Album Pile-Up (warning: extremly positive reviews here)

There have been a LOT of albums I've neglected to review over the last few months, partly due to not listening to them enough, partly due to sheer laziness. But to clear the backlog and put my mind at ease, here they all are, in the bare minimum of what constitutes a review

WILD BEASTS - TWO DANCERSWho: Divisive Kendal quartet, with challenging falsetto vocals
What: "Two Dancers" is Wild Beasts' second album after last year's debut "Limbo Panto". The fluid guitar work and operatic vocals of that record led to a few sticking "The new Smiths" tag on the band. A lot to live up to for any band, but they've surpassed what could be seen as lazy pigeonholing to create, in what is a year of great second albums, an amazing sophomore effort that sounds like nothing else around right now. Dreamlike in parts and sexed up in others, the jump in quality is astounding, especially when considering "Limbo Panto" was a very good debut. Hayden Thorpe's falsetto will still either endear or prove and instant point of hate for new listeners, but those who endeavour to keep listening are in for a wonderful treat.
Key Tracks: The sublime "Hooting & Howling", "We've Still Got The Dancing On Our Tongues", "All The Kings Men"
9

JAMIE T - KINGS & QUEENSWho: The "one man Clash" or as he's probably known to his mum, James Treays
What: Yet another fantastic second album, this time from the baseball-capped bard of Wimbledon. "Kings & Queens" is just as eclectic and carefree as Treays' debut "Panic Prevention", just enhanced and improved. And to those of you who have listened to "Panic Prevention", you'll know improving on it is no mean feat. "Kings & Queens" has more than it's fair share of possible hits ("368" and "Hocus Pocus" are right up there with the cold for catchiness) but what's interesting is the amount of ballads on the album. Ballads probably isn't the right term, but introspective, acoustic songs that aren't as rabble-rousing as the rest of the album is a bit of a mouthful. It's tracks like "Emily's Heart" and "Jilly Armeen" that showcase Treays' tender side (probably why he has such a big "female following") as well as giving evidence that he isn't a one-trick pony
Key Tracks: "368", "Sticks N Stones", "Emily's Heart", "Chaka Demus", "Spider's Web", "Castro Dies", "British Intelligence", "Jilly Armeen"
9

JAY-Z - THE BLUEPRINT 3Who: In his own words:'For those that didn't get the memo my name is Jay-Z and I'm pretty fucking awesome'
What: The final part of Jay-Z's "Blueprint" trilogy, which features an all-star cast, from Luke Steele (of Empire Of The State fame), Alicia Keys, Mr Hudson, Kid Cudi, Pharrell, Rihanna and meme-of-the-moment Kanye West. Had this album come out two years ago, then Jigga's Glastonbury set would have been an even bigger success, such is the amount of moments of genius here. "D.O.A" is one of his best, everyone knows "Run This Town" by now (having the three biggest names in hip-hop and R&B was always going to result in a hit) and pretty much every other song has a great beat and a killer line. It's safe to say that "TB3" further cements Jay-Z's position at the top of the game.
Key Tracks: "Thank You", "D.O.A", "Run This Town", "Empire State Of Mind", "Real As It Gets", "A Star Is Born", "Young Forever"
8

THE BIG PINK - A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOVE
Who: The latest one to watch in the "shoegaze" pigeonhole
What: Another year, another moody group in leather jackets with loud guitars. Not that this is in any way a bad thing, after all rock 'n' roll is built on that template. TBP have described this album as a "future soul record", an attempt to 'mix up their favourite two genres of music' in soul and noise. It's safe to say they've succeeded in that. " A Brief History..." does have a doomed love story feel to most of its songs, probably due to the apocalyptic guitar feedback they're drowned in. This isn't an easy listen, it's an album of heartbreak, melancholy and skyscraping noise and straight-up pop moments are hard to come by, other than the inescapable "Dominos", "Velvet" and "At War With The Sun". "A Brief History Of Love" probably isn't what your girlfriend/boyfriend would want you listening to, since they'd think you were a miserable bastard and isn't what your parents would want you listening to after a break-up, for fear you'd start wearing studded leathers and end up hating everything. But I digress, The Big Pink have crafted an amazing debut that stands up to almost any other released this year
Key Tracks: "Too Young To Love", "Dominos", "Love In Vain", "At War With The Sun", "Velvet", "A Brief History Of Love", "Tonight", "Count Backwards From Ten"
9.5

NOAH AND THE WHALE - THE FIRST DAYS OF SPRING
Who: Underrated folk-poppers, damned for all eternity to be associated with "5 Years Time"
What: Once again, it's a second album that surpasses its predecessor. "Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down" was a good, if underrated debut from NATW, unfortunately eclipsed by the aforementioned single. Little over a year later, "The First Days Of Spring" was released, and quite frankly, it's an astonishing record. From the funereal, "Be My Baby"-esque beat of the opening title track to the orchestral middle section and the hopefulness of album closer "My Door Is Always Open", this is an album deserving of all the plaudits it gains. Whereas you may have thought of NATW as a one-song, bland pop band, listening to this will almost definitely change your opinion. At the risk of descending into extreme hyperbole, "The First Days Of Spring" is one of the best albums of the last decade; grand, majestic, heartbreakingly honest and powerful lyrics ("This is a song for anyone who can't get out of bed/I'll do anything to be happy", "This is the last song while I'm still in love with you/This is the last song that I write whilst your even on my mind", "I'd be anyone to be at your side/I need your life in my life/Need your light in my life"). As you can tell this isn't the happiest album ever, and it's pretty clear it tells the story of a break-up (most likely the one of lead singer Charlie Fink and Laura Marling). But as with pretty much all great pop, it deals with the sour side of love and is all the more perfect for it.
Key Tracks: All of it, including the accompanying short film. It's worth it.
10

THE XX - XX
Who: Another band dressed in all black, and another band that sound like noone else around
What: The debut of the hotly tipped, barely-out-of-school London foursome, The xx are unique in the music scene at the minute. The only way to describe them is Radiohead and Florence Welch covering R&B/pop songs with Burial producing. But that's waaaaay too NME for my liking. The fairly lo-fi production and use of artificial beats gives The xx (yep, that's right, no capitals) a dubstep feel without delving too much into that overrated genre. The simple guitar lines sound almost fragile and yet push the songs forward, usually acting as the main melody. Romy Croft and Oliver Sim's hushed vocals intertwine for the best boy-girl vocals this side of Los Campesinos! debut album, and give "xx" a sultry, sexy feel. Whilst in broad daylight, the album is merely very good, it comes into its own when listened to in the early hours of the morning, I'm not too sure why this is, but come midnight, "xx" is a magical record. The tense atmosphere and downbeat mood take on a life of their own, whilst the sparseness of each song seems perfectly suited for dark winter nights. The xx will have a very tough job on their hands bettering this, but I look forward to the results
Key Tracks: "Intro", "VCR", "Crystalised", "Islands", "Shelter", "Basic Space", "Infinity", "Night Time", "Stars"
9

"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem..."

As you can (hopefully) tell from the title, I've been watching High Fidelity. It involves girls and music, how did I not find it/start worshipping it earlier? In fact, I can pretty much see my life being like that in 10/15/20 years, should I make certain decisions. Hell, it's pretty much my life know...just minus the constant stream of women (more like being drip-fed one per year) and my very own record store (more like this blog and the rest of the internet).

Anyways what it relates to is the Spotify mix playlists that I have created for you lovely people...at least I'm hoping you're lovely...to just spread a bit of aural goodness around. No, I don't see myself as some sort of musical Maharishi, imparting pearls of great music to you, the unenlightened. Being honest, most of you reading this will probably know infinitely more about this than I ever will and should you open one of the playlists, laugh in scorn at my woefully "mainstream" choices. But who gives one? I just want to share stuff I think is freaking awesome with anyone who wants to listen, hopefully convert a friend or two into liking a band and kill a bit of boredom.

Playlist Numero Uno is full of more well known bands/tunes of this year, with the odd suprise. So expect "Bonkers", "Dog Days Are Over", "Run This Town" and "Zero", though not "Bulletproof" or "In For The Kill" by La Roux. Even I'm sick of them by now.

Enjoy!

Playlist Nummer Zwei is the best of the lesser-known, "weird indie shit" (as I'm certain some acquaintances would call it) to appear this year. So album tracks from slightly less mainstream bands, obscure groups you're not sure how to say the name of (hello, Dananananaykroyd!) and basically good stuff. I've gotta say though, listen to the Noah & The Whale album in one go, as it is, not shuffled. You'll thank me later.

Enjoy even more!

Hopefully you'll enoy them, go buy the various albums/singles, see the bands live and, y'know, be a proper music fan. Or, if you're disgraced by my tastes, feel free to send me a playlist back to "educate" me. It could be fun. And these playlists will over there in the sidebar should you ever feel like downloading in the future and can't be bothered to click a few times right this second.

Oh and if you don't have Spotify, I reccomend you get it. Now.

"Sunday Sunday"

Yet another feature type thing. I should stop introducing these things to the blog as I'll lose track even more, but may as well give it a shot. As you may have guessed from the title, this is going to happen every Sunday (hopefully) and will include anything from the past week that I haven't mentioned or reviewed etc. Which right now, is a lot of stuff.

THE BIG PINK - DOMINOS"These girls fall like dominos! Dominos!"
Any gloomy noise-pop song that can get a Disneyfied 11 year old singing along to it after the first chorus is going to be huge. The Big Pink have built on their first couple of singles ("Velvet" and "Stop The World") which were brilliant but kind of inaccessible to the masses, to produce what is likely to be the "Indie Hit Of Summer 2009"™. It'll be on trailers for Skins, featured on Hollyoaks and you can bet your skinny jeans that the BBC will use it on an advert for Reading & Leeds. Not that this is a bad thing, because "Dominos" is as catchy as swine flu, but less lethal and with more synths. And what's more, it's available for download on TBP's website, for free! Very kind of them.
9.5

JAMIE T - CHAKA DEMUS"Tonight Jay, I'm gonna teach 'em a ballad/An English man in every coward"
Personally, I cannot wait for Jamie T's second album. All signs point towards another modern classic that escapes pigeon-holing, thanks to "Fire Fire" and "Stick N' Stones". Latest single "Chaka Demus" makes it a hat-trick of great pre-album releases with a Funky Drummer-esque beat, Radio 1 friendly hooks and lyrics spat out at a machine gun rate. Like "Dominos", it's going to soundtrack a fair few summers and be used on pretty much any advert aimed at the "yoof of 2day", but also like "Dominos", this isn't a bad thing at all.
9.5

THE CRIBS - WE WERE ABORTED//CHEAT ON ME"Your virility, makes me forget empathy"
"I could be someone else if you'd rather/Try to win you over like a new step father"
A double whammy of tunes from the Jarmans-and-Marr (Marr-man?) collaboration. Okay, neither song is a major change of sound and image (a la The Horrors, Franz, Penate) with both sounding like The Cribs with some melodic lead guitar on top. This is only testament to how effortless Marr's contribution ot the band is. There's no whimsical Mancunian melancholia to be seen (as some may have expected from Marr's last big band The Smiths...not sure you'll have heard of them) just powerhouse riffs and probably the closest thing to the proper punk sound that you'll find around today. Plus it's probably the only song to include the word "masturbation" that isn't sung by 35 year old American pop-punk bands who really should give it up.
8//8

DAN BLACK - UN"Gimme, gimme, symphonies/Gimme more than the life I see"
Whereas 2009 has been overrun by female pop acts, the guys have been left in their dust, on the fringe of mainstream success but no quite breaching the gap from the underground. Dan Black is one such guy. Gaining a bit of attention for being refused to sample Biggie Smalls lyrics on "Hypntz" last year, he's emerged with his debut album. Needless to say, he hasn't reached the heights of La Roux or Little Boots yet, and is unlikely to with anything here. "Symphonies" (the rewritten version of "Hypntz") is the opening track and the best on the album, so subsequently it's all downhill from there. There are few other high points on "Un", with only "Alone", "Cigarette Pack" and the initially aggravating "Yours" reaching above the level of mundane. Pardon the pun, but highly "Un"inspiring.
GO DOWNLOAD: "Symphonies", "Alone", "Yours", "Cigarette Pack"
4

V.V. BROWN - TRAVELLING LIKE THE LIGHT"Baby, there’s a shark in the water/I caught them barking at the moon"
One name that slipped under the pop radar at the beginning of the year was V.V. Brown. Barely a mention on any journalist's pick lists and no Top Ten singles to hype up her album, but who needs them when you've previously written for the Sugababes and Pussycat Dolls? TLTL is a solid album, indebted to 50s rockabilly and deserves much more attention than it's got. Anyone who can use the melody from "Monster Mash" and turn it into one of they year's best pop songs ("Crying Blood") whilst making you forget the original deserves a medal, and V.V. Brown is that person. A handful of tracks grate or stick to firmly to one sound but in a year of good debuts, TLTL is up there with the best.
GO DOWNLOAD: "Crying Blood", "Shark In The Water", "Leave!", "Game Over"
7.5

NEU!
>>>TRACKS>>>13/07/09>>>Dizzee Rascal, Jay-Z, Bloc Party, The Big Pink, The Twang

Dizzee Rascal - Holiday (featuring Calvin Harris and Chrome)
Just over a year since "Dance Wiv Me", Dizzee unleashes a second collaboration with Chrome and kinda-crap, kinda-alright dance-master Calvin Harris. Less immediate than "Dance..." and "Bonkers", the synth riff is pretty much Harris' "I'm Not Alone" but toned down slightly, whilst Dizzee sounds half asleep throughout the track. Only when it gets a bit trance at the end does it really grab any attention. Not sure if it'll be a third Number One in a row for Dizzee, but it'll be a hit either way.
7.5

Jay-Z - D.O.A (Death Of Auto-tune)
Anyone who witnessed the opening to his Glasto set last year will testify that Jay-Z cannot sing, so why his comeback single denounces something to help people sing better is a bit baffling to say the least. Anyways, it's more a "diss" (yeah I can't pull that off) on the plethora of rappers using it; Kanye, T-Pain, Lil' Wayne et al. The great guitar riff and tumbling drum beat make for an addictive tune, as well as the jazzy trumpet breaks. If this really is the "Death of Auto-tune" then good riddance.
9

Bloc Party - One More Chance
The ever changing Bloc are back, with their third one-off single (after previous in-between-album singles Two More Years and Flux). Those of you hoping for a return for the spiky post-punk of Silent Alarm may as well just give up, as Kele & co seem intent on delving deeper into a dance direction. All the elements are there, a "Blue Monday"-aping beat, the classic house piano riff, a pitch-shift on the vocals and an overly-repetitive chorus. If it was released about 20 years ago, it'd be a classic today. But seeing as it's Bloc Party and a significant amount of fans want the band to stick to the same formula as their debut, it'll most likely be viewed in the same light as "Mercury"; messy, mediocre and a mistake. Even though it's better than most of "Intimacy" and is up there with their best work, fanboys are rarely pleased.
8.5

The Big Pink - Stop The World
First came the superb "Velvet", and now this. The Big Pink are much too kind. "Stop The World" is a whirlwind of hypnotic feedback, heavy drums and one massive chorus, as well as being strangely uplifting despite the seriousness it purports. As dancey as it is moody thanks to the pulsating bass, TBP should be huge by the time their album arrives, even bigger than Glasvegas were hyped up to be last year. B-side "Crushed Water" is a more spaced out affair, sounding a bit like Massive Attack, a bit like Foals, but completely unique at the same time. This is a special band so hop on the bandwagon whilst you can.
9

The Twang - Barney Rubble
Remember them? A gang of 40 year old Brummies (well they're closer to 40 than 20) who NME salviated over a few years back, calling them "the best band in Britain" and making Stone Roses and Happy Mondays comparisons. Yet another case of NME getting way too worked up and messing it's pants over a merely "alright" band. But The Twang have soldiered on through the mass derision and return with a summery shuffle. They haven't reinvented the musical wheel and they're not making zeitgeist-riding, seminal music, but they weren't doing that in the first place and never will. Just enjoy it as something that is positive, pleasant and pretty good.
7

NEU!
TRACKS>>>25.03.09>>>The Big Pink, Asher Roth, The Enemy, Hot Knives

The Big Pink - Velvet
Two piece The Big Pink won the Phillip Hall Radar Award at this year's NME Awards, a title that is an indicator to the next 12 months' big indie hope and has previously been given to the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Glasvegas (all great), The Long Blondes (bit meh) and The Twang (what were they smoking?). Out of those acts, TBP are most closely linked to Glasvegas, not just for their shared affection for leather jackets and looking moody. Both bands share epic walls of sound and more than a whiff of melancholia in their music, but whereas Glasvegas use shimmering guitar effects, TBP opt for heavy electronic backing and an equal amount of distortion on "Velvet". The song itself is droney and mournful enough to pull in fans of the shoegaze sound, but has a prominent pop sensibility, as well as hooks, to make it stand out. Definitely worthy of the award.
8
[>>>The Big Pink MySpace]

Asher Roth - I Love College
Yeah, dismiss him as a second-rate Eminem wannabe. He may be white as they come with blonde hair and a voice as nasal as they come but Asher Roth "refuses adamantly to embrace rap's fixation with violence, drugs and material possessions"...well according to the man himself anyways. "I Love College" may not be completely original in sentiment or sampling (using a remix of Weezer's "Say It Ain't So") but if it isn't the best party track to come out in years, then I'm Dr Dre. Laidback but demanding of your attention, Roth provides the perfect guide to college in the US (I'm guessing so at least) and who can argue with a chorus of "I love college/I love drinking/I love women"?
9
[>>>Asher Roth MySpace]

The Enemy - No Time For Tears
The Hobbits return! That may be a tad unfair, as the bassist is probably around the same height as me. It's the other two letting him down, especially Tom Clarke, a prime example of "little man, big guitar" syndrome. He's just got to tell it how it is, since noone else is doing it apparently. The Enemy's second album is entitled "Music For The People" which is a grand, sweeping statement if I ever heard one. On the basis of its lead single "No Time For Tears", it would appear the lads from Cov are aiming to go even bigger before. A dash of sombre piano, thunderous drums, a backing choir and Led Zep-esque guitars all point towards sky high ambitions. Whether they achieve this is another matter. The song is catchy, and an improvement on most of their debut, but despite having made enough money to go buy great big houses in Cheshire, you'd think they'd stop banging on about wanting to "get out the city". Evidently not.
7
[>>>The Enemy MySpace]

Hot Knives - Out Of Touch
Nope, not a Bright Eyes-covering supergroup made up of members of The Hot Melts and Young Knives. Hot Knives have only been around for a matter of months, but they're still garnering attention from all over the place. The Manc band have received radio play on BBC Manchester and KCRW (pretty much the premier indie station in America, for those not in the know), they've had offers to support The Whitest Boy Alive and Broken Records and a lot of interest from the blogosphere and various management companies. In their own words they make "pop music to soundtrack the apocalypse", which is pretty damn accurate. At first "Out Of Touch" seems like a mish-mash of ideas that don't appear to fit, but as it grows every part slots into place to create an ambitious, dark pop song that builds to a huge sounding finale, complete with horns. Extremely impressive, for a band that has only publicly been in existence for a month, along with their other two tracks "Cold Morning" and "Solstice"
8
[>>>Hot Knives MySpace]
[>>>Zip Folder of all 3 Hot Knives tracks]