Album Reviews – Page 12 – Spinning Platters

Album Review: Everybody Was in the French Resistance…Now!!! – Fixing The Charts Volume 1

Every now and then you encounter something so weird and wonderful that you have to write about it. Today I’m reviewing an album that it’s hard to really classify as “good” but it’s just a joy to listen to.

Everybody Was In The French Resistance…Now!!! is Eddie Argos from Art Brut and Dyan Valdés from The Blood Arm. This is album of response songs, humorous, often speak-sung responses to well known tracks. To quote an analysis I read on www.allsounds.com:

“Avril Lavigne is a bitch. When she’s not gloating about her totally undeserved success or berating and sneering at young mothers, she is attempting to steal men from loving happy relationships.” and Everybody Was In…. attempts to fix this and a number of other pop injustices. Continue reading “Album Review: Everybody Was in the French Resistance…Now!!! — Fixing The Charts Volume 1”

Album Review: The Magnetic Fields – Realism

From the opening notes of The Magnetic Fields’ new record Realism you feel at home. There’s the familiar jangly acoustic instruments and Stephin Merritt’s low drone of a voice mixing with Claudia Gonson’s sweeter one. The lyrics are clever and the longest song comes in at 3:26. This isn’t the strange distorted Magnetic Fields of their last record; this is more like 69 Love Songs revisited, sweet and expected. At first it feels too similar to their previous work to be anything interesting enough to keep you coming back. I struggled with this idea, then realized that I’d been listening to the album almost constantly for a week letting the words and notes seep into every part of my mind, like subtle magic. Continue reading “Album Review: The Magnetic Fields — Realism”

New Release Round Up, 1/26/10 – 26 Instant Album Reviews

sybgkid — Pouria mentioning Kidz Bop in his intro is a great excuse for running this classic still from their "Since U Been Gone" video

Kidz Bop is really awful and weird and I swear it was on American Idol last night. Not that I watch that or anything. Continue reading “New Release Round Up, 1/26/10 — 26 Instant Album Reviews”

Album Review: Peter Gabriel – Scratch My Back

Peter Gabriel’s new covers album Scratch My Back is the beginning of a “song exchange” project. This means that every artist covered on this album is being asked to cover one of Peter Gabriel’s songs in exchange. This collection will then be released under the title …And I’ll Scratch Yours. That’s the intention. Whether or not the second part ends up happening seems to be up in the air so far, but Stephin Merrit has already recorded “Not One of Us” as a b-side to Peter Gabriel’s Magnetic Fields cover,”Book of Love,” so the project has begun. Continue reading “Album Review: Peter Gabriel — Scratch My Back”

Album Review: Basia Bulat – Heart of My Own

Listening to the music of Basia Bulat is an unabashedly heart-hugging delight. The 26-year-old Canadian singer/songwriter first established herself as one of the brightest young talents in the folk-rock scene with her insanely lovable debut LP, Oh, My Darling (2007), and makes overwhelmingly good on that early potential with her sophomore release, Heart of My Own.

Continue reading “Album Review: Basia Bulat — Heart of My Own”

Single Review: Elizabeth Fraser – Moses

“Moses” is the first song that iconic Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser has ever released as a solo act. This either means something profoundly significant to you, or it doesn’t. For an entire generation of music fans, Fraser’s was “the voice of God.” But it has been 12 years since she’s had any real involvement with the music world. Why pop up again now? Then again, disappearing for a decade between releases seems to be working just fine for Sade, so why not Fraser?

Continue reading “Single Review: Elizabeth Fraser — Moses”

New Release Round Up 1/12/10 – 42 Instant Album Reviews

Here are 42 reviews that cover three weeks. Lots of stuff has happened in the past three days. Most notably, a couple of musician deaths and the whole mass crisis thing in Haiti. I think Heidi Montag’s album may have brought upon these tragedies, sort of like a precursor to the apocalypse. Continue reading “New Release Round Up 1/12/10 — 42 Instant Album Reviews”

Album Review: Spoon – Transference

Amoeba Records always has been and always will be my favorite store to purchase music. Obviously, I’ve joined the legions of savvy music aficionados online and freely choose to spend an inordinate amount of time on the likes of lala.com, The Hype Machine, and Pandora…to name a few. Yet part of me still loves the feeling of vinyl (actually, who doesn’t) and, yes, the occasional CD in my hands. I have been told time and again that I am one of the few people anyone knows that still buys CDs. So what? I don’t claim to be all that cool. Therefore, when Amoeba recently announced they were having a “clearance CD blowout,” I immediately headed to the Berkeley location after work and rummaged through the thousands of marked down discs. Continue reading “Album Review: Spoon — Transference”

Album Review: Fucked Up – Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009

The band Fucked Up are. No one can live the punk rock dream anymore in 2010, right? Whatever. This odds and sods two-disc compilation details the swath that this group has cut across North America from their Canadian base.

Fucked Up sound like heavy rock and roll. Buzzsaw guitar hooks whir like electric razors, danceable drumbeats, and size-of-a-small-bear frontman Pink Eyes’ winsome RRRARRRR-GARRRRGH riding gleefully atop the mix like a dolphin frolicking in a ship’s wake.

With b-side cuts, import singles, kinda sorta cast-off cover tunes, Couple Tracks shows the breadth of how far Fucked Up have gone and how far they’re willing to go.

Fucked Up sound like heavy rock and roll. Buzzsaw guitar hooks whir like electric razors, drumbeats compel you to jump about, and their size-of-a-small-bear frontman Pink Eyes’ winsome RRRARRRR-GARRRRGH rides gleefully atop the mix like a dolphin frolicking in a ship’s wake.

With b-side cuts, import singles, kinda sorta cast-off cover tunes, Couple Tracks shows the breadth of how far Fucked Up have gone and how far they’re willing to go. Continue reading “Album Review: Fucked Up – Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009”

Album Review: Vampire Weekend – Contra

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been impatiently waiting for this album to leak for months. The teasing release of “Horchata” made me super excited (it is still available as a free download on the band’s website). Then, the next leak brought “White Sky” which made me stop and wonder if I really would like the album, or if Vampire Weekend would take it too far from their roots of mixing indie rock with beautifully complex afro-beats. After 24 hours of listening pleasure I can tell you that Contra is everything you wanted whether you knew it consciously or not. Somehow Vampire Weekend took 2008’s indie-juggernaut Vampire Weekend and ran it through a strainer, taking it apart and putting it back together with a controlled modern twist giving us a record that is smart and fresh, while still sounding like the band we know and love. There’s a heavy hand with the production polish, but that is what makes Contra different enough to keep it exciting and new. Continue reading “Album Review: Vampire Weekend — Contra”