Because We Hate You / Let War Against Music Begin

Scott McCaughey's two bands here deliver a bargain package of a full-length CD each. Given their enjoyably shambling live shows, the Minus 5 are hardly the first outfit you'd expect to turn in an album as magnificently crafted as Let the War Against Music Begin. McCaughey and a cast including Peter Buck, Posies Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer, and Robyn Hitchcock render perfectly wistful widescreen pop loaded with direct lyrics, loving vocal harmonies, vintage electronic-keyboard sounds, and a Spector-esque propulsion. A winner that recalls and betters McCaughey's beloved Beach Boys discs So Tough and Holland, its counterpart finds the Young Fresh Fellows returning to the studio for the first time in several years. Unsurprisingly more haphazard than the Minus 5 record, Because We Hate You nonetheless has its share of lyrical moments ("Worthless," "Summerland") mixed in with the gleeful dork-rock mini-epic "My Drum Set," an amped-up cover of Boyce & Hart's "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite," and the speaks-for-itself "Mamie Dunn, Employee of the Month." --Rickey Wright