Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (CD purchased 5/29/09)

Something about this album just doesn't work quite right, most of the time. At it's best, with the exception of excellent closer "Foreground", on tracks like "Two Weeks", "All We Ask", and "While You Wait for the Others" there's sort of classic pop "bounciness", a buoyancy that keeps things from being weighed down too much by the laborious arrangements. And you can tell, they worked hard on this album. It's probably one of the few albums that I can definitively call "overworked". It carries this vibe that every idea was second-guessed and reworked and reassembled almost endlessly. The compositions are often knotty and even the more spacious songs feel densely layered. I get tense and claustrophobic about half of the time I listen to this thing.

It's odd because I thought Yellow House worked incredibly well. Even though it was dark and probably equally knotty, it seemed to breathe and unfold naturally. I still admire this album and even enjoy a reasonable amount of it, but it never quite connects at that same gut level that their last one did. It got me in the head and the heart, so to speak, while this is more of a cerebral affair. I still want to like it, but I can't help but remain detached. Here's hoping that they can loosen up a little on their next one.

Rating: 7.5/10

Some good live clips:

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - s/t (emusic download 4/3/09)

This is good, I suppose. I just feel like this sort of thing isn't particularly special anymore. There has been an increasing number of bands mining similar territory over the past several years, and it's hard to say if TPOBPAH are any better or worse than most of them. (Their band name is definitely one of the worst, though.) The songs are plenty catchy and inviting, and some of them have stuck with me, maybe more than I would like them to. "This Love Is Fucking Right!" is probably the song I tend to remember most from this album, which is unfortunate since I don't really like it. It's probably my least favorite track on the whole thing, actually.

The rest is perfectly fine, if unremarkable. Maybe it shouldn't be taken for granted that a band can make such pretty music with such pleasing, sunny melodies, but there's just too much other music out there that I find far more interesting and rewarding. If I'd felt a little nicer, maybe this is what I could have written about that Girls album, but then I'd still rather listen to this band over them any day. In all, I could take or leave this album, but I suppose that I do enjoy most of it.

Rating: 6/10

I kind of feel the same way about that "Pains..." record.

I really enjoy it and think it masterfully captures a certain sound and has melodies galore............but, I can't ever shake that feeling that I've also heard this all before.

I mean if I weren't familiar with Belle and Sebastian, The Smiths, or My Bloody Valentine, I'd probably put this in my top 10 for the year but as it is, it feels like a admirable tribute.

Also, I can't shake the feeling that sometime in the near future we're going to see some new indie-dramedy flick where the ugly duckling girl is shopping for her prom dress as "don't check me out, don't check me out, don't check me out, ah ah ouuuut" is playing over the montage.

No Age - Losing Feeling EP (lala download 10/9/09)

It turns out that No Age cleans up pretty well. This EP ends up feeling shoegaze-y as opposed to lo-fi, but still remains uniquely No Age. This EP really shows off their versatility, with all four tracks showing off four very different sides of the band. The opening title track is sort of a mini-epic that represents the biggest departure from their previous work. "Genie" shows them effectively pulling off a ballad while "Aim at the Airport" - admittedly sort of a filler track - is their brand of an ambient sort of segue. Closer "You're a Target" is probably the highlight, a brisk rocker that either sounds like classic Smashing Pumpkins without Billy Corgan's annoying vocals or like My Bloody Valentine with twice as much energy. Good stuff.

Rating: 8/10

Yeah, the whole thing is clothing store and "indie chick flick" fodder, but then several things I've liked over the past few years have been, too.

Passion Pit - Manners (emusic download 5/29/09)

This is some seriously obnoxious music, and yet somehow I don't really hate it. It's honestly pretty OK. But that doesn't really mean I like it, either. It's really weird. The vocals are Auto-Tune-high, but they don't have that robotic Auto-Tune sound. There's definitely some vocal processing going on, but I don't know if that's what it is. Anyway, musically this is all sort of a big dance party vaguely tinged with some '80s nostalgia, like so many things are these days. It also sounds very contemporay, though, very of-the-minute indie-mainstream. "Little Secrets" reminds me somewhat of Max Tundra, and overall this kind of seems like the successor to The Go! Team but without the dense, sample-heavy production. It's just very straightforward pop, but it's way too bright and sugary for me. Musically, I suppose I like it well enough, but it's that vocals that make it a little hard to take.

Rating: 5.5/10

The Flaming Lips - Embryonic (CD purchased 10/15/09)

Much like that Circulatory System album, this is one I probably don't have a really good handle on yet. A 70 minute album can take a while to digest, I guess, especially one that isn't really big on melodies. Initially, I was pretty disappointed in this. I was cautious about a new Flaming Lips album due to the general dip in quality that their music has suffered over the past decade, but a lot of things leading up to this album set my hopes pretty high. The cover art, the first few tracks that were released, and all the positive reviews by fans and critics began to restore my faith. It looked like they'd actually managed to turn back in the right direction and not just by repeating what they had already done. I mean, The Flaming Lips making a heavy psyche album? A double album, at that? When I first bought this and popped it in my car, opening track "Convinced of the Hex" got me really excited about what was to come next. Unfortunately, over my first several listens to this album, I found most of the rest of it to range from boring to somewhat annoying.

That's changed for the most part, though. There are still some rough spots, mainly the overly cute and silly "I Can Be a Frog" and closing track "Watching the Planets". A lot of people seem to really like that one, but I just haven't warmed up to it. Elsewhere, a lot of the "lesser" songs, the ones that never caught my attention at first, have really begun to reveal themselves as worthy, not just filler or segues. "If", "Your Bats", "Gemini Syringes", and "Sagittarius Silver Announcement" are all pretty cool taken on their own. Closer of the first half, "Powerless", seemed like an utter disaster to me at first (especially that guitar solo), but it's since grown to be one of my favorite tracks here. The instrumental tracks here are also among the best The Lips have ever laid to tape, especially "Aquarius Sabotage".

The album is overly long, though, and there's no getting around that. It also doesn't help that it's somewhat front-loaded and that the closing track is relatively weak. Still, it's a pretty damn cool record and a totally unexpected return to form by one of favorite bands. It's hard to complain too much about that.

Rating: 7.5/10

Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (CD purchased 5/29/09)

I've never really been that much into heavy drone stuff although I do enjoy Boris' Absolutego, what early Earth stuff I've heard, and some of the previous Sunn O))) stuff that I've listened to. Black One was pretty cool, and I had always meant to spend more time with it. Anyway, as far as I know - and I could easily believe this - this is their best work to date. It certainly seems more varied and interesting, and the closing track "Alice" is a wonderful surprise from them. The magic of this album is the way that everything unfolds and evolves so slowly that you don't even notice it, but you end up in a far, far different place from where you started.

I don't love all of it. Like much of this kind of music, it can try my patience, and some parts are almost ridiculous in their gloomy seriousness. The thickly accented, spoken vocals on the latter half of the first track comically remind me of Rammstein, and "Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia)" maintains Sunn O)))'s ties with regular metal genres by including some of those death metal "Cookie Monster" vocals. Not all of the vocals are bad, though, as I think the creepy monk chants on "Big Church" work perfectly, even if they are a little obvious. Ultimately their seriousness and total commitment to their aesthetic is probably their greatest virtue, though, as it allows them to delve so deep into it that they can really push it into new territory, such as on "Alice", without it it sounding forced or unnatural. They don't sound like they're experimenting; they're growing and evolving.

Rating: 7/10

I'm having a hard time absorbing Embryonic and I always like at least parts of most every FL record.

I totally slept/forgot that Circulatory System put out a record this year and have not heard a note. Who can rectify that situation?

If I had it with me, I would. Maybe tonight or tomorrow if I can remember.

Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms (emusic download 10/16/09)

I seem to have trouble accepting the fact that I like this as much as I do. When I haven't listened to it in a while, I tend to gradually move it down my year-end list in favor of other things, but every time I actually listen to this, I'm reminded of just how good it is. Maybe it's that I typically don't go for this sort of thing in a big way - retro-tinged electronic pop - but something just works really, really well. I feel like there's a good sense of humor at play here, some actual wit, that gives a sort of winking campy charm that isn't so much ironic as it is just pure fun. And pretty much every track here is a blast.

Some people really hate this, and I guess I can see why. It's all in how you take it, I think, where you perceive it to be coming from. To me it's just some dude making hazy, homemade psychedelic pop that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's not your purely utilitarian dance music to keep people moving in clubs (and why would anyone want to listen to that stuff on their own time anyway?), but it's stuff you could put on at a party and keep the mood up. This may be the best party record of the year, actually, insofar as you could consider it as such. I don't see why not.

Rating: 8/10

Are you going to do Dark Days/Light Years?

Yep, pretty soon.

Probably by Monday or so.

pretty admirable you're still doing this drink.

as for Neon Indian, it's not bad I suppose, but my least favorite of all the chillwave/glo-fi/indie electronic shit that came out this year with some hype

I like Memory Tapes and Washed Out (the only other two I know of), but I like Neon Indian so much more.

Or 0.5/10 more.

I've seen several people say what you've just said, though.

Dan Deacon - Bromst (CD purchased 4/7/09)

Dan Deacon is nuts, and I mean that in the best way possible. It's not surprising at all to me that he's a pretty big Lightning Bolt fan as a lot of this feels like, to an extent, the electronic equivalent of Lightning Bolt. It's not heavy necessarily, but it's certainly a similar kind of giddy aural assault. Frantic, manic repetition with chipmunk vocals - certainly not too far removed. But I think Dan Deacon is able break through all sorts of limiting barriers that have become inherent in Lightning Bolt's little one-band niche. He's not really a one-trick pony, and I think he's actually managed to develop his own very unique brand of pop that's capable of evoking a pretty broad range of emotions, even with it's seemingly obnoxious, hyperactive, overly-saturated sonic palette.

He does brilliant things with repetition and with building up and altering the various layers in his tracks. Contrasted with something like Fuck Buttons who work in simplistic and obvious ways with layering repetitive elements (and dull chord progressions), Dan Deacon likes to do the unexpected. He doesn't just pile layer upon unchanging layer to make his songs gradually more grandiose or cathartic, but rather he subtly alters each element, twists them around, reassembles them and/or stretches them to their breaking points to create something new, to give a song an actual meaningful twist, not just take it to its expected outcome. The highlight for me comes near the end of the album with "Slow with Horns/Run for Your Life" where a piano sample becomes increasingly fractured and prismatic near the end, creating a sort of manic euphoria. And in general Deacon's compositions are closer to, say, anthemic indie rock than they are to most electronic music. (It might be tempting to sing along at various points if you could actually understand him through all the layers of vocal effects.) This is one of those rare times when I feel like I'm hearing someone do something truly new, and more importantly, I really, really like it.

Rating: 8.5/10

Are you going to review that new Lightning Bolt album?

Derris got it for me, thanks.

Its kicking my ass.

Yeah, in the news few days or so.

Wow. Eleven minutes of a barre chord. Someone get Harry in here to explain the intellectual complexity of these assholes and how it corresponds to a nebulous zeitgeist within our current pop climate.

I'm shocked that you're not a Sunn O))) fan.

Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years (emusic download 10/19/09)

I gave up on SFA after Phantom Power, and now it's hard to remember exactly why. Maybe it was the ham-fisted "Hollywood liberal" politically charged lyrics that plagued so much of it. I hated Bush as much as the next reasonable person, but something about SFA's overtly political songs has always seemed kind of artless and lacking insight to me. Where they succeed best is when they're more whimsical, when their songs are buoyed along by sunny melodies and driving rhythms with lyrics to match. Fortunately their most recent album has plenty of that, and it reminds of just what it was I liked so much about this band on albums like Radiator and Guerilla.

This may not be as great as those two albums, and I can't really compare it to their last two since I never listened to them. However, I can say with certainty that this is a very good album in its own right, and it contains some prime SFA tunes. "Inaugural Trams", despite its clunky lyrics (How does anyone decide that it's a good idea to put a line like "We have reduced emissions by 75 percent" in the chorus of a song?) is flat out irresistible pop. "Cardiff in the Sun" ranks among their finest moments, easily stretching its warm bliss over still-not-long-enough 8 minutes. "The Very Best of Neil Diamond" is just, well, ridiculous and awesome. There are some minor misses here, too ("Inconvenience" is mildly irritating), but on the whole, I think this beats Embryonic as the Best Sprawling Psychedelic Return to Form By an Established Cult Favorite Band for 2009.

Rating: 8/10

Spot on. Inconvenience is the only track that doesn't sit right with me as well. It's just kind of pointless and uninventive when all's said and done. I feel they could've done a lot more with it.

Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights (emusic download 10/19/09)

Earthly Delights is the sound of Lightning Bolt slowing down a little, but not significantly, and could possibly be accused of being a "going through the motions" kind of deal. Each new LB album is starting to become a little less necessary as their sound becomes more and more familiar and its confines become more apparent. Lightning Bolt is a band to be experienced live, and I feel like we may be reaching a point where each new record is primarily an excuse for them to go out on tour again. Well, that's fine by me since any time Lightning Bolt is out touring, that's at least one thing that's going right in the world. And, come on, their albums are still a lot of fun. Much like the three albums preceding it, Earthly Delights delivers on the wacky heaviness from start to finish in a way that only Lightning Bolt can.

Highlights for me are the tracks where they branch out the most - but still aren't exactly surprising - like the lumbering "Colossus" and the ridiculous, manic hoedown of "Funny Farm". The latter is among my favorite songs of theirs, actually. The rest is solid, but pretty much what you'd expect. Things start to get just a little tedious during the 12 minute closing track, especially if you're not particularly in the mood for it, but I wouldn't say the album ends on a sour note or anything. I enjoy this quite a bit, but by the time it's over, I can't exactly say that I'm left wanting more.

Rating: 7.5/10

Mastodon - Crack the Skye (CD purchased 4/7/09)

Mastodon was my favorite Atlanta band for a little while there. I still regret that I never went to see them any time during 2003-2006. It's certainly too late now, and not just because they're a lot more popular, playing much larger venues, and opening for bigger metal acts that I have no interest in seeing. They've just totally lost their way. They used to kick ass. Around the time of Remission, they came across like a stoner metal band with actual chops, thick and sludgy but not slow and stupid. Then with Leviathan they started to really shed the stoner aspects and had sharpened and refined their music into something uniquely powerful and effective. Blood Mountain had things taking a turn more towards prog but not so much so that they lost the heaviness and the raw edge that made their previous two records so strong. Now with this one, it's clear that they've been hanging out with Tool and The Mars Volta too much, and it's all but ruined them.

This album sounds like an update to Cynic's Focus, and if you're not familiar with that, trust me, it's not a good thing. Watery, wanky, meandering, flashy but ultimately unimpressive and uninteresting. Technically, this is probably their greatest achievement, but I would use this album as a prime example that great musicianship does not equal great music. I hope they can get back on track, but I won't hold my breath. The writing was on the wall with Blood Mountain, and now here we are. Oh well.

Rating: 5.5/10