For a variety of reasons, I’ve had a lot less time of late to search out and acquire new music, but I’ve run across a couple of things in the last week or two that merit a mention:
- Dogs Die in Hot Cars – Please Describe Yourself – Not nearly as morbid as their name sounds, these guys remind me a lot of XTC, mostly on account of the singer’s voice. The music is kind of similar as well, but not so much as to make it derivative. This is turning out to be a good record for the warmer spring weather.
- Bloc Party – Silent Alarm – The Seattle station to which I listen has been playing stuff off this album somewhat regularly, so I finally downloaded it. It’s more overtly political than I generally prefer, and it begins to overstay its welcome by the time the last few tracks roll around. However, most of the individual songs are pretty strong, and it’s definitely worth a listen.
- The Decemberists – Picaresque – I’ll preface this one by stating for the record that I fucking hate folk music. I would rather you drop a bowling ball on my tongue than make me listen to folk music. I would rather eat lint. The reason I’m going on about my hatred of folk music is so that when I say that I mostly like this album except for the parts where they go a bit too much into the folk music, you’ll have some perspective. Basically, this is a really good record—good songwriting, interesting stories, and mostly excellent music. It’s just that some of the songs are a bit too folk-influenced for my tastes; however, if your feeling re:folk music differ from mine, it’s definitely worth a listern. If they’re the same, you should probably check it out anyway.
- British Sea Power – Open Season – I downloaded their last album (The Decline of…) sometime last year, and only recently got around to giving it a good lesson. I like it a lot. The new one is different, and I’ve only gotten about halfway through it, but it also seems to be quite good. The last album was blatantly post-punk, but this one sort of reminds me of Starfish-era Church, only it doesn’t scream “HEY! We’re an eighties band!”
The first three are all on my music site, and the British Sea Power album should be up in the next day or so. As always, if you’d like a login, please let me know.