Stricken City

Well, everybody knows how obnoxious it is that Owl City, the new Postal Service poser, is in the spotlight right now. There is another new city, though, one which is not a poorly executed copycat act with idiotic lyrics. No, Stricken City is the opposite of that description in every way!

This band is similar in feel to the recent Get Back Guinozzi!, but with more instrumentation and more dynamics between the band members, as well as a great deal more drive and passion lyrically.

It should be noted that the album art of their 8 song debut is incredibly stupid and ugly. I hate it when great bands have awful album art.

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs is a bizarrely titled Japanese trio who, like the late Bleach, manage to make more noise, and fill more musical space than most bands of four or five members. Reverb-drenched guitars and thick, pulsating bass are guided by urgent, pounding rhythms. Their studio recordings never use overdubs for the guitar parts; even during lead lines, the bass simply fills in the extra space—it's more than weighty enough in this band. While I'd compare them to Bleach in terms of their aggression and noise level, they're much less spastic in terms of style; it's fair to call them somewhat experimental and certainly unusual, but their songs are entirely melody-based. There's some shoegazeyness to it, but I don't want to scare away people who, like me, think shoegaze sucks. That's not what this is.

MotFD released their self-titled debut album in 2008. It's bordering on being an EP, with only six tracks; even more disappointingly, the latter 3 are snoozy instrumentals. The first three songs on that release, though, bore overwhelming amounts of promise, which was lived up to on their 2009 release, World is Yours. While the followup was again only six songs, it delivered six exciting vocal pieces and had none of the nine-minute yawn fests the band was messing around with on their debut. MotFD are all over the map on this one, venturing at one turn into ballady territory only to turn the volume back up in the same song.

Both releases are available from iTunes on the site linked above; there are also a lot of great videos to watch for free. You can sample some tunes on their myspace page too, but like most Japanese bands, they only put up clips of the songs, which is thoroughly lame. Someone needs to explain to Japan how lame that is. Fortunately, great live footage abounds.

Milly Beau

Via Knox Rd. I've come into contact with this startlingly solid new artist. Why don't you two get acquainted?

It's rare a band can mix these kinds of tempos and instrumentation without boring me silly. My severe attention span limits make me a challenging audience. Milly Beau is up to the challenge.

Surfer Blood? I thought this kind of thing didn't happen anymore?

I just don't understand what the big deal is regarding Surfer Blood and their debut album, Astro Coast. That was a lie. I understand what the big deal is; what I don't understand is how anyone could think the band is a big deal as a result.

"Swim," the single track that first garnered them all this attention, is rightfully lauded. Click the video above and listen. You won't regret it. The first song on the album is not bad either. Between the two of them, they deliver a lot of promise.

That promise is never lived up to. The rest of Astro Coast is dullsville. Track 3 has no energy. At some point a song starts up that sounds like it's going to reclaim the ambitious power pop styling of the first two tracks, and then it turns out to be a repetitive instrumental.

Here's what really confuses me: this isn't the 90s. This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen anymore. This is the age of internet downloads. Gone are the days when you'd hear this killer single on the radio, rush off to buy the album, and find out you'd been duped out of $12-15. Now you can just buy the killer single on any number of web sites and if the rest of the band's output is sub par, well hey, you don't have to pay for the whole package. You can pick and choose.

So why does everyone think this band is so great? Consider this me demanding my hope back from the internet.

Also, please pre order the new Los Campesinos! album immediately.

Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring

Opportunity knocks! The new Los Campesinos! album, Romance is Boring, is streaming on their myspace page. Do not hesitate: click the provided link and enjoy what's easily the best release of the new year so far. This is an album which transcends time ahead of time, of sort of transcending it in the future if you will, in that it is preemptively one of the best of its designated year. Were it to have seen release in 2009, it would have provided some much-needed competition for Tegan and Sara's Sainthood in the hallowed halls of "TK's Favorite Albums of Given Calendar Years."

The point is that it's very, very good and you're a fool if you do not listen to it immediately. For the suspicious among you, imagine a highly enthusiastic, cleverly though often drearily-lyriced collection of songs full of thick and intricate instrumentation, its speed and its umph rising and falling like the many hills and valleys of a line graph.

I'm sure everywhere is buzzing about this already, but Jay Reatard is dead. All the recent "celebrity deaths" have been of no concern to me (no, I don't really even care that Billy Mays died, amazingly enough), but this actually matters.

Watch Me Fall was one of the most notable albums of 2009. It is a shame it will be his last one.

New Black Wine songs

Black Wine has posted a couple of new songs on their myspace page. "Chateau of Ghosts" is my favorite thing they've done yet, but this band is brand new and their vast potential is only just being tapped. If you haven't seen my last couple posts, Black Wine is the new project of Jeff Schroeck, former guitar player for the late Ergs. They don't have anything for sale yet, but this is a band to follow.