Music Reviews Archive

October: the month that previously gave us Hallowe’en, Thom Yorke, and Jean Claude Van Damme. But none of those will matter this year, because 2010 is the year October gives us Ham Sandwich’s new album. Hurrah! Eat that, you Belgian troglodyte.

So! White Fox, for that is the album’s name, is due out on October 1st. Which is… (consults calendar)…. less than a month away! In fact, as of tomorrow, it’s precisely three weeks away. Which isn’t very long at all. I need more time to prepare!

As an excellent teaser for the album, please direct your pretty eyes to this and then this. And then follow the clicky for a special video surprise.

I wanted to embed the full speech, but stupid Youtube wouldn’t let me embed those videos. Watch it in full, epic glory by clicking this: THIS.

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I’ll admit that I’m not sure what the current popular opinion of Kings of Leon truly is: are they still liked? Or did everyone eventually turn on them after being unable to escape the dual radio assault of “Sex on Fire” and “Use Somebody” for the last four million years? Perhaps I’d be more aware if I weren’t a shut-in who spent much of the last year listening to Bing Crosby. Damn my old soul.

Either way, today is the day the Kings of Leon have chosen to preview their upcoming album, Come Around Sundown, by unveiling their new single, “Radioactive”. Video and thoughts beyond the clicky.

Well it’s basically just a Because of the Times album track with added gospel choir, isn’t it? (Yes.) So with that asked and answered, the only remaining question is this: is that a good thing? Answer: a very indifferent “ehhhh”. I’ll certainly take the Followill’s attempts to “be” U2 over, say, The Killers’. I’d probably even take it over most of U2’s more recent work. What I won’t do is take it very seriously.

I’m prompted to wonder if elements of the song won’t come to annoy me verily over the coming months, due to its inevitable omnipresence: the strangely undercooked one-note riff; the high-pitched vocalising that doesn’t quite work; the sheer obviousness of the track. They’re not immediately detrimental to my enjoyment of the song, but I quite liked “Use Somebody” the first four dozen times I heard it too.

I think the biggest problem is that it could have fitted in quite comfortably on either of the last two albums. I assumed more Because of the Times would be a good thing… until Only By The Night proved me irritatingly – if handsomely – wrong. You can have too much of a “pretty okay I guess” thing.

Will the rest of Come Around Sundown be less predictable? And is it even possible to answer “yes” to that without contradicting yourself? The first of those two questions will be answered on the 15th of October. The second will not.

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With a springy click of a mouse button, I pause Marillion’s “Kayleigh” long enough to inform you of this: Robert Plant, 1974’s most popular pop singer, shall be releasing his new album, Band of Joy, on September 14. I will also also inform you of this: NPR, they of omnivorous, insatiable musical appetites and disconcertingly-voiced DJs, are streaming the album in its entirety until that very date. Having listened to precisely “some” of the album in question, I can surmise that it includes guitars, vocals and some drums. So far, he seems to have forgotten to include laughter. Perhaps that comes later in the album.

ADDED BONUS: you don’t even have to make your browser traipse to another website. We have the technology. But if you did want to visit NPR’s website, you could probably do it here. Alternatively, you could spend the time you would have spent visiting their website doing something useful, like rescuing a cat, or boiling a squid.

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A word, if you will. A little bit ago, I bellowed news of Chico Fellini’s “Single Series”, which has since thoroughly lived up to its remit of being a series of singles. The latest in this series is this: “Cherry Tree”, the cover art for which so disturbingly inhabits the top of this post. It’s embedded below the cut, along with some thoughts and words and stuff. Also, we totally need to interview Chico Fellini. If only for the headline “Third Degree: Fellini”.

And now this happens:

I quite like this. While I wasn’t all too convinced back in June with “Give It To Me”, the last few singles have been far more tolerable, and this is certainly the best yet. This increase in likeability is possibly down to the incredibly off-putting video that accompanied that first single, but more likely due to the band’s lessening focus on the silly, distracting aesthetics that all these fuzz-indie types seem to embrace with such youthful, carefree abandon these days, and an increased focus on – y’know – the song.

Where “Give It To Me” was busy and overeager, “Cherry Tree” is played with commendable restraint, sounding sort of like Cold War Kids remixed by Dave Sitek, and actually feels shorter than it’s sub-three-minute running time. It’s tidy, but it’s fully-formed, and leaves you wanting more, which means it’s rather tempting to just hit play again. So I do. Good work, that.

The bad news is that the b-side to the new single is a cover of Peaches’ “Fuck The Pain Away”, which at least manages to be less nauseating than the original. But then, pretty much everything manages to be less nauseating than Peaches, so.

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I’m sitting here doing nothing any more productive than listening to a podcasted edition of the Ray Foley Show from a week and a half ago, so I may as well occupy my weary fingers with this thing: writing about one of my favourite singers. Relevantly, that singer is the charming chirpy chanteuse Amber Rubarth, and she’s just released a cover of R.E.M’s “Losing My Religion”. It’s rather spiffing.

Recorded for Filter Magazine’s “DREAM ART EXPLOSION” (which sounds like a pretentious teen’s way of explaining stained bedsheets (allegedly)) it’s a wonderfully minimal little thing. Rubarth pares the song down to a ghostly guitar accompaniment, sings the mandolin riff, and thoughtfully reminds us what bloody great songwriters R.E.M are. So hooray for that, and hooray for download links.

Observe: A DOWNLOAD LINK.

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Louis Kishfy, a blogger from Rhode Island writing for Salad Fork, just released a philanthropic project called A Compilation For World Hunger, packed into 2 CDs, featuring mostly up and coming indie artists, in which he tries to sensibly the audience to the dire issue of world hunger.

I have been working diligently during this month of August to put together a new charity compilation to help combat world hunger. I have handmade eleven CD packages, each unique and personalized for each person who purchases one. It is free for everyone to download, and most of the proceeds from the physical purchases will go to Action Against Hunger. Each compilation features a different apostle, with the first package featuring ‘Jesus’ himself. This is meant to signify Jesus and his apostles, obviously. I did not choose to do this for religious purposes, but only to highlight the significance of the limited release. This compilation is meant to celebrate the art of the compilation as well as limited releases, and all for a good cause. I have also been fortunate to have Justin Vallestros of Craft Spells create the digital art for this compilation, as pictured above. The first CD is all track premieres/exclusives, and the second is some of my favorite tracks from the last quarter.

You can purchase the limited edition package here, or download the digital compilation for free after the jump.

CD 1

CL Sosa: Good Things (Never Last)
Elite Athlete: Moving Set
Spells: King Shivers (Live)
Fluffy Kittens: Concentration Is Good Except In Camps
Omnivore: Take It All
Craft Spells & Emily Reo: Love Well Spent
Port City: Colours
XO Kid: Unhappy Sex Addict In The Old West
Wools: Sing (Blur cover)
Mainslide: Pizzicato
Megafortress: Police Elevator
Fossil Cities: Running Man
Quit: 9/11 Responders Bill
Green Gerry: Eyesssss

[Download]

CD 2

Yung Life: Patient Love
Birthdays: JNCO Genius
Rabbit Punch: Munchie Dreadlock
Port City: Feel It Out (mastered version)
SBBD: Layered Dust
Sunnybrook: The Way You Know Me
Tennis: Marathon
Our Husband: Villages
Michael Parallax: Rainy Vacation
Gem Trails: Old Kid

[Download]

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Baltimore’s Neil Sanzgiri is Soft Cat, a talented folk singer/songwriter that equally caught my ears and eyes with this beautifully water color video for “It Won’t Be Long”, animated by Miranda Pfeiffer,. The song is off Neil’s upcoming new album titled “Wildspace”, which is set for a fall release on Friends Records. Check out a letter from Neil, after the jump.[via Yours Truly]

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Props to Nathaniel from I Guess I’m Floating for recommending this up and coming new band from Atlanta called Living Rooms. The sound is extremely colorful and there’s a distinct sense of joyfulness wrapped around every track, like a sunny summer day or a road trip soundtrack with your best buds. One can clearly sense the Animal Collective influence deeply rooted in their sound, packed with harmonizing vocals, atmospheric synth lines, up-lifting percussions and heavy use of digital samples. I won’t prelong this more than needed, as such I’d like to invite you all to check out “Cave In” and “Light Bright” below, both off the band’s upcoming debut LP “House Kid” out in a few weeks on Double Phantom Records.

[MP3] Living Rooms – Cave In
[MP3] Living Rooms – Light Bright

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It was just last week that Sufjan Stevens unveiled to the world his most recent material, the one hour long All Delighted People EP. Seems like it was all just one big chunky appetizer seeing how we just received an official press release announcing the artist’s new full length, titled “Age of Adz” (supposedly spelled ‘age of odds’ according to the press release), an album filled with motifs like “love, sex, death, disease, anxiety and suicide”, which is set to land on October 12 via Asthmatic Kitty. Here’s some insight on Age of Adz’s sound:

We can say it shows an extensive use of electronics (banjos and acoustic guitars give way to drum machines and analog synthesizers), and an obsession with cosmic fantasies (space, heaven, aliens, love), to create an explicit pop-song extravaganza, augmented by heavy orchestration, and maybe even a few danceable moments. Enjoy Your Rabbit meets the BQE. But with songs. Verse, chorus, bridge, backbeat. Gated reverb. Space echo. Get your boogey on.

Join us after the jump for the official tracklist.

‘Futile Devices’
‘Too Much’
‘Age Of Adz’
‘I Walked’
‘Now That I’m Older’
‘Get Real Get Right’
‘Bad Communication’
‘Vesuvius’
‘All For Myself’
‘I Want To Be Well’
‘Impossible Soul’

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