Album: V/A / Score: The Covers

Artist: V/A

Title: Score: The Covers

A sort of stand-alone cousin to Merge's giant 20th anniversary box set/subscription series, this disc contains specially commissioned versions of tracks from Merge albums by non-Merge bands. A lovely idea, a wealth of potential source material, and they asked some cool bands to throw down.

The good news is that it pretty much works. Milage varies, of course, depending on your opinion going in of the song and/or covering band. Some marriages are inspired: the disc opens with a ripping take of The 3Ds' "Sleep All Summer" by Quasi (better known as Janet Weiss' other band) that's going to have me digging around to figure out where I stashed all those 3Ds MP3's. Some don't work — Bright Eyes kinda bargle up The Magnetic Fields' "Papa Was a Rodeo", though this might just be a reflection of my general antipathy towards Bright Eyes.

Probably more destined to be pulled out for the few tracks that pulled me in that repeat album listening, this is still a reliably solid collection.

Track Picks: 1 - "Beautiful Things" (Quasi — 3Ds cover), 4 - "Sleep All Summer" (St. Vincent and the National — Crooked Fingers cover), 13 - "Drug Life" (The Mountain Goats — East River Pipe cover)

Album: V/A / Dark Was the Night

Artist: V/A

Title: Dark Was the Night

Being of an age that No Alternative was a big deal to me when it came out, I felt a twinge of anticipation for its successor, despite feeling the particular sort of ambivalence that one generally reserves for compilations. At worst a dumping ground for not-quite-b-sides (or, worse, for remixes, uninteresting covers or superfluous live versions), a comp'll sometimes click and provide both nuggets by well-loved bands and signposts towards things to explore.

This one falls somewhere in the middle. Listening on my walk without the tracklist handy, I found, on examination after the fact that the stuff I liked most was largely the bands I could identify right away, and as for signposts, there were a lot more warning me away than beckoning on.

The first disc is especially underwhelming, frontloaded with a bunch of this season's sensitive crooners — Bon Iver, for example, not winning me over any more here. Only a couple songs towards the middle really stick, with a decent entry by The National and a solid Antony track covering Dylan covering Trad. Arr. A bit of increased regard towards the back end is negated by the set's nadir, "You Are the Blood" (a Castanets cover, apparently), a dreadfully indulgent ten-minute effort by Sufjan Stevens that supplements a couple minutes of song with a lot of would-be avant plunking around that gets turgid five minutes in and invites despondent thoughts by its end.

The second disc is an improvement, with more material that at least invites re-listening. Dave Sitek (of TV on the Radio) surprises with a Troggs cover that sounds more like a Magnetic Fields cover, and there is a genuine hot streak in the middle, with a warm hug from Yo La Tengo (making an onscurity by Snapper their own), followed by some folksy goodness from Stuart Murdoch (of Belle and Sebastian fame) and then a wonderfully woozy bit of ambiance from Riceboy Sleeps, which turns out to be a side project of Sigur Rós vocalist Jónsi Birgisson, and sounds not at all unlike his band doing an instrumental Amiina cover.

So a bit of a muddle then, which might simply indicate how out of touch I am with the zeitgeist. But some worthy stuff here.

Track picks: On disc two: 6 - "With a Girl Like You" (Dave Sitek), 9 - "Gentle Hour" (Yo La Tengo), 10 - "Another Saturday" (Stuart Murdoch), 11 - "Happiness" (Riceboy Sleeps)