Arcade Fire
The Suburbs
Merge
2010
The last half of the album begins to wane a bit, but overall this record is amazing! Easily one of the top 5 releases of the year for me.
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“The Suburbs”
“Ready to Start”
“Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”
Angie Oase
Pistol Shot EP
Self-Released
2010
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(Before I get started, anyone who mails us vinyl copies of their music to check out gets instantly added to the top of our listening pile. Kudos to Angie Oase for sending the 7″ of her new Pistol Shot EP.)
Angie Oase is a just one woman from Minneapolis with a tender voice and a fuzzy electric guitar cranking out a wonderful blend of raw blues, garage, and punk.
The album is available for sale online HERE or at the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis. Angie also has a record release show on August 5 at the Hexagon Bar.
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1. Pistol Shot
2. Keep the Beat
3. Burn That Fire
4. Black Tie Scarves
5. Sticks N Stones
Menomena
Mines
Barsuk Records
2010
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The Portland-based multi-instrumental indie rock trio is back with their first album in over three years. While Mines is not as immediately accessible as their amazing 2007 release Friend and Foe, their full rich style and talent is still stamped all over it. I look forward to this album growing on me throughout the year and hearing it live on their Fall tour.
MP3: Menomena – “Five Little Rooms”
Max Richter
Infra
Fat Cat
2010
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In Infra‘s promo material, Max Richter says, “I started thinking about making a piece on the theme of journeys, like a road movie. Or a traveler’s notebook. Or like the second unit in a film – when the scene has been played, and the image cuts away to the landscape going by.”
This album does indeed perfectly capture that particular melancholy feeling of watching landscapes pass by through a car window.
Beautiful work, as always.
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“Infra 2″
“Infra 5″
“Infra 6″
Both of these albums came out almost exactly a month ago and for multiple reasons I wasn’t able to write Favorite New Music posts for them earlier. Therefore I’m doing shorter versions of what I originally wanted to write about both of them today. Here goes.
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Against Me!
White Crosses
Sire
2010
Despite what all the haters are saying I think that White Crosses is the best album Against Me! has ever written. I enjoy the fact that they’ve transcended the “punk rock” label and used their major label assets to make a great pure rock n’ roll album. People can argue ’till their blue in the face that the band “sold out” or “changed their sound” when they signed to a major label but when it comes down to it they are simply wrong. Tom Gabel is doing exactly what he’s always done, write songs about what he is passionate about. I understand that this probably upsets people who expect him to keep writing variations of “Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious…” but if you ask me I’d rather hear a 30 year old man write about how his beliefs have changed over time than a 30 year old man sing about how he feels the same about everything now as he did when he was 17. And musically White Crosses is just as much a progression from New Wave as As The Eternal Cowboy was from Reinventing Axl Rose.
Favorite Tracks: I Was A Teenage Anarchist, Because of the Shame, We’re Breaking Up
“Because of the Shame” (live in Germany)
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Off With Their Heads
In Desolation
Epitaph
2010
http://www.myspace.com/offwiththeirheads
In Desolation will probably end up being the best pop-punk album to come out this year because Off With Their Heads is the best pop-punk band in America right now.
Favorite Tracks: Drive, The Eyes of Death, I Just Want You To Know
“Drive”
Dark Time Sunshine
Vessel
Fake Four Inc.
2010
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Dark Time Sunshine are a hip-hop duo with one member living in Seattle and the other in Chicago. Vessel is their debut which features guest spots from P.O.S., Aesop Rock, and Maggie Morrison of Lookbook. If you are a fan of Def Jux or Doomtree’s brand of rap then I think you’ll like Dark Time Sunshine too.
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MP3: Dark Time Sunshine – “Run”
MP3: Dark Time Sunshine – “E.R.” (feat. Maggie Morrison)
Chemical Brothers
Further
Astralwerks
2010
After a couple of mediocre albums I had given up on the Chemical Brothers. Further is a spectacular return to form!
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Listen to a stream of the new album HERE via NPR.
The Gaslight Anthem
American Slang
sideonedummy
2009
1. American Slang
2. Stay Lucky
3. Bring It On
4. The Diamond Church Street Choir
5. The Queen of Lower Chelsea
6. Orphans
7. Boxer
8. Old Haunts
9. The Spirit of Jazz
10. We Did It When We Were Young
Favorite Tracks: American Slang, Stay Lucky, The Queen of Lower Chelsea
A few weeks back I did a review of the new Gaslight Anthem record for Reviler as part of their 4-Take series where they get four different people to review the same record (duh). I forgot to link to it back then but seeing as how the album came out this week I’m gonna repost the whole review here. Enjoy, suckas!
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I’d like to start by saying that I think Gaslight Anthem’s last release, The ’59 Sound, is a fantastic album and hands down my favorite record of 2009. The production was great, the artwork was spot on in fitting with the theme of the album, and Brian Fallon perfected his Quentin Tarantino style of songwriting, taking little bits of his influences (rockabilly, Springsteen and Tom Petty style rock, old blues, 60’s soul and R & B) and combining it all into a record that you couldn’t help but love. He wasn’t reinventing the wheel by any means but he was reminding us how awesome it was.
And therein lies the problem with the new album. The ’59 Sound was such a leap forward in songwriting for the band that American Slang just sounds phoned in, almost like it’s filled with tracks left off the previous record.
That’s not to say it’s a bad album, there are definitely some high points here. The title track and “Stay Lucky” are a great way to kick off the record and “The Queen Of Lower Chelsea” is a great mid-tempo cut, but I find myself getting bored with the rest of the songs. It’s all just too same-y sounding to me.
I guess I was hoping that they’d take the best parts of The ‘59 Sound and build off of those to make an even better record, much like Against Me! did with White Crosses (you can argue with me if you want but that is is a fucking great album).
To quote my mom when I came home drunk in 10th grade, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.”
The Gaslight Anthem – “American Slang” (live at Bonnaroo)
Cowboy Junkies
Renmin Park
Razor & Tie
2010
latentrecordings.com/cowboyjunkies/
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Would adding a heavy Chinese influence to alt country/rock make for a uniquely fascinating concept album?
Yes. Yes it would.
By now, you probably know Renmin Park is a result of guitarist Michael Timmins’ 3-month stay in China where he made field recordings and even collected two songs to cover. The album is strange and sad, and that’s all I need.
Read more about the making of this album HERE.
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“Renmin Park”
Ratatat
LP4
XL Recordings
2010
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The instrumental duo’s great new record is streaming in its entirely HERE at NPR.
LCD Soundsystem
This is Happening
DFA
2010
I don’t like the new LCD Soundsystem record as much as the previous two, but it’s still pretty good.
“I Can Change”
“You Wanted a Hit”
The National
High Violet
4AD Records
2010
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Listening to The National’s The Virginia EP while driving through the forest valleys of Oregon with Kat two summers ago ranks right up with first hearing Modest Mouse’s “Dramamine” and seeing Jake Dilley & the Color Pharmacy perform The Red Balloon live as one of the most transcendent musical moments I’ve ever experienced. Nothing in the world had ever sounded more beautiful than that album at that time, and I’ve pretty much felt the same about every National album thus far.
High Violet is no different. This sounds like the National’s darkest output to date, to the point of absolute soul-crushing at times. They’re the only band that can tear this kind of reaction out of me on a consistent basis, and I love ‘em to pieces for it.
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“Afraid of Everyone”
“Anybody’s Ghost”
“Little Faith”
