Then again, making blanket statements about a record that hold up is pretty impossible when you’re dealing with three vastly different songwriters. Bracy plays the role of Dylan acolyte, penning nearly all of the record’s best lyrics ("Fear is a ragged dog alright but just let it run around awhile—it howls and bays, but it won’t bite.") and typically setting them to low-key loping folk arrangements perfect for his haggard, froggy throat. McCardle is the group’s Loretta Lynn, interjecting rugged cowgirl tunes in between her male songwriting partners. Hoffman is the group’s secret weapon, coming up with a batch of bracing new-wave inflected rock numbers with a jerky synthetic energy (and kick-ass fuzzy bass on more than a few occasions) that perfectly balances out the more pastoral and classic tendencies of the other songwriters. The end result is truly something for everyone. Featuring contributions from a slew of guest musicians including former Whiskeytown member Mike Daly and pedal steel whiz Bob Hoffnar, Fortune is easily The Mendoza’s most accomplished long-player yet. Rating: 8 out of 10


Kings of Convenience
Riot On An Empty Street (Astralwerks)

It’s a testament to the talents of Simon & Garfunkel that their sporadic reunions still manage to sell out arenas in scant minutes, and indicative of the sorry state of affairs in current popular music that the same can’t be said of Norwegian duo the Kings of Convenience, the highest quality torchbearers of S & G’s legacy of immaculately crafted folk-pop operating today.

The work of Erik Glambek Boe and Erlend Oye, KOC’s elegant folk is so immediately pleasing and breezy that it’s at first easy to overlook their craft. Rarely has a more symbiotic songwriting team surfaced. Written and sung nearly entirely in unison (Erik is the higher voice, Erlend the lower), the duo’s harmonies, as on their 2001 debut, Quiet is the New Loud, are the centerpiece of the album. Which doesn’t mean these guys are any slouches at the guitar. Their overlapping acoustic work (executed on an array of nylon and steel string guitars with surprisingly varied tones) is consistently inventive and never perfunctory, finding ideal complement in the understated classy arrangements of upright bass, piano, occasional strings and banjos that flesh out the songs.

Things even get mildly funky on a few tracks, particularly the chilled-out ode to the single life, "Love is No Big Truth," which features some of the album’s darkest and strongest words ("Love is no big truth, driven by our genes, we are simple selfish beings."). Apparently apologizing for the morose sentiments of that cut, the KOC boys follow it up with the shamelessly goofy (and awesomely ’80s sounding) "I’d Rather Dance With You," a toast to getting down on the dance floor ("So let your hips do the talking") that I’d like to see Wham get a crack at covering provided George Michael still has Andrew Ridgely’s phone number.

As if Erik and Erlend’s voices weren’t beatific enough, the boys are helped out on two cuts by up-and-coming Canadian songstress Feist, who proves to be the perfect female foil to their innocent Norwegian boys club on the devastatingly soulful album closer "The Build-Up" (a co-write and duet between Erlend and Feist). I may just have to move to Norway if a U.S. tour isn’t announced soon. Rating: 10 out of 10

Morrissey
You Are the Quarry (Attack Records)

Morrissey has always teetered just on the edge of becoming parody, and his latest after a seven year self-imposed exile from record bins, You Are the Quarry, does nothing to change that trend. A long time PETA activist (yes that's the Moz alongside Pam Anderson at various L.A. based animal rights fundraisers), Morrissey just can't resist dropping lines like "America you know where you can shove your hamburger" into the otherwise affecting anthem against cultural imperialism "America Is Not The World."

Morrissey has always been one to poke fun at his own image while simultaneously steadfastly refusing to move beyond the solipsistic "woe is me" world of adolescent emotional isolation in his lyrics. The reason he gets away with it of course (and somehow has a feverishly devoted enough cult following to justify landing on the cover of SPIN this year) is that he's damn near perfected the art over the course of 20 years in the game. Sure he offers up the occasionally politically charged number ("Irish Blood, English Heart"), but far more typical of the record is a track like "I Have Forgiven Jesus," a ballad every bit as terminally despondent and self-absorbed as the jingles he cranked out alongside Johnny Marr in the Smiths back in the'80s. For those who are already a part of the Morrissey faithful, You Are the Quarry will not disappoint. Working with the same guitarists/co-songwriters that have been involved in all of his best post-Smiths work (Boz Boorer and Alan Whyte) Quarry takes a page or two out of all Morrissey's previous incarnations. There's the vaguely glam-rocking "First of the Gang to Die," the classic balladry and exquisite vocal showcase "Come Back to Camden," the atmospheric mid-tempo number ("I'm Not Sorry"), all of it conducted with suitable grace and skill, and on the top flight numbers, more than a bit of panache. It's still the same old song, but damn if I don't want to sing along to it anyway when I'm feeling a bit misty-eyed. Rating: 7 out of 10