Ever since the Jake Mann fiasco that I got myself into, I try to be pretty quick to write about bands that I’ve actually been in contact with. This does not usually end up happening, however! Indeed, I told the singer for Plajia, a Canadian indie band, that I’d have something written within a week… and that was 12 days ago! Clearly, my laziness is just as prolific as ever. Anyway, if you have enjoyed pretty much any Canadian indie, you will almost certainly enjoy their song Beautiful Explosion. It’s catchy, but not annoyingly so. Dummy is very 90s, and by that I mean it reminds me of the alternative music I grew up listening to on the radio… which means it is also a good song! For you old-timers who buy CDs, it is probably cheaper to buy it on the Canadian version of Amazon, unless they decide to charge you $25 to ship a CD.

Downloads

From Beautiful Explosion
Beautiful Explosion – (MP3, 4.7 MB)
Dummy – (MP3, 4.4 MB)

I read about Reed KD on 3hive a week ago, and since then he has caused a bit of a blogging buzz. Once again, it seems that I am too late in writing about a band! Maybe I’ll have better luck next time. Anyway, the song Empty Bottles bears more than a passing resemblance to Elliott Smith‘s music, what with it being a slow, acoustic number about how times are hard. Then there are songs like Even If I which is more upbeat, although I can’t think of any legitimate musical comparisons for it! I guess I could be like every other blogger in the world and say “oh, it has a harmonica, he must be really into Bob Dylan!” Oh well, they’re both enjoyable tunes in their own way, and all the useless crap I write won’t change that.

Downloads

From The Ashes Bloom
Empty Bottles – (MP3, 2.9 MB)
Even If I – (MP3, 3.5 MB)

Perhaps I shouldn’t be quite so much of a slacker when it comes to posting music, and reading about it. Then I’d have heard of Yeasayer a few months ago, as opposed to a few weeks ago after seeing them on Conan. At least I’ve heard of them at all, I suppose. Either way, what struck me while watching them was how much singer Chris Keating was wrapped around the microphone stand; it seemed like he was trying to channel Thom Yorke‘s almost-patented weirdness, and it was fairly bizarre overall. Luckily for him, Yeasayer’s music is also fairly bizarre, and so it melded nicely. And luckily for us, their music isn’t bizarre enough to turn listeners off, it’s just bizarre enough to both keep it interesting and avoid passing it off as easy listening. It all makes for an enjoyable musical experience, if not adventure.

Downloads

From All Hour Cymbals
2080 – (MP3, 7.4 MB)
Sunrise – (MP3, 5.7 MB)

You know how they say a friend of a friend is a friend? It’s the same thing with music, much of the time. After listening to a few bands that received Jim Clements’ stamp of approval, I found one that I really enjoy. Red Orkestra is one of the finest indie rock bands I’ve heard in some damned time. I don’t attribute this fact to the notion that I don’t listen to enough music, but rather to the notion that Red Orkestra is indeed an excellent band. These selections cover a fair bit of musical range, from the catchy, uptempo Radio Towers to After The Wars, which reminds me very much of Collective Soul. In other words, they cover enough range to not bore you quickly, but not so much that you wonder just what in the heck is going on. It makes for a very pleasing musical experience, and one I’m glad I was able to partake in.

Downloads

From Life With The Machines
Radio Towers – (MP3, 5.2 MB)
One By One – (MP3, 3.1 MB)

From After The Wars
Awake – (MP3, 4.1 MB)
After The Wars – (MP3, 5 MB)

I might just be the worst blogger in the history of existence. OK, perhaps not. But considering I told Jake Mann that I’d write about his album Daytime Ghost last August, clearly something went wrong. I like to call it “getting a girlfriend,” but even so, six months is a ridiculous wait for anything. This review is incredibly overdue, but better late than never. R-right?

Anyhow, the album starts off with some pretty fuzzy guitar playing, which is always a good thing. Indeed, the guitar playing is one of Mann’s greater strengths – the fuzziness is just a bonus. The riff that kicks off Mudflat is damned good, so much so that it allows me to ignore my dislike of spoken-word material, which is quite a feat. His lyrical ability is not slacking, either; Edie in Hades starts off with a quite sinister lyric, “Somewhere in the depths of hell / They made a place for you,” and though he sings it like he’s said it before, it doesn’t make it any less awesome. But like I said, the guitar playing is really what shines throughout the album, especially in Mudflat, Beat The Drum, and Wallfollower. The standout track for me is still the one I’d heard before, Take You For A Ride, which was on his single that I wrote about before. It combines good lyrics with good music and good singing, which I guess is what makes a song good! So again, if you are into guitar music, then Jake Mann is the mann (pun sadly intended) for you.

Downloads

From Daytime Ghost
Mudflat – (MP3, 3.8 MB)

I am not one of those guys who posts the “band of the week” like every other blog, but since I’m writing about Vampire Weekend, a band that has caused quite a hipster fervor, I guess sometimes I do. They might seem like standard indie fare, but that’s not entirely right, as standard indie fare seems to characteristically bore me to proverbial tears. Vampire Weekend does indeed bore me to tears half the time, but that doesn’t mean that all of theirs songs aren’t enjoyable. Indeed, I’d challenge any music connoisseur to find a song that incorporates a violin into a modern indie sound as well as M79 does. Of course, any song with a violin that shares a title with a grenade launcher is a winner in my book.

Downloads

From Vampire Weekend
Oxford Comma – (MP3, 4.5 MB)
M79 – (MP3, 6.7 MB)

Another Valentine’s Day means another Valentine’s Day post, which means I have to find a song that at least references love. Imagine my joy, then, when looking through all the emails that accumulated after four months of no Internet, I find a song called Love Makes Creeps Of Us All. Surely, the stars have all aligned in an ideal fashion. Especially since while most bands would just call it quits right there, Jim Clements & The Right To Die have plenty more good songs. Incredibly descriptive so far, isn’t it?

Jim referred to his music as alt-country, which seems to be pretty accurate, though it’s definitely the slower variety of alt-country. That is, you shouldn’t expect any barnburners here (which is good, since arson is a felony). His voice sounds like a folky James Blunt, without the whiny overtones. It’s very well suited to the songs, too.

If you love violins as much as I do, then you’ll enjoy These Ladybird Spots too. And remember how I said there aren’t any barnburners? St. Louise might just be the exception to that. It’s an amazing song with gypsy influences, to boot. The Bottom Feeders is another keeper as well, what with being a “swampy New Orleans death march.” That’s a great description for an even greater song. I’ve got two songs from their debut album posted too, neither are barnburners but both are great love songs.

I wish I wouldn’t get called a jerk for posting a bunch of band’s songs, because this is one that definitely deserves it. With most bands, it’s a challenge to find enough good songs to bother writing a post about them. Jim Clement’s, on the other hand, is one of the very few where all his bandwidth would be gone if I didn’t stop myself. Yeah, they’re good.

Downloads

From When The Saints Go
St. Louise – (MP3, 3.9 MB)
These Ladybird Spots – (MP3, 3.9 MB)
The Bottom Feeders – (MP3, 2.6 MB)
Love Makes Creeps Of Us All – (MP3, 4.2 MB)

From Kill Devil Hills
I’ve Always Been Faithful – (MP3, 3 MB)
Coming Up Roses – (MP3, 3.6 MB)

And now to make up for my lack of quality, here’s some quantity. Once upon a time, I was looking through a retail store’s sparse music section and found only two albums that I was legitimately interested in purchasing. Yes, I am a music blogger/pseudo-critic. Yes, one of these albums was Radiohead. Half my reason for buying it was just that I hadn’t heard of it at all, having been deprived of the Internet for so long. But when I realized it was 10 tracks and probably not just some single, I couldn’t not buy it. And so begins the review…

In the words of Miles Kurosky (of Beulah), “Radiohead’s the only band in the world that can change and not get shit for it.” While that’s probably not an exact quote, it sums up a common truth: Radiohead’s music changes all the time. Much of time, it could be classified as “difficult,” something that doesn’t immediately sticks to your head, but has to worm its way inside. This is unfortunate for me, because I’m a fairly impatient music listener: I’ve downloaded an album, listened to the first 5 seconds of the first song, and deleted the album. So now it is time for a truth, about me (what an ego!) Radiohead’s the only band in the world that, when I buy their album, I expect to not like it that much until the fourth or fifth listen. I’ve only listened to their new album, In Rainbows, once, so here is my quite generic summary of my opinion of it.

Many of the tracks on it bored me; though like I said, I haven’t really given it a fair shake. There were some songs that picked up the pace slightly, which doesn’t mean they are uptempo in any sense of the term. Faust ARP, House of Cards, Jigsaw Falling Into Place, and Videotape are all entirely worth a fan’s time. The rest, however, did not really work for me. Whether that’s due to my lack of devotion to either the song and/or the band, or simply just because the songs are little to be excited about, I’m not yet sure. That said, I’m sure I’ll be listening to it at least three more times before making a final judgment.

But on the plus side, the packaging is pretty sweet. And it comes with stickers! Awww yeah.

Oh ho ho, the prodigal father returns. It has indeed been a long time since I have traversed the great halls of this website, and so my writing prowess will be sub-par at best. But to reverse a life lesson from Conan O’Brien, if you can’t have quantity, you should have quality. So it only seems fitting that I’ll welcome myself back with an album review of Elliott Smith‘s second post-humous album, New Moon.

There is a double-appeal to this two-disc set, each of which serves a different type of fan. For the fans who enjoyed his music over the years but didn’t devote their lives to it, there are 24 songs to be had here, and excluding some alternate versions of both his solo work and some songs from Heatmiser, 20 of those will likely seem brand-new.

Then, for the truly obsessed fans like me… there are 24 songs! And while I’d heard all but three of them, a lot of the tracks on the actual album are cleaned up, including some of my favorites like Angel In The Snow and Going Nowhere. The best song on the entire thing is the alternate version of Pretty Mark K; the original was my least favorite song on Figure 8 and one of my least favorites of his songs overall, but this alternate version is amazing!

So, yes. This review is all about telling fans what they already know while telling nothing to the people who’ve never heard his music. But if you’re not a fan already, you should be, so check out some of his songs while you’re at it.