Audioholic Media

»Album Reviews For Release Date: 02.09.10
by Joshua Krage

Hoo baby, we got some contenders out this week. Lots of blog buzz and indie underground fandom surrounding a few of this week’s releases and deservedly so for all of them (not something you can say very often). If this is only the fifth week of the year and we’re at this level of excellence, the rest of 2010 will have to pony up something fierce. Actually a month from today will pretty much look just like this release week, so whatever you find that’s good on here, you’ve got about a month to enjoy it before something just as good or possibly better comes along — so get crackin’!

AM
Animal Liberation Orchestra

The Besnard Lakes, The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night – like Arcade Fire, this is an epic-scope indie rock band out of Canada, primarily built around a husband/wife musical team who share lead vocal duties. Unlike Arcade Fire, this band’s epic sound waxes more on the art-damaged/shoegaze/krautrock side of the spectrum, with husband Jace Lasek’s huge walls of multi-colored guitars melding with wave after wave of ethereal soundscape keyboards and ambient drones. This album plays best as a complete work, keeping a sprawling, thematic tone throughout and really evoking a more angelic My Bloody Valentine vibe in many places, which is outstanding.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
VV Brown
Buzzcocks – live reissues
Fear Factory
Galactic
Gigi
HIM

Hot Chip, One Life Stand – the new LP from London electro-indie enthusiasts and LCD Soundsystem contemporaries kicks off in dance-able fashion and doesn’t let up until past the halfway point. I’m personally not a huge fan of this band, but they throw in some interesting arrangements on this album (steel drums, backing vox rounds, synths and such) and, in general, this album is up to par with what they’ve done so far.

Jaheim
kd lang – best of

Massive Attack, Heligoland – most Massive Attack fans can agree that their previous effort (2003′s 100th Window), while instrumentally excellent, is not hard to surpass in terms of overall quality and/or memorability. Now that the “group” is essentially founder Robert DelNaja and collaborators, expectations may be low, but luckily he and producer/group member Neil Davidge have crafted some slick, slippery dub beats, ambitious ambient feel and some choice guest vocal spots from Tunde Adebimpe (TVOTR), Martina Topley-Bird and Elbow’s Guy Garvey (!). The overall result is a stronger, more memorable trip into trip-hop mastery, mostly due to these excellent guest performances, but top-shelf nonetheless. Worth checking (and chilling) out.

Dave Matthews / Tim Reynolds – live in Las Vegas

Allison Moorer, Crows – Though only one track from this album is available on the webs, it’s a great track This left-of-center country songbird’s track record is pretty solid, so if you like a great vocalist who writes killer, heart-wrenching songs that haunt you like, well, a crow, here’s someone that might interest you.

Georgia Muldrow
OST – Starstruck
Pantha Du Prince
Phantogram
The Pretenders – live in London
Reckless Kelly

Sade, Soldier of Love – I never knew a song with a soldier theme could sound so sexy, but that’s because Sade has never sung it before now. Nothing new here really, and not even any real highlights, mostly just the soft, sultry and smooth adult/contemporary soul grooves that made this Nigerian crooner a household name (pronounced “$har-Day”). That’s all we really want anyway, so well done.

Gil Scott-Heron
Josh Turner
The Watson Twins

Yeasayer, Odd Blood – this sophomore album from this indie buzz band has been on every hipsternet blog’s “Best of 2010″ list before 2010 even started, and after hearing it, I can tell you that it is rather good, but they put the word “odd” right up there in the title, so you’ve been warned. Their debut had an incredibly rare and eclectic blend of world-beat and indie rock greatness, garnering much praise and much head-scratching; their follow-up will leave just as many heads a-scratched, but for different reasons, such as the dour drone of lead track “The Children” and the LP’s back half morphing into a sample-driven, tempo-shifting dance beast with other-worldly synths and alien sounds. Luckily, a meticulous and masterful mix of genres is still ever-present throughout the whole album, and top-drawer tracks like “I Remember” and the brilliant/controversial “Ambling Alp” spring brightly from foundations of soil-born shuffle and timeless keyboard beds. Jittery vocalist Chris Keating’s wild, wavering vocals are well served by these compositions, coming alive with surprising emotion and ample energy, and well-teamed with Anand Wilder’s backing vox and superb sample-pad skills. The biggest reason I was a-scratchin’ my head was mostly due just to wondering how the hell they made those seriously strange sounds, but my head was also bobbin’ so they did their job very well. I’d say this album deserves the hype, and I’m already enjoying repeat listens.

You Say Party! We Say Die!, XXXX – spitfire-y post-punk new-wave upstarts with a serious ’80s jones. Vintage retro keyboards with plenty of slick, oily textures and shadowy dance grooves, it’s like a hipster GenX prom where you can’t tell if the band is trying to be ironic or just really big fans of the sound. I could’ve sworn this came out last year, and I remember listening to and reviewing it, but it never got an actual release until this week.

Just to whet your wondering mind over next month, we’ve got new LPs on deck from Gorillaz, Liars, Ted Leo, the Danger Mouse/James Mercer collaboration known as Broken Bells, a recently-unearthed entire album of unreleased Jimi Hendrix recordings, and a White Hinterland album. But don’t get ahead of yourself — enjoy this week first. You’ll thank me.

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