In an Active Attempt to Jump on the Year-End Bandwagon:

...I present you with numbers 25 through 21 of the best albums of 2010! Exciting!!




25. Motion City Soundtrack - My Dinosaur Life

Early in the year, Motion City Soundtrack released their fourth studio album, My Dinosaur Life, an absurdly catchy collection of upbeat pop-punk tunes with a snarky (if somewhat geeky) sense of humor that should cement them as the latter-day wearers of the crown discarded by blink-182 (their reunion notwithstanding. they haven't made any new songs yet, and until I hear the new album my comment stands. Besides, Angels and Airwaves? Seriously?).


Lyrically, the album covers a lot of ground while mostly remaining all about girls (not that there's anything wrong with that). A relationship gone awry is compared to the destruction of Krypton ("Her Words Destroyed My Planet"), a b-horror movie of the sort certain of my friends enjoy ("Pulp Fiction"), and refers elsewhere to Ocarina of Time ("@!#?@!") and Busta Rhymes ("Stand Too Close," a song which, if it weren't catchy enough, features handclaps!), and rambles about his neuroses ("Hysteria"), and all the while, the band pumps out shining, driving punk that would make +44 jealous (Yeah. I went there).




24. Murder by Death - Good Morning, Magpie

Murder by Death's fifth album is a picture of a band embracing the Americana sound that was always hiding behind the corner, both lyrically and sonically. Bourbon and whiskey flow all over the album (As seen in the first two tracks, "Kentucky Bourbon," a charming little drinking song, and "As Long as There Is Whiskey In the World"), there's a whistling solo in "You Don't Miss Twice (When You're Shaving With a Knife)," which happens to be my second favorite title parenthetical of the year, and old fashioned bluegrass stomp on "Yes." If I were giving it an award (other than place #24, a tremendous award in and of itself), I would give it the "Album Most Like Something Mark Twain Would Have Listened To, Had There Been Electric Guitars And Such" award. What Beirut is French bordellos circa 1900, MbD is to Missouri circa 1870.




23. Brian Eno - Small Craft on a Milk Sea

Brian Eno returns this year with another collection of ambient music tracks. While not the "inventor" of ambient music, Eno is certainly the reason anyone knows what it is and so this album is an interesting look at what the innovator has been creating of late. Sadly, nothing in this collection measures quite up to the... well, "intense" is certainly the wrong word, but close enough, the intensity, the impact if you will, of his earlier work (particularly Music for Airports), the pieces are well-crafted and interesting, and rewarding to repeat listens.




22. Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope to the Sky

Perhaps the doomiest album on the list this year (there's a reason I say perhaps, but we'll come to that later) is My Father Will Lead Me Up A Rope to the Sky, the latest offering from Swans, a band that has apparently been making music since the early 80s (aside from a 13 year hiatus) and about whose history I know practically nothing. Some words come to mind when thinking of this album: "bleak," "despair," and "torment" among them. But make no mistake, this is not black metal or doom rock, despite how it may come off initially. There's a certain country twang in this metal, yes, and some thick, sludgy, apocalyptic drums. The first song ("No Words/No Thoughts") begins with four minutes of post-rockesque intro before Michael Gira slurs into singing, with church bells throughout. Just to give you a taste, there's a delightful song (is that a didgeridoo?) co-sung by Gira's 3 year old daughter titled "You Fucking People Make Me Sick" and elsewhere, Gira imagines collecting every liar on Earth into a pyre and setting them alight ("Reeling the Liars In"). My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope to the Sky is a difficult record to categorize beyond a sense of despair, of overwhelming bleakness, comprised of country sludge-rock and interludes that sound less like post-rock than like the end of the world. Also, it's amazing.


21. MGMT - Congratulations

MGMT's sophomore album makes the leap from "followers of Of Montreal" to fully-fledged psychedelic-pop makers in the tradition of Pink Floyd. Instead of doing the expected or the simple and making a follow-up composed of singles like "Time to Pretend," the lads made a complex psychedelia album with enough flourish, skill, and panache to indicate that the future will only bring better things. "I Found a Whistle" is the sort of innocent, playful pop song to which I refer, and it leads into the (mostly) stunning "Siberian Breaks," which, at 12:10, still manages to be cohesive and indeed, hold the two halves of the album together. The album flows and peaks and troughs right when you'd want just like any good drug trip should, and that makes it wonderful, and the joy that MGMT squeeze from their instruments is evident in every note.

Go Back to Sleep

After something like 8 years in development, Remedy Entertainment released Alan Wake this year to fairly exceptional reviews. In it, writer Alan Wake, suffering from writer's block for two years, decides to go on vacation to Twin Pe-- I mean, Bright Falls, and relive every book Stephen King has written in the last thirty or so years. His wife is kidnapped by a nameless unknowable evil (cool), people are possessed and you have to burn the darkness away by hitting it with your flashlight before shooting them (sort of cool, mostly repetitive), possessed objects FLYING AT YOUR FACE (pretty cool at first... slightly spoiled since they then point out the Stephen King connection before you can catch your breath), and of course, a writer finding pages describing terrible things about to happen to him in a book written by him that he never wrote (::puff, puff, sharp inhale:: "What if, like, we were all characters in a Stephen King book?"::kaffkaffkaffkaff::).

Before I say a few nice things and end on a high note, I must first indulge my petty gripes, like the fact that a restaurant busboy dolly is clearly far too sturdy for a full grown man to just *push out of his fucking way* or anything. Also, the collecting missions. At one point in the development cycle of the game it was apparently going to be more sandboxy, but developers scrapped that in favor of having more control over the storyline and pacing. However, they awesomely (sarcasm.) left in over 250 items for the player to collect, ranging from the pointless (100 coffee thermoses, essentially the "hidden packages") to the vaguely interesting and mildly story related (radios and TVs, as well as the aforementioned pages describing what's about to happen in the plot), to the actually helpful (30 hidden caches of equipment and weapons). And this might be shallow and petty, but fuck you, there is an achievement for watching a specific TV in the game, it's the only TV that isn't story related or one of the awesome Twilight Zone parody episodes scattered about, no, it's the TV that plays, I shit you not, advertisements for their sponsors. Verizon and someone else.

One last thing about the story and the importance of proofreading: the pages that Alan picks up from the book he never wrote switch, seemingly at random, between first and third person. I mean... seriously? He wasn't writing Ulysses. No, that's just poor design. And I beat the game in a sitting and a half, which is just too short. It should take me more than a weekend to get all the play out of a game.


"But," I hear you wail, "all those other people really liked it! Doesn't it have any good qualities?"


I will thank you to let me determine the pace of this review myself. I was just getting to the good points, of which there are several. As mentioned above, there are several Twilight Zone parodies (more like homages, really) found on some of the TVs scattered about under the title "Bright Springs," complete with Serling-esque narrations and moral lessons. Also, as the less-than-amusing comic relief character says, the birds go "all Hitchcock on you" at several points, creating a really harrowing experience for brief periods of time as you try to figure out from where the flock is going to swoop at you (hint: it's always the other direction). And the pacing is really good, actually. The game is presented as episodes of a show, so presumably the next game would be "Season 2" (and hopefully longer than 6 episodes). The story is somewhat weighed down by the Kingness of it all, but the ending is open enough (and I am interested enough to play the DLC and see what happens next) that it could go to some really interesting places.


So all in all, not a bad game. Just definitely not the groundbreaking psychological thriller experience you might be looking for.


Bonuses!
+ .5 - for the music selection, especially playing "Space Oddity" by David Bowie over the end credits.
+.25 - for Lovecraftian horror. And for namedropping Lovecraft and, more subtly (really though, good on ya) August Derleth


-1 - for introducing characters solely for the purpose of killing them in the next scene and possessing them to attack you. This is not effective horror strategy. We should care about the fate of these people in this small town where everyone knows everyone else.
-.5 - for including driving for no discernible reason beyond "Well, we wrote all this code back when it was going to be a sandbox."
-.25 - I had another really witty put-down, but I can't remember what it is, so I'm going to take the quarter point anyway.

Total: 7/10. Rent it, enjoy it, put down some unnamed evil. Just don't expect Max Payne levels of greatness.

Belle & Sebastian Write About.... Well, You Know...

Doe-eyed lovers and quiet indie kids, rejoice! Belle & Sebastian have returned after four years with their followup to the incredible The Life Pursuit album with their seventh studio album, Belle & Sebastian Write About Love, which is probably the weakest album title they've thus far released (consider this is the same band that released If You're Feeling Sinister and Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant (okay, I really just wanted to write all that out. Long album titles amuse me.)).

Luckily, unstellar title notwithstanding, the lads have turned out another largely superb album that will rest comfortably next to Dear Catastrophe Waitress and The Life Pursuit (I'll fit 'em all in, you watch) as a cohesive statement of the band's musicianship and the stunning lyrical skills of Stuart Murdoch.

The album opens inauspiciously, with the track "I Didn't See It Coming," a piano driven piece sung largely by Sarah Martin to better effect than any of the songs she (or Isobell Campbell or whomever) has fronted for the band in many many years. The melody is stolen straight from your favorite memories and will surely lodge itself there for a long time. "I Want the World to Stop" is classic B&S, an upbeat pop tempo, a grooving bassline, and lyrics communicating the gray dullness of winter and depression and the longing to escape (think "The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner" meets "Sleep the Clock Around") sung in Murdoch's beautiful tenor with an urgency that grips your heart.

Ultimately, the album's greatest triumphs are its' greatest failings as well. Beside the fact that this album is virtually indistinguishable from other albums in Belle & Sebastian's oeuvre, there's no forward progress as musicians. This could be their third album or their fifth album just as easily as their seventh. And of course, the songs written by Stevie Jackson (I'm thinking specifically of "I'm Not Living in the Real World," a song which I may never play again after finishing this review) and the other members of the band never quite measure up to the urgency, the emotion, the pure heart-wrenching pureness of Murdoch's honesty.

Of course, having more of the same isn't really a concern for fans of the band, because while they haven't moved forward per se, they haven't stagnated either. The music is still bright, emotive, fresh, and relevant, and twee fans all over the world should accept Belle & Sebastian Write About Love with triumphant fanfare for a band who knows exactly what they're good at doing and is going to make wonderful indie pop for many years to come.

8.1/10

"...Just Because Some Watery Tart Threw a Sword at You!"

It occurs to me that, as I'm the only one here (do you hear an echo?) I could ostensibly review anything I choose. Given the name of the site, I'll try to keep it music-centric, but in the future there may turn out to be ramblings, rants, essays, whathaveyou about Batman, Doctor Who, James Joyce, and The Royal Tennenbaums.

Of course all this is academic as I haven't even reviewed an album yet in my glorious return. But that changes today!

Unless I take a nap.

Sensory Overload

It has been a day for consuming media. After much Fringe, video games, Always Sunny, Jacob's Room, and on and on, I turned to music I'd been neglecting, as well as some forthcoming albums.

What a year for music it has been.

Today I got through Sea of Cowards, the latest effort from The Dead Weather, the latest in Jack White's seemingly endless list of side projects, the new album from indie-pop darlings Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Let it Sway, and the new Wavves album, in addition to hearing the new records by Ben Folds, Belle & Sebastian, of Montreal, and Badly Drawn Boy. As I write this, I am hurtling toward the end of MGMT's incredible sophomore psych-pop album Congratulations.

I have also quite recently consumed a large quantity of food and smoked a bunch, so this blog post is an attempt to beat sleep. Incoherency may take over. You have been warned.

It also occurs to me that the list currently kept at the right is so dated as to be laughable. Not that you care because, let's be honest, you're either one of two people or you're imaginary. But I shall be replacing it with albums that I might actually review in the future.

And other upkeep things which have all slipped my mind.

Uh...

As Little Work as I Could Possibly Muster

Being as I'm too lazy to put together a real post just now, here is a short list of some of the artists what will surely turn out to be contenders for any sort of "best-of" list I may put together in a relatively short matter of time.

The Arcade Fire
The Black Keys
Minus the Bear
Vampire Weekend
The National
Band of Horses
!!!
Interpol
Of Montreal
Shit Robot
Scissor Sisters
LCD Soundsystem
Murder by Death
Stars
MGMT
The Dead Weather

Less Like a Phoenix, More Like a Zombie...

Gonna give this another try. My esteemed colleague the faderist has started his own project (link to the right) and the two of us basically left this site to die (it's been a rough couple of years).

However, since writing is a thing that keeps me grounded, focused, and sharp, I'm going to (for about the 92nd time) try to update my blogs more often than never, starting today. Forthcoming will be a short roundup of some of the more stellar albums of the year, including The National, LCD Soundsystem, The Books, and more, in an attempt to not be drowned in albums at the end of the year.

Anticipate it!

Summer Blockbuster Edition! (pt 2)

WE'RE BACK!  I'm sure you've all already seen the first installment of our chronicle of summer music releases.  If not, scroll down.  If yes, here is part two!

Less Than Jake - GNV FLA

After courting the mainstream over the past few studio releases, and catching considerable criticism for it, Less Than Jake's eight studio album comes full circle--not only musically, getting back to the irresistibly catchy horns that first broke them onto the ska-punk scene, but also lyrically, with an eloquent tribute to the unabbreviated album title and college town that so firmly holds the band's roots, Gainesville, Florida.

GNV FLA is without a doubt a trip through reminiscence  for members of Less Than Jake.  The only complaint one could have is that there is no subtlety whatsoever.  Tracks one and two, titled respectively: "The City of Gainesville" and "The State of Florida" are just an example.  The tracks act as one, setting up the theme and if nothing else, the mindset needed to fully appreciate the rest of the album.  The tracks start off with the slow bounce of ska-tar and horns and the sweet, sweet vocals of Roger, effectively a prologue to the story being told.  After track two, it becomes (at least musically) very traditional as per Less Than Jake.  It's no Pezcore, but it's certainly Borders & Boundaries-esque.  

The last thing I want to point out, particularly to Less Than Jake who felt a bit let down by their previous album In With The Out Crowd, GNV FLA  is significantly less....'pristine' than IWTOC was, making for a more raw, more traditional ska-punk listening experience.  Sounds like they either fired the sound guy from album priori, or just whipped him into shape, because the newest effort is not wrapped in that fresh plastic sheen that leaves much to be desired.

GNV FLA is nothing short of an amazing Less Than Jake record.  Back-to-roots musicality and lyricism cause deep satisfaction, despite some nay-sayers and their claims of bluntness.

8.0/10

 Girl Talk - Feed The Animals

What is there to say about mash-up mix-master Girl Talk?  Formerly a Biomedical Engineering student, sample-based DJ Gregg Gillis released his fourth full length album, demonstrating yet another exercise in 'spot the sample'.  Or as Uncrate put it, "Feed The Animals is like a musical scavenger hunt, mashing Faith No More with Busta Rhymes..."

There's really not much to analyze about an album like this.  Although none of the actual music is original, the sample mashups are masterfully executed, and it's so fuckin' catchy it's almost hard not to dance to it!  If I would've know that they teach you that kind of stuff in Biomed Engineering school, perhaps I would be studying something completely different...

7.5/10

Spiritualized - Songs in A&E

I'll be honest right off the bat.  I'm a newcomer to the Spiritualized-style minimalist orchestral rock.  You want more honesty?  Okay fine.  It's good.  It's really fucking good.  It reminds me of a combination of old Wilco and new Wilco.  Almost as if Jeff Tweedy wanted to make the music he's making now, but didn't have access to all of the cool artists and tools he works with.  

The song is broken up into sections by wistful instrumental interludes labelled "Harmony" 1-6.  They provide a superb tie between the songs on the album.  The record takes a while to get off the ground (probably purposefully), with tracks like "Sweet Talk" almost stereotypical in folk-rock and "Death Take Your Fiddle" dragging its toes on the ground almost the whole way through.  But by the time "Soul on Fire" (my personal favorite) comes tweeting through your speakers, Spiritualized has hit full swing, executing not-so-minimal minimalist rock at its very, very finest.  As the "Harmony" tracks occur more frequently toward the end, the record comes to a close with a very lofty, sentimental feel.  Like ending a long night on psychedelics listening to post-rock as it starts to get light outside.  Fittingly, the album ends on a track called "Goodnight Goodnight" featuring the lyrics "Goodnight, goodnight, you're coming down...".

Like I said, I'm new to Spiritualized and they're astoundingly beautiful execution of this style of music, but it's so good......and I will most certainly seek out more.

8.5/10

Summer Blockbuster Edition! (pt 1)

Seriously, holy fucking fuck. After far far far too long with no access to music, I am returned from the ashes as a phoenix triumphant. That is, I got a new iPod.

As the summer is passing us by with so many excellent/important releases unreviewed, we're going to try and remedy some of that right now. I've got the first three of many albums to come below.



Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends

After 2005's X&Y, I grew somewhat disenchanted with Coldplay. Their first two albums were undeniably strong (if perhaps a little too U2 influenced), but their third fell flat, in part due to overproduction, but mostly because they simply weren't writing engaging songs. A step towards mediocrity.

Put simply, I underestimated them.

Viva la Vida is a masterwork, showing the band stretching beyond themselves to new (and exciting) territory. No longer content to be the dreamy-eyed boy with the falsetto, Chris Martin turns over a new leaf on this album, putting out lyrics that point to social ills (he told Rolling Stone in an interview that the lines in "Violet Hill" about "a carnival of idiots on show" and "the fox became God" are references to Fox News) and loneliness leading to sexual indiscretion (the show-stopping "Yes). Throughout the album, Martin struggles with the thought of death and ghosts, from "Cemeteries of London" ("Where the witches are and they say/There are ghost towns in the ocean") through to the last song "Death and All His Friends," where he states he doesn't want to follow Death and affirms that "We lie awake and we dream of making our escape."

All this would be meaningless without the rest of the band, of course, and indeed, the music on this album is as soaring and free as Martin's words (due in no small part to the skilled production of Brian Eno). Take the instrumental opening, "Life in Technicolor". A slow building melody that crescendos into a perfect opening track, telling you exactly what to expect. Or standout track "Violet Hill," which begins with background noise and piano, only to explode into (gasp!!) distorted guitars, swirling and storming behind Martin.

This album establishes that Coldplay is able to expand beyond the syrupy lyrics and bland soundscapes, and that they're fucking good at it.

8.0/10



The Offspring - Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace

When The Offspring's eighth studio album, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, roared onto my speakers with "Half-Truism," I immediately caught myself thinking "Wow, this song sounds like it belongs on Smash." Two songs later, in "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" I noted an uncanny similarity between the vocal melody and that of a Panic at the Disco track ("Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off"). That dichotomy perfectly demonstrates what the album is about: sometimes it's loud, fast, and balls out punk (rock), sometimes it's polished and shiny pop (rock), and the good news is that The Offspring are masters of both.

Actually, the best news is that the band has decided to shy away from the hokier songs of their more recent releases, like "Hit That," "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)," "Spare Me the Details," and "Original Prankster." Indeed, the closest they come to kitsch is "Stuff Is Messed Up," the standard lament over the current state of affairs featuring a "We Didn't Start the Fire"-esque rattling off of Dexter Holland's woes of the moment (Including, but not limited to: "Therapy, I won't tell/Rehab and LOL/Worldwide calamity/TV Reality/Euthanize, supersize/Death squads and boob jobs/VIP infamy/Gratify instantly"), or perhaps the reggae reminiscent guitar and beat of "Let's Hear It For Rock Bottom".

Really most of the album is old hat to anyone who's listened to The Offspring, the best moments are the songs where they branch out from their tried-and-true formula. Songs like "Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?" and "Fix You" are surprisingly tender. I would go so far as to say that the former is among their greatest songs, a deeply touching story about childhood abuse or rape, Holland eventually pleading "Don't waste your whole life trying/to get back what was taken away."

The best thing I can say about this album is that it is unmistakably, inimitably, thoroughly The Offspring. If they manage to remain this relevant and engaging, then the next eight albums will be equally as good.

7.0/10



Weezer - Weezer

Oh, Rivers Cuomo. What happened to you?

Weezer's new album, their third self-titled album, starts off with "Troublemaker" a gritty, Pinkerton-era piece of grunge-pop that catches the attention easily enough, but by halfway through you realize seems awfully familiar. Then... then comes "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)," a song so unabashedly terrible, I have to wonder why their producer didn't walk up to the band and hit Rivers Cuomo on the nose with a newspaper. It's an interesting idea, the song switches through ten different genres throughout, centering on one lyrical theme, but it's so poorly executed that it's nigh-unlistenable.

This album marks the first time since the first self-titled that other members of the band have contributed to the songwriting process, making this Weezer as something different than "The Rivers Cuomo Band," but none of it is to any worthwhile effect. Brian Bell's contribution, "Thought I Knew," sounds like a Fastball B-side (Hah! Fastball. What a bizarre reference.), while drummer Patrick Wilson's track, "Automatic" tries so hard to be poignant and just ends up falling flat.

It's not all bad news. Barn-burner "Everybody Get Dangerous" has a chorus so raucous, you'll want to start kicking over chairs and burning shit to the ground and features Cuomo's rambling lyrical style ("When I was younger/I used to go and tip cows for fun, yeah/Actually I didn't do that/'Cause I didn't want the cow to be sad"). And the ballad "Heart Songs" is a beautiful tribute to the songs that Cuomo grew up with.

In the end, it's not that it's a bad album. It's just that I've come to expect better of Weezer.

5.5/10

Not Dead Yet

Hello Everyone

I realize that we haven't been posting anything in a while, and for that I'd like to apologize.  But hey, can you blame us?  We're poor college students.  InDet's computer has been out of commission for like.....months.  But good news is he just got his iPod working the other day, and since summer is here, I have some more freetime as well.  We will be putting up reviews left and right here soon, just wait it out.

Ben Gibbard: Pessimist

This review has been moved. Find it here: http://indie-rock-music.suite101.com/article.cfm/album_review_narrow_stairs

Dear Ms. Carey: You Are Not A Scientist.

In response to a question concerning the title of Mariah Carey's new album, E=MC², Ms. Carey, genius that she is, responded with the following gem:

"It's, like, 'emancipation equal mariah carey times two.'"

The utter stupidity of this comment left me unable to breathe. Apparently being a pop superstar requires that you have an IQ no higher than your age.

Not going undergound

Animal Collective - Water Curses

2007 was a good year for Animal Collective. It saw the release of Strawberry Jam, arguably their most mature LP in their nine-year history. They toured the US and Europe approximately 14 times. They made their television debut debut on Conan O’Brien. They even got to experience the first snow in Tucson in a decade. But for all of the leaps forward the band made, they were largely overshadowed by the individual achievements of co-founding member Panda Bear (Noah Lennox). He did, after all, release Person Pitch, the best Brian Wilson album since Pet Sounds. Yup, some people rather enjoyed that one. He even emerged for the first time as a songwriting force in the band, contributing three of Strawberry Jam’s nine songs. 2007 was indeed the Year of the Panda.

Which makes it all the more puzzling (or perhaps revealing) that Panda Bear is almost nowhere to be seen on Water Curses. Rather, the four song EP (recorded during the same sessions in Tucson that yielded Strawberry Jam) serves almost as a solo outing for frontman Avey Tare (Dave Portner). Although it is admittedly difficult to connect the Collective’s sounds to individual members, there are no live drums, no additional vocalists, and sparse instrumentation throughout. In general, these songs consist of little more than Avey’s guitar or piano backed with various electronic bleeps and glitches. The result is a collection that sounds like a more refined, streamlined version of their previous album. Take the track “Street Flash,” for example. The song, a fan favorite since it was first live nearly three years ago, is driven only by Avey’s melancholy, heavily delayed guitar and a controlled chaos of electronic bleeps and glitches in lieu of a proper percussion track. Diehards may notice that the screams permeating the background first appeared in live versions of Panda’s “Bro’s,” but otherwise, this song (and the ones that follow) are strictly the Avey Tare show. That background noise, by the way, is a recurring theme here – Animal Collective has mastered the art of layering a symphony of noise without ever detracting from the big idea.

The title track is the only song here that sounds like the work of a full band – incidentally, it’s also perhaps the most immediate, danceable song the band has ever recorded. In truth, with its bubbly synth line and steel drums, it sounds downright out of place standing next to three more somber, introspective tunes. This discrepancy is the only thing that prevents Water Curses from sounding like a collection of cast-offs and leftovers. Instead, it serves as a natural bridge documentation the Collective’s transformation from the noisy SJ era to their current incarnation as a more minimal electronic outfit. In that context, they may not win any new fans with this outing, but it will no doubt be a pleasant surprise for those thought that 2008 would be a letdown from the band.

8.2/10

You might lose teeth...

Protest the Hero - Fortress

Jesus fucking Christ.

This album kicks you in the face with steel toes from the first track, "Blood Meat", and doesn't let you up for air until the "Goddess" has been "Gagged".

For no other reason than to write this review, I had to get my hands on a copy of Protest's debut album from 2005, Kezia.  I had to hear the roots from which this technical finesse had sprung forth.

Where Kezia seemed like an effort to construct an identity for Protest the Hero, Fortress holds the band much more comfortably within their post-hardcore punk/metal chains.  While the fact that every song on this album is pounding and in your face is a cool aesthetic, it could wear you out from time to time.  Protest only gives you about 45 seconds of breathing time halfway through the album.  

"Palms Read" ends with a chanting anthem ("raise your glass...") that fuzzes away into nothing, before abruptly kicking your ass with one of the most showy displays of technical guitar I have seen in quite some time.  Drop a pompous "circus riff" in there for good measure, and you're launched right into "Limb from Limb", my personal favorite from the album.  "Limb from Limb" employs a Castlevania-esque 8-bit guitar riff section that make me want to loop it forever.

Overall, Protest the Hero has come a long way from it's already dynamite debut album Kezia.  Assuming that they give me enough time to nurse my Fortress-induced wounds, I sincerely look forward to whatever Protest the Hero can craft next.

8.0/10

Drink up, gentlemen!

**Before getting into this album, allow me to apologize for the hiatus. Things have been hectic, but we plan on getting back on track here in the next few weeks with all of the latest albums. To help us, we've recruited a new writer. ALRIGHT. Now that that stuff is over with, let's move on to an album that (unfortunately) has already been out for quite sometime.**

Flogging Molly - Float

Flogging Molly's third full length album is darker than a lot of albums I've heard in the past few years, and certainly the darkest of Molly's collection.

The Molly's have always been a Irish-folk "drinking makes everything better" type band. But the mood on Swagger and Drunken Lullaby's invoked a feeling of lightheartedness when it came to drinking. Drinking made everything more fun. On Float, things are a bit different. Even the album cover carries a gloomy connotation. More of the songs on the album are in a minor key and the lyrical content matches. Perhaps the slowest, saddest orchestration on the record is the title track:

Drank away the rest of the day

Wonder what my liver'd say,

Drink, It's all you can

Blackened days with their bigger gales

Blow in your parlor to discuss the day

Listen, it's all you can

Ah but don't, no, don't sink the boat

That you built, you built to keep afloat

Ah no don't, no don't sink the boat

That you built...

Sick and tired of what to say

No one listens anyway,

Sing, that's all you can

Rambling years of lousy luck

You miss the smell of burnin' turf,

Dream, it's all you can

...and so on. It's only an excerpt, but you get the idea. Although a solid majority of the songs parallel this drunken, bleak pessimism (or perhaps grim realisim), there are upbeat songs interspersed that are reminiscent of the Flogging Molly we all know and love. This album exhibits the most musical growth that the Molly's have shown since their debut record Swagger. It's probably safe to say that come St. Paddy's day when I get together with friends to drink Harp's, smoke cigars, and listen to Molly, the mood will be grim in the event that we choose this album.

That being said, I'm glad Flogging Molly has put out a great new record, and with this degree of maturation, I'm curious to see where they could go next.

7.5/10

She fell in love with a [coked out] drummer...

So I'm sure InDet will be posting his own thoughts about this, but I figured I'd say a few words anyway. Last night we drove to Columbus to see Vampire Weekend at the Wexner Center.

First things first, it was an absolutely awesome show. The Wexner Center is a full sized theater, but the show was a Black Box show, where they curtain off the stage and build a small riser on one end of the stage while the audience packs on to the rest of it. It dramatically decreases the performance space and creates a really intimate atmosphere, which I think was perfect for a band like this. I'd say there was probably about 200 people there at most.

The opening band was...well...fronted by a guy who was 100% nuts. I don't really have anything else to say about them. After intermission, Vampire Weekend came out, and they looked exactly like you'd expect an indie rock band from New York to look. They sang, they danced, it was rad. One thing that stuck out, though, was the drummer. He had to have been on something, because aside from being insanely awesome at his instrument, he just looked out of it during downtimes.

All in all, awesome fucking show. My only gripe is the fact that they don't tour with any sort of strings player, which I think makes each song lack just a little something from the album that gives the songs a certain kind of character, or catchiness. (Also, no harpsichord on M79. Sad.)

Sounds of the Studio

Hot Chip - Made in the Dark

Immediately following the spoken advice helpfully given midway through the second song on Hot Chip's third studio album, "Shake a Fist", to get out and crank up your headphones, Hot Chip delivers one of the more engrossing synth breakdowns in recent memory. Bouncing and stumbling through a glitch-filled beat, it helps to showcase the top notch musicality of these five Brits (as well as their superb ear for production). The opening vocal repetition of the next track demonstrate that they know how to have fun, and the perky beat testifies to that. Elsewhere, the almost stream of consciousness ramblings of "Hold On" ("I'm only going to Heaven/If it tastes like caramel") and references to Willie Nelson and WWE in the same song ("Wrestlers") show their tongue-in-cheek sense of humor.

Really, the strongest and weakest moments on the album come from the ballads. The standout title track strips away the effects in favor of soul-influenced guitar lines while Alexis Taylor sings gently about broken love. On the other hand, the final two tracks bring the tempo down, but fail to pay off in any significant way. These aren't bad songs, but on this record they seem almost irrelevant, a way to lull you to sleep so you won't notice the music is ending. Still, these are minor quibbles, and for the most part, the album shines with an infectious groove, a beat you can dance to, and lyrics that carry a both a sense of humor and an emotional weight worth paying attention to. Crank up your headphones.

7.5/10

"This Is Based On A True Story..."

Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus!

The Super Furry Animals' eighth album is perhaps a small step away from the spacey psychedelia that the Welsh quintet is best known for. Described by lead singer Gruff Rhys as "a 'speaker blowing' LP", there are very few moments on this album that aren't bursting with pure psych-pop goodness. Indeed, from the Phil Spectoresque "Run-Away" to the mellow soul of "Let the Wolves Howl At the Moon", there's harly a moment to catch your breath as the Animals take every good idea pop music has had in the last fifty years (these guys pulled out their old Beatles and Beach Boys vinyls) and turns into a sound that is invariably and unquestionably unique. Hey Venus! isn't the strongest album the Super Furry Animals have released, but it is one of their most immidiately engaging, and a good album to point to for anyone trying to discover what SFA is all about.

7.0/10

No Stake Required

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"I was a sailor first..."

Ringo Starr - Liverpool 8

Liverpool 8 is Ringo Starr's fourteenth studio album. It's been two years since his previous effort, but those two years seemed to loosen Starr's grip on the Beatle inside him. All 13 of Ringo's previous studio albums exhibited some sort of Beatle's-esque influence, but Liverpool 8 is somewhat of a new beginning.

Kicking off this album is the title track, which has the feel of a song you'd expect to hear at the end of an album. "Liverpool 8" is a goodbye song, reminiscent of days spent rocking "with George and Paul/and my friend John" as well as a reference to Rory Storm (lead vocalist in one of Ringo's pre-Beatles bands, Raving Texans), and is decorated with endearing thoughts of his hometown that clearly influenced a reluctance to leave ("Destiny was calling/I just couldn't stick around/Liverpool I left you/but I never let you down"). I take this as an almost journal-like personal work of Ringo's; you would need to read a biography in order to fully understand every reference in this track.

From there, Starr seems to experiment with several different styles of musicality, my only complaint being that it sounds so intentional. For instance: "Think About You" and "For Love" are pretty solid blues/rock tracks, "Gone Are The Days" is heavily influenced by Indian music, making it sound like a track from Ian Brown's Solarized, "Harry's Song" sounding like a cross between a southern honky-tonk worthy piece crossed with a march-like variety show entry (that is not as bad as it sounds), "Pasadobles" being strongly influenced by Spanish music, so on and so forth.

The concept is good, as it exemplifies Ringo's long-overdue break from the Beatles motif. However, the layout could do for a bit more subtlety. Track after track makes jumps between styling: "If It's Love That You Want"'s Duran Duran-esque 80's rock/southern fusion setup to the low-fi, indie-rock love song sound of "Love is", to the record-closer "R U Ready?" which sounds like a bluegrass band accompanying a group of working slaves singing a spiritual.

The influence the Beatles had on virtually all music post-1963 was seismic, but it's refreshing to see Ringo Starr break free of that stranglehold, despite the fact that his fourteen album solo career falls low on the radar for a member of such a monolithic band.

The vocals are clean. The musicality is clean. It's a solid record. A lack of cohesiveness keeps it from being a great album, but it's certainly a very good collection of songs.

6.5 out of 10