9.3.13
New song, "What Death Leaves Behind", from Los Campesinos! (and the exclamation point is not me giving in and including that as part of their name even though they do, it's because I'm very excited about this):

"What Death Leaves Behind" is from a new album, No Blues, which will be released in October (and which I have already preordered from their web site even though that preorder will cost me more because of the dollars to pounds conversion and the shipping costs than if I just waited until I could preorder it from Amazon).

This track doesn't seem to signal any significant new direction in their sound——it would have been very at home on their last album, Hello Sadness. That was my least favorite of their albums to date, but least favorite is a very relative designation when we're talking about a band I'm this obsessed with.

I'm so obsessed with them that I have no idea how they sound to someone who might be hearing them for the first time, and therefore no idea of what it might take for them to have a major popular breakthrough either in their home country of Britain or here in the US——I'm not capable of evaluating them rationally because it's already beyond my comprehension why they aren't one of the most well-known bands of the past five or so years.

Anyway. Hugely excited about the new record.

9.4.13
In addition to Nine Inch Nails' Hesitation Marks and Okkervil River's The Silver Gymnasium, which both came out yesterday, the Pixies also released a surprise EP titled EP1, the first in what supposedly will be multiple EP releases over the coming months.

The Pixies release is the only one I've had time to listen to so far, and...well, I feel about the same about most of these songs as I did "Bagboy", the new song they released a couple of months ago. "Bagboy" sounded enough like a Pixies b-side from their later period that I could almost get into it, but of these four songs, only three of them come anywhere close to meeting that test (the opening track, "Andro Queen", doesn't sound anything like the Pixies), and they sound more like b-sides from Frank Black's early solo albums than Pixies songs.

"Indie Cindy" seems to be the single among the bunch, and in some ways it's the most Pixies-ish, although "What Goes Boom" has some really nice moments on it. I wish these songs were better, and they've almost convinced me that we're never going to get a solid new Pixies album ever again. But that's probably not going to stop me from listening to this EP on repeat for the next couple of days to make sure, and it's certainly not going to stop me from buying their future releases.

9.5.13
Sleigh Bells are streaming the title track from their upcoming album Bitter Rivals:

I thought that, as Sleigh Bells evolved, they'd turn out more like the revelatory "Rill Rill" from their first album, but their sophomore release, while solid, had fewer tracks like that, not more. And I'm cringing at this video from their imminent third album——the Suicide Girls cheerleading routine, the 80s-inspired leopard-print guitar, and the LSU jersey paired with military dogtags are making me start to believe they've left all traces of subtlety behind and they're now going straight for the mainstream jock rock jugular.

9.6.13
I'd better get my picks for the first half of this month's selection of 100 MP3 albums for $5 from Amazon before they expire and we get a new set. There's actually not a lot in this batch that I can recommend——the only must-haves are Paul Simon's Graceland and Kanye West's Late Registration, and the only other one I'd say is worth picking up is the Hold Steady's Stay Positive. I'm a fan of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, but you're probably only going to want it if you love that movie——in which case you probably already own the soundtrack.

There's not really anything I'm interested in picking up myself, either. Here's hoping for better selections in the second half of the month.

9.9.13
Cults have previewed a new song from their upcoming sophomore release, Static:

I like this more than the first song they shared, "I Can Hardly Make You Mine", but neither of them bowl me over, and given how much I liked their debut, I was hoping for better. Their debut was such a great record that there's almost no way that I won't buy this one, but I wish I was more excited about it after hearing two of the tracks that they presumably think represent the best the album has to offer.

9.10.13
Still absorbing Nine Inch Nails' Hesitation Marks, but my rapid reaction is that this album would have made a really excellent EP.

9.11.13
tall buildings shake...

9.12.13
Cut Copy has shared the title track from their upcoming album Free Your Mind:

One of the things I liked about my early exposure to Cut Copy on In Ghost Colours was how they were able to appropriate some of the best features of early to mid period New Order without feeling like they were just ripping off New Order. That style was less evident on the follow up, Zonoscope, and it's all but vanished from the two recent tracks they've shared ("Free Your Mind" and "Let Me Show You Love")

This sounds like it's influenced more by the 80s acts who influenced Hot Chip (influences I'm less familiar with), and while this doesn't mean it's bad, it means that I'm not able to like it for the same reasons that I liked the material on In Ghost Colours. Hell, even with Hot Chip, guitars play a sizable role on their albums, even though they are definitely a synth-oriented dance group, and guitars seem to be entirely absent from these recent tracks from Cut Copy.

Again, I'm still planning to purchase Cut Copy's upcoming release based on the two tracks they've revealed so far, but I sure wish there was a little more sonic texture in the way of guitar sounds.

9.13.13
of Montreal have released a third track from their upcoming album Lousy With Sylvanbriar, "Belle Glade Missionaries":

Unfortunately the more I hear from this album, the less excited I am about it, because I feel like I've already heard everything that's going to be on here: slightly more polished versions of the 60s influenced guitar pop songs that Kevin Barnes reliably pumped out until Satanic Panic in the Attic, which was the beginning of his explorations of electronica and dance music (although that sound wouldn't become dominant until the next record, The Sunlandic Twins).

The production is more artful, but the songs themselves are not exploratory, complex, or really new in any way, and it was the experimental stuff that really attracted me to this band in the first place. There's nothing wrong with the material, really, but it feels like a little bit of a retreat.

9.16.13
Amazon's mid-month refresh of their 100 MP3 albums for $5 is live, and here are the very few from among this crop that I would recommend:

Must-haves: Nirvana's Nevermind, Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, and Arcade Fire's Funeral.

Worth the $5: The National's latest, Trouble Will Find Me.

And that's it. There's not even anything that I don't own that I'm even remotely interested in buying.

9.17.13
I don't even remember where I saw it at this point, but somehow the debut album from The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, Whenever, If Ever, came across my radar, and I decided to take a chance on it.

And I'm very happy I did. It sounds like a cross between early Modest Mouse and Chicago's Chin Up Chin Up, and the combination works really well. If you don't know either of those references, here's an attempt at a summary: vocals that alternate between an emo-ish whine and a visceral scream; songs that typically change tempo and/or time signatures at least once, merging two or more distinct song parts, often abruptly (those are the two Modest Mouse markers, although the vocal stylings are also reminescent of early Bright Eyes); and the slow, laconic unfolding of many of the songs (Chin Up Chin Up), even the ones that eventually build to a faster tempo. There's also something about the guitar sounds and techniques that lacking the musical acumen to describe properly, but trust me, if you like the guitar work on early Modest Mouse, espeically This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About, you will like the guitars on this record.

(Also, if you do end up liking this band and you've never heard of Chin Up Chin Up, it would be worth your while to go back and find their two releases from the mid-2000s.)

I can't point to a single track that you should listen to——it's really a whole-album kind of deal——but it's worth immersing yourself in it for a complete listen or two to see if it hits any sweet spots for you.

9.18.13
Belle and Sebastian recently released a compilation of b-sides and other semi-released material called The Third Eye Centre and...well, to be blunt, it's a major disappointment. The last time they did this was with the 25 track Push Barman to Open Old Wounds, which collected their non-album material from 1997-2001, and it was, quite frankly one of their best releases. There are a few songs on Barman that sound like b-sides, but there's tons of songs that are undisputed A-level tracks.

The Third Eye Centre draws from the last few years, and although it doesn't feature a roundup of EPs like Barman, they still manage to include 18 tracks worth of music on it. But without a doubt, all of these songs are leftovers, and many would have been best left sealed in their Tupperware containers. The two best songs——a reworking of "I'm A Cuckoo" by the Avalanches and a remix of "Your Cover's Blown" by Miaoux Miaoux——are reinterpretations of songs that were already pretty good without an outside producer's help, and there are really no previously unreleased songs that are even worth mentioning.

I should have known better than to buy this, but my stupidity can be your wisdom. Buy the two remixes I mentioned as single tracks if you're a B&S fan, but stay away from the full collection. I have to believe that even most of the band members were ashamed about foisting this on their devoted fanbase.

9.19.13
Sleigh Bells have shared another song from their upcoming Bitter Rivals, this one titled "You Don't Get Me Twice":

I like this one better than the first single and title track, "Bitter Rivals", but I don't like it as much as the stuff on their first two records. Really on the fence about buying this record——I loved the first album, and I thought the second was pretty good if a bit of a rehash, but here I'd like to hear something resembling growth. But instead it's like the same kinds of songs with worse lyrics and cleaner production when the fuzz was half the fun on the early stuff.

9.20.13
Islands have put their new record, Ski Mask (which has already won the award for creepiest/worse album cover of the year), up on Pitchfork Advance to preview in full.

I've listened to it once and still haven't convinced myself to buy it, which means that I probably shouldn't buy it even though it sounds better than their past few records have. As much as I'd love it if this were not the case, I've almost come to the conclusion that Islands, like the Unicorns that preceded them, should have been a one-album project. Return to the Sea wasn't as good as Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, but if that was the only record Islands had made, it could have still made them close to legendary.

9.23.13
So: Arcade Fire's "Reflektor", the title track from their upcoming album:

I guess it's not terribly surprising to hear a more dance-oriented track given that the album was produced by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, but as much as this sounds like a potential dream collaboration on paper, I'm not sure it's going to work out in real life given what I'm hearing on this track. You can hear Murphy's influence, but swapping out his wit and playfulness for Win Butler's earnestness and self-importance makes what is supposed to be a dance track sound like the accompaniment to a forced speed march to the gates of hell.

That doesn't mean everyone else isn't going to love it, though——I did not care for The Suburbs at all, but many critics and fans thought that record surpassed Funeral (their debut and a legitimate masterpiece). I'm still intrigued by this matchup——I love James Murphy, and I still have enough leftover affection for Arcade Fire from Funeral that I'm probably going to spend the next ten years waiting for a record from them that I can connect to the same way I did that one even if I end up actually hating everything they do——but at this point I'm going to need to hear a second track that sounds at least a little bit more promising before I commit to buying the album.

9.24.13
I bought the new MGMT disk, MGMT, even though I didn't really care for their sophomore disc, Congratulations, and most of the early reviews of MGMT seemed to agree that the record was even less pop-oriented than Congratulations and wandered farther down the path of psychedelic exploration than its predecessor, which were the two biggest reasons I didn't like Congratulations.

But I actually kind of like MGMT. The reviews aren't necessarily wrong——it is definitely less pop-oriented than their debut, Oracular Spectacular, and the band does indulge their pyschedelic side more than they have before——but on this record, it seems almost sweet, whereas on Congratulations it felt defiant and oppositional, almost like the wanted to drive away the audience they'd built with Oracular Spectacular. It's hard to identify a true single, and it definitely does not have anything approaching the single for which they are best known, "Time to Pretend", but it's nonetheless very listenable as a whole album.

9.25.13
Like it's predecessor The ArchAndroid, Janelle Monae's The Electric Lady would be a better record if it had been subject to a little bit more editing. This is definitely a record worth owning, but once you've digitized it and listened to it all the way through a couple of times, you'll probably enjoyed additional listens if you make the following changes:

1. First, get rid of the interludes and overtures (tracks 5, 8, 11, and 14). Track 1 is an overture, but it's one that actually works pretty well as an intro the album's weirdness. For example: the piece references a signature element of the score from The Black Hole, a cult classic sci-fi live action movie from Disney that was released in 1979 (oddly, there is at least one other song in my music library that uses this same bit of music: the Beta Band's "It's Not Too Beautiful").
   
   This will instantly cut the 19 track album down to 15 tracks of actual music, and while that's a good start, it's not enough.
   
   
2. Next it's time to prune a bit off the second half of the record. "Ghetto Woman" (track 13) and "Sally Ride" (track 17) are the weakest of the bunch, and getting rid of them makes the second half of the record feel a lot more energetic (although it's still not as strong as the first half).
   
   I originally thought that Monae's duet with Miquel, "Prime" (track 5), would be disposable too, but it actually fits very well as a nice palate cleanser in the middle of the first half of the record.

And that's it: a tighter 13 track record with very little that sounds like filler. The second half of this revamped record still has a lot of momentum loss compared to the first half (I'm choosing track 9, "Dance Apocalyptic", as the last song on the first half), so if you wanted to get even more lean, you could make an argument for also cutting "Look Into My Eyes" and "It's Code".

This would have the effect of making the second half almost exclusively midtempo numbers, but in Monae's world, you don't come to the party for the midtempo numbers, and the lack of any real barnburners on the second half is unfixable without a complete resequencing. But the sequencing on the first half works so well that I'd be loathe to mess with it, so this ultra compact 11 track record might be the best we can do. "What An Experience" is a nice way to close things out, but the album would stronger if it was preceded by something a little more uptempo.

9.26.13
I've decided to relisten to all of That Petrol Emotions' records to see how they've aged. Not terribly well, I would guess, but I also bet I'm going to find some real keepers in terms of individual songs.

9.27.13
I preordered of Montreal's new record, Lousy With Sylvanbriar, a few months ago, and it arrived in the mail yesterday even though it's not officially out until October 8. Time was when I would be freakout-level excited about getting a new of Montreal record two weeks ahead of the release date, but I've spent some time with the three tracks they prereleased from this one, and I honestly wasn't expecting much.

And that's pretty much what I got. It's exactly the record you would guess it would be from the tracks they previewed this summer, and at this point in Kevin Barnes' career, it's a bit of a disappointment from a creativity and innovation standpoint. It's a weird little 60s throwback record that I expected to echo their very early albums, but it's even less pop-oriented than those records, and there's a general sameness to the songwriting and production that makes it hard to single out any given track as better or worse than the others.

It took me awhile to wrap my head around their last album of new material, Paralytic Stalks, but once I cut out the excessively long, meandering tracks, it became a very engaging, listenable piece of music for me. I don't hold the same hope for Lousy With Sylvanbriar, and mentally, I'm already looking ahead to their next project and hoping it will be something a little more of Montreal-y than this.

9.30.13
I bought Joanna Gruesome's new record, Weird Sister, because 1) the stuff I heard from it reminded me of the first Cloud Nothings record and 2) they are the opening act for Los Campesinos upcoming British tour. It's not a bad record, but I'm not getting obsessed with it like I had hoped I would. The best way to describe it is an odd melding of Wavves and all those Brooklyn-based bands that are trying desperately hard to sound like British indie guitar bands from the 80s (The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is the one that leaps immediately to mind).