REVIEW -- DARK WAS THE NIGHT

Various Artists

Dark Was the Night

(4AD)

The latest compilation from the Red Hot Organization features an indie-rock who’s who: the New Pornographers, Spoon, Arcade Fire. You name them, they’re probably here. The 31 songs on the two discs range from inspired pairings (Feist with Ben Gibbard) to sleepy covers (Antony with the National’s Bryce Dessner drift through Dylan’s “I Was Young When I Left Home”). Some of it works – Conor Oberst covers his own “Lua” with Gillian Welch – while some of it bleeds into the background (is that you, Yeasayer?). The best cuts find the balance between reverence (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings bow to Shuggie Otis) and flighty fun (My Morning Jacket’s horny “El Caporal”). And all of it will make you the hippest guy on the block. -- Michael Gallucci

CULTURE JAMMING -- FEBRUARY 25

TOP PICK

Beastie Boys: Paul’s Boutique: 20^th Anniversary Edition

(Capitol)

One of the greatest hip-hop albums of all-time, and one of the best uses ever of the studio as playground, celebrates 20 years with a remastered CD. Nothing new here, but every old-school TV, funk and soul sample rings out with needle-on-the-record clarity. Get ready to get down to “Hey Ladies,” “Shake Your Rump” and “Shadrach” all over again.

TV

The Chris Isaak Hour

(BIO)

Singer-songwriter Isaak is a natural smartass. He’s also super-smooth onscreen (check out his small role in Silence of the Lambs or his “Wicked Game” video, where he gets busy with a hottie on a beach). His new weekly series -- premiering at 10 p.m. Thursday – is part interview, part performance, as musical guests sit, chat and sing with the affable star.

DVD

Clint Eastwood: American Icon Collection

(Universal)

The four movies in this box aren’t Eastwood’s best, but they come pretty close to summing up both the actor and director. In The Eiger Sanction and Coogan’s Bluff he plays vengeful gunmen working outside of the law (paging Harry Callahan!). Better is the Civil War-set The Beguiled and Play Misty for Me, about a DJ and his psychotic fan.

CD

Buddy Holly: Memorial Collection

(Geffen/Decca/UME)

Holly died 50 years ago this month. This three-disc, 60-song set underscores the tragedy. The Texas songwriter and guitarist was a rawer singer than Elvis, messed around with studio gadgets years before anyone else did and left a ton of great songs (“That’ll Be the Day,” “Not Fade Away,” “Oh Boy!” – all included here) as a legacy. Rave on, indeed.

DVD

Little Miss Sunshine

(Twentieth Century Fox)

The 2006 Oscar winner comes to Blu-ray, and it holds up – especially Toni Collette as a mom keeping her family together during a cross-country road trip to a beauty pageant. Steve Carell has his most subtle role, and Alan Arkin – as a heroin-snorting, porn-loving grandpa – has his most showy. Plus, the crazy kid from There Will Be Blood gets all gloomy and mute.

--Michael Gallucci

REVIEW -- ... AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD: THE CENTURY OF SELF

… And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead

The Century of Self

(Richter Scale/Justice)

The past couple of years have been pretty crappy for Austin noisemakers … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. They lost their drummer, barely made it through a turbulent tour, and parted with the major label that’s released their scruffy, art-damaged music since 2002. Regrouped and once again indie, Conrad Keely and Jason Reece turn their attention to the raw, jagged sound sculptures that launched their career. Too bad most of the songs on The Century of Self, their sixth album, come off as throwbacks to a better time -- say, 2002, when they made Source Tags & Code, or even 2005, when they released Worlds Apart. Plus, several tracks are among the band’s most conventional. “Luna Park” coasts alongside power-ballad territory, and “Pictures of an Only Child” wouldn’t sound out of place slotted between Shinedown and Seether on one of those radio stations that still plays Shinedown and Seether. Still, the opening one-two punch of proggy instrumental “Giants Causeway” and the indie-rock guitar blasts of “Far Pavillions” let on that the band’s snotty spirit is still there. You just have to dig it out under all the muck. -- Michael Gallucci

REVIEW -- U2: NO LINE ON THE HORIZON

U2

No Line on the Horizon

(Interscope)

U2 are the planet’s last Big Rock Stars. They’re multimillion-selling giants among faceless Frays and overreaching Coldplays. They pack stadiums with a huge repertoire of great songs that spans three decades. And they still make event albums that purport to be about something. Ever since 2000’s back-on-track All That You Can’t Leave Behind, U2 have soaked in their own mythical stature. Their last album, 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, was pretty much U2 Mad Libs: “inspiring adjective,” “persuasive verb,” “something that causes damage” -- not bad, familiar sounding but ultimately forgettable. No Line on the Horizon, their 12^th album, is a bit more inspired, reaching back to 1984’s moody The Unforgettable Fire for motivation. And it’s right there from the start, on the opening title tune, where the guitars ring large, the words are quasi-mystical (“You can hear the universe in her sea shells”) and the sound is that of a band with vital things on its mind, even if those things are kinda vague at times. Producers Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite – vets behind U2’s best albums – layer the songs with oodles of atmospheric texture, as Bono gets all solemn and the Edge picks out weighty guitar lines. No Line on the Horizon is filled with this self-importance. Only the fizzy, fuzzy “Get on Your Boots” cracks a smile, but it sounds labored, especially within the context. Better are those Big Rock Star moments that made U2 big rock stars: “Magnificent”’s systematic buildup, the chiming “Unknown Caller” and “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”’s sweeping grandeur. It’s classic U2, toiling in the landscapes of hope, glory and messy messianic proclamations. -- Michael Gallucci

REVIEW -- N.A.S.A.: THE SPIRIT OF APOLLO

N.A.S.A.

The Spirit of Apollo

(Anti-)

The real stars of N.A.S.A. aren’t the L.A. production duo at the center of the studio project. It’s all the big names that weave in and out of the grooves. For more than an hour, they come: David Byrne, M.I.A. They go: Tom Waits, Karen O. There’s even a bunch of Wu-Tangers in there somewhere. Masterminds Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon get lost in the shuffle, but The Spirit of Apollo is all about mashing-up hip-hop like it’s some sort of pliable natural substance. So even if the beats are supple (the lurching global funk of “People Tree,” “Strange Enough”’s razor-blade rock, the stuttering and spastic “Whachadoin?”), the rhymes flow like something out of a fever dream. Would you expect anything less from George Clinton, Kool Keith and Ol’ Dirty Bastard? -- Michael Gallucci

FIVE COUNTRY ARTISTS WHO DON'T SUCK

Nashville has a reputation for turning out crap. And rightfully so: Toby Keith’s good-ol’-boy flag-wavers and Rascal Flatts’ power ballads are enough to drive anyone to drinking. Plus, Music City recently gave Jessica Simpson and Hootie & the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker new careers (and No. 1 albums).

But not all country music sucks. And we’re not talking about hipster-approved dead guys like Johnny Cash or alt-country shit-kickers, who don’t count because country-music fans never heard of the Old 97’s. Here are five country artists worth hootin’ and hollerin’ over.

Gary Allan

Allan has been kicking around Nashville record companies since 1996, covering Todd Snider and occasionally reaching the top of the country charts. In 2004, his wife killed herself. The following year, he released Tough All Over, an aching and tortured song cycle about her death and his healing. Since then it’s hard not to hear everything Allan sings (like “Watching Airplanes” and “Learning How to Bend” from 2007’s Living Hard) as a conduit for his loss.

Why he doesn’t suck: Allan’s lonesome twang has a traditional kick to it, and he never tries to be a hard-ass – especially when it comes to kids, his feelings and songs about rain.

Album to buy: Tough All Over

Miranda Lambert

Lambert’s breakthrough single, “Kerosene,” ignited the whole psycho-girlfriend-will-set-your-shit-on-fire club that also includes Carrie, Taylor and Heidi (Newfield). She even called her second album Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Like fellow tough gal Gretchen Wilson, Lambert likes beer and guns; unlike Wilson, she doesn’t want to be one of the boys. She just wants respect, and she’ll kick your ass to get it. She also writes deep: “Famous in a Small Town” is the best song ever about off-the-map rural living.

Why she doesn’t suck: Even Lambert’s sensitive songs come with a side of spite, but she’s all about fair warning: “Gunpowder & Lead” sure ain’t her shopping list.

Album to buy: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Brad Paisley

He can be kinda hokey (all of his albums include old-school star-packed skits that Hee Haw would have rejected). He has a sentimental streak a country-mile long. And he often panders to his audience. Yet Paisley works all of this to his advantage, with a self-deprecating style and a knack for traditional songcraft. It’s not every artist who can turn a tune about looking for bloodsucking bugs into a sexy come-on. Plus, he’s a hell of a guitar player.

Why he doesn’t suck: In his smart 2005 hit “Alcohol,” Paisley becomes a bottle of booze, declaring “You’ll have some of the best times you’ll never remember with me.”

Album to buy: Time Well Wasted

Sugarland

Before they formed Sugarland, Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush toiled separately in the Americana scene. Together (and initially with a third member, who quit the group after their debut album) they make a smooth blend of country and pop that never adheres too closely to either side. They also pile on the hooks -- take a listen to their recent chart-topper “Already Gone.” And Nettles is one of country’s best singers, with a zip of twang underlining her dusky voice.

Why they don’t suck: “Stay” is an award-hogging weeper about a man, a wife and the other woman the man is sleeping with -- told from the perspective of the other woman. Brilliant.

Album to buy: Love on the Inside

Taylor Swift

She’s 19 years old, obsessed with guys and one of today’s top songwriters. The best songs on Swift’s self-titled 2006 debut are about a boy friend (not boyfriend), who she also happens to have a huge crush on. They’re all true. Follow-up Fearless was last year’s best pop album, deftly crisscrossing and transcending genres. She lives in a fantasy world of princes, white horses and ball gowns, but she’s the first to admit these romantic notions are totally naive. She’s honest that way.

Why she doesn’t suck: On one of her debut’s five hit singles, she informs an ex: “Go and tell your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy/That’s fine/I’ll tell mine you’re gay.” Zing!

Album to buy: Fearless

--Michael Gallucci

CULTURE JAMMING - FEBRUARY 18

TOP PICK

The Secret Policeman’s Balls

(Shout! Factory)

Since 1976, Amnesty International has hosted benefit concerts starring everyone from English funnymen Monty Python to English rocker Peter Gabriel. This three-DVD box gathers five shows from ’76 through ’89 featuring many stellar performances, including an unplugged Pete Townshend and a pre-House Hugh Laurie.

CD

Bee Gees: Odessa

(Reprise)

Before they raised their voices and tightened their trousers for the disco explosion, the Bee Gees were a Beatlesque pop band that dabbled in folk and psychedelia. This extras-stuffed three-disc set celebrates the 40^th anniversary of the group’s most mind-bending freak-out, which is loaded with baroque arrangements and flowery orchestration. Wild!

CD

Pat Green: What I’m For

(BNA/Sony BMG)

Singer-songwriter Green’s twangy ruminations on girlfriends, factory workers and long nights of drinking pack more hooks than almost anything else coming out of Nashville these days. Best: “Country Star,” a name-dropping riff on Nickelback’s bloated “Rockstar,” complete with Big & Rich, Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood references.

BOOK

Saga of the Swamp Thing Book 1

(Vertigo)

Before he wrote the best comic book ever (Watchmen – duh), Moore penned the almost-as-excellent Swamp Thing. This volume gathers the first eight issues in Moore’s run. The leafy creature’s stories combine complex characters, rich storytelling and a breakdown of comic convention -- traits that Moore would explore and elevate even more in later works.

DVD

Brian Wilson: That Lucky Old Sun

(Capitol/EMI)
Wilson’s gooey, cluttered concept album about California was way too gooey and cluttered. But this live performance practically redeems the whole mess. Watching the large group of musicians – string players, horn players, some guy who plays the triangle – put all the pieces together in a crammed Hollywood studio reveals plenty of music-making magic.

--Michael Gallucci

INTERVIEW -- TOKYO POLICE CLUB

You’re not the only one who thinks Tokyo Police Club’s debut album, Elephant Shell, is too short. Keyboardist Graham Wright has heard that complaint about a zillion times since the record came out last April. And he agrees with you – it is a brief album, clocking in at less than half an hour. But in an era when Guns N’ Roses ruin a perfectly good Chinese Democracy by tacking on an extra four or five songs and Lil Wayne fills every single second of a CD’s capacity with rhymes about his breakfast, maybe we shouldn’t complain.

Tokyo Police Club’s songs take just as long as they need to make their points – no more, no less, says Wright. “We don’t time the songs when we write them,” he says. “They feel long. We’ll write a song and think, ‘Oh man, that one’s gotta be four minutes.’ Then we’ll time it and it’s two-and-a-half.”

Plus, there’s this: The band regards its 2006 EP, A Lesson in Crime (which had the indie-rock community drooling upon its release) as its debut statement – even though it ran only 16 minutes. “We toured on it so much and we supported it so heavily, for all intents and purposes, other than length, it was more than just a taster,” says Wright. “I really consider it our first record.”

Clearly, the guys in Tokyo Police Club (Wright, singer-bassist David Monks, guitarist Josh Hook and drummer Greg Alsop) don’t pay much attention to industry convention. If they want to call their EP an album, fine – it’s an album. And if they claim their 28-minute record is just the right length, no problem. They never looked at anyone else’s career as a guidepost anyway.

The group formed in 2005 in Newmarket, Ontario. It’s close to Toronto. But Wright, the band’s resident, and very prolific, blogger (“There’s a lot of spare time when you’re on tour,” he laughs), says it’s ridiculous to slot Tokyo Police Club in with other Canadian bands just because, you know, they’re from Canada. “It’s a huge piece of land,” he says. “The music made in Toronto is going to be very different from the music made in Vancouver, which is going to be different from the music made in Halifax. Still, people want to lump it into one big Canadian Rock category.”

Hanging out in local clubs, the four members absorbed the sounds they heard: a little bit of garage, some post-punk, a whole lotta all-encompassing indie-rock. “We’ve always excelled at being rip-off artists,” says Wright. “We listen to a lot of music but nothing really leftfield. Nobody’s into crazy jazz or bizarre electronic music.”

Within a year, the guys (all just out of their teens) released A Lesson in Crime, which swept the Internet like an Arcade Fire. They played the massive Coachella and Glastonbury music festivals. And they waited for the inevitable backlash from the fickle hipsters who originally embraced them. “When our album came out, I read the reviews,” says Wright. “But it got to a point where I stopped caring. It doesn’t matter to me. I made the record and I like it.”

Elephant Shell’s 11 songs range from over-caffeinated pop-punk (“Your English Is Good”) to Decemberists-like word-twisters (“Tessellate”). Only one cut stretches beyond the three-minute mark. Opener “Centennial” doesn’t even make it to two minutes. And it all rushes past before you even have time to notice if there’s anything wrong with it.

The buzz – plus a connected pal -- took the guys all the way to Desperate Housewives in November, when they portrayed a group called Cold Splash in an episode featuring a battle of the bands (they performed Elephant Shell’s “In a Cave”). Unfortunately, the prime-time exposure didn’t result in a No. 1 album the following week. “We weren’t fooling ourselves into thinking we were going to suddenly crack the 30-to-50-year-old-woman demographic,” says Wright. “We knew we weren’t going to be the next Josh Groban.”

After a short break, Tokyo Police Club are on the road again. They pretty much have been there since A Lesson in Crime came out three years ago. They really haven’t had time to work on any new material, so their sets consist mostly of some combination of the 22 songs they’ve recorded so far (there’s also a four-song EP from 2007). That gives them about, oh, 53 minutes onstage. “Some nights we play faster than others,” says Wright. “But we’ve played shows that hit the 60-minute mark. It is technically possible for us to play for an hour.”

--Michael Gallucci

REVIEW -- VETIVER: TIGHT KNIT

Veiver

Tight Knit

(Sub Pop)

The scent of patchouli is all over Vetiver’s fourth album. So is the smell of fresh country air, weed and Cheetos. The San Francisco group, anchored by Andy Cabic, is so laid-back, it makes Fleet Foxes sound like Mastodon. Tight Knit doesn’t stray far from the post-hippie folkie template: soft voices, delicate arrangements, gentle acoustic songs about rolling seas and the edge of the forest. Cabic is a pleasant enough singer, gliding over his songs like they were a wisp of smoke. Occasionally, he even sounds like George Harrison at his drippiest. “More of This” picks up the pace a little, and horns punctuate “Another Reason to Go.” But most of Tight Knit coasts along a stream of acoustic guitars, hand percussion and slender melodies that don’t express much more than “Take it easy, man.” -- Michael Gallucci

CULTURE JAMMING -- FEBRUARY 11

TOP PICK

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

(Electronic Arts)

Get your geek on in this action-packed videogame (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Nintendo DS) that gets right to the good stuff: kick-ass battles featuring Aragon, Gandalf, Legalos and many other warriors from Tolkien’s drooled-over fantasy world. Best of all, the epic online mode includes a 16-player bloodbath.

DVD

Back to the Future trilogy

(Universal Studios)

Fire up the DeLorean – the ’80s faves are available for the first time individually (all three movies were boxed up a few years ago). The original Back to the Future, from 1985, still thrills, especially the scenes where Michael J. Fox travels back to the ’50s and hooks up his mom and dad. The sequels are nostalgic; the deleted scenes and outtakes top the extras.

CD

The Jacksons reissues

(Epic/Legacy)

In between 1978’s Destiny and 1980’s Triumph, baby brother Michael released Off the Wall and changed pop music forever. His siblings wisely let him loose on these albums (Triumph has the edge, sounding like a lost link between Wall and Thriller). The expanded editions tag on disco remixes, so you can shake your body down to the ground all night long.

VIDEOGAME

Skate 2

(Electronic Arts)

I’m not really into skating games, mostly because the controls are too damn complex to figure out. But this series (for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) doesn’t require a phonebook-size manual to master tricks like one-foots and hippy jumps. There’s a storyline here, but the real action happens on the board – and sometimes off: The Hall of Meat highlights your best wipeouts.

DVD

SpongeBob SquarePants: Spongicus

(Nickelodeon/Paramount)

The world’s happiest and occasionally most annoying sponge unleashes hell in an underwater Gladiator spoof in this collection’s best episode. The other seven stories feature Bikini Bottom regulars Squidward, Patrick and Plankton starting a band (the excellently titled “Krabby Road”) and the perpetually cheap Mr. Krabs chasing down a penny.

--Michael Gallucci

REVIEW -- LIVING THINGS: HABEAS CORPUS

Living Things

Habeas Corpus

(Jive)

The Living Things’ Lillian Berlin is a guy who gets worked up easily. His band’s 2005 debut, Ahead of the Lions, was one long anti-Bush screed. The follow-up, Habeas Corpus, took almost a year to record in Berlin (the German city), where Berlin (the singer and guitarist) engaged in numerous fisticuffs with his bandmates, two of whom he’s related to. And even though someone else is living in the White House these days, he’s still mighty pissed, mostly at the American Dream and its hollow promises. “I want the good life/I want a piece of paradise/I want to live the lie,” he sings on “Mercedes Marxist.” And on the slinky “Snake Oil Man,” he sounds like the world’s funkiest economic alarmist: “Our wages will dwindle/While our taxes will double/God only knows what will happen tomorrow.” But the St. Louis quartet kicks up quite a racket on Habeas Corpus, incorporating garage-band fuzz-rock, synth-squealing noise blasts and U2-sized rafter-shakers into its 21^st century punk. “Take to the streets and run with me,” Berlin sings on album opener “Brass Knuckles.” It’s as much a call to arms as it is a celebration of all living things. -- Michael Gallucci

REVIEW -- WHITE LIES: TO LOSE MY LIFE

White Lies

To Lose My Life

(Fiction/Geffen)

The latest band to get a whole bunch of English people’s knickers twisted just reached the legal drinking age in the U.S. That means White Lies were born at least five years after most of the groups they sound like started to fizz out. Moody, gloomy and full of big anthemic guitars, the songs on To Lose My Life range from bizarre (the ghostly lovers’ spat of “Unfinished Business”) to WTF (“E.S.T.” is all about electroshock therapy). But it’s the trio’s somber synths and singer Harry McVeigh’s mournful baritone that drive home the band’s gothtastic point: Death really becomes them. “Blood,” “dead” and variations on these words show up every five minutes or so. Still, it’s not all doom ‘n’ gloom – despite its to-the-point title, “Death” is actually kinda jolly. And you can almost hear a smile breaking out during “A Place to Hide”’s chorus. Misery occasionally likes a little cheery company. -- Michael Gallucci

CULTURE JAMMING -- FEBRUARY 4

TOP PICK

TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection

(Warner Bros.)

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, two new DVD sets spotlight timeless “Romantic Dramas” and “Romantic Comedies.” Each collection includes four movies, like Philadelphia StoryA Streetcar Named Desire. A third volume – “Best Picture Winners,” featuring Casablanca -- preps you for the Oscars later this month.

VIDEOGAME

Chrono Trigger

(Square Enix)

RPGs can put you to sleep faster than an episode of Two and a Half Men. But this stirring and engaging game for the Nintendo DS features a wide-open environment that rarely strays into conventional play. This update of the old-school classic includes time travel, evil monsters and plenty of worlds for you to get lost in over the next several months.

CD

Derek Trucks Band: Already Free

(Sony Music/Victor)

This guitar whiz wasn’t even 20 when he joined the Allman Brothers a decade ago. On his sixth solo album, he runs through rock, blues, jazz and R&B with a virtuosity that sparks a sagging scene. Trucks covers an old Southern soul tune and a song written by Bob Dylan. His own compositions fit right in.

DVD

The Complete Powerpuff Girls Anniversary Collector’s Set

(Cartoon Network/Warner)

Hot on the heels of their recent TV special, Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup mark their 10^th anniversary with a gargantuan six-disc set that includes all 78 episodes from the award-winning animated series. Extras include an informative documentary, commentary by creator Craig McCracken and a Christmas movie about a naughty little princess.

VIDEOGAME

Sonic Unleashed

(Sega)

The world’s coolest hedgehog returns in an adventure (for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii) that blends old-school action with next-gen thrills. Dr. Eggman is up to his usual conquer-the-world tricks, but new Sonic Boosts and “unleashed” powers give the series a much-needed jolt. Best: Sonic’s nighttime Jekyll-like transformation into a fanged and furry beast.

--Michael Gallucci