Okkervil River might be the most under-appreciated band in the world. They turn out good-to-great albums like clockwork, richly textured, emotionally resonant, deeply fulfilling and beautiful things that ought to put them side-by-side with Arcade Fire as indie rock kings. But they don't inspire the same kind of cult. The hope is that they take the response as a challenge and keep striving, because there's a whole lot of greatness left to be teased out of this band.
It is so hard to get heard over the din of an ever-expanding media maze of itunes, video games, facebook, twitter, radio, TV, commercials, movies, concerts and clouds - what's a girl to do? If you're Amanda Shires, you do it yourself . Although a veteran of tours and recording projects with such alt country luminaries like Jason Isbell, Justin Townes Earle, Billy Joe Shaver, Shires is just beginning to get noticed for her burgeoning, self-directed solo career. Her melancholy Texas twang recalls a less craggy Lucinda Williams with the emotional purity of prime Nanci Griffith. [...]
When you have fewer songwriting peers than you have fingers, when you're nearly a half-century into your career, it's nearly preposterous to think that you could create new music that fits comfortably in your canon. But Paul Simon has done just that. This is a graceful and winning collection, ten little reveries that I could have placed anywhere on this list depending on my mood, up to and including number one.
For some reason, the Drive-By Truckers last few albums have left me cold, while former Trucker Jason Isbell seems to have stolen their mojo on Here We Rest , easily his most consistent record. Here We Rest is rooted in its southerness, with a deep Alabama groove set to fluttering fiddles and sure-handed shuffles that make characters like the broken soul barfly in "Codeine" come alive even as they battle addiction, and his version of Candi Staton's southern soul standard "Heart on A String" sounds like a lost Delbert McClinton classic. [...]
I picked this one because it's in the vein of Massive Attack and Portishead, and every once in a while that's exactly what I need. I also picked it because it's fun to sometimes irritate Trip.
For anyone who thinks Joe Jackson's Look Sharp was the perfect synthesis of punk rock's slutty edge and the magnificently manicured songwriting smarts of Squeeze's Chris Difford and Glenn Tillbrook, then the Postelles debut is the album for you. After being dropped by Astralwerks before releasing a single note, 2011 saw The Postelles long-gestating record finally glimpse the light of day. Opening with the staccato guitar romp, call-and-response sizzler "White Night", The Postelles updates the 70's power pop template with the nervous energy that all those THE bands (The Vines, The White Stripes, The [...]
I was going to put Wild Flag's excellent album here, but Trip already got that one, so I'll offer up a left-field choice. I don't know much about Have Gun Will Travel, but Mergers & Acquisitions is a near-perfect mix of rustic and tuneful that will transport you to the halcyon days of early alt.country. This is the album Uncle Tupelo didn't make between March 16-20, 1992 and Anodyne . Have Gun Will Travel - Time Machine Have Gun Will Travel - Disappearing Kind
It's nice to know an album can still be an artistic triumph and a commercial smash. Let's hope 24 continues her success. Adele - "Rumour Has It" (from 21 ) Adele - "Last Nite" (Strokes cover)
Butch Walker makes musical confections, sweet rock candy that cuts through the sour indie rock landscape. Once upon a time this stuff made you a star, but now it just makes you a cult hero to folks who want to enjoy new music but who don't subscribe to the new musical paradigm. Big hooks, big drums, sly words, plentiful beer, willing girls and cunning song craft all wrapped up in a shiny box and bow. It hits your body first and then works its way to your brain. A sugar rush in all the right ways.
Just as Foster & Lloyd's recording hiatus was able to buy a drink, it up and went on a harmony-filled alt country bender. Twenty-one years is a l-o-o-o-n-g break, but the rust is barely noticeable on It's Already Tomorrow , possibly the least touted reunion album of the year. And quite possibly the best. What makes this partnership go is the marriage of Bill Lloyd's jangle pop guitar sensibility to Radney Foster's clear, warm vocals, but what makes it soar are the old school harmonies, two voices meshing as one on immediately memorable choruses. Sure their cover [...]
If you didn't know this album was cobbledtogether from odds and ends after Ms. Winehouse's death, could you discern itby listening? Maybe, especially once you noticed "Tears Dry," an alternateversion of "Tears Dry On Their Own" from the brilliant Back to Black album. But would it make the experience any lessenjoyable? I can't image that it would. Winehouse was one of the lastcontemporary singers who could fully inhabit a song, tugging at melody andtempo to make other writers' tunes her own, and never resorting to studiotricks. Her buoyant takes on chestnuts ranging from "Our Day Will Come" to [...]
Holy crap this album has a lot going against it - the NSFW for band name, the unrelenting hardcore growl of a mostly shirtless lead singer named Pink Eyes, the hard to penetrate (and understand) lyrics to a godforsaken prog-punk opera, a 78 minute running time - but every time I put this disc on my heart rate accelerates and I feel like a better man. This thing explodes in scream-along mayhem with force, anger, bile and a bulldozer's soft touch that takes its only breaths with the occasional sweet touch of girl group coos that leavens a song like [...]
The obituary of a fascinating man is here .
We interrupt our 2011 countdown to acknowledge 2012.
Now Pop for Pure People As Far As Yesterday Goes plays like an unwritten John Hughes movie, with looming heartbreak leavened by day-glo horns and impossibly sunny arrangements. Each chorus, each handclap and each strum screams pure pop. There are 60's nods everywhere - the "I Should Have Known Better" harmonica riff that powers opener "Caught in The Middle" to euphoric heights, the heavenly, Turtle-y "ba-ba-bas" of "You Do Something to Me" and album thesis "On A Summer Day" that plays like a full on celebration of Small Faces ultra-modness [...]
This album can inspire love and hate - I've both loved and hated it. Sometimes the ordinary lyrics ("Honey Bunny", "Magic", "Saying I Love You) seem like empty platitudes and songs veer off into Pink Floyd wankery territory ("Vomit", "Forgiveness), but then I find myself going back to this album again and again because it truly sounds wonderful and different - except "Vomit", which is an exercise in noisy tedium. The lyrics are mostly uplifting (and ordinary, but they work) and who doesn't love an album that calls to mind the fractured, desperate beauty of [...]
With a scorched earth policy that leaves no riff unturned, Wild Flag's joyous rocket launch sounds like 1977 in 2011. I hear the new wave mannerisms of Lene Lovich and the exaggerated strangulated yelp of Richard Hell, but Wild Flag carries not a whiff of punk revisionism or slavish tribute. This is breattaking rock and roll in the moment, loaded with hooks and F-U-N. Inspirational verse from the slam bang opener, the absolutely irresistible "Romance": "You watch us sing, we sing till we're crying We sing to free ourselves from the room We love [...]
Eleven albums into a career that has flown mostly under the radar, Ron Sexsmith has had his praises sung by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and Elvis Costello. Sexsmith writes rueful, self-deprecating songs about the painful joy of being in love. Long Player, Late Bloomer is more of the same, but only better with a strict no filler mandate among the album's 13 tracks.. The title song "Long PLayer" is a nod to his own survivor's instincts and his slow, gradual climb to the middle. "I'm a late bloomer, I'm a slow learner [...]
I am jumping on this train as it hits top speed. Forget all the comparisons to The White Stripes, and forget all the critical hosannas and flowery expositions of The Black Keys as rock and roll saviors, even though they might be. Let's celebrate the big fat choruses, the head-bobbing, hair-flyin' groove, the underpinning of greasy soul that lifts them above the fray. This is big, dumb rock in all it's bare chested glory. The Black Keys are 2012's Foghat and "Lonely Boy" is their "Slow Ride", as camaro rock as it gets. [...]
Teenage Kicks
Bison - Quill
Neutral Milk Hotel- Aeroplane Over the Sea
Shinichi Osawa – Big Beach Mix 2012
