Listening Station: Dizzee Rascal, Rilo Kiley, Beep Beep, I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, Sufjan Stevens

Dizzee Rascal

Showtime

In the hierarchy of global hip hop, British garage rap--or two-step or grime, depending on whom you talk to--ranks only slightly above Canadian gangsta rap and Japanese crunk. After all, despite a decade-long siege on the U.S. market, its list of "stars" reads with all the familiarity of a page randomly selected from the phone book: Roots Manuva, Wiley, MC Megaman, Sharkie Major and so on.

Or at least that's how it was before Dizzee Rascal, the cockney-spewing rude boy from the projects of East London, sold a quarter-million copies of last year's Boy in Da Corner, won the U.K.'s prestigious Mercury Prize and officially claimed the international rap scene for England (or at least planted the Union Jack somewhere on its outskirts). With a quick wit, faster tongue and a shoebox full of Nintendo beats, Rascal cobbled together a record that set aside hip hop's typical groin-grasping bombast and reimagined the streets through the twitchy eyes of a terrified teenager. "And I talk a whole heap of badness," Rascal declared on "Do It, "because my life is a big whole heap of madness." As if to prove his point, he was subsequently stabbed five times by a gang of thugs in the Mediterranean resort city of Ayia Napa.

Although it didn't quite equal the nine bullets 50 Cent survived in 2000, it did serve as a coming of age for the 19-year-old Rascal. No longer simply a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, he suddenly found himself squinting in the cold glare of stardom and fending off jealous rivals from all sides. As a result, Showtime has perhaps its closest parallel in the Marshall Mathers LP--Eminem's disturbingly comic (or comically disturbing) follow-up to the breakout Slim Shady LP.

But where Em's sophomore longplayer is a gloomy meditation on drugs, fame, his marriage and his mom, Rascal's is more an exploration of his newfound celebrity. With the arcade beats bouncing as big as ever, Rascal tries out his new persona like a kid trying on a fly new pair of sneaks. In this context, even his threats take on a sort of child-like innocence: "I punch you in your nostrils/ I punch you in your shins" ("Everywhere"). Of course, nothing on the new record hits with the stark urgency of Boy in Da Corner's "Sittin' Here" or "Fix Up, Look Sharp," but Showtime is definitely the sound of an artist in development. Let's just hope his third album discovers concerns beyond "blinging," "grafting" and "getting paper."--Newt Briggs

Rilo Kiley

More Adventurous

When a promotional appearance at your local record store attracts nearly 2,000 people, you know you've graduated from indie anonymity to mainstream hopeful. That is what's happening to Los Angeles-based quartet Rilo Kiley, which graduates from Omaha's Saddle Creek imprint and launches its Warner-distributed Brute/Beaute label with More Adventurous, its fourth release. The album is a remarkable balance of emotion and character, singer Jenny Lewis whimsically pondering like Ani DiFranco in the folky "It's a Hit," and crooning a la Loretta Lynn in the Southern soul number "I Never." Some of the confidence Rilo Kiley exhibits is rooted in its mastery of multi-instrumental craftsmanship--aided by Bright Eyes soundshaper Mike Mogis--but most of it stems from its consistent tunefulness. Never mind "It's a Hit"--the single contender here is "Portions for Foxes," an assured pop composition that eventually buries itself into your head without cheap familiarity of standard ear candy.--Mike Prevatt

Beep Beep

Business Casual

Could anything be more postmodern than two cowboys--one white, one black--standing by a dripping water cooler and sharing a delicate man-touch? It's like a United Colors of Benetton ad filtered through the artistic vision of a crayon-wielding Salvador Dali. Then again, maybe it's just latent homosexuality masquerading as postmodernism. I mean, don't those drips look an awful lot like sperm? And if the sperm is puddling between the two cowboys, then what can be inferred about their relationship? And aren't white boots on a black man with blond hair just a tad gauche?

And to think, that's only the cover of Beep Beep's Business Casual--a hyperactive ode to all those trendy '80s art-rock bands that only the most diligent music fans could love (see: the Fall, Gang of Four, Wire). Yep, Beep Beep delivers the goods--the funky beats, the discordant guitars, the anti-establishment political rhetoric--and adds a white-knuckle vitality that makes Business Casual not only palatable but downright groovy. Don't expect sing-along choruses, but if jangly melodies and jerky rhythms are your bag, then crank up the amplitude and get ready to dance! --Newt Briggs

I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House

Menace

At its finest moments, the blues rock of I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House makes you feel like you're wiping your ass with a porcupine. Opening track "Gone" makes for just such spiny, scraping bliss, vigorously inaugurating an album rainy with touches of blues, boogie, gospel, soul and raw roadhouse rock. But touches is the operative word here; while I Can Lick's third album strains hard to sweat blood, sometimes all that comes forth is a dry shudder. There's a nagging sense of a band hovering above its own identity rather than embracing it with gusto; Menace sounds as though I Can Lick was presented with an array of musically wholesome influences that dizzies the band right into a sort of stale competence. Sure, "Thousand to One," for instance, is a sodden afterburner with a decent dose of blues bluster, "A Good Day to Be a Bad Husband" struts along passably and "Fall Down" tries its darnedest to explode. But Menace is the right title for the wrong reasons: because the threat isn't quite fulfilled.--Andrew Kiraly

Sufjan Stevens

Seven Swans

Personally, hangin' with freaky Christians in apple tree and nurse outfits singing in five-part alien harmony is a bit unsettling. However, the spooky quirks of Sufjan Stevens' Sounds Familyre label cohorts aside, these eccentricities contribute to or somehow are validated by the ensemble's laughing-Buddha frankness, its tenuous two-step around fundamentalism and mystical tradition. With label maven Daniel Smith on the mixing boards, Stevens' banjo-centric Seven Swans takes an acoustic meander through cracked-glass confessions of faith and mythological microcosms. Of particular note: "In the Devil's Territory"--pulsating polyrhythms precisely laid into each other, complete with synth-transcendence effects and an eventual synchronicity. As exhibited on his last, Greetings from Michigan the Great Lake State, Stevens can counterpoint a complex eiderdown of production wizardry. Mellow pew tunes.--Chad Lietz