Saturday, October 5, 2013

Arctic Monkeys AM & other assorted doodles

Music

Arctic Monkey - AM: It's been heralded as a return to form, or even by a few critics as their best album yet. I'm not sure it's better than either of the first two albums, but it's definitely on a par. Not that I've not had time for the last couple of albums, they were both good, but didn't tend to linger in the memory.

Attic Lights - Super de luxe: Scottish indie bands second album is a bright and breezy guitar pop affair. They've been compared to Teenage Fanclub, I don't really see that much similarity myself. It's a decent listen, but not anywhere near the level of the Fannies.

Jah9 - New name: Excellent new West Indian singer/songwriter's 1st album blends reggae and soul to very good effect, consistently good and two or three real stand out tracks.

Son Volt - Honky tonk: I don't listen to very much country music, but i do like it from time to time. This is a pretty good alt country/Americana album, full of fiddles, acoustic guitar as well as more up tempo electric fare.

The National - Trouble will find me: These are extremely well regarded by some, the only album of their's I have tried was Boxer, which i thought was a six to seven out of ten type of album, but was not really as good as I expected. This album leads me to see why some really rate them, it's a really strong album with some really memorable tunes on it.

Thundercat - Apocalypse: Bass for hire Stephen Bruner returns to solo status, I really loved this funky effort taking from 70's funk and the smoother Prince type 80's funk, it really hits the spot.

Valerie June -  Pushin' against a stone: Another really strong album from across the pond, she's to blend a bit of everything into this album. Folk, blues, soul, this is real Americana and there are some great tracks on it, it goes electric near the end on You can't be told to dazzling effect.

Willy Moon - Here's Willy Moon: I'm not sure how cool it is to like this, it's been out a fair while now, I think, but I have to say i do. It's commercial as hell, but the songs are just so catchy.


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