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On their debut album, 1999's Something About Airplanes, Death Cab for Cutie proved there's a reason why Northwest music critics continue to sing their praises. The foursome combined the emo sounds of Modest Mouse and 764-Hero with an inventive, and often sly, sentimentality. It worked wonders, but still sounded a little too lo-fi. Luckily, on We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes the group has figured out all the production nuances that flawed that auspicious debut. The opening "Title Track" begins by sounding both crappy and shallow, but the band is merely pulling your leg; two minutes later, the tune expands into a gorgeous, well-produced masterpiece. The album never looks back. Ben Gibbard's songwriting continues to evolve--"Company Calls" segues into, what else, the slower "Company Calls Epilogue"--while the simple lyrics of "For What Reason" and "405" tell infectious stories that demand repeated listenings. Proof positive the Northwest is still churning out great music. --Jason Verlinde

The first Black Box Recorder album, 1998's England Made Me, was originally conceived by Auteurs and Baader Meinhof frontman Luke Haines as a typically baleful response to the cultural and political hysteria--respectively, Britpop and Tony Blair--then gripping Britain. Recorded with the help of former Jesus & Mary Chain drummer John Moore and singer Sarah Nixey, it did for Britpop roughly what the film Carrie did for the senior prom. The Facts of Life, the follow-up, maintains the withering glare but fixes it this time on the personal. The songs here obsess with unnerving clarity and mordant wit on the banal, cruel details of human relationships and are narrated perfectly by Nixey. Where her perfectly English-accented whisper infused England Made Me with the air of a bored aristocrat finding contemptuous amusement in the misery of others, on The Facts of Life she has located an edge of taunting viciousness all the more diabolical for being so understated. The tunes, as ever, are sweet and insidious, perhaps best thought of as Saint Etienne turned feral. Highlights on an album full of them are "English Motorway" and "The Art of Driving"--BBR triumphantly reclaiming the American rock & roll prerogative of the road song for their damp, claustrophobic homeland. The Facts of Life is a masterpiece. --Andrew Mueller