Jaill - That's How We Burn (2010)

Wonderful blend of garage-rock and post-punk with great pop sensibilities.

New Blog

Started a new blog here. Eventually it'll probably replace this one, but maybe someone will occasionally share music with you on this one :).

Slowdive - Souvlaki (1993)

Artist/Album: Slowdive—Souvlaki
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 10/10
Recommended if you like: Any contemporary dream pop or post-rock.
Released By: Creation Records
Favorite Tracks: “Catch the Breeze,” “Waves,” “Primal”

In introducing a little more rock to their sound, Slowdive both benefit and suffer. Yes, this is a less atmospheric album than Just for a Day, which is forty of the most beautiful minutes ever recorded. However, the more tangible vocals, toned-down synths, and clear melodies, increases the impact of these songs. Not to mention the diversity of sounds on this record, which surpass most of what you’ll hear in most shoegaze or dream pop albums. It’s kind of a neat thing to know that this type of stuff can be incorporated into popular music forms, and to do it takes skill. Not that it doesn’t take skill to do what Slowdive did on their debut, but they’re two different things. Some of the vocals have an almost twee vibe to them, which doesn’t really bother me, but it could conceivably bring the band’s music a bit closer to Earth and rob it of some of its ethereal beauty. I don’t think this matters because this album’s introduction of Slowdive’s slowly churning atmosphere into more a standard pop/rock format really works as well as I could have expected. This edition of the album has four bonus tracks.

Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)

Artist/Album: Spoon—Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 9/10
Style(s): Post-punk, indie pop/rock.
Released By: Merge
Favorite Tracks: “Don’t Make Me a Target,” “Rhthm & Soul,” “The Underdog,” “Black Like Me”

When I think of Spoon, I think of a very tight sounding band, with rigid rhythms and a penchant for occasional experimentation. Everything is just so tight, so controlled; their songs tend to be really skeletal, with simple, common drum beats, repetitive guitar melodies, and a post-punk reliance on bass. They tend to dress these elements with pianos, brass, and other bells and whistles, none of which distract from the simplicity of the melodies. Note the citar (I think) solo on “My Little Japanese Cigarette Case,” as just one of the many creative flourishes they include on this album. Spoon is so good at dressing their angular post punk melodies in a rather unique way. Britt Daniels also has a fairly distinctive voice, if not an especially strong one. They achieve a lot of cool guitar tones, really giving each song a different feel. A lot of these vocal hooks are really catchy too. I have to highly recommend this band to anyone with any interest in independent music. Few bands combine creativity and catchiness like Spoon, and post-punk is rarely made this catchy while staying true to its foundations. They aren’t one of my favorites, I find I have to be in a specific mood for Spoon, but few bands combine creativity and catchiness like Spoon. This is probably their most upbeat, most accessible album. It’s pretty consistent, though there are a couple tracks I like less than the rest, there’s nothing here that doesn’t fit.

Sick of it All - Based on a True Story (2010)

Artist/Album: Sick of it All—Based on a True Story

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 5/10

Recommended if you like: Sick of it All

Released by: Century Media

Favorite Tracks: “A Month of Sundays,” “Dirty Money”

Sick of it All’s Based on a True Story is pretty basic New York hardcore. Whether you look at this strain of punk rock as dated or nostalgic will determine whether you like this or not. If you like your punk on the melodic side, or are into melodic hardcore, this probably isn’t where you want to be unless you’re looking to discover some of the relics from the 80s, in which case I’d still think you’d be better served to look into the early emo bands. Allmusic’s review of this album call this “old-school hardcore comfort food for punk rockers.” I sort of agree. I liked their debut album Blood, Sweat, and No Tears (1989) better. The difference is in the production. With the slicker production on this new album, it sounds like vocalist Lou Koller is shouting at you, rather than with you. That’s what happens when his vocals are so high in the mix. The guitars exist just to continuously slap you in the face, again sort of what hardcore aims to do, but I like a little more tact. On their debut, the riffs were more varied. The variation from song to song is relatively minor. It doesn’t have to be that way though, as these guys proved 21 years ago. It’s almost like they try to be so aggressive that it really loses some of its impact. Good hardcore? Sure, but this has been done better many times, and there are contemporary bands who put interesting spins on this without compromising aggression.

No link per label request.

Slowdive - Just for a Day (1991)

Artist/Album: Slowdive—Just for a Day

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 8/10

Recommended if you like: Any contemporary dream pop or post-rock.

Released By: Creation Records

Favorite Tracks: “Catch the Breeze,” “Waves,” “Primal”

Just for a Day was the debut of this short-lived British band whose songs were slow and expansive, shoegaze slowed to a crawl. Drums were very low in the mix, and the bass and synthesizers near the top. But the melodies were of secondary importance to the waves of synth noise that just dominates the mix. It’s a sound that’s pretty but melancholic. The music on this album is not as exciting as the stuff the band would go on to record, being mostly devoid of pop sensibilities. This isn't exactly a problem for me because this music really reaches some truly beautiful heights, something that must be heard to be believed. If you enjoy lush, atmospheric music, this delivers in spades. If you’re looking for something a bit more rock-oriented, this might not satisfy, but do seek out their sophmore album Souvlaki, which mixes this sound with more pop/rock song structures.

I'm going to try to mix in some older albums with the new releases I typically post. By older I mean before 2010.

Autechre - Move of Ten (2010)

Artist/Album: Autechre—Move of Ten
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10
Recommended if you like: glitchy electronica, ambient electronica, dark ambient
Released By: Warp Records
Favorite Tracks: “Etchogon-S,” “rew(1),” “M62,” “Cep puiqMX”

This is the second album by Autechre to come out this year, the other one being a fine release called Oversteps that I talked about a few months ago. The duo uses analog synthesizers and experiment a lot with different sounds ranging from techno to ambient to hip hop. For me, this is not the sort of thing I encounter very often, even within the electronic stuff I listen to with any regularity. What makes Autechre distinct from most electronic music is that these songs are quite complex and tend to have a dark, mysterious quality to it. That darkness, I attribute to their waves of synth noise that just sort of cascade over each track. I think they used this to excellent effect on Oversteps, which really showed off their ambient side. The beats they use aren’t simple as in a lot of dance music. The first track, “Etchogon-S,” begins with a glitchy beat, the timing of which, I just cant quite put my finger on. When they combine synth notes and beats, it’s often hard to focus on one or the other for very long. Often my attention would be diverted from one rhythm to another and back again numerous times within a song. It gives the illusion that there’s a lot going on.

This thing is being billed as an EP, but at 10 tracks and 47 minutes, it is short only by Autechre’s standards. Oversteps was over an hour long. I quite enjoy what these musicians do, especially the ambient aspect of it. It’s unlike most things I’ve listened to, and I know there’s a niche within the IDM community for this sort of music, but it feels very fresh and unique to me. I like their more abrasive tracks best, such as “Cep puiqMX” (most of their song titles are like that), and wish there was a little more of that on the album, but this “EP” is a wonderful example of just how diverse electronic music can be.

This Will Destroy You - Moving on the Edges of Things (2010)

Artist/Album: This Will Destroy You—Moving on the Edges of Things

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10

Recommended if you like: Noisy, ambient post-rock.

Released By: Magic Bullet

Favorite Tracks: Both are pretty good.

This EP consists of two tracks, and fourteen minutes of music, from this post-rock quartet. Their second full-length is due out sometime this year, and it isn’t clear whether these two tracks are on that album. They were a pretty standard post-rock group from what I remember of their debut album, which I quite liked. These new tracks are really more ambient than anything on that album, with a lot of murky static that really clouds the mix. I really liked the jazzy rhythms and the almost math-rock guitar melodies on their self-titled, so I hope those aren’t completely gone on the upcoming album. What they do really well on these new tracks is use the hazy ambiance to muffle what’s going on. You can hear different tones ring out underneath the droning atmosphere that hovers over everything. Throughout the first track, “Rituals,” I kept getting the feeling that notes were about to bubble up to the surface, but they didn’t really do so until about halfway through the nine-minute track when you hear strings and soft percussion poking its head through the haze. The band does a good job of justifying their song lengths—a distinct linear progression can be heard on both songs—far from simply creating some pretty guitar sounds, the music starts somewhere and winds up somewhere different. The other song, “Woven Tears” has a more lively drum beat but turns up the noise, giving the song a dark, mechanical feel. It’s hard to get too excited or disappointed by a two-song teaser for an upcoming album. If these songs are any indication, I’d have to recommend the first album more highly to post-rock fans.

Belle and Sebastian - The Boy With the Arab Strap (1998)

Artist/Album: Belle and Sebastian—The Boy With the Arab Strap
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10
Recommended if you like: Any indie (or mainstream) pop, especially stuff with twee sensibilities.
Released By: Matador Records
Favorite Tracks: “It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career,” “Sleep the Clock Around,” “The Boy With the Arab Strap”

This is a fine collection of tunes if not as impressive as the album that preceded it. If anything, it shows that maybe Belle and Sebastian shouldn’t experiment. The spoken word/psychedelic pop on “A Space Boy Dream” kind of kills the momentum of the album for me. I still don’t know if dreamy, sunny pop gets any better than Belle and Sebastian when they’re at their best. I still prefer If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996), Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003), or The Life Pursuit (2006), simply because they’re more consistent. Little things go a long way, like the hand claps on the title track, towards making the songs really memorable. If you like this band, then you’d be missing out if you don’t give this album a chance because it has some great songs.

Steel Train - Steel Train (2010)

Artist/Album: Steel Train – Steel Train

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10

Recommended if you like: The Format, Tegan and Sara, bands like that.

Released By: Terrible Thrills (the band’s own label)

Favorite Tracks: “Bullet,” “You and I Undercover,” “Children of the 90's,” “Soldier in the Army”

Steel Train’s third album begins with what might be my new favorite song of theirs, “Bullet.” It’s a song that alternates between the two distinct strains of their sound. It has that U2 arena momentum that they excelled at on songs like “Kill Monsters in the Rain” off their 2007 album Trampoline. The chorus is a bouncy, sing-along passage lead by acoustic guitar strumming. These styles are almost two extremes, the first sounding huge and the second warm and intimate. Steel Train do both very well and it makes for a good pop song, but they don’t really do that throughout. Sometimes they seem to stray towards an eccentricity I associate with indie rock, by which I mean a sort of franticness that comes at the expense of catchiness. In a number of places the hooks just don’t go where you might want them to go, and I applaud Steel Train for not being overly predictable, but wish more of their songs would be as catchy as “Bullet” or “Soldier in the Army.” I couldn’t warm up to all of these songs, which is a shame because the songs I could warm up to I absolutely love. This is an album of peaks and valleys—really high peaks and valleys that are just low enough for you to really miss the peaks. Steel Train brings a fun energy to songs that are about serious things and they value musicianship and that makes for an album on which nothing is hard to listen to and it’s a hard album for all but the most hardcore indie-heads to hate. If you liked their past work, especially their last album, this might work for you. Also, if you like pop music with synths, with a fun spirit, that likes the rock at times, and aren’t afraid of a few left-field songwriting choices, Steel Train might be worth your time.

School of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire (2010)

Artist/Album: School of Seven Bells – Disconnect From Desire

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 8/10

Recommended if you like: Dream pop, shoegaze, any combination thereof.

Released By: Vagrant Records

Favorite Tracks: “Windstorm,” “Babelonia,” “Dial,” “Bye Bye Bye”

On School of Seven Bells’ debut album, 2008’s Alpinisms, they played dreamy pop music a la Beach House but borrowed a lot from world music. A lot of the percussion was rhythms borrowed from other places, and this gave that album a very fresh, original feel. On this album they’ve replaced the world music elements with shoegaze, at no loss of overall quality. This reminds me a bit of Imogen Heap. The vocalists, a set of twin sisters, sound much like her, but with entirely different backing music. At their heart, these are pop songs, and it’s too easy to get lost in the beautiful vocals and miss all that is going on. The murky guitar tones are a bit murkier than I typically hear from this style. Their excellent use of electronics almost contrasts the guitar tones. The drums are a bit clearer than you hear in most shoegaze, but this isn’t purely shoegaze so who cares, and that actually makes the songs feel a little more urgent. Some songs certainly seem to owe more to the shoegazers than others but I found the music constantly lively and the vocals enchanting throughout the album. On their first two albums, this band has taken two different styles and incorporated them into their music to make something that really is their own.

Soilwork - The Panic Broadcast (2010)

Artist/Album: Soilwork - The Panic Broadcast
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 4/10
Recommended if you like: I would recommend this to anyone in the front row of a metalcore show.
Released by: Nuclear Blast
Favorite Tracks: “Late for the Kill, Early for the Slaughter,” “Enter Dog of Pavlov”

Members of Soilwork have indicated in interviews that they wanted this album to feature “catchy choruses” and be more technical than past albums. I don’t think this is an overwhelming success on either front. Far from being a solid melodic death metal release, this album approaches what I would call a mallcore/metalcore or even a nu metal sound sometimes, and that is a huge turn off. The band throws some melodic passages and clean singing into the mix, but they do so without tact, with the abrupt turn halfway through “Sweet Demise” being just one example. I think a lot of young bands tend to do this; they think that melody is the same thing as catchiness and it isn’t. I don’t think the transitions from verse to chorus or from heavy to soft are all that smooth and they seem totally arbitrary. The clean parts are obnoxiously faux-metal and they convey to me absolutely no believable emotion. They’re certainly melodic, as in not heavy, but that doesn’t make them catchy. Seven years ago I’d have been all over these songs, rocking out in my The Used t-shirt. Now it just sounds sort of lame. As for the technical thing, I haven’t heard their last album and it’s been a long time since I listened to their earlier stuff, so I have no basis for comparison. This isn’t overly technical; within the metal community, this caliber of guitar playing is rather common, but it’s miles above anything I could do with a guitar and there are some nice guitar riffs. Actually, the band is catchier when they just go balls-to-the-wall heavy instead of trying to turn in some anthemic chorus. Even when the guitarists show their chops, the songs are often ruined by horrible vocals. “Epitome” has an awesome solo but the vocals throughout the song ruin it for me. I like melodic death metal, but there are so many albums that do it more intensely, more technically, and pay better attention to the cohesion and flow of each song. I saw some live clips that inspired me to check this album out, but the intensity of that show just wasn’t there on this album. Maybe their older stuff is better. Teenage bands everywhere have adopted strains of hardcore and metal and sort of made it their own but too often it feels too controlled, tame even, and Soilwork’s latest album is an unfortunate example of this.

Plants and Animals - La La Land (2010)

Artist/Album: Plants and Animals – La La Land

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 5/10

Recommended if you like: Guitar-based rock, bands with folk influences, maybe

Released By: Secret City Records

Favorite Tracks: “American Idol,” “Future from the 80s”

Parc Avenue (2008), which borrowed about as much from Neil Young as it did from the Arcade Fire, was a fine folk rock album in my opinion. I like stuff that blends sparse rural folk and tense indie rock, but Plants and Animals have completely changed direction on their new album. They describe themselves as “post-classic rock” and I can definitely hear the classic rock influences here. This is similar to the recently-released Blitzen Trapper album in that it borrows heavily but lacks any real charm or personality. On this album they basically sound like a young band covering their heroes. I’m having a lot of trouble connecting with this band through these songs. I kept hoping something would come and pick up the songs, that one element would step up and do something interesting. I like to be able to get a handle on the musicians’ moods and personalities through their work, and when I am unable to I find the music rather boring. This isn’t completely bad though. Some fine moments, such as the meditative “Future from the 80s” save the album from being a complete bust, but don’t really make it all that interesting to me. I tried listening to it maybe 10 times, and each time it just completely faded into the background. I'd sit and stare at the little bar on itunes as it crept closer and closer to the end of each song, and was left feeling rather indifferent to this album.

Orders of business

New format. I thought this would make the posts a bit more informative. This blog is meant to be something like my diary relating to all the music I consume, not simply a newsletter. In that way, it's sort of self-serving, although the ideas of sharing music and my thoughts on music, do appeal to me.

The number ratings are my way of summarizing how I feel about an album extremily briefly. Something I cannot really describe in words how an album makes me feel, and so I think my reviews are somewhat incomplete without these. That said, these numbers do not really represent an end all be all grade. It's sort of a way I can organize the albums I like into tiers. There are a handful of absolute favorites, a bunch that I like slighty less, and so on. I tend to look for a numerical representation of reviewers' opinions when I read reviews. I find it gives a bit of context to the review itself. Don't take them too seriously.

The RIYL was a recommendation from someone whose opinion I trust. I am probably not well versed enough to compose a complete list of recommendations for a given album, but I'll try.

Finally, the record labels who put the albums out deserve some credit. Do you ever find yourself enjoying a bunch of releases from the same label? There's a lot of music to be discovered. Also, the reason you're here... click the album cover photos for a special treat.

SINGLE: Smashing Pumpkins’ Freak

New single released recently from their upcoming EP. I was never much of a Smashing Pumpkins fan, but having not given them a chance since their overhyped Zeitgeist album, I thought this single might be worth a shot. The song is not offensively bad, and I can conceive of longtime fans or fans of their recent stuff liking this. It does very little for me though. I think the issue with this band is that I want my alt. rock groups to display a bit more personality. Billy Corgan just bores me to tears, and the chorus of this song is obnoxious. The lyrics sound like something I would have heard in a middle school assembly. The lyrics are simply places over a wall of distortion, and in truth, it’s moderately catchy. At the end of the day, it’s all stuff we’ve heard before. Plus it’s Billy Corgan. The combination thereof does not excite me all that much, but here’s the song. Decide for yourself.

Jakob Dylan - Women + Country (2010)

Obvious comparisons notwithstanding, Jakob Dylan’s second solo album is a fine alt-country album. This is definitely more country than folk, a relaxed affair that, unlike many of his father’s greatest songs, are not confrontational in the slightest. Many of these songs are built around gentle acoustic strumming, slow tempos, and a subdued percussion that propels the songs nicely. Dylan’s voice doesn’t sound all that much like his father’s, aside from some similar tonalities, but this commonality wont jump out at the listener. It would be silly to expect anything all that similar to his father, and sillier still to judge Jakob’s work in comparison to Bob’s. I don’t remember the elder Dylan ever recording anything quite as mellow as this, even in his advanced age. There’s an edge inherent in nearly every word he sings. Jakob Dylan doesn’t have this edge, with a voice more suited for lullabies than protest songs. This style suits him well on this album, and though I cannot compare it to his other solo album of any of the Wallflowers’ albums, this is strong enough for me to consider giving those a chance. The drawback is that, by the time the album is halfway over, a lack of variety becomes evident. Too much of the same drums beat, the same soothing acoustic rhythms, it just becomes a little too similar after a while, but, soon after this becomes evident, the album suddenly branches out slightly, and thus saves the album from being a one-trick pony. The eighth track, “Truth for a Truth,” breaks up the semi-monotony with a surprisingly upbeat melody. The song has a nice flow to it, with Neko Case providing background vocals that lend a great deal of texture to the song. The track that follows this, “They’ve Trapped Us Boys,” is another highlight. It’s sort of a bluegrass ballad, with a rollicking guitar and banjo melody. Nothing on this album is bad, as I’ve said, but right when I started thinking everything sounded a bit too similar, these two tracks came on and reignited my interest in this album. There’s another noteworthy track, earlier in the album. “Lend a Hand” is a slow, plodding, brass-augmented, track that certainly doesn’t sound like most of the album. The album, despite a lot of similar sounding songs, is pretty consistant in terms of quality. The songs capture the feel you’d expect from a country album, though it doesn’t tread so far into country as to become a charicature of the genre (like more mainstream country music). I feel like this is a very strong album, almost bordering on being a great one, but it will certainly get a lot of plays through this summer from me.

Recommended Tracks:
“Nothing But the Whole Wide World”
“Yonder Come the Blues”
“Truth for a Truth”
“They’ve Trapped Us Boys”

Hour of 13 - The Ritualist (2010)

This is the sophomore release of this doom metal band, and as near as I can tell, this is pretty true to traditional doom metal. I really don’t fully understand what “traditional” doom metal was, but if this is it, then I wasn't far off. This has more in common with Black Sabbath, than some of the bands bordering on drone/doom like Earth. I guess that traditional means the stuff that sort of influenced the doom metal movement. I hear vocals that sound like Ozzy, guitar playing heavily influenced by blues, and drums that have a sort of hollow sound. These guitars, rather than pummeling, grinding, or droning, tend to play tangible riffs. Now, these riffs are of the mid- to low tempo variety, distorted so that they sound kind of bleak, and they tend to ring out a bit (a la drones) but I’m really hearing more Sabbath than the really dirgey stuff that, to me, characterizes doom metal. The guitars really dominate the mix, again lending credence to the doom label, but it’s really just a classic metal, straying closer to blues than doom. If this is “traditional” doom metal, then so be it, but I challenge you to hear this and not immediately think of Sabbath. I’m not the biggest Ozzy/Sabbath fan, but I liked this Hour of 13 album a lot. I tend not to be interested in what I consider classic heavy metal; I tend to like it a bit more unusual or extreme, punishing and technical if it’s of the death metal family or else atmospheric if it’s of the black persuasion. As a “noob” to doom metal, and still unsure if this really qualifies or is just kind of influenced by the same stuff as the forefathers of doom, I’d be interested to hear what more people think of this. Reviews and information about this band are scarce. I must say, this album really hit the spot for me. It’s heavy, dark, mysterious--gave me everything I want from my metal albums--it's got some mean guitars tones that just kind of wash over you as you listen. Very nice.

Deer Tick - The Black Dirt Sessions (2010)

Deer Tick’s third album was recorded around the same time as their second, Born on Flag Day (2009). They play a bluesy sort of alternative country with vocals that approach grunge territory. I thought their music that would be more comfortable in some honky-tonk bar than at some large festival in Texas, until I heard this new album. These songs are stripped-down to the bare essentials. Mostly gone is the distorted guitar buzz that drenched the songs on their 2009 release. Gone is the gritty country vibe. The rural elements are still here; you’ll notice plenty of bluesy guitar tones and the vocals still have that country vibe, but these songs sound clear and crisp, the product (or victim?) of impeccable production. These songs just reveal themselves to you very quickly. You can pick up the melodies and the vocals, and just sort of get it. This album is not so much about creating any sort of mood, just about delivering the melodies. I like a lot of these songs, but cant help wishing there was a bit more going on. Deer Tick haven’t exactly disappointed me, but I’m having trouble getting too excited about this new album. If you liked Born on Flag Day, I’d suggest giving this a listen before you buy it. You might miss the overall grittiness, but these songs really aren’t bad.

Stars - The Five Ghosts (2010)

I enjoyed this album a lot more than I expected to. I expected the sweet, charming vocals. I expected unchallenging, easily digestible song structures, with lots of pleasant keyboard and guitar sounds. A lot of chiming melodies, synths, and songs about breakup, loss, uncertainty, all things I can easily relate to. What I didn’t expect of the latest Stars album, was that it would be as diverse as it is. It really doesn’t take many listens for these songs to each take on their own identity. The album shifts seamlessly between upbeat dance-pop and lush, atmospheric balladry. Similarly, the emotions communicated in the songs shift from sad and reflective to confidence on the more upbeat tunes. The band, especially Amy Millan’s vocals, are of similarly high quality throughout. Millan pulls off each mood quite well, never sounding overly bubbly or too self-loathing. She never approaches anger or outright ebuliance, with her reflections constantly sounding even-headed. This makes her a likable and aesthetically pleasant storyteller on these songs. This is a moody album, but it doesn’t ride a particular disposition to the point of novelty or overindulgence. It’s constantly believable. The music frequently dabbles with the hazy guitar tones characteristic of dream pop (check out “He Dreams He’s Awake.”) The twee sensibilities are pervasive, but there is more to Stars than sugary sweetness. They use their guitars and synthesizers to create the mood, thus taking some pressure of Amy Millan to be the only communicative vessel on this album. A few songs approach dance-pop (“We Don’t Want Your Body”), but only under appropriate restraint, so this never feels too dancey or club-ready. Millan also pulls off sultry, almost bluesy vocals quite well on “Winter Bones.” The male vocals that appear on several tracks, were rather nondescript, with the exception of the album opener, “Dead Hearts.” This track is a duet—really a conversation—between the two vocalists, and is one of the highlights. It’s about as close as two vocalists can come to having “chemistry,” and is a rather affecting track, despite the awkward transitions into the choruses. If you liked Stars before, I don’t see why you wouldn’t like these songs. I’d expect some fans might want that band to change their approach a bit before album six, just to keep things fresh. I think these are talented enough musicians to be able to experiment a little bit without completely abandoning who they are. The band is very good at musically representing the ups and downs relating to their chosen subject matter. They sing about break ups, about people changing, and about coping with such changes. This is an album that pulls off lush and catchy equally well. It plays like a quick tour through a variety of emotions, all presented with a pleasant pop façade.

Blitzen Trapper - Destroyer of the Void (2010)

I’ve tried to get into Blitzen Trapper each time they’ve released an album for the past three releases and I’m afraid they still don’t really interest me all that much. On Destroyer of the Void, I hear a lot of classic influences. There is a distinctly Southern feel to the whole album, with songs that have a dirty sort of guitar sound, banjos and harmonicas, the sort of stuff that makes you think of some tavern off a dirt road in the Deep South. Another influence is mid-era Beatles. The vocals sound like they’re somewhere in between Lennon and McCartney territory, perhaps a little closer to the former. The melodies sung are very Beatlesque, reminding me of albums like Revolver and Rubber Soul. Of course this is all packaged as a folk-rock album. It has that sort of aesthetic, the lyrics tend to come from a weary, love-starved, traveler. I think I hear the influence of Love as well, an early folk-rock group. These influences give the songs a distinctly late-60s feel to it, but beyond that, Blitzen Trapper really doesn’t do much to make this sound their own. This album is a nice tribute to some of the sounds of 40 years ago, but it feels sort of anonymous. I can listen to The Beatles, or Love, or Grateful Dead and get it right from the source. I probably wouldn’t though, and that’s the thing about this album. If you’re a die hard Dead, Love, or even just a fan of early folk-rock with a bit of psychedelia thrown in, this will probably cure your itch. My problem is not that this is a bad set of songs, they are actually quite well written and performed proficiently. You have to care for the band’s influences to appreciate Blitzen Trapper. I give them credit for some really good vocal hooks, some clever songwriting, and generally being a talented band, but this is all sort of under the heavy shadow of their predecessors. If you’re looking for something that fits nicely alongside the folk-rock, or even psychedelic-tinged rock of the late 60s and 70s, maybe this band is for you. Check it out.

Wolf Parade - Expo 86 (2010)

Wolf Parade is the collaboration of two prolific singer/songwriters, with a handful of other projects under their belts. Within the indie community (whatever that means), they might as well be Gods. Spencer Krug is worshipped beyond anyone this side of Steven Malkmus, and let’s face it, he’s a talented guy. Krug has written and performed some incredible music with Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, and Swan Lake, to name the most prominent of his projects. Wolf Parade’s third album is due out at the end of June, and the music doesn’t feel quite as fresh as it did the first time around. Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005) was an immaculately crafted pop/rock album. It had character, was fun, approachable, and the attention to detail on that album was impressive. Down to every last pause, every last fill, the band seemed to make all the “right” choices, if that makes sense. I liked At Mount Zoomer (2008) too, but thought it was a moodier, less accessible album.

I often wonder how an artist with a variety of projects can return to one after extensive work in others, and not have the music colored by his/her more recent work. Dan Boekner’s songs don’t really sound like his work in Handsome Furs, and Spencer Krug’s don’t really sound like Sunset Rubdown songs, but I hear influences from both of those bands on this album. I hear Handsome Furs in the rigid, angular nature of some of the riffs. I hear Sunset Rubdown in the more left-field direction of Krug’s songs.

Another issue with Wolf Parade is that they embody many indie stereotypes. The eccentricity in Krug’s voice, his abstract lyrics, the odd song titles, the stylistic choices they make on their records. But let’s not confuse Wolf Parade’s adventurousness with indie wankery. It really isn’t. Wolf Parade is a band that is not afraid to take chances. They’ll include a verse here, a note there, a shift in melody anywhere, that seems odd from the standard pop/rock rulebook. That’s a really cool thing, and it’s part of what makes Wolf Parade an interesting band to me. My issue with the new album is that the band covers these songs with too much fluff. The synths and guitars wail in ways that distract somewhat from the skeletons of these songs. That makes these songs far more challenging than the ones the band released five years ago. My opinion of this album is largely a positive one. I expect that over the coming weeks, I’ll discover more to like about it.

Another gripe of mine is that there are too many “who-oh’s” in these songs. One vocalist will be singing, and the other will keep interjecting with “who-oh, who-oh, who-oh.” That gets annoying after a while.

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Peter Wolf Crier - Inter-Be (2010)

This is the debut album of a folk duo from Jagjaguar records, who have some very good artists on their roster. The vocals often remind me of M. Ward, a very good thing, though sometimes they enter a more soulful area. The music is built around simple guitar melodies and percussion. These songs are not badly written, they just don’t sound as though they are performed with much passion, which is a shame, because the album has some fine moments that would be made even better if performed with more conviction. I think this is a band to watch, as they probably are capable of topping this.

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Band of Horses - Infinite Arms (2010)

I’ve been a huge fan of Band of Horses’ combination of folk and arena rock. Their guitar sound makes their best songs sound absolutely massive. Infinite Arms is somewhat different from their first two albums. It’s more towards the folky end of the spectrum, with an overall quieter sound and less atmospherics going on. The focus is clearly on the songs themselves, the hooks and melodies, instead of just creating an intense atmosphere and it works pretty well. It’s too soon to say whether this reaches the heights of the previous two albums, but it’s pretty clear this isn’t a disappointment by any means. Some songs like “Compliments,” “Laredo,” “Dilly,” and “Older” are among their catchiest.

Holy Fuck - Latin (2010)

Holy Fuck do electronic music really well. They have that whole thing down where you take a simple beat and riff, preferably a catchy one like the bass riff that propels “Red Lights,” and gradually add elements to build to song to build tension that eventually erupts as the song concludes. Drums join the bass riff, followed by warm synth notes, and then the underlying riff changes occasionally to keep the song interesting. Holy Fuck’s Latin is just filled to the brim with gripping beats, unpredictable turns, and tunefulness throughout. This album starts with a gloomy ambient track, “MD,” before it really gets going. The mood is distinctly eerie, as on “Latin America” which has an almost-industrial backdrop to a cymbal-heavy beat. One interesting thing Holy Fuck do throughout is combine contrasting sounds. On “Stay Lit,” for example, a sunny synth melody provides the backdrop for grungy guitar noise that comes and goes as the song progresses giving the song a dark, almost post-punk feel, though you cant ignore the almost blissful synthesizers. “Stilettos” is the reverse of this. The song uses a bass melody and a tribal-sounding drum beat to provide the rhythm, while the synths add brightness in spots. Latin is a compelling album because it isn’t content to just give you something to dance to; every catchy electronic melody is replaced or shifts into another equally catchy one. Also the album plays with different moods to an interesting effect. There is really no electronic album I’d rather hear at this point.

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Pianos Become the Teeth - Old Pride (2010)

“Old Pride” is a fitting name for this Baltimore band’s debut album. They’re a throwback to the days when screamo has yet to be popularized and bastardized by fashionable scenesters but was an outlet for pure anguish. Most mallcore faux-emo bands are about dyed hair and controlled (safe) bursts of aggression. They wouldn’t know true catharsis if it kicked them in the face, let alone came through their Bose speakers. Pianos Become the Teeth, true to those D.C. bands from twenty years ago, are not about pummeling your eardrums until they bleed. Often the screamed vocals are backed by beautiful, melodic guitar work. They frequently mix in mellow, atmospheric passages, which give the music added complexity. In this way, the music represents a wider range of human emotion and just feels more relevant. Sure, these songs are generally bleak, often heavy, and not all that accessible, but they are diverse despite residing within the framework of early emo. Within a given song, the mood changes and shifts, tension builds and is released, guitar melodies come and go. The percussion is intricate and the pretty guitar-based ambient parts, such as on the last half of “Young Fire” are gorgeous. These 8 songs breeze by lasting only 36 minutes, and I immediately found myself needing to relisten just because I hadn’t quite gotten enough. That said, if you don’t like heavy music, or have an aversion to screaming, this is not for you.

For their singer’s explanation of the album title and the meaning behind each of the songs, check this interview.

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The Kissaway Trail - Sleep Mountain (2010)

While listening to The Kissaway Trail, I kept thinking of The Arcade Fire and Death Cab for Cutie. The Kissaway Trail’s brand of indie rock relies on a very spaced out, atmospheric vibe. The songs tend to start slow and gradually built to a huge-sounding climax. They make heavy use of ambiance, using strings to build tension like The Arcade Fire. The record also feels very safe. It’s approachable, unchallenging, and wears its heart on its sleeve. The music is beautiful throughout, though it isn’t really distinctive. Anyone can play a pretty melody, and The Kissaway Trail do that throughout the album. The problem is that it is very clear what sort of sound they are going for, and they do not do it as well as some of their obvious peers. Additionally, at 55 minutes, the album is too long. You probably won’t remember anything ten minutes after it ends unless you spend a lot of time with this album. My favorite track is “Don’t Wake Up,” which uses a pleasant organ melody to make it stand out slightly. The drumming is the most lively component of the band, and it goes a long way to lending a sense of hugeness to these songs. The Kissaway Trail are a band worth watching, but they haven’t done anything especially noteworthy yet.

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The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang (2010)

The Gaslight Anthem surprised me. How could anyone follow such a great record as The 59 Sound? I figured they would either try too hard to rewrite that album, or else try to hard to make something different. Instead they focused on songwriting. The melodies are terrific, vocally and instrumentally. There are some really satisfying guitar melodies, such as on “Stay Lucky.” What made their last two albums especially great was the genuine conviction in Brian Fallon’s voice. He sounds like he means every word with every fiber of his being, and it’s hard not to appreciate that. Also the humble, almost folky, aesthetic made them so likable. The 59 Sound was a warm, friendly album, and so is this new one. It took a few listens to grow on me, and I don’t think it’s quite as gripping their last one but that’s probably just because they were a new, lesser-known band then. Now, with higher expectations comes a greater potential for disappointment, but after spending time with this album, there really isn’t anything I dislike. Sometimes it sounds a lot like Bruce Springsteen, but I can live with that.

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65daysofstatic - We Were Exploding Anyway (2010)

65daysofstatic's new album will probably gain them a whole lot of new fans, but also make longtime fans cringe. This album must have been very anticipated. The band waited three years to deliver this one after taking only three years to give us their first three albums. Clearly a lot has happened over this time since their sound has undergone quite a change. Their first three albums were all relatively constant in style and quality, with frantic guitars and percussion, interspersed with nice ambient passages, and electronics used to give the music a rather unique texture. The music was confusing. It often shifted between gloom and beauty, fast and slow, loud and not so loud, but it was unpredictable for those new to it. This album is similar in style, but heavy on the dance elements. It’s less frantic and not as dark. There is some post-punk grime and some rapid percussive effects, but it’s got an entirely different feel. Their debut, The Fall of Math (2004) had more in common with Nine Inch Nails than, say, Hot Chip. I don’t object strongly to their new sound. I do think what they were doing before is less common, and they did it so well, but this is a fine album.

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The National - High Violet (2010)

High Violet (2010) is too brilliant to have come from this world. Any of the adjectives I would typically use to describe music I love would fail to do this album justice.

As for the requisite comparisons to Boxer (2007), these songs are more layered, make more use of piano, and create an ambiance that's immediately darker and more melancholic. As with all their work, beneath the somber tone I hear hope in Matt Berninger's voice. This isn't just gloom; there's a real sense of life to these songs, kind of like a dark room with light spilling in through a window. The complexity of their music demands multiple listens. The more you immerse yourself in this, the more you'll gain from it.

If, for some reason, you haven't heard this band, please do. The hype machine isn't always wrong.

Discover America - Future Paths (2010)

This is the second album from a guy named Chris Staples under the moniker "Discover America." It's a pretty basic album as far as indie pop goes, dominated by the guitar which is high in the mix and somewhat versatile, shifting between thick distortion ("Devil in the Woods"), gentle strumming ("1979," "Brighton Beach") and sweet chiming melodies ("Force the Proper Wind," "A Lock of Samson's Hair"). Unfortunately the guitars are the source of pretty much all the variation on this album, as the other elements contribute relatively little of value. Staples' voice is mid-range and breathy, often lacking the emotional content one might expect when he's singing over an especially beautiful guitar melody, or else singing about his struggles (as he does often). His guitar is really the source of the record's tone. The disconnect between the vocal performance and the instrumental soundscape is palpable but doesn't totally ruin the album. These songs are generally very catchy, and at its highest points, the album is a pleasant, whistful journey through Staples' thoughts. He seems to have a penchant for country, as evidenced on songs like "1979," which would fit very comfortably alongside whatever's on the country radio charts these days if it weren't for the vocals being decidedly un-country. Many of his guitar melodies feel like they were lifted out of some old country tune as well, which isn't a bad thing. I hope, next time around, he releases something with a bit more variety, performed with more conviction.

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