Kills' garage rock is deadly. American Alison Mosshart stalks like a caged panther, singing with danger in her eyes and sex in her voice. Her partner in grime, British guitarist Jamie Hince, yanks clanging tones from his creative battle-ax. A drum machine clicks out metronomic beats. It helps to envision this raw, sparse dynamic while listening to the Kills' 34-minute new album, "Midnight Boom." Otherwise, the duo's edgy, punked-up assault may feel thin to listeners accustomed to full-band albums.

Laced with shades of glam, new wave, even hip-hop, the Kills' third disc is being hyped as a broader, "beat-driven" excursion. This description is dead-on, sometimes to a hand-clapping fault. "Sour Cherry" sounds like something Toni Basil trotted home from cheerleader camp. The same might be said for the better "Alphabet Pony," except Hince supercharges it with scraping, cool-ghoul guitar bursts. If it's impressive how hard two people can rock over a wimpy drum track during the chorus to "Tape Song," it's equally intriguing how the mechanized beats inject urgency. There's no stopping a song once it's begun, so the creators have but one option: keep pace.

Perhaps being controlled by a machine is what makes the Kills' human urges so palpable. By providing hipster-dude vocals during the duet "Getting Down," Hince amplifies the sinister sexual tension that permeates everything this platonic pair does. But if the Kills perpetually seem on the brink of a primal meltdown, Mosshart isn't about to resist. "I want you to be crazy," she suggests during the groovy chorus to "Cheap and Cheerful," " 'cuz you're boring, baby, when you're straight."

-- Michael Deeds

DOWNLOAD THESE: "Cheap and Cheerful," "Alphabet Pony," "What New York Used to Be"