Hailing from Edinburgh, Scotland, Broken Records are making their way into the collective indie rock consciousness with many calling this kilt-covered sextet the Scottish Arcade Fire. But the accolade is not overly accurate. On the band’s second full-length album, titled Let Me Come Home, Broken Records proves more comparable to The National circa Boxer. And drawing cross-Atlantic lines, Broken Records distinctly falls into the indie folk-rock subgenre, influenced by acts like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and early REM. This new pride of Scotland touches on their national roots musically, but they do fall short of being a full-blown traditional Celtic band in the strain of Ireland’s Beoga.

Consistency plagues Let Me Come Home like a horny terrier does a blond woman’s left leg. The album feels complete and tastefully executed, but ultimately lacks diversity or freakishly addictive riffs. Furthering the Boxer comparisons, Broken Records actually opened for The National at the latter band’s Royal Festival Hall show in London, solidifying the Scotsmen’s underachieving baby-bro status. But Broken Records’ second album does show major maturation and progress from the band’s first attempt, Until The Earth Begins To Part. Jamie Sutherland’s mastery over his highland-accented baritone and his Chris Martin-esque falsetto gives the band a marketable voice. Allowing the string section to go further broadsword epic also adds raw feeling to Broken Records’ Scottish-air sound.

“Dia Dos Namorados!” highlights the band’s growing up. A steady female voice accompanies Sutherland throughout the song’s twisting melancholy lyrics: “You make me soft and warm/ Something better than the black and white that colored me before/ I want to feel your body and your hands upon my chest/ To feel my emptiness.” All the while, a banging piano riff rings and the string section steadily rises like a balloon floating into the stratosphere. Let Me Come Home’s unquestionable hit is “The Motorcycle Boy Reigns,” a faster song featuring Sutherland’s forlorn falsetto. That song’s electric guitar leads the thick instrumentation like a conductor’s baton through the building riff. Piano, cello, drums, accordion, and horns all weave like evenly matched opponents in chess, creating a majestic sound. For the time being, Broken Records must stand in the shadow of its American counterparts. However, Let Me Come Home foretells a band sprinting down the path of greatness. If they changed their name to something even remotely original, William Wallace might just have a reason to rise from the grave and dance a little jig. By Alex Lemonde-Gray

It should be illegal for hip-hop albums as good as THINK TANK’s Mashed Potatoes mixtape to be given away for free. Why? Because the Miami crew of Llamabeats and Parable have put out one of the hottest and most bangin’ rap compilations I’ve heard in months. In just under one hour, THINK TANK crams everything from tongue-in-cheek love songs like “Gun In My Hand” to crime-world rants like “You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison” to tender, thoughtful ruminations like “People Of The Sun” into one package. Head producer The What’s Up flat out slays it on the old-school funk ‘n’ soul barnburner “Brewish Break,” blows circuit breakers on the trance/house head-scratcher “Renegade Against,” and hits reggae, rock, rap, and R&B in all the sweet spots in between.

Even better? 16 of Mashed Potatoes’ 18 songs feature nobody but Spits and Parable laying down solid verse after sing-along chorus. That’s a lot of running time for only two guys to fill up, but they handle the challenge with ease, trading verbal barbs on “I Can Go On” and delivering the rawest recession reflection of the last few years on “Gimme Your Money.” That track adeptly mixes a tear-jerking John Lennon sample with a brilliantly brutal reinterpretation of Wu-Tang Clan’s classic “C.R.E.A.M.”: “Debt rules everything around me/ Dream of getting’ the money/ Dollars dollars kill ya’ll.”

Sure, there are one or two slow moments on Mashed Potatoes, but those speed bumps only make the album mesh together better as a whole. “Bad Guys Finish First” flips the typical rap braggadocio track on its head, while “Non-Boss DJ” takes The Clash’s “Rock The Casbah” and turns it into an ironic New Wave ode: “The people didn’t like how you had to kill that song/ So now they rock the iPod.” What else can THINK TANK do in an hour? Hit intimate romantic notes on “Moon Man,” pay tribute to left-field producer J. Dilla on “All My Days,” skewer commercial rap on the fabulously epic “Masterpiece Over Profit,” riff on the Constitution on “Money Kulture,” and throw a straight-up dance party on “Oh Dee.” I guess the better question would be, what can’t THINK TANK do in an hour? Not much, judging by the nearly flawless Mashed Potatoes. Download this gem entirely for free and get hip to the best shit coming out the Southeast today. By Nick McGregor

Download THINK TANK’s Mashed Potatoes for free at http://www.djbooth.net/index/mixtapes/entry/think-tank-mashed-potatoes

The prolific and influential alternative rock band Cake return six years after their last album with their sixth full-length record. Unfortunately, Cake sounds exactly the same as before, minus the eccentric hits you remember like “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” “Never There,” “The Distance,” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle.” If you don’t remember what those songs sound like (and how could you not?), just think alt-rock circa 1998 and you’ve got it. And while those Cake hits of years past are bona fide gems of off-kilter pop magnificence, unfortunately there are no resembling diamonds in the rough on Showroom Of Compassion.

“Sick Of You,” the album’s lead single, sounds familiar enough, but simply misses the mark. While longtime Cake fans will quickly identify with that song and “Mustache Man (Wasted),” they will inevitably find themselves in short order longing for the Cake of years past. “Federal Funding” is in the same key as a newer Black Rebel Motorcycle Club number, while “Teenage Pregnancy,” “Long Time,” and “Got To Move” sound just plain desperate. Again, it’s unfortunate, as these California gents sound as tight as ever, not missing a beat throughout the album. But there is something clearly devoid on what should be a victory lap. And maybe that’s simply it — a lame victory lap, that or a quick stab at a chance for a few more bucks.

In fact, Showroom Of Compassion holds the dubious distinction of being the lowest-selling number one album in Billboard history. Even given that moderate success, Cake’s hooks, beats, and creative songwriting are not what they used to be. It’s not that the band’s music is trite or passé; quite the opposite, actually. It’s that their songwriting hasn’t evolved in a positive direction. Showroom Of Compassion lacks the flair, youthfulness, and quizzical attitude that made Cake one of the greatest bands of the ‘90s, making this sixth album sound more like a sophomore slump than what you’d expect. By Peter Viele

People inherently know that Napoleon Bonaparte was composed of great military prowess. He traveled to Egypt and made conquests into Russia. His periods of peace were far outweighed by his time spent in feuds, in exile, in invasion, or just yelling at everyone around him. What is little known about Napoleon, however, is how often he wore dresses — big bedazzled dresses, gowns and thrones, make-up and crowns of fig pluckings adorning him before many battles. Napoleon was in essence a cross-dressing political and military leader who has maintained a staggering relativity to certain representatives of modern time. 

In the grand scheme of men I like to group within Napoleon’s genre — think Ulysses S. Grant, Marion Berry, General Patton, David Bowie, and Bill Belichick — a string of connectivity runs through the whims of their eccentricity. I imagine (and know for a fact, in the case of Bowie) that each of these men spent or currently spends some time of his normal day in dresses or feminine robes. What I see as a result of this attempt to accurately describe historical trends is a stupid theory on my own behalf — or perhaps a theory as to why BRAIDS is snowballing critical acclaim. The band is notably soft, with audio attacks brought forth in planned sequence. In between this power exposé there is a layering of vocals that emit warm light from the cover of Victorian bed dress. I feel that this composure is one consistent with many groups of parabolic vitality. And believe me, when I say “parabolic vitality” I feel a bit dumb, but also a bit smart for putting two large words together.

If I could draw you a sketch right now underneath this review, it would be a graph from your eighth grade year. On the X-axis it would say, “A typical BRAIDS song” and on the Y-axis it would say, “Time spent bored and thinking about Napoleon.” The graph would move in waves, where the peak hits “not bored at all” during the best BRAIDS songs, especially shorter ones like “Plath Heart” and “Lammicken,” and the trough hits “extremely bored and thinking only about Napoleon” during key stretches of eight-minute epics like “Glass Deers” and “Native Speaker.” What does it all mean? I’m not sure. But I do know that, like Napoleon, I enjoy BRAIDS’ Native Speaker very much at times and not so much in others. By Will Tunstall