DARRYL STERDAN THE PLAYLIST Sounding off about the latest music @darryl_sterdan tegan & sara Rolling Stones H H H H writing songs as therapy for severe Totally Stripped DVD&BLU-RAY brain injuries after being hit by a car in 2003 — would make a compelling And extensively fleshed out. The saga via frank interviews and tons of doc. Sadly, this isn’t it. But it is a Stones upgrade and revamp their archival footage. Sweet sweet sweet. transfixing 101-minute Parisian gig 1995 live album Stripped — featuring by the enigmatic singer-songwriter, songs recorded at smaller venues on dominated by cuts from her R&B and H H H 1/2 the Voodoo Lounge Tour — with a new Mika soul-influenced 2015 album Currency ALBUMS OF THE WEEK set list and (if you score the deluxe Sinfonia Pop of Man. It’ll do nicely for now. Tegan & Sara H H H 1/2 version) full concert DVDs from the Love you to Death three shows that formed the bulk of Mika knows how to put the orch H H H 29 new (& old) discs you need to hear (or not) the original album and a 90-minute in orch-pop. The flamboyant British Imagine Dragons THE damned Once you go pop, you just can’t doc. It’s a much bigger bang. singer-songwriter teams up with Smoke + Mirrors Live stop. Not if you’re Tegan and Sara, Nick Jonas H H case / lang / veirs Peter Bjorn & John H H H Canadian conductor Simon Leclerc that is. Following in the footsteps of Last Year Was Complicated case / lang / veirs H H H H Breakin’ Point The Damned H H H H for this sophisticated yet vibrant Still bummed about missing their 2013 commercial makeover 93-minute concert, performing Grace Imagine Dragons on tour last H H H 1/2 Heartthrob, the Quin sisters reteam Complicated — and cured, Three is the magic number. Emphasis on break. It’s been five Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead Kelly, Love Today and other career hits summer? Well, sulk no longer: The Las Architects UK with producer Greg Kurstin and apparently. “Aw, s***, throw some Particularly when it’s these three. years since we’ve heard from the and highlights with a full symphony Vegas pop-rockers are making it up to All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us return to the dance floor with bacon on it,” sings Nick Jonas on his Alt-country firecracker Neko Case, Swedish popsters behind 2006’s Breakups and makeups. Feuds and in a gorgeous 19th-century Italian you with this 95-minute concert DVD another batch of synth-fuelled latest disc. I have no idea what that retro-pop chanteuse k.d. lang and whistling hit Young Folks. The good failure. Prog and pirate shirts. British theatre. Formalwear not required. (taped at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre) Rebuild it and they will come back. romance. Thankfully, their superior means, but it’s a fine idea: The sound indie folkie Laura Veirs join forces and news: This seventh set has more punk pioneers The Damned never featuring hits like Radioactive, Demons Returning to the scene of 2014’s songwriting elevates this beyond of sizzling pork would have been more voices for an album that seamlessly upbeat ditties with catchy hooks, made things easy. But they made H H H 1/2 and Shots — all enthusiastically killer Lost Forever // Lost Together, the usual club fodder. mouthwatering than this flavourless blends their songwriting talents and clever lyrics and even some whistling them interesting. This exhaustive, Melody Gardot played on a stylishly decorated but the Brit metalcore vets lay waste to batch of falsetto-soaked pop penned, vocal strengths — while their honeyed — plus production from Paul Epworth unflinching 110-minute doc from Live at the Olympia Paris annoyingly dark stage. Never mind the the competition once again with their H H H 1/2 performed and produced by the usual harmonies add up to something more and Greg Kurstin. The bad news: director Wes Orshoski delivers the smoke and mirrors; how about some relentless onslaught. Between the Garbage hired-gun hitmakers. Pass. than the sum of its parts. Exquisite. Nothing here is as great as Young whole sad, sordid, strange and silly Gardot’s life story — she began lights? white-hot blowtorch vocals, faith- Strange Little Birds Folks. based lyrics and the intricately wound, H H H brutally extreme riffs, these songs Neil Young & Fitz & The Tantrums H H 1/2 Garbage have never been the H H leave no doubt who the true gods are. happiest band. But with their sixth Promise of the Real Fitz & The Tantrums Train Jon Bellion H H H H Band of Horses H H H H The Temper Trap H H album, Shirley Manson and co. go Earth Does Led Zeppelin II Human Condition Why Are You OK Thick as Thieves dark like never before. She supplies From timeless to timely. For their Summer Cannibals confessional lyrics and intimate ‘Welcome to Neil Young’s tellingly self-titled third outing, What is and what should never be. From Monster to Human. Singer- Why not? After all, tender They lost their guitarist. They Full of It H H H H vocals for tellingly titled cuts like Rainforest Cafe. While you peruse our these L.A. popsters hit the reset As promised in the on-the-nose title, songwriter Bellion co-wrote Jason troubadour Ben Bridwell and his earthy recruited songwriters from outside MICHAEL FRANTI Empty and Marginalized. The GMO-free menu, enjoy our in-house button, jettisoning their classic soul the California popsters faithfully and Derulo’s Trumpets, Eminem’s Monster indie-rockers are back with their the band. They spent nearly three They took their name from a Patti band contributes their shadowy music: A dozen environmental songs stylings and flashing forward to flawlessly recreate Zep’s sophomore and more. Now he comes into his own fifth disc. And it’s their strongest and years recording. And they ditched the Smith cut. They’re on Kill Rock Stars modern-rock twang and sombre from throughout Neil’s career — plus embrace contemporary pop sonics disc from stem to stern. But while with a jawdropping major-label debut richest to date, mixing the eccentricity experimentalism of their last album Records. They’re from Portland. NICK jonas industrial-pop glitchery. Misery a 28-minute version of Love and Only and songcraft. Singles like HandClap former Zep tribute-band frontman that sets his sweetly soaring vocals of old with the sharper attack of more for chiming, soft-centred indie-rock They’re led by fearsome and fearless has seldom sounded so cool. Love — all taped on his last tour and are still enjoyable, but much of it Pat Monahan’s Plant impersonation and grim existential musings against recent times — and adding input from anthems. If those aren’t enough red singer-guitarist Jessica Boudreaux. sweetened with samples of birds, is too generic and commercial for is spot on and the band hits all their offkilter alt-R&B grooves, artfully J. Mascis, Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, flags to make you think twice about And their crackling third album fuses bears, whales, insects and more. Can its own good. Did somebody say marks, it’s hard to see the point. manipulated samples and idiosyncratic Dave Fridmann and Rick Rubin. OK these Aussies’ third disc, well, it’s your Pacific Northwest garage-punk to I bring you a gluten-free water?’ moneygrabber? Thank you — but no thank you. arrangements. He’s destined for doesn’t even begin to cover it. life. Don’t say you weren’t warned. emotional intensity — and then smacks greatness. Unconditionally. you between the eyes. Fill up. Mumford & Sons H H H 1/2 The Lonely Island H H Pkew Pkew Pkew H H H 1/2 Hellyeah H H H 1/2 letlive. H H H H H H H 1/2 Johannesburg Popstar: Never Stop Never Pkew Pkew Pkew Michael Franti & Spearhead Unden!able If I’m the Devil … Band of Skulls Stopping Soulrocker H H H 1/2 By Default First they went electric; now As Spinal Tap taught us: It’s a fine Phil Collins and Dimebag Darrell: There’s more than one way to be they’re getting eclectic. After Brevity really is the soul of wit. line between stupid and clever. And Can you really hit the club floor Together again! It’s true: Hellyeah’s heavy. So while the Angeleno post- You can play it too cool. Which is plugging in for 2015’s Wilder Mind, That’s partly why TLI’s shorts are a like the Tap, these Toronto pop-punks without shoes? Michael Franti can. fifth disc includes a dark, thundering hardcore rabble-rousers’ fourth what these British garage-rockers the British folk-rockers connect hoot, while their albums — including pretend they’re the former. But don’t For his ninth release with Spearhead, cover of I Don’t Care Anymore with missive might lack some of the seem to be doing with that title. with African artists Baaba Maal, this soundtrack — fall flat. Sure, their be fooled by their turbo-charged the eternally barefoot troubadude drummer Vinnie Paul’s late guitar- punk wallop and propulsion of its Far from the musical surrender it Beatenberg and The Very Best well-crafted teen-pop and hip-hop snot-rockets about skateboarding, continues his evolution, adding hero sibling (and former Pantera predecessors, it more than makes up implies, their fourth album feels like on an EP created in two days.