Audioholic Media

»Album Reviews For Release Date: 04.19.11
by Joshua Krage

Stuff out this week that’s unlike anything else that will fall across your ears anytime soon, for all sorts of reasons. Rock.

Bahamas
Belle Brigade
Tab Benoit
Enrique Bunbury
Kimberly Caldwell
Chevelle – live
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

Dengue Fever, Cannibal Courtship – an exceedingly unique six-piece band out of Los Angeles, it’s Cambodian surf/psych/pop and I’m not making that up. Singer Chhom Nimol sings in both English and Cambodian and generally fades in and out like a snake-charmer’s tune with her siren voice, complementing the band’s reverb guitar, ’60s farfisa, and overall vintage vibe perfectly. An entrancing voyage through a retro/multicultural landscape without peer in the current pop market, engaging at once for being both so unique and so quality.

Eliza Doolittle
Glee OST (another one)

Gorillaz, The Fall – not too long after Plastic Beach dropped, Damon Albarn announced he would be releasing a full Gorillaz LP made with iPad apps. Sounds like a cop out, but I can testify firsthand that some iPad/iPhone apps make some pretty marketable and quality music, and the Gs teamed up with Korg to make a legit beat-machine app just for this purpose which is one of the better drum machines available. This album originally dropped to fanclub members as an X-Mas present and pretty much sounds like songs made with blippy iPad apps, but some live Bobby Womack and a few decent Damon lyrics dropped in elevates it above average laptop beats.

The High Llamas
Tim Hughes
I’m From Barcelona
Lanu
Lenka
Duff McKagan’s Loaded
The Middle East
Steve Miller Band
My Goodness
Pantha Du Prince
Plan B
Bob Schneider

Brian Setzer, Setzer Goes Instru-Mental!! – exactly what it sounds like, the big band maestro keeping it mostly stripped-down to rhythm section and his ace reverb’d surf sound going sans vocals on these mostly original instrumentals, ranging from gritty garage rock to downhome country tones to an ace “Be-Bop-a Lula” cover for good measure.

Shinedown
Ralph Stanley

tUnE-yArDs, W H O K I L L – what a gorgeous and lo-fi collage of sounds, a great second LP. Psych-folk seamstress Merrill Garbus starts each of these tunes from diverse, polyrhythmic foundations and goes all sorts of places, from thick rubber-bass jungle on “Gangsta” to tambourine breakbeat on “Doorstep” to slow-rolling expanse on “Powa” and beyond. Strange and difficult to classify musically, these tracks feel like Cornelius on mushroom tea in the inner city, and Garbus’s soulful croon contracts and expands around these colorful creatures to suit the mood. Truly unlike anything else you’ll hear this year.

Daphne Willis

Next week we got new taste from the Airborne Toxic Event, Explosions in the Sky, Thao and Mirah and much more. See you then, and have a great Easter, will ya?

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