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

The Strokes - All The Time -- Comedown Machine (2013)

Right now I'll be talking about a very recent release from one of the major bands from the genre (indie/alternative rock). The Strokes as you can read in the title released the Comedown Machine album yesterday (if I'm not mistaken). To start off I'd like to say I'm a fan of The Strokes, especially the first three albums. But I don't often listen to them, I got the hard copies of the first two and planning to buy First Impressions of Earth someday soon though. The fourth album I'm not familiar with as well, it got mediocre reviews and well I listened less to music when it came out so I skipped this release, I'll pick it up soon promise. But yes I'd say I'm a fan of them, certainly not the biggest but I do like them. Back to the matter of the day: Comedown Machine. If I have to use one word to describe the record I'd use WEIRD. Seriously it's a weird record, not bad not good (yet) but weird. 

The record starts of with a very mediocre Tap Out for me personally, I have no clue about past singles supporting the album so it's my first listen to everything. At first listen the records start pretty weird for me the high vocals from Julian Casablancas aren't really my thing. Music wise the album sounds great but the vocals are plain weird in some songs, and I can't get myself over it. In the third song One Way Trigger the high pitched vocals are growing on me though, I still consider it weird but after the third listen I'm starting to have that click in my mind that is saying: well yes it is weird but it's actually pretty damn good. In between you have All The Time which is awesome, it's Strokes like I know them, first three albums I mean. Same applies for the fourth song Come Down Japan. The 5th tracks 80's Comedown Machine, is very atmospheric, or how to hell to describe it. It's not really what you expect from them but it's well done, again weird (for them) but good. afterwards you get again a classic Strokes sounding song with 50 50. And it continues like this you always have to make the switch between what the hell is this? and the sound you are used to by them. No it isn't a bad record, after a few listens you really come to like it. But it's not what you expect from them at all. So again I'd describe the record as weird, this might be because I skipped the previous release so my apologies if this is the case. But for someone only familiar with the classic sound of The Strokes it's a bit of a culture shock. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but like so many bands they evolve I guess, let's just try to enjoy the new material as much as we enjoyed the old material.

The song I'm posting is unknown until now for me, haha. Well I typed all the previous before choosing out a song, I'm new to the record so I don't have a favorite song yet and I'm just gonna search for an official video. And the winner is All The Time, one of the songs you'd expect from them, and yes it's official.

Official site
last.fm artist page

Freelance Whales - Generator ^ First Floor-- Weathervanes (2009)

Right now I'm going to talk about a band hailing from New York, Queens to be more exact. Freelance Whales has been active since 2008 and has two studio albums out already. Diluvia which was released last year and the debut record Weathervanes that I'll be talking about here. The music they produce is a mix of indie, indie pop and folk elements which they do very well. To create the music they do they use a whole range of instruments, something you can see as well in the video I'm posting for you guys. Not only do they use the acoustic, electric, bass guitar and the drums. They add  the harmonium, glockenspiel, banjo, mandolin, synthesizers and so on. This creates a pretty unique and very good sound and makes them one of my favorite bands in the indie pop genre.

The record brings you 13 tracks full of quality, it starts off very slow with the song I'm posting having a very long intro  (in the video it doesn't take as much time as on the record) but at the end of the song you already you know you will absolutely adore the band. after this excellent opener the record continues to bring you catchy melodies with good combined vocals which works very well for the band. If you are one of the few that didn't hear about them yet I would strongly advice you to start listening to them. The indie pop/folk music combined with some more electronic tracks are quite excellent and explain why this album was critically acclaimed well. 

The song I chose is the Generator ^ First Floor track. Few reasons for this, it's the most known song by the band, it's the first song I knew by them few years back. And last but not least the video is absolutely lovely. So enjoy!

Official site

last.fm artist page