Adult Alternative

Best songs of 2011

2012-01-01T00:48:00.001-08:00

First day of 2012 seems like the best time to compile a list of the songs I liked most in 2011...

The whole of the Centro-matic album, Candidate Waltz, so picking a favourite is hard, but Shadow Follow Me is available in a lovely version on YouTube...

Only discovered Mimicking Birds this year, but songs don't get lovelier than Pixels...

Lady Gaga to cover Karl Phillips

2011-11-30T02:03:00.000-08:00

News reaches us that Lady Gaga is to cover one of Karl Phillips & The Midnight Ramblers' new songs, a more sensitive track called All In Your Head.

Tipped as Ones To Watch by BBC 6Music and others for 2012, this seems to confirm that rise...

Awaiting confirmation from 'sources close to Lady Gaga'

Restarting...

2011-03-31T05:22:00.001-07:00

Been away for ages. Guess it's because I didn't hear much that excited me... Then I went and downloaded the new Royal Bangs album and I got excited again. Then the new Wye Oak album...

Adult Contemporary Essentials 27.06.10

2010-06-30T01:35:00.000-07:00

Avi Buffalo

Avi Buffalo

Sub Pop

The Sub Pop label is some handy shorthand for high expectations from a debut album, and this album does not disappoint. Avi Buffalo is the adopted name of 19-year-old Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg, and the music they make (appropriately for Long Beach, Californians, perhaps) is summery, wistful pop, but the kind that you'd hope The Shins would make if they took some time to just hang out. Fashionably-enough, the music also features the kind of ecstatic mass choruses and hand claps that seem essential all of a sudden. But that doesn't diminish the feel-good factor from what is a throw-back to a 70s Buffalo Springfield reminder, brought bang up to date. No song on the album matches the lead single, What's In It For, but, like Band of Horses, the feel becomes the idea, and all of a sudden you're out the other side, blessed out and hitting repeat.

ACE rating 8/10

The Morning Benders

Big Echo

Rough Trade

The Morning Benders' Talking Through Tin Cans was an epic debut, introducing us to a band whose harmonies were 'the way music used to be' - easy, gently gorgeous. Fortunately, now that they are a big deal, the band have stepped up and produced something significant. Big Echo is the sound of a band properly on its feet.

Opening with the frankly astonishingly great Excuses, a song which must be in contention for single of 2010, the record then goes on to run through 10 could-be singles, and a great bonus track. Clearly, like Delta Spirit, this is a band that finds it hard not to make music (they released a fantastic Bedroom Covers album for free in 2009, running through wonderful cover versions, seemingly for fun). Another band that alludes to the Shins, but here it's to mix them with some later-period Beatles and some Beach Boys. Big Echo is a have-to-have.

ACE rating 9/10

Suzanne Vega

Close-Up Vol 1: Love Songs

Cooking Vinyl

All the way back in 1985 (yup, 25 years ago), Suzanne Vega's honest, poetic debut album shocked many, as a reminder of how remarkable simple, largely acoustic music could be. After a period where Vega has drifted into electronica and rock, Close Up is a return to her back catalogue, with selections re-recorded acoustically. With a more mature voice, songs like Marlene On The Wall, Gypsy, and Small Blue Thing are reflected in their perfect essence. There is a deeply affecting energy shining through each song - the sense that these are old, loved friends. Almost the best way to come at this album would be as a Suzanne Vega novice - discovering these songs fresh would surely put this among the contenders for album of the year.

ACE rating 9/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 13.06.10

2010-06-16T01:40:00.000-07:00

Tokyo Police Club

Champ

Memphis Industries

Tokyo Police Club's entry couldn't have been more exciting - A Lesson In Crime was an 8-song EP, full of high-energy punchy punky indie, tightly wound around bass, cheesy organ and bursts of spiky guitar. The follow-up, Elephant Shell, was a delight, taking that spit and fire and giving it a more mature grown-up feel without ruining anything. Champ, the second full-length, is more of the same - full of joy and anthemic melody, wholly 2010 in feel. The Canadian 4-piece have here started to breech the 3-minute song barrier, with great results. Standout songs include Breakneck Speed, Wait Up

and End of a Spark, songs that sound like a more indie Fratellis. Champ takes a couple of run-throughs to fully get into - some of the immediacy has gone in growing up, but it has been replaced with genuine quality.

ACE rating 8/10

Delta Spirit

History From Below

Decca

Delta Spirit almost define the can-do spirit of indie music. Their debut album, Ode To Sunshine, is an essential record that has been released and re-released as the band started to gain its audience. And that audience has been gained one fan at a time by taking the show on the road, and blowing people away nightly.

That album should be on every music fan's shelves, sounding like

The Band 40 years later - along with These United States and Centro-matic, this is America's new best new Band. One of the main benefits of that continual live experience is that the follow-up has been honed in front of audiences, and, through a process of evolution, the 11 songs here are genuinely great. Keeping the live studio sound, there is a real sense of space and energy - fortunately the band's range is maintained, rather than simply filling the album with barnstormers - Salt In The Wound is touching, aching. History From Below is another essential album from a band you have to know about.

ACE rating 9/10

Pernice Brothers

Goodbye, Killer

One Little Indian

Once upon a time, Pernice Brothers were able to put together outstanding wit, lyric writing and punchy exciting music. That time was 2001, with the World Won't End. Since then, with 2003's Yours Mine and Ours, 2005's Discover A Lovelier You, and 2006's Live a Little, the highlights have become progressively harder to find. Like Teenage Fanclub, the sound is still there (very like Teenage Fanclub in sound), the lyrics are still there, but my goodness, Joe Pernice's voice has gone. Most of this album sounds like it took him by surprise, and that he's singing a couple of keys above where he feels comfortable. This is a shame, as the songs are back to standard, but there is no way past the voice - while never the band's strongest asset, it was never a hindrance, but with this latest release it has become a distraction. Great set of songs for another band to re-record, though.

ACE rating 6/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 30.05.10

2010-06-03T00:52:00.001-07:00

Damien Jurado

Saint Bartlett

Secretly Canadian

Damien Jurado is one of those songwriters that all songwriters know and love, but who is all-but-unknown to the public here in the UK.

With an ability to write a genuinely affecting song, and deliver it in a vulnerable, sweet voice, and then do it another 11 times on the same record, his under-recognition is unfair.

On his tenth studio album, Saint Bartlett sees him return to form after the variable Caught In The Trees. Produced by (the excellent in his own right) Richard Swift, Saint Bartlett is a bleaker, quieter more honest affair, which suits him right down to the ground - he is not an arranger, just a very very good storyteller, and there are some wonderful stories here. As a way into Damien Jurado, there are no better places to start.

ACE rating 8/10

Band of Horses

Infinite Arms

Columbia

It is hard to escape the view here that, as so often, Band of Horses gave us their best on their first record, and struggled with the follow-up. Everything All The Time was a stunning debut, with Cease To Begin retreading the same basic formula. Infinite Arms' problems can be traced to the line of the press release that is supposed to make it sound grand: "Produced by Band of Horses with additional production from Phil Ek, mixed by Dave Sardy, and recorded over a 16-month period, the songs on Infinite Arms project the essence of the different locales across America that became the setting for the recording and songwriting process behind the album." For that, read, the band have no musical direction any more and recorded anything that sounded like a song over a 1 year period… Infinite Arms is fine Americana, proving that the band can intrinsically make an ordinary song sound nice. But that is all it is.

ACE rating 5/10

Stornoway

Beachcomber's Windowsill

4AD

No-one can say I didn't try. Having heard so many glowing reviews of this band, it was hard to go in not expecting the saviours of British music. Ultimately, what Beachcomber's Windowsill provides is a nice enough set of songs - folky, poppy, like an upbeat Mumford and Sons. What it does't really provide is any substance to challenge better bands like Frightened Rabbit. There is every chance that your 50 year old uncle is dancing around his Poggenpohl kitchen to Stornoway right now, so nice and middle class does this sound - the beachcomber of the album title may well be there for a nice week in Padstow. At the end of the day, 'nice' shouldn't be a bad word to use in a review, but caution should be exercised for anyone else drawn into the hype - that's pretty much all there is in here.

ACE rating 7/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 23.05.10

2010-05-28T04:20:00.000-07:00

Phosphorescent

Here's To Taking It Easy

Dead Oceans

Phosphorescent is based around main man Matthew Houck, and on this fifth studio album they enter a rather lovely indie folk space. Emulating Great Lake Swimmers if fronted by Iron and Wine's Sam Beam, this is laid back, harmonic and gentle - music that could have been recorded at any time in the past 40 years.

Houck's voice has a wonderful plaintive quality - strong and vulnerable at the same time. A song like We'll Be Here Soon is gorgeous, laid out like a landscape - any fan of Fleet Foxes would find a lot to love in here. Occasionally the band head into Neil Young/ The Band space (The Mermaid Parade), although it is a reflective Neil Young rather than the rock-heavy one. The band's previous album, Pride (the Willie Nelson covers album aside), was a record that took time to grow but when it did it had its hooks in everywhere. Here's To Taking It Easy is a lovely build on Pride.

ACE rating 8/10

Surfer Blood

Astrocoast

Kanine

Surfer Blood are a band from West Palm Beach, Florida, and follows the new movement in bands that hark back to a 70s sound. Here, they embrace 70s summer pop to produce a sound like Weezer mixed with Girls. The quartet also, in deriving their Weezer references, manage to sound like some Nick Hayward 80s bands. Ultimately, mixing in the trendy Afrobeat (Yeasayer, Vampire Weekend) and eclectic sounds (a bit of dosie-do here, a bit of New Romantic there, produces an uneven record - the kind of record that you'd like to like, but that fails to achieve anything memorable once the last song has gone. The band seem to have hooked into a nice wave of hype, which may do them no favours in the long run, as the music just isn't completely there yet.

ACE rating 7/10

JBM

Not Even In July

JBM

Let’s face it – even the hardest critic of hippy folk would find a lot to like in Fleet Foxes. Well, those same parts make up most of what makes Not Even In July special. Jesse Marchant, an actor turned singer-songwriter, who goes under his initials, sings in a sweet, gentle voice over relaxed lovely melody. A Canadian by birth, Not Even In July was recorded in a church studio, whose atmospherics add a gorgeous ambience to the lazily swelling dynamics and the echoes. Like fellow Canadians Great Lake Swimmers, Marchant’s music has an intimacy that reminds the listener of early Neil Young, Jackson Browne or Rickie Lee Jones. With material covering subjects such as the perfect July On The Sound, written for a dying friend, Marchant is a match for our own Stephen Fretwell – a band is used to fill out the songs without ruining their delicacy and elegance. As a first album, this is an immense small effort.

ACE rating 9/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 09.05.10

2010-05-13T16:31:00.000-07:00

Broken Social Scene

Forgiveness Rock Record

City Slang

Broken Social Scene are an idea as much as they are a band - a collective band with no single direction and a lot of musicians, Forgiveness Rock Record sees them trim down the number to a more cohesive level, although there is never any doubt that the album is a stitched together affair. Coming at indie from the ecstatic, loosely melodic side, Broken Social Scene do provide the odd goosebump moment in their music, and occasionally a song breaks through the general drift around the various contributors' songs - here it is The Sweetest Kill, and Forced To Love: one, a lovely ballad, the other a very good indie song. It is still hard to recommend BSS to anyone who isn't already in their club. Forgiveness Rock Record is tight relative to their other work, but it is still a collection of ideas.

ACE rating 7/10

The Black Keys

Brothers

Universal

The Black Keys have undergone so much experimentation since breaking through that it was inevitable that they would get to this point. Drummer Patrick Carney's side projects and label suggested a massively interesting musical brain, while guitarist Dan Auerbach's solo work took a sidestep from the thick bluesy funky rock that the pair broke through with.

That wonderful sludgy funk is still apparent on their sixth studio album, Brothers, as it becomes apparent that the soul rock of 70s America feeds the pair a delicious backdrop. Brothers, as a title, is meant to suggest that the pair still feel like a pair, despite their meanderings. What there is a lot less of is blues, although this sounds like the Attack and Release album if it had kept going at its departures from the 'sound'. There is falsetto, Booker T-like organ, Cream-like rock, and a whole lot of soul. The pair have one of the best modern musical legacies in the 5 albums to date, and Brothers proves it is built to last.

ACE rating 9/10

Darwin Deez

Darwin Deez

Lucky Numbers

Proof, if it were needed, that the UK is still prone to giving hype time to bands that manage only to show an interesting look and a hook. The shame here is that frontman, Darwin Deez, does have an interesting voice, and the band is capable of some Vampire Weekend-like spiky rhythms, and the occasional hook (singles Radar Detector and Constellations) that position them as a more electronic Julian Casablancas. The challenge is that there are dozens of great bands or artists in the same space: Kelley Stoltz, Devin Davis, Billy Harvey… (Who? Exactly…) This is a great record, taken in isolation - Deez is a better vocalist than Casablancas, and there is a good loose-limbed energy everywhere; the casiotone synths also seem perfect for what they're doing, the wittiness of the lyrics contributes. The shame would be if this debut were taken for more than what it is - a very interesting first go 'round - and expectations were changed because of that.

ACE rating 7/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 02.05.10

2010-05-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Jesca Hoop

Kismet Acoustic EP

Last Laugh

With the really rather special album Hunting My Dress bringing Jesca Hoop fame as this year's best quirky female singer-songwriter, time perhaps seemed right to release an EP of acoustic covers of her own songs, largely drawn from her debut album, Kismet.

Everything's there - the wonderful better-than-Bjork voice, the interesting arrangements… And yet, it is hard to not wonder what's missing, and that thing is the excitement from the Tom Waits-like orchestration that the studio brought to Hunting My Dress. While the EP is lovely, and is a great way to gain additional perspective on the two albums, this is for those who've already fallen in love with those records, not someone who is checking her out.

ACE rating 7/10

Aqualung

Magnetic North

FullFill

Aqualung (well, Matt Hales, who is Aqualung) has done very well since breaking through on the back of a VW advert with Strange and Beautiful. Since then, he has had an occasional track (Easier To Lie, Brighter Than Sunshine) break through and find its way to TC series like Brothers and Sisters or Greys Anatomy. The music is smack-bang in the middle of bands such as Coldplay, Snow Patrol, or Travis, and like those bands, you're really not supposed to find it offensive - if you find it compelling, that's a bonus. Magnetic North continues the tradition on recent Aqualung albums of nice-nice and a track or two that could work on an iPod playlist, or a mixtape CD if you're trying to come across as sensitive. Probably best as singles, unless you really don't like it spicy.

ACE rating 6/10

Jesse Malin and the St Marks Social

Love It To Life

SideOneDummy

Jesse Malin came out from Ryan Adams' wing as a squeakier Bruce Springsteen, forging a more interesting space for himself while Adams went off to forage in country and singer-songwriter territory. Here he follows the wonderful (and under-noticed) Glitter In The Gutter with a more straightahead return to his older wannabe. Love It To Life (the second album of his to be so-titled - the first is a 2007 live album) sounds more like the mid-80s Springsteen knock-offs (like John Cafferty), and ventures no further than the white lines on the same road throughout. Energetic enough, but lacking anything resembling an idea or a change of gear, this is Malin-on-repeat.

ACE rating 7/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 25.04.10

2010-05-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

The Tallest Man On Earth

The Wild Hunt

Dead oceans

Sweden’s Kristian Matsson will endure many many comparisons to Bob Dylan, for his adenoidal impassioned folk (think Blowin' In the Wind era), but the artist whom he should properly be compared to is Steve Forbert, for his voice is closest to that underrated star, and his music more melodic than the protest standards for which Dylan became famous. Like many Swedes writing in English, the actually lyrics have their flaws, but that doesn't stop the headlong rush through word associations sounding right on the money. This is a fantastic follow up to the great debut album, adding in great additional instruments to great effect. If there is a criticism, it is that the pace rarely varies, and that there really isn't much here that couldn't be a straight lift from another musician. Once you're past that, it's all good.

ACE rating 7/10

The New Pornographers

Together

Matador

Once, The New Pornographers were a vital, essential new rock band, full of Neko Case energy and AC Newman drive. Then, as people started to listen, the band (always known as a 'supergroup' simply because it corralled three singers and songwriters) started to sound like the sum of some parts, and more like less than the sum of those parts. Together (perhaps ironically?) allows Case to do Case songs, Newman to do his, and, for some reason allows Dan Bejar to do his. The outcome is that this is both a retread of what worked for them in the past (Your Hands (Together)) and some material that shouldn't have ever been allowed out of the studio (Silver Jenny Dollar, If You Can't See My Mirrors). For a band that has been nothing but disappointing on recent outings, Together provides all the reason needed to stop hoping that they were an aberration.

ACE rating 5/10

Josh Ritter

So Runs The World Away

Pytheas

Josh Ritter's warm, gentle voice and ability to write songs that seem instantly memorable brought him to the attention of many, in that space above folk where the occasional artist achieves success. He makes the kind of music that Ryan Adams occasionally manages, or that Stephen Fretwell drifts into unwillingly. There was a time when he was called The New Springsteen, but So Runs The World Away puts him smack dead centre for The New Paul Simon, with its Still Crazy After All These Years feel. One listen to The Curse will be all you need to make you buy this album - its gently unfolding epic story beautifully told. The fact is that Josh Ritter is now an essential artist, one with a place on the shelf of every adult who likes considerate, intelligent music. This is his best album.

ACE rating 6/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 04.04.10

2010-04-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

The Brutalist Bricks

Matador

For many of us, the only Elvis Costello we're happy with is the 80s punk popster, when tunes met power pop. Ted Leo has been making records for almost 20 years now, steadily improving his craft these past 10 years as Ted Leo and The Pharmacists. He has retained the Frank Turner kind of spit and fire, the angular biting guitars and almost more importantly has started to understand his own territory a lot better, rather than grabbing styles from the library shelves. While capable of some straightahead rockers, it is his explosive fire that is more appealing - like The Posies, but snottier, or The Clash but more tuneful. That is in evidence from the opener, The Mighty Sparrow, and only gets turned up on Mourning In America. The Brutalist Bricks is the best Ted Leo album, and the most Ted Leo of the bunch.

ACE rating 8/10

Cypress Hill

Rise Up

Priority/ EMI

RISE UP is Cypress Hill’s first new album in six years and the first release issued through Priority/EMI, since being signed by Snoop Dogg. Rise Up is the follow-up to 2004’s Till Death Do Us Part, recorded over three years at B-Real’s studio, The Temple, in Los Angeles.

The band's deep grooves and hard riffs are amplified here by guest appearances from Rage Against The Machine/Street Sweeper Social Club guitarist Tom Morello, Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda, System of a Down guitarist/vocalist Daron Malakian, singer-songwriter Marc Anthony, rapper Pitbull and others, including Everlast, Young De, Evidence, The Alchemist and Cheech & Chong. The net effect is to improve, rather than detract from, what is a strong set of songs - old school hip hop upgraded for 2010. Cypress Hill were the first Latino hip hop group to go platinum, and Rise Up is a welcome return to the studio.

ACE rating 9/10

Annuals

Sweet Sister

Banter

Once upon a time, Annuals looked set to be the bloggers and critics' band for all time. Preceding Yeasayer and Arcade Fire, the band's ecstatic electro-hypnotic folk had an appeal all its own. Be He Me in 2006 looked set to launch the band as a massive new name. Then, the members went and did a few side projects, they self-released a weak EP in 2008, and now there is a self-released EP. While way more appealing than Such Fun, Sweet Sister does seem to lack a killer blow. It is nice enough - bouncier and breezier than what's gone before. Opener Loxtep is as good as this EP gets, with its World beats, Fleet Foxes harmonies and electro-frills all over the song. Annuals do know how to pull off this kind of thing with aplomb, and if we had an album full of such quality, all would be well with the world. However, the EP descends into some seemingly-easy retread, arrested slightly by Turncloaking. If this is a foretaste, that's a shame. If it is just a release because this stuff was sitting around, ho hum.

ACE rating 6/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 28.03.10

2010-03-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

Katey Brooks

Proof of Life

True Speaker

On this debut album, Bristol's Katey Brooks proves why comparisons to Tracy Chapman, Joan Armatrading and Toni Childs (and, in reference to her style, probably, John Martyn) have accompanied live reviews so far.

Having enjoyed a rapid rise to attention locally, and with guest appearances aplenty and a spot on the Children in Need single, she is clearly a singer on the rise. Here, 10 songs tell the story wonderfully, from the deeper and more reflective to the rockier (This Old Skin, Hunger). Where her star really shines, though, is on two of the more interesting sidebars - Lines is a remarkable song, self-expressive in the way Edie Brickell's Circles was. The album closes on Michael Row The Boat Ashore, where her voice - capable of raw, emotional power, is given its lovely head.

ACE rating 8/10

Sparklehorse

Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain

Parlophone

Sparklehorse main man Mark Linkous had a pretty traumatic ride until he took his own life this year. On Dreamt For Light Years, he returned to the mesmerising form of Vivadixesubmarinetransmissionplot, bolstered by the talents of guests like Tom Waits, Dangermouse and The Flaming Lips' Stephen Drodz. Here, Linkous' quiet voice and unusual choices of melody almost always come off, recalling bands like dEUS more than other spacey acts like The Flaming Lips. This is a proper muso album, almost firmly in the adult end of the spectrum, but altogether accessible for anyone who leans towards rock. Revisited after such a sad ending, it is easy to wonder why you didn't recognise its classic status immediately. It could have been made at any point from Sergeant Pepper or Dark Side Of The Moon onwards, so spacey and psych-y is it. It doesn't hit bullseyes throughout, but it never goes further than the 25.

ACE rating 9/10

Django Django

WOR/ Skies Over Cairo

Django Django

This is your chance to get in on the ground level. Still remaining independent, Scottish/ East London band Django Django follow up last year's remarkable EP Storm/ Love's Dart with this Beta Band-like piece of brilliance. Already vying for single of the year so far, WOR is a song that channels Peter Gunn guitar with 2010 rhythms and oh-so-clever harmonies - it has turnarounds, interplay and most of all it gets better the louder you turn it up. The UK has always had a knack for turning out bands that stimulate heart and head, and Django Django look like being one of those bands you should hook onto now.

ACE rating 8/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 21.03.10

2010-03-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

Fang Island

Fang Island

Sargent House

Do you know what ecstasy sounds like? Well, chances are it sounds something like this Brooklyn's band, whose blend of Built To Spill guitars, Go! Team infectious enthusiasm, Minus The Bear jags and Fleet Foxes harmonising is a treat if you're properly sugared up.

Many of the songs here aren't songs at all, but seemingly riotous celebrations of a theme. As such, it is the Battles of 2010 - a set of music that is likely to end up in places that didn't know they needed something exactly like this. The musicianship is very good, which given that there aren't many lyrics about (and few good lyrics anywhere) is a real blessing. It is easy to come away with the impression that a concert by this 5-piece would be a joyous hoot, if the exuberance on this second album can be channelled on stage. The album is only 30 minutes long, but it's unlikely that your first hit of porgy punk like this will need more than that to get you hooked.

ACE rating 8/10

The Whigs

In The Dark

Ato

Now this is a real shame, of the order of OK Go's recent new album shame. The Whigs seemed like Athens, Georgia's new awesomest band for the whole of their 2008 album Mission Control. Now, they release this tossed-off re-tread. Aping both themselves and Kings of Leon's breakthrough in the sub-stadium dirty rock space, there are two proper songs here - In The Dark and Kill Me Carolyne. And those two songs are genuinely excellent, especially the title track, handily released as the free mp3 single prior to the album's release for the usual reason - to convince you the record would be this good. Elsewhere, songs like I Don't Even Care About The One I Love sound like some horror 80s rock pastiche, and Naked exactly like someone ingested a Walkmen album on the way to the studio. It may be too early to add The Whigs to the 'oh no, what happened' pile, but they seem to have mistaken the interest in their straightahead rock for interest in their danceable variety.

ACE rating 6/10

Sarah Jaffe

Even Born Again

Summer Break

This is an older record, all of 2008, but well worth a revisit. Sarah Jaffe contributed some vocals to the Molina and Johnson album, and her amazing voice has, as a result, been somewhat more in demand. This lovely little album is all the proof that you need that this bluesy, folky indie singer songwriter is something special - her voice is not traditionally beautiful, but goes right to the core, like a more in tune Janis Joplin. Even Born Again manages to be perfectly romantic and soft, while hard and hurt at the same time - the voice expresses such vulnerability. Like Rachel Yamagata, she mixes in electricity perfectly when needed (as on Under), or takes it back to simply picked guitar to illustrate the wonder of simple beauty. This is a gem of a record, and shouldn't pass unnoticed.

ACE rating 9/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 14.03.10

2010-03-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

Titus Andronicus

The Monitor

Merok

Both cerebral and not at all cerebral, this second album from New Jersey band Titus Andronicus tells a story based around the American Civil War as metaphor, and does it in the most exuberant of punk.

To get a proper sense for the music on offer, you'd need to run The Hold Steady through a Sex Pistols filter, with a good load of Dropkick Murphys for drunken balance. The Monitor (named after an 1850s battleship) is full of swearing, erudition and spit and fire, and a huge thrashy spirit that builds on the eponymous debut album's slackness with some real songs and direction. This band may be proving to be one of the more interesting counterpoints in American music, now that Green Day's politics are getting more stadium-level. The Monitor is a riot, almost literally, from start to finish, with rules turned over like cars in the streets. It is also a proper hoot.

ACE rating 9/10

The White Stripes

Under Great White Northern Lights

Most people now know of The White Stripes, almost as a phenomenon as much as a band. With Jack White spending so much time in side projects like The Raconteurs, the essence of the band has not been well captured in a long while. Fortunately, there is the occasionally great live performance to draw from, as a reminder of why some of us would prefer he stick to his day job. This is one of those shows, recorded in Nova Scotia, and he was clearly having a good day, one filled with audience interaction and energy. Highlights include a slowed-down (and full of sexual tension) Fell In Love With A Girl, and songs drawn liberally from the earlier albums (including covers like Jolene and I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself). The real highlight, however, is the level of bluesy edgy melody that a man with a guitar and a female drummer can put into a room. Unlike many live albums, this would be a great place to dive into The White Stripes' canon.

ACE rating 8/10

Drive By Truckers

The Big To Do

PIAS

The Big To Do is Drive By Truckers tenth album, and follows Brighter Than Creation's Dark, which seemed like something of a misstep in their career - lots of songs thrown together with no overarching 'album' feel. Fortunately, this album drags the band best to what they do best - the rock of their own Southern Rock Opera. Like Neil Young on a fiery day, DBT are capable of dragging steel from rust - and here the rock flows from a country-ish folk-ish underlay. Since Jason Isbell departed, the band have taken a little while to get comfortable to continue playing the kind of music they did when he was there, but there is no doubt here that rock prevails - from the first bars, the electricity only tails off on the last quarter of the record. Joint lead singer-songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley keep their respective roles, but with renewed emphasis on great songs and great riffs, rather than just great lyrics. Fantastic to see one of America's best rock bands back on track.

Adult Contemporary Essentials 07.03.10

2010-03-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

Clem Snide
The Meat of Life
429
Clem Snide have it all - in Eef Barzelay a songwriter capable of the most poignant, witty sharp lyrics out there, delivering them with a voice that's not beautiful in any way other than its vulnerability. Clem Snide also have a roster of albums that move close to perfection, if you like your indie rock thoughtful rather than grungey. So, after last year's lovely Hungry Bird, The Meat of Life comes as a somewhat unfortunate surprise. The songs mostly drift around on similar melodies, and a similar mood, forcing the attention onto the lyrics. They're still remarkable lyrics, dripping with irony and humorous bitterness, but the album comes across as dry and underdone, as if more music needed to be thrown around first on top of the lazy country jazzy texture. We should be thankful for more Clem Snide - until 2009, it seemed the band might be no more - but here it seems more time between albums could have been a good thing.

ACE rating 7/10

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Beat The Devil's Tattoo
V2
Success came early to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, as the group were instantly propelled into the limelight on the back of their debut album. Beat The Devil's Tattoo sees them complete a full circle, having gone a bit country gospel, and a bit experimental, along the way. As nicely Jesus and Mary Chain as is reasonable, BRMC mix in some Black Crowes for good effect, maybe some T-Rex and even some Cage The Elephant, and end up recalling their own debut wonderfully. When good, they kick the behind of pretenders like Kings of Leon. It's not the most modern-sounding record, a point almost confirmed by the artwork, but they do have the benefit of a strong set of songs, played really well (even if you fear for the pounding that the drums take throughout - dished out by Raveonettes drummer, Leah Shapiro here). It is a frowny miserablist view of the Goth's favourite rock band, but it is also a whole lot of bluesy good times.

ACE rating 8/10

Joe Walsh
The Definitive Collection
Universal
'Definitive' in this case means 'the best 15 songs you'll need from Joe Walsh's solo career and James Gang time (the group he was in before the Eagles)' as you'll not find any Eagles material here, and the double disc 'Look At What I Did' is way too much for any introductory dip into the work of an unassuming and under-recognised guitar genius. The famous songs like Life's Been Good and Rocky Mountain Way are here, along with wonderful pieces like Funk No 49 - showcasing his wonderful feel with a slide, and ability to funk up some rock nicely. The subtitle of the album - Greatest Hits: Little Did He Know - suggests a man whose career took more surprising turns than even he could have guessed, but there is little doubt that listeners who know and love the hits will also enjoy every other track here. As a way to discover Joe Walsh's music, it is hard to imagine a better solution.

ACE rating 7/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials rating
9-10 Essential purchase
7-8 Good, definite buy if you've liked this artist in the past
5-6 OK only, don't say I didn't warn you
3-4 Poor, even for this artist
1-2 Awful

2010-03-03T02:56:00.000-08:00

Frightened Rabbit

The Winter of Mixed Drinks

Fat Cat

The best band in Scotland by some distance now, Frightened Rabbit have built a huge reputation among indie fans, but with The Winter Of Mixed Drinks look set to break through into mainstream attention.

It is deserved, and for those of us who care it will be glorious to see a band with this kind of quality begin to appeal to mainstream listeners. The Winter Of Mixed Drinks builds on its predecessor Midnight Organ Fight with another great title and a wonderful set of blustery intelligent acoustic electric rock. With lead single Swim Until You Can't See Land (and its wonderful refrain 'Swim until you can't see land, are you a man or are you a bag of sand?') already out there worming its way into public consciousness, the sound of stubborn rebellion, Celtic folk, and fierce wit brings to mind a 2010 Big Country. There may be no single song that tops The Modern Leper (Nothing Like You comes close), but each song builds so well that you start to see things only one way. If there is a criticism, it is that there is a feeling of padding in the inclusion of part songs and ideas, which loses a great album one point.

ACE rating 8/10

Turin Brakes

Outbursts

Cooking Vinyl

Turin Brakes had a golden period around the beginning of the 2000s, when their album Ether Song seemed to make the soundtrack to every TV programme, and provide the background music to every middle class dinner party. A kinder, gentler Elbow, the duo make nice, acoustic music for nice people. Unfortunately for them, they have moved on not one jot in the 7 years since Ether Song; Outbursts may be their 5th studio album, but is a plain and simple retread of everything that's gone before. Despite claiming that every record sees them move on, there is a strong sense that they have found that journey away from their initial success frustrating, so have aimed at Ether Songs II. Outbursts starts nicely enough, with the only song worthy of attention (Sea Change), but even that is several notches lower than say a Jacob Golden song. If Turin Brakes are your thing, this is 45 minutes of more of the same. If they are new to you, do seek out Ether Song - it is still a great listen. Outbursts would provide inoffensive dinner party music still, but it seems to have no other purpose.

ACE rating 6/10

Deadstring Brothers

Sao Paulo

Bloodshot

The Deadstring Brothers have not changed their formula over the years - aping late 60s/ early 70s Rolling Stones. If, like most, you agree that that was the best Stones period, this is a cause for celebration, as the Stones stopped making great music some 25 years ago. Sao Paulo can't touch the heights of that band's best, but with its blend of country, blues and rock, there is some sense that this is a comforting place to spend some time - Sao Paulo's most obvious comparison is with Exile On Main Street, which is a rather high benchmark. An album that works better when consumed as a whole, to allow time for the mood to emerge and sink in, rather than sampled one song at a time, this is good time rock and roll. The Deadstring Brothers give the lie to those who claim that they don't make music the way they used to, because this Detroit band only seem to know one way to make them.

ACE rating 7/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 21.02.10

2010-02-25T13:24:00.000-08:00

The Strange Boys

Be Brave

Rough Trade

Texans do things differently, but not always bigger, if this wonderful little album is anything to go by. Coming across as The Basement Tapes might if Mick Jagger had taken The 60s Stones in that direction, Be Brave is full of a rusty, dusty blend of country, rock and blues.

The Strange Boys take Jason and the Scorchers onto a new, indie level the way that The Walkmen do when they play country. This record is as far from the X Factor as a record could get and still be released by a major(ish) label, but for those who partake, it has an infectiousness and a sheer joy to its existence that equally elevates other bands you've never heard of, like White Hassle or Delta Spirit - you will be so glad you came in, and want to share the secret, but realistically someone who listens to Radio 2 or a pop station is not going to get this record. If you prefer the 73 Springsteen to the 2009 one, the 60s Stones to the 80s Stones, however, do seek out this record.

ACE rating 9/10

Great Lake Swimmers

The Legion Sessions

Nettwerk

Canada's Great Lake Swimmers don't make music, they make beauty sound like something. Front man Tony Dekker looks like the kind of man on whom religions get built, and sings like an angel. The Legion Sessions was recorded in a pub - the Royal Canadian Legion Pub - and features live acoustic versions of their acoustic songs from the lovely Lost Channels record. It is, if you like, a second chance to hear those songs, a perspective 2 degrees away from the one you first came at them. Songs like Palmistry and Pulling On A Line are gorgeous, layered and gentle, like a warm clear stream - Dekker makes every song a vulnerable, fragile thing, and the band adorn each perfectly with the minimum of effort and frill. The record sounds great, too - the feel of the wooden floor is tangible - this is no sticky-floored British pub, clearly. If you don't have Lost Channels already, it doesn't make sense to start here, although you can see most of the Sessions songs on YouTube to see if you'll like it. if you do, this will help you hear it in 3D.

ACE rating 8/10

Steve Vai

Where The Wild Things Are (Live in Minneapolis)

Favored Nations

Take care that this isn't something you buy by accident expecting the film soundtrack. There is a DVD to accompany this tour de force, but this is as high end as rock guitar gets, and there is no nice warm feeling at the end. Steve Vai is a guitarist's guitarist, and even those guitarists don't necessarily like what he does - the extreme technicality of the playing requires an appreciation of how hard it is to do at least as much as any appreciation of it as 'music'. However, the CD of this show contains 15 tracks that highlight an amazing front man of an amazing band - Vai has collected a band of virtuosos, including two violinists who can match his speed and style. This elevates the music from straight rock to jazz fusion, and brings him closer to his own Frank Zappa band roots than he has been in a long time, if with less improvisation. For the guitarist listener, there are probably too many vocal tracks, but songs like Now We Run or Oooo are simply jawdropping.

ACE rating 8/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 14.02.10

2010-02-15T05:55:00.001-08:00

The Soft Pack

The Soft Pack

Heavenly

If it’s true that all publicity is good publicity, then this San Diego band may well have decided that they could continue to call themselves The Muslims for this debut album. Fortunately, more sensible heads prevailed and this album is being allowed to stand on its own merits.

‘Fortunately’ because this album captures the spirit of The Strokes’ early work and mixes in some Fall to come out with something that isn’t new, isn’t big and certainly isn’t clever, but is the

same kind of infectious as the Von Bondies breakthrough, or the short-lived 22-20s. There is some early Beatles pop, some early REM driving Rickenbacker sounds and a whole lot of the kind of college/ underground rock that needs no explanation – full of songs, juvenile attitude and thrashed guitars. Hipsters may wish for more archness, more of the kind of image cultivated by The Drums, but leave them to their anxieties, and enjoy this album for what it is – it isn’t trying to change the world, just make 30 minutes of it pass more quickly.

ACE rating 8/10

The Smoking Popes

It’s Been A Long Day

Asian Man

For fans of The Smoking Popes, it was interesting that Morrissey suggested they were his favourite band, as they always had the sound of a Smiths that had taken REM’s punkier college rock to heart. In one respect, The Smoking Popes were one of America’s most important punk bands in the 90s, combining melody and catchy rock with their attitude preceding Green Day’s increasing popularity. This collection of unreleased material from 1991-1998 is raw and unpolished, but does give a great insight into the generation. Many songs come in under 2 minutes, and it is remarkable how much can be fitted into those 120 seconds. The overwhelming impression that remains now is of a band whose punk got subsumed under the pop surface. We can’t complain too much of that – I Need You Around from 1995’s Born To Quit remains on of THE great singles of the past 20 years. Consider this an album for completists - Born to Quit and 2008’s Stay Down should come ahead of this in your Shopping Cart.

ACE rating 7/10

Yeasayer

Odd Blood

EMI

Yeasayer have gone from the territory they set up for Vampire Weekend to a more electronic 80s place. All Hour Cymbals was, by their own admission, Middle Eastern-Psych-Pop-Snap-Gospel, which either means that a lot of good ideas were thrown into a melting pot from which the best were chosen, or that an occasionally unseemly mess resulted. The adulation that accompanied songs like 2080 did seem to suggest that the band had got some things right, however. Odd Blood is definitely an album of two halves – the first a melted down Pet Shop Boys synthy disco mix, and the second described as ‘experimental.’ In this case, that does mean what you fear it might – there is barely a song to be found in the sub-Talking Heads mess. Best avoided unless you desperately want the badge of novelty pinned to your ironic T-shirt.

ACE rating 6/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 07.02.10

2010-02-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hurray For The Riff-Raff
Young Blood Blues
eMusic
There was a time when Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Songs was shocking. Alynda Lee, here known as Hurray For The Riff Raff, on her second album, is as folky as it gets, having left home at 17 to ride freight trains and play washboard in a street band. Her voice, all Cat Power and Shocked, is a powerful instrument in the sparse mix of banjo, accordion, and percussion, but she is at her best when delivering a line like 'you stick the needle in your arm and the baby starts crying' on Slow Walk. The capacity of songs like I Know You to be seductively bluesy is just gorgeous, and full of character. If more blues was less reverent and paid attention to its folk roots,
records like this might be easier to come by - if, as they say, blues is just the sound of a good man/ woman feeling bad, then the absence of melancholy that suggests is written all of the way through this. Its edges are its character, and its depth its primary raison d'être.

ACE rating 9/10

The Features

Some Kind of Salvation

Serpents and Snakes

The Features may come from Nashville, but they sound like Tennessee brethren Kings of Leon might if they came from Brighton - bouncy, edgy pop that is at once upbeat and rocking. Some Kind of Salvation is their second album after the band had trouble with the major label that released their first, Exhibit A. It is an improvement on that debut in every way - the songs are better, lyrically and musically: more fully-reconciled, more fully featured. The band do have a 60s pop inspiration, but front man Matt Pelham takes any Kinks-y leanings and mixes them nicely with some more modern Fratellis-like indie, all hooks, groove and funk. The UK charts need something with the delight of Wooden Heart, GMF or Lions (the Chelsea Dagger of this album). With some more promotion behind them, The Features could well be a massive band on this side of the Atlantic too. Fortunately, this re-release is on the Kings of Leon's label, so that may well tip the balance.

ACE rating 8/10

Jason and the Scorchers

Halcyon Times

JCPL

How does 'first album of all-new material since 1996' sound to you? Enough to strike fear that some old band has been forced by penury into the studio again, and that some retread will be the order of the day? Well, in the case of Jason and the Scorchers, put that thought far from your mind. Back in the day, J&TS and their version of cowpunk (think of the way that The Pogues turned Irish folk music into something hornier and dirtier, then think of that done to awesome country music) turned out something approaching genius, especially on Fervor their EMI debut in 1983. It is one of the all-time great records, and it has been argued (pretty successfully) that this was the album that generated alt-country, not Son Volt. Halcyon Times may not quite approach the spark that ignited Fervor, but it does have the kind of quality that sustained its follow-up albums Lost and Found and Still Standing. The cheekiness is still there, the hard rock, the melodic approach and the absolute absence of any subtlety. Funky as all get-out, there are all sorts of reasons to be grateful for this all-new material.

ACE rating 8/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 31.01.10

2010-02-02T03:06:00.000-08:00

Midlake

The Courage of Others

Bella Union

Before the Fleet Foxes, the band whose retreat to early 70s hippiness was most successful was Midlake, and their lovely 2007 second album The Trials of Van Occupanther. With The Courage of Others, Midlake move closer to English folk (Pentangle, Fairport Convention) and a Woodstock-y/ Age of Aquarius vibe – it is never happy, and built around a theme that modern life sucks. Fortunately, the music makes up for that by being in itself gently uplifting. Plus ca change and all that, but there isn’t much here that wasn’t explored 40 years ago – Midlake may sound boldly unconventional now, but only by sounding conventional for an earlier time. The Denton, Texas band clearly have a wonderful feel for pastoral melody, dynamics and harmony, but too often here the feel is of earnestness and ennui.

ACE rating 7/10

The Drums

Summertime EP

Moshi Moshi

Anyone who got The Girls and their debut Album will be dead centre for this EP, from Brooklyn band The Drums. It will help if they come armed with their Joy Division, Stone Roses and The Cure chops, but that is only a starting point – The

Drums sound is a clear, 60s surfer-dude sound, with all of the exuberance that entails. In fact, the band that they most resemble is the Shout Out Louds, who have made this kind of thing their own in recent years. If new music for you means finding bands whose youthful energy overwhelms any over-production or world-weariness, The Drums will be an easy listen – the EP is not polished, and just raw fun in certain places, but it fizzes with that certain something that makes people start bands. Knocks Vampire Weekend into a cocked hat.

ACE rating 8/10

The Len Price 3

Pictures

Wicked Cool

Another revisit to older times, Len Price 3 take the period when the Beatles made pop records, and The Kinks threw out radio-friendly single after single. No one in the band is called Len Price, oddly, as it suggests the band chose the name to refer back to a golden 60s period. The way that the record sounds mirrors that – there seems to have been too great an attempt to make it sound as though it could be an uncovered 60s gem. The Kent trio do mix in some nice The Who, Squeeze-y, Jilted John cockernee punk, and the 13 tracks come in around the half hour mark, so no song outstays its welcome. Signed to Steve Van Zandt’s Wicked Cool label (van Zandt has a strong view that music has been downhill since 1970, and that mono is where it is at), The Len Price 3 have recently been knocking out some stellar singles, which are front-loaded into this album – the rest feels like a valiant attempt to pad the 30 minutes.

ACE rating 7/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 24.01.10

2010-01-26T02:26:00.001-08:00

Vampire Weekend

Contra

XL/ Beggars

A lot of people liked Paul Simon’s Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints period. It’s not so cool for kids to say they like it now, though, so what they say they like instead is Vampire Weekend. Contra is such an updated Rhythm of the Saints in all but the presence of Paul Simon that it is hard to understand the hype and adulation that has accompanied the band. Fun, unassuming and as world-y as music gets – they have (as Simon had) added in some Jamaican, Brazilian and some of-the-moment Bangra, and seem to feel passionate about none of it. There are a couple of good tracks here – Cousins is fun and punky, Taxi Cab a little Strokes-y. There are many more reasons to avoid paying for Contra than there are to – the band and their promo are a little too college-boy smug about themselves, and there are a lot of times that this is just too clean and sweet.

ACE rating 7/10

Beach House

Teen Dream

Bella Union

When it comes to buzz, Beach House have it in spades. The band have slowly built up a remarkable reputation based on unassuming, quiet, Brian Wilson-flavoured dream pop/ indie rock (and the support of arch opinionistas Pitchfork, a US website). Somewhere to the dreamy side of Department of Eagles, Grizzly Bear and Mercury Rev, this is an album that is meant to be consumed as a whole, rather than in discrete songs. As such, it takes some time to let it sink in – there isn’t much hummable in here. Perfect for the bloggers of the world, this duo (Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally) rely on intimacy and subtlety to draw in the listener. Beach House is their best album, although it sounds a lot like its predecessor, Devotion – quite a lot of icy coolness and haze to leave the listener with the impression of a still lake with the barest ripple. It is lovely, if not quite the step ahead we might have hoped for.

ACE rating 8/10

California Guitar Trio

On Tour With King Crimson

California Guitar Trio

Rodrigo y Gabriela have rather revived the indie interest in finely played classical flamenco guitar. Unfortunate title aside (there aren’t many proggie moments), the California Guitar Trio follow the Di Meola, McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia format to the hilt – nailing a fusion jazz, classical mix with aplomb. This album mixes in some electric guitar for texture, and throws some fun in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Pipeline and Walk Don’t Run to the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor mix. This is a hugely enjoyable album, if you’re a fan of the guitar – none of the players have a Di Meola-like virtuosity, but that somehow stabilises the music –it isn’t all about the speedy runs and frills, and the trio behave like a trio rather than a rolling showcase for individual talent.

ACE rating 7/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 24.01.10

2010-01-26T02:26:00.000-08:00

Vampire Weekend

Contra

XL/ Beggars

ACE rating 7/10

Beach House

Teen Dream

Bella Union

ACE rating 8/10

California Guitar Trio

On Tour With King Crimson

California Guitar Trio

ACE rating 7/10

The Uglysuit

2010-01-20T02:52:00.000-08:00

Had the extreme pleasure of finding that The Uglysuit were playing Bowery Electric in NYC while I was there... I am still nonplussed that this band isn't bigger. Their record was one of my Top 10 in 2008 (review here), and here they were opening for two bands I'd not heard of... Even more surprised when it turned out that they kick ass live - huge energy and a Muppets band stage presence...

Well-recorded video, and my two phone videos... And a free mp3 from their amazing record here... (Right click to download, or ctrl-click if you have seen the light.)

Adult Contemporary Essentials 17.01.10

2010-01-20T02:40:00.000-08:00

Local Natives

Gorilla Manor

Infectious

It didn’t take long for someone to try themselves out as another Fleet Foxes. This Silverlake, California band are the subject of a lot of buzz, although the record itself doesn’t do enough to justify the adulation. Running Fleet Foxes’ eponymous album through some Yeasayers/ Dirty Projectors messy shouty post-modern indie isn’t enough to properly distance it from Fleet Foxes. That reference runs all the way through this pretty good debut – the music uses its uplifting mass harmonies and swelling melodies well. Like The Morning Benders, or Delta Spirit, there is a lovely sense that this is a band that enjoys making music, even while it stays true to its influences (to be gentle). The lead single, Camera Talking, does at least head off in another direction – that direction being Vampire Weekend... Originality may (or may not) be an overrated virtue in modern music, as here it could detract from what is a fun and much better than average debut. A fan of any of the bands above will be pleasantly surprised by this new addition to their listening material.

ACE rating 7/10

Kevin Devine

Brother’s Blood

Big Scary Monsters

Kevin Devine is like the sweeter, nicer, cuter version of Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull – intelligent indie rock played acoustically, like an updated version of Freedy Johnston. Brother’s Blood is undoubtedly the best record of his career – this is his fifth album – maintaining the ‘eloquent simplicity’ of his fame – often simply acoustic until a dynamic change elevates the song.

Look no further than the Neil Young/ Crazy Horse-ish title song which is both long and good (better than short and good?), and Carnival which goes wonderfully nuts at the end. Devine also mixes in some sweet pop with his indie to great effect – songs like Yr Husband and I Could Be With Anyone are infectious, neatly crafted gems in the mix. The genre may well overlap with emo, but it is a more adult, more intelligent version of the same, a Colour Revolt version. Do find it and give it a listen.

ACE rating 8/10

OK Go

Of The Blue Colour of the Sky

Capitol

OK Go may not enjoy the kind of credibility among the hip tastemakers who decide if a band is fashionable or not, but their remarkably creative videos (the treadmill video is something of a pop culture classic), and consistently great music, mark them out as a proper adult alternative band. What they do really well is make tight, literate rock with a knowing nod. Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky sees them move in the same direction My Morning Jacket did, towards Prince-y funk, rather than their more straightahead rock of previous albums. Unfortunately, as with My Morning Jacket, while there is some merit in the album, it isn’t what an OK Go fan might expect to find. The tightness is still there in manicured lines, but there is little rock on display – a lot of falsetto, a lot of effects, electronics and a few songs in the 15 on the album. OK Go had it in them to be one of the great unsung rock bands, but Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky will hopefully just go down as an experiment.

ACE rating 5/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 10.01.10

2010-01-12T00:17:00.000-08:00

Freelance Whales

Weathervanes

Freelance Whales

So, the question would be “do you need more Sufjan Stevens music?” If the answer is ‘yes’ (and why would it not be?), then there is a place for you go that is more reliable than a new Sufjan Stevens’ album.

Probably, the Sufjan that you started to love on Illinois made the kind of nimble, beautiful folk that this five-piece from Queens, NY, do. The band, who have crafted their music on the subways of New York, trade elegant instrumentation, biblical references and a gorgeous voice to transport you to a nicer place. Fortunately, there seems not to be a contrivance or a false moment anywhere, and the nice blend of indie folk steers it nicely the right side of twee. A song like Broken Horse is simply lovely, while Hannah is laden down with hooks and funk, unusual instrumentation and harmony. While you’re waiting on the new Beach House, Freelance Whales is a good place to shelter.

ACE rating 8/10

Mt St Helens Vietnam Band

Mt St Helens Vietnam Band

Dead Oceans

These guys could be too clever for their own good (what with their 15 year old drummer, and their viral video promos that launched their career). Fortunately, they have the indie rock chops to back up their innovation. Unfortunately, those chops aren’t their own. The band plagiarise heavily (they could call it inspiration, or paying tribute) and there are undoubtedly some good spirits among the fun to be had. Unlike so many British tribute bands, this Seattle band draw from bands like Modest Mouse, The Hold Steady and The Shins. Which shows some originality, but less than, you know, actually being original. Come at the album without that knowledge and you could have a pretty good time, but you would have to leave your cool indie cred to one side in doing so. Mt St Helens Vietnam Band clearly can do it, but to prove they have sustainability, they’ll need more than a teenage drummer.

ACE rating 6/10

Andrew Bird

Noble Beast

Bella Union

Andrew Bird has a wonderful four albums to his name - the multi-instrumentalist (a classically-trained violinist) reached his zenith with The Mysterious Production Of Eggs, a gorgeous, clever, sophisticated delight of an album. Were you to imagine a muso Jeff Buckley, you'd not be far wrong, with Bird's wonderfully warm, soaring voice accompanying his pizzicato violin, and (often simultaneously) multi-tracked instruments. Noble Beast is a bit of a departure, and not always an entirely welcome one. Whereas he's been pretty self-reliant in past, this album sees him rope in some members of Wilco to indie up the sound. The result, with Mark Nevers (producer of Lambchop and Calexico) at the desks, is a little one-dimensional - nice enough, but lacking the kind of flights of fancy that entertained so much, and that can easily be misclassified as experimental. It is an album that has a stronger crust to break through, and once in it is a little flat. Bird seems to have taken himself pretty seriously here - the whimsy of his music lost. Instead, Noble Beast sounds like later-era Paul Simon, but played and sung beautifully.

ACE rating 8/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 03.01.10

2010-01-05T04:29:00.000-08:00

Jesca Hoop

Hunting My Dress

Last Laugh

Jesca Hoop used to be Tom Waits' kids' nanny, but with this record will be known for so much more.

A follow up to her debut, Kismet, this is a short record at 9 songs, but that is quickly irrelevant as the promise of so many wannabe off-the-wall female singer-songwriters is finally delivered. Mix in some Kate Bush with some Bjork, some Emiliana Torrini and then give it a Tom Waits rhythmic arrangement, and you have something that should keep advert makers in soundtracks for years. The apparent simplicity of the songs covers their complexity the way that Feist's 1,2,3,4 did, and the voice with its impressive range and its gorgeous accent says so much so easily. With Elbow's Guy Garvey on one track, and people like Tom Waits describing her music as 'like swimming in a lake at night' (which is a good thing, it seems), Hunting My Dress deserves its re-release. This is a perfect little album that will make the Joanna Newsome fans realise what they've been missing.

ACE rating 9/10

Royal Bangs

Let It Beep

Audio Eagle

Royal Bangs' debut, We Breed Champions, was an amphetamine rush of an album, with its sludgy electro-rock, straightahead punchy indie and the sound of a 10ft square studio. Like a Stoogier version of the Walkmen or a dirtier Weezer, this is a record that deserves your attention. There aren't many songs out there that are better than Cat Swallow or Brother. Let It Beep is a quickly released follow up on The Black Keys' Patrick Carney's Audio Eagle label, and it is, if anything, even messier than its predecessor. That's not always good - although the energy is undoubted, there is an occasional sense that you'd just like them to nail a song, as they do on 1993, or opener War Bells. When they do that, this is an essential band - the raw production takes nothing away. They also add in some Battles-like electronica for good measure. No doubt about it, Let It Beep is as disjointed as the debut, but Royal Bangs on their day are one of the most exciting bands around.

ACE rating 8/10

Great Lake Swimmers

Lost Channels

Nettwerk

The fourth album by Toronto, Canada, band Great Lake Swimmers is a revelation. The band, whose core is singer songwriter Tony Dekker (whose looks, like a modern-day Jesus, accompany his gentle, warm, angelic voice perfectly), have made albums of fragile beauty, with the odd standout track – like Shearwater without the melodrama. In Lost Channels, however, unlike its predecessor Ongiara, there is no weak track – this is an album of sheer understated loveliness, its rare beauty intact and a mood as deeply affecting as the best of Dekker’s work. There is not even the semblance of a doubt that anyone who took something from Fleet Foxes’ debut or Shearwater’s Rook would love this disc, with its updated Horse With No Name America feel – harmonies and acoustic guitars spin a magical web here.

ACE rating 8/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials rating

9-10 Essential purchase

7-8 Good, definite buy if you've liked this artist in the past

5-6 OK only, don't say I didn't warn you

3-4 Poor, even for this artist

1-2 Awful

Adult Contemporary Essentials 27.12.09

2009-12-29T02:39:00.000-08:00

Julian Casablancas

Phrazes for the Young

Rough Trade

It is hard to deny that The Strokes were one of the bands that defined the sound of the noughts, and part of that definition, alongside Albert Hammond Jnr's guitar, was the voice of Julian Casablancas. In his first solo departure, that voice remains the constant, but the musical palette grows to include 80s synths (think Human League), 70s prog and some Strokes-like tunes (and a strange country departure). At only 8

songs, this is a short album, full of what must have seemed like guilty pleasures within the band framework. Among those 8 songs, there are two absolute crackers in opener Out Of The Blue, and Glass. Had the rest of the album emerged fully fledged from a new artist, this would have been hailed as a remarkably diverse and excellent set, but it is impossible not to judge it with a Strokes mindset. Phrazes For The Young would attract a different audience than The Strokes, and it is to its credit that it would be attractive to that audience.

ACE rating 9/10

Grant-Lee Phillips

Little Moon

Yep Roc

Grant-Lee Phillips has been the same kind of stalwart of adult alternative US music as now-label-mates Nick Lowe, Robyn Hitchcock and John Doe - turning out wonderful records without ever setting the world on fire. Little Moon sees him become a clearly happy father, moving him away from previously more brooding material. His rich baritone voice can still soar - on songs like Good Morning Happiness (a song that could so easily have tipped into schmaltz) and It Ain't The Same Old Cold War Harry, the bouncy horns compliment the mood perfectly. Elsewhere the optimism does provide a strong uplift, and the music is at the more Wallflowers end of the Grant-Lee Phillips spectrum. Little Moon is a strong addition to the canon, and as good an entry point as any. There will be many who will fall deeply in love with Grant-Lee Phillips on the strength of albums just like this one.

ACE rating 8/10

Various Artists

Never Give Up On Your Hallucinations

Alive/ Redeye

Alive Records is one of the coolest labels on the planet, and its artists, including The Black Keys, Outrageous Cherry and Buffalo Killers, keep the sludgy dirty rock feel of early 70s hard rock, add a dash of blues and then stop caring exactly what you think and just make a noise. That vibe is illustrated perfectly on this sampler album by a band like Radio Moscow who take the blues standard I Just Want To Make Love To You and turn it into some kind of hip hop rock/ Santana fest that would make a dead man dance. Elsewhere, Brimstone Howl, Black Diamond Heavies, Trainwreck Riders, Left Lane Cruiser and The Black Keys add tracks that suggest that Alive may never make a big pile of money, but someone is going to have an awful lot of fun (and Jack Daniels) along the way. Not a trace of subtlety or an ounce of reserve in this excellent album.

ACE rating 8/10

2009 in Music

2009-12-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing that music criticism teaches, it is that listening to 300 albums a year is only to scratch the surface of what is out there. Every year gets better, and the talent deeper, so any suggestion that this list is the ‘best’ of 2009 would be an overclaim – it is simply a list of the albums that kept coming back to the top of this reviewer’s playlist, improving with each listen. In no particular order, then...

Manchester Orchestra

Mean Everything To Nothing

Columbia

Insanely great. When critics talk about ‘a band to watch’ and ‘a band laden with promise’, this right here is the album they always hoped would come out. A band who could make a 60-year old classical music fan headbang and mosh, while keeping the kind of sophistication that comes from writing songs that work wonderfully when acoustic (a la Dave Grohl). If there is competition for Manchester Orchestra, it might be the Foo Fighters (maybe, at a stretch, Biffy Clyro), although that would underplay the honesty Andy Hull is capable of in his lyrics. Manchester Orchestra are the best new rock band to leave America in 10 years.

Monsters of Folk

Monsters of Folk

Rough Trade

In what could easily have been another Traveling Wilburys-like release, Monsters of Folk, a collection of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Mike Mogis and M Ward (and on the tour, Will Johnson of Centro-matic) banded together to not be a supergroup. The seriousness which can occasionally be pervasive in their individual releases is largely absent here – they seem to be having some loose limbed fun. Some games have been upped, though – Oberst sounds right up for this one, with focus and drive that he has missed a little recently.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

11:11

Rubyworks

Rodrigo y Gabriela have become cult favourites for their intriguing blend of classical and flamenco guitar with a rock sensibility. Way more than polite dinner party music, the passion, grace and fire of their interplay is always entertaining. That palette has been expanded on 11:11, with leanings towards Al Di Meola-like jazz, the inclusion of rock guitarist Alex Skolnick, and another duo in Strunz and Farah. It is a wonderful addition, elevating the album from more-of-the-same (no matter how great) to ‘wow’. This album has dynamics, it has soul, it has rock and jazz, and it catches some of the heat of their live work perfectly .

She Keeps Bees

Nests

Names

With a cast iron edge to the guitar, and a voice like Cat Power's Chan Marshall sung by Janis Joplin and a Patti Smith attitude, Jessica Larrabee leads this two piece wonderfully. The songs come across like thicker, edgier, bluesier White Stripes songs - deliciously sexy, confessional, naked and edgy. When Jennifer Trynin released her amazing debut album back in the 90s, it sounded just like this - all stunning power, control and sparse instrumentation. It is hard to avoid the Cat Power comparisons, but Nests stands those comparisons well by coming out on top.

These United States

Everything Touches Everything

United Interests

These United States are probably the best band in the US that you’ve not started to listen to yet. Combining Big Pink-era Band style with Shins-y rock and a Rolling Stones funky vibe, Jesse Elliot and band offer up complexity, humour and a driven wit that proceeds past the listener like great rolling countryside past a high speed train. Elliot is a lyricist like few others – capable of pure poetry in his lyrics without overweaning English Lit references, he tells stories elegantly and maturely. Everything Touches Everything rocks up the sound a little, ending up around Jayhawks/ Deadstring Brothers space. It is a great sound, relaxed, but with urgency – the kind of music that Conor Oberst has headed towards but not quite landed the past few years.

Low Anthem

Oh My God Charlie Darwin

Bella Union

It kind of sucks you in to believing it is another Fleet Foxes album, this one, sharing a label with that band, and then throwing in the first two songs, Charlie Darwin, and To Ohio, both lushly, gently sweet. But then, Ticket Taker sounds like Tom Waits took over Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions Band, as the (essentially 3-piece) band take a rowdier stomp into a bar for a couple of songs. A brave second disc, full of the kind of songs that the band wanted to make, rather than written to a formula. The Felice Brothers, Bon Iver or Fleet Foxes have not provided as wholesome an album as this so far.

Dinosaur Jr

Farm

PIAS

Goodness knows how someone can do what Jay Mascis does in Dinosaur Jr for so long and stay so fresh. Starting with songs that Nirvana would have been happy with, then layering over insanely great fuzzed up lead guitar in a kind of Zappa-esque frenzy, it shouldn’t work as anything other than an ego-fest, but it does, wonderfully. Farm is a fantastically resolved album, better than pretty much any of the 8 preceding. Farm is tight, urgent and remarkably whole. If everyone who likes the way Neil Young does what he does when he rocks out would only give this one listen, they’d be converted.

Dan Auerbach

Keep It Hid

Dan Auerbach is known as half of The Black Keys – the singer/ guitarist half. Keep It Hid is a significantly looser affair than any of the previous albums, with country, jazzy blues and psychedelia working their way in. Recording at home has given this album a more organic sound – Keep It Hid takes its own time, and is absolutely never rushed. Auerbach is a better guitarist than he was allowed to be in the Black Keys format, and Keep It Hid, in opposition to its title, brings that to light.

Clem Snide

Hungry Bird

Freeworld

There is something so addictive about simple music when it is done so perfectly. When Clem Snide are on form, and oh, they are here, the music they make is soul food. Touchingly tender, wry, witty and ironic – poetry so carefully and cleverly observed and stories delivered with the gentlest of musical touches. The songs are a grown-up’s treat – like an uber-Snow Patrol before they made it big. A song like Beard of Bees is told as much as it is sung, Barzelay’s weary vocals providing the wry edge that tip it into beauty. With amazing mastery of melody, the 12 songs become like personal friends. As indie-rock bands go, there are few that do a better job for anyone over the age of 30 than Clem Snide.

Califone

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers

Dead Oceans

Full of subtlety, layered acoustic perfection, it is as if Beck had suddenly both rediscovered his musical genius and mixed it with Elbow’s more anthemic moments. Having spent 20 minutes pressing ‘repeat’ on Krill, you may well go back to Radiohead-like opener Giving Away The Bride, or the acoustic-Nirvana-like Polish Girls. All My Friends is the band’s sixth ‘song-based’ album, and it is, by some margin their best – topping even the underrated Roots and Crowns. It has more songs, more individual songs that could be taken out of the album and still work as single gems. It may seem overblown to describe an album as ‘art’ these days, but this is an album where time only deepens the nuances and the attractiveness.

Them Crooked Vultures

Them Crooked Vultures

Sony

Them Crooked Vultures is the latest supergroup to involve Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and Dave Grohl (of, well, everything…), and rather remarkably adds in the Led Zeppelin quiet man, John Paul Jones. An album that rather neatly updates the Cream idea, riff heavy, and full of the bluesy thick rock that would make any fan of Clapton’s supergroup shed a tear of reminiscence. The format clearly suits each of the musicians, with the kind of punch we expect from QoTSA enhanced by some Led Zeppelin basslines. There’s nothing modern in any one of these 13 tracks, and that is perhaps the album’s greatest highlight – it presumes that great rock will always be great rock, without any need for frippery.

Molina and Johnson

Molina and Johnson

Secretly Canadian

This collaboration has been a long time in the making, and has been well worth the wait. The two singers complement each other perfectly. Johnson’s grittier voice blending with Molina’s higher plaintive. The album feels like a Will Johnson album with additional beauty, added harmony, elevated poetry, which makes it just about perfect. This album defines what is best about Americana - the openness, the sense of space, relaxed reverie, landscape and travel. When Johnson says ‘our record was made in the late February sun’, that feels just so right.

2010's biggest new artist

2009-12-18T00:42:00.000-08:00

Love the first video from Medical Records' Karl Phillips and the Midnight Ramblers.

(Parental Advisory and sensitive type advisory lyrics.)

Adult Contemporary Essentials 13.12.09

2009-12-16T04:33:00.000-08:00

Vandaveer

Divide & Conquer

Death By Polka

You’ll like the voice of Vandaveer. It is a burnished mahogany thing, warm to the touch and comforting – aged like the finest whisky, but with a youthful tone. Vandaveer is Kentucky singer-songwriter Mark Charles Heidinger, the son of (to quote his bio) a preacher whose father was a gambler whose father was both judge and US congressman. Those fathers are important to the band name – Vandaveer was the name inscribed on a pocket watch handed down the generations. Vandaveer’s first, Grace and Speed, was full of songs that seemed instantly familiar. Divide and Conquer is a better album – genuinely affecting timeless folk-y indie. Think Johnny Cash’s later American series, run through a young wood filter, or think about this being the best thing that Ryan Adams has done these past 10 years. The songs manage the same trick of seeming like old friends on first listen – essentially simple, but actually tastefully crafted from the finest ingredients. The voice is augmented by incredibly powerful male-female duets with Rose Guerin, which adds a lovely tone to this lovely album.

ACE rating 9/10

Grand Theft Bus

Made Upwards

Forward Music Group

Seems everywhere you look now, there is an outstanding band. Grand Theft Bus, who hail from Canada, are like a non-pretentious Shins, a modern Steely Dan – the music is intelligent, and so naturally laid back that it draws you in for a closer listen. Automatic is a hypnotic piece, with a wonderful melody, and some elegantly great musicianship. Grand Theft Bus have been described as a jam band for indie fans – there is something to that. The band aren’t all about attitude, and posing. Instead, the music seems to flow, take its own directions and a somewhat natural course. Winning awards in Canada is one thing, but this isn’t distinctly Canadian music. Any fan of Minus The Bear, Hey Mercedes or even The Police would find a lot to like in this third album. It improves on its predecessors by focusing in on the songs a lot more, tightening up the ideas and nailing the dynamics perfectly. Lovely.

ACE rating 8/10

White Rabbits

It’s Frightening

TBD

White Rabbits are a Brooklyn-based band (Bushwick, New York City), and they play a new, not-easy-to-pigeonhole indie music that draws from bands like Cold War Kids, The Walkmen, The Strokes, maybe even Spoon. This is a band that revels in its rhythmic sense (two drummers...), spiky sound and a great collective noise. All of that comes into the opener, Percussion Gun, which is one of 2009’s great singles. This is a band whose music is as addictive as nicotine - it's fun, melodic, a little anarchic. They're The Walkmen with a sense of humour. On the release of its predecessor, Fort Nightly, it was written that there was every chance that its successor would be outstanding. ‘Outstanding’ may be a step too far, but Its Frightening stands out in many places. Get that lead single for all the evidence you need.

ACE rating 8/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials rating

9-10 Essential purchase

7-8 Good, definite buy if you've liked this artist in the past

5-6 OK only, don't say I didn't warn you

3-4 Poor, even for this artist

1-2 Awful

Vandaveer redux

2009-12-11T03:22:00.001-08:00

Had the huge pleasure to catch Vandaveer's set at Union Hall in Brooklyn on Wednesday. Seriously, anyone who used to look to Ryan Adams for the good stuff should start listening in to Mark Charles Heidinger. Alongside the phenomenal Rose Guerin, the music was wholly transcendent.

No apologies for reposting a couple of videos from the session he did for us, and a great opportunity to highlight the video from the latest album (which I believe is to get a proper UK release in March, on Seasick Steve's label...).

Adult Contemporary Essentials 06.12.09

2009-12-11T03:18:00.000-08:00

Steve Morse Band

Out Standing In Their Field

Eagle

Steve Morse is widely regarded by other guitarists as the best of the rock guitarists, and for many years won the Guitar Player magazine award. Not as flash as the Satrianis and Vais, although he can do that, Morse plays with taste, and a passion for baroque music – he can do classical as happily as rock, country as happily as jazz. It is that variety that makes an instrumental album not induce yawns after 5 minutes, and hopefully have an appeal beyond

other guitarists. Morse’s career includes work with Deep Purple now, as well as several albums with the Dixie Dregs and the Steve Morse Band. With an immense support from bass player Dave LaRue and drummer Van Romaine, this is a tight, perfect collaboration. It will never appeal to a Lady Gaga fan, but to any aficionado of the guitar, it is hard to match. Morse refrains from singing, which is a real plus in his peer group, and the songs are wholly original, raining down Zeppelin grooves and bluegrass along with a lovely Baroque N Dreams (he does seem to love poor to medium puns). If you know a guitar player, this would be a perfect Christmas present.

ACE rating 8/10

Built To Spill

There Is No Enemy

WEA

Built To Spill are perhaps the best US band you haven’t heard of. If you took Band of Horses and rocked them up with hypnotically excellent lead guitar and propulsive drumming, you’d be in the right place. In the 1990s, Built To Spill sanitised some of the dirtier indie that was around, and by doing so never achieved the critical acclaim of bands like Pavement. But, their work wonderfully defined how great indie rock could be. Lead man Doug Martsch apparently lived in the studio to make this record, and it is a fantastic addition to their canon. It isn’t the pinnacle of the Built To Spill album collection, but that is no disappointment. The previous album, You In Reverse, had some outstanding moments, but There Is No Enemy is more cohesive – it is more elegant in its attack. Still rangey and jam-like, the guitar is still the predominant instrument, although the lyrics this time around are more direct and open too. If you’re an indie rock fan, you should have a Built To Spill album, and There Is No Enemy is a great place to dive in.

ACE rating 8/10

Bob Dylan

Christmas In The Heart

Sony

The kerfuffle that accompanied the release of Dylan’s 47th album focused more on the comedy element of Dylan doing his thing on some Christmas standards. Unfortunately, voice apart (and on most songs, it could easily be an impersonator), there is no other piece of Dylan in here. It might seem a little bah-humbug to criticise an album whose royalties are going to be donated to Feeding America, a charity that does so much at Christmas time. But really, seen as a piece of work, this is a knock-off, a karaoke-standard Christmas song backing track with Bob putting in an hour’s shift in the studio. No more than that. The charity could have benefited so much more had Dylan even attempted to interpret the songs his way, rather than just starting with a Val Doonican-standard backing. That way, Dylan fans might have been able to put aside their reverence and actually enjoy it.

ACE rating 5/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials 29.11.09

2009-11-30T04:58:00.000-08:00

Cymbals Eat Guitars

Why There Are Mountains

Memphis Industries

Only one question you need to ask about yourself before dipping in here – do you like the kind of sloppy, loose, indie that spends no time at all explaining itself? The genre was defined by Pavement, and picked up more recently by Modest Mouse, and has always had a core, small audience – people who hate, absolutely hate, the idea of polish and single-minded songs. Why There Are Mountains can be abrasive on first listen, as the ideas come ten to the pound, like some 90s indie band retro-find.

However, there are times, when you’ve dipped in, when you can’t imagine pulling away – when Cold Spring starts, you’re there for the duration. The imagination and pure joy expressed in the massed instrumentation and lo fi recording are wonderful. Similarly, with Wind Phoenix, it is hard to avoid the feeling that a band that could really play this with polish would ineffably spoil the experience – the amateurish delivery adds immeasurably to the charm – when it comes in all excited and buzzing, you believe every word, hang on every guitar thrash and go with the song’s many mood changes. There’s nothing really ‘good’ about anything on this album except the fact that it exists, and is full of great songs.

ACE rating 8/10

Benjy Ferree

Come Back To The Five And Dime, Bobby Dee Bobby Dee

Domino

On the intellectually-stimulating Ferree’s second album, he takes inspiration from Bobby Driscoll, the child star who portrayed Peter Pan in the 1953 Disney film, who was then fired as puberty and a bad case of acne hit. Bobby Dee struggled to find work and fell into a life-long

battle with drugs until ultimately dying homeless and broke in a Manhattan tenement at the age of 31. With police unable to identify his body, the one-time Academy Award winner ended up in an unmarked mass grave on New York’s Hart Island. “Heavy weighs the burden of Brother Dee,” Ferree sings on the album’s opening track, Tired Of Being Good. Musically, Ferree mixes rock and roll and Americana like a hopped up Ryan Adams, or a more soaring Richard Swift. With country, passionate blues pounding, Marc Bolan, Freddie Mercury and the balladry of Nick Cave all in there, Come Back To The Five And Dime is a riot of styles and inspiration. Denying genres is paying off for Ferree.

ACE rating 8/10

Stereophonics

Keep Calm And Carry On

Mercury

Stereophonics’ sprint from any hint of alternative or indie has coincided with their increasing popularity, so it is perhaps no surprise that their seventh album, Keep Calm And Carry On, sounds like a ‘Robbie Williams does 80s rock’ pastiche. There is a good song on here that might stand next to their best work from the first two (three at a push) albums: 100MPH. Elsewhere, drum machines, McFly-style poppiness and sterile emoting are the order of the day, carrying on from the insipid sixth album, Pull The Pin. While fans of the band are claiming this is a return to form, it is not the form that made the band. Instead, it is simply better vanilla than the cheap vanilla of its predecessor, and it is hard to avoid the feeling of contractual obligation being the driving force behind this recording, rather than any intense desire to have these songs see the light of day. It is hard to see Keep Calm garnering new fans for the band, but the existing fans keep them coming back with more.

ACE rating 6/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials rating

9-10 Essential purchase

7-8 Good, definite buy if you've liked this artist in the past

5-6 OK only, don't say I didn't warn you

3-4 Poor, even for this artist

1-2 Awful

These United States video

2009-11-24T05:35:00.000-08:00

Fantastic to receive a note from a new friend (any friend of TUS is a friend of mine) whose videos of These United States show just how cool this band is live... The Important Thing, and First Sight recorded live in Iowa City, 2009...

(And, go here for lossless audio, which is lovely... Here )

Adult Contemporary Essentials 22.11.09

2009-11-24T05:18:00.001-08:00

JBM

Not Even In July

JBM

ACE rating 9/10

The Swell Season

Strict Joy

Anti-

Think about the word ‘fine’. Fine is when it doesn’t rain, but it’s not a lovely day, when the food you just ate was passable, but not great, when the watercolours in the gallery are competent but not going to attract a bid. Fine is for background music, not something that could become

the object of your affection. Well, The Swell Season are fine. That hasn’t stopped them being lauded for their fine music, but it does mean that Strict Joy is only for those who like their food unchallenging and digestible. The Swell Season are at their core a duo, Glen Hansard, from Irish band The Frames, and Marketa Irglova, a Czech classical musician and singer. There’s half a sense of security when the first track kicks in, Low Rising – except it doesn’t go anywhere, like a Hallmark sentiment rather than a meaningful emotion. And then the album carries on for a bit and then it stops. There are lots of people around who rather liked The Frames, and who do like The Swell Season. That’s fine.

ACE rating 6/10

REM

Live At The Olympia

Warner Bros

REM have been on the wrong end of a lot of criticism about their more recent new material, and a sense that there was more contractual obligation than anything more passionate in there. This release restores your faith in the band, as it offers up a series of recordings from shows in Dublin in 2007, featuring songs that would end up on Accelerate and a lot of pre-Warners album songs. Although the experiments for Accelerate are a good fan

treasure trove, it is the live versions of the older songs (Reconstruction, Life’s Rich Pageant, Murmur) that add so much interest – there is spitting flame running through some of these tracks, so intense is the delivery. Given their head more than 20 years later, these songs and these versions prove that REM are still one of the best indie bands on the planet – this album captures effortlessly everything that made REM great. It is an essential REM album for any fan, and a perfect introduction for anyone who’s not yet become one.

ACE rating 8/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials rating

9-10 Essential purchase

7-8 Good, definite buy if you've liked this artist in the past

5-6 OK only, don't say I didn't warn you

3-4 Poor, even for this artist

1-2 Awful

Adult Contemporary Essentials 02.11.09

2009-11-03T01:09:00.000-08:00

Weezer

Raditude

Interscope

Weezer seemed so set for legendary status – their oh-so-knowing wit, melody and crunching rock were the perfect pop punk mixture, and they even managed in their earliest days

to amass an indie cred. They progressively frittered all of those things away in more recent years with a collection of so-so records that would only be simple retreads of their earlier, better work. Raditude continues that slide, with a collection of songs that would sound about right from McFly. The music, unfortunately, aims at teen angst, and sounds plain weird from a bunch of middle aged men. The ti

ght Weezer sound underpins every song, but there is nothing in Raditude that isn’t bettered by the superior OK Go. Raditude does manage to achieve cringe, though, in Love Is The Answer, which is as awful a song as you will ever hear. Raditude is best avoided. Listen instead to the Blue album, Pinkerton or the Green album and remember them the way they used to be.

ACE rating 4/10

Molina and Johnson

Molina and Johnson

Secretly Canadian

Jason Molina is a cult indie folk/ blues singer known for his bands Magnolia Electric Co, and Songs Ohia; Will Johnson is the remarkable front man for Centro-matic and South San Gabriel, as well as a solo artist (and currently part of the Monsters of Folk). This collaboration has been a long time in the making, and has been well worth the wait.

The two singers complement each other perfectly – Johnson’s grittier voice blending with Molina’s higher plaintive vocals (and on one amazing piece, Sarah Jaffe duets with Johnson on a track that should be in the next Coen Brothers film). The album feels like a Will Johnson album with additional beauty, added harmony, elevated poetry, which makes it just about perfect. This album defines what is best about Americana – the openness, the sense of space, relaxed reverie, land

scape and travel. When Johnson says ‘our record was made in the late February sun’, that feels just so right.

ACE rating 9/10

Foo Fighters

Greatest Hits

RCA

Whisper it, but Foo Fighters are really a singles band – when they’re great, they’re a phenomenal rock band, but the albums can come across as main show plus filler. That’s not true here, of course, in a Greatest Hits collection that does a p

retty good job of pulling out the obvious singles (the ones with the great videos). It does declare its interest – it’s a Greatest Hits as opposed to a Best Of – right up front on the cover. The Deluxe edition combines a DVD with the videos (and a few tracks which rightly should have been on the single CD version, such as DOA). As such, it isn’t a record for real fans, despite the three new tracks. What it is is a fantastic introduction to a remarkable band for a casual Foos listener. The assault presented by this band’s most listenable songs will turn any rock fan’s head. And, with the Foo Fighters, there is no real worry about your indie cred going out of the window – they have retained their cool way longer than most bands have a right to.

ACE rating 8/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials rating

9-10 Essential purchase

7-8 Good, definite buy if you've liked this artist in the past

5-6 OK only, don't say I didn't warn you

3-4 Poor, even for this artist

1-2 Awful

The Walkmen - splurge

2009-10-27T09:22:00.001-07:00

We like this band so much that the idea of collecting a whole bunch of session videos in one place had some appeal... Hope you think so too...

The Walkmen - On The Water from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

Adult Contemporary Essentials 25.10.09

2009-10-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

Steve Earle

Townes

New West

Fifteen songs by Steve Earle’s inspiration, friend and mentor, Townes Van Zandt, self-recorded and produced, may sound like a labour of love that could go lots of different ways. While every song is handled respectfully, and none diverges too far from its original (bar perhaps Lungs, where Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello guests), Earle reveals that he is a great interpreter too. The album varies from Train A Comin’ indie folk to The Mountain bluegrass to classic Earle. As a whole, the album is not his strongest, but it does arrest the slight decline shown in his last two studio albums, where easy politics have replaced songwriting. Not a single song sounds out of place in 2009, and there is a strong sense that Earle’s own path to this record echoes Townes Van Zandt’s own personal journey – Townes isn’t the sound of hollow retread, but of some kind of spiritual renewal.

ACE rating 8/10

Eulogies

Here Anonymous

Dangerbird

LA-based band Eulogies make the kind of music that isn’t immediately apparently great. On this second album, there are two perfect songs – This Fine Progression (like Grizzly Bear but

better) and Two Can Play (with Nikki from Silversun Pickups) – that are both improved when

played live and acoustic. Elsewhere, the songs progress nicely enough, but without stirring either passion or interest. However, there is the slightly uncomfortable thought that this is because you’re not listening well enough. If all you had heard was those two songs, you might have been of the view that the best new band of the year had arrived – the voice is vulnerably lovely, the playing tightly right and the feel is comfortably laid back. Unfortunately for the

album, it pads them out. If Peter Walker can manage to write more great tunes, you should keep tabs on Eulogies.

ACE rating 6/10

Port O’Brien

Threadbare

City Slang

Port O’Brien’s All We Could Do Was Sing was a lovely, sea shanty-ish piece of hippy folk that celebrated something, some spiritual thing… Here, on Threadbare, the a

lbum has two parts – a continuation of that celebratory something, and a deeply sombre part, affected by the death of a loved one. There is a lot of spiritual vocal music around in folk these days, and we have, in musicians Van Pierszalowski and Cambria Goodwin, two proper, authentic folkies – he works on his father’s salmon boat every summer, and she works in a cannery, and then they get back together to make sea-inspired music. Where it works really well, such as on Sour Milk/ Salt Water, Love Me Through, or single My Will Is Good,

Threadbare is a lovely way to spend time – like a folkier Delta Spirit. Where it gets more downbeat, you’ll either need more patience or access to the Skip button.

ACE rating 7/10

Adult Contemporary Essentials rating

9-10 Essential purchase

7-8 Good, definite buy if you've liked this artist in the past

5-6 OK only, don't say I didn't warn you

3-4 Poor, even for this artist

1-2 Awful

Califone

2009-10-12T03:19:00.000-07:00

Hard to describe how elemental my reaction to Califone's new album, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, has been... The first album this year to get a 10, in my book...

Califone describe themselves as experimental, which can be a byword for ‘pass on by’ to the listener. However, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers is one of the most perfect ‘albums’ I have heard in an age. Full of subtlety, layered acoustic perfection, it is as if Beck had suddenly both rediscovered his musical genius and mixed it with Elbow’s more anthemic moments. Having spent 20 minutes pressing ‘repeat’ on Krill, you may well go back to Radiohead-like opener Giving Away The Bride, or the acoustic-Nirvana-like Polish Girls. All My Friends is the band’s sixth ‘song-based’ album, and it is, by some margin their best – topping even the underrated Roots and Crowns. It has more songs, more individual songs that could be taken out of the album and still work as single gems. It may seem overblown to describe an album as ‘art’ these days, but this is an album where time only deepens the nuances and the attractiveness – lead man Tim Rutili is an artist and this is his greatest work - a deserved 10...

ACE rating 10/10

She Keeps Bees

2009-09-27T08:43:00.000-07:00

Awesome show last night by She Keeps Bees, in MK. Crap venue (MK's SnoBar is truly a crap venue for live music), but that didn't matter as Jess Larrabee delivered a set that combined Black Keys-like rock with a voice that Cat Power's Chan Marshall wished she possessed...

And, real bonus, Jess and Andy were just great people...

Seriously, if you ever get the chance to catch She Keeps Bees, do it.

Silversun Pickups on WXPN

2009-08-09T07:57:00.001-07:00

Eulogies - free EP

2009-04-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

I love the sound of Eulogies...
They have released a fantastic EP for free download

Get it, fall in love with them the way I did, buy more stuff... That's the way it's gonna work these days...

The Thermals

2009-03-13T01:59:00.000-07:00

I love this band. They can make an old man jump up and down like a teenager...

Southeast Engine

2009-02-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

Looking forward to catching these guys on an enforced NYC weekend stay... A video from their fantastic new album, premiered at Stereogum:

J Tillman - video for First Born

2009-02-27T17:29:00.001-08:00

Fell in love with this video for First Born... Something so beautiful...

New Sufjan...

2009-02-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

MP3 flood

2009-02-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

They're coming quick and fast...

More Jason Isbell: Good

More Port O'Brien: Is This Really What It's Come To

More Walkmen...

2009-01-31T06:16:00.000-08:00

A great idea... Acoustic sessions recorded in the back of a van... Blogotheque extends its cool run...

The Walkmen - On the Water from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

New mp3s...

2009-01-31T01:44:00.000-08:00

Some great releases coming up, and with mp3s being the new radio play, some great free downloads for your iPod...

Dan Auerbach (guitarist/ singer with The Black Keys) - I Want Some More
Jason Isbell - Seven Mile Island
Youth Group - All This Will Pass
Von Bondies - Pale Bride

Fanfarlo - Pilot

J Tillman

2009-01-28T11:29:00.000-08:00

I gave J Tillman 9/10 at ACE, recently... Here's the review:

How many men with guitars does the world need? Well, the world seems to want more and more of them, if the success of albums by Bon Iver and James Morrison, among others, are anything to go by. J Tillman tends towards the former, in that lovely space occupied by artists such as Chris Bathgate, Will Johnson, Damien Jurado, Nick Drake, and maybe even Ryan Adams, where gently beautifully sad portraiture is the order of the day. Vacilando Territory Blues is a rather gorgeous take from someone attempting something more modern than rehash old blues forms - the stories come from the same place they always did, but Tillman gives them space to breathe and a non-pastiche treatment. His warm, affecting voice is like one of the acoustic instruments, with a lovely catch and gentle burr. Songs like Firstborn would fit happily on any of Ryan Adams' better albums - in an ideal world, J. Tillman would be held in the same reverence that the more variable Adams is today. If you need more reason, Tillman joined Fleet Foxes to help out just as they broke through in 2008...

And here are a couple of mp3s from the record...

Darling Night

Crooked Roof

He's playing Bush Hall, London on 5th March... Hoping to be there...

Royal Bangs on Daytrotter

2009-01-23T03:17:00.000-08:00

Four free songs from one of the most energetic, and exciting new bands (on The Black Keys' Pat Carney's label) at Daytrotter...

New Springsteen album

2009-01-20T00:14:00.000-08:00

There's a pre-release audit stream of Bruce Springsteen's new album, Working On a Dream at NPR. Can't say I'm impressed yet (which pains me to say...) - let's hope that Brendan O'Brien ends his run with Bruce soon...

Will Johnson and Christian Kiefer release Obama supplement to 43 Presidents project

2009-01-16T08:58:00.000-08:00

An interesting project just got a whole load more interesting... Christian Kiefer is the songwriter behind a project, Of Great and Mortal Men, which had brought together guest musicians (including These United States).

Before the election of Barack Obama, a group of musicians recorded and released a collection of 43 original songs, one for each of the U.S. presidencies. Titled Of Great and Mortal Men, the three-CD set ended with George W. Bush. Now, just in time for the inauguration, the creators have completed their 44th song.

Rather delightfully, Kiefer chose Will Johnson, of Centro-matic, to head up this one... It is also available for free download from NPR...

New Southeast Engine song

2009-01-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

There's a new Southeast Engine song for download, from the new album From the Forest to the Sea: Black Gold

New Bon Iver EP

2009-01-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

Bon Iver's new EP, Blood Bank is out next week. Here is the title track...

Don't Be A Stranger

2009-01-11T14:38:00.000-08:00

Found this wonderful Swedish band by accident on emusic... This isn't the best song on their oddly-titled Frutti Di Mare, but it is the one that has a video...

The Walkmen

2009-01-10T03:34:00.000-08:00

So, so good... From Juan's Basement:

THE WALKMEN NEW SINGLE AND UK TOUR

‘IN THE NEW YEAR’ RELEASED 23^rd FEBRUARY

(Fierce Panda Records)

www.myspace.com/thewalkmen | www.fiercepanda.co.uk

The Walkmen are from New York City. They consist of Hamilton Leithauser (vocals/guitar), Paul Maroon (guitar/piano), Walter Martin (organ/bass), Matt Barrick (drums) and Peter Bauer (bass/organ).

In September 2008 they released the frankly terrific 'You & Me' album on Fierce Panda which featured 51 minutes of fearsomely inventive classic alt.rock noises, scowled at the dark end of the street and garnered hearty plaudits across the board including four stars in Q and a whopping five stars from The Guardian.

Indeed, many other sage listeners joined drownedinsound.com in believing it to be "the best thing they've ever done". And as if proffering more evidence that they were a band reborn since parting company with Warner Brothers, to follow up the launch of 'You & Me' The Walkmen played a splendid sold out show at ULU on a beautifully snowy winter’s eve in London Town. Unsurprisingly they have unveiled plans to make a swift return to these shores

'In The New Year' is the second single to be lifted from 'You & Me', following the smouldering success of 'The Blue Route' and will be available on limited edition 7” and download on February 23rd. Like much of the rest of the album 'In The New Year' is a meticulously constructed whirl of The Walkmen's trademark clanging guitars and otherworldly keyboards which sounds like nothing else out there, and sounds all the better for it.

To celebrate the single's release The Walkmen will be back on UK shores for a 3-date tour in mid-February – including a London date headlining Fierce Panda’s 15^th birthday show at The Scala.

The Walkmen on Tour:

February

18^th Birmingham Barfly

19^th Brighton Concorde 2

20^th London Kings Cross Scala (Fierce Panda's fifteenth birthday party w/Hatcham Social + The Molotovs)

The New Year - The New Year

2009-01-10T03:27:00.001-08:00

Somewhat appropriately, a new video for the New Year, by growers The New Year...

Best songs of 2008

2008-12-30T06:34:00.000-08:00

These probably aren't the best best songs of 2008, but they are a selection of the ones that have really moved me this year (only one from each artist...). Check them out - downloads or YouTube clips where I could... In alphabetical order only:

Cage The Elephant - In One Ear

Centro-matic - Quality Strange

Quality Strange at Daytrotter

Chris Bathgate - Salt Year

Eef Barzelay - Make Another Tree

Eef Barzelay at Daytrotter

Horse Feathers - Curs in the Weeds

MP3 from AOL

Land of Talk - Cornerphone

MP3 from AOL

The Quiet Ones - Girls and Uniforms

MP3 download

Royal Bangs - Brother

Live at WOXY

Snowblink - Tired Bees

one little breeze, as quiet as a hiveful of tired bees

one little word, as soft as the breast of a hummingbird

one little song, sung oft as a moth moving towards a light left on

one little tremor, as tender as a frost thawing into pond

one little word, as soft as the breast of a hummingbird

Snowblink at Daytrotter

Surf City - Dickshakers' Union

MP3 download

These United States - We Go Down To That Corner

Tokyo Police Club - Juno

(In A Cave) Couldn't find a Juno mp3...

Uglysuit - ...And We Became Sunshine

MP3 download

The Walkmen - In The New Year

MP3 download

The Uglysuit on Decomposed

2008-12-23T10:02:00.000-08:00

Really liked this stripping down of The Uglysuit's Chicago on Stereogum's Decomposed series:

Free 4AD sampler

2008-12-14T14:17:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of free music samplers from labels, and most of them aren't worth that much... However, 4AD's is worth a lot, and probably contains bands you probably will like if you give them time... Go here to find out more.

2008 Top 10 Albums

2008-12-11T04:42:00.000-08:00

I guess people like Top 10s... They're hard to come up with - much easier to just throw together the albums that you've liked in any one year. When I did that this year, there were around 45... So, trimming was in order. Here's where I got to:

1. Centro-matic/ South San Gabriel
Dual Hawks

Misra
Will Johnson is the singer and songwriter for Centro-matic, a Crazy Horse-The Band style rock 4-piece and South San Gabriel, a quieter, mellower, folkier outfit. It is hard to overestimate the impact of his voice and ability to write a song - at his best, he reaches directly into your soul. Elegiac, spare melodies and aching building dynamics double up on power pop with a buzzsaw edge. Dual Hawks should ensure the bands are given the kind of accolades usually reserved for (friends) My Morning Jacket or Drive-By Truckers.
************************************

The Black Keys
Attack and Release
V2

A band playing primal blues that captured mass attention for the way they have made not only a man with a guitar and a drummer into some kind of modern rival for early Zeppelin, but the way that they have made elemental music popular with people under 25. Keeping their stark sound from Thickfreakness and adding in some wonderful atmospherics to a more soulful sound. Attack and Release sees the band grow into one of the best around.
************************************

Delta Spirit
Ode To Sunshine
Rounder

A five piece band from Southern California, Delta Spirit are The Cold War Kids meet the Beatles, and the Kinks, and the best folk music. It is joyful, melodic, anthemic and rootsy. Ten songs seems ten too few. When the electric guitars kick in, they mean it; when the choruses kick in, they sing with the evangelism of a Baptist preacher. There is not a weak moment, not a filler song, not a thrown away note. There is no preaching, no overreaching, no preening. It has spirit, soul and boundless energy.
************************************

Royal Bangs
We Breed Champions
Audio Eagle

So, so good. A band that combines the best of The Clash and Dinosaur Jr unleashes a thick slug of buzz and energy alongside some great melodies. With a studio-full of instruments thrown (appropriately) into the mix, the enthusiasm is captured and remains wonderfully thrilling, dirty almost, but always deliciously more-ish. There seems to be no higher purpose than simply making great music - there are parallels with an unleashed In Rainbows Radiohead, but lead man Ryan Schaefer seems to be having a better time than Thom Yorke.
************************************

5. The Walkmen
You And Me
Gigantic

The Walkmen are an individual, and remarkably cool collective, making left-of-The-Strokes New York indie. In The New Year, I Lost You and Seven Years of Holidays are as good as any Walkmen song (including single of the noughties, The Rat). Like New York Dolls playing Tom Waits, the band's rhythms and textures and punk spirit infuse the soundscape like a tequila marinade.
************************************

6. The Quiet Ones
Better Walk Than Ride Like That
In Advance

An energy like The Lily's Nanny In Manhattan and a musical mix like Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, The Quiet Ones seem instantly like one of the best bands you've heard in an age. At times, a hipper Foo Fighters (All Day), at others a rockier Wilco (O Mexico), coming back around with a B-52s cheese-fun thrash (Biggest Love), this is an album unlike any other, and wholly welcome for that.
************************************

7. Cage The Elephant
Cage The Elephant
Relentless

Like a red hot Red Hot Chili Peppers mixed with the Arctic Monkeys, this five-piece band throw a storming number of influences into the mix. It is like the 70s punk scene all over again - Sex Pistols attitude and Black Crowes songsmithery mixed with a wholly noughties attitude,. Lead singles In one Ear and Ain't No Rest For The Wicked will surely be the Chelsea Dagger of this summer's festivals, The funk underlying the tunes (listen to Lotus and try to keep your head still) adds depth and listenability to the whole album.
************************************

8. Tokyo Police Club
Elephant Shell
Label - Memphis Industries

So long as The Walkmen don't want to make The Rat again, this is as great a bunch of rapid-fire propulsive singles as you'll hear. Only one song comes in over three minutes, and none of the others needs to. The song ideas keep coming at you - they burst in, deliver their message breathlessly and with great melody, and get back out. With pounding backbeats, synths driving the melody, guitar adding edge and character, and a snaking punky bass under the shy boy voice, this is all the band you need.
************************************

9. These United States
Crimes
United Interests

Crimes is The Basement Tapes brought right up to date - in song quality, instrumentation and overall feel, it is hard not to believe that Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm and Rick Danko were in the studio for this one when Get Yourself Home or Six Fast Bullets kick in. We Go Down To That Corner is a stunning song, a modern blues parable. Crimes is a step forward and sideways for These United States - a grandiose communal statement.
************************************

10. Eef Barzelay
Lose Big
Label - SLG

What Barzelay does so superbly is craft quite incredible lyrics, with an ability to balance bitter, sweet and achingly beautiful, and then fit them to songs that enhance every emotion. Rolling Stone captured it succinctly when they said, "Lyrically, he can be as cool as jazz, as earnest as folk, as sorrowful as country, as goofy as pop and as ironic as indie rock, sometimes all in one song." Basically, Lose Big is a Clem Snide album, freed from the constraints of genre. It is a lovely thing, full of texture, feel and touch.

Vandaveer

2008-11-19T00:30:00.000-08:00

Vandaveer (Mark Charles) was a hell of a treat when he and the guys from These United States stayed over at the end of their tour of the UK - watching the Wimbledon final (THE Wimbledon final de nos jours) with them was an unexpected pleasure...

Just noticed a couple of clips up at the excellent French site Blogotheque:

Woolgathering

Vandaveer - Woolgathering / Roman Candle - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

and The Streets Is Full Of Creeps

Vandaveer - The Streets is full of creeps - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Royal Bangs

2008-11-18T09:57:00.000-08:00

Some wonderful shows found at WOXY... These United States, Horse Feathers, and one of my favourite new bands, Royal Bangs...

WOXY

Centro-matic, South San Gabriel videos

2008-11-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

A couple of shows were filmed by ABtv in Belgium in April. Fantastic stuff:

Centro-matic

http://www.abconcerts.be/en/abtv/p/detail/centro-matic-2

South San Gabriel

http://www.abconcerts.be/en/abtv/p/detail/centro-matic

New Centro-matic video

2008-10-12T00:36:00.000-07:00

Nice to see Centro-matic on video... From the Undertow site:

From album the "Dual Hawks" out now on Misra Records.
We spent a few hours in front of Dan's Silverleaf in Denton, TX on a very warm summer day. Here's the video we made. It's all one shot with no edits. We did it 16 times to get it right. Our friend Mark Ray did all the cool animations on top of the HD footage we shot. Hope you like it.

Centro-matic - Rat Patrol and DJs from Undertow on Vimeo.

(Free) MP3s of the week

2008-09-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

Songs don't come much more beautiful than Horse Feather's Curs In The Weeds. The rest of the album, House With No Home, is wonderful too.

These United States' album, Crimes, is also finally released. Download Get Yourself Home here... Also, the band have just done their second Daytrotter session. Four free downloads from that (excellent session) here.

Chris Bathgate's Salt Year

2008-09-20T02:25:00.000-07:00

I have fallen deeply in love with a song. Chris Bathgate's Salt Year, on Wait, Skeleton, is so deeply beautiful - a tale of love that should have been taken, and a tune that takes your heart from deep in your stomach. It is sparse, simple and simply gorgeous.

seventeen years before
I should have hauled off and kissed her
now I lace my wine with ginger
just let my evenings pass
they pass

she's whistling in a candy store
and I'm just screaming in the dark here
I'm just choking down a salt year
and sugar's all I've longed for
I try again

seventeen and there she stood
a photograph in my doorway
and I felt all my light leave me
my thoughts all tumbling under

after that my days resign to static and gray hair and soft cry
like a cracked crystal second hand wine chime
just clanging for a lover
I can love
try again

I can't offer a free mp3 of the song - it's available for download from most places, but there is a YouTube clip of Chris performing the song live:

Land of Talk

2008-09-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

Delighted that this band are banging out another album - a fantastic combination of female lead vocals and aggressive rock, Land of Talk haven't forgotten melody or songs... The new album Some Are Lakes, if the two pre-release download tracks (Some Are Lakes, and Corner Phone) are anything to go by, will be excellent.

MP3 of the week

2008-09-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

Heard of this band on the KEXP Song of the Day podcast... The Quiet Ones are a Seattle-based band, and I love their lead single Girls and Uniforms. Download it from their website... The album is a pretty rich treat. I'm sure I'll be posting more soon...

The Walkmen UK tour dates

2008-09-05T02:37:00.000-07:00

The Rat may be one of the best singles of all time (in my head), and hearing The Walkmen nail it live remains a highlight of the past few years...

Here's a video of the lead single In The New Year, recorded for Pitchfork TV...

They're back in the UK next month - you should see them:

October

28th London ULU

29th Manchester Academy 3

31st Leeds Cockpit

November

1st Glasgow Stereo

2nd Dublin Button Factory

Cotton Mather/ Future Clouds and Radar

2008-09-05T01:15:00.000-07:00

I must admit to knowing an awful lot less about this band than I should...

Cotton Mather are a band I became aware of in the 90s - their Beatle-esque stuff is just fantastic (although they're not so fond of that reference). But they seem to exist in some kind of alternate universe - I hear little to nothing about them, apart from just how much I like them every time I hear them.

I was re-alerted when I listened to Little Steven's Underground Garage compilation, and prompted to dig around. There is a MySpace page, but really very little else... At least there are some downloads there...

Then, a little more digging that has me inordinately excited - there's a new band - Future Clouds and Radar (listen to some new tracks here), which has a new album coming out soon. Seems lead man Robert Harrison has been ill, and this is a new direction... Watch for more soon.

Free Music... August

2008-08-25T03:37:00.000-07:00

Best new album of the month for me (after The Walkmen...): The Uglysuit's self-titled debut. Download Chicago (not the best track, but the free-est) here .

After that, you'd be missing out if you didn't also take advantage of Richard Swift's generosity in releasing his latest EP for free here.

The Walkmen - new album

2008-07-29T01:22:00.000-07:00

Listening right now to the new Walkmen album, which seems to be a great return to Bows + Arrows form...

It is also both remarkably good value, and good for the soul. Here's the band's note:

You & Me is now available for $5 at www.amiestreet.com/thewalkmen .

For every record purchased, $5 will be donated to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

I don't know how a $5 album makes $5 for a (great) cancer centre, but this is a wonderful idea. Buy a few copies!

The Morning Benders - free music

2008-07-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

The Morning Benders have made a big dent in my listening in the last few weeks - I love the loose limbed, fun, feel of their debut, Talking Through Tin Cans (see previous post). Now they've gone a step further and released, for free, an EP/ album of covers recorded in their apartment. (They call it Bedroom Covers, but don't get the impression that this is just a mirror and a hairbrush - the covers are excellent choices, their versions have depth and soul...)

Vandaveer, AdultAlternative session

2008-07-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

Mark Charles Heidinger, AKA Vandaveer, was someone I'd missed out on. On the recent UK tour with These United States, Mark (playing bass in the photo) combines a great voice and simply great songs. He is also a genuinely warm and nice guy...

We were lucky enough to get him to sing songs from his fantastic album, Grace and Speed. As always, click on the song titles to go to YouTube to see these in higher quality video and audio.

Vandaveer | Woolgathering

Vandaveer | Grace and Speed

Vandaveer | Marianne, You've Done It Now

Vandaveer | The Streets Is Full Of Creeps

These United States session

2008-07-14T07:44:00.000-07:00

Rapidly becoming one of my favourite bands, These United States stopped by The Old Chapel at the end of a successful UK tour that included three performances at Glastonbury.

With an immense songcraft, and a remarkable ability to reinvent their own songs (just listen to So High So Low, from the first album reworked here), the new material previewed in the session has a nailed on Basement Tapes/ Highway 61 Revisited feel. (In a good way. It would be easy to throw that out as a comparison, based on sound alone, but the songs stand the comparison easily.)

Here's what I wrote about their first album, A Picture of The Three Of Us At the Gate To The Garden Of Eden:

With the new intelligence raging through American popular folk/ Americana/ rock, the congestion among bands that build rock into their psych-folky harmonies is hard to penetrate. However, These United States may just be strong enough to break through it all - lead man Jesse Elliott shows a Paul Simon knack for a melody and a sense of song dynamics that can leave you breathless. Songs like First Sight, or The Business, come across like early 70s classics from the bleeding edge of 2008. Elliott's voice recalls M Ward's - well, it's actually a dead ringer - but the music is a lot more varied; there's some Andrew Bird in there, surely. Led by Elliott and his friend David Strackany, These United States drafted in more than 30 Washington, DC and Midwest-based musicians, and deployed them sparely and wonderfully across the record. In places a fragile thing, in others as solid as metal, the imagination behind A Picture can seem fevered - you get to the end of it like you get to the end of a good modern art gallery - still slightly puzzled, but in no doubt that you now see things differently.

Enjoy these videos of this incarnation of These United States: main man Jesse Elliott (left), Mark Charles (of Vandaveer; middle) and J. Tom Hnatow (right). If you click on the titles, you'll go to YouTube, where you've the option to watch in higher quality (sound and video). Look for some songs from Vandaveer soon.

These United States | Get Yourself Home

These United States | We Go Down To That Corner

These United States | What Do You Want With My Heart?

These United States | So High So Low So Wide So Long

Black Cab Sessions

2008-07-11T00:52:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest sites about sees a fantastic collection of artists playing a song in the back of a black cab in London.

Have a look at this video of Stephen Fretwell, and then head to here for the full collection.

Lance Armstrong - Death Cab fan

2008-07-04T06:44:00.000-07:00

Interested to read that Lance Armstrong is in love with this Death Cab For Cutie song, and seems to have pretty reliable taste in music to add to the other reasons to like the guy...

I Will Possess Your Heart

These United States

2008-06-11T06:14:00.001-07:00

Very much looking forward to catching up with this wonderful edge-folk band when they tour the UK in the next few weeks (and hopefully to hosting an evening session at the Chapel). For now, have a listen to/ download First Sight...

Kilto Take, live

2008-06-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

These guys will be huge. Caught them on a BBC session last week. Go to YouTube to see it in higher definition...

Video for Fallen here:

Vote for Katey Brooks to open Green Man...

2008-06-05T02:45:00.001-07:00

Vote For Katey Brooks To Play At Green Man Festival 2008!!!

Royal Bangs

2008-06-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

Heard about this band from a recommendation on Rolling Stone - Pat Carney of The Black Keys, no less...

Really like the funky, indie, loose edge - tuneful, organic, compulsive...

Have a listen to/ download Broke Calculator, and Cat Swallow, from We Breed Champions (I don't think they're the best tracks on the album, though. Seriously, go to emusic.com and download the whole album.)

Green Day new album

2008-05-27T03:50:00.001-07:00

The success of American Idiot brought with it all of those mixed emotions... A band I loved, when it seemed to be against the grain, all of a sudden was filling stadia...

Green Day, themselves, however, seemed to compromise not one bit. The shows felt like small venues, even with 30,000 people. The music on American Idiot was as good as any that preceded it... (Nimrod's still my number one GD album, though.)

As further proof that they're still in it for the music, their new album is released under the Foxboro Hot Tubs name (in a poorly guarded secret). Stop Drop and Roll is fantastic 60s/70s rock and roll Green Day...

It'll absolutely do until a harder-edged Green Day is ready...

More AdultAlternative.co.uk session videos

2008-05-16T07:58:00.000-07:00

A further song from Katey Brooks - Grateful Rain

And one from my son, playing an Andy Hull/ Manchester Orchestra son, Where Have You Been

Katey Brooks

2008-05-13T00:39:00.000-07:00

Katey has one of the most impressive voices I have ever heard live. Goodness knows where it comes from, but it would be impossible to hear it and not be shocked.

At the session, she debuted a new song, so new it doesn't yet have a title:

One more: Found

Kilto Take

2008-05-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

Kilto Take are the first band to be signed to Medical Records/ 4 The Record Management, alongside singer/ songwriter Katey Brooks. They will be, without doubt, huge...

They played their first acoustic session for a Medical Records showcase.

Wake In The Lie

Holding The Enemy

Fallen

Tainted States

Morning Benders

2008-05-09T00:13:00.001-07:00

This band make wonderfully fresh, loose-limbed music.

Have a listen to/ download two tracks from their debut: Crosseyed, and Boarded Doors.

Centro-matic, South San Gabriel

2008-04-12T03:57:00.000-07:00

It would be hard to overstate my liking for this band (well, these bands, if I'm being strict). Downloaded the new Dual Hawks album from iTunes this morning, and I'm revelling in some new Will Johnson music...

So nice to hear the two bands on the same album. Will post more thoughts in time...

Head here to hear I, The Kite from the Centro-matic side of the album, Trust To Lose from the SSG side, or, even better, here to go straight to iTunes to download the whole album.

Lou Barlow

2008-03-19T03:22:00.000-07:00

I could try to be all grown-up about this, but occasionally I hear a song that I fall for in a big way...

I missed Lou Barlow's Mirror The Eye EP when it came out last year. And I deeply regret that now - it's not uniformly great, but one track, Yawning Blue Messiah, has become this month's Serpentine for me - I can't repeat it fast enough...

Colour Revolt

2008-03-03T06:05:00.000-08:00

Really enjoying the debut by this band (and thanks to Manchester Orchestra for the tip). I'd describe it (in that 'x meets y' way that seems to upset half of everyone, and please the other half - so here we go my 'other half') as Queens of the Stone Age meets Pavement. But probably more than that...

Judge for yourself: here is the first track on the disc, Naked and Red. And A Siren...

MP3s of the week

2008-02-12T05:36:00.000-08:00

I still find it astonishing that there is so much great music available for free - even if you're not some pikey music thief...

My two favourite tracks of the week are both available direct from the artists:

Thao - Swimming Pools

School of Language - Rockist part 1

Frightened Rabbit

2008-02-09T09:22:00.000-08:00

Frightened Rabbit's first album, Sing The Greys, was a great start. But, the track released from their follow up (Modern Leper) has me looking forward to their second immensely. Have a listen (and download)... I love the bit where the drum starts...

Land of Talk

2008-01-28T00:57:00.000-08:00

I still miss Jen Trynin. She's still with us and seems happy, if her site's up to date... She was an amazing female songwriter, with an incredible ability to make a song rock hard. But, she stopped recording.

So, I've missed a female-fronted band to get excited about for a while - I though Gemma Hayes was going to get there, but her record company seemed to mishandle her (or, her PR company suck... Actually, that is more likely to be true - all my dealings with them suggest that they do, indeed, suck.). Belly, Letters to Cleo, even the Cardigans (in their occasional highlight)...

That brings me to Land of Talk, whose Sea Foam on One Little Indian's sampler (from Applause Cheer Boo Hiss) was the standout track. I don't know much about them, except that they come from Montreal. This track, Speak To Me Bones, is also a great intro...

I hope to find out more.

Chris Bathgate

2008-01-11T00:32:00.000-08:00

I listen to about 300 full albums every year and thousands of songs by new bands, so it is rare that one leaps out and commands the kind of attention that makes you immediately go find (and buy) the back catalogue. Chris Bathgate managed that with the opening track of his new album A Cork Tale Wake - Serpentine. I wish that was available as an mp3... It's not clever, it's not especially new, but it is one of the most haunting songs I've heard in an age.

As I can't offer Serpentine, I can only recommend that you go buy it.

Here's another outstanding Chris Bathgate track, however, buffalo girl, from his previous album, throatsleep.

Kevin McDermott

2008-01-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

Kevin McDermott is a friend of mine. Let me start with that preface... I like the chap immensely, and like his music an awful lot... I hope that I'll be able to get an Adult Alternative video session with him soon... Because, well, after some long time away, he's released an excellent album of new stuff, which is really exciting.

Here's my review:

Kevin McDermott, Wise To The Fade

Kevin McDermott is, simply, Glasgow's finest singer-songwriter. Which, when you think about the competition from that fair city (Travis, Franz Ferdinand, Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol), Dogs Die In Hot Cars, and Teenage Fanclub to cite but a few), makes him something special - like Bob Dylan sung by Robbie Williams (but in a good way...), his songs seem at once like old eloquent storytelling friends and like the best new thing you've heard in a long time - anthemic, melodic songs that fit like your best mates after 2 pints in the local. Wise To The Fade is a return to the studio for the first time since 1997's For Those In Peril From The Sea, and a welcome return it is. This is Scotland's best singer-songwriter's best set of songs in a long while - as witty, articulate, and intensely melodic as ever, and with the unshackled feel of his second album - Bedazzled. If there's a criticism, it is perhaps that the McDermott humour dial is cranked up a touch too much. But when an album closes with songs as strong as September Songs (among his best ever – think Robbie Williams’ Angels, but cooler) and the quiet, elegiac Voices, that's a minor nitpick. If there's a precedent, it is to 1991's Bedazzled, McDermott's follow-up to his Island debut - Wise To The Fade opens the album like Hole In The Ground opens its predecessor, with a drum assault bang and a statement of intent, followed by songs that excite and affect at turns. Remarkably, Kevin McDermott's best work is done live, and this long-overdue return to the studio hopefully signals a revitalized touring schedule.

There is a BBC Radio session here. Or you could have a listen at his MySpace page. Or, you can head over to iTunes and buy it right now...

My 2007 Top 20

2007-12-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

It is hard to remember a better year. Maybe there are fewer standout albums, but for strength in depth, 2007 has been a stunner. From over 150 albums reviewed, there was a strong case for about 50 making it to the Top 20... How to leave out Spoon and the Foo Fighters, Arcade Fire and MIA? In the end, these were my favourite ten albums of 2007, the ones I already go back to time and time again.

1. Stephen Fretwell - Man On The Roof

Britain's best singer-songwriter. This second album is a whole leap forward from his incredible debut, a remarkable achievement for anyone who started to doubt that this format could still sound fresh.

2. Delta Spirit - Ode To Sunshine

An album that makes you care about music, so effortless and enthusiastic in its rock, its folk, its nods to other bands. Think Cold War Kids but with a Lennon-McCartney writing team.

3. Bruce Springsteen - Magic

Not Springsteen's best, but for anyone who wanted a return to the rock sound, after the folk years, there is enough here to stun, please, and make you sing at the top of your voice.

4. Battles - Mirrored

A band that divide opinion with a sharpened axe, Battles make the most addictive genre-bending music, built around a rock-solid live drummer, and endless loops, samples and tunes. Prog rock for the year 2008...

5. Radiohead - In Rainbows

Radiohead's best album since OK Computer. Enough said.

6. Octoberman - Run From Safety

Like some Beck/ Bright Eyes hybrid, there is something familiar and something wonderfully new about Octoberman's second album - melancholy, melody, compulsive rhythm.

7. Southeast Engine - A Wheel Within A Wheel

If Wilco's your thing, but they can be a bit samey these days, throw in some Southeast Engine, a band from Athens, Ohio, which is almost willfully anti-fashion, but right on the moment. This album makes you feel good for having listened.

8. Will Stratton - What The Night Said

Iron and Wine disappointed this year. Will Stratton didn't - a simply gorgeous debut disc that any Snow Patrol, Jose Gonzalez or Sufjan Stevens fan would love from start to finish. Sensitive singer-songwriters keep getting better.

9. Jacob Golden - Revenge Songs

Like an on-form Jeff Buckley, Golden's voice can soar, whisper and haunt, while the songs are honed by living room shows, endless tours and wonderful observation. No album will make you ache the way this one will.

10. Dinosaur Jr - Beyond

Some way off to the left of Nirvana when Cobain was doing his thing, who could have hoped that Dinosaur Jr would make a listenable album in 2007. That they could make an album sound as though they'd never been away, despite a ten-year lay-off, was astonishing. Grunge never sounded better.

11. Akron / Family - Love Is Simple

12. Bishop Allen - The Broken String

13. White Stripes - Icky Thump

14. Beasts of Bourbon - Little Animals

15. Beirut - The Flying Club Cup

16. Annuals - Be He Me

17. Caribou - Andorra

18. Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

19. Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation

20. The Boggs - Forts

Adult Alternative Sessions - Will Johnson

2007-12-02T05:12:00.000-08:00

In what I hope is the first of many such sessions, Will Johnson, of Centro-matic, South San Gabriel and solo fame, performed an acoustic set at the Chapel to an invited audience, and to video. (Jacob Golden played an amazing set a couple of months ago, but that unfortunately went un-videotaped!)

Videos here:

I See Through You

Nothing But Godzilla

Just To Know What You've Been Dreaming

Delta Spirit, Daytrotter

2007-11-30T05:42:00.000-08:00

One of my albums of the year, here's a snippet from the review:

"...the album you'll wish The Cold War Kids had made - it's CWK meet the Beatles, and the Kinks, and the best folk music. It is joyful, melodic, anthemic and rootsy. The San Diego band make music that makes you wish you could listen to nothing else for a few weeks - and they sound as if they care deeply about what they're doing. Ten songs seems ten too few. When the electric guitars kick in, they mean it; when the choruses kick in, they sing with the evangelism of a Baptist preacher. Delta Spirit sound as though they could have existed any time since the '60s - the lead vocal sounds suitably sun-ripened - but it is so modern in its approach as well - a mixture of styles and genres, blended as perfectly as an Innocent smoothie. There is not a weak moment, not a filler song, not a thrown away note. There is no preaching, no overreaching, no preening. It has spirit, soul and boundless energy. You should own this record; you should head without waiting to deltaspirit.net with your $10 held tightly (or iTunes...) and buy it."

Daytrotter is a phenomenon. A virtual concert venue that ropes in the best US indie artists for an in-studio session, and then makes the songs available for free. Click here to hear and download the Delta Spirit session.