Viola’s March Melancholy

Faithful as ever, the oh so lovely Viola have released a new song just as the new month turned its leaf. This one’s called “Fade to White” and it’s inspired by the bucketloads of snow we all first went all “ooh” and “aah” about but then it started delaying trains, crashing cars and canceling flights like crazy and all the beautiful magic of pure snow was forgotten in favour of it being damn cold and fairly annoying in long exposure.

Anyway, the song’s rather good and it’s all wonderfully moody. Free to download from Viola Music Club as always and if you want a direct link, a direct link you shall haveth.

They’ve also got a poll about your favourite track of theirs from the past year so if you like tickboxes (yay!) or wish to aid the duo in their ominous unknown goals, frolic here.

Foals return, are good

You remember Foals from a few years back? The one with the really ugly debut album cover? It’s ok if you don’t, they were pretty boring and fairly unexciting, just another quirky indie band among the billion others. Although I remember fellow IP member Mag liking them, or at least that’s what his RYM rating says.

Anyway, they’re back with a new album this year and much like The Horrors last year who surprised everyone by moving from a wonky debut into an “album of the year” topper (although I wasn’t that impressed by it), Foals have the making of being the surprise act of the year. The new tune’s called “Spanish Sahara” and it’s all wonderfully pretty, atmospheric and dreamy. And when the inevitable rock break finally happens, the song retains all those qualities. It’s also got quite a good video, starring beards and barren snowy landscapes. Check it from here.

And if you give your email in exchange for spam letters, you can also get a free remix of the song. I don’t know what it’s like, I didn’t bother.

Squirrelhouse continue being pretty damn cool

A still fairly unknown name that’s probably already established itself into the heads of everyone reading this blog because I keep going on about them, Squirrelhouse are a band who keep trickling songs from their upcoming sophomore album and everytime deliver something pretty great. This is the case again. There’s a couple of new songs up in their Myspace: one’s called “Jolene” and it’s a mid-tempo festival of gorgeous guitar melodies and tightly grooving bass, and the other one is titled “All That Shit” and sounds like a slightly less loopy version of what Midlake were doing back in their debut album days, filling itself with fuzzy synths, a monotonous disco beat and ethereal guitar breaks to the effect of sounding like a deep space alien dance band.

These days I’m pretty wary of overhyping myself because it’s more than common for even trusty artists to release pretty great preview songs and then come up with something not-as-exciting (see: 2008), but Squirrelhouse’s second album seems like a firm guess for being a pretty damn good album when it comes out because all the countless songs trickled out so far (okay, three. Or five if you count the two-part “Monster” from way back) have all been yay in the scale from yay to nay.

Laura Marling! This month!

Okay so this is fairly old news already but might as well add it to the same slop as all these others because we’re in the habit of linking to songs today and I’ve been in a fairly heavy Marling-inspired kick lately (both through her solo debut as well as the two Noah and the Whale albums). The songstress is releasing a second album “I Speak Because I Can” late this month and while there was that Christmas-time single “Goodbye England”, a lead single proper appeared a fair while ago. “Devil’s Spoke” is rather strikingly different from her older material, relying far more on percussion and rhythm and sounding rather storming and aggressive when compared to the fragile ballads of the debut. It’s also awesome. Roll on March 22nd!

Her PR team are a bunch of party poopers and forbid embedding so click an old fashioned link for the official video, featuring exotic locations and campfire singalongs.

Kurrel is an Australian musician who has become one of my favourite internet-based musicians in the past few years. He’s had many names throughout his adventures and dabbled in many styles, mainly frolicing somewhere amidsts dance tracks, quirky pop music and sound experiments. In the recent years he’s become obsessed with ukuleles and has bent the little instrument to suit his any will, most of his current work being based on acoustic recordings that are heavily filtered through either various pedals or after-processing. You can check his web portal here.

Kurrel loves participating in the RPM things, February’s pretty much over, 10 tracks and 35 minutes of electronic shoegaze-inspired atmospheric ambient ukulele-driven pop await us. The bulk of his RPM 2010 offering consists of atmospheric instrumentals where a dreamy haze drowns the listener in layers of thick sound, ready to be swept away via daydreams and evoked settings: the bird calls of “Hello”, the enchanting fairytale clockwork of “Clock”, “Afterglow”’s shoegaze thunder and the dreamy strums and high-pitched melodies of “Gone Flying”, et cetera. It’s a short atmosphere journey, nowhere near ambient but equally evocative and sonically brilliant to explore. But Kurrel’s always been best when he’s let his own voice join in and thus the blissed, chilled melodies and the man’s relaxing vocals of “The Longest Trip” and “Every Sunset Brings a Sunrise” are the highlights of the new one. Overall, it’s Very Good – and in fact, the only criticism I’ve got is the format itself, 35 mins and 10 songs is quite restricting.

You can grab Kurrel’s RPM 2010 here, for a radiohead price of whatever you desire. There’s also free full samples of each song in case you don’t want to trust my words blindly, and those who do end up downloading it also get a few bonus tracks in the forms of a few outtakes. The removed ukulele solo that makes up for one of the bonus tracks is actually quite brilliant and I wouldn’t have minded to have seen it as a part of the actual thing.

Still continuing with their “song a month” project, it’s Viola! And to brighten up the cold February, here’s a doo-do-do-do-doo-riffic piece of sunshiney pop rock about the joys of love and how your heart seems to as if burst into a song when the big crush happens. The song is called “Heart Breaks Into a Song” and it’s all kinds of awesome – awesome sounds, catchy choruses, brilliantly self-aware-of-inherent-silliness lyrics (”what the hell is going on?”), and all that! It’s a must listen.

Download it from here.

And in case you missed it last month, because I wasn’t here to post it, Viola welcomed us to the new decade with a song called “2010s (Maybe the World Won’t End)” that opened up the new year with a suitably groovy synthpop feel. Check out that awesome string sample!

MP3 here.

If The Trials of Van Occupanther was a snapshot look at the lives of 1800’s frontiermen, The Courage of Others has those same men sat around a fire on a cold night after retreating from a great disaster that’s completely destroyed their lives, with their only hope being a glimpse of dying quickly but full well knowing that painful and long starvation is ahead of them.

Perhaps that’s a slight exaggeration but it does fairly nicely condense the general gist of Midlake’s latest – the band continues the style they chose for themselves on Trials, but this time leaves things like blog-hits “Roscoe” and “Young Bride” behind and focuses on creating slow and mournful acoustic autumnal laments of defeat. Gone are the lush strings of its predecessor, now the band is tightly sitting behind the basic band instruments but has an added flute in their roster to bring a wistful melody over the acoustic strums and layered vocal harmonies. Sometimes an electric guitar jumps over everything else but the pace is kept steady and calm. Courage of Others isn’t in a hurry to everywhere, it wants you to sit down and sink into its melancholy world.

The Courage of Others is a slow-burner, much moreso than Midlake’s first two albums which weren’t in any hurry to reveal all their sides either. Like said, there aren’t many obvious hooking points and on the first listens everything somewhat melts together – an effect that doesn’t really go away even on further listens by which time you’ve learned to difference between e.g. the (relative) energy of “Children of the Grounds” and “The Horn”, the slow self-pity of the title track and gripping crush of “Winter Dies”. But that’s perfectly cool because in Courage’s case it isn’t that tracks blend together because they’re all non-descript, it’s because the mood they weave is so damn strong. The album flows gorgeously like a 40-minute ballad for the old times, casting a magic that hooks you to the sound. Especially with headphones which is definitely the best way to get everything out of the lush vocal harmonies or the sad flute that features on almost every track.

It seems that Midlake, once infamous for sounding completely different between albums #1 and #2, has now found their sound from warm folk undertones and soft and gorgeous melodies and harmonies. In that respect, The Melancholy of Others isn’t really any sort of progression from their last outing four years ago, in fact it probably could have been released a few months apart from Occupanther and no one would have noticed. But rather than copying the album that brought them to the (relatively) big spotlight, they’ve gone on and decided to show a whole new side of that same sound. The way the music’s made might have stayed in the same basis but the feel of it is completely different. It’s what raises The Courage of Others to its own pedestal and allows it to be another excellent highlight in the discography of a band specialising in such things.

2010 has started in a very wonderful way.

Acts of Man

Back down. Calm down. Change your expectations or, better yet, remove them completely. Fyfe Dangerfield might be the frontman of Guillemots who are experts on making life-affirming and gloriously grand pop songs. His debut solo album Fly Yellow Moon also piqued our interests with whopping three songs of similar kin: the radio preview “Faster Than the Setting Sun”, the download freebie “When You Walk in the Room” and lead single “She Needs Me”, each one showing Fyfe mastering his natural element. But if you were to go to Fly Yellow Moon expecting more of all that, the first listen will be hell of a confusing, and most likely somewhat disappointing ride. Outside the three tracks given as a preview, Fly Yellow Moon lacks giant choruses, huge orchestras and big melodies. Instead Fyfe sits down, picks up his acoustic guitar and starts strumming it gently and slowly.

As the album progresses the clearer it gets why he decided to push out a solo album. He may have a sizeable chunk of backing musicians helping him flesh out the songs, but Fly Yellow Moon is all about intimate Fyfe troubadouring in peace.

Fly Yellow Moon takes this calmly and focuses on being very pretty. Fyfe softly sings about loveydovey things over some acoustic guitar, gentle rhythm sections and minor string embellishments – by his usual standards, it’s rather stripped down. There’s a lot of throwbacks to 60’s/70’s pop music but more in a homage sort of way of channeling sources of inspiration rather than actively trying to hit the retro spot. The gentler soundscape gives Fyfe a chance to once again show just how lovely his voice is. He sounds happy, inspired and thoroughly loving it.

But then those three grand pop songs pop out at regular intervals and there’s the inevitable smack in the face. Fly Yellow Moon may have a lovely charm throughout but when things get grand, it really gets to show Fyfe at his element. The joyous, detail-filled romp of the opening “When You Walk in the Room” just gets better and better with each listen. “Faster Than the Setting Sun” hits that emotionally evocative, heart-grabbing epic intensity known from so many previous songs the man’s been involved with. The chorus of “She Needs Me” hits with all the string sections and horn ensembles it can muster into a huge, celebratory musical incarnation of happiness, and subsequently charms instantly. And just in that instant, all the notion of the rest of the album sounding very lovely and pretty slightly get pushed to the background out of the way of a need for something… more.

The Achilles heel of Fly Yellow Moon is that its desire to diversify the sound ends up stealing the spotlight from its actual heart. “Firebird” has a lovely warm intimacy; “Livewire” strums along in a really, really pleasant way that soothes the mind; “So Brand New” swings with a happy wink and takes the listener to a romantic dance. Then they all get foreshadowed under the bombast and it really doesn’t matter how much you liked the songs before – it’s the powerful beat of She Needs Me, the frolic of Walk in the Room and skysoar of Setting Sun that steal your attention and stick to your head. Grand sound is ultimately where Fyfe is at his strongest element (that, or really really stripped-down like his solo versions of Guillemots ballads that border on heart-tearingly beautiful, but that’s past the point) and while the other songs do their best and occasionally sound really good, they can’t help but feel a bit less exciting. Or in the case of the annoyingly fluffy “High on the Tide”, ever-so-slightly nauseatingly sweet.

Ultimately, the special little factor that Fly Yellow Moon has is condensed in the concluding “Any Direction”. When it rolls along perfectly happily, content of the world and its goings over some drum machines, guitars and keyboards and has Fyfe repeat how things can go in any direction at all, you can hear in his voice how relaxed and happy he sounds like. The same thing goes for the rest of the album. Often when band members of active bands go solo (let’s not forget how Guillemots are already working on their third album), the idea is to put out material that would feel a bit awkward with the main band while reflecting the dear musical loves of the musician in question. Fly Yellow Moon sounds exactly like that – it’s Fyfe putting out some acoustic-based music he really enjoyed writing for his own pleasure. He may have buggered it up a bit by trying to branch out in a way that slightly breaks it apart in a showstealing way (while reminding us of his band), but you can hear how much the songs mean to him. It may not make the album as great as it was expected to be, but it gives it a wonderfully warm heart.

She Needs Me

MP3: So Brand New

And because I simply know that you’re all desperately waiting for the release day of Fyfe Dangerfield’s debut solo album, only a few days to go, here’s a little something to bide the time over – an acoustic guitar + strings session featuring three songs from the album as well as a cover of some song by an obscure boy band or something.

Clicky!

In other news, all the studio cuts heard so far are still pretty awesome. Roll on release!

5.

Wonderlick – Topless at the Arco Arena

The miracles of blogging – I would have never found out about this amazing thing if it hadn’t been featured on an article right here on this site.

Topless is one of the spotlight hogs of the lyrical side of 09, almost written like a concept album but never staying in one concept. Part of the album ponders upon the rock and roll mythology and the emotional highs of it, contemplating on how manufactured or superficial it is, or whether it really does show our true selves. Another part focuses on the executives, CEOs and other corporate headmen and the nature of being just one cog in the system run by a bunch of loonies. And finally you have the witty and humourous but painfully real depictions of ups and downs in life in general, our relationships and fears. And for some bizarre reason they all come together into one big collective, almost forming a full narrative altogether. When everything’s also written in such an intelligent, both loving and snarking kind of way that comes off as completely honest and definitely self-experienced way, you can’t help but fall in love with the constant lyrical layers that the album seems to offer.

The people-centric, personal and human-like way of storytelling is then further underlined by the music. Topless at the Arco Arena sounds like the work of bedroom musicians; not lo-fi, but decidedly away from a highly produced, expensive sound. The intimate style is pretty much the perfect match for the words, and naturally the voices that then govern over it all: featuring two lead singers, Topless is a joyous parade of vocal interplay.

All this is then finally decorated with an amazing bunch of pop songs, from the joyous power pop of “This Song is a Commercial” (featuring, of course, the most obvious hooks of the entire album) and “Everybody Loves Jenny” to the subdued, intimate slow moments like the heartwarming “You First” or heartbreaking “Your Majesty”.

While Topless at the Arco Arena also has the most obvious flaw of all the albums in this top 10 – its sixteen tracks feature a few annoyingly uninteresting songs that tend to break up the otherwise brilliant composition of the album, sadly lowering its ranking – in the end it’s impossible not to fall in love with it and endlessly play it on repeat. The personal, humane sound of it all turns the songs into something very special, and the lyrics give endless hours worth of layers to peel. You can sense that Topless at the Arco Arena is a product of love and experience.

MP3: Fear of Chicago

This Song is a Commercial

4.

Mew – No More Stories/Are Told Today/I’m Sorry/They Washed Away/No More Stories/The World Is Grey/I’m Tired/Let’s Wash Away

You know why No More Stories, Mew’s bizarre upbeat pop album that’s probably the most twisted and crooked thing any band would ever call as their most direct and straightforward album, is Just That Damn Great? It’s because the playfully mad genius represented all over the place on it is infectious. When the “here we go! here we go!” chorus of “Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy” hits the airwaves for the first time ever in your music player of choice, you’re already singing along and clapping to the beat. It’s impossible not to do a little jig and a little sway when “Beach” is on. You find yourself involved in the music countless times throughout the album, be it by pathetically imitating Bjerre’s falsettos without even realizing you’re doing it, swaying to the music or even slightly dancing on your seat, or just taking a seat back and surrendering to the big dramatic moments of the album’s ballads.

Mew’s always been a band who appeals to emotions, they’re the masters of tearjerkingly gorgeous epochs and ballads to embrace in during the end of the world; with No More Stories, they continue to do the same but their goal is to make the listener feel the joy and colourful splendour of life rather than the unearthily pretty bittersweet beauty of their past works. No More Stories is a joyous parade of sounds and that get-together feel-good vibe and communial enjoyment of dramatic climaxes coming off so many of the songs highlights all the band’s greatest assets and the reasons why they’re one of the seminal bands of the 00’s.

And, it gave us probably the best fan-made video ever with the Beach video embedded below.

MP3: Hawaii

Beach

3.

Moby – Wait for Me

Put on your headphones. Dimmen those pesky lights. Make sure there’s no possible sources of interruption around. Close your eyes, press play. Sink into the world of Wait for Me.

Moby’s latest is, according to his own words, the first album he’s done in years that was entirely written with only himself in mind rather than trying to pander to the expectations of the music media that have put him on spotlight ever since the bizarrely random super-success of 1998’s Play. Recorded in his own home, utilising only friends as his help, released by himself rather than through a big label. Everything involving the album states one simple thing: this is personal.

In the process of cutting loose from the mental chains that caged him for a good decade, Moby’s created his greatest work ever since the aforementioned Play. Wait for Me is all subdued moods, thick atmosphere and delicate melodies gently ringing in the vast, vast space that surrounds them. Faint, heartrending vocals pop up here and there. There is very little in the way of the dance roots or hook-filled insta-hits Moby’s become known for: if anything, Wait for Me is a gentle, melancholy lullaby that bids the world good night.

Cutting it up into individual songs does not make it justice because Wait for Me’s core is in its long-player format. Through its length it creates an unpenetrable atmosphere, a placid ocean of mood where the gentle sonic waves soothe down and mend the wounds after a violent war. Everywhere you see is overwhelming sadness but in the horizon you can see the light of day and the road to freedom.

Wait for Me is personal release wrapped in the most beautiful sounds.

MP3: Slow Light

Pale Horses

2.

Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring

Well if we have a few surprises on this list, this is the biggest one. I honestly never expected that the band that pulled out the annoyingly coy twee (and in retrospect, so optimistically loveydovey it’s not even funny) of “5 Years Time” last year would end up creating one of my favourite albums of the following year. Or that the said album would be a melancholy, unnervingly emotionally touching concept album about one man’s world crumbling apart and slowly picking up the pieces. An album that’s enough to turn anyone into a sad sack of weepy emotion. The title track, “Stranger” and “Blue Skies” are some of the finest songs ever recorded from the subject. You could cut the feeling of emotional bareness and the vulnerable fragility of the album with a knife.

These warm, gentle songs heavily based on the tender rambles of an acoustic guitar and subtly orchestrated with small orchestras, strings and choirs have been my accompaniment many-a-night. It’s an album to get lost into, sink and let the music take over. The lyrics arch a personal tale of human nature that continues throughout the album and evolves and grows in an immacutely rendered way. From utter despair to seeing the light of day again and to the final redemption. The First Days of Spring’s greatest asset is how the music and the words follow eachother and work together so perfectly: the same concept told in both ways: the downbeat murk of the early album switching into more orchestrated, slightly more uplifting songs as the album progresses.

Startlingly beautiful, and a must check even for all those who couldn’t stand the first album.

MP3: The First Days of Spring

Blue Skies

1.

Rubik – Dada Bandits

Why is Dada Bandits not only #1 of ‘09, but also one of my favourite releases of the decade in general?

Because it’s been over half a year since its release and despite having listened to it and its songs a ridiculous amount of times between the release day and now, hearing it still makes me hopelessly excited like I was hearing it for the very first time ever. Nay, like it was the first music I had heard in general for the very first time ever.

It’s a second album where the band decides to give a big middle finger to the whole “sophomore slump” effect and turns things up to eleven instead. These are gigantic pop songs with sky-shatteringly anthemic choruses, flavoured with endless amounts of vocal layers and all sorts of different instruments psychedelically toying around – especially horn sections that the band seems to have fallen in love with. At the same time there’s oddball screws twisting the unashamedly direct melodies and hooks by turning each song into a mini-epic with stylistic twirls, rollercoaster ride swings and nigh-stream of consciousness lyrics about wars, paranoia and impending apocalypses delivered with a gorgeously ringing falsetto and backed by beautiful and delicate melodies full of uplifting power. Most importantly, Dada Bandits sounds bold and relentless. It shoots its ammunition from unwavering hands, proudly and bravely driving forward with no desire to look back or stop even for a moment, basking in self-confidence.

The bold nature, quirkiness of the songwriting and the tremendously gigantic hooks pretty much make Dada Bandits a constant stream of great songs. The centre-piece math-rock epic “Indiana” with its madman-like section changes and dark atmosphere breaks from the otherwise solid mold, being the album’s grower moment that still manages to be menacingly addictive. “Radiants”, “No Escape” and “Wasteland” are massive hit singles in the making in a world with any justice, “Fire Age” is ready to conquer any “song of the year” chart with its neurotic groove that becomes more and more entrenched in sparkling melodies and massive vocal singalongs as it progresses. “Karhu junassa” accelerates with tremendous force as its pent-up force continues growing throughout the song before finally breaking into liberating jubilation, while its sibling “Richard Branson’s Crash Landing” is the most ridiculously upbeat and summery song the band has done, hand-clap galore action and all. The closing “Altitudes” wonderfully frolics with its chiming keyboards and pounding drums.

Dada Bandits is a masterpiece, a tremendous step up from Rubik and one hell of a note that this is a band worth following. Despite 2009 being a rather good music year, no album this year has managed to make me as ridiculously excited as Dada Bandits does whenever I listen to it. It’s a terrible shame that this is a band that’s not getting proper exposure outside Finland because if they did, you’d have every rock-oriented site crowning this as one of 2009’s greatest musical offerings.

Look, I hate sounding so goddamn cornily giddy and embarrasedly gushing in my reviews but fuck, woah.

MP3: Karhu junassa

MP3: Radiants

Wasteland

I’m worrying slightly again, wondering what on earth to include on this list and in what order. This time however it’s for the completely opposite reason. 2009 has been a brilliant, brilliant year in music and as I choose to see which 10 make it to the Chosen Pile, I have to look at all the ones that are left outside that group and feel sad over not allowing them a chance in the spotlight as well. There’s too much good stuff to choose and rank from!

But here we go.

A quick overall word about 09. A really intriguing thing is that this could be called the year of lyrics. Now I’m a person who does love his lyrics but I’m not a huge geek – I can safely enjoy and sing along to e.g. Red Hot Chili Peppers without having to hold back tears on what Kiedis is shrieking. However, 2009 has been packed with albums where the lyrics are an integral part of the entire thing. Albums where my personal enjoyment leaped tenfold when I stopped still and listened to what was being said, albums where the lyrics are tied to a concept integral to the album’s creation, albums where the lyrics actually became one of the main focus points and one reason why I kept on playing the albums. Even albums where I didn’t fall in love with the lyrics were still made with lyrics as a focal point: concept albums and so forth.

But the music is the main focal point. And here we go, the music. First (or last?) five are here, the next presented tomorrow. There’s absolutely no reason involving ‘keeping tension’ or any other such tripe, it’s more just the fact that my entries tend to be a bit TLDR and therefore cutting it up makes it more readable.

10.

Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

There was an absolutely furious battle over the #10 position, with three albums of entirely different natures racing against eachother. And like in any good 80’s teen film, the underdog beat the two old favourites. Tonight: Franz Ferdinand is simply too damn captivating.

After the terrible second album I was already about to write Franz Ferdinand as a one-album fluke (let’s not forget how the self-titled debut was a genuine breath of fresh air when it was released, and how it still reigns over all of its subsequent imitators). Tonight taking ages to record didn’t help. Yet when the band eventually emerged from the studio and showed us their new baby, this particular blogger was awestruck.

The same grooved up, funkified rhythm sections and jagged guitars are still there but this time with a new dangerous twist. Rather than tongue-in-cheekily grooving along, the Franz of Tonight is the guy in sunglasses at the middle of the night, stalking and up to no good. Tonight is the darker side of the hedonistic club life and broken relationships on the dance floor, its soundworld filled with grooves more ominuous and analogue keyboards buzzing and swirling. The centerpiece, the 8-minute fuzz bass epic “Lucid Dreams” has to be heard to be believed.

And in the end, it’s goddamn catchy and makes your body move.

MP3: Lucid Dreams

Ulysses

9.

John Frusciante – The Empyrean

The Empyrean was the forefunner favourite back when it was first released at the very beginning of the year. Now it resides at #9, which only goes on to show how brilliant this year has been.

Frusciante’s concept album about a journey to the mind or somethingorotherelsespiritual sounds like a magnum opus. Everything he has recorded during his solo career meshes into one 10-song collection that is the most ambitious solo Frusciante yet. Frusciante’s favoured home-warm production values merge with grandeur (but never epic) songwriting and scope of the songs, extended instrumental passages working together with the man’s best vocals yet. Details flutter about everywhere in sound and the flow and cohesiveness of the album is immaculate.

And it hosts some brilliant songs as well. “Unreachable” has already become something of a legendary tune among fans, the cover of “Song to the Siren” floats in the most blissful, serene way as possible, “Central” shows fierceness that Frusciante rarely shows in his solo work, “God” and “Heaven” are classic J-Fru, and “Dark/Light” takes the surprise award with its excellent switch from a murky piano introspectiveness into drum machine & synth filled choir finale.

Like Frusciante said in his own letter following the album’s release, The Empyrean is best played in a dark room either with headphones on or loudly from a stereo system. Its immensely unified, cohesive sound transports the listener to somewhere else for its length.

MP3: Central

Unreachable

8.

Kent – Röd

I blabbed about this in fair length about a month ago, so to repeat myself again would be rather daft.  That said, good things can often need repeating, so I suppose I should nutshell my feelings about Kent’s latest one month onward.

And… they haven’t changed. Except “Idioter” is somewhat more tolerable these days, even if it continues to sound badly out of place. But elsewhere Röd is a fiercely tight album, flowing perfectly and effortlessly in an unified style. Kent’s further exploration towards synthpop succeeds fiercely well and several songs are well worth of inserting into the canon: “Vals för Satan” continues to raise the hairs on the back with its awe-inspiring pulse, “Svarta linjer” dovetails gloriously in high skies and is backing vocal heaven, “Hjärta” and “Ensamheten” pulsate dramatic emotion with the former relying on a grand orchestrated ballad to do so while the latter wrecks the dancefloor.

Ultimately, despite the transformed surface of the band the basis of Röd is still the same, familiar Kent – hell, there’s still tracks on Röd that are reminiscent of their old guitar-heavier material in certain ways. But unlike many rock artists who turn to electronics for a change, Kent shows that they’re ready to absorb everything that belongs to the new world they wish to inhabit and they have the inspiration to pull it off majestically.

MP3: Svarta linjer

Töntarna

7.

Manic Street Preachers – Journal for Plague Lovers

A case in point of 2009 being a lyrical year: the entire reason Journal for Plague Lovers exists is its lyrics. Dead member Richey Edwards’ leftover rambles, lyrics and poetry was adapted by the rest of the band as a tribute. Yours truly was shaking – the band themselves were comparing the album as the new The Holy Bible (the band’s third album, cult classic and what is often hailed as Edwards’ personal album), and the last time the band was rehashing their past it turned out to be rather awkward (2007’s Send Away the Tigers that’s pretty much as stereotypic as the band can get).

But I was wrong, oh how I was wrong. A band that sounded completely out of inspiration on Send Away the Tigers bounced right back into action and if there’s anything to be compared to their youth, it’s the sheer revitalised energy. There’s very little stylistically reminiscent of The Holy Bible, but the same fierce spirit that album had is on Journal too. The Manics are back rocking and they sound damn good at it.

And while I still favour their calmer side, the one that brought us the introspective amazingness of Lifeblood (2004) and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours (1998), Journal is simply too fun to not love. Edwards’ gloomy lyrics are put to swingin’ rocksters made to jump up and down and sing along to, while elsewhere the band treats the more darker lyrics with an equally dark approach and turn them into nigh-funeral marches and aggressive blasters.

I’m not really the biggest fan of Edwards’ lyrics, but on Plague Lovers the band’s performance is stellar, and seeing them mess about with such revitalised vigour is a wonderful sight to a fan’s eyes after last time’s bitter disappointment. Gloomy as it may be in places, Plague Lovers is fun.

MP3: Peeled Apples

Jackie Collins Existential Question Time

6.

PMMP – Veden varaan

Here’s a surprise one. For me it’s because PMMP are a group who are known to have unleash killer songs but their albums have always been lacking, and out of nowhere in 2009 they finally fulfilled all the potential they had been building up to. For you it’s because I’ve never featured it in Indie Paws and therefore this entry shall be the album’s official introduction to the IP blogosphere.

The reason for its non-inclusion in previous articles has been that I’ve found it incredibly hard to talk about the album. It’s an album where a lot of the power comes from the lyrics – the songs are brilliant musically and the vocal performances are excellent throughout, but the final nail in the coffin are the lyrics. Sad, haunting tales of everyday fates and lives: facing the dull reality of adult life, the realistically detailed relationship issues, stories of lonely people who now face a life without happiness as they’re stuck in their small towns with no future, and the desire to escape all that sad impending doom that reality throws forth. PMMP’s style of describing everything in a very everyday, painfully relatable manner makes many of the lyrics slap the listener’s face and make the audiophile feel. Few of the songs, such as the afterlife escapade “Lautturi” work on slightly more abstract routes, but even these songs find something new to say.

The problem is, it’s all in Finnish so you go on and describe all that in English in a way that makes it any justice.

Musically, PMMP continue their slightly schizophrenic style of crafting songs but bizarrely Veden varaan makes all the rowdy rockers, quiet melancholy moments, the obligatory synth-filled vicious dance pop song, finely polished keyboard-driven pop et cetera work together. However, the key thing this time is that they all work. Each song finds something completely new and inspired and the album is full of stellar moments: the fury and rage and subsequent calming down of “Se vaikenee joka pelkää”, the atmospheric wash of “Taajama”, the post-punk explosion “Kuvia”, haunting “Tulva”, the ever-intensifying “Merimiehen vaimo”…

And of course, each one (or most, anyway) comes packed with a set of words that sting your heart. If you understand it anyway.

Mp3: San Francisco

Lautturi

The final five tomorrow! Hopefully!

Jason Lytle, he of previously Grandaddy and now of a brand new solo career, wants to wish each and every one of you (even you grumpy cynical sods) a merry Christmas through the medium of a 7-track instrumental piano EP full of songs with nothing to do with Christmas.

You can download it here and it is indeed very lovely, very beautiful and very wonderful.

In other news, Lytle is also in the process of writing material for his next solo album and he guarantees that “[it] will be the weirdest, most wonderful mayhem” he has made. Should be worth a gander.