Today Terius Nash, aka The Dream, dropped his free internet-download album 1977 under his birth name in advance of the release of upcoming album proper, The Love, IV: Diary of a Mad Man. The 11-track album, featuring guest spots from Pharrell and Big Sean and introducing Casha, is available direct from his official website. Earlier Nash tweeted in regards to the album: "this one was done with no politics and Pressure. Its Free literally and figuratively." Check it out for yourself, just click HERE for the free direct download.
Def Jam, who Nash is signed to as The Dream, are unsurprisingly unhappy about Nash defying them and going ahead with a free release, and he even announced that he's filming videos for the album too. 1977, which is also the birth year of Nash, is an introspective downtempo album mostly made up of breakup songs, so if that's your kind of thing you'll probably dig this. Here's the tracklist:
01 Wake Me When It's Over 02 Used to Be 03 Long Gone 04 Ghetto (feat. Big Sean) 05 Wedding Crasher 06 Rolex (feat. Casha) 07 Silly (introducing Casha) 08 1977 (Miss You Still) 09 Wish You Were Mine 10 This Shit Real Ni**a (feat. Pharrell) 11 Form of Flattery
Montreal-based husband and wife duo Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry return with a third album as Handsome Furs, and just like their two previous LPs it's another winner. It seems to me that these two can do no wrong, why they aren't the biggest indie-rock band in the world is beyond me because everything they've put out so far is pure gold. This album marks a further move away from the more typical indie sound of their debut Plague Park and the sleazy garage-rock influences of their sophomore effort Face Control, mixing more 80s Eastern European industrial sounds with elements of contemporary electro and club music while still maintaining a strong and anthemic rock sensibility. Boeckner, his raspy growl cutting through shimmering synths and clattering drum machines, proves yet again his knack for melody and song-writing. Songs like Repatriated reel you in, build gradually and then unfurl with interesting twists, catchy hooks and strong lyrics that will have you coming back again and again. I just can't get enough!
Sound Kapital is out June 28th through Sub Pop. Check out the third track from the album, Bury Me Standing:
Since TV On The Radio's previous album, 2008's well received Dear Science, singer Kyp Malone released the more experimental and relatively underwhelming self-titled solo album under the moniker Rain Machine and producer/guitarist Dave Sitek unleashed the much-hyped collaboration project Maximum Balloon, which didn't quite live up to expectations. My appetite for more TV On The Radio material has been growing and now the band are set to release their fourth studio album, Nine Types of Light, on March 12, accompanied by a film of the same name.
Nine Types of Light continues a move away from the more noise and shoegaze influenced elements apparent on their breakthrough album Return To Cookie Mountain, towards a smoother funk groove hinted at last time around. Dear Science showcased the band's talent for soulful balladry but for every delicate slow jam the band had a killer in-your-face cut like Dancing Choose or Red Dress to keep the momentum going, with biting lyrics twisting metaphors about politics, sex, race and love. Nine Types of Light is a much more mellow album, with a ratio favoring slower songs and ballads.
Light is a recurring motif throughout, opening track Second Song calls for "every lover on a mission to shift [their] known position into the light". Much of the album revels in sickly sweet production, incorporating lush synths, piano, harp, slide guitar and horns with funky staccato guitar riffs, groove-injected finger bass and harmonized falsetto vocals. The drug-tinged dystopian No Future Shock, the dirty dirge of New Cannonball Blues, with its sound of "being dragged to hell", and the paranoid Repetition, which settles into a repeated phrase over screaming guitar and chaotic drums, reveal a glimmer of the in-your-face aural assault that TV On The Radio once cultivated and wielded so effectively, yet nothing here quite reaches the dizzying ecstatic heights of classic tracks such as Wolf Like Me or Staring At The Sun.
Keep Your Heart and Killer Crane are undoubtedly two of the most self-indulgent and unabashed ballads the band have ever released, and while they are quite beautiful in their own right, the former slows the album down immediately after the opening track while the latter grinds things to a halt just as the album begins to pick up again. The beguiling track order really works against the album creating pacing issues that negate any kind of momentum build-up and make it rather difficult to sit through. The lyrics generally seem either romantic and hopeful or lovelorn and bitter, what's missing here is sex and passion. Will Do is arguably the best put-together track here, where all the elements played with across the album's ten tracks fuse effectively to create a perfect pop ballad.
Nine Types of Light is a good album but one that pales in comparison to the band's prior releases and leaves me wondering where they will go from here. Let's hope the wait for the next LP isn't as long this time around. Below you can stream the full album, view the official video for lead single Will Do and watch the trailer for the film and album itself.
Radiohead's latest album The King of Limbs, only announced four days ago, has been unleashed today for purchase via the band's official website. Comprising of only eight tracks running under thirty eight minutes long in total, it's their shortest album, and perhaps their most moody. Less melodic and immediate than 2007's In Rainbows, The King of Limbs is characterized by shuffling minimal drum beats, staccato rythms and ghostly echoes. The arrangements are subtly hypnotizing, creating a tense and unnerving atmosphere, and lead singer Thom Yorke seems at times almost to be singing with gritted teeth, particularly on Little By Little as he declares "I'm such a tease and you're such a flirt".
The album builds this tension until we get to Codex and the shuffling is replaced with slow deathly marching accompanied by droning brass sections which are carried over to the beautiful Give Up The Ghost on which Yorke's voice moves more to the forefront. The album arrives perfectly at final track Separator, the culmination of all this tension and build-up; a cathartic release of major key arpeggios and lilting guitar licks riding waves of dense reverb punctuated by Yorke's plea of "wake me up".
The album certainly has a strong dreamlike quality to it, with its heavy utilization of ambient elements, and the track order and production seem carefully chosen to guide the listener from point A to point B. It's meticulously constructed and more rewarding with each listen; an album that slowly draws you in and settles under your skin, pulling you through its dark haunting world before slipping away almost as quietly and mysteriously as it came.The album is available now from the band's official website. Below you can see the track list as well as the video for lead single Lotus Flower.
The King of Limbs:
01 Bloom 02 Morning Mr Magpie 03 Little by Little 04 Feral 05 Lotus Flower 06 Codex 07 Give Up the Ghost 08 Separator
With The People's Key, the eighth studio album (including the 2002 Christmas LP) released under the Bright Eyes moniker, Conor Oberst continues to move away from the emotionally focused introspective songwriting that characterized his most acclaimed albums into more oblique and surreal territory.
The People's Key opens with Refried Icecream guitarist Denny Brewer ranting about Sumerian mythology before the stark and almost sinister Americana-tinged guitar riff of Firewall arrives along with Oberst's vocals, which sound more cold and disconnected than ever. Gone is the urgency and desperation with which Oberst used to deliver his poetic musings, even his trademark shaky vibrato, replaced with a voice that occasionally sounds tired and disinterested. The lush symphony arrangements as utilized on previous album Cassadaga have been cast aside in favor of greater focus on electric guitar and drums, yet the edginess that would have given this album some much needed grit and punch is sidestepped for twee guitar licks, clichéd embellishments and cheesy synths. Shell Games is a great song but where the chorus should soar it merely simpers along, held down along with the rest of the track by its twee trappings.
Much of the album is marked by unnecessary and distracting musical and production elements that simply take away from Oberst's mysterious and dense sci-fi infused spiritual lyrical content. On the rollicking Triple Spiral the band sound most harmoniously synchronized and with Ladder Song, the album's most affecting track, we are treated with nothing but Oberst's voice and a piano. There are some great ideas and moments across this album but too often it feels overstuffed or overproduced; if this is to be the final Bright Eyes album as rumored it would be an oddly resignatory note to bow out on, so here's hoping the band will return with at least one more gem before the final curtain call. Check out the official video for lead single Shell Games below:
There's nothing particularly dark or twisted about this latest offering from Kanye West, the follow up to the underrated 808s And Heartbreak, instead My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an overlong, overblown and outrageously self-indulgent hip hop odyssey turned electro glam rock opera about broken relationships, the emptiness of hedonistic living and modern celebrity culture, and of course, West himself. Your enjoyment of this album will really depend on whether or not you can handle his self-referential egotistical ramblings, but either way the production on here is almost faultless, apart from its excess, with an extensive list of collaborators and guests. There are some great tracks on here, including the standout single Monster featuring a superb performance from Nicki Minaj. Some though, like Runaway and Blame Game, just meander and overstay their welcome. West does a lot more rapping than singing on here following the flak he received for his auto-tuned crooning on 808s, and when he's not blowing up tracks with too many effects or getting sidetracked with superfluous instrumental sections or extended outros the output is highly engaging, such as on the aforementioned Monster and So Appalled, which features Jay-Z, Pusha T, Prynce Cy Hi, Swizz Beatz & The RZA. It's difficult to deny the effort that's clearly gone into this album, but a little more focus and restraint would have made it easier to sit through and unless you're still an unwavering Kanye West fan and supporter you may find this album a little too much Kanye to handle. Check out Monster below:
Coma Cinema is the brainchild of South Carolina musician Mat Cothran who has self-recorded two albums since he began writing and performing under the moniker in 2005, and Blue Suicide is his third album set for release in early 2011.
The sound of Coma Cinema is a little difficult to solidly categorize, it's easiest perhaps to just label it as North American indie but just like similar genre-busting acts like Beulah or Wilco have done for themselves, Cothran manages to squeeze quite a wide variety of influences and different elements into the fifteen tracks that make up Blue Suicide, from chamber pop to slowcore. The fact that all of these tracks in total only just break the half an hour mark is surprising; Cothran condenses so many ideas into concise songs where every lyric and every note serves an immediate purpose and no track overstays its welcome or even lingers for a second too long. The lyrics themselves are mostly quite melancholy, bleak or downright morbid, delivered in Cothran's high-pitched, stark voice atop upbeat compositions with strong melodies and simple rhyme-schemes, making them sound like nursery rhymes about manic depression. The lyrics themselves are at times dream-like in their bizarre nature, such as on 'Lindsey' which launches immediately into the first verse as Cothran wails "Frozen dog/Hanging by a chain over the fire in the yard/Oh my god/Little bones that break and free me from my haunted hell/Sing your simple shyness pretty heart." Things slow down a little when Cothran adopts a more dour tone to match the subject matter, such as on 'Greater Vultures' and 'Her Sinking Sun,' and on these tracks he even sounds a little like Sparklehorse.
Blue Suicide is an easy album to recommend; it's brimming full of creativity and talent, showcasing Cothran's strong, offbeat song-craft, and just like his previous two albums it will be released for free on his official website. Check out 'Her Sinking Sun' below and the link to the Coma Cinema website:
Sports is the debut album by San Fransisco band Weekend, formed in late 2009 and signed to Slumberland Records (the same label that put out such great bands as Lilys and Black Tambourine in the early 90s) the trio offer up 11 tracks of post-punk noise that sounds best when they're not simultaneously ripping off Joy Division and The Jesus And Mary Chain.
Opening track and first single 'Coma Summer' is a completely blissed-out slice of distorted feedback-howling shoegaze pop, propelled by a pounding beat enveloped in dangerously reverberating vocals and guitars that sound like buzz saws threatening to tear away at your ears as lead singer Shaun Durkan casually sings "I awoke from a coma summer/And I found you/I awoke from a coma summer/Tell me you're true." It's so perfect in its eargasm-inducing sensory overload that the album blows its load too soon and never reaches the same gratifying peak across the remaining forty minutes. Durkan puts on his best Ian Curtis impression for second track 'Youth Haunts,' but as is the case with much of the album the buried vocals lose some of their impact when they are not tethered to a strong melody. 'Coma Summer' works so brilliantly because the contrasting elements create a cohesive balance that's instantly engaging and engrossing, and the only other track on here that comes close to reaching the same level of compositional harmony is 'End Times,' with its catchy bass riff and strong vocal hook riding a steady rhythm as waves of guitar noise swell into each other underneath. 'Monday Morning' is a great drone piece that could have been expanded; I'd definitely like to see the band do more of this, and 'Monongah, WV' takes drone influences and successfully injects them into a rousing punk number. Apart from these aforementioned highlights the album is quite a murky, disjointed affair that could have benefited from stronger production but nonetheless, the highlights are so good that I would still recommend it and I greatly look forward to the band's future output. Check out 'Coma Summer' below and be prepared to put it on repeat:
I was in my local Rough Trade record store the other week listening to new releases on their CD sampler and the description of one album in particular interested me quite a bit, so standing there with the headphones on I selected a CD titled Forget by an artist I had never heard of before called Twin Shadow. Within a minute into the first track, Tyrant Destroyed, I was hooked. Sparse electronic drums and somber keyboards in the vein of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone pulse as a low hushed voice sings 'I know you spent some time/From the town to the city/Looking for a life to start/And when you were fifteen /I know what you said/"I'd never let another black boy break my heart."'
Twin Shadow is the stage name of musician George Lewis Jr., born in the Dominican Republic and raised in rural Florida, who recently released his debut album Forget through 4AD. On the album Lewis reminisces about childhood experiences and his own past. The music itself is haunting and sparse, paring down core elements of 80s New Wave, disco, indie rock and R&B. Produced by Grizzly's Bear's Chris Taylor the album is intricate, immaculate and concise; not a moment is wasted over the 11 cuts on offer. Highlights include the aforementioned opening track, Shooting Holes At The Moon, one of the more upbeat songs on the album, Tether Beat, Castles In The Snow and the title track.
I highly recommend this record, the only criticism I have is that there's a lack of variation in the tone and tempo of the songs, and the slick production and minimal composition means it takes a few listens to really get into it as it does sound a little too similar throughout upon cursory review. If you do stick with it though you will find it a highly rewarding listen and in my opinion it's definitely one of the best albums of the year.
Xiu Xiu's latest outing is by far their most pop-influenced album, but while it may be more sonically palatable than previous releases the lyrical subject matter is typically dark and morbid, with songs about eating disorders, self-mutilation and serial killers making up the twelve tracks on offer. As per usual, lead singer Jamie Stewart imbues his work with a sense of pathos, mixing self-deprecating humour with elements of tragedy and horror. Stewart's aesthetic approach is perhaps more consistently maximalist here, displaying less dynamic and textural range, and certainly the album is a far cry from the more foreboding and quietly unsettling La Forêt and lacking the variety of career-peak Fabulous Muscles, but this lends the songs, and therefore the album as a whole, a confidant momentum that carries the listener along a brief but extremely dense half hour.
With Dear God Stewart seems less preoccupied with confrontational and jarring compositions, though there still remains trace elements of these qualities, instead the music is characterized by a more rousing and upbeat sound this time around. According to the press release one of the instruments used in the making of the album was a Nintendo DS, and one track even makes prominent use of a children's choir; it is details such as this that belie the bleak title and make the album fun to listen to. There are also moments of tenderness, such as in the lament of Hyunhye's Theme, about a law student working hard to please their parents, and on This Too Shall Pass Away (For Freddy) where consolation comes in the assurance that "at least you are not alone" in feeling pain and that it is, like all things, transient. The title track, an ode to self-loathing and dysfunctional behaviour as well as a plea for spiritual love, is a definite highlight. Stewart also manages to squeeze in an unexpected cover of Cumberland Gap, a 19th century Appalachian folk song. Dear God, I Hate Myself is an odd but assured juxtaposition of dark subject matter and dense yet melodious music that works brilliantly and makes for one of Xiu Xiu's most exciting releases to date.
The album is released on 23rd February through Kill All Rock Stars, preceded by the release of the title track as lead single on iTunes on January 19th.
Today Terius Nash, aka The Dream, dropped his free internet-download album 1977 under his birth name in advance of the release of upcoming album proper, The Love, IV: Diary of a Mad Man. The 11-track album, featuring guest spots from Pharrell and Big Sean and introducing Casha, is available direct from his official website. Earlier Nash tweeted in regards to the album: "this one was done with no politics and Pressure. Its Free literally and figuratively." Check it out for yourself, just click HERE for the free direct download.
