Here’s the damned thing about Pitchfork.com Ok it’s not “the” thing, it’s my thing, but I suspect some others may share my thing. It’s a conspiracy theory really, and if there’s one thing I love it’s a good conspiracy theory.

Try this on for size: Pitchfork sometimes champions garbage music.

(Editor’s note. I could point out to Brian that he isn’t the first person to reach this conclusion. Yeah I could do that.)

I doubt they’re being paid to shine turds; no one in the music business has that kind of money anymore. (Except that I did read something the other day accusing major labels of buying Itunes downloads to goose artist chart positions. It’s bribery without the middle man….. namely Clear Channel regional program directors with a taste for the marching powder.)

And really what does it matter? Pitchfork are by no means the worst offenders regardless of motivation. Rolling Stone once gave Mick Jagger’s “Goddess In The Doorway” five out of five stars. Publisher Jan Wenner has always taken care of his own. I shudder to think what would happen if Bill Clinton ever cut a sax record. Imagine Wenner running into Bono at a charity event and having to explain why David Fricke gave “No Line On The Horizon” the one and half stars it actually deserved. Choose your battles I always say. And all of that of course comes from my fevered imagination. I don’t know any of these people, and can only draw conclusions from available evidence. To wit: “No Line On The Horizon” is a piece of ordure.

Which brings me back to Pitchfork. Their sometimes-puzzling conclusions are perhaps on a smaller scale the same thing. The music business is, if it’s anything, intensely political. Everything at a joint like Pitchfork has to be subjected to something of a relationship calculus. A review can be currency. Good, and you get artist access from gatekeepers. Bad? There will be some sort of reckoning you can bet. That’s the way of the world kids.

In 2009 Wavves aka lo-fi nose picker Nathan Williams was snatched from obscurity to much less obscurity thanks in part to a glowing Pitchfork review. It almost seemed like an experiment. ‘Let’s see how much horseshit we can get people to accept.’ And we all found out at The Primavera Sound Festival when the crowd pelted him with bottles.

The self-titled second album was praised to the gills by Pitchfork for it’s “thrilling evidence of compelling, thoughtful craftsmanship.” Moaning “I’m So Bored” over and over again isn’t lazy and childish…. to writer David Bevan it’s a “mantra.” Turning everything up really loud and making cool sounds until mom comes home from the Albertsons becomes a “young man most certainly singing the blues.” John Lee Hooker didn’t live long enough to punch all concerned in the mouth.

And so it’s with much surprise that I report the first Wavves album not made on Williams’ crusty bed sheets ain’t half bad. Veteran producer Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Ben Folds, Elvis Costello etc) took it upon himself to conjure out of Williams an occasionally winning album worthy of, if not the 8.4 out of ten it got from Pitchfork, at least a half assed thumbs up from me. Herring makes sure “King Of The Beach” still retains at least some of the splattery, leaky sonics of before. What Herring also does is play up the surfer dude hooks hinted at prior. The woo hoos of “Take On The World” sound weary and wary, but there’s some stoned exuberance too. It’s ok to make a fun song sound fun now isn’t it…. “Baseball Cards” is a friendly nod to the Beach Boys, and ends with a goofy roller skate rink synth and Peanuts Gang chorus.

There’s honest to God stylistic variety here too. “Convertible Balloon” is hand clapping new wave taffy. A line like “my old friends hate my guts, and who gives a fuck” on the lovely “Green Eyes” isn’t so whiny pee pants anymore thanks to a chunky hook anchored on fizzy power pop. In fact in 1991 or so “Green Eyes” could have been an alt-radio smash, built as it is on the now time honored “loud-quiet” dynamic.

In the end “King Of The Beach” reminds me of an old Jesus and Mary Chain record called “Darklands.” The Scottish band had gained a good deal of notoriety in 1985 with their infamous “Psychocandy” album, and subsequent tour. The black leather clad lads played sunny surf pop drenched in mind flubbering swaths of unrelenting feedback. Their concerts consisted of 20 minutes of racket as the band flailed away, backs to the audience. Self-hating critics lapped it all up, every last chunk off their boots and two years later the 1987 follow up “Darklands” was to many of them something of a shock. The J&M Chain’s sadomasochistic style was gone, replaced by something more compelling altogether: great songs, including one of the ultimate singles of the early alternative era “April Skies.” Without “Darklands” The Jesus And Mary Chain would have been a bizarre footnote, with it they had something of a career.

And so it could be with Wavves. It’s up to Nathan Williams now. People will slow down for car wrecks, but they keep moving. If he wants them to stay he’ll have to build on what he has with “King Of The Beach.”