»Album Reviews For Release Date: 02.15.11
by Joshua Krage

Damn this week is fulfilling. Lots of shoegaze stuff of all shapes and sizes, some new Shawn Lee funk, Bright Eyes picking up the electric guitar the right way, and even a bunch of elephants making music. Great stuff.

Asobi Seksu, Flourescence – Mostly gone is the sound which drew me into these kids, the innocent angel tones of singer Yuki Chikudate hovering over huge, shimmering shoegaze guitar textures. Blessedly stepping away from the acoustic direction of their last couple efforts, the new textures here are mostly ’80s/’90s keyboards and synths, which get a hot beat injection from some solid drum dynamics and epic pacing. Much better than their recent efforts, but different overall– some good, some not so good.

Justin Bieber – remix

Bright Eyes, The People’s Key – Revving it up a bit from his Mystic Valley Band roots-rock, this album is probably the most concise modern rock record Conor Oberst has released. Less lyrically cohesive than some other albums, Oberst drifts a bit through some spirituality, but doesn’t couch his narratives in history-sized bombast, keeping it low-key and more broadly palatable throughout.

Bullet For My Valentine
Hayes Carll
Chixdiggit!
Stacy Clark
Cowboy Junkies
The Dears
Tina Dico
Dom

Drive-By Truckers, Go-Go Boots – One of the best working-man’s rock bands in business lays it back a bit and breaks out some acoustics alongside their requisite southern grooves and slide guitars. Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood’s slightly slack-jawed narratives still tell stories, equal parts inspiring and incriminating, with vocalist Shonna Tucker stepping into the spotlight on one track as well. Less hard-edged but still strong with the songwriting and the pocket rock grooves.

East River Pipe
Eddie Spaghetti
Elephant Man
Tommy Emmanuel
The Famine
The Forms

Gay For Johnny Depp, What Doesn’t Kill You, Eventually Kills You – Haven’t even heard their music, just love that name and album title. Sure to sell lots of records to old 21 Jump Street fans…

Ginuwine
PJ Harvey

Hillsong United, Aftermath – One of the few bands that consistently give me hope for contemporary Christian music, using modern rock production and guitar textures, top-level musicianship, lyrically complex songwriting (far too rare in the faith-based realm) and a variety of singers and songwriters to make their live-recorded albums excellent, time and time again.

Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra, World of Funk – England’s Shawn Lee is already the funkiest of deep-funk junkies, so when he puts the word in the title, expect the bar to be raised. However, the operative word in this title is “world,” with Lee employing a wide variety of globe-spanning instrumentation across the album. Steel drums, sitars, castanets, balaphones and more pepper these groove-heavy tracks with a unique layer of culture. Bonus guest-spots from keyboard spinster Clutchy Hopkins, Mid-East vocal phenom Natacha Atlas, and Dengue Fever vocalist Chhom Nimol among others.

Lemmy – DVD

Mogwai, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will – Scottish post-rockers get back with their Young Team producer for more post-rock wizardry. Not much new on this one, still lots of droning guitars and some teeth here.

Mr. Big
The 1900s
OST – Pretty Little Liars

Radiohead, The King of Limbs – If you haven’t heard, the UK kings of frigid, alternative nonchalance are dropping their new album digitally this Friday (2/18/11, or 18/2/11 across the pond). Get your copy at thekingoflimbs.com.

Rev Theory
Runner Runner
Stockholm Syndrome

Telekinesis, 12 Desperate Straight Lines – LP #2 from Seattle-based indie tunesmith Miles Benjamin Lerner, produced by Death Cab’s Chris Walla. Some serious guitar muscle and dance-ready beats lurking here, but mostly Lerner’s heart-addled reverb coos the story along with a bouncing tempo.

Thai Elephant Orchestra, Water Music – Exactly like it sounds, this is music scientist David Soldier providing a group of Thailand elephants with different rhythmic instruments and recording the results. It’s more melodic than you’d imagine; elephants are smart, creative creatures. Not really Top 40 material but fascinating, nonetheless.

Shugo Tokumaru, Port Entrophy – Eclectic and playful Japanese savant keeps it indie and wide-eyed with the optimistic melodies.

The Twilight Singers, Dynamite Steps – Shadowy rock statesman Greg Dulli pulls in a tasty grip of talented help for this fifth LP under the Twilight Singers moniker. Turns from Ani DiFranco, Carina Round, Joseph Arthur, Petra Haden, fellow Gutter Twin Mark Lanegan and more help to add color to these dark, atmospheric odes, driven by Dulli’s gravelly Nick Cave tenor and a slight sense of despair just beneath the surface.

Yuck, Yuck – Dumb name, but awesome and enthralling uptempo shoegaze with guitars to spare, appropriately so for a band of young kids whose primary songwriters are guitarists with plenty of atmosphere. Like a teenage J Mascis fronting Mogwai or My Bloody Valentine.

Zoey Van Goey, Propeller Versus Wings – This sounds a lot like Zooey Deschanel’s band from that Yes, Man movie, only more light-hearted (no “whore no more” songs) and more electronic. Pretty upbeat and springy, and with songtitles like “You Told the Drunks I Knew Karate” and “Robot Tyrannosaur,” you can be assured they don’t take themselves too seriously.

Haven’t heard the new Radiohead yet, but that Shawn Lee is tasty, and the guest spots are major league on the world spectrum. Even the elephants made good music this week.

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To view past reviews, visit our archives.

»Album Reviews For Release Date: 11.10.09
by Joshua Krage

This week is evidently the week to release the live footage/tracks from that show you did in London that one time. And if you didn’t play a show in London, just throw together a Best Of from your latest set of albums. Don’t have a latest set of albums? Maybe on account of your band being broken up or your frontman being dead? I’m sure you’ve got some old vault material or an acoustic/choral arrangement or twelve to get a release ready before Holiday Shopping Season begins. All that being said, that’s most of what’s out this week, but there are a few bright spots, so here you go:

AC/DC- box set (with a deluxe edition contained in a working guitar amp. Seriously. \m/ )
Tori Amos – Midwinter Graces (Christmas)
Anthrax- CD/DVD

Asobi Seksu, Rewolf – I fell in love with this band after their Citrus album, which had a hefty helping of angular, blissful indie guitar reverb and Yuki Chikudate’s fragile, angelic vocals, so I was disappointed when they followed that album up with an LP full of colorless new-wave drone, but I still liked the overall sound so I stuck with them. This entry into their catalog is an acoustic rendering of some of their better stuff (with sadly no new songs), recorded at “London’s renowned Olympic Studios” (just before it closed its doors for good), and is a mixed bag of pristine joy and yawn-inducing meh. “Acoustic” means that James Hanna’s usually killer guitar work is inexcusably absent from their signature sound (replaced by monotonous strumming), and there’s no end of xylophone and toy piano fills which fail to replace the wonderfully orchestrated noise usually present on their songs. They even turned their best song (“Thursday”) into a cringe-worthy, mellowed-out waltz, proving either they weren’t paying attention or are clearly misguided as to what sounds good about them in general. There are a couple decent re-worked tracks worth checking out here, but for the most part this album is just a further slide down a bland, sleep-inducing hill.

The Cribs, Ignore the Ignorant – a little bit older, a little less jittery, and with the legendary Johnny Marr joining the ranks of the Jarman bros, this new album has a considerable amount of guitar punch in some gritty, tasteful ways. I kind of miss the youthful attention-deficit jangle of their last LP, but they still have a big, bright sound and Ryan (and Gary) Jarman’s throaty yowl is well-utilized on these well-crafted songs.

Dashboard Confessional
Ray Davies – Kinks Choral Collection
The Doors – Live in NY six-CD set
Flyleaf
Hawthorne Heights
Hollywood Undead
Jackson 5 – unreleased early masters
Kids Bop Kids – Beatles – all I’m saying is they better leave “Norwegian Wood” and “Do It In the Road” OFF this album
The Killers – Live From the Royal Albert Hall
Kings of Leon – Live at the 02 London DVD
MF Doom
Annie Moses Band
Jason Mraz – live
OST – 2012
Dolly Parton – Live in London
The Pixies – Minotaur – five CD, six DVD huuuge box set
Omar Rodriguez- Lopez (of The Mars Volta)
Sleep Whale
Snow Patrol- best of
Britney Spears- best of
The Starting Line

Switchfoot, Hello Hurricane – I don’t know how these fellas consistently come up with so many memorable melodies, but every album they’ve released since The Beautiful Letdown has been chock-full of singles (fast, slow, mid-tempo, off-tempo) with huge hooks and catchy choruses enough to make a convert of even the most casual listener. This new album continues that streak, from the anthemic opener “Needle and Haystack Life” to the start-stop rock crunch of first single “Mess of Me,” the impassioned plea of “Enough to Let Me Go” to the sprinting grandeur of the title track, every chorus is noteworthy and every lyric is well-considered with no throwaways in the bunch. And all of this AFTER frontman Jon Foreman just released four six-track EPs last year. It seems like God put this guy on earth solely to convey this amazing abundance of pop/rock goodness to the masses, and his voice is continually up to the challenge of singing these anthems in perfect form. I love this band and am happy to report this album will please any and all fans, as well as anyone looking for solid songcraft, musicianship, and lyrical skill.

Three 6 Mafia
The Tubes
Wale
Wyclef Jean

So yeah, kind of dry overall, but don’t give up hope because next week is the big pre-Thanksgiving push, with brand new albums dropping from the likes of Norah Jones, John Mayer, Kris Allen (AmIdol), Leona Lewis, Katy Perry (unplugged), OneRepublic, Stereophonics, and Them Crooked Vultures (who, if you haven’t heard, is Josh Homme, Dave Grohl, and John Paul Jones. Yes, THAT John Paul Jones). The horizon is amply bright, and I’ll see you there. Next week.

P.S. If you should wish to hear some of the high points of this week’s list, tune into my MySpace Page for a playlist. Enjoy.

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To view past reviews, visit our archives.