It's a sad sad planet: reviews

Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts

Saturday, November 3, 2012

We'll get to know your sad side...again...

Beach House - Wild

What better treat then a luscious new radio single by Beach House? 'Wild' hits all the right spots, a little summer feel to forget the dreary Belgian fall weather. You simply won't/can't hear anything quite as good as this on the radiowaves at the moment. I'm a little angry with myself for not getting tickets for their upcoming AB show, I'll have to make do with the good memories of their performance at De Kreun in May 2012.

SX - Gold

This three-piece from Kortrijk has a slight Beach House-feel, albeit with less guitar and more electronics. Apart from the title track and previous single 'Black Video', their new album 'Gold' contains some other gems.

Willow - Two Children

The 3D music video for their previous track 'Sweater' garnered some international attention and a couple of 100000 views on youtube, and Willow are now back with another single. Crossing the border into some classic The Edge riff-territories in the last riff right there.

Hooverphonic - Renaissance fair

Hooverphonic goes classic. Which isn't a big step away from what they've always done, let's not kid ourselves here. A track ideally suited towards Noemie's voice, so well done there, Alex.

Balthazar - Sinking ship

Strong candidate for next single from the 'Rats' album. Listened to the new Balthazar album, and it does not disappoint. Less bass, more violin, more Maarten Devoldere (and his typical vocal delivery). Recommended.

Montevideo ft Lara Chedraoui - Fate & Glory

Lara sailing away from the standard Intergalactic Lovers waters, and sounding quite groovy here. Excellent move by this Brussels band.

Blaudzun - Elephants

Another good single by one of the musical revelations among our neighbours in the north.

Bat For Lashes - Marilyn

This track was co-produced by Beck. Among the better tracks on the slightly disappointing new 'The Haunted Man' album. Still looking forward to her show at the AB at the end of the month though.

Lana Del Rey - Ride

Striking whiling the iron is hot, Del Rey (or more likely, her record company) is already re-releasing her debut album with some extra tracks. Ride is one of them. Even though I can't fully support 10 minute music videos for a track that's only standard length, I'm still on board of the Lana boat. What about you?

Jake Bugg - Two Fingers

Nice little track; the music press across the canal already branding Mr. Bugg 'the new Dylan' might be a little ambitious, however.

Ellie Goulding - Lights

In my last post, I proclaimed that Gouldings relationship with Skrillex is trumping whatever career she has at the moment, but seeing as this relationship appears to be defunct now, here's her new single! Standing up playing drums while simultaneously singing is always a little silly in my book.

Clock Opera - Into the mountains

Constructing a track around an arhythmic piano track is a formula Bombay Bicycle Club already mastered with their 'Shuffle' track, but still a nice introduction to this new band.

Disclosure - Latch

We know this guy from his Jessie Ware remix, and he's back with another excellent dubstep-light track with great vocals. The video is simple and effective, and slightly sticky. (Soulwax already had a similar concept for their 'When logics die' video years ago)

Breakbot - Baby, I'm yours

The Ed Banger music label used to be a big deal in the dance genre, Justice had their day and age but seems long forgotten in the dubstep era, so Busy P is turning towards more funky stuff, it seems.

Blende - Fake Love

I wish I could tell more about this, other than this track is released on Eskimo records, from Ghent nightlife fame. "Don't go messing with my heart/'cause it's gonna come back to you". Karma in a nutshell.

Candy Staton - Hallelujah anyway

You know Candy Staton from the original version of 'You got the love' (by The Source). The religious lyrics are almost gospel-like, but that voice is still something special.

The Rolling Stone - Doom and gloom

Even these rock dinosaurs got back together in the studio. Being more of a Beatles man myself, I have to admit this new single packs some punch and isn't half bad.

Band Of Horses - Knock knock

After the more fragile "Everything all the time" and "Cease to begin" albums, Ben Bridwell and his fellows decided to follow a more FM-rock route. But they can still whip out a good radio single every once in a while.

Carly Rae Jepsen - This kiss

I already featured the track in my previous post, but now, the music video is finally here. Disappointment reigns supreme however, the video can't hold my attention like the 'Call me maybe' one, maybe Ms. Jepsen is just lacking the stage presence that's necessary to pull off a (semi-)performance video. Disappointment too regarding the final mix of the track you hear in the official video. I've posted two videos below so you can compare yourself: the mix of the music video toned down the snare drum and synths, and mixed in more vocals and bass, instantly rendering the track less exciting and appealing, don't you think? My love for the thunderingly loud eighties snare drum might be making me slightly subjective here.

Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj is a phenomenon that's hard to ignore. Here in Europe, she had to wait for the commercial single 'Starship' to reach the charts, but in America, she's already a big star. She shares the eccentric wardrobe with Lady Gaga (but less fashionably correct and more cartoon-esque with flashy colours) and an exotic heritage with Rihanna (Riri is from Barbados, and Minaj has some Trinidadian roots). She's also a self-proclaimed schizophrenic, having several alter egos, of which Roman Zolanski is most frequently present on her latest albums.
I think my first real encounter with Nicki was at Dominos Pizza Gent. There I sat, reading some book or magazine, patiently awaiting my fastfood fix, when Big Sean's video suddenly popped up on the in-store tv screen. Needless to say, the video caught my attention and led me to stumble upon her 'Super Bass' video (which is really the only single from her musical output I could fully appreciate at the time).
Fast forward a year, and Nicki released a new album, and the new commercial direction was a letdown, with singles 'Starship' and 'Pound the alarm' even taking refuge in oh so contemporary dubstep breakdowns. Luckily, Nicki returns with the new single 'The Boys'.
The story goes like this: Cassie (you might remember her from the excellent 'Me & u' track a couple of years ago) was supposed to have a single out "Money on love", but due to some issues that never happened and the song stayed locked up in some record company vault somewhere, until someone tipped it off to Nicki, who wrote her own verses for the song but kept Cassies chorus parts. And did an excellent job at that. The video is almost NSFW material, but if these 2 artists feature in it of their own volition, I feel I should be able feature it on my blog as well. Let me stress again that I like the track for it's musical merits (the juxtaposition of Nickis sped up rap bits with the fragile chorus! the amazing Cassie break! the Daft Punk reference!...), although I'm also slightly powerless to the eye candy presented in the video. I'm still not really sure why the hair salon has to be burnt down exactly, but I can now pinpoint three distinct tattoo locations on Cassies body...

Nicki Minaj ft. Cassie - The boys

Big Sean ft Nicki Minaj - A$$

Cassie - Me and you

Nineties

The nineties will always be part of my musical DNA, and my love for the decade is still growing ever stronger. Scarce is a new discovery for me, in the 90s, female bass players were omnipresent and Scarce is no exception. I especially like the bridge towards the chorus in this track.
Slowdive was one of the biggest players in the shortlived shoegaze scene. The last minute of this track is hauntingly beautiful.
I never really got into the all-female Smack The Pony comedy show, but this parody of nineties girl pop band is spot on. They also do a real funny Natalie Imbruglia Torn spoof (no seperate link, but you can find it around the 4:00 mark here).
And closing off with one of the heaviest live show performances to see the light of day in the nineties, the almighty Hum absolutely destroying the studio.

Scarce - All Sideways

Slowdive - Catch the breeze

Napkin - Big roof

Hum - I'd like your hair long

The Greatest Switch

The Greatest Switch is a yearly top 100 of the best dance tracks, as voted by the listeners of Studio Brussel. Every year, I stumble across some classic tracks that I like, and I decided to list some for you guys. Even if you're not really a fan of dance music, you still owe to yourself to know the genre classics, right?

Jones & Stephenson - The First rebirth

Jeff Mills - The Bells

Vitalic - La rock 01

Proxy - Raven

Daft Punk - Rollin' and scratchin'

Laurent Garnier - Crispy bacon

S'Express - Theme from S'Express

New Beat

Correlated to both the 'Nineties' and 'The Greatest Switch' sections above, apart from the shoegaze scene, one of the nineties scene that keeps fascinating me is the New Beat scene from the late eighties/early nineties. Not only do I like the mid-tempo, dark music with the repetitive bass and loud snares, also the whole scene ranging from the smilies, the dress code and the dance moves never ceases to amaze me. Just to highlight one aspect: compared to the hypersexualised world of 2012 (well...just watch the Nicki Minaj ft. Cassie video above), the new beat dress code and dance moves seem oddly desexualised. Everybody's sweating his/her ass off in layers of clothes leaving only the head and hands uncovered (I'll dare you to find some hotpants or cleavage in any new beat video), and the dance moves are abstract and at best playful, but not sensual at all. Notwithstanding, the typical sideways two-step new beat dance move is pretty awesome.
Anyway, I decided to list some new beat classics (merely scratching the surface here). From the dark, slow Amnesia (with a contemporary Stephanie Clerckx or Fiona Mandos on vocals!) tracks to the more commercial Confettis, it's all good!

Amnesia - Ibiza & Hysteria

101 - Rock to the beat

Confetti's - C-day

Tragic Error - Tanzen

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A mistake on the part of nature

Reviews

School Of Seven Bells - Disconnect from desire (7/10)

My fingers are freezing slightly while I'm typing this, but I'm sure you'll forgive for keeping this entry non-verbose.

School Of Seven Bells hardly needs any more introduction, having been featured on this blog twice before with some excellent singles. I got a hold of their latest effort by this New York based poppy shoegaze-style band, and I can say I like most of it. It is a slight hit or miss record, the lesser tracks don't really annoy, they just drag on and nothing really happens. The good tracks however make up for it, and they'll all seem to draw inspiration from a different source. The echo in "Bye bye bye" has a slight Souvlaki Space Station -vibe, the elektronic sample in "Cammarilla" is Kraftwerk-esque, the vocals in "Babelonia" remind me of Cocteau Twins, and "I L U" draws heavily on the inescapable My Bloody Valentine influence. I was however disappointed by their performance at De Nachten (they played as a threesome, as twin sister and backing vocalist Claudia left/got kicked out of the band a couple weeks before); they started out real good, then the vocalist completely lost her voice, struggled through the rest of the set - that was subsequently cut short - and left the stage without anymore acknowledgement of the crowd. Plus, letting a drummer play along with a programmed drum track is always a little silly/unnecessary. Shame, because the setting was perfectly suited for them to make an impression. But I have a suspicion we'll hear from these guys in the future. Wasn't really non-verbose, now was it? I'll have to try harder.

The New Pornographers - Together (6.5/10)

I was a fan of Canadian ultrapoppy supergroup (a supergroup in Canada, apart from Neko Case maybe, none of the members is known in Europe except for the most diligent music fans) for three albums, as with many fans, they lost me a little on their slow and kind of boring "Challengers"-album, but luckily, fifth album "Together" again packs some punch. The band's weak spot is still the lyrics; both of the songwriters (A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar) both never seem to write personal stuff, but lose themselves in absurd writings (what about "Valkyrie at the roller disco") that never seem to go anywhere, which really decreases the recognisability and the singalong factor. Luckily, on about half of the tracks, the song structures and arrangements are that good that the lyrics don't even matter; this is true for the first five tracks and "Up in the dark". The rest of the material doesn't really cut it. Do hope to see these guys live again someday, especially now that Neko Case seem to tour along more often.

Random radio stuff

Laserkraft 3D is the maker of one of this moment's smash hits. "Nein, mann" is simply irrestible, a good advocate for the german language, and I especially like it because it's hard to believe that only in 2010 someone came up with the idea of using this theme for a song. The clicking beats kind of remind me of the classic "Answering machine" track by Green Velvet.

Another dance song I really like right now is Martin Solveig's new track. Sounds a little different (more dance, less groove) than his previous work, but still, good stuff. Dragonette seems to be a hip singer, she's also featured on a couple of other tracks right now.

Can't say the new Lykki Li track has completely won me over yet. Something in the drum rhythm reminds me of The Bangles.

Saying White Lies are into bombast is an understatement. They were the only band on the Pukkelpop festival that appeared in black and white on the stage-side screens, and their new video features a hospitalized boy singing the lyrics. Their previous album just nearly missed my skip-pile and I strongly fear the new album is going to be a miss. In this track, the chorus just does nothing and the vocals are way too overproduced for my taste.

Apart from the "Chasing pavement" single which I found decent at most, I never enjoyed any of Adele's work. Sure, voice is good, so what, if the songs are not. And I'm definitely not into her advocating/championing smoking every chance she gets. On this new single, she tries to do something bluesy/county, disregarding the fact that KT Tunstall did the same thing a lot better a couple years back.

This is my jam right now. Apparently, this is the first Asian American number one track in the US ever. Apart from the jumpy beats, the chorus really is what makes this track. It's actually a sample from the "Booty Bounce" track by Dev, who also features in the video. I've checked out some snippets of some other tracks by this band, looks like they're trying to be the Asian Black Eyed Peas (Will.I.Am, a "Time of my life"-cover? really?) or something.

The new Robyn track is pretty alright too. The melody/tempo in the verse really reminds me of another song, but I can't quite put the finger on it (yet).

Finishing off with some tracks by some compatriots, Sherman is the singer-songwriter project of Steven Bossuyt. He now resides in London and seems to be doing well, seeing that he got invited to do a session at the BBC. His new single "On your side" is pretty good, I prefer the more dynamic radio version to this acoustic performance however. A really well structured track, although I hope not all his writing is so dependent on lyrical clichés.

The new Goose album gets miscellaneous reviews. Not really into the new "Can't stop me now" -single, however, the title track of their new album is pretty cool. You could validly state this is their "Housewife".

Random nineties video

And closing off with another nineties video, Scott Weiland is such a mess right now, you could overlook the fact that Stone Temple Pilots used to be pretty cool. This is one of their first singles ever, the lyrics are somewhat controversial, it seems.

Friday, October 1, 2010

You can never quarantine the past

The Skip-pile

When I started with the whole review thing, my goal was to only review things I liked, and just ignore the bad stuff. I broke my own rule when I felt I had to warn everyone about the insanely bad Weezer record, so I'm giving birth to the Skip Pile, which is a pile of albums I'd advise you to skip and/or give a wide berth.

Adding to this pile today:

Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb sun

One thing about listening to music while playing World of Warcraft is that it usually takes you half an hour to realize you've been listening to the same album for three times in a row already. So basically, you will notice when a really good song comes along, mediocre songs just pass by unnoticed. In other words, it has got to be a really sucky album when you actually pick up on how bad it is sucking, and you decide to alt-tab out of the game just to switch cd's. This is one of those albums. I think these guys played the Werchter festival last summer, and it was on that basis that I decided to check it out, but this was horribly bad and boring.

Laura Marling - I speak because I can

Part of the London-based folk-scene and the partner of the singer in Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling is an acoustic singer-songwriter. I myself, have to admit I'm not the biggest fan of the genre (I only have a limited tolerance towards the Duyster program, after which I will stop listening and blast some Slayer or Metallica instead), and I'll admit "Rambling man" (the third UK single from the album) is actually quite good (it incidentally is musically very similar to Mumford and uses the same songwriting techniques), but all the rest is highly skippable.

Reviews

Best Coast - Crazy for you (8/10)

Best Coast is a fairly recent band from California. They recruited the drummer from Vivian Girls, there's a long-haired spastic Asian dude on guitar and then there's Bethany Cosentino. Lover of cats (she has her ginger cat's name Snacks tattooed on her arm), weed, Snookie (from Jersey Shore fame), hater of Katy Perry. This is their debut album, although they've released a lot of singles and EP's in their short existence. I'm a big fan, they remind of The Raveonettes in their 'Chain gang of love'-period, when they also sounded light, sunny, not too fuzzy and had short tracks. At 12 tracks, this album clocks in under half an hour, which is a good thing, because the songs always are done way before they would start to bore. Not the best lyrical record you'll ever hear, but the emotions come across and you can feel the honesty ("You say that we're just friends/but I want this 'till the end"). There's some influences from sixties girl groups, and expect a lot of woo-hoo background vocals. The more up-tempo tracks are like always my personal favourite (see below), but the slower tracks usually have some kind of twist that keeps them interesting. Recommended background music for daydreaming about love or the summer.

Pavement - Quarantine the past (8.5/10)

A year and a half ago, I listened to the Wowee Zowee album by the same band. It was the first full album I ever checked out by this cultband (categorised as lo-fi alternative indie rock) from the nineties. I liked it but at the same time couldn't really get into it, because the album is abrasive at times, there's a lot of different styles, and Pavement were never the band to make it easy on their listeners. This best-of compilation came out to celebrate their reunion shows last year, and it's a lot more coherent that the respective albums the tracks come from. People will always complain that some particular songs are lacking, but this is a good overview, ranging from forgotten singles ("Gold soundz") to excellent album tracks (the slightly post-rockish "Grounded"), with a lot of variation. Makes me wonder if contemporary teenagers would still dig this, or if it's really a "you had to be there in the nineties"-kind of thing. It is only now that I got the lyrical brilliance of the "You're my fact-checking cous"-line in "Stereo" too.

Hairglow - S/T (8/10)

Hooverphonic was one of the most succesful Belgian bands in the late nineties and noughties, if you look from an international perspective. After the departure of their singer Geike (as far as I know, they're still looking for a new one), main man Alex Callier emerged with this poppy, eighties synthpop project, with Alex himself on vocals. I'm risking all my credibility as a music reviewer by rating this with an 8, because this album was gruesomely ignored by the whole media and overlooked by the audience. I picked it up for 2 euros expecting little more than a couple of good laughs, but it has promoted itself to endless repeat-status. Part of the appeal is the confusion whether this album is a tribute to or a pastiche of the genre. The production is excellent and really evokes the eighties sound, whereas the lyrics are as silly as their eighties counterparts. A couple of examples "Your solitude doesn't like intruders/Asking for your name", "They're something inside me/it wants to get out/it wants to love you" and "You are not a robot dear/You are made of premium flesh and blood". Top tracks are "Is it love?", "I do love you" (both of which are unfortunately not on youtube), and "A12", which features a singer that - oddly enough - sounds exactly like Geike.

Helmet - Monochrome (6.5/10)

Helmet is an alternative metal/rock band from the nineties with a distinctive sound, mixing groovy guitars with a lot of their typical start-stop riffs. Unlike others, I still liked their "Aftertaste" album, but like most fans, I prefer the earlier "Meantime" and "Betty" albums. They split up for a while after "Aftertaste", had their fair share of line-up changes, and returned somewhere in the mid-2000's with the "Size Matters", which I haven't heard. "Monochrome" is the successor to that album. Page Hamilton succeeds in reviving the old Helmet sound in a couple of tracks (well, the riff "Brand New" is a straight copy from the one in "Turned out" on the "Meantime"-album), so if you're a Helmet fan and you have the chance to pick this up for 2 euro's like I did, do not hesitate. Great intro line too, "Hanging out with all these dicks/still collecting tokens", Hamilton sneers on "Swallowing everything".

Dubstep

This genre has existed since the beginning of the millennium, but it has swiftly outgrown the underground since the beginning of the year (and probably before) and is even hitting the charts now. For a genre derived from grime and drum and bass, it first struck me as kind of slow, but then I realized that it's the jumpiness of the melody that creates the danceability. Let's see of this genre is a keeper, or if it will gracelessly will fade from popularity as fast as the late tectonic genre. The 2 biggest hits in this scene right now are:

Random tracks

While we're still on the subject of danceable stuff, I've been liking this radio track with the jungle-like sounds for the past couple of weeks.

Manic Street Preachers have got a new album out, and first single is - slightly dramatically - titled "It's not war, just the end of love". I'll let you decide if the guitar in the verse sounds more like "A design for life" or "Tonight, tonight".

The Wombats were one of the more fun bands from the last couple of years, they too are back with a new album, the new single however lacks a little energy, even though it has lines like "Astrophysics, you'll never be my closest friend" and "I wear a suitcase under each of my eyes".

Since the second album by MGMT was deemed terribly boring by pretty much everyone, the niche for psychedelic retro music in the rock spectrum was now again vacant. The new darlings of the music press is Australian band Tame Impala, and I'll admit this track sounds like it should and is catchy.

Title Fight

When 2 of our friends are wearing merch from the same band on the same day, you know you finally have to check out that other band you've been sleeping on. Title Fight is a poppunk/melodic hardcore band from Kingston, Pennsylvania, and combine the vocal intensity of the early The Get Up Kids with the fast poppunk of early Saves The Day and the whole early 2000's Drive-Thru records scene, or at least that's what I'm hearing. I checked out 2 tracks (both from the "Last thing you forget"-album) that were both excellent, checking out their albums is now a lot higher on my priority list.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

I've spent too long in sinking sand...

...holding breath, only to defy death.

Got some more reviews for you.

Fool's Gold - Fool's gold

This band mixes indie with African influences. They sing in Hebrew a lot, but just like Matisyahu, it never outgrows the 'gimmick'-stage. I'm not even gonna rate this, the only song that could capture my attention is the opening track, which does have an infectious guitar riff. As for the rest, don't even bother and give "Cape kod kwassa kwassa" another spin.

Holly Miranda - The magician's private library (7/10)

Produced by Dave Sitek and with guest appearances from TV on the Radio, you're bound to hear some echoes of the previous work by these artists on this album (especially the Scarlett Johanssen album produced by Sitek). Some tracks remind me of Mercury Rev, and maybe some Portishead. Zero 7 without the dance aspect might also be a reference point. This is a pretty varied album, most of it consisting of 4-5 minute long, meandering, dreamy material, "Waves" being my personal favourite amongst them. Some songs sound a little more poppy, due to the instrumentation, "Forest green oh forest green" and "Everytime I go to sleep" nudge towards playful songs for children, "Sweet dreams" is a little more upbeat and has a catchy trumpet riff. Only track that fails to work, is "No one just is", where the triphoppy rhythm feels a little forced. Personal favourite "Canvas" has a definite "The XX" feel to it. I also appreciate the lyrical side of this record, which seems to focus heavily on relationships. I'd state this album definitely could work as a chill-out record. For the gym, not so much.

She & Him - Volume Two (6/10)

I'm gonna admit to having never heard Volume 1, so I can't compare this record to the previous one. In the second coming of the M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel collaboration, I think I can say the main influences here are country music and The Ronettes-style girl groups, although there are also some pop-moments. This disc contains a couple of winners and some fillers, so I'm a little torn about this. M. Ward does what he can to get the most out of the song material (like the unexpected guitar solo that closes off 'In the sun'), but overall, Zooey's writing isn't always great and -at times- a little bland and unimaginative, especially in the lyrical department (ignored is going to rhyme with bored, blame with ashamed, shoes with blues,... the list goes on), so good for her she's an actress and not a screenwriter. I won't say bad things about her singing, she's definitely trumping Scarlett in that department. For a pop record, I personally feel it's lacking in the singalong department. There's also 2 covers here: one ("Ridin' in my car") does nothing for me, the other ("Gonna get along without you now") is definitely among the best tracks on this album. The slow tracks tend to bore, so the highlights on this album are the more upbeat, emotional tracks: opener "Thieves" goes all-out country and hits the bullseye (intro riff sounds a lot like this though), "Don't look back" has a Greek mythology reference and a really long bridge to the chorus and "Over it over again" has a catchy chorus and offers a nice mix of the country and girl group influences. For those of you that were going to buy this for the Zooey pics in the booklet, tough luck for you, my friend! But you can always take another look at the scrumptious - college video's are always cool in my book - video for "In the sun" or the retro video for "Thieves".

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast (8/10)

In short, a more upbeat and joyous The Shins, coupled with some Weezer powerpop chords, seasoned with some Vampire Weekend-ish african guitar riffs here and there to really get the ultimate summer feel. Maybe a little Sonic Youth too. I have a strong feeling this album is gonna age well and you will be able to enjoy it during summer drives for years to come. Since you can find killer track "Swim" in one of my previous posts already, I'll serve you with 2 other tracks today: opening track "Floating vibes" and the very The Shins-esque "Twin peaks". Some meaningless snippet of trivia to close this off: apparently, these guys don't like surfing at all.

I also got some nice tracks from new(er) bands that you might want to check out.

School Of Seven Bells - Windstorm

The one and only Hendrik Reigarts got me into this band. Fitting right into the stream of dreamy pop songs we've had over the last couple of blog posts, here we have an ex-guitarist from Secret Machines and a lovely pair of twin sisters. "Windstorm" from the new "Disconnect from desire" album has some pretty cool vocal melodies and rhythms, whereas "My Cabal" is a more standard song but with a pretty cool video. I'm not really sure whether I'd be able to listen to this for a whole album, but as far as individual tracks go, I'm liking this a lot.

Sleigh Bells - Tell 'em

While we're on the subjects of ex-guitar players, one guitar player from Poison The Well now has this 2-man project. While the other tracks I checked have some elements in common with The Ting Tings or The Kills (and thus, fail to really surprise or spark interest), this track sounds simply sounds like Aaliyah singing over some loud guitar solo and mean elektro. Pretty awesome.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Say no to love

Keyboard player Peggy Wang stars in the video for this new track by these modern day The Cure adepts (well, the extrovert, poppy side of The Cure anyway). This track is by no means a great departure from their previous efforts, and... I'm not complaining. Are you?

Bombay Bicycle Club - Ivy & Gold

The previous album by these lads from London was more generic indie-rock, on their most recent album however, they're jumping the whole (more acoustic sounding) folk-rock bandwagon a little, and this track more particularly sounds like a track by Mumford and Sons, albeit slightly more relaxed maybe. The singer looks a little like Chris Martin, not sure if that's going to convince you to check it out, but I'm mentioning it anyway.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Can't you hear my motored heart?

...you're the one that started it.

This post is long overdue because of the World Cup. Go Spain!

Starting off with some reviews:

The Airborne Toxic Event - The Airborne Toxic Event (7/10)

Picked this up, not expecting a whole lot, but this isn't all too bad. Some tracks on this album sound like a more energetic The Strokes. Definitely more hits than misses, among them "Papillon" and the excellent closing track "Innocence".

The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang (7/10)

This rock outfit gets compared to Bruce Springsteen every time, and it is in fact a good reference for their sound. So many people were hyping this that I had to check it out, doesn't quite meet the expectations, but a good listen nevertheless. For me, it lacks a little punch, which my favourite track "Stay lucky" does have.

Beach House - Teen Dream (6.5/10)

(The album cover of this album is actually just a white surface.) Chillwave is a hype music genre from a couple months back, but is better suited to survive the tropic temperatures we're experiencing/enduring here at the moment. Listening to this, you can almost feel the drops of sweat forming on your forehead, as they are doing right now while I'm typing this, seeing that it's 31 degrees celsius in my bedroom. Umph. Ten tracks on the album, they're all about 4 to 5 minutes long, and most of them are more or less interchangeable. Since you might already know the first single "Norway", I picked the track "Zebra".

Regina Spektor - Far (6.5/10)

On her previous album, I liked 4 first tracks, the rest was kind of hit or miss. On Far, I like the first 7 tracks, then my attention fades away while listening. She seems to uphold a more constant level of songwriting here, although "Begin to hope" was a little more varied stylewise. Found a very nice live version of "Folding chair" from last year's edition of the Glastonbury festival. Enjoy!

Weezer - Red Album (0/10)

Words fail to describe how awful this album really is. Avoid at all cost!

Rock Ahoy, one of the coolest radio shows in a long time, recently broadcast its last episode. Mimicking pirate radios from the sixties, Katia V. mixed classic/cult songs from the sixties and seventies with modern day songs that were influenced by that same period. The three compilations (themed Madness, Badness and Sadness) this show spawned, are all a good listen. Next 2 tracks are also on those compilations:

The Drums - Saddest summer

It takes a couple of listens to get into this track that sounds just silly at first. Kind of reminds me of the "Girls" track by Beastie Boys. Note the cheesy saxophone at the end, these guys get away with just about everything.

Dum Dum Girls - Jail la la

A slight noise influence coupled with some nice vocal harmonies on this one.

Time for some rock?

The Swellers - Fire away

These guys were on tour with Paramore some months back, which makes a lot of sense. Think Foo Fighters with a slight emo-touch.

Kids In Glass Houses - Matters at all

Only incorporated this one because the video has a nice twist at the end. As it turns out, this band is on the roster of the Roadrunner label, which used to be metal-only, but I guess this is no longer the case. According to Wikipedia, The Wombats are also on the label.

It's ironic, just when The Shins are in hiatus and singer James Mercer just released the (mediocre) first single by Broken Bells (his collaboration with Danger Mouse), two bands pop up that sound a lot like The Shins and gain a lot of popularity. I guess it's the whole My Morning Jacket vs. Fleet Foxes story all over again.

Avi Buffalo - What's in it for

Here, the organ distinguishes a little from the standard The Shins formula.

Surfer Blood - Swim

Definitely adds a little more rock to The Shins equation, and some African influences (not unlike Vampire Weekend) in the middle part of the song. Like this a lot.

Next up, three tracks with an inherent fun-factor.

Caribou - Odessa

And now for something special, some jungle sounds on this track.

Miss Li - Oh boy

You probably know this already, it has been picked up for a commercial or something. Simple yet infectuous. Scandinavia does it again.

Mark Ronson - Bang Bang Bang

Sounding distinctly different from the tracks on his previous album, Mark Ronson goes more elektro on this track. The tempo change in the chorus makes me think of Santigold.

And closing off with a random nineties track, I forgot what a good Foo Fighters single this song is. From "There is nothing left to lose" and with some vocoder, excellent stuff. Listening to this now, the lyrics strike me as slightly odd though. Some lyrical snippets: "Eating deep inside you/If it was me, it was all I'd ever do" combined with "...and everyone starts going down (on you)". Orly, Dave?