Used car salesman of the year!

Unkempt dude with chub talk-sings snarkage about music over a series of retro-cred sonic signifiers - DUDE, YOUR BAND COULD BE OUR BLOG. We snippy lil' siphons could be you and you could be us except you get to be on stage. Plus you get royalties for your obscure references - we're lucky to get paid a buck a word. Oh man, bonus disc! Its like Chronic Town and Perfect Sound Forever were slapped onto Murmur and Slanted & Enchanted. One-stop hipster-glop for the kidz who still bother to shop. FIVE STARS.

On first listen!

"Daft Punk Is Playing At My House": uptempo hop and clap with bottle percussion and harmonic guitar strums a la the Fall's "I Feel Voxish." We better hope MES never dies, lest American buzz bands lack a sound to simplify ten years later.

"Too Much Love": glass bottle percussion over hi-hats and all that. distorted squeals here and there. low-maintenance murmurs from Murphy. Like Stipe and Malkmus before him, what will separate the dude from the UKage he siphons is the fact that he's secretly a balladeer. It's not about politics with us Yanks so much as makin' noisy pretty.

"Tribulations": Octave-jumps. Hi-hats and all that. Crooning about how one should forget their problems.

"Movement": MES over Suicide. Yes, it's like a discipline without the discipline you don't have the discipline. God, I sold back The Infotainment Scan, Cerebral Caustic, The Light User Syndrome, etc. Why did I buy this again? Well, "Yeah" and "Losing My Edge" were fun novelty singles. Didn't realize they summed up the dude's philosophy on art (and life, for all I can gather).

"Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up": Ah, so this is the infamous Pink Floyd rip that makes the album more than just a bunch of Fall rips. Actually, adding a Floyd rip makes it less. Gah. At least Interpol suggests a fascination with people other than themselves (mainly girls and some guy who has a beard). Seems Murphy's tired and there's nothing in the world worth doing cuz all he knows and understands is music and oh the pain of the rocker paid to bitch and OMG HE'S ROGER WATERS EWWWW.

"On Repeat": Soft Cell? "Beats on repeat beating on me." James Murphy feels there is too much music in the world. Christ, its the small-stakes version of George Bush chastising greed. I'd ask why King Leech tends to bury his yelps under cymbal crashes and distorted keybs but I think I know why.

"Thrills": Indie/Art/Dance music isn't dead, it's just nihilistic and self-loathing. "Take me higher, take me higher" has become "I can't stop, this doesn't work anymore, somebody kill me." At least for James Murphy and the people who keep him from having to get a day job. I swear I had a lot of enthusiasm for this album - I mean I bought the thing (old school, I know). I guess I just didn't think about how dead the filler would sound. I reserve the right to completely jump the fence to pure adoration at a later date. Back in the day you could do that for money.

"Disco Infiltrator": "Still you want it!" When it's bouncy, yeah. Which this is. Mock how easily pleased we are, James! Just as long as you deliver and stop complaining!

"Great Release": Ok, enough dramatic slow piano tension I just wanna know if you're gonna tell me music is a great release or if you want a great release from music. Two minutes in. Come on, tell me already. Nope, just a new chord or two. Vocals come in...Ok, so if the "final track tells us what the next album will sound like" rule is in place than the next album is gonna be mondo Eno, which is pretty crafty when you're all about aping old shit that still has some potency. Wouldn't it be great if a band would build off of the promise of post-punk instead of just jacking the timbres and patting themselves on the back for realizing "nothing's happening"?

FIVE STARS.