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Friday 12 April 2013

Vampire Weekend - Walcott -- Vampire Weekend


Right now we'll be talking about an American indie rock quartet from New York. Vampire weekend is one of the best bands in the genre for the last few years with an excellent debut album, which will be talked about here. As well as a very good follow up album. Next month the third album will be out, and let me tell you I'm looking forward to it! On their official site (link below) you already have two new tracks you can listen to if you didn't already. Or you can just click these youtube links: Diane Young & Step. Both sound a bit strange to me, but I had the same with the Contra album and I ended up loving that one!

Anyways post is about their debut record that came out in early 2008 so lets talk a bit about that one. The self titled record contains hit singles on it like Mansard Roof, A-Punk and Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa and is characterized by fast paced indie pop rock with a lot of world music (sounds) mixed trough them. In general it's one of my favorite albums of the last 5 years, and probably of all time as well. The record doesn't contain a single bad track in my opinion and Ezra Koenig has such lovely and unique sounding vocals which makes the record even more brilliant. 

The song I chose to post is Walcott. It wasn't my favorite song on the record at the start but after seeing them twice live I absolutely love the song and it became my favorite song by Vampire Weekend in general. It's just brilliant how they bring it live combined with the atmosphere of the crowd, or at least at the gigs that I went to it was! The video is an acoustic/live version of both this song and of One as well. It's a video from a take away show they did for Lablogotheque. So enjoy and feel free to look forward with me to the new material!

Official site
last.fm artist page

Thursday 11 April 2013

BEAT!BEAT!BEAT! - Fireworks -- Lightmares (2010)


Up next is the first band from Germany. We came close with Germany Germany like a month ago but that is actually a Canadian project like I said in that post. This time it's about BEAT!BEAT!BEAT!, not sure if the capital letters are necessary as well don't I know if there should be a space behind every exclamation mark. I found a lot of different options on how to spell their name, but this is how I know them, but feel free to correct me in the comments. 

The band is from the region of Cologne, which actually is close to the border with Belgium. So we almost had an extra excellent band in our small country. So close! The band plays Indie Rock and has released an ep, named Stars in 2009. Their debut album, Lightmares, is the album I'll talk about briefly here. It's a very good record in my opinion with catchy tunes on it. It mostly is indie guitar rock, but this is mixed with songs that have a more synthesizer, poppy character really. Vocals are very decent as well and it manages to entertain you for about 40 minutes. Better known songs on the record are Fireworks, We Are Waves and You're a Designer. Where the last of these three is one of the songs that focuses more on the synthesizers while the others are regular indie guitar rockish tracks. After this very decent debut records it's a bit silent around these four lads, and I sincerely hope they are still active! 

The song I chose to post for you guys is Fireworks, which was on the ep as well. Whilst it's not my favorite by the band it is a very close second. My favorite track is One Day In The Woods, but it isn't on the album. I don't know if it came out before or after the album really, I just found out about them in 2012 so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, haha. But yes, if you like Fireworks feel free to check out the other video as well (click the link), and certainly check out the Lightmares album. It proved difficult to find a working download link, but it's worth it! Enjoy

Wednesday 10 April 2013

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Face Down - Don't You Fake It (2006)


Nostalgia on the blog right now, I am listening to a band that I haven't listened to in years. But a band I used to love a lot after their debut album Don't You Fake It. I gave up on The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus with the follow up album Lonely Road though. Mainly because my taste in music had changed between 2006 and 2008 but partly because the album was a huge disappointment for me as well.


The debut album by the band is by far the most known album I think, and for me by far the best album they produced. The record is in the emo rock sphere and contains hit songs like Face Down, Your Guardian Angel and False pretense. The music is characterized by pop punk rock (or something in between these three) with fast and simple sounding riffs, and choruses easy enough to sing along to. It's easy to start to like the record if you are a fan of the genre and bands like Story of the Yeah, Escape the Fate, Anberlin, stuff like that. For me it's still a good record since I have some history with it while I was a teenager, but if it came out now I'd probably pay little to no attention to it. In general I'd still advice to listen to the album if you have a soft spot for the genre, like I do because of my past. If not, you better ignore this post you'll not like the band, haha. 

The song I'm posting is the most famous song they produced, Face Down of course. It isn't my favorite song by the band, which probably will be Your Guardian Angel or Grim Goodbye. But if I think about the band the first song that comes to mind is the Face Down song, since it was the one that got them famous for a short time back then. Enjoy!


Official site
last.fm artist page

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Editors - Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors -- An End Has A Start (2007)


Up next is one of my favorite bands of all time, with for me the best album they made so far. I had little to no inspiration today so I let Miri decide what I should post. And lets face it, she did well! Not only is this band one of my top 3 most played bands of all time, as well did she pick the right album from them to talk about. 

The album is a former number one album in England and the second album made by the band after the debut album The Back Room of course. The album is characterized by the indie rock and the post punk revival music the band plays, with the pretty unique and awesome vocals of Tom Smith obviously. Back in the post about Joy Division I said he reminded me of Ian, or the other way around... This still is the case and again I will say that they are basically Joy Division on speed, a description others often gave them over the years. The album contains hit songs like Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors, An End Has A Start and The Racing Rats and it made me absolutely fall in love with them. I bought The Back Room short after its release but didn't give it much plays back in in 2005 and 2006. I did give them a lot of attention in the summer of 2007 though, for the simple reason they were coming to Pukkelpop and I was planning to see them live. In the two weeks before Pukkelpop I played their material an awful lot and I absolutely fell in love with An End Has A Start that came out two months earlier.

The song I chose to post is Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors, because it's after Swing Life Away my favorite track I'd say. The last few days before the festival I had it constantly on repeat and when they finally played it live I just closed my eyes and had goosebumps for the total duration of the song. So it was an easy choice to make I'd say! Because of this I have picked a live version of the song as well. Before I conclude this post with an enjoy, I'd like to say that new material should be coming later this year. It's not officially announced I think but few media mention a fourth album for later this year. Enjoy!

Official site

Monday 8 April 2013

The Wombats - School Uniforms -- The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation (2007)


One of my all time favorite bands now, with their debut album The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation. The band consists off Matthew Murphy, Daniel Haggis and Tord Øverland-Knudsen and was formed in Liverpool. The trio plays some of the most catchy indie rock music out there and the band obviously is one of the most known acts because of this. I fell in love with them a year before this release, when the Girls, Boys & Marsupials release came out as well as with some of the earlier released singles. Not sure if the Girls, Boys & Marsupials record is the debut album or not, this one only came out in Japan so I guess it's open for discussion but I guess for us Europeans the actual debut album was The Wombats Proudly Presents...


The record contains most of the songs that already where on the Girls, Boys & Marsupials with some new ones like Kill The Director and Lets Dance To Joy Division to name two of them. Which were of course excellent additions to an already excellent album. Which created an awesome debut album, which was followed up by an excellent second album as well last year. The record is known by all of you I assume so I won't bother you any longer by talking about it then.

Only thing left to say is which song I'm posting, and this will be the School Uniforms songs, because of one part of that song I adore. I simply love to sing along to "I remember short skirts, long hair, my hormones flying everywhere". I hope you guys do as well. No official video of this track, so am uploading a live version, not the best quality but we all know the song right? soooo enjoy!

Official site
last.fm artist page

Sunday 7 April 2013

Peace - Wraith -- In Love (2013)



We're going to England once more, Birmingham this time. Peace is a four piece band that creates melodic indie rock and brought out their debut album at the end of March. The album is decent to good after a few listens but does leave you slightly disappointed  For the simple reason they were hyped so much on the internet and compared to bands like Foals and Vampire Weekend. As well did they play on the NME (they gave the album a 9/10 as well...) Awards tour this year. So yeah it's a decent debut record, but it didn't meet the (or my) high expectations. Anyways if you are new to the band and didn't hear about them before you might actually really like this release.

The album is pretty poppy in my opinion, and is full of catchy tunes and lyrics about young love. It contains the previously released singles Follow Baby and Wraith, and the album is basically more of the same. To be honest it sounds pretty much as so many other indie rock releases. Not that this is per se a bad thing, they don't have a revolutionary new sound, but at least they are able to make some good indie pop/rock. If you are, like me, a fan of the genre then it's worth to give the album a few spins and you'll find yourself liking it. But I'm not sure if it will stick, maybe the hype will continue and the band will get a lot of airtime and media attention. But I'm afraid a lot of people might be slightly disappointed and they'll slowly disappear out of the media. Nevertheless the album is pretty good and I'd give it somewhere around a seven on ten, just don't expect to be blown away by it...

The song I'm posting is Wraith, because I know them from this song. It isn't the best on the album but at least it has an official video and it's one of the two songs most of you will already know by them. Enjoy!

Official site
last.fm artist page

Saturday 6 April 2013

The Rural Alberta Advantage - The Ballad of the RAA -- Hometowns (2009)


Right now I'll be talking a bit about a Canadian band from Toronto with roots in Alberta. They released two full length albums until now and I'll be talking about the debut record back from 2009. Hometowns is an indie rock album that is characterized by very good vocals by Nils Edenloff (also guitar) accompanied with the backing vocals of Amy Cole (Keyboards as well) in some songs. The music is most of the time fast paced and has some folk influences to it as well if you ask me. The trio, besides the previously named two the band also consists of Paul Banwatt on drums, delivered a very well acclaimed debut album with Hometowns and the follow up album Departing was received well too.

The record starts off with a rather slow intro for the band, the first song does contain a very nice build up with awesome drumming combined with keyboards (of Amy) and strong vocals, but yes it is in general pretty slow and calm for the band. The second song Rush Apart contains some of the folk elements I talked about in the intro, it's a bit faster paced that the opening song and especially the guitar adds a folk element to it for me. The third track is a bit harder than the previous two and leans towards an actual (indie) rock song. The rest of the album actually is more and less a mix of these three types of songs. Namely songs that focus on keyboard and drumming with a bit of guitar to support this, songs that have some fast paced folkish sounding music and songs that lean towards actual rock songs. All these songs are accompanied by the awesome vocals of Nils supported by Amy at times. The better known songs on this record are Don't Haunt This Place, Drain The Blood and The Dethbridge in Lethbridge. As well as the song I'm posting here.

The song I chose to post is the Ballad of the RAA, which is basically the ballad of the band since the RAA stands for Rural Alberta Advantage if you didn't know this little fact already. It is the opening track of the album and contains an awesome build up like I said. As well do you immediately fall in love with the lovely vocals of Nils Edenloff. Enjoy!

Official site
last.fm artist page

Friday 5 April 2013

Young Statues - Eraser -- Age Isn't Ours (2013)


Young Statues is a New Jersey/Philadelphia based band that I know little to nothing about. What I do know is that they released the Age Isn't Ours 6 track ep last few days, and it doesn't sound bad at all after a few listens. It's an indie rock band with sometimes an emo rockish sounding touch to them if you ask me. The vocals are decent and the music is actually pretty good in my opinion. Nothing extraordinary but a very decent release that is worth to check out. It seems it's the third release by the band after a self titled album in 2011 and an acoustic ep last year, so more to check out if you like what you hear.

The song I'm posting is the first one on the ep, called Eraser. The quality of the video isn't great at all but I actually like it because of this, it adds some sort of charm to it. If you want to properly check the band out you can go watch this video of Spacism, which was featured on their debut album. Enjoy!

Official site
last.fm artist page

Thursday 4 April 2013

BOAT -- Pretend To Be Brave (2013)


Right now I'll be talking about a Seattle based band, that has been active for quite a while. The Pretend To Be Brave is the 5th studio album since 2006 already. I honestly had no clue that there were any albums before the Dress Like Your Idols album from 2011. Above of that I always thought this band was French, don't know where I got these wrong assumptions but at least I read a bit about them before I started writing! 

BOAT is an Indie Rock band and the latest album isn't anything different. It starts off with Sharpshooters and Inside of an Aquarium which seem to be the better known songs by the last.fm community. Both are decent indie rock songs, but don't seem to stand out from so many other bands (like Built to Spill for example). It's an album that is worth to check out though, especially Hating The Criminal and The Big, The Bright are two songs I start to really like after three listens. But you'll have to listen a few times before you can start to really like them I'd say. It's easy to consider them good, but you'll easily forget about them because there isn't anything that makes them different. So I guess the biggest disadvantage this album has, is that it will be easily passed after a first listen because it isn't anything new under the sun. This comes along with a slight advantage though, if you like the genre you'll easily find yourself liking the band at a first listen and it will actually sound familiar in many ways although they are new songs. Anyways to conclude I would say that Pretend To Be Brave is a good Indie Rock album, especially after some extra listens you'll start to like it. I'd consider the band in general to be good as well both music wise and vocals. The Dress Like Your Idols album had the same problem as the Pretend To Be Brave one though. I knew I had it, I knew I liked it but beside the title song I couldn't remember any tune from it. So yes they are good, but nothing new. If you are looking for bands in this genre they are an excellent fit though.  

I don't think the album has any official video's so I'll be posting my favorite song by the band which is the Dress Like Your Idols song which is basically the only song I seemed to remember from the previous album. So I guess they have one song that stands out a bit. I left the song title out of the post's title because of the difference between the album I'm talking about and the album where the songs was taken from. Enjoy!

last.fm artist page (second band)

Wednesday 3 April 2013

Technorati

Need to claim my blog once more, it seems if I change my HTML it may cause problems to get indexed on technorati so you may see this type of post come along some more in the future.

Anyways always feel free to ignore it and when the process is done this kind of posts will be deleted every time.

Thanks for the understanding, haha!


claim token: PA9A2YMRQRJT

About to write about a band now so look out for the post this night! 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Y Control -- Fever To Tell (2003)


Second Yeah Yeah Yeahs post this week, simple reason for this: I didn't stop listening to them after I checked out Mosquito. As well as the sad fact that I didn't have any time to find something new. So Yeah Yeah Yeahs it was last days! This time we're going to talk briefly about the oldest album back from 2003 already, Fever To Tell of course. If you are interested in the newest album go read my post about Mosquito.

The Fever To Tell album is for me personally the best one they released, it has quite simple sounding songs often characterized by a lot of repetition in the lyrics as well as music wise, but it's magnificently done. Karen O's voice is like I said in the other post lovely, and probably the reason why I like the band so much. The music on the record is as you now great alternative rock and got some nominations, even a Grammy for best alternative music album. It features songs like Date With The Night, Maps (nominated at the MTV video music awards), Man, Cold Light, and so on... Basically everything on the record is awesome. This explains why I can't stop listening to them last few days doesn't it? And of course because It's Blitz! and Show Your Bones are quite good albums on their own as well. On the other hand I don't consider Mosquito to be equally good after a few extra listens, It's good but it's not on the level of the previous records.

The song I chose to post is of course Y Control. This track name has featured as my nickname across many platform, like I said in the Mosquito post. So it's quite obvious that I really like the song, It's not the best of the album but one of the top three for me I guess. If you would like to stalk me you have to watch out, I'm often known as alternatives too this nickname because the actual Y Control name was taken already, so you might be stalking someone else if you give it a try, haha. Anyways enjoy, next time I'll talk about something new again.

Monday 1 April 2013

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege -- Mosquito (2013)


Tonight another recent release will be the topic. The Mosquito album by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, not sure if it's actually out already or it just has leaked, but that's basically the same thing these days. I'm listening my third time to the album upon writing this and I'm not entirely convinced. I love the band, heck the Y Control song features as my gamer and nick name on a lot of platforms. But this record is pretty alternative, even experimental. I don't consider it to be bad but I don't know I miss the rock in the album. I'm not used to having to re-listen a Yeah Yeah Yeahs album to actually start liking it I guess.

The record is for Yeah Yeah Yeahs standards very slow and again experimental. It's like they completely forgot how to play indie/alternative rock. It starts of with Sacrilege and Subway, which both are very surprising songs for the band. The third song after which the album is called does remind you a bit of the older material and is a nice flashback to how you expect them to sound. Afterward the record continues in the experimental mood set in the first two tracks and sometimes you get another song like Mosquito that reminds you of the old albums, if you're lucky that is. At least you still have Karen O's vocals during the complete record, and they still sound pretty awesome if you ask me. Actually these vocals make the record a whole lot better, if it wasn't for her voice I'm not sure if I'd still like the record really. I have nothing against the musical change they are making but it's not really my type of music and I would soon give up on it. But now I know it's a Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, I love them and I love her voice so it makes me re-listen it. Not because I wanted to after the first spin but because I forced myself to do it. And to be honest the record starts growing on me, I really miss the old sound but it's actually a very decent record. Not good but like a solid 7 on 10 at the moment for me, and who knows maybe it gets a higher rating after the few extra listens.

The song is like I said Sacrilege simply because the official video of it came out earlier this week and it's a great example of the experimental direction the band has headed in. Enjoy!

Official site
last.fm artist page