Custom

Math time: Billy Idol is to John Lydon what Duane “Custom” Lavold is to Beck—a slightly more industry-friendly analogue to a known genre-bender. On Fast, New York-based Custom shows he knows how to put together the kind of 13-song smorgasbord of a disc that’s got something for everyone. Well, most everyone. Take the single, “Hey Mister”: A musical taunt to old dad of the “Yo, I’m sucking down your single malt and shtupping your little princess and, by the way, she gets filthy like a wig-wearing professional” school of radio ditties, the track careens from Odelay-style textured Pro Tools pop to furiously strummed post-“Teen Spirit” hair-product alt-rock on the choruses. And it might be convincing if Custom’s adenoidal faux-limey accent wasn’t so much, ahem, on the Jobriath side of Bowie. While not a groundbreaking work, Fast hits the fashionably contrived product bullseye, with a few exceptions.