Brutalist Bricks, The

Vigorous, hyper-intelligent punk/pop/rock from the veteran indie-rocker and his crew. More of a separation between the punk numbers and the pop rather than the blend we've seen on his earlier stuff, but he's adept at both. A few dud tracks, but they really go at it on the feistier ones. My picks: 9, 8, 1. FCC: 5 –Andy

**1 - Aggressive pop with Brit-punk strained vocals; two false endings at -0:33
2 - Dark and frustrated with murky guitars; striking, sparse post-choruses
3 - FCC: "fucked"; mid-tempo pop-rock, with Dirty-Projectors-quirky vocals
4 - Grabbing rock number with summery acoustic guitar
*5 - FCC: "shit"; fun punk romp that plays with the restraint switch
*6 - Kind of cheesy pop song pushed through a punk lens, to interesting effect; sappy hook repeated ad nauseam at the end
*7 - Classic rock gets the same cynical punk treatment, again effectively
**8 - Pure, unapologetic pop (hand-claps and all) in a funkily cool RHCP mode; Ted checks out the bottom of his range for once
**9 - Well-executed Ramones-style upbeat punk-rock
10 - Catchy, paced, optimistic rock number
11 - Grizzly-Bear-meets-Nick-Drake washed-out acoustic folkiness; totally weird coming from Leo, but nice; ~20 seconds of crickets at the end
12 - Frantic punk-pop with grabbing vocals and eclectic instrumentals; fades out around -1:00 and starts back up
*13 - Tempered rock with striking dynamic range; Green-Day-style vocal hooks, big guitar and simple solo