Audioholic Media

»Album Reviews For Release Date: 08.04.09
by Joshua Krage

We’ve got hipsters for all seasons this week in new music. Smooth bossa/beat coffeeshop chanteuse hipsters? Check. Electro-wiggy hipsters? Check. Bearded jam-rock hipsters mellowing out in tribute to quiet Beatles? Check. Hipster frontmen taking a break from hipster bands for hipster solo-project? Check. We’ve even got French leather-clad lady hipsters on the docket for you. Don’t just take my word for it, proceed with your read:

Anjulie, Anjulie – steeped in retro vibe and possessed of a smoldering soul croon, this chic chick should have no problem strolling out onto the red carpet arm in arm with Amy, Duffy, and Adele. Luckily she branches out into some experimental palettes as well, teaming up with ex-Philosopher King Jon Levine to get some silky-smooth bass’N'beats rolling out like benzos. Out on HearMusic, so look for it while ordering your next $tarbuck$ latte.

Antony & the Johnsons – Aeon EP (single w/B-side Destiny’s Child cover, natch)
Assjack – Hank Williams III does death metal. No, really.

Beatallica, The Masterful Mystery Tour – live recording of everyone’s favorite SF thrash-filtered, Fab Four-flavored combo project in action. With songs like “The Thing That Should Not Let It Be,” “And I’m Evil?,” and “Hero of the Day Tripper,” you should be getting the joke by now, and the joke is done in a surprisingly faithful manner, to both parodies — er, parties.

Amanda Blank
Catie Curtis
John “00″ Fleming
Fruit Bats
Gloriana
Hillsong

Japandroids, Post-Nothing – busting out bright with a heavy guitar-and-drums attack a la No Age or the White Stripes, but with a more coherent, sprawling, and accessible feel. Instead of keeping it lo-fi and raw, axeman Brian King and drummer David Prowse open up the guitar layers a bit and interweave their vocals all over, invoking a huge, visceral party vibe. They’ve got a healthy sense of humor and their approach is simple enough, but their execution is what helps this potent duo loom large over their peers.

Julian Plenti, Julian Plenti is… Skyscraper – surprisingly catchy and adeptly orchestrated solo outing from chief Interpol gloom herald Paul Banks, in which he takes songs which were brewing before his day job took off and finally makes them into coherent indie rock beasts, performed by a decent cast of day players including Interpol sticksman Sam Fogarino and Ratatat’s Mike Stroud. Solid rock production, decent acoustic breakdowns, thick guitars, and overall enough of a departure from his breadwinning band’s sound make this a rather successful venture for a guy with no reason to play with a winning formula other than creative need, which he achieves with gusto.

K’Jon
Kidz Bop
Kool Keith – Lost Masters
Medeski Martin & Wood

Modest Mouse, No One’s First and You’re Next EP – looks like only 2 years between releases for this long-running indie stalwart (out on Epic, which is still ironic being they haven’t compromised their sound at all). These guys have been all over the place lately, playing with Broken Social Scene and publishing photo books and such, but their music is still full of spite and satisfying rage, even when played with deceptive calm and collectedness. I’m not a huge fan, so I can’t comment completely, but this seems to hit the bar they set two albums back so nobody should be too disappointed.

Plastiscines, About Love – tiny French punk-rock provocateurs deliver LP #2 stateside and stay faithful to their early ’00s garage-rock-revival fixation, coming off like France’s answer to the Strokes or The Libertines in a tight leather skirt.

Tantric

Throw Me the Statue, Creaturesque – electro-savvy savant Scott Reitherman has officially expanded his wondrously low-key and off-kilter project into a full band with this release, fleshing each song out in sublime and subtly different flavors. Great usage of subconscious keyboard-bed ambience, spare percussion, reverb’d-out guitar shimmers, and vocals which are just a few clicks out of phase with our normal dimensional space. So, otherworldly, in an uptown hipster sort of way.

Yim Yames, Tribute To (EP) – it’s Jim James of My Morning Jacket paying homage to George Harrison with five gorgeous, low-key takes on some of the quiet Liverpudlian’s best work. Great, spacious atmospheres on this EP, really engaging.

This ended up being quite a top-shelf list this week! I wasn’t incredibly excited about it at the get-go, but listening through them really gets me pumped for Tuesday. I now have a retail target for some of my gig-on-the-side money from all the patios I’ve been playing all summer! I hope you found something worthy as well. See you next week.

P.S. Enjoy a sampling from this week’s new songs on my MySpace page. It’s updated pretty much weekly now…

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