The 2008 round up

So after receiving an equal amount of praise and rocks thrown at me this time last year for my 2007 round up, why wouldn't i take the chance again to piss off some of you with my terrible choices and inspire others to listen to what i think has been the best 25 albums this year. As the Chemical Brothers once said girls and boys...Here We Go!

25. Little Red - Listen To Little Red

I'm pretty sure this album was on the jukebox in that Happy Days diner Fonzie used to always hang out at. Unashamedly pastiche, these guys avoid being turned into a joke by their ability to put a heartwarming smile on every face in the crowd and get you tappin' those toes like Buddy Holly would've wanted you to. Johnny B (very) Goode.
Key Track: Misty Eyes

24. Children Collide - The Long Now
The debut album from these Aussie alternative rockers nearly make it cool to wear flannel shirts again. Nearly. Combining an outer-space theme with a punk/grunge aesthetic, Children Collide deliver the goods with just plain old fashioned rock 'n' roll, with catchy melodies that will stick with you like herpes. Lyrics about distant planets and meteors have never had such romanticism and their songs are amazingly eclective for a debut, experimenting with different sounds, from dizzying 2 minute punk rockers to stadium anthems. Fun for the whole family.
Key Track: Farewell Rocketship

23. Laura Marling - Alas, I Cannot Swim
The one thing that sets this young woman apart from the plethora of other indie-folk beat poets is her stupidly high IQ. Taking pages from the gospels of The Decemberists and Fionn Regan, Alas, I Cannot Swim is so immersed in nuance and dense beauty that it is near impossible to take it all in at once. But patience is rewarded, as her lofty Kate Bush-like voice tells of the million and one skeletons in her closet in the most intelligent style since Conor Oberst.
Key Track: My Manic & I

22. Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell
The latest diamond from the quarries of the seemingly endless Canadian music scene, TCP impressed with their debut mini-album A Lesson In Crime but fell short of the greatness of their two most obvious influences, The Strokes and Bloc Party. Thankfully they found 4th gear on their first full-length LP and it shines the brightest due to its brevity. This might be an odd achievement for a band to put on its mantle at home but the catchiness and quirks of the songs come and pass through your headphones without ever out-staying their welcome. A lovely surprise considering the amount of self-indulgent assholes making music these days who have never heard of the word 'edit.' The album may have a similar sound radiating through-out but hey! that's just cause it's obvious each member of the band has listened to Is This It? a billion times, escaping punishment by keeping their entire album under 30 minutes.
Key Track: Tessellate

21. Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold

Orchestral hip-hop anyone? Atmosphere confirm their importance in the genre with their most outwardly focused record to date. Tired of rapping about his own life, Brother Ali paints various portraits of the hard lives of those struggling to get by. The LP can almost be seen as a concept album, a homage to the less fortunate, with the socially important lyrics balanced by funky and creative sampling. The album also confirms that there really isn't anything cooler in hip-hop than rapping over a string section.

Key Track: Puppets

20. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Yeh. look. Good album. Mercury Prize worthy though? Hmm, something doesn't sit right with that one. Nevertheless, this is probably one of the best in that vague 'adult contemporary' genre that has sprung up in the last few years. It is however one of those double-edged swords that nobody likes because the downfall of that genre is that it is more boring than Miley Cyrus's underwear. Elbow is at its best when they are pushing the boundaries of conventional pop/rock music, creating unique sounds and structures that make me hope that The Panics are taking notes.
Key Track: Dead Heat: One Day Like This vs. Grounds For Divorce

19. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
Yes, i realise i took them to the cleaners earlier this year. But i was right wasn't i? They sucked live. Didn't they? Admit it. Alright whatever, you still gotta hand it to them for coming up with some disgustingly catchy tunes on a debut effort. Over-rated and over-played as they were, they did show promise for the future. Is it possible to ban them from the radio?
Key Track: Weekend Wars

18. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're all together ooky, the Hot Chip Family! Music's biggest pack of weirdos return after the glorious dance/pop album The Warning with an even more left-field floor filler. Made in The Dark offers many surprises and even more melodic hooks as the boys push the definition of 'pop music' to the limits of space disco and back again. In a league of their own with no contemporaries, all hail the captains of one of the most progressive ships in the galaxy.
Key Track: Ready For The Floor

17. The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement

Well it wouldn't be a top 25 albums list without an appearance from Mr Alex Turner would it? Turning out his third #1 album in 3 years, the arctic monkey teams up with his buddy from The Rascals, Miles Kane and they escape to the South of France to write this orchestral, brooding and eloquent album. At first sounding like a series of possible James Bond themes, the album's dark intricacies are lured out on further listens and contains what possibly could be Turner's finest moment. Side-Projects should not be this captivating.
Key Track: My Mistakes Were Made For You

16. Sigur Rós - Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust (With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly)
I must say i am bias because i have been scarred forever by this band. If i had been reviewing this CD last year it would have said it was mind-blowing, but after their life changing set at Splendour in the Grass earlier this year, listening to their music through my shitty Sony speakers just does not do the experience justice. And that is precisely what Sigur Rós is, an experience, like Pink Floyd back in the days of your dad wearing tie-dye ponchos; this band is an acid-tripping, mind-altering exploration of the soul. Wow i just sounded like an NME hack didn't I? I should stop now. Put simply, their music is as perfect as Mozart's, and I'm pretty sure if you analyzed it closely enough it would be just as mathematically precise. Genius amplified.
Key Track: Goobledigook

15. Santogold - (Self-Titled)
Following in a long line of party albums that started with the naughtiness of Licensed To Ill by The Beastie Boys back when i was in nappies, Santogold uses her mentor Diplo to create the soundtrack to every party in 2008 had by someone in between the ages 17 - 25. In keeping with his Afro-beat fetish that orgasmed with Bondo-De-Role, Diplo triumphs behind the decks laying the alley-oop for Santogold to dunk like Jordan back in the 90's. Combining afro-beat and hip-hop, Santogold has an album that is addictive as crack and a reputation that is soaring with the likes of M.I.A.
Key Track: Creator

14. Josh Pyke - Chimney's A'Fire
Sending hearts a flutter with his boy-next-door charm on his debut Memories and Dust, Joshy (as his mum calls him) returns to satisfy society's recent tizzy infatuation with pop/folk music. Balancing his string swept arrangements around his multi-layered melancholic voice, Josh story-tells and serenades effortlessly, remaining proof that all you need to get into a woman's underwear these days is an acoustic guitar and a soulful, sensitive voice box.
Key Track: New Year's Song

13. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

A party jukebox on cocaine. On Night Ripper, Gilles made his mark on the scene, this year's Feed The Animals blew his own genre out of the proverbial water and onto the nearest dance floor. He is every pop-culture fiend's wet dream mashing everything from Snoop Dogg and Westlife to Enya and 50 Cent. Chaotic is the understatement here as Girl Talk runs through snap shots of the last 60 years of music in under one hour. It will make you wonder how you partied before you heard of him.

Key Track: Shut The Club Down

12. Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs
The kings of melancholy return with a set that confirms their place among the indie-elite. Experimental production from guitarist Chris Walla gives the standard DCFC themes of love-loss and despair a new and unexpected twist, the eight and a half minute song about stalking a girl being one such delight. Thankfully such new tastes do not take away from the quality of Gibbard's masterful lyrics, forever twisting his words into a labyrinth of meaning. Narrow Stairs, while not being the highlight of their career, maintains the band's significance for all of the sensitive souls out there that prioritise intelligent rock music over oxygen.
Key Track: Grapevine Fires

11. Adele - 19
She might not be as good as Amy Winehouse but she wipes the floor with Duffy. That pretty much where Adele fits into this musical hemisphere of 'music you can put on to impress a girl.' This album is an incredibly mature debut from a girl telling us about her world as a 19 year old girl and how becoming a woman sometimes is a pretty shit thing to go through. Production guest-spots by Mark Ronson help and a voice that rivals Ella Fitzgerald will mean that this beautifully heavy-set lass from London will be around for years to come.
Key Track: Best For Last

10. Coldplay – Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends
The English-U2 didn't so much as make an amazing record this year, but rather did an amazing job at convincing everyone that they did. I'm starting to think Coldplay's PR manager is even more talented than Chris Martin. This album is great in relativity, that is to say it's better than their previous effort X & Y, but if we are to be honest with ourselves, it's not as good as everyone says. It has a few good tracks, including first single Violet Hill, but even the catchiness of the title track became grating on that iPod ad. And don't even get me started on their whoring off the French Revolution, I'm all about bands trying new directions and images, but what the fuck has a nerdy English rock band got to do with Robespierre and The Terror? I'm looking forward to when Coldplay just want to be Coldplay again.
Key Track: Strawberry Swing

9. Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
Yes, I specifically placed it above Coldplay. How can the public diss this band so much while sucking Chris Martin's cock at the same time? Bad mental image? Good. You deserve it, because you've probably said bad words about Snow Patrol at one time or another and I'm guessing you've never even listened to one of their albums. Serves you right. These guys spent 8 long years in indie-purgatory before finally receiving critical acclaim (and a Mercury prize nomination) in 2004 for the amazing LP, Final Straw. They've done their time, and all it took one stupid, fricking song on Grey's Anatomy and radios decided to destroy them, dig up the corpse, and then all embrace necrophilia. Do you think Snow Patrol asked for their songs to be played 8 times an hour on radio? The answer is No. The truth is that the fickle nature of this industry ruins the reputation of hard working bands like these Glaswegians by saturating society with them until no one wants to see their faces anymore. And you know what, their album this year was actually better than Coldplay's, but no one listened to it. Shame.
Key Track: The Lightning Strike (Parts 1, 2 & 3)

8. Sia - Some People Have Real Problems
Totally original, totally catchy and totally smart. There's not much more we can ask for from this Australian song mistress. Nearly condemned to one-hit wonder status when a little show called Six Feet Under used her morbid song Breathe Me on the series finale - she will soon be famous for probably being our best up and coming songwriter with everyone from Christina Aguilera and Beck Hansen wanting a piece of Sia's pie. With a penchant for emotive and intelligent lyrics and a talent to carve melodious noises out of asbestos (if she had to), it seems this veteran of the industry is only just hitting her stride now, all i can say is thank god for late bloomers. Attention Miss Blasko, I think you have some competition...
Key Track: Soon We'll Be Found

7. Fleet Foxes - (Self-Titled)
A wood cabin at sunset in the middle of America's north-west wilderness. That is the feeling i get from this spectacular 1-part Simon and Garfunkel, 1-part Harvest-era Neil Young five-piece. Gorgeous harmonies over lush musicianship, Fleet Foxes provided the sleeper hit of the year with the skinny black jean wearers finally coming round to these bearded folk masters. Debut albums rarely sound so mature and accomplished.
Key Track: Blue Ridge Mountains

6. Cut/Copy - In Ghost Colours

Wow. Modular have really stepped up their game recently haven't they? Pnau, Ladyhawke, and these guys...the stargazing tripsters come good. Making the change from the come-down music for your Sunday morning to the night-club bangers that draw you to the d-floor at 3am when you should be getting in a taxi home - Cut/Copy turned up the volume on their amps to find they were shining brighter than neon love. Four anthemic singles before the album release is always a good sign of things to come and when In Ghost Colours slid into our stereo, it was the sound of every memorable and not-so memorable moment of our weekend. Well played boys. Well played.
Key Track: Far Away

5. The Presets - Apocalypso
The beginning of the end or the beginning of something great? The Presets second outing begins with a dominating frazzle of bleeps and falsetto vocals that even Soulwax would be proud of. Whoever said a band's second album is supposed to be 'difficult' obviously do not know Kim Moynes or Julian Hamilton. Unleashing singles of devastating glory not seen since Mylo dropped the pressure, the ripple effect in society was crushing...believe me, I saw librarians lose their shit to this music. Walking the tightrope between gorgeous electronic harmonies and disgustingly dirty beats; The Presets found their winning formula, giving them enough confidence to throw church organs and whatever the fuck else they wanted into the mix. But this was nothing compared to their piéce de résistance. 7 words. 8 syllables. That was all it took for these classically trained musos to change the history of Australian electronic music forever. And we were all here with all of our people...

Key Track: (apart from above mentioned classic) Talk Like That

4. Vampire Weekend - (Self-Titled)

Time for honesty. When i first saw this band, i wanted to punch them squarely in their FCUK'n preppy mouths. Then i heard them play. I heard their catchy, off-beat, afro-indie blend of pop music and i was hooked. They look like campus wankers but that's okay with me now because they don't pretend or claim to be anything else. In fact, they own it. The wankiest band since The Dandy Warhols they may be, but no one could say that they didn't create one of the most unique albums of this year. Oh yeah, and they fucking rock live.
Key Track: Oxford Comma

3. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

"The best bar band in the world" give hope to the post-Bush trauma victim that is the United States of America, delivering a surprisingly direct message. Stay Positive is a homage to the American wasteland, telling stories of those lost and disparaged by the state of the nation. But rather than dwell on such tragedies, The Hold Steady in their rousing rabble style of bar rock rally the troops (figuratively) and deliver a gorgeously human and uplifting album. The perfect musical watermark for the beginning of a new administration as their Americana belies not only the inherent despair for their home country but more importantly their resolve for a better future. Music with such purpose has not resonated so loudly since Springsteen was Born To Run.
Key Track: Stay Positive

2. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

An album of such intricate and delicate beauty is created so rarely that it makes you feel like you're desecrating it by placing your grubby fingers on the immaculate disc when you prize it from the plastic teeth inside the cover. Such is the effect Bon Iver has on his listener, his multi-layered falsetto has the ability to raise the hairs on your neck and if you happen to be several bottles of red down, perhaps bring a tear to your eye. The entire album is an emotional punch to the face as we follow our man's recovery from what must have been one helluva breakup. His lyrics and voice contrast beautifully with the rustic production of the album, something which just adds to its gripping romantic sentimentality. By the end of the rollercoaster you just want to give him a big hug and tell him everything's going to be okay, either that or crack open another bottle of red and play the album again...
Key Track: Skinny Love

1. Bloc Party - Intimacy
Who would have thought someone's emotional heartbreak and torment could be so rewarding and fruitful? Anyone who has ever bought an album by The Smiths I guess...Evolving the subtle beauty of their debut, Silent Alarm and combining it with the ferocious electronic rock mash of their early 2006 release A Weekend In The City, the third album from the Brit rockers is the perfect metaphorical progression of our relationship with the band...on the first album when we first met our front man Kele, he was nice, pretty cool but kept everything on a superficial level. Second time around we saw a bit more emotion, a bit of anger, a bit of darkness, something behind the veneer of indie aloofness. We thought he was becoming quite an interesting person. Now, in 2008, in our third meeting, he lets us into his head, sharing with us his deepest fears, regrets and joys. Intimacy is a ride of emotions, both the most tempered and most fragile Bloc Party release yet, and my gosh is it captivating. On Signs, a song written about a deceased lover, Kele whispers, "I see signs now all the time, that you're not dead you're sleeping, I believe in anything, that brings you back home to me." This record marks the first where our beloved front man openly talks about his sexuality and themes regarding his homosexuality are spotted throughout the diary-come-album. Refreshingly honest and at times shockingly brutal, Bloc Party surpasses all previous efforts and expectations, proving they cannot be pidgeon-holed as another upstart riding the Renaissance wave of Britpop. This crowning achievement makes its title all the more apt, how much closer do we feel to Kele now?

Key Track: Ion Square

Thirteen Tales of Pretentious Self-Indulgence

So i went to see the kings of cock-rock last night, The Dandy Warhols, play at the Metro (i'm still refusing to call it the Palace in petty protest), and sadly the only thing more disappointing than the bartender pouring my corona into a plastic cup, was The Dandy's themselves.

I'm usually one that's all for over-exaggeration after a gig, i get lost in the moment, the adrenaline, the groupies, the drugs, the whatever and i end up walking out of the venue screaming the band's praises to anyone that will listen about how that's the best gig I've seen in years blah blah blah...

But last night i was pretty bored. And don't get me wrong, I love the psych-trippin', one of the most amazing gigs this year was the Dandy's older brother band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre - but last night i saw first hand what many had told me before, that Courtney Taylor-Taylor has got nothin' on Anton Newcombe.

Last night The Dandy Warhols seemed to be a band that after so many years of enjoying the hedonistic excesses of the limelight, were ashamed of their commercial success, playing as if they wanted to sit in the cult indie throne their older brothers held. And what i mean by that is that they played for themselves, not the crowd who had paid (an overpriced) $90 to come see them. Their performance seemed like a bad rehearsal in their home garage in Portland, Oregon, which would be fine if you were a genius cult band that had never reached the mainstream or sold millions of cds. But the Dandy Warhols have, and no matter how hard they try to reclaim an underground following, they can't, they are a mainstream pop band on a major label, and have been for years. Trying to be anything else just makes them look like assholes.

The most depressing part of the night was that their set list was fantastic, with well placed crowd favourites amongst songs from their new album ...Earth To The Dandy Warhols... but it was almost as if they weren't the ones who wrote the damn list, they rushed through all of their hits, mumbling or distorting the words or even lazier, getting the crowd to sing the entire song for them (Get Off). Conversely their extended psychedelic wanderings were given all of the effort, time and showmanship you would expect from a band that has been at the forefront of mainstream alternative music since their debut ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down. Their outright disdain for their pop songs ruined the show, as the crowd would scream and cheer as they heard the start of one of their many anthems only to have a weird look on their face 3 and a half minutes later because the song was played out of tune or in double time.

Now i have to ask myself, If i was in a rock band and I hated my hits, why would i put them on the set list? Actually, why would i be touring in the first place? Bohemian Like You, Get Off, We Used To Be Friends, Minnesoter, Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth and All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey were all failures, complete and utter failures, with crucial instruments even missing on some tracks, including the synth on We Used To Be Friends and the famous drum-intro on Bohemian Like You. Only the trippier hits, Godless and The Last High were exceptions to this and were played brilliantly.

But anyone who knows me would guess that this only pissed me off further, because it was obvious that it was not as if Courtney & Co. had done some bad pills before the show or had a bad voice on the night. The fact he nailed those two hits along with the rest of his border-line indulgent psychedelic tracks only showed the potential for how good the other, more loved songs could have been.

Some bands piss me off for loading their set lists with obscure nonsense that show you that they don't care about what the crowd wants to hear, and the trick as a musician is always about finding that balance between crowd-pleasers and concert songs, but for the Dandy's to know what we want to hear and deliberately not give a fuck because they're sick of the songs of whatever...that's fucking disgusting.

After last night, I'm over The Dandy Warhols, and while i may not send name-engraved bullets to their hotel room like Anton, I think I'll save my money next time they decide to grace our shores with their genius.

...Earth To The Dandy Warhols...you're not nearly as cool as you used to be.

D

No Hawkers Please!

Has anyone else noticed that Ladyhawke's collaboration with Pnau, Embrace - featured on Pnau's self titled album - is significantly better (in every possible way) than anything on Ladyhawke's own album?

Disturbingly so. This young diva, who has burst on to the scene with the help from some heavy marketing from her Modular maestros is altogether unremarkable.

A pale imitation to Debbie Harry in every way, Ladyhawke uses her amazing voice to little effect on the majority of her first LP, which is quite a shame considering all the hype she is recieving, and a disapointment for anyone who thought Modular were going to continue their hot streak this year.

Apart from headlining the Hot BBQ Festival this New Years Day above Aussie Hip-Hop kings The Herd and deck-melters Boys Noize...the young New Zealander has been added to Modular's 10th Birthday celebrations, a sequel to last year's Daft Punk smackdown NeverEverLand....amongst the likes of Cut/Copy and The Presets, but this little disco-boy doesn't think she's earned her stripes.

Sadly, she is riding the waves of success her label mates have created for her, and honestly it sucks to know that if she hadn't blossomed in the most fertile season of Australian music since Friday was on the mind of the Easybeats, she wouldn't have made it thus far.

If i was Ladyhawke's manager i'd be hiring Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes to write her some more songs or else her career will be burning along with Paris and her over styled hair...

Hometown Glory

He's the type of guy you could take home to your mother; sweet, intelligent and you know he'd call you the morning after. I am of course talking about Josh Pyke, Australia's way of making it up to the world for allowing Keith Urban to sing...to exist. His second full-length LP is Chimney's A'Fire, and while the title may sound like a chapter out of a Dickens novel, Josh should be congratulated for overcoming the trap that many artists fall into of repeating the clichés we've heard a million times before in his brand of folk-pop. Thank be to God there are no "i love you, i love you, i love you...", "you're so beautiful" or any other kind of crap that have nearly destroyed every man with an acoustic guitar's chance to be taken seriously. No, no, no, i am happy to say Josh cooks up a more sophisticated flavour of love and loss. That being said, unfortunately the concession for this lyrical smart has been a certain amount of musical monotony, that taints the album due to a significant lack of variety between upbeat and down-tempo songs.

Last year, Josh Pyke featured in my top albums list of 2007 - his first album Memories & Dust provided confirmation that the folk-pop troubadour had the lyrical wax to match any of the Damien Rice's and Ryan Adams's out there. Barely a year later, he has released part two, and it's pretty much just more memories and more dust - Chimney's A'Fire is not so much a jump forward but a shimmy to the side of what we've already heard from this Sydneysider.

This album could have a polarising effect on fans due to the fact that musically - it is remarkably (and somewhat disappointingly) similar. Generally the melodies and arrangements of the songs are basically the same as those on the debut album if not slightly more complicated. But its complexity does not pay off completely, as it rarely does in this genre, and the result is unfortunately predictable and sometimes boring music. There are the basic finger-picking guitar ditties and the sweeping majestic string accompaniments but none of the twists and turns that could have made the songs that little bit more catchy and memorable.

Add this folly to the baffling fact that Josh, who produced the album himself has begun the album with the most sleepy and downright forgettable track - which does not make for good first impressions. What's worse is that track two, You Don't Scare Me is such an upbeat, catchy song, it makes you think that there is more to come. Alas, there is not, as track 3, The Summer serenades in, a song so saturated in nostalgia that you might as well sit the kids down and tell them the story of how you met their mother at a Bee Gees tribute show and how petrol used to only cost 75c a litre.

This being said, what Chimney's A'Fire lacks in musical nerve and freshness it makes up for with such accomplished lyrical density that you start to wonder whether the album will be nominated for an ARIA award or the Noble Prize for Literature. Okay, maybe that's an unjustified over-statement, but what I'm trying to say is this guy can string some words together; take the last verse from The Summer:

"But time is like the ocean,
you can only hold a little in your hands,
so swim before we’re broken,
before our bones become,
black coral on the sand."

Okay i know out of the context of the songs it sounds a bit pretentious, but believe me, when you hear him say it, he might as well be Socrates. Well maybe not Socrates, but Josh definitely has the ability to make even his most Snow Patrol lyrics not make you wanna beat the crap outta him. His sincerity alone keeps him afloat and pretty much gives him wuss-immunity for the entirety of the album.

Never quite straying from the lullaby tempo, the album is best listened to as a whole rather than individually, assuming you're not driving or operating heavy machinery at the time. If Josh doesn't impress you in the first innings, he finishes a lot stronger than he started, with the penultimate and closing tracks delicately showing his class and growth as a songwriter. New Year's Song should be praised above all other songs on this album for its innovative phrasing that has already characterised Pyke in his brief career, with an extraordinary ability to make the mundane sound wistful as he opens the song observing,

"If you’re freezing on your left side,
And you’re boiling on your right side,
Then I guess you might be warm upon the line,
There are many ways one can divide a life,
And I’ve got mine"

Closing track, Where Two Oceans Meet while at first seems like a book-end waste of time like the first track, runs deeper than first impressions. It reminds me of Ben Harper circa. 1997 - a very good thing indeed. Slow and meditative with gospel inflected beauty, Josh shows a different side of his pallet branching out from his folk-pop to deeper territory, exactly what he needs to be doing at this point in his career.

With more balls than his physique gives him credit for, Chimney's A'Fire shows off Josh's natural talent as a producer. The drawback of producing your own work though is always going to be becoming too one-eyed because there isn't another person in the studio to draw you in different directions. And while that may be the case with this largely down-tempo second LP, Josh succeeds on a whole due largely to his unmistakable talent as a songwriter getting him over the line. With enough diamonds in the rough, this album only promises more to come, with his lyrical muscle flexing and his musical landscape not shifting too far from the comfort zone of his fans, something they will either love or become easily frustrated with. For me, while there are patches of mediocrity the beauty of the album is infectious and for now I'm just going to stay warm upon the line.

B+

7th Heaven...?

I read something about the mythical 7th album for bands the other day...

The Beatles - Rubber Soul
Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet


Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

I know what you're thinking, so sod off. I am not one of those Oasis maniacs that every time a new album is brought out I quiver upon hearing Liam's raspy voice. Nor do I still claim that they're the best band in the world - though their live show is spectacular. Therefore i too nearly choked on my toasted sandwich upon reading such a gloriously ostentatious comparison in one trashy English music mag. But should we really be surprised by such a claim? Each album since the decade-defining duo (Definitely Maybe & Morning Glory) have seen the precariously obnoxious Gallagher brothers declare that it's the best record since Sgt. Pepper's. Yet many critics, half in awe of their god-like status in Britain, do not dare say otherwise, as if afraid of being on the receiving end of a notorious acid spray from the silver tongue of Gallagher Snr.

So it was with great anticipation but also apprehension that i listened to the new album by these Mancunian gobshites, and you know what? It was actually fucking good. Better than good, it was brilliant...and all of a sudden i was off guard, I hadn't prepared myself for this, it almost felt like I was back in '96 listening to Wonderwall on double tape over and over again (I was 8 years old, gimme a break...) It sounded as if Oasis had stopped giving a fuck about being the world's greatest band, and for the first time in a decade had just started playing some good old fashioned Britpop.

The next problem was writing this piece, how do you tell people Oasis are amazing again without sounding like a groupie fuckwit that is still clinging to the group's past glory? They had let their fans down for over ten years, surely no one would listen to me screaming from the rooftops that things had suddenly changed...for real this time. So anyway i cracked open some cleanskin Shiraz and started typing away...

I got about 200 words in before i found this...

Now usually I would not post another writer's material - it's just not narcissistic enough - but seriously, not only am I going to give you someone else's review - it's from NME. Pretty much the main culprit of the last 10 years of Oasis dick-sucking and unnecessary glorifying - but here I was reading a review by one Barry Nicolson and it was expressing (much better than i was doing at the time) every single thought i had in my mind. So I thought, "Fuck it" and without further adieu...

One wonders what the young, hungry and infinitely profane Noel Gallagher – the yob-poet gob o’the North with a ring of coke crust around his nostrils and a sheaf of era-defining songs stuffed into his back pocket – would have made of his older, wiser and still infinitely profane self these days. From atop his citadel he watches keenly with magpie eyes the comings and goings of a musical landscape he helped to shape. He deigns to descend from time to time to pour scorn where needed or praise where deserved. Occasionally, he gets his band together and they make an album. The album itself tends to be less important than the act of its creation; nobody really expects anything earth-shattering but it’s nice to know Oasis are still around, like dormant gods of a bygone era, stirring occasionally in their slumber but never approaching anything like full potency. They’re the sort of band a youthful Noel Gallagher, the one whose ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ dreams weren’t real quite yet, might have snortingly derided as something unprintable.

Yet, despite the fact he’s made it explicit in recent interviews he doesn’t give a monkey’s what anyone says about Oasis, if there’s one thing that strikes you immediately on your first listen to Dig Out Your Soul, it’s that it sounds like a band not exactly reinvented, but certainly rejuvenated. There’s a new-band urgency and invention to it, a sense that Oasis are no longer straining to ‘be Oasis’. Take into consideration, for example, the fact there’s no big piano anthem, à la Stop Crying Your Heart Out, nor yer-my-besht-mates moment like Little By Little or Let There Be Love. The closest we get to a ballad is the floaty psychedelia of Liam’s I’m Outta Time. In fact, Dig Out Your Soul is – more or less – the rough’n’ready rock’n’roll album the Gallaghers threaten to make every time the critics are down on their current effort but somehow never get round to.

Opener Bag It Up – complete with a not-so-subtle steal from It’s Raining Men, of all places – is a pounding rhythmic mess of distorted psych-rock that doesn’t sound like the work of a band in their 15th year. It sounds vibrant and cocky and a little bit cheeky, with Liam snarling about having his “Heebiejeebies in a little bag” and “going for a walk with the monkey man” before a coda that fades into a swell of noise. It’s still unmistakably Oasis, but it’s playful, less obvious and unafraid of going into unexpected places. The Turning continues in this vein by getting into what could technically be classed as a ‘groove’ (not to be confused with ‘going dance’, mind), with a verse consisting of a melodic drone of classic Oasis garble (“We live with the numbers, mining a dream for the same old song”) that gives way to a climactic BRMC-style pseudo-biblical chorus about rapture and fallen angels. Dark and brooding, it’s only part two of a five-song streak that represents the strongest start to an Oasis album in years.

Lead single The Shock Of The Lightning is a pretty good approximation of where Oasis are at in 2008. That same Gallagher swagger still courses through it, but it doesn’t have to rely on terrace-chant choruses (of which Noel’s probably exhausted himself by now) to get its point across. The Noel-sung Waiting For The Rapture similarly shirks the obvious route, with its ragged Five To One riffage sounding almost like a poppier Queens Of The Stone Age. But let’s not marginalise Liam. Of his three contributions to Dig Out Your Soul, one is truly inspired, one is merely good and the third is a bit rubbish, albeit in a fun way. The former is I’m Outta Time, the album’s softest moment, which sounds not unlike a softer, sweeter Comfortably Numb (without all the heroin doom, obviously).

Liam’s no Morrissey, but what he lacks in lyrical nous he makes up for in sheer audible soul and wide-eyed earnestness. That said, “If I’m to fall, would you be there to applaud?/Or would you hide behind them all?” sounds like it might be directed towards the ever-critical Noel. Soldier On, meanwhile, is a doomy, swirling psychedelic march set to a looping blues riff that closes the album in suitably atmospheric fashion, and Ain’t Got Nothin’ – about his infamous Munich brawl of 2002 – is spirited but a bit inconsequential, with Liam’s rasped instruction of “Here’s a song, sing along” belying its rather lazy rehashing of the previous album’s The Meaning Of Soul. It’s one of a handful of duds, of which The Nature Of Reality’s cod-mystic quagmire is probably the worst offender, with more vague lyrical clichés about all things on, of and in the mind over a sluggish melody that doesn’t really go anywhere. Gem’s To Be Where There’s Life – another of Oasis’ infrequent dabblings with the east – is a bit better, its drone-rock groove (there’s that word again) at least a sideways detour into new-ish musical vistas, but it doesn’t quite come off. There’s the sneaking suspicion that the songwriting democracy installed by Noel to steady the ship after Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants may not always be compatible with quality control.

But just when you worry things might flounder, The Chief crops up with a song as good as anything he’s written this century. Falling Down is a distant cousin of both his Chemical Brothers collaboration Setting Sun and Don't Believe The Truth’s Part Of The Queue – a swoonsome, blissed-out melody sung by Noel over jaunty, ever-shifting drums. Atone point he declares “We live a dying dream/If you know what I mean”. Nope, we’ve got no idea either, but it’s one of those grand Oasis moments where you don’t have to.

So, where does all this leave them? Well, when you consider Oasis’ largest evolutionary leap so far has been using drum loops on a couple of Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants tracks, Dig Out Your Soul sounds like an astounding act of musical creationism. Liam continues to impress as a songwriter, although he’s at his best and most inventive when he’s at his sweetest. And Noel, for his part, seems no longer bound by slavish devotion to writing typically ‘Oasis’ songs, with Oasis all the richer for it. But more than anything else, there’s a feeling that Dig Out Your Soul might actually be their best album in over a decade. In other words, not quite the fabled, oft-promised “Best one since fookin’ Definitely Maybe!” but certainly the best one since fookin’ Morning Glory. And you never thought you’d hear that, did you?

B+

So while the album may not be Rubber Soul - it's most likely as close as Oasis are going to get to it in the 21st century, which is enough for me, (and the tens of thousands of Brits that will fill Wembley Stadium a few times over).

MGMT - There! I said it!

Where to start with MGMT. So many things annoy me with this band i don't even know where to begin. Firstly, their name is dumb and it's derived from the even stupider name, "Management." Secondly, their album cover, costumes and over all demeanor smacks so hard of trying to be different from the so-called mainstream that they are pretty much an oxymoron. Note to MGMT: you are the fucking mainstream.

This fabricated facade is even more infuriating due to the fact that it's already been done in the 80's, the record executives are just re-hashing a marketing plan to people who are too young too remember the glam-rock days of old. Well, who'd want to remember them anyway? But still, this is most likely the reason no one over the age of 25 has paid any attention to MGMT - they are a collage of every 80's style the world has since tried to destroy, most of which can be found at any local opp shop. My point being, they're not that fucking unique.

The majority of my reluctance to join their world-dominating cult though stems from the simple fact that their music is not as good as everyone says it is. Seriously, the second half of the album is like drinking sour milk, you don't notice how bad it is until it's halfway down your throat...but even this wouldn't be as bad if they didn't cock tease their listeners with momentary flashes of brilliance that promise so much more than they deliver.

Opening track Time To Pretend is harmless if not a bit mundane. It has all the predictable weird effects on keyboard synths and electro-tampered vocals that (Yawn, sorry) have been playing in shit indie nightclubs through even shittier sound systems for years; the only difference is that these guys are on a major record label and have a higher publicity budget. Add this predictability to the fact that the lyrics are based on the lives of Pete Doherty and Kate Moss. The band they will say they are trying to be ironic or that they're making social comment. But they are still dedicating the first song on their debut CD to one of the most over-rated. fuckwit musicians in modern music and his paper-thin, air head model ex-girlfriend. Both of these people should not ever be the focus of a song or any other form of popular culture, it's just demeaning to art.

Weekend Wars is one such flash of brilliance I mentioned before, a four minute lightning flash of brilliance that makes you hope a storm is coming. The tampered vocals are gone, the over-produced sound is gone and the lyrics are semi-decent. Pretty much all of the
things that hampered the opening track disappear, replaced by a dreamy chorus and a rollicking beat that saves first impressions. Hopes are high at this point.

Despite having a name that makes it sound like a Jonestown hymn or something those Hillsong people would have printed on their shirts, The Youth is a perfectly fine and forgettable third track. But even right now as i write this, i can't remember a single lyric or what it sounds like, so I'm going to have to go put it on before I write anymore...that itself says a lot doesn't it? Oh yeah now i remember, more tampered vocals, more weird noises. Surprise surprise! The verses are shithouse, incredibly slow and meaningless but the chorus is somewhat catchy if not slightly grating and a wee bit annoying. Still, the overall song is inoffensive, a neutral song that some critics would call a waste at this point in an album. In hindsight, it sadly might be a highlight of the album, funny how things turn out like that...

Single Electric Feel is good. Yes i agree it's good. It's kooky, it's cool, it hits the right edges, but it is you that have made this song shit. Yes, you. Plus the fact that them singing about electric eels reminds me of a weird sex show i saw in Thailand once. But mostly its the public, with its unjust, over-emphasised glory and hype leading it to be played on 6 different radio stations simultaneously that have killed it. So thanks, thanks a lot for that, i hope you teeny boppers with your fucking ringtones are fucking happy now because it's dead. It's in the ground and for people like me, it's never coming back again. You can dig it up and throw this jewel in the shitpile that is the rest of the album because i can't stand hearing it anymore!

The only thing else on the album that comes close to the gold MGMT fans must see covering the CD is the song Kids. Now this is the part where all the indie-not-so-indie-lovers will complain, "That's like the BEST song on the album!" It's over five fucking minutes and has an eight-bar melody. It's too fucking long! Yes the intro is cool and i dig it as well, i definitely think it's very catchy, but isn't anyone else sick of it after 5 minutes of repetitiveness? The band milked it, plain and simple. If it was three and a half minutes long i would be agreeing with all the skinny-jean wearing, deathly-white looking boys who swear by this so-called anthem - but that extra 2 minutes just shows that MGMT do not have enough experience in this bizz to know when a song is going to drag on. An amateur mistake that wastes the potential for a classic song.

Look to be honest i don't want to even waste my time writing about how mediocre the rest of the album is. The last five songs drop off considerably from the edge MGMT had been resting on uneasily so far in the album. Of Moons, Birds & Monsters is the only song of note that manages to pass a test of whether i can listen to a song all the way through. It should be commended for that, it comes to a pretty cool climax, if not taking its sweet time to get there.

While there is definitely room for improvement, the band shows hints that they can make a cool song, but this album doesn't deliver more than one. As for all their unjustified praise and adoration, well i have to come back to my prophet Alex Turner who said "I guess all that's left, is the proof that love's not only blind but deaf." (Sigh) Maybe I'm getting to old for this sort of thing.

C

Narrow Stairs lead to success

"Darker", "experimental" and "emotionally raw"; just some of the buzz phrases banded around by the bloggers before the May 13th release of Death Cab For Cutie's album Narrow Stairs. All of which, seem to be as useful as a CPR unit arriving at a cemetery.

So here comes the rant. Firstly, Death Cab For Cutie have never been the lightest band on the planet; they earned their fame by eloquently and accurately describing the heartaches and insecurities of Generation Y. The band is respected for this because with Ben Gibbard's lyrics and Chris Walla's melodies, they do it better than any of the eyeliner-clad bands screaming about life's mundane difficulties. Secondly, Death Cab have always been experimental, We Looked Like Giants off 2002's Transatlanticism wasn't exactly in A-A-B-A structure, and the title track, an 8-minute epic ode to long distance love took a patient 6 and a half minutes to reach its spine shuddering climax. Not exactly Top 40 material. As for emotionally raw, could they possibly top the morbid hollowness of the lyric, "love is watching someone die..." from their 2005 track, What Sarah Said?

So it's fair to say all this hype about a supposed new direction was generated purely for media attention, either that, or it was to keep the indie-rock faithfuls blinded to the fact that Death Cab For Cutie are now corporate sell-outs, sitting comfortably in the boardroom chairs of Atlantic Records. And well, whatever the motive was, it was a success, the wool was over the eyes. After releasing the 9 and a half minute single, I Will Possess Your Heart they garnered the attention of both music critics and fans alike; the internet forums buzzing about their so-called different soundscape and dangerous experimentation.

Well, whatever misconceptions were hypothesised, they all evaporated once the album was released and it became clear that the barriers of what music could be were not being broken, frankly, it was just another Death Cab For Cutie album. That isn't to say that it isn't good. It's far from good. It's brilliant. It is a fully formed masterpiece of emotional depth and chamber pop melody. With Narrow Stairs the four boys from Seattle take the production maturity of their previous record Plans, and strip it down to raw, static filled, natural beauty. It is the sound of four band members switching on the mics and amps and playing like they were a high-school band jamming in a dusty garage. The music sounds alive, and not like each song has individually and painstakingly been put through 20 takes and several months under the switchboard.

Opening track Bixby Canyon Bridge lulls its listener into thinking it is just another Death Cab lullaby before a heavily distorted guitar drops, changing the tempo and meaning of the song. The frustrated guitar strums mimic Ben's lyrics as he illustrates his fruitless search for meaning and any sort of enlightenment at Bixby Canyon, declaring "i want to know my fate, if i keep up this way." The song's progression both melodically and lyrically intensifies as his hopes of being inspired by the serene environment silently crashes down in front of him with the realisation there's no divine epiphany to be had. The allusions to Jack Kerouak, the famous beat writer who escaped to Bixby Canyon to write Big Sur are subtle yet telling, as Ben tries to tap into the mystical atmosphere, conceding, "i trudge back to where the car is parked, no closer to any kind of truth as i must only assume was the case with you."

Many critics in the past have commented on Gibbard's likeness to a young Bob Dylan, not in social conscience but moreso articulation and vision. Chief songwriter for the band, Gibbard is blessed with the ability to convey the disturbances of people's souls, describing emotional torment and tragedy with vivid detail and accuracy. Though with that being said, Death Cab For Cutie are not a band that deal with the extremities of love and hate or death and life; rather they explore the inner complications of these existences. For this, some cynics label Ben a depressing pessimist, but his uncompromising honesty about human nature and insight into normally unchartered emotional terrain in popular music is what secures his reputation as one of the few lyrical geniuses of the 21st century.

This is most prominently seen in the song Cath... which ventures into familiar Gibbard territory, exploring yet another emotion that would usually be all too complicated for most songwriters to grasp. The song tells the story of a young girl who is falling into the wrong marriage, vividly describing the wedding day; "the well intentioned man", "the hand-me-down wedding dress" and "the whispers that it won't last" paint a pitiful portrait. The painful inaction in the lyrics expressing the hopelessness of the girl "who holds a smile like someone would hold a crying child." The observations of a tainted celebration epitomising Ben's ability to write complex narratives into hook-filled melodies, as the final lines tell of his personal pity and understanding at Cath's position confiding, "i'd have done the same as you..."

Grapevine Fires, the most melodically beautiful of all eleven vignettes trots along with Chris Walla's off-beat piano soothing its listener in atmospheric space, reminiscent of previous album (and career) highlight Brothers on a Hotel Bed. It is a simple tale of watching a young girl play in a graveyard behind the backdrop of Los Angeles bush fires, yet it is in this simplicity that the band finds its most emotionally affecting moment. Juxtaposing the happy nïavity of youth with the destruction of the fires, a message resembling 'carpe diem' lies just beneath the surface of the song's narrative as Ben warns, "it's only a matter of time until we all burn". And as he muses his thoughts like they are floating in his head, wistfully and detached, his resignation is balanced by a resound security, speaking words like an old sage, "that everything will be alright." Such calmness in the face of disaster mirrors the ominous melody of the track and shows the wisdom of a man who has weathered the pain of loss and accepts the inevitability of destruction.

Though in the end the fault of Narrow Stairs is that it cannot maintain the subtly in language and metaphor Grapevine Fires shows the potential for. Your New Twin Size Bed and the closing track, The Ice is Getting Thinner are both centered around basic and obvious metaphors for love-loss. And with Death Cab's catalogue filled with so many deeper and smarter tracks based on that same theme, Tiny Vessels and Title & Registration to name just two, there just isn't room for mediocrity on such a clichéd subject in popular music.

Still, such nitpicking is merely a product of trying to find a fault in a band who, with each album is setting the benchmark for what pop music should be in the 21st century. Narrow Stairs is a catchy, intelligent and serious pop record, one that should be hailed for its melodic complexity as much as its lyrical intensity and melancholy. Sadness in all its forms, never sounded so sweet.

A