Alicja-Pop – Howlin' – New LP

Some corner crushes and creases on bottom right corner.

As with everything Ms. Trout does (Black Sunday, C.C. Riders, Lost Sounds,  Mouserocket, River City Tanlines, Sweet Knives...), this is a joy from go to whoa, packed with great songs, the more reflective numbers especially powerful, Trout serving up a layer-cake of sounds, voice, guitars and synthesizers pushed along with soft-shoe shuffle and electric shake, moving from songs drenched in melancholy and strum to ones that sound more like a more minimalist version of some of her other Memphis punks outfits.  The sequencing is just wonderful, laser-beaming into the setting, and then easing deeper into it with basement-bedroom and kitchen-sink pop, moving from the garage to the street like a bike motoring down the early autumn blacktop, and then cutting off into the fields for a shortcut tooling back home, settling back into a new version of where it was earlier, into the joy and melancholy for some watercolor wilderness and front-porch pop, the cuts stitched together wonderfully and serving as a reminder of the power of stripping rock n roll down to the center.  Loads of this shimmering pop beauty can be found at the center of much that Trout does, and it's great hear that center rise to the surface, rising like stones on a river bed as the rock n roll waters recede to a stream. -- winch (green noise)