Hella CHURCH GONE WILD/CHIRPIN’ HARD (Suicide Squeeze)

It’s a shame so few duos release double solo albums, because now the rock-crit caddyshack is stuck calling Hella’s latest the Speakerboxxx/The Love Below of indie rock — which is lazy and unfair to all involved parties. The comparison is dead-on, though, from the incorrect but widely held opinion that one disc (Chirpin’ Hard) is better than the other (Church Gone Wild) to the notion that if we culled the best tracks from each disc and put them together, the result would top a few year-ends. Church is drummer Zach Hill’s, heavy on the noise and percussion, dark and riffy but occasionally tuneful. "I’m Quitting the Cult" sets the tone early: post-motorik meets vicious hardcore bass rhythms, plenty of double kickdrum, gratuitous soot. And yes, "Earth’s First Evening Jimi Hendrix–less and Pissed" is as good a song as it is a title. Chirpin’ Hard, Spencer Seim’s disc, is more iPod-friendly — hookier, and the songs are shorter. MIDI keyboard melodies dominate a cleaner mix, precious in spots, sure, but Spencer’s on to something exciting here. After drumming and arranging for his Nintendo cover band the Advantage, he’s internalized the eight-bit console sound, and Chirpin’ Hard is at once his homage to and his improvement on it.