Some Albums Reviewed
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Today has mostly been spent, well, sleeping to be honest. For some reason which may be pharmacologically induced or not, I can’t be sure, I seem to be needing at least 10 hours sleep and can only wake up at 2pm and no realignment strategies can alter it. Hopefully having my mother to stay for a week should help but it’s all been rather odd, even by my standards.
Other than that I’ve mostly been listening to the new Battles album, Mirrored and I have to pronounce it very good indeed, managing to merge the pretentious noodling of math-rock with sheer unabashed pop glee. But if you do sample it do give it some time. it took me a while to really get into the single Atlas and the album is quiet different to that in places. It’s what we used to call a grower (when music was allowed the liberty of growing…). Cheers to Bruton for reminding me was out.
Here’s a video of Atlas being performed live which makes me rather annoyed I’m going to miss their Birmingham gig on Thursday but the whole “Mother visiting from New Zealand” kinda takes priority. Surprised to see it hasn’t sold out yet, should you be in the area.
While I’m at it, some other recently released albums that have come my way worthy of a brief note:
Low’s Drums and Guns is quite beautiful and a slight departure from the more radio friendly The Great Destroyer. A very sparse production with the interesting decision to keep certain instruments just on the right or left channel with no mixing. This means if you take out one earphone you get a couple of completely different albums. This quirk aside the album is wonderful with many standout tracks, Belarus being a personal fave at the moment.
Bill Callahan’s Woke on a Whaleheart is another departure for the artist formally known as Smog and it took me a few listens to get my head around it and hook it into his previous work. The biggest stumbling block was how happy he sounds (though it was later pointed out to me that the lyrics aren’t quite so fluffy) with a definite country twang to the proceedings. Eventually it bedded down and I really really like this now. His recent gig in Birmingham is a contender for best of the year, if that’s any recommendation.
Having heard a significant amount of hype for Modest Mouse I checked out We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank and found it to be an album of two halves. Half of it is seriously pedestrian while the other half is really good fun. This album is a good example of the fine line indie rock treads between mediocrity and genius. If I can be arsed I’ll do a proper deconstruction of it but I somehow doubt I will be.
Bright Eye’s Cassadaga was oddly disappointing in that it’s just another Bright Eyes record and does nothing more than dump another 13 perfectly decent Bright Eyes tracks into my library. Nothing really stood out as being great or terrible, just more of the same.
Any good tips from yourselves?
This is the personal blog and main internet hub-thing for Pete Ashton. What you'll find here is a seemingly random collection of stuff I want to talk about and share. 
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Release the Stars by Rufus Wainwright.
Broken Social Scene by Broken Social Scene.
Year of Meteors by Laura Veirs.
Friends Oppotunity by Deerhoof. A bit like Pavement and a bit like Blonde Redhead. Twisted.
Im getting the Cold War Kids album in the post any day now. The hang me out single is brilliant.
An album of CLINIC b-sides is out in June. The world needs an album of CLINIC b-sides.
As much Nick Cave as I can get my hands on but Im very taken with No More Shall We Part.
Betika have really impressed me recently. A sprawling eight piece from Bournmouth with a good sense of pop tunes. Definately worth checking out if you like Mistys and they’re cracking live too!
Silver by Jesu. It gets in your brain. Russ’ll roll his eyes, but I am rather enjoying NIN’s Year Zero too.
Hyuck. I have mixed feelings about ‘Silver,’ too…
I don’t really want to rub it in, but the Battles/MTO gig on Thursday was beyond fantastic.
You know, I typed Silver but I meant Conqueror. Conqueror’s some distance from perfect, but I can listen to it, particularly Medicine, over and over and over. And over. Which isn’t a recommendation, by the way, it’s just a statement.
I still haven’t got around to acquiring ‘Conqueror.’
This is remiss of me.
Have you heard “Animal Collective”? Ive had the FEELS album for a while and its been on pretty heavy rotation - new one “Strawberry Jam” came out a few weeks back and its a grower (the man in the shop yesterday called it “a mess” but I disagree). He described them as pretty weird but v. accesible (sp?) and I would agree. I think you would like v.much.
Got lead singers/drummer Panda Bears album “Person Pitch” record yesterday and havnt listened to anything else since. Except the new PJ Harvey album which also seems rather fine.