Out Today: Beasties Bite Back, Stevie Nicks Gets Witchier
What's the best way to celebrate the elimination of Osama Bin Laden? Listening to the Foo Fighters' latest album Wasting Light for the fourth week straight, of course. Send help, or at least the announcement of a late-summer or early fall tour date. Come on, man, just one hit. 
This week's new releases are a solid bunch, with the Beastie Boys' long-awaited return following MCA's cancer scare, and Fleet Foxes leading the Mayday charge with Helplessness Blues. Also on the list this week you will find the return of Donny and Marie Osmond, Fleetwood Mac earth mother Stevie Nicks, the inexplicably continuing musical career of one Jennifer Lopez, and the reissue of one of the best anarcho-punk records of all time.
Next week brings new stuff from comedy trio The Lonely Island, an intensely-awaited Tyler, The Creator solo disc, another Okkervil River slab, and the first new Cars material since 1987's Door To Door. What we have heard of the Cars stuff isn't exactly the fluffy New Wave stuff you might expect. This time around they have a harder post-edge, or at least that was our first impression.
Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two: Easily the best Beastie Boys set since 1998's Hello Nasty, with the band hitting all the bases around the diamond for the first time since the last Clinton administration. Well, it wasn't that hard to beat To The 5 Boroughs, was it?
There are way too many standouts here to list, so we suggest just grabbing a copy. You may be dissecting it for the next year, and have no doubt already seen the epic, star-studded video for "Make Some Noise" by now.
Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues: This album sounds the like early morning sun, with the Foxes seemingly in league with the Lord to soundtrack all of creation. Most every song sounds flowers blooming, dew forming onto leaves of grass, and birds chirping in the near distance. It's nothing groundbreaking from the band's 2008 self-titled debut, but it will satisfy the roots tooth of the beardo in your life. 
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