I can't believe I forgot my official review. Well, here goes: I love Set Yourself on Fire more than you can imagine and its come to be one of my very favorite albums out there. Stars' newer effort, In Our Bedroom After the War doesn't have anything like that status. On the other hand, it's still really, really good and you should buy it. Okay, I suck as a music writer. But don't blame the band for my sins.
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In Our Bedroom After The War
14 Aug 2007 02:03 pm
Comments (23)
The New Pornographers' soon-to-be-released CD "Challengers" is also darn fantastic, though it continues a shift away from the balls-out power pop assault of their first couple of records.
Comes out next week, give it a listen!
Tons of great bands are putting out mediocre albums this year (Stars, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, New Pornographers)
... this is definitely instilling doubt in my "favorite music" list on Facebook.
Tons of great bands are putting out mediocre albums this year (Stars, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, New Pornographers)
"Neon Bible" was pretty great, I thought, but "Challengers" felt like the band was on valium. I always thought Stars were pretty weak, so I haven't bothered checking out their newest.
Don't listen to the naysayers -- there are at the very least several excellent tracks on this Stars album. "Bitches In Tokyo" is particularly good.
For every weak album out there is a great one on the way. The new Sunset Rubdown (Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade) album is fantastic in every sense of the word, the new Spoon album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is a an instant classic, and The National's Boxer just might be the sleeper Album of the Year. So keep your heads up, fans of good music; there be diamonds in the rough!
Don't worry. The vast majority of music writers suck as music writers.
What about The Con? That's pretty sweet.
Touche, my man, you can say that again! Modern music writing is positively drowning in cliches! You could say it is "awash" with awkward, pop-referential metaphors like New Orleans post-Katrina, with traditional publications like Spin and Rolling Stone like hapless "Brown-ies," doing a heckuva job fiddling with their ties as Rome burns, and we the citizenry arrayed upon rooftops, parched lips, water water everywhere, all hat and no cattle, etc. ad infinitum amen!
OMG guys Pitchfork just hired me at the starting rate of 2 Pabsts, 5 American Spirits per hour.
Set Yourself on Fire is nothing short of excellent. I wish MY's review of their new album was more... illuminating.
Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
The National, Boxer
Sunset Rubdown, Random Spirit Lover
The Handsome Furs, Plague Park
Black Francis, Bluefinger
Frog Eyes, Tears of the Valedictorian
Deerhunter, Cryptograms
Blonde Redhead, 23
Chad VanGaalen, Skelliconnection
Beach House, Beach House
Have we forgotten Sound of Silver? I thinking LCD Soundsystem, The National, and Animal Collective will be placed near the top of my year end. Okkervil River may be near the best pound for pound, but I think it was missing something. Spoon's was great, but not overwhelming. New Pornos was a huge letdown after Twin Cinemas. I've grown bored of the not BSS Toronto scene. There's been way too much mediocre canuck-pop over the last few years (finger firmly point at Stars, Feist, Metric, and the tertiary Wolf Parade member vanity projects etc.)
Well, it's hard to measure up to Set Yourself on Fire. That's all I can say.
Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs are not "tertiary Wolf Parade member vanity projects." Try actually listening to them before you spout off, jackass. Swan Lake, I'll give you that one.
Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs both hold their own with Wolf Parade's debut album. In addition to seconding Gregorio's list of good albums released this year, I'd add the various follow-ups and debuts by LCD Soundsystem, !!!, Modest Mouse, Apples in Stereo, Klaxons, Of Montreal, MIA, the Aliens, Ponytail, Dan Deacon, and CYHSY.
I'd like to thank Xmas for backing me on the Krug/ Boeckner tip... Plague Park is truly amazing tip to tail, and RSL is for the most part brilliant as well, but I omitted LCD, !!!, Klaxons, and CYHSY as well because I was underwhelmed to say the least. New Apples in Stereo is good and oM is GREAT-- I can't believe I left that off, maybe because I've listened to it for so long, but I genuinely hate Modest Mouse now. Isaac has gone off the deep end. As far as I'm concerned, my MM catalogue ends with Moon & Antarctica, even though Good News brought the goods with Bury Me and Black Cads, overall... something wrong. I miss Ugly Casanova at this point...
ALSO THE NEW PONYS ALBUM TURN THE LIGHTS OUT IS A BARNBURNER! CHECK IT OUT!
Mr. Gregario, I agree with you about sunset rubdown. The handsome furs lp is pretty solid, however I'd like to hear it with a full band. Neither, however, come close to wolf parade. I gave it a spin for the first time in awhile a couple days ago and was reminded of how trully great it is. I think we can all agree swan lake is rubbish. Truth is I'm a big spence krug fan, but I'd like to see some focused work instead of what seems to be a new project every other month.
Avett Brothers.
Sorry, I still love The Corrs. Nothing new about them.
And they won't have anything new out probably for the next four years until their kids are weaned.
Meanwhile, though, Andrea Corr has her solo album, "Ten Feet High", out. It's good, not great. I like it 'cause it's Andrea. The lyrics are frequently clever - and the songs sexier than what she's ever done with the Corrs. Production by Nellee Hooper of Bjork, No Doubt, Madonna, Gwen Stefani, Garbage, U2, Sneaker Pimps, Soul II Soul and Massive Attack fame.
There is a nice anti-war song on the album though, called "Shame On You", that everybody against war should listen to.
See the video at her MySpace page here:
http://www.myspace.com/andreacorrofficial
"Bitches in Tokyo" - now that sounds like a song I could get interested in if the sound is right! Love the title!
And Andrea would probably never do a song with that title! Although her "Hello Boys" song took Corrs fans by considerable surprise, being a song about the madam of a brothel with a "specialized clientele". She wrote it originally as a "slow gothic ballad" - then Nellee Hooper changed it into a "growling sex kitten" - which definitely has never been Andrea's style during the Corrs. "Sex kitten", yes, "growling sex kitten", no.
I downloaded Set Yourself On Fire from emusic on your recommendation. My reaction: Meh!
If you want quirky pop of the type that Stars were aiming for, check out Interbabe Concern by The Loud Family.
I really don't understand the affection for Sunset Rubdown. I loved the Wolf Parade CD, and really wanted to like the side project. It leaves me cold, though.
To understand Sunset Rubdown, you must see them live. They're just one of those bands. I go to over 50 shows a year, and let me say Sunset Rubdown is the best live band out there right now. We're talking cerebral Jesus Lizard, raucous Radiohead, sober enough-Isaac Brock pre-2002 territory here! Of course they're not for everybody, but see 'em next time they come around and you won't be disappointed!
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Comments closed August 28, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Boring band, boring album. The most interesting thing about them is the lead singer's name-- Torquil! That's awesome. I'm more of a BSS man myself-- this band puts me to sleep. But then again I'm not old and done like Matthew "MOR/Atlantic" Yglesias. JK, boss! Lovies.
Posted by Gregorio | August 14, 2007 2:23 PM