Unicycle Loves You: “Failure”
As a rule, indie rock seems to be getting more gauzy and distant, and I mean, ok. I guess the heart wants what it wants, and the hearts of indie rock kids seem to want borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 80s. I sort of still want catchy guitar pop though, and this new Unicycle Loves You record is hitting those pleasure centers nicely. Simple, strummy, satisfying, and oddly, still pretty throwback. Anyway:
Unicycle Loves You: “Failure” (redacted by request of the band. replacement song below, which is also great, but maybe you should just go buy the album in any case)
Unicycle Loves You: “Wow Wave Cinema”
No One Cares About the Poster Children
Which is really too bad. I go back to them occasionally, and today was listening to Daisychain Reaction, Poster Children‘s completely excellent second record. You can buy any/all of their records on their website, and you can listen to the best song from this record here:
Cloud Nothings: Attack on Memory (a review)
Youth is so great. At some point in the near future, I’m sure, Cloud Nothings (or whatever moniker Dylan Baldi is recording under) will record something boring, or a ill-fated concept album, or just run out of ideas (ala Conor Oberst), but at the moment, he’s breathlessly racing through his ideas like there isn’t enough tape to capture them. And that’s why we get a third full-length in as many years, this one spilling over with new ways to distill his love for hooks. Read More…
Weekend: “End Times/Afterimage”
I am a nerd, and the way you can know this is that I keep an excel list of albums I want to check out. The list is sorted into various buckets – things I like enough to rank in some manner, stuff I haven’t heard or haven’t judged yet, stuff that isn’t out yet, and stuff that I’ve listened to and dismissed. This Weekend record, for some reason, fell into that last group when I listened to it early this year, but it is now time to admit, long after all the blogs have already jumped on and off this bandwagon, that this album is amazing. What with this and the Big Troubles record, I’m starting to think I should just pre-order everything Slumberland puts out to save myself some time. Read More…
The Diableros: “Tropical Pets”
I fell in love with this album in 2006 when I didn’t write this blog and so I didn’t share it with you then and for that I’m sorry. The Diableros actually broke up recently, which, although I’m sure it’s sad for them, isn’t really the end of the word considering that the follow-up to this album isn’t too great, and neither is the EP that came after that.
But You Can’t Break the Strings in Our Olympic Hearts is a blast of satisfying pop music that fit nicely into the post-Arcade Fire landscape, and based on the four times I listened to it yesterday, it still holds up nicely. A particular highlight is “Tropical Pets,” which sounds a lot like Interpol or maybe The Ponys, but isn’t nearly as boring as those bands usually are.
Male Bonding: “Bones”
One of my favorite records this year is the Cloud Nothings’ self-titled debut. It’s a scrappy blast of poppy guitars and hooks that’s over almost as soon as it starts, and despite its studied amateurism, it gets by on an almost insane blast of sugar and charisma.
The reason I mention this is that Male Bonding just came out with its second album, and it reads kind of like a more bloated, less hooky version of the Cloud Nothings record. There’s nothing wrong with it – it’s a perfectly pleasant listen, but if Cloud Nothings is an A, the Male Bonding record is a solid B-.
BUT! The lead single (haha) off it is called “Bones,” and, to continue the comparison, it’s better than anything on the Cloud Nothings record other than “Heartbeat,” because almost nothing is better than “Heartbeat.” And I know all the blogs have already blogged this song, but I don’t give a blog. Listen:
St. Vincent: “Cruel”
Annie Clark is dreamy.
Limesix: “For Tonight”
90s guitar dream-pop has been done to death lately, although I’d like to think that’s at least in part because it wasn’t really driven into the ground the first time around. So here’s another entry, kind of – it’s the 13th song (BAD LUCK!) in a year-long experiment where I write and record a song a week. I will admit that I’ve actually skipped a couple weeks but let’s be honest – you don’t care.
This is essentially a demo – I recorded and mixed the whole thing in about three hours. But I think it’s one of the better things that have come out of this project so far, and I figured I’d share.
And here are a couple more from recent weeks:
limesix: “Sweep the Leg, Jonny”
If you’re interested in downloading the whole shebang and/or keeping up when I release new songs, you can do so here:
