The Features - Some Kind of Salvation

Some Kind of Salvation is like some sort of fusion of The Killers, Finger Eleven, and Modest Mouse. The Features show that they are really a pretty diverse band here, with this album really blurring lines between genres. While their sound is evident throughout the album, the songs all sound quite different but flow together very well. Whatever Gets You By is a short little intro with a syncopated organ giving it a sort of English folk feel. The Drawing Board kicks off with a cool horn part, and this is where that Finger Eleven influence really shows up (listen to this song and Paralyze or whatever it's called by them). Foundation's Cracked owes a lot to the Killers, kicking off with a piano playing slow rhythym chords, and the song actually delves into the realm of experimental music, with a guitar that is more often playing strange scratchy sounds, near random notes, and bursts of distorted chords for the chorus. GMF is a song with a new wave sounding synth chorus and an older rock (that's a stupid description; read: 70's rock of some sort) sounding guitar part. The Gates of Hell is much different than the first 7 songs; it's slower and has a very dreamy, psychedelic, relaxing feel to it that really contradicts the lyrics . Baby's Hammer has a fingerpicking guitar part, folksy sound to it. Concrete is a vintage synth sounding post punk/new wave song. Now You Know is a nice, upbeat song to finish off the album, that actually even throws a little bit of Animal Collective sound into the mix. Overall, a nice diverse album that makes for an interesting listen. These guys know how to take a wide range of influences and throw them all into one album while playing with their own unique sound. Not one of my favorites, but more than decent.

Owl City - Ocean Eyes (2009)

First off, this is not my usual cup of tea. I'm really not too big of a fan of this boy band type vocal sound. That said, news of this band has been everywhere I turn, and they have done a couple of good songs. So, I decided to check out the new album. It's not bad. The band has a sound somewhere between Relient K and Breathe Carolina. Relient K without the Christian lyrics and more electronic sounds, but Breathe Carolina without the fast paced techno sound behind them (and minus the screamo they get into at times). They're also a lot like a more upbeat Postal Service. Now as far as Ocean Eyes in particular goes: Introduction track Cave In is an echo-y, drifting song with electronic synthesizer runs playing along in the back, with some interesting little melodies. The Bird and the Worm is a less electronic pop song with a poppy acoustic rhythym guitar sound and some Seabearesque keyboard ding. Hello Seattle, which is apparently the most popular song from the album, sounds kind of like Such Great Heights if it was done by a poppier, more upbeat band. Except for the chorus, which isn't really similar at all. The song continues in this direction, with some songs owing a bit more to bands like aforementioned Breathe Carolina, with a more techno/house drum beat and that growing wind sound that kicks the music up a notch, or using acoustic guitar to create the melody. Dental Care makes Adam seem pretentious to me: He talks about how he's scared of the dentist but his perfect smile is too important not to go. I guess it's supposed to be funny, but it's not. Overall, I'd say the album isn't bad, and you'd probably really like it if you're into that new boy band type sound, but it's definitely not something I'd listen to much. So in fact, I'm not even sure why I put this on here; I guess I listened to it to see what all the hype was about and didn't want to feel like I wasted 45 minutes of my life on a band playing a style of music I really don't particularly enjoy.

Timber Timbre - Timber Timbre (2009)

I know I know... I slacked off for a whole week already. But I was busy, working, out and about, and writing other stuff and reviews I don't want to post on here. But now, I'm back. And for my first review back, I'm choosing a fantastic simple bluesy, lo-fi, indie rock/folk album. Sadly, apparently I wasn't on top of it because I completely missed this release when it came out in January. Luckily for all you music lovers out there (and me!) it was re-released again today. The band is Timber Timbre, and the self titled album is their third release. I went back and checked out the rest of their catalog, and quickly decided this is their best piece of work to date. Taylor Kirk, lead singer, has a very unique low, warbling voice that he utilizes to the best of it's potential. The music is actually very stripped down, but at the same time it has everything it needs - their is a strings section that occassionally comes in, and besides that the album has everything from a typical synthesizer sound to an organ to electronic sounds. But the main focus stays on the lyrics, which are very well written - Kirk tells some great stories that are not your typical blues. Reflective, dark, and foreboding, this shows blues evolving to keep up with modern day indie rock and folk music. Lay Down in the Tall Grass is a dark song with a syncopated organ rhythym and drum beat playing with a truly bizarre chorus: "I dreamed you found me out in a field / You tripped over my site /And you dug me out of this shallow grave... And only you could revive me,/ so badly decomposed." This leads into Until the Night is Over, a psychedelic tinged song that could almost be something by The Doors, if they stripped down their music a lot and had Kirk as a singer. Magic Arrow is about the settlers coming to America and destroying the land and taking everything from the Indians. The main guitar melody is even the typical riff you would think of as Native American music. The rest of the songs deal with loneliness and isolation, all be it with much more complicated lyrics than much of the blues you could find. While Kirk focuses on simplicity with musical sound, he ends up creating a very complex, genre spanning bluesy indie masterpiece.

Netherfriends - Calling You Out EP (2009)

This is another of my certain favorites of the year. Though it's just an EP and not a full album, Netherfriends pack quite the punch into this recording with these six songs. They play psych pop along the lines of Animal Collective, who are certainly their biggest influence, but with more focus on legible lyrics rather than Animal Collective style where more often than not the focus is on the sound of the overall recordings instead. At first they might sound very similar to AC, but I gaurantee you: listen to them closely, and you will quickly realize they are anything but that. I think the main reason I made that comparison at first is that honestly, I've never heard a band that makes anything that sounds remotely like AC before. It's possible that I just missed it, but as far as I'm concerned they were totally unique for a very long time. However, the Netherfriends don't restrain themselves to only making music in that psychedelic spiritual, magical pop vein. In fact, they quite often cross over into other genres. Mom Cop is an indie rock/pop marvel that bares more in common with poppy dance punk bands (but much better, I hate most of that crap), and the EP has elements from a whole array of influences that show. Also, sticking with the AC comparison because I think it is the best way I can describe them, a major difference is more melodic rhythym guitar and much, much less relying on electronic elements. When all is said and done, and you've listened to the album a few times, you won't be able to stop. This is, without a doubt, one of the best debut EPs I have ever heard from any band that I can think of. If you don't listen to this, you deserve to be shot. Just sayin.

Riceboy Sleeps - Riceboy Sleeps (2009)

Riceboy Sleeps is a new side project of Sigur Ros vocalist Jónsi and Alex Somers. It's instrumental ambient music at it's greatest, with the pair performing on a variety of instruments backed by a string quartet and a full choir. The music is very dreamy; it's like music to dream to. Riceboy Sleeps takes the sound from Sigur Ros and turns into an ethereal, calmer sound, creating a wonderful album in the process. It's an album to listen to under a tree in a sunny field in the middle of nowhere on a nice summer day while dozing on and off. Personally, I actually like this more than anything Sigur Ros ever did, to be completely honest with you. It is also clearly takes influences from experimental music, but rather than creating some bizarre work of music does so in a way that, mixed with the slow, quiet, ethereal strings/ambient pad sound present throughout the entire album just adds to the beauty while offering more to keep the listener focused on the music (Stokkseyri). Never fast, but never painfully slow; never too repetitve, but allows you to absorb everything; never bizarre, but containing experimental elements like the fast piano roll in Stokkseyri or the animal growls and strange sounds at the end of Howl; the duo has found the perfect way to combine the music of Sigur Ros with dreamy music to create a beautiful blend of post rock, experimental, and ambient.

Delicate Noise - Filmezza (2009)

Getting to the end of this week, I really ran out of good releases I felt like writing about... so I apologize for doing 2 new albums by really obscure electronica bands back to back like this. But, I digress. Delicate Noise is some spaced out, trippy ambient electronica. Filmezza makes heavy use of vintage synths and the effects they offered, particularly a lot of messing around with cutoff and echo while playing. They also use really wierd alien volices a lot; the only regular voices on the album are the occasional use of children talking, like in Butterfly Envy where you hear a kid saying "It's a butterfly!" or Roundlake Beach where one can hear a running stream and lots of kids talking while spacey, ambient music plays over top. Pheromone has the alien voices throughout, and combines a very simple keyboard melody with glitch sounds. Oh yeah, they also use a lot of every day sound samples, like the running stream, and the sound of a summer night in the song We Like Mercury. The song also has a parent talking to a child with extremely heavy echo, and a very simple synthesizer background. Title track Filmezza actually has a very little bit of jazz influence on the bass part in the beginning, but moves on to a simple spacey ambient track. Overall, nothing too impressive, but worth a listen if you're bored or you want some slightly trippy background ambient music you aren't gonna pay too much attention to anyway.

Cocktail Party - Cocktail Party (2009)

Well... what to say about this? On first listen, I was expecting some acid jazz with a lounge/downtempo drumbeat and vibe to it. But that really isn't what it is. It's much less jazzy than I hoped - in fact, I think whoever at Lala put this in the acid jazz category was smoking crack. I suppose there are occassional moments, and even a few songs that are jazzy (Le Metro de Paris has a jazz flute playing through it), but really Cocktail Party creates some funky, spacey, downtempo, madchester influenced music. In fact, I would consider this a downtempo house album more than anything else (I think, I still don't know the difference between house and techno because I just don't care) because it has what I think are house bass and drum beats running through most of the tracks. In fact, this probably really isn't music you would want playing at a cocktail party either. There are some really good songs. Space Comet has some really good acoustic rhythym guitar, and an accordion part that strangely enough fits together perfectly with the bongos. (Yes, it is a little strange when you really stop to think about it). But when it comes right down to it, Cocktail Party creates an album here that combines elements of downtempo bands like thievery corporation, house music, funk, and bits and pieces of jazz all combined together. They definitely have their own unique style and sound; however, they don't really fit anywhere, and their sound just isn't good enough for them to make a great album. Sorry. It wasn't particularly bad though; agood one for when you're looking for something simple to put on in the background that's really upbeat and happy sounding.

Mount Eerie - Wind's Dark Poem (2009)

Just... wow. Folk musician Phil Elverum (The Microphones) takes his music in a new direction, with heavy noise, dark ambient, and black metal influences. Wind's Poem is, exactly as he stated, a colossal sounding album. Intro track Wind's Dark Poem starts off with some really heavy noise distortion, and his clean vocals ring clearly amidst the chaos of the song. The second track has a droning background synthesizer and is a much slower song, but still absolutely marvelous. My Heart is Not at Peace is reminiscent, to me, of darkwave/metal bands such as Dargaard, but with more lyrics (see Rise and Fall). The Hidden Stone returns to the heavily, fuzzy distortion we got a taste of on Wind's Dark Poem. Between Two Mysteries (my personal favorite track) has a different feel than the rest of the album, using South American, perhaps?, sounding drums or something with a simple synthesizer background quietly holding the melody as two separately recorded vocal tracks flow along together beautifully. Ancient Questions follows the same trend as the previous song, with the same percussion (glockenspiel, perhaps?) used again. It also has the same more upbeat, light feeling as Between Two Mysteries, while the rest of the album gives off a feeling of loneliness and darkness. Something returns to this heavy, non-penetrable distortion sound of darkness and loneliness, until the reverb heavy synthesizer kicks in and takes the song in a more ethereal feeling direction. Last track Stone's Ode is the perfect end to the journey this album will take you on; another lighter, somewhat slow song that sounds like hope and an escape from the dark sound that prevails on most of Wind's Poem. Simply a folk masterpiece, fusing genres that I never thought could be mixed well into one of my favorite albums of the year so far.

Tristeza - A Colores (Expanded Edition) (2009)

Today's new music review is a re-release of one of my favorite post rock albums. Tristeza is a band from California playing some wonderful guitar and keyboard based music. This album was originally recorded in 2005 just after the loss of founding member Jimmy LaValle in Tijuana, but instead of simply giving up, the remaining members added a new keyboardist and continued in a similar direction as previous releases. In my opinion, this is the shining gem of their discography. Tristeza keeps it rock on A Colors, not adding much in the way of electronic elements like a lot of post rock bands in the second half of the decade. The tracks are marvellous, starting off simple but building to an explosion of mellow, laid back, meandering instrumental beauty. They simply wander along, travelling from melody to melody, (usually) quickly enough to not get boring but slowly enough that you can fully explore all of the sounds in each well developed riff. The band also makes the most of having a keyboard and guitar; often having the lead part switch off between the two, or using the keyboard to give the album more of an ethereal feel while still staying very true to post rock. It's a great album in that it has a nice chill sound to be on when you're just reading, or working, or something like that where it takes a background spot but has plenty going on to deem a full listen when you just want to listen to some great, relaxing music. As for what you get with the expanded edition: Three new tracks are added, along with two remixes of probably my two favorite songs from the whole album - the intro track Bromas and Abrazo Distante. Bromas (extended mix) is pretty much just a longer version of the original, which is great seeing as how it was one of my favorite songs - and the extra minute and a half adds in some interesting little bits of noise elements and some other subtle changes while staying true to the original melody of the song (pretty important when dealing with post rock). Enveloped is a bit of drone/post rock song with a static drone going in the background so if you can deal with that for three minutes, you might like it... it was my least favorite of the entire album, actually. Pingle Language is a bit of a slow song as well, but it grows decently and was a nice addition. And March of the Lies is... wait! Vocals??? Yep, it's the only vocals you'll hear anywhere on the album. Lastly Abrazo Distante (Nobody Remix) remixes Abrazo Distante, which is really cool. Because while I like the band shying away from electronic elements in their songs, I have no problem with the aforementioned effects being dominant in a remix. So personally, I really liked the extra songs; I enjoyed hearing some vocals, and the extended mix and remix were great, only Enveloped wasn't very good. While it may not have done anything particularly unique in terms of sound compared to other post rock bands, it does have something else going for it - it does it better than most others. The one flaw - the name of the band means sadness in Spanish and Portuguese, and the music is never sad, or haunting, or anything like that at all... Overall, though, a great album that holds my interest more than most of its kind (though it should be noted if you're reading; take this with a tiny grain of salt as I'm not a big fan of post rock).

Xploding Plastix - Amateur Girlfriends Go Proskirt Agents (2001)

This, the debut album of Xploding Plastix, is one of my alltime favorite albums. The duo (Erik Velldal and Espen Blystad) play some marvellous electrofunk/big beat/acid jazz here. Every song is an absolute masterpiece, and when they're all put together in one album, it makes it even better. Amateur Girlfriends... is energetic, powerful, intrusive, unashamed, trippy, and chill... all in one convenient little package. I know that's a kind of conflicting description, but listen to it and you'll understand. I gaurantee. The speedy drum beats on most of the tracks keep you feeling the energy throughout most of the album, even when the melody might not be quite so upbeat. But the melodies are always beautifully crafted, winding, slices of acid jazz/electrofunk that suck in the listener, giving the album a slightly dark, futuristic sound with roots in 20's and 30's big band. For example, I can imagine listening to Far Flung Tonic in speakeasies in gangster era-Chicago placed in a 2020 setting. As strange as that is, I think that may be one of the best ways to describe the sound here. It's an album that could easily have been a soundtrack to a James Bond film, except better than anything I've ever heard on any movie. My favorite album of 2001.

The Dandy Warhols - The Dandy Warhols Are Sound (2009)

The Dandy Warhols Are Sound isn't an entirely new release, actually. Anyone that heard 2003s Welcome to the Monkey House will immediately realize that it is, in fact, the same album re-released with a completely different mix. In fact, I usually wouldn't even consider getting an album like this, as the songs are truly very similar (it would hardly qualify as a remix album). But despite all the bad press I've seen this receiving, I think it's a great album and a great idea for the band. Here's the story behind it: The Dandy Warhols were signed to Capitol Records when they released their second record. And the mix that they ended up showing the label was immediately rejected. Instead, Capitol Records brought in Jeremy Wheatley to make a "good" mix of the songs, which involved turning the album into a more energetic, much less raw sounding similar version. The Dandy Warhols Are Sound is the original, intentional mix. Now that they aren't on a major label and don't have to deal with the demands of a major record company, they released it for all of us to love. Upon purchasing this album, I immediately decided Welcome to the Monkey House is getting trashed from my library and replaced. This is the album as it is supposed to sound. It's a chill, raw, simpler, much less edited version of the "original" (and by that I mean the first release). It's like if you go out clubbing for a night, you'll want to dance to Welcome... but afterwards when you get home and you're not tired and you need to listen to something to calm down and relax after the evening, The Dandy Warhols... would be a great album. They also turned (You Come In) Burned into a 7 minute long track, Burned.



The end result: if you haven't heard Welcome..., I would highly recommend getting this release instead of the earlier version. But if you like a more mainstream, produced effect, the former is a better choice for you. And if you're a fan, this might be a welcome replacement to the original (I personally wouldn't keep both; they sound very similar).

Radical Sons - Throwing Knives (2009)

BEST NEW RELEASE WEEK OF 7/7/09

I know, I know... I'm a week late on the gun here. But I hope you can cut me some slack; this came out last week and I just started this blog yesterday; this is my first new release review. Definitely my favorite album from last week, which is way I just this album in particular. Throwing Knives is a group made up of two best friends from St. Louis that got together to enjoy quality music like the Velvet Underground and Television while everyone else around them was listening to crap. They toured with some relatively big name bands after forming, including Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and Little Joy. This EP has been in the making since last summer and finally it's here! Radical Sons play their own unique blend of early 90's alternative and pop punk, with clear influences from Television, the Velvet Underground and Dinosaur, Jr - just a lot less noisier and a bit poppier. What's more, they successfully capture the feel of those legendary bands; the feel that they are living for their music in a world where they don't really fit in and it's what they live for. They also definitely listened to Built to Spill, and the midwest sort of sound of BTS shows in their music, but they do it a lot better. A nice raw, lo-fi but by no means unaccessible recording sound goes perfectly with the sound Radical Sons were going for, making the album just that much better. The second half of the album is all acoustic, and contains demos of 4 of the 5 full songs included, excluding Throwing Knives, plus a demo of a song called Scavenger. These guys are definitely a band to watch, with a return to a sound I haven't heard many bands get right since the early/mid 90's. And for their debut EP, it's pretty damn amazing.

School of Seven Bells - Alpinism (2008)

Alpinism starts off with Iamundernodisguise, which sets the tone of the record - a slightly psychedelic, noise tinged, beat heavy shoegaze/electronica album. There is a very subtle background synthesizer sound running throughout the song that reminds me off the aged, warped sound of Boards of Canada. Face to Face is a poppier song, without the noise influences of the opener, but think My Bloody Valentine with more prominent drums and vocals on top that you can clearly make out. Wired For Light starts off with some interesting horn sounds over a prominent dance beat, and singer Alejandra Deheza sings an interesting syncopated vocal track over some spacey synthesizers, taking this song in more of an electronica dance song direction (though still with a reverb heavy layered guitar sound still present), and ends with some interesting South American sounding ethnic drums. Moving ahead a bit, Connjur starts off leading the listener to expect a dark song a la Aphex Twin for the first few seconds, until the vocal tracks kick in. A nice lead guitar part with echo trades off with vocals through the song, and their is a nice heavy distortion spacey background wall of sound and a consistent buzzing low bass as Deheza soars above it all. Alpinism proves that School of Seven Bells has cemented it's own spot in late 2000 indie music as a marvelous indie/shoegaze/electronica band.

As this is the first review that I'm posting, I'd like to inform any readers of the format the postings will take: I'm going to post every day, with one new album review. I'll also do one older album review every few days (or more possibly), and other posts whenever I deem something worthy of talking about in the world of music. Every Tuesday, I'll include my personal pick for the best album of the last week. On the first Tuesday of each month, I will also include top 5 or 10 albums of the past month from amongst those (or something else if I miss it, but all of these will be reviewed on here by me). By the way - I'm doing this solely for fun, so don't expect to see many bad reviews on here. All of these albums will be my favorites from the weeks releases or favorite older albums.

LaLa: The Logical Solution to File Sharing

Filesharing has become extremely prevalent amongst modern society. Users download tons of songs through p2p services like torrent services, Limewire, and so on. Yet this is killing the music industry. Every song downloaded through these networks is another stolen song from the record labels and the artists. While I couldn't give a fuck less about the major record industries making more money, the fact remains that this is still stealing music, and I'm sure it is felt much more by the indie labels that so many of us love and cherish. Luckily, fans of these labels are more likely to buy cds or vinyl than other fans, but it's still painful to the wallets of these label owners and indie artists that we all want to prevail. In addition, RIAA sues tens of thousands of internet users for downloading illegally. Supposedly file sharing is dropping, from 20 something percent of internet users to now closer to 16, but that is a ridiculous amount of illegal downloading. I mean, 16% of internet users??? That's an absurd number of people. It's about time the record companies cashed in on this - in a way. A new music service, LaLa, allows users to make a free account. Members can then listen to every song in their database, and with over 6000000 songs, including 150000 indie labels, that packs quite a punch. After one free listen, you can add songs to your library and stream them as much as you want for 10 cents, or buy the songs for anywhere from 79 to 99 cents. I've seen quite a bit of bad press about it, and I'm not really sure why... it seems a competitor tried to argue that LaLa strips you of your music rights when it puts them in your library online -which is true, in a way. You can't do anything with the online songs besides listen to them through LaLa. However, if you aren't a dumbass, you won't delete all your music after uploading. That way you'll still have all your music with full rights. If anyone reads this, check out LaLa! And tell your friends! It's really a great service, but for some reason is having trouble attracting the number of users of other similar services like Rhapsody and iTunes - which aren't nearly as good, by comparison.

Introduction

Welcome to the Musical Musings of a Music Addict! I'm hoping to add something to this blog at least once a day, and it's going to include whatever I feel like writing - live reviews, album reviews, articles about bands, links to whatever I deem worthy, random thoughts about music that I have... pretty much anything. So let's get to the important stuff: What types of music will I be writing about? Well, I'm a pretty diverse listener... so I think the best way to kick this off would be with a list of 20 of my favorite bands froma variety of genres. That should give everyone a bit of an idea of what to expect. Here goes (while it's numbered, they're in no particular order):

1. Jimi Hendrix Experience
2. Animal Collective
3. Melpo Mene
4. The Unicorns
5. Pavement
6. Dinosaur, Jr.
7. Leftover Crack
8. Operation Ivy
9. John Coltrane
10. Neutral Milk Hotel
11. Stereolab
12. Jesus & Mary Chain
13. Boo Radleys
14. Cocteau Twins
15. MF Doom
16. Immortal Technique
17. Creedence Clearwater Revival
18. Carbon Leaf
19. Arctic Monkeys
20. Frou Frou
21. Four Tet
22. Dirty Elegance
23.My Bloody Valentine
24. Jeffrey Lewis
25. The Decemberists

So yeah, that list covers just a bit of the music I like... I guess my favorites are jazz influenced/underground hip hop, indie rock, indie pop, no wave, post punk, noise rock, and electronica. And that concludes this introduction, I hope you enjoy your time here!