NEWNESS ENDS [Audio CD] The New Year

Maybe Bedhead never broke up after all; maybe they just got up on a different side of the bed for the New Year. It takes a little while, but after some intensive listening, Newness Ends, the debut album from Bubba and Matt Kadane's post-Bedhead New Year, isn't quite reducible to a new lineup of an old band. It burns with a larger flame, all the same low-lit hues glowing bigger and more fleshily. The guitars are sharper, newcomer Chris Brokaw's drumming is harder hitting, and the tunes are more aggressive. The Kadanes have a strum-heavy formula that owes much to the Feelies and myriad others, but they've tuned it enough that Matt's laconic vocals and the wobble-toned guitars clearly indicate a debt to Bedhead without repeating their footsteps exactly. --Andrew Bartlett