Metric - Fantasies

Fantasies

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1. Help I'm Alive
2. Sick Muse
3. Satellite Mind
4. Twilight Galaxy
5. Gold Guns Girls
6. Gimme Sympathy
7. Collect Call
8. Front Row
9. Blindness
10. Stadium Love


Fantasies comes four years after Canadian girl + 3 guy group Metric's last album, Live It Out. It featured the track Monster Hospital, which did very well and got remixed tae fuck.
With vocalist Emily Haines' dreamy voice perfectly suited for indie rock music, and a band which obviously know how to write a catchy song, there wasn't much that could have gone wrong here. And, it hasn't.....but it hasn't really blown me away either.

Which would leave us floating in meh. Help I'm Alive, the first single off Fantasies, is great. It's catchy and regularly returns to the "Beating like a hammer" refrain, and Haines' vocals of, "They're gonna eat me alive/If I stumble" is quite touching. Next track Sick Muse, while making a good impression on first listen, fails to ascend much past middle of the road indieocrity. The album melds into garage rock guitars and floaty electronics until Gold Guns Girls, which despite some cringe worthy lyrics, is pretty decent.

This is an album which is trying to sound big. Despite the band releasing this independently in the states, there's an overall impression that they're aiming for Coldplay levels of radio play, which they aren't going to get. Ambition is fine, but it seems creativity has been sacrificed in it's place. Awk, it's not a bad album, and when listening to it you'll probably think, "This is fine", and it is, but after an entire listen of this album I would challenge you to walk away humming one of these songs. Fantasies fails to leave any sort of lasting impression, and instead of being a solid indie rock record from a band which have more things going for them than most in their position, it has ideas above its station and falls gruesomely between two posts.

You could do alot worse, and you could do alot better, but nothing is worse than indifference.


5.2/10

Born To Run #2

Cows- Effete and Impudent Snobs

Last.fm
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Let me have this horrible, horrible music.

1. Memorial

2. Dirty Leg

3. Big Mickey

4. Preyed on

5. Immigrant Song

6. Whitey in the Woodpile

7. Nancy Boy Cocaine Whore Blues

8. Cartoon Corral

9. Little Bit

10. Put Me Down

11. Sittin' Around

No, I haven't heard of them before either. I'm not really sure why, after one listen, i'm listening to this again. It's disgusting.
Screw MSTRKRFT, if a dirty bassline is what you're looking for, and I mean, dirty, then look no further.

Effete and Impudent Snobs is a 35 minute sonic rape of an album from Minneapolis noise-rock dudes, Cows. First track Memorial snarls in with a greasy bassline and welcomes you to the hellish musical pit you'll be dwelling in for the next half an hour or so, should you see this album out to the end. Which you probably won't.
The first half of this album squeals along with barely distinguishable guitar melody, yet there's still a sense of growing darkness. I've never heard something which I imagine to sound so much like hell itself, Glasvegas jokes aside. The tension eases up slightly on The Emigrant Song, and I mean lighten up comparitively. It still sounds like you've been given a two and a half minute long song to listen to while the entire world laughs at you behind your back. Whitey in the Woodpile, (presumably written about Kevin Brown) is a brief refrain of silliness, before the barrel of laughs of Nancy Boy Cocaine Whore Blues. This is horrible, brain frying stuff, and truely would be an apt punishment for a lifetime of sin.

Strangely, however, I like this album. I meant everything I said, it is horrible........but sometimes that hits the spot. I would reccomend giving the band a listen on last.fm before downloading this feral beast. I mentioned not seeing it through to the end, and whilst I did, it's doubtful that the average listener will. All too often the temptation to listen to something.....with some sort of discernable tune, kicks in. This is a filthy album though, reccomended for when you're not feeling quite yet human after the night before. Or for those with implosive tempers; this is our soundtrack to finally cracking.

Hardly essential, but enjoyable filth. Bit like Skins.

Anamanaguchi- The Dawn Metropolis

The Dawn
Metropolis

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1. Blackout City
2. Jetpack Blues
3.Dawn Metropolis
4. Danger Mountain
5. Overarrow
6. Tempest, Teamwork, Triumph (At Sea)
7. Mermaid



Anamanaguchi are a four piece NYC band from the "chiptune" scene. Whilst this may immediately bring Crystal Castles into your head, this album is different from a lot of other albums in the same genre.

First of all, that cover. God it's great. Even before listening to the music I feel like im playing the SNES. It also fits the tunes perfectly.
I mentioned this album being different from similiar styled bands. Whilst a band like Crystal Castles are pulling no punches in aiming for the scenester crowd, Amanaguchi on The Dawn Metropolis, don't care. Their tunes are here for you to listen to, regardless of your scepticism or raised eyebrows. If you're in a bad mood, stick on Unknown Pleasures. Come back when you're ready to smile again.
This album is a massive heap of fun, and even if you didn't play Super Mario all stars or Donkey Kong world as a nipper, it'll make you think you did. If you were a nerd as a child, this is for you. It will fill you with memories of nintendos, rainbows and innocence.

A hacked nintendo system is combined wonderfully with fuzzy power chords and a band with an ear for a tune. Whilst you'd be hard pressed to find something like this in the charts, many of these melodies would suit some of todays modern pop artists, just maybe not as frantic as on display here.
The first two tracks snap, crackle and pop along happily, and are a good idea of what this band's all about. The title track shows off that ear for a tune I was talking about, and on Danger Mountain, the electronics go absolutely alloy. The same theme continues along until album closer Mermaid, which despite not being a chiptune Flight of The Conchords cover builds up quickly and confidently, culminating in a mess of joyful electro nonsense.

This album is free leech for a bit on Waffles, and has helped give this band some deserved exposure. I also advise checking out the official website, which is very cool. At 7 tracks in 26 minutes, its pretty much exactly the length you'd want an album of this sort of music to be. The pace is maintained, and this is great, great fun throughout.

A little nostalgia goes a long way.

9.0/10

Greenday- Still alive, and with new material.

Bleh. The soundtrack to whenever you first started playing a cool instrument are back, with a "21st century breakdown." Oh gad.
Mainly about how his generation sucks, Billy Joel sings, ""My generation is zero / I never made it as a working class hero." He is entitled I suppose, to express his dissapointment at his depraved and lower class lifestyle.
I would for one, however, like to hear Greenday singing about money and porsches, and not in an ironic way.
And with Bush no longer in power, Billy Joel has only one thing left to rant about; how we've failed future generations. Awwwww. Before breaking into a Queen esque bridge and shouting, "the bastards of 1969!"
It certainly isn't something unpredictable.

Born To Run

The 1990's - They bestowed a plethora of gifts upon the world. From the Poll tax, to randy politicians, (maybe they had been steaming the night before or something) the 90's had it all.

1990 was also the year I was born, and in a tenuous linkage i've decided to chuck up an album every week from 1990, which I may or may not have come out of the womb listening to. Awesome.


Fugazi- Repeater + 3 Songs

Last.fm
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1. Turnover

2. Repeater

3. Brendan No 1

4. Merchandise

5. Blueprint

6. Sieve Fisted Find

7. Greed

8. Two Beats Off

9. Styrofoam

10. Reprovisional

11. Shut The Door

12. Song #1
13. Joe # 1
14. Break-in


Repeater is a suprisingly listenable punk rock record, and an incredibly solid one. The angry guitar squealing doesn't let up, and if it does, it's done to make way for some fancy bass fretwork. Despite being a punk album, Repeater has some serious indie rock sensibilities. Take opener Turnover, for example. Before ex-Minor Threat vocalist Ian MacKaye's angry taunts are introduced, you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to a classic indie rock record. Shit, the bass part could even belong to a Joy Division song.

It is a punk album though, and even with 14 songs rattles along in just over 40 minutes. This urgency lends itself perfectly to the music and ensures you don't go sticking on another album before it's done. It isn't an effort, though, as previously mentioned it's an easy album to listen to. As one screaming riff ends, another palm-muted harbringer of chaos has begun.

It is, also, a hoot. While it does have enough tuneful moments to appeal to a large audience, sometimes it can be extremely fun to listen to someone else go absolutely buck daft, and Repeater has those moments in spades.

Well worth a listen.

New Mastodon single- Divinations

Divinations











Mastodon's new single is a fucking beast. Starting off with a creepy snake charmer esque riff, it goes into the musical equivalent of a wrestling match between the Devil and Jay Curran , before the what must surely be impossible drum roll takes it into the main, runaway train-on-fire riff. The chorus is pleasingly melodic, and the bridge will tear off your head.

The new album, Crack The Skye, will be released on March 24th. If the album is as strong as this, Jay help us all.

Brilliant.

New S.M.D. - Steals title from some Soulwax album

1000 Horses Can't Be Wrong

Filthy. The new tune from Simian Mobile Disco starts off pretty reservedly, with a few trademark blip blops. It then goes all, "Oh yeah, thats Simian Mobile Disco". At a beefy six minutes it ain't gonna be an insta hit, but pretty nice to see something from the likeable nerds of eletronic musask.

Enough, gief track pls