Audioholic Media

»Album Reviews For Release Date: 10.06.09
by Joshua Krage

A friend of mine got into a car accident as I was writing this, so please forgive me if I skipped a few I wanted to review (Lou Barlow, Noah and the Whale, Brandi Carlile, Joe Perry, HORSE the Band, Orenda Fink — my apologies) as I sauntered off into help-out land. Still got a bunch of good listening in though, and you won’t be disappointed by what’s in store below:

Todd Agnew

Air, Love 2 – setting aside the campy, ’70s A/C album art, most everything on this new album is highly enjoyable, crafted with expert attention to ambiance and atmosphere, the trademarks of any Air album. Boldly producing themselves this go-round, the songs are less experimental (thankfully) than their last LP and, with only themselves and ace drummer Joey Waronker in the mix, much shorter and less cluttered. JB’s hovering synths hang like stylish extra-terrestrial haze, and Nicholas Godin pulls out some vintage-sounding surf-spy guitars for extra edge. Overall, more catchy and more succinct, like they put a drape over Pocket Symphony and made a stripped-down sequel to Talkie Walkie with a mellow spy theme. But I still quite can’t get past the cover art — it looks less like Air and more like Air Supply. They’re makin’ Love 2 out of nothin’ at all.

Arch Enemy
Backstreet Boys
Lou Barlow
Black Heart Procession
Blessthefall
Boys Noize
Jim Brickman – Christmas
Luke Bryan
Built to Spill
Califone
Brandi Carlile
Roseanne Cash
Exene Cervenka (of X)
Ray Charles – Christmas
Vic Chesnutt

The Cinematics, Love and Terror – their debut album A Strange Education was an out-of-left-field surprise stunner and spent many hours on my home speakers, with gloomy guitar majesty and breakneck-paced dance floor rockers. The Glaswegian four piece’s follow up has some promise, but I’ve only found a two track to sample.

The Clientele
Joe Cocker – live at Woodstock
John Coltrane – 5CD box set Side Steps
Paolo Conte
Dead Man’s Bones (feat. Ryan Gosling — actually not horrible!)
Mike Doughty

Downhere, How Many Kings – this is an above-average contemporary Christian band, so them making a Christmas album might be better than your average CCM cookie-cutter fare. I’ll have more on this after Thanksgiving…

Tinsley Ellis
Everclear
Fall of Troy
Family Force 5 – Christmas
Orenda Fink
Lita Ford
Aretha Franklin – Christmas
Gogol Bordello – live
The Gossip
Calvin Harris
Headlights
Hockey
Horse the Band
Jamie T
The Jesus Lizard reissues
Daniel Johnston
Toby Keith
KISS Box Set
Kraftwerk reissues
Blake Lewis

Lights, The Listening – with a voice that borders on over-cute at times and dance-heavy electro-pop production, visions of studio-creation pop-princess are understandable, but luckily this singer-songwriter cut her teeth writing pop hits for Sony before going for Canadian pop stardom on her own. Fresh off a stint on the Warped Tour, Valerie Poxleitner has won a decent following in the states, and this LP’s strong songwriting (mostly by her) and seriously infectious glitch grooves should build steadily on that — and deservedly so. My only criticism is that it’s almost TOO dance-y, even when the beat slows down… but it’s not really a bad thing…

Lucero
Dean Martin – Christmas
Mayday Parade
Katharine McPhee
Eugene Mirman
Mission of Burma
Morphine
Mountain Goats
Music Go Music
Me’Shell Ndegeocello
William Orbit
New Order reissues
Noah and the Whale
Nick Oliveri
OST – best of Ally McBeal
OST – Four Christmases
Jemina Pearl
Itzhak Perlman
Joe Perry
A Place to Bury Strangers

Port O’Brien, Threadbare – one of my favorite indie collectives, who. for three albums now, have woven together engaging, overcast missives on life, death, work, and, erm, weather. Think the Arcade Fire on a pier or the Shins in a choppy-lit warehouse. It’s roomfuls of reverb and gloom-born optimism, invigorating at top-speed, but more often relaxing atmid-tempo and lazy afternoon cadence.

Powerman 5000

The Raveonettes, In Out of Control – if you’re not clued in to the reverb-laden, Euro-trashy, pre-Beatles-rock sound of these international Danes, you won’t notice a difference in sound over their last few albums. If you ARE clued in, there’s still not much difference — it’s either lo-fi or studio-glossed, but it’s still rough, overcast, kinda creepy, and heavily influenced by Buddy Holly through and through, all in the best ways.

Redemption
Relient K
Simple Minds
Frank Sinatra – Christmas with Sinatra and Friends
Steel Panther
Sugarland

DJ Tiesto, Kaleidoscope – world-renowned progressive trance superstar DJ never disappoints with his dance albums, but this one is a bit above even his standard as he roped in Tegan and Sara, Cary Brothers, some of the Sigur Ros guys, the lovely Priscilla Ahn and more to help compose and guest on the music. Decent results.

Tokio Hotel
VA – Def Jam Recordings 25th Anniversary Box Set
VA – Now Country Christmas
John Vanderslice
Kurt Vile
The XX

Not bad, right? I knew you’d like it. Well, there’s more to come next week, but we’ll fry that fish once it’s caught. Meanwhile, get those fall colors out and enjoy pumpkin everything, and I’ll see you when I read you.

P.S. As if reading about them weren’t enough, you can enjoy a playlist featuring most of these fine artists on my MySpace Page. Enjoy.

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