Pinback

Autumn of the Seraphs
(Touch & Go)

A still point in the rapidly shifting world, Pinback returns — officially — with its fourth studio album, Autumn of the Seraphs. Officially because singer Rob Crow has been perhaps the busiest band whore in the Western world recently, jumping from project to project like the dealers on “The Wire.” Fans worried that Crow’s extra-curricular efforts (especially a solo disc that dropped mere months ago) might take away from the quality of Pinback’s records need not worry.

The band, always a bit wispy, is a bit more muscular this time around. Rest assured, though — while the album title might suggest heavy metal (a genre that Crow has tackled recently), it’s not — it’s more like Skinny Jeans Pop.
With Pinback, Crow and partner Zach Smith have built an almost enviable machine: a band that always sounds pretty much the same. Rarely better, rarely worse, but always consistent. It wouldn’t be an impressive power on “Heroes,” but it’s comforting.

c. 2007 LEO Weekly

"Kurt Cobain: About a Son"

"Kurt Cobain: About a Son", Music from the Motion Picture
(Barsuk)

We can blame Nirvana for the existence of so many bad bands. On the other hand, leader Kurt Cobain’s consistent name-dropping of dozens of favorite bands helped introduce a generation to numerous artists that could have been otherwise forgotten. A.J. Schnack, director of the equally unlikely They Might Be Giants doc “Gigantic,” has crafted “About a Son” from audiotapes of Cobain talking to his biographer, Michael Azerrad. The film features visual footage of the Washington state towns in which Cobain spent his life.

This disc serves as an intro to the bands whose influences were fused together by Cobain to create the Nirvana sound: sugary pop, weirdo singer-songwriters, children’s songs, classic rock, folk rock, blues folk, hillbilly psych, fiery punk, glitter, sludge, Iggy and grungy, heroin-shooting peers. A fan with a huge appetite, Cobain absorbed everything from R.E.M. to Scratch Acid, Leadbelly to Bad Brains. A few snippets of him speaking add context, and equally unlikely pop star Ben Gibbard acknowledges the debt his career owes to Cobain’s example.

c. 2007 LEO Weekly