DECEMBERISTS

Her Majesty, The Decemberists

(Kill Rock Stars)

***

At its core, Her Majesty, The Decemberists is a surprisingly upbeat funeral march through Civil War graveyards. Although it lacks the story-teller cohesiveness of the band's KRS debut, Castaways & Cutouts, it has enough literary power to stand on its own. Colin Meloy shows a bit more maturity this time around, as in the sterile nature of "The Bachelor And The Bride." Quite possibly the band's finest moment, the song's chorus pines, "I will box your ears and leave you here/Stripped bare." As always, Meloy's characters are Victorian oddities--lonesome chimney sweeps and emoting Trench Warfare soldiers--embedded in short pop numbers. With their ever-rich literary prose and dense instrumentation, The Decemberists never sacrifice their own collective intelligence in order to write a pop song. EZRA ACE CARAEFF

AUDIO BULLYS

Ego War

(Source/Astralwerks)

**

Ego War sounds like a savvy British A&R man's dream concept: Some Streets-y, Cockney raps full of sensitive bravado; some gimmicky Beck/Gorillaz-style funk; some bumpin', Basement Jaxx-like house with choruses you can instantly sing along to. But it's a London fing, innit? Can Audio Bullys' elastic electro funk and yobbish, hook-laden house excite Americans outside this country's Anglophile centers? Not likely, but maybe the Stereo MCs--like "Way Too Long," with its clever use of Elvis Costello's incendiary guitar riff from "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea"--will coax programmers who lost their virginity 25 years ago to play it. Tom Dinsdale's production is consistently punchy and clever, but singer/rapper Simon Franks lacks the verbal dexterity of Mike Skinner (his most obvious peer). Franks often sings about not giving a fuck, and it's hard for us to do so with his banal words. DAVE SEGAL

REQ

Car Paint Scheme

(Warp Records)

***

PREFUZE 73

Extinguished Outtakes

(Warp Records)

On Extinguished Outtakes, Scott Herren (aka Prefus[z]e 73, aka prolific motherfucker), offers more stellar MPC glitch-hop in a bursting, 35-minute, hot-pink train-bomb, elaborating on the bubble-lettered melodies and chopped samples of One Word Extinguisher. Occasionally, he annotates themes from that record, revising and noising-up his dreamy night beats. And, like the "subconscious art of graffiti removal," Herren's labelmate Req makes beats as subtle and sneak-up-on-you beautiful as the accidental Rothko paintings covering people's tags. On Car Paint Scheme, the British graff artist/producer reigns in the boom bap for a tightly digitized minimalism, making gauzy, inverse beats that hypnotize as much as they work out a speaker. JULIANNE SHEPHERD

**** Jesse Ventura

*** Sonny Bono

** Ronald Reagan

* Arnold Schwarzenegger