(no subject)
Per prometheisbound, seven songs I'm really digging at the moment.
1. Juno, "Leave a Clean Camp and a Dead Fire."
This song amazes me pretty much every time I listen to it, and I've been listening to it pretty frequently over the past five years. It's the swell, if anything. Starting out from that single sparse guitar, building up to the 5 minute mark, when the dam bursts, the unabashed hardcore'edness of the whole thing after the dam bursts, the five lines of vocals... it's almost damn near perfect. Then again, I can say that about a huge number of the songs on Juno's first album, which is why it's probably my favorite of all time.
2. Figurines, "The Wonder."
The Isaac Brock ripoff vocals are a little over the top, the twitchy Modest Mouse guitar ripoff is a bit much, but the whole damn thing is a freakin' catchy song delivered at a breakneck pace. It's so insanely good that it's made it to being my most played song on last.fm. For a person who's not apt to leave a single song on repeat for extended periods of time, that's saying something.
3. Mew, "Apocalypso"
Seriously, these guys remind me of Saga. If you don't know who Saga are, it's because you're not Canadian and you weren't listening to prog rock back in the eighties. Neither was I, but I had one Saga album back in the day. And their songs were epic, bombastic, and bloated and things like that. Mew get a lot of comparisons to bands like My Bloody Valentine (don't hear it at all) and Radiohead (hear it very slightly), but the better point of comparison is Rush without the drum solos, Saga without the organ solos, Queensryche without the hair metal, etc. It's epic, bombastic, and stripped of everything bloated. Fucking fantastic. "Apocalypso" is their hardest rocking moment, which is probably why I like it best, but DAMN these guys are awesome.
4. Deerhunter, "Octet"
Honestly, I have a hard time believing that I like either ambient or noise pop. But, after listening to Tim Hecker's "Harmony In Ultraviolet" enough and Serena Maneesh's self titled enough, I think I've come around on both genres and decided that I enjoy the darker depths of both. Deerhunter's "Octet" is awesome, because it really combines the best of both genres. It starts out with a bubbling, gurgling sound (probably a guitar run through incomprehensible numbers of effects), which eventually leads into a bass and drum groove that don't give way for the entirety of the song. And that bass and drum groove are the only thing that tethers this song into reality; the guitars scream and wail along with Bradford Cox's voice, and everything swirls around the rhythm. It's too damn easy to forget this song is 8 minutes long.
5. Travis Morrison, "Sixteen Types of People."
I forgot how good this song was, until recently when someone made a comment disparaging Travis Morrison's solo work. Frankly, I don't know. If he put anything on his album that was nearly this good, it's probably worth listening to. The drums remind me a little of "Misinformed" by Soul Coughing, but everything else is immediately recognizable as D-Plan Mk. 2. No one line blows me out of the water, but the chorus is so sweet and simple and fun, it just makes me want to inhale a lungful of helium and sing like T-Mo. Yeah!
6. Malajube, "Montreal, -40C"
The intro to this song - building from the solo guitar to the drums and the organ -- is golden. The first verse is golden. The bouncy beat is golden. The "pa-pa pa-pa pada pada" of the chorus is golden. The lyrics are golden (and entirely in French). The slightly subdued second verse is golden. The chord progression is golden. The sudden change into waltz time isn't that golden, but you forget about it by the time that the song bursts back open with the full band singing. Seriously, if you haven't heard these guys, they're awesome, and this song is one of their three best.
7. LCD Soundsystem, "Yeah (Crass Version)"
I don't get the zombie chorus, and it seems to me that songs about the "scene" fucking died somewhere in the late nineties when the Dismemberment Plan skewered the indie kids for "doing the standing still," but even if you ignore the lyrics, damn this song is fun. I'd criticize James Murphy for stealing the beat and the bassline from "House of Jealous Lovers" but he was the one who put them together, so I guess I can't get too pissed at him for repeating himself. Of course, this song doesn't get really good until the farty sounding synths and the cowbell come in around the three minute mark, and then Mr. Murphy just has fun blowing my hair to the back of the auditorium. So... hard... not... to... dance...
I'm listening to Wilco's new album now. And I'm convinced they've finally resigned to making music for forty-year-olds who don't remember anything before or after the 70s. Except for the last song, which could be a Mineral song. Mineral! What the fuck is Wilco doing imitating Mineral?
1. Juno, "Leave a Clean Camp and a Dead Fire."
This song amazes me pretty much every time I listen to it, and I've been listening to it pretty frequently over the past five years. It's the swell, if anything. Starting out from that single sparse guitar, building up to the 5 minute mark, when the dam bursts, the unabashed hardcore'edness of the whole thing after the dam bursts, the five lines of vocals... it's almost damn near perfect. Then again, I can say that about a huge number of the songs on Juno's first album, which is why it's probably my favorite of all time.
2. Figurines, "The Wonder."
The Isaac Brock ripoff vocals are a little over the top, the twitchy Modest Mouse guitar ripoff is a bit much, but the whole damn thing is a freakin' catchy song delivered at a breakneck pace. It's so insanely good that it's made it to being my most played song on last.fm. For a person who's not apt to leave a single song on repeat for extended periods of time, that's saying something.
3. Mew, "Apocalypso"
Seriously, these guys remind me of Saga. If you don't know who Saga are, it's because you're not Canadian and you weren't listening to prog rock back in the eighties. Neither was I, but I had one Saga album back in the day. And their songs were epic, bombastic, and bloated and things like that. Mew get a lot of comparisons to bands like My Bloody Valentine (don't hear it at all) and Radiohead (hear it very slightly), but the better point of comparison is Rush without the drum solos, Saga without the organ solos, Queensryche without the hair metal, etc. It's epic, bombastic, and stripped of everything bloated. Fucking fantastic. "Apocalypso" is their hardest rocking moment, which is probably why I like it best, but DAMN these guys are awesome.
4. Deerhunter, "Octet"
Honestly, I have a hard time believing that I like either ambient or noise pop. But, after listening to Tim Hecker's "Harmony In Ultraviolet" enough and Serena Maneesh's self titled enough, I think I've come around on both genres and decided that I enjoy the darker depths of both. Deerhunter's "Octet" is awesome, because it really combines the best of both genres. It starts out with a bubbling, gurgling sound (probably a guitar run through incomprehensible numbers of effects), which eventually leads into a bass and drum groove that don't give way for the entirety of the song. And that bass and drum groove are the only thing that tethers this song into reality; the guitars scream and wail along with Bradford Cox's voice, and everything swirls around the rhythm. It's too damn easy to forget this song is 8 minutes long.
5. Travis Morrison, "Sixteen Types of People."
I forgot how good this song was, until recently when someone made a comment disparaging Travis Morrison's solo work. Frankly, I don't know. If he put anything on his album that was nearly this good, it's probably worth listening to. The drums remind me a little of "Misinformed" by Soul Coughing, but everything else is immediately recognizable as D-Plan Mk. 2. No one line blows me out of the water, but the chorus is so sweet and simple and fun, it just makes me want to inhale a lungful of helium and sing like T-Mo. Yeah!
6. Malajube, "Montreal, -40C"
The intro to this song - building from the solo guitar to the drums and the organ -- is golden. The first verse is golden. The bouncy beat is golden. The "pa-pa pa-pa pada pada" of the chorus is golden. The lyrics are golden (and entirely in French). The slightly subdued second verse is golden. The chord progression is golden. The sudden change into waltz time isn't that golden, but you forget about it by the time that the song bursts back open with the full band singing. Seriously, if you haven't heard these guys, they're awesome, and this song is one of their three best.
7. LCD Soundsystem, "Yeah (Crass Version)"
I don't get the zombie chorus, and it seems to me that songs about the "scene" fucking died somewhere in the late nineties when the Dismemberment Plan skewered the indie kids for "doing the standing still," but even if you ignore the lyrics, damn this song is fun. I'd criticize James Murphy for stealing the beat and the bassline from "House of Jealous Lovers" but he was the one who put them together, so I guess I can't get too pissed at him for repeating himself. Of course, this song doesn't get really good until the farty sounding synths and the cowbell come in around the three minute mark, and then Mr. Murphy just has fun blowing my hair to the back of the auditorium. So... hard... not... to... dance...
I'm listening to Wilco's new album now. And I'm convinced they've finally resigned to making music for forty-year-olds who don't remember anything before or after the 70s. Except for the last song, which could be a Mineral song. Mineral! What the fuck is Wilco doing imitating Mineral?