Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head
(Easy Street Records, Queen Anne) By all accounts, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head are a band I should like. I like electro. I enjoy pop. I get jokes. And yet… the electro is just too preset, the pop is too Disney, the jokes are, well, not so funny. And here’s the rub, it seems, when it comes to Seattle and electro-pop: Too few bands are willing to just do it sincerely à la, say, LCD Soundsystem or Hot Chip (U.S.E, weirdly, might be the exception, as genuine as they are goofy). It’s an understandable stance in such a traditional, rockist town—to make a joke out of your synth pop before anyone else can—but it means such acts will only ever be a gag. And if you’re going to be just a gag, you better at least be funny. ERIC GRANDY

Jimmy Eat World, Dear and the Headlights
(Showbox Sodo) Lately, I’ve been revisiting the records of my youth—those soundtracks to unrequited crushes and frustrating “no one understands me!” fights with my parents—and Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity is one of the great ones. The band were on the verge of adulthood, and their songs were glittery guitar-fueled mixes of optimism, confusion, hope, and despair. The band hit the mark again with Bleed American (oversensitively retitled Jimmy Eat World post-9/11). The band polished their pop sound, and while it proved more radio friendly, with the posi-adolescent anthem “The Middle,” it still dripped with sincerity. Since then, though, the band have gone downhill. Futures was a failed experiment in electronic flourishes, and on Chase This Light, frontman Jim Adkins seemed too much like an old guy trying to be a teenager again. And their last Seattle performance was bor-ing. MEGAN SELING

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