Category Archives: Album

Wow, Earlimart is bewitching me.

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I’m listening to the new Earlimart “Mentor Tormentor” while I am trying to catch up on book reviews tonight, and this album is completely entrancing me. It’s so lilting and melodic and calm yet building. The vocals are lovely. Wow. What a pretty album!

I’ve mentioned their previous album (“Treble & Tremble”) to lots of people and just gotten a blank stare. I listened to that one quite a bit, but I don’t remember there being as many male/female trade-offs in the vocals. There’s a folksy, country twinge to this band, but they’re less rhythmic than most country, and the harmonies feel thicker/stronger (and more pop) than most folk.

Now I wish I would have bought tickets to see them (tomorrow at Schuba’s) but I know I really don’t have the energy anyway (and I knew looking at my calendar, I wouldn’t, which is why I didn’t buy them when they went on sale a few months ago). Eh bien…next time.

For now, I will turn off the lights and listen to this loveliness and dream myself into another world…

The Magic Numbers …SOUND LIKE… The Muppets ??

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OK, call me crazy, but I SWEAR there is a sample of “The Rainbow Connection” in the middle of “Boy” from The Magic Numbers‘ new album “Those the Brokes“.

Why else would I find myself humming “the lovers, the dreamers, and me” ? Seriously, give it a listen, I SWEAR it’s there.

As to the rest of the album: Thumbs up! It’s still the bouncy relentless POP of their earlier album (you really can’t call this anything other than “pop”!), but there’s some touches that are a little blue-sier, a little funk-ier, a little more sass-a-fras. They make such pretty harmonies, there just aren’t that many people out there that can do it better than this.

Current Favorite Band: The National.

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I am so in love with this band right now, I can barely talk about it without getting choked up!

Stay out super late tonight
Picking apples, making pies
Put a little something in our lemonade
And take it with us…

The fact that I had never listened to them before Boxer, their AWESOME current album, just goes to show that no matter how much music you listen to, and how many magazines & blogs you read, and how much you think you are paying attention, there is always something GREAT that slips past your radar.

As the summer went by, I kept picking up random mentions of them everywhere and then Paul mentioned them as well, and I got home, listened to maybe three of the iTunes 35-second samples, and I was ALL IN. Just like that.

The lead singer’s voice is soooo deep and melodius and just downright BEWITCHING. You don’t even want to hear anyone else sing after that, all other voices sound so thin. The music is thick and densely layered (you know I’m not a fan of the sparse). Great lyrics. Great mood. Wow. I’m bowled over!

I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain.

I am going to see them live in NovemberSeptember! [Doh!] and I CANNOT WAIT!!

Highly Recommended: “Boxer”

Also recommended: earlier album “Alligator”

Although a lot of the reviews are calling the new one a departure, I felt it was more of a logical progression.

You might need me more than you think you will.

Album: The White Stripes “Icky Thump”

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So in the past, I have always thought “naw, I don’t think so” when a new White Stripes album comes out. Then a few weeks after its release, I start hearing it everywhere and loving it. Then I finally buy it and it becomes completely indispensable to my listening ears. So this time, I bought it right away. Good idea — ’cause I love it! I mean I LOVE it EXCEPT I HATE “St Andrew (blah blah)”. That song just grates on my ears and in fact I believe I will DELETE it from iTunes altogether when I get home tonight so it never accidentally starts playing! Hate. Love. It’s always a fine line!
Actually I love this album so much that I think I may finally have found my new AC/DC. You know, that one band in a genre you never ever listen to but you just love that one band so much you listen to it constantly? Because THIS album to me is not rock. It’s HARD rock. Metal, almost. I mean, seriously…it rocks. It’s loud and sassy and all BEAT and GUITAR and hello is it not hard rock to you?
As close to listening to Headbanger’s ball as I will ever be, EXCEPT of course AC/DC “Back in Black” which I did in high school (and still do) listen to full-on over and over. Hello if you went to high school when I did, you young folk, there is no way you didn’t know all the words to at least three songs on this album, whether you liked it or not. And it’s certainly the only hard rock I was interested in then. (And OK, during high school, I was willing to make out to Whitesnake, but I wouldn’t listen to it otherwise.)
So there’s two recommendations for you: White Stripes “Icky Thump” = THUMBS UP. AC/DC “Back in Black” = in my all-time Top 10, no question. (Whitesnake = only during heavy petting.)

Maria Taylor: New to me. New to you?

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So you may or may not remember me liking the Maria Taylor song that’s on the Paste #30 sampler. I bought her latest album “Lynn Teeter Flower” shortly after that. It’s a little quirky / songs are very stylistically different from each other / you just don’t know what to expect and it feels a bit off kilter, like she hasn’t found HER sound yet. But I am quite enjoying it and can’t quite compare it to anyone else. How refreshing!

And I am also quite enjoying her 10 Things list (linked to today by Largehearted Boy). I am soooo with her on #6 and #3 (except for the fine arts high school bit. Hello there were 40 people in my graduating class, that supported one crappy high school and certainly not a fine arts high school in addition or instead).

Album: Shane Nicholson “Faith & Science”

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If you were a boy singer, would you be insulted if I told you your album was super super pretty? I mean it in a good way!

I saw Nicholson open for Kasey Chambers last year(?or the year before?) and really liked him. He’s often compared to Crowded House/Neil Finn. I really didn’t hear the similarities that much on the previous album, but on this one there are indeed a few songs that I have to stop and think “Wait, who am I listening to?”

If you need music to ROCK you, this might be too soft for you. But if you generally don’t like the quiet boys, it’s more upbeat than that (i.e., not as melancholy as, say, Damien Rice).

Fave songs: “All the Time in the World,” “Always Be on Your Side,” “Watch Her Go” and “Exit Wounds.”

Finally Giving In to Elvis Perkins

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After receiving multiple recommendations of Elvis Perkins “Ash Wednesday” and somehow never being convinced by the 35 second previews on iTunes, I was finally in just the right mood for it and now I just can’t stop listening. It may be elegiac in some of its lyrics and imagery, but it’s not a downer: the overall feeling is one of hope. It’s got a real twangy folky feel to it, lots of acoustic guitar strumming with crooning vocals on top.

Next to the new Travis, which I canNOT stop listening to over and over and over again, it’s probably my most played music in May.

So Beautiful It Hurts.

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Great Lake Swimmers went and released a new album without telling me, can you believe the nerve? Good thing I was dicking around in iTunes trying to find a place to throw money. (Weirdly the release date is reportedly March 27 but since I bought it on iTunes several days ago and it’s playing on my iPod RIGHT NOW that is obviously wrong.)

Ongiara is beautiful. Just fucking beautiful.