Jigsaw Linkz

Hate the game, not the player, right? Saying that this grimy threesome's third outing is boilerplate generic NYC gangsta rap is as tiresome as the tropes on display here; the femme-R&B chorus of "Music 4 the User" succinctly lays it all out over a banging, red-eyed Chinky Evidence synth beat that almost glows: "Crack, coke, piff/Motherfucking wet, guns, sex." Talk about the middleman cutting out the middleman. Beck's more endearing, chaotic side, it turns out, was shunted off to international singles or left on the studio floor--and these castoffs smoke their better-known cousins. Way back when, the Raveonettes—along with the Strokes, the White Stripes, the Hives, and dozens of other would-be contenders history has since forgotten—were supposed to save rock, right?