You see right through meee; I see right through youuuu

Hot off the heels of The Moon and Antarctica, Modest Mouse had to release something that would seem at least decent compared to it. Interestingly enough, they decided to release the album that was originally going to be their debut - Sad Sappy Sucker. Originally set for a 1994 release, SSS was delayed for reasons my sources (i.e., Wikipedia) don't know. But, in my humble opinion, it would have been one of the best fucking debuts ever. It is, for the most part, consistently ace; and there's 24 tacks. Only The Lonesome Crowded West could top this behemoth.

[Best Tracks: Four-Fingered Fisherman, Classy Plastic Plumber, From Point A to Point B, Dukes Up]

indie folk wizards of oz

It's strange how some scenes that have been around for a long time can suddenly gain so much popularity in such a short time. Take Dubstep for example, it had been around since the early 00's, and only now has it sky-rocketed in terms of popularity. Well, while that sensation is burning away on the dance music side of thnigs, on the other side of the music chasm, a suddenly popular folk/indie hybrid is turning a lot of heads. Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons and Johnny Flynn appear to be getting a lot more coverage than they used to, and quite frankly, it's brilliant. Now folk bands can become superstars! And The Middle East ought to be no exception. After playing an incredible set at SXSW, there is a ton of buzz around them and they even got a full page spread in NME's Radar section. And it's all deserved.

There is something so beautiful about the music that The Middle East are making that really does leave you a little dumbstruck after listening, from their EP "The recordings of the middle east" opening track The darkest side is so soothing it could calm down an enraged BNP supporter had a mosque been built next door to his house. The vocals really are that sweet. Underlay all of this with vocal harmonies, acoustic guitars and a dash of other twee instruments and you do get folk perfection. The Middle East really are incredible and are capable of creating vast soundscapes as heard in the EP's closing track Tsietsi, which sounds very post-rock, sweeping violins included. Of course, it's nothing to dance to or put on at a party, but if you want to sit back and relax on a sunday afternoon with a cup of tea, it's actual perfection. I can find nothing bad to say about the Middle East and I will be eagerly awaiting the release of a full LP sometime. Until then, the EP will certainly make do. Make sure you listen to Blood, it really is amazing.

The Middle East have announced a small UK tour this June/July playing the following dates:

Manchester - 25th June
Dublin - 26th June
Brighton - 28th June
London - 13th July
*Sadly the Manchester and Dublin dates are 18+ :(

Anyway, here is a link to the EP

Three pills each day, etc.

How the fuck am I supposed to play Monster Hunter 3 and blog at the same time?

If there's one thing Sunny Day Real Estate has taught me, it's that all women are skanks that will do anything to fuck you over. Seriously, every song off of How it Feels to be Something On [incidentally their best album] was about how Jeremy Enigk's girlfriend stabbed him in the back, yeah? So post-hardcore emo + girl problems = awesome. This brings me to Reality vs. the Optimist, which perfectly fits the former sentence. Kiss Kiss can simply be described as post-hardcore electric violin orchestrations (played by a female, so I guess Freud* was right when he said all women are naturally masochistic**.) If the track "Shits in Suits" is anything to go on, they're pretty pissed too. So if you just got out of a relationship and hate the spiteful bitch who broke up with you, this is the album to go to (alternately, if you still like the spiteful bitch that broke up with you I suggest listening to some Hospice).

*I think it was Freud.
**To the female readers: Freud's words; not mine.

Are you ready for the album of the year?

It happens only too often that when a band release their debut album whislt covered in gratuitous amounts of hype, that it turns out to be, well, shit. See Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, Hadouken and Frankmusik for proof. Well Foals were a band who managed to live up to the Hype releasing a debut album that gave us a well needed break from the "landfill indie" that was unrelentlessly rotting away on every advert, radio station and tv program.
The difficult second album was always going to be a tough one for Foals, what with the first being so fantastic and all, but by god have they risen to the challange. Total Life Forever, out in just over two weeks from now is little short of godly. Total life forever is everything antidotes was but more grown up, and this is in no way a bad thing. The songs still bounce along with all the enthusiasm of before only now, with a much richer sounding texture, warm synths aplenty. Opening track Blue Blood seems a little slow and tentative builds up and swells like a beast, and then we hear the bouncing bass and intricate guitar riffery that shaped antidotes. There seems to be a slightly more post-rock feel to the 7 minute Spanish Sahara which is followed by the anthemic and shorter track, This Orient and Miami, the albums strongest track bursts into life with an insanely catchy chorus that is bound to set the festival audiences this summer alight. The album is a delicate mix of songs that are calm and collective and songs that are enough to get you dancing. End track, What remains pounds on, with crashing cymbals and a striding bass that brings a fantastic album to a fantastic end. Foals are moving British "indie" music forward and with an album as perfect as this, the new bands on the scene have a lot to contend with.

9/10, here you go boys and girls.

JJ

JJ are a band that despite having one album out already have only seem to come to more widespread attention upon the arrival of their 2nd album, confusingly enough named "no.3"


JJ are essentially a dreamy sounding indie duo from Sweden who make hazy sounding music fusing together the airy vocals of female vocalist Elin Kastlander with an array of smooth synths, acoustic guitars and a large amound lot of echos.


No.3 is indeed an advancement on No.2 and it is clear why they are getting so much media coverage at the moment because they are actually bloody amazing! "Let go", the first single from the album is indeed one of the highlights, a song with a chorus filled with warming synths and an intensly catchy melody is deffinatly worth a listen.


If last year was the year of the darker more moody XX, than JJ could well be 2010's much lighter answer to that.

So without further ado, here's the download link!

fun. - Live At Fingerprints (Record Store Day exclusive)

fun. - Live At Fingerprints (2010)

Download - V0

Tracklisting:
Intro
Walking The Dog
All The Pretty Girls
Interlude
The Gambler
Atleast I'm Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)
Take Your Time (Coming Home)

I was surprised at how well they perfomed 'Atleast I'm Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)', since it's generally considered to be the worse song on the album by most people. Also the female member of the band sounds incredibly cyoot on that track :3

fun. are really funny guys and put on a great show, I really recommend this if you're a fan of Aim & Ignite.

Slingshot Dakota

Slingshot Dakota play upbeat pop-punk sorta stuff (I still need to improve on my genres). Their mix of guitar and synth reminds me of The Get Up Kids later work alot, only with female vocals and less, well... 'rocky' and 'emoey', a terrible way of describing it but I'm sure you get what I mean.

Keener Sighs  - Download
V2

Their Dreams are Dead, But Ours is The Golden Ghost!- Download
V0

Okay, I fucked up on my first post. It's pretty fucking stupid to describe albums you allegedly love in one or two sentences when you have no restrictions. Also, I "wittily" cringed when I mentioned indie, yet I felt fine using the phrase "guilty pleasure". I was a really wretched person. But that's the past, hopefully I don't suck as much as I did in my first post. So, with that out of the way, let's move on.

The Adventures of Pete and Pete is the greatest show that has, and ever will, appear on Nickelodeon (though Rocko's Modern Life is a pretty close second, followed by SpongeBob Squarepants [this is debatable.]) Of course, that's why it was doomed to three seasons. But anways, Pete and Pete was great. What was most notable was the spacey background music. The producers wanted to use Pixies songs originally, but that was way out of their budget. Instead, they used the works of Yes, The Magnetic Fields, and Polaris. While the lack of Pixies is a shame, Polaris is probably the finest indie-pop you'll ever find. They're actually the side-project of Miracle Legion frontman Mark Mulcahay, and they've only released one album: a compilation of the songs they made for Pete & Pete. If you've seen the show this will make vomit rainbows of nostalgia. If you haven't (get on YouTube right now), you'll still appreciate this fine one-time effort.

Woohoo

V0 download
320kbps download
Simple Science came out vinyl and digital download yesterday, and in 13 days it will come out on CD. There's something like 2000 (vinyl) copies pressed, so if you really want this you should hurry up and get it. I ordered it today; marble-green coloured vinyl, bitch. So, Simple Science. It's not a bad, but it's not a perfect either. It's sort of a mix of every album they've made. I guess the roots are something like:

10% Four Minute Mile

45% Something to Write Home About

25% On a Wire

20% Guilt Show

The vocal effects are pretty over-produced on some tracks. It doesn't ruin them , but it doesn't help them. It's just kind of there. So I would place Simple Science less than or equal to On a Wire, and greater than Guilt Show. It might take some time to warm up on you but it's a great start to their reunion and assures that the new Get Up Kids don't suck. I have a feeling their new album will be unlike anything else they've done before, and I'm all for that.

Dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeams!

Dream-pop, for me, is hit-or-miss. It seems that I get either an hour of ominous static crap or provocative sounds that turn the room around me into outer-space. Dreamend's Maybe We're Making God Sad and Lonely falls into the latter category.

You are greeted by a humble-yet-awesome opening track of spacey guitars and chimes syncing perfectly, and swooped into the second track: An old lady (quite obviously from the South) reciting the events of an old ghost story with almost triumphant-sounding music being dreamily played in the background. This goes on for five minutes, but it intrigues me (you might not feel the same way.) It's not until the third track do we hear real vocals, and they're very refreshing. Imagine Thom Yorke's voice, but deeper. The next track is basically "I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaake up, yesterrrrrrrrrrrrrrdaaaaay" over and over again with, yup, more dreamy guitars. Mary Cogswell and Fred Vaillancourt is a girl's nervous breakdown set to music. Think about that. The last track (New Zealand) pales in comparison to the former five, but it can still stand up by itself. I'm awful at writing conclusions. This is awkward. Go away.

Joshua Fit For Battle

Joshua Fit For Battle - Bring Out Your Dead

Download - V0

Joshua Fit For Battle are a crazy good screamo band, kinda like taking Native Nod's instruments, taking away a lot of the spoken word and putting screams in there. Really energetic hardcore that never fails to get old.

Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) & Football, etc split.

Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate)/Football, etc

Download - V0

Buy it (UK link) Buy it (US link)

This one is really worth the £3 or so that it is, two great bands that both deserve your money for these two tracks. As always E!E! have given us some great, slow twinkly emo that we love them oh so much for, and Football, etc's song is a bit more melancholic than what we got from them on the EP, as always good shit.

Manchester scene report.

When you think of Manchester in terms of music, most people immidiatly think of bands like Oasis, The Smiths, Joy Division, The Stone Roses and other dead bands. Not a great deal of epic seems to be oozing out of the city as it once did in the Madchester era. There may be no factory records now, but the scene is by no means a dead one.

Now that the landfill indie crusade of the mid 00's is over, Manchester is a hotspot for new exciting music at the moment. Egyptian Hip Hop are just one of many new Manchester bands at the forefront of what could well be the beginning for a second coming of Manchester. Stand out song Rad Pitt is so simplistic yet manages to keep you listening over and over again with it's catchy dreamy guitar hook and rough edged vocals. A band deffinatly worth giving a listen, this time next year they could well be massive.

Wu Lyf are another band that seem to be setting the underground alight in Manchester, with their spacey lo-fi sound being a refreshing break from the lad rock sounds of the Courteeners and Oasis. Listen to concrete gold, it's brilliant.

Delphic are a more upbeat sounding indie/electro band that recieved a lot of hype last year and the debut release "acolyte" delivered some fantastic singles and as an album on the whole is a great listen. Doubt is one of the albums highlights, skittery synths a plenty and a fantastic voice to boot. If you liked them then be sure to check out may68 purverors of slick indie electro with male and female vocals, they are certainly something for Manchester to be proud of, single my way is out now.

The Answering Machine however are quite the opposite to the likes of delphic and such in that they play straight up indie, upbeat and fun of course! Similar sounding to the band Polytechnic with similar vocal styles, they play a more intelligent sounding kind of indie to the likes of super boring Oasis suck ups twisted wheel. Obviously cold makes for a great listen if you don't mind straight up no synths or any of that other nonsense style indie.

Manchester is still very much alive and a musical rennaissance could happen any time soon and i'm not even twistin' your melon man.

Sorry guys, but better late than never, eh?

Admittedly, I wasn't too fond of the Promise Ring on first listen. "Eh, this isn't anything I haven't heard before." I stand by my statement - the Promise Ring doesn't bring anything new to the table. Does that mean they aren't good? 'Course not. Nothing Feels Good is very pop-punky, meaning you won't get the same kind of emo in the sense of, say, Sunny Day Real Estate, but this makes it much more nostalgic. More so than even Four Minute Mile, perhaps. This album is absolute gold, just give it one or two good play-throughs. Then go down to Texaco and get a Fresca and some Sixlets. Good times for all