The National's "High Violet" - Living Up to Expectations

So the new National album (due May 11th on 4AD Records) has had quite the buzz around it now for several months. Numerous tracks have been strategically leaked and the band played on Jimmy Fallon a few nights back, further building the anticipation for the album. Instead of waiting till the official release date, the full length album was streamed this weekend in concert with a New York Times feature article on the band. (Visit the NY Times to read the full length article)

Like the previous two National releases (Alligator and Boxer) this album has several outstanding tracks that will only continue to grow on you over time. The album keeps to the group's style with very dark, sorrowful lyrics amidst deep, layered instrumental rock. The rich drumming on this release really stands out from the previous albums, as the group is more apt to using lead singer Matt Berninger's classic baritone to augment the music this time around. Stand out tracks include Sorrow, Anyone's Ghost, Runaway and Afraid of Everyone, the latter featuring Sufjan Stevens on background vocals.

No doubt this album is going to find itself on numerous top ten lists at the end of the year. Highly highly recommended.

Johnny Cash's "American VI: Ain't No Grave" - A fantastic swan song

"American VI: Ain't No Grave" is the final release of Johnny Cash material from the much heralded American Recording Series produced by Rick Rubin. Each of the recordings has featured stripped down covers and a few originals which did an amazing job in reinventing Johnny Cash's career. While Cash didn't necessarily need to be reinvented, these new recordings did their purpose and served to reintroduce Cash to a new audience.

While this album is not as good as American II or American VI, there is a vibe in this album that makes it stand out completely differently. Perhaps the album's content, featuring very dark vocals on mortality and redemption, is amplified due to its posthumous release. The opening title track stands as arguably one of the best recordings of the entire series. The cover of the Hawaiian classic Aloha Oe, placed at the end of the album, is as fitting a finale to an album i've ever heard. Also standing out on the album is the cover of Sheryl Crow's Redemption Song and the cover of the Sons Of the Pioneers' cowboy classic Cool Water.

Unlike other posthumuous releases, which compile B-Sides and discarded material, this release truly represents the final recordings of the late great Johnny Cash. We should all be thankful to be able to hear one last set of recordings from him. Highly recommended!

Broken Bells - Darker that you think...

This is really a fantastic listen. James Mercer of The Shins and Danger Mouse have crafted an album of airy harmonies intermixed with psychedlic production. While the music itself is somewhat light, what might be missed at the first few listens is the relatively dark nature of the lyrics on the album centering on breaking up, moving on, etc. Unfortunately, Broken Bells is not nearly as good as any Shins' album or other Danger Mouse produced albums, but it has several good moments and you'll definitely find yourself enjoying the ride. Recommended.

The Flaming Lip's "Dark Side Of the Moon" - A Stellar Effort

First things first. I promised to blog more and beginning this week I will blog more. Expect weekly album reviews, sports rants and misc nonsense. I'm going to start this week by catching up with some albums already released this year.



Now I love Pink Floyd and DSOTM has always been one of my all time favorite albums. That being said, this effort by the Flaming Lips, arguably the only band "worthy" of remaking this seminal album, is quite good and well worth the listen. The album is a straight cover of the original album done not completely note for note, but in a very Flaming Lips psychedelic type of way

I particularly am fond of the use of Henry Rollins and Peaches. The guest appearances are not over-bearing and never take away from the original material. I think what makes this album so good is that it actually serves in many ways to remind you how good the original album is. For instance, after many years on classic rock radio, Money has become stale and boring; however the reworking on this album not only is well done, but it serves to refresh the original.

In the end, the original album is always going to be one of the most important albums of all time. Any reimagining/reworking of the album has to be done with nothing but the greatest of respect to the original material. This was the right group to do this. Well done.

Top Ten Albums of 2009

I realize this is late, but i'm going to go ahead and post my top ten albums for 2009 that I wrote up in December. I'll begin posting more album reviews shortly. Feel free to continue not caring.

1. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

I've bitched and bitched about the inconsistency of Grizzly Bear's albums. Each of their albums seemingly has 5-6 fantastic songs intertwined with several so-so songs. I first thought 'Veckatimest' was the same, with several amazing songs and several ok songs. The problem was that even with a couple duds on the album, this damn cd never left my car all year. It's as intricate and precise as an album that's been released in a long time, and it shows live. This album is on everyone's top ten, but i'm putting it at number 1.

2. Japandroids - Post/Nothing

Japandroids are two guys. One guitar, one drum set, two sets of vocals. Sounds small right? There is absolutely nothing "minimal" about these guys or this album. Loud, raucous, heavily distorted rock music that sounds like it's coming from a five piece band is what this is. No one song sticks out over any other; but the album will leave you feeling very sated. Rock on

3. Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light

Absolutely stellar album, stretching Antony's Nina Simone-esque voice to a max. An exploration of nature's relationship between birth and death. Somehow this album is darker than his previous release. Not musically darker, just lyrically. I'm a sucker for this type of depressing ass music.

4. Mew - No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry They Washed Away; No More Stories, The World Is Grey; I'm Sorry, Let's Wash Away

Ok, Mew's second full length release, the insanely long album titled "No More Stories..." might catch your eye only due to the long album title. Title aside, this album is an amazing prog rock piece by the Danish four piece which is at times rocking and at times mellow and appeasing. Prog rock is the forgotten rock genre which you never hear about "resurging". That's not necessarily a bad thing, as albums like these can still be released and get noticed.

The album might sound a bit chaotic and unorganized at first listen, but after several listens you see the complexly woven mesh that underlays this amazing release. Be sure to give it several listens, you won't be disappointed.

5. Animal Collective - Merriwether Post Pavilion

This album is popping up as Number One on everyone's top ten albums list, so I don't need to gush over it anymore than already is being done. This album will propel Animal Collective to the top of the indie scene, and for good reason. Animal Collective, along with Sigur Ros, TV On the Radio, The Flaming Lips and Radiohead have been constantly in my head for the past 5 years, and likely will remain.

6. YACHT - See Mystery Lights

I usually hate this genre of music. Electro/disco influenced dance pop? This album is catchy as hell, and YACHT absolutely sold me with a fantastic live show. Highly recommended.

7. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

Very minimalistic, bittersweet album with depressing lyrics (yup, I like the sad shit) and strong vocals. Most people are digging on Fever Ray and St. Vincent, but I prefer Bat For Lashes.

8. Mastodon - Crack the Skye

Alright, all the metal heads will probably get all pissed that i'm digging this Mastodon album, but ignore the hype of the "new dawn of metal" the critics are calling them and you'll hear a fucking kick ass metal album. The lyrics are weird as shit (I think it's a concept album about space travel and Russia?) but the album is well constructed, the guitar work remains awesome, and after a few listens you grow to like it more, which I haven't been able to say about a metal album in a while.

9. Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions

This is still the churning, heavy drone metal that's to be expected from these guys with one difference, the craftwork of the 4 songs on this album are better than any of their other releases. I might start hating this genre soon, but this album so far stands out.

10. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

This album is just flat out awesome. The tracks are unbearingly loud, and there is a serious lack of cohesion and sense, which is seemingly what makes this album work. It's an oddly complex electronic rock album that stretches the ears. Good stuff.

Honorable Mention

Swan Lake - Enemy Mine; The Flaming Lips - Embryonic; The Handsome Furs - Face Control; Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca; 1349 - Revelations Of the Black Flame; These United States - Everything Touches Everything

Damn.

My apologies to my very very few listeners. I haven't blogged in a minute and a half.

I will begin blogging much more regularly beginning this week.

To make up for it, here's a picture of an anteater.

Mew's "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"

Ok, Mew's second full length release, the insanely long album titled "No More Stories..." might catch your eye only due to the long album title. Title aside, this album is an amazing prog rock masterpiece by the Danish four piece which is at times rocking and at times mellow and appeasing. Prog rock is the forgotten rock genre which you never hear about "resurging". That's not necessarily a bad thing, as albums like these can still be released and get noticed.

The album might sound a bit chaotic and unorganized at first listen, but after several listens you see the complexly woven mesh that underlays this amazing release. Be sure to give it several listens, you won't be disappointed.

Health's "Get Color" - Dance Punk Hipness

Health is an interesting group creating an interesting sound. Health has managed to fuse digital elements with heavy rock/noise riffs and pounding drums to create a unique dance punk sound. "Get Color" is a noisy, distorted, loud, somewhat abrasive album that still manages to be catchy and totally danceable. It'll fit right in with your experimental indie rock playlist of The Boredoms, The Liars and Deerhoof.

The album will be released on September 8th on Secretly Canadian Records. I recommend it.

Jonsi & Alex's "Rice Boy Sleeps" - Very Pretty and Very Boring

Jonsi and Alex is the side project of Jonsi Birgisson of the fantastic Sigur Ros. Jonsi and Alex's vision is to release a minimal acoustic album of ambient music devoid of the characteristic vocals and rock bombast of a standard Sigur Ros album.

Make no mistake, this album is well crafted. Lush orchestration and sparsely intermixed choral arrangements are throughout this album. The album is very very pretty. Unfortunately, the album is also very very boring. Maybe i'm spoiled from the stellar Sigur Ros releases, but never throughout the course of this album do you feel yourself moved. The album strives to enthrall, but only succeeds in putting the listener to sleep.

And consider the towel thrown in.

After a humiliating, depressing 4 for 13 stretch against sub-.500 teams, i'm officially throwing in the towel on the Brewer's 2009 season. No pictures, no ranting, no season in review. Nothing. This season was a big big let down.

That's all. Packer talk to assume in three weeks.

Japandroids' "Post-Nothing" - Awesome!

Japandroids are two guys. One guitar, one drum set, two sets of vocals. Sounds small right? There is absolutely nothing "minimal" about these guys or this album. Loud, raucous, heavily distorted rock music that sounds like it's coming from a five piece band is what this is.

What really sells this album is that these two don't care that they are releasing what is seemingly self-indulgent guitar rock with a healthy dose of early-90's distortion. They just know you're going to turn up your stereos as loud as you can and just flat out rock out to the songs here. No one song sticks out over any other; but the album will leave you feeling very sated. Rock on!

The album was released on Poly-Vinyl Records on August 4, 2009. Pick it up.

Yacht's "See Mystery Lights" - Fantastic Futuristic Pop

Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic experimental Über-pop. Yacht takes an eclectic mix of electronic effects (digitized beats, spacey synths, vocoder effects, lasers) and makes it all sound fresh and different. It's bouncy, futuristic, poppy jam music, but it's also damn good. Not my normal style, but highly recommended nonetheless.

Blitzen Trapper's "Black River Killer" - Unnecessarily overproduced countrified rock

This is really unfortunate. Blitzen Trapper has a nice head of steam going for them, and are likely getting ready to "break through" as a big band. Their countrified pop rock is somewhat formulaic, but i'm not going to lie and tell you its bad. I'm generally a fan of the more folksie rock that is being released nowadays, but this album is just too poppy and overproduced for what its trying to be. A more genre friendly approach would have seen the group stick to the more minimally produced style they showcased with "Furr". "Black River Killer" (which is technically a long seven song EP, not a full length CD) is a disappointment (with the exception of the title track, which fittingly enough was on the first album), but that likely doesn't matter, as I think this album might be meant "for the masses", not the indie geek.

On a side note, apparently Sub Pop Records now releases all their CDs in the gatefold "LP-style" slipcases. Quite frankly, I like it. In my opinion this style actually helps to showcase album art better, which is a good thing.

Finally!

The shit finally hit the fan today, as Doug Melvin, the Brewer's ballsy GM finally made the moves we've been waiting for.

Pitching Coach Bill Castro - Fired! Replaced by Nashville Sounds Pitching Coach Chris Bosio

3B/Util Bill Hall - Designated for assignment. Essentially the Brewers have 10 days to trade him, for a team to claim him off waivers, or for him to accept a minor league assignment. The Brewers will eat $12 Million in salary, but considering his absymal batting average and dramatic decline the past three seasons, it's a well justified move. Hopefully we can trade him. I wish Billy Hall well. Maybe he takes a minor league deal and regains his stroke.

SS JJ Hardy - Demoted to AAA Nashville. This might be a drastic move, and I feel this will only last a few weeks, but Hardy has been struggling and if indeed we are out of this thing, we might as well get SS Alcides Escobar as many at bats as possible. Jason Bourgeous is also being called up, and he has been tearing up AAA this season. It'll be interesting to see if these two, along with 3B Mat Gamel, grow in the next month.

As of today Brewers are 6.5 games out of both the NL Central lead and the Wild Card lead. The next 21 games are against sub-.500 teams, followed by 6 games and 7 games against the Cardinals and Cubs. We're not completely out of it, but if they don't turn it around immediately, we're done.

Damn this Brewer team.

Pissed Jeans - King Of Jeans Review

So below I posted the image of the cover art of Pissed Jeans' new release King Of Jeans, mainly to highlight the fact that the cover art is awful.

I did get around to reviewing the record and I must say that it is pretty damn rocking. Hard, brash punk rock with the pounding rhythms and fuzz soaked riffs. Ignore the cover art and check out the album, as its probably the best punk rock album released this year.

Fruit Bats' "The Ruminant Band" - A nice retro listen!

Just got done reviewing The Fruit Bats' new album The Ruminant Band (Sub Pop Records). A well crafted album of alt-country rock. A very 70's-esque vibe to it with a mix of dark lyrics amidst a cheery background. The high-pitched, twangy vocals compliment the album well. I'm giving it a 7 out of 10.

Think Fleetwood Mac or acoustic Shins. Try it.

Pissed Jeans - King Of Jeans, Worst Album Art of the Year!

Ugh. Talk about awful album art.

I'll review the CD and be back with a review within the week, but this easily gets my nod for worst album art of the year.

The Nocturne

We've started a blog for WSND-FM's Nocturne program. Setlists, DJ reviews, rants and raves and so on. A link is posted to the right on this page. Check out the blog!

Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest - Most frustrating album of the year??

I still can't figure this album out. Make no mistake, some of the tracks on this album are flat out the best songs released this year. Particularly stellar are 'Two Weeks', the best pop song you'll hear this year, 'Cheerleader', 'Foreground', and the haunting 'Ready, Able'.

The problem is at least three or four of the tracks on this album are really not good at all. This has been my problem with Grizzly Bear in the past. Both Yellow House and Horn Of Plenty had some absolutely amazing tracks amongst garbage.

This album is going to make a lot of year end top albums lists. Hell, it might even make it into my year end top ten; but it will be due to the strength of a few songs, not the entire album.

The Flaming Lips at Pitchfork Music Festival 2009

Talk about amazing. The always fantastic Flaming Lips put on an amazing set at PFork 2009 at Union Park in wonderful Chicago, IL this past week. Other highlights included The Jesus Lizard, Ponytail, The National, DOOM, Grizzly Bear, Japandroids, M83 and Michael Columbia.

I had the pleasure of interviewing the members of Ponytail and Kickball Katy of the Vivian Girls. I will post the audio of these shortly. As for now, here are pics of the Flaming Lips. More pics are posted on my Facebook page.

I will being posting CD reviews and useless rants no one will read starting again this week.

NV

Wow.

It has been a long damn time since i've posted a blog thought here, but I consider myself refreshed and ready to post. My thoughts on the great Pitchfork Music Festival, including artist reviews and pictures to follow in the next few days.

Random Thoughts

1. I'm apparently too lazy to blog with any degree of regularity. At least my laptop is back at full functionality, so maybe i'll blog more.

2. Baseball season is upon us. Get ready for Brewers talk.

3. Animal Collective, Antony and the Johnsons, Swan Lake and Mastodon. Earyl candidates for album of the year.

That's all for now.

Bacon!

Ever wanted to view your web pages with bacon imprinted on it unnecessarily?

Just affix the following URL in front of the URL of the webpage you are browsing and a piece of bacon shows up on top of the webpage. This ranks up there as the most useless internet thing I have ever found, yet it is so damn useless that i've been playing with it for hours.

http://bacolicio.us/

For instance, care to view this blog with bacon? Use this link:

http://bacolicio.us/http://fandomandboredom.blogspot.com

Fun right?

R.I.P. Dewey Martin

Former drummer for the seminal rock band Buffalo Springfield, Dewey Martin, passed away on Thursday. As a HUGE Buffalo Springfield fan, this is definitely a sad loss. R.I.P.

The Crying Light

I know it's only January, but I think it's safe to say the Antony and the Johnson's The Crying Light (released Janaury 20th) is more than likely going to be the album of the year for me and many others. At minimum it will be in the top five on EVERYONE's top ten end year list.

Absolutely stellar album, stretching Antony's Nina Simone-esque voice to a max. An exploration of nature's relationship between birth and death. Somehow this album is darker than his previous release. Not musically darker, just lyrically.

Great listen, highly recommended. Also recommended - Animal Collective's Merriwether Post Pavilion!