CD Reviews

OBIE TRICE
Cheers
(Shady/Aftermath/Interscope)

"Got Some Teeth" is a misleading first single. It's all lighthearted club posturing, singsong spitting, Hanna-Barbera samples, giving the impression that Obie Trice, the latest Eminem protégé, is a student of the "Without Me" school of campy hip-hopminus the brilliant self- obsession of an Eminem releasewho's also had a few tutoring sessions in pimp bombast from labelmate 50 Cent. In reality, Trice is closer to a more accessible, less sociopathic version of Slim Shady. The rest of the album consists nearly entirely of dark, almost desperate tracks that smack of the determined, everyday bleakness of a regular guy just trying to get by, a theme he explicitly acknowledges with the opening track, "Average Guy." Full of the Shady-esque pathos of growing up hard, "Don't Come Down" is tempered with Trice's sense of responsibility for his own actions. "Look in My Eyes" focuses on the quintessential hip-hop theme of being real, but Trice's claim to realness is almost sad, given in the resigned voice of a man who's been through a lot of shit and still has to prove himself to a bunch of wanna-be thugs. There is some material on the album that isn't so self-disclosing, like the Timbaland-produced strut of "Bad Bitch" or blustering, ho-dissing "Lady" (with Eminem doing his best Jerry Lewis on the chorus"Hey, Lady!"). But the slightly swaggering average Joe is what suits Trice best. "I done did it all, so I clutch my balls/And notice they still here, so Obie is still here," he rhymes on the title cut. The "average guy" routine works because it's true. RACHEL DEVITT

THE FIERY FURNACES
Gallowsbird's Bark
(Rough Trade)

Goofball acid-cabaret doesn't rub up against psych-stomp punk-blues every day, and why should it? A few bars of all-strings-no-drums usually means dance floor death down at the rock and roll club; some genius once figured out that consistent beats and rock music go very well together, and today's nu-rockers, including Chicago's Fiery Furnaces, take that to heart. But the Furnaces go at it like outsiders, sly music students who'll slum with the two-chord vampers long enough to work the crowd and then stun them with prissy glam piano suites and jarring, organ-encrusted space freakouts. It's hard to tell what their lineage isthe Sgt. Pepper Beatles, maybe, or perhaps a nation of bored, creative bar mitzvah kids left alone with a tape recorder and a house full of presents. Gallowsbird's Bark is elastic enough that you sense a connectedness between several genres even when the band is only playing one. A simple acoustic blues gets some tightly wound funk from a cartoonish bouncing-ball bass line; a cheap drum machine gives a Thin Lizzy-ish head-shop boogie-rag a disco twist. This lends some low-key comic relief to Gallowsbird's Bark's grand ambition. There's clearly a Fiery Furnaces style (wordy, witty, rebelliously experimental), but the open-endedness of the sound compels the listener to wonder, given the numerous possibilities, how different the Furnaces' second record will be from this great debut. JODY BETH ROSEN

ORANGER
Shutdown the Sun
(Jackpine Social Club)

It's not as if there's a dearth of bands like this out theresmart, young, white men whose Holy Trinity is Brian Wilson and Gram Parsons and Lennon-McCartney. Hell, we're probably in our third or fifth or 12th wave of them, and there's a new batch baking right now. So what sets Oranger apart from the others? Probably Mike Drake, the San Francisco quartet's songwriter/ guitarist/singer, who never met a deft chord change he couldn't shoehorn into a song: The progression on "Going Under" is so gorgeous it might as well be a Brazilian supermodel, and his surreal wordplay (the "magic carpetbaggers knocking at your door" in "Bluest Glass Eye Sea," for example) never gets in the way of what he's trying to say, whatever that is. But I suspect that Oranger's real advantage here is the fact that they play very well together. No matter what genre Drake throws at his bandmates, they're on top of it, from the stoner ennui of "Cut Off Yer Thumbs" to the rollicking Stones-along of "Sweet Goodbye," complete with the "hoo hoo"s from "Sympathy for the Devil." Unlike most of their competition, Oranger seem to enjoy playing together, and this must always be celebrated. Consumer note: Many copies of Shutdown the Sun come with an added bonus rarities disc, From the Ashes of Electric Elves, which both confirms my hypothesis and has an ass-kicking live version of "Mike Love Not War." MATT CIBULA

DOLOREAN
Not Exotic
(Yep Roc)

Two years in the making, Dolorean's debut is one of the most oddly twisting, ear-turning folk-pop gems of 2003. More than four years ago, the group's leader, Alex James, armed with a bevy of home recordings, approached Jay Clarke of fellow Portlanders the Standard about accompanying him into the studio. Not Exotic was recorded in whole in a mere five days with producer Jeff Saltzmannine songs tracked live with acoustic guitar, keyboards, and strings, all of which are desolate and lingering, but utterly basic. "I found myself again on the morning watch for those of us who cannot sleep," James sings in "Morningwatch," the cello-led opener that begs for tomorrow to overrule today. He slays the first line of each composition like a skilled columnist, tossing out thoughts like "It wasn't my fault she led me here/(To the) Canadian Plains to disappear" (the Elliott Smith-like piano waltz "Traded for Fire") and "Sometimes I try to be a fighter pilot/'Cause you can't see my eyes though goggles and helmet" ("The Light Behind My Head," a cautious love song that recalls Lullaby for the Working Class). By the time you get to "Hannibal, MO," the gloomy murder ballad about a girlfriend "washed out to sea," James has you locked in the prison cell with himbut you're not looking for the key. SCOTT HOLTER Dolorean play the Crocodile Cafe with Damian Jurado and Rosie Thomas at 9 p.m. Fri., Dec. 12. $10.SCOTT HOLTER