Albums Thread - 2015

Buzzer said:

Lucky him, she's cute. I will listen again to Pom Pom this weekend and let you know!

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Indeed. She currently strums the guitar in White Fence's touring band. I saw them the other week and deliberately stood the opposite side of the stage to her. I stood in front of her at Neon Neon in Brighton and found her quite pleasing; I didn't want her to walk on stage and think "oo aw, that's that weirdo from Brighton again"

Yeah, I'd be interested to hear your Pom Pom thoughts. Repeat listens are making me love some of the tracks which veer from pop, psych, 80s synth goth to prog. I think I might be starting to understand it now, even the silly childish bits.

Herr Tubthumper said:

Yeah, I'd be interested to hear your Pom Pom thoughts. Repeat listens are making me love some of the tracks which veer from pop, psych, 80s synth goth to prog. I think I might be starting to understand it now, even the silly childish bits.

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See..... The man is a genius and that album in particular demonstrates it.

I've thought over the last couple of years the NME has made a decent fist of becoming a decent (ish) music mag again. However, the readership have just voted this shower of dogswank as the winners of their awards, it's about as counterculture as a ****ing Happy Meal.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...an-win-best-band-and-best-album-10054425.html

1. Total white sausagefest.
2. I love the fact that the Radar award (up and coming) is their desperate attempt to look cool, they've gone for an artist that's released 3 stone cold classics since 2012 and released his last record on that tiny, unheard of, independent label 4AD. It's also by some distance his whitest sounding album.

I know I've called War On Drugs dadrock in the past, I would have welcomed them with open arms into this. I doubt Kasabian's mums even thought 48:13 was album of the year last year

Kasabian? Hahahaha! I suspect NME is re-positioning itself as the magazine for the mainstream festival going crowd who have heard of Kasabian but may well not have heard of a few of the other more appropriate nominees. Wasn't there a rumour that NME was going to be a free magazine in the upcoming future? I did have a read of it at the WH Smiths in St Pancras and got to say that it's more Smash Hits than serious music magazine now. Compare and contrast their interviews with the likes of Kasabian with the Quietus' recent interview with Marc Almond. One is serious music journalism the other is an interview with Kasabian in he NME.

You're right though, Kasabian as best band and best album is up there with those ubiquitous DJ Mag polls of the top 100 DJs where those cock-jock EDM and Trance DJs fill every single spot and there isn't a woman DJ in the top 80.

I'd completely forgotten about 48:13 to be honest and here's a very funny thing: according to metacritic.com the album scored an average of 62/100 from 14 different critical reviews so you can hardly claim musical snobbery and NME itself only gave it 7 out of 10! http://www.metacritic.com/music/4813/kasabian/critic-reviews

Buzzer said:

Kasabian? Hahahaha! I suspect NME is re-positioning itself as the magazine for the mainstream festival going crowd who have heard of Kasabian but may well not have heard of a few of the other more appropriate nominees. Wasn't there a rumour that NME was going to be a free magazine in the upcoming future? I did have a read of it at the WH Smiths in St Pancras and got to say that it's more Smash Hits than serious music magazine now. Compare and contrast their interviews with the likes of Kasabian with the Quietus' recent interview with Marc Almond. One is serious music journalism the other is an interview with Kasabian in he NME.

You're right though, Kasabian as best band and best album is up there with those ubiquitous DJ Mag polls of the top 100 DJs where those cock-jock EDM and Trance DJs fill every single spot and there isn't a woman DJ in the top 80.

I'd completely forgotten about 48:13 to be honest and here's a very funny thing: according to metacritic.com the album scored an average of 62/100 from 14 different critical reviews so you can hardly claim musical snobbery and NME itself only gave it 7 out of 10! http://www.metacritic.com/music/4813/kasabian/critic-reviews

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I've fought the NME's corner in recent times, it has got much better under Krissi Murison and Mike Williams. It has got some excellent writers.
These awards are voted for by the readers. When you see how the NME would like to position it's readership and where it's readership really is, it must scare them immensely. The writers poll is a decent list (headed by a woman as well!)

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/2014.htm

They are under 20k circulation now so they need to go free or die in the near future. They did it to themselves with the awful shower of shit the magazine became from 2003-2010, mainly the doing of Conor McNicholas who went on to manage Top Gear Magazine (I kid you not...)

I like (features editor) Laura Snapes as well, even if I do find her obession with The National somewhat baffling.

spring hall convert said:

I've fought the NME's corner in recent times, it has got much better under Krissi Murison and Mike Williams. It has got some excellent writers.
These awards are voted for by the readers, that what really scares me. When you see how the NME would like to position it's readership and where it's readership really is, it must scare them immensely. The writers poll is a decent list (headed by a woman as well!)

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/2014.htm

They are under 20k circulation now so they need to go free or die in the near future. They did it to themselves with the awful shower of shit the magazine became from 2003-2010, mainly the doing of Conor McNicholas who went on to manage Top Gear Magazine (I kid you not...)

I like (features editor) Laura Snapes as well, even if I do find her obession with The National somewhat baffling.

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Thanks for the reply, you're very clued up on this so I appreciate the insight and you are right, there is a huge incongruence between the writers and their readership. There is no way on earth that readers who think Kasabian are the best band around will vote for St Vincent or Mac DeMarco in any poll imaginable.

Buzzer said:

Thanks for the reply, you're very clued up on this so I appreciate the insight and you are right, there is a huge incongruence between the writers and their readership. There is no way on earth that readers who think Kasabian are the best band around will vote for St Vincent or Mac DeMarco in any poll imaginable.

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The other possibility of course is foul play. Given it's low readership now, I'm sure it wouldn't take a particuarly concerted effort from interested parties to get a victory. Either way, that list is an embarassment for a magazine with a heritage like theirs.

When I was a teenager in the mid to late 80s, I used to look forward to NME coming out every week almost as much as I enjoyed going to the record shops on a Monday. It used to be a subversive, left-field read. Last time I bought a copy, it was championing some terrible made-up subgenre of emo music and was full of bands I'd heard of - not what is required at all.

Moonlandingz - Sweet Saturn Mine
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Taken from the the forthcoming Eccentronic Research Council album - 'Johnny Rocket, Narcissist & Music Machine..I'm Your Biggest Fan!!'. out in May. A concept album about a woman obsessed by a fictional band narrated by actress Maxine Peake with the fictional band Moonlandingz itself a collaboration between ERC and the Fat White Family releasing an EP prior to the album.

Stealing Sheep - Not Real
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Seem to have ditched the acoustics for more keyboards. Album out in April.

Is the Quietus a print publication?

spring hall convert said:

The other possibility of course is foul play. Given it's low readership now, I'm sure it wouldn't take a particuarly concerted effort from interested parties to get a victory.

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Good point, in which case it paints a very lackadaisical attitude of the average NME readership.

tinycowboy said:

Last time I bought a copy, it was championing some terrible made-up subgenre of emo music and was full of bands I'd heard of - not what is required at all.

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Ha! You're right. That's tickled me, that has.

deletebeepbeepbeep said:

Is the Quietus a print publication?

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No, not as far as I'm aware. I'm not sure it needs to be or that there's a market for music magazines in print. For myself, when I read about music news I like to be able to listen to what they are talking about straight away.

deletebeepbeepbeep said:

Is the Quietus a print publication?

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Web only, though quite a few of the Quietus writers wrote for Stool Pigeon (RIP) which was a brilliant free paper that ended a few years ago.

http://www.thestoolpigeon.co.uk/

New Lower Dens album in March, and a fairly decent narrative music video released yesterday. Good stuff. They've gone a little more synthier on this track, hopefully we'll see not too much of it on the rest of the album. I prefer their wailing noise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2iSVHh_Wn8

Which leads me to blanck mass (****buttons Mr Ben Power), the new album is released in May too. Oh yesh. There a new track out there at the mo on his soundcloud, if you've never heard him (I caught him live at the GDS a couple of years ago and got a hug off him) it's like listening to Rick Wakeman in a wind tunnel. He's gone a bit beatier this album I reckon, following his inbetween-album tracks.

(sorry for the lack of links, I'm on my mobile).

The only other album I've bought recently other than the great Viet Cong, is the Duke of Bergandy OST. Nice.

Purity Ring – ‘Another Eternity’
I was given an advance copy to listen to from a friend who thought that it might be up my street but I’ve given it back with a firm NO. I don’t think I’ve heard an album of 10 songs that sounded so alike for a long time. Each one merges with another and there’s nothing to distinguish them apart. Rather fittingly, the album title gives the game away and the song titles include ‘Repetition’ and ‘Begin Again’. The formula is this: start with a very bass heavy downtempo drum and keyboard pattern (sort of like a dubstep-lite), the female singer comes in at around the 45 second mark, sings plaintively, they take away the drums for a few seconds, then the bass drops and repeat. Every single tune has the singer’s voice auto-tuned and every single tune has vocoder. I can see where they have tried to place themselves musically but it’s so dull. It comes out next week but I’d really recommend listening to it before you consider buying it.


Wave Pictures – ‘Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon’
I love this band to bits. For me they are the modern day equivalents of bands such as Squeeze or the Kinks with the kind of lyrics and delivery that could only be British, they have a lot of intelligence and humour in their music and they can really play their instruments. This album was a collaboration with Medway legend Billy Childish who wrote the lyrics and provided all the instruments (the band wanted an authentic 60s/70s sound). Each song is a lot of fun, the style is old-fashioned rock and roll and it’s just a great album. They’re not particularly going anywhere different with this release but I’m not sure they need to when their end product is already so good. If you’ve never heard them before and want a taster then I’d recommend listening to ‘I Could Hear the Telephone (3 Floors Above Me)’ to get a taste of what they’re like. All in all, it’s the perfect feelgood album. Highly recommended.


Treacherous Orchestra – ‘Grind’
Apparently they’re a sort of Scottish folk music supergroup that play a power-folk in the same way as some of those other big folk bands, Bellowhead for example. There are others whose shows are apparently noisy spectacular affairs but their names escape me. I imagine that seeing them live is a bit like a musical version of Cirque Soleil with people dressed like they’ve stepped out of a Mad Max convention. It’s really not for my cup of tea, I’m not a fan at all of Celtic folk, this is a purely instrumental album so the big drums, bagpipes and fiddle-playing is unrelenting. I only listened to it once on the way home last night and that’s enough for me. Sorry.


Sundowners – ‘Sundowners’.
They are championed by The Coral but in my opinion have a lot more in common with that other Wirral band Gomez. Not so much in the musical style but from sounding like they’re not from the North West of England which the Coral most certainly do. Sundowners have toured with Paul Weller so you can tick off ‘soulful’, toured with Kasabian so tick off ‘rock’ and there is definitely an element of Brit-pop but there’s a lot of Fleetwood Mac, a bit of late 60s psychedelic folk, even 80s indie. The album rattles along at a good steady pace and you can definitely tell the tunes written with bigger venues in mind and fair play to them for that. If the likes of Tigercats and Sundowners are the next big bands to break through then I won’t be disappointed at all.

Albumen said:

WHihc leads me to blanck mass (****buttons Mr Ben Power), the new album is released in May too. Oh yesh. There a new track out there at the mo on his soundcloud, if you've never heard him (I caught him live at the GDS a couple of years ago and got a hug off him) it's like listening to Rick Wakeman in a wind tunnel. He's gone a bit beatier this album I reckon, following his inbetween-album tracks.

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This is the new track - http://pitchfork.com/news/58523-***...r-announces-new-blanck-mass-album-dumb-flesh/. It is mega.

EDIT: The link doesn't work becuse of the swear filter. I'm sure you guys can find it.

That Blanck Mass GDS gig was amazing. IIRC, it was a late night VICE thing and he came on about 3 o'clock in the morning and the crowd had thinned out. My group was still there but some of us were flagging and he played a load of the noodly, ambient stuff off his first album which isn't really what youy want to hear full of love at that time in the morning.

Aside from myself and one of the rest of the party, everyone went back to mine to continue the night. Almost as soon as they left the room he dropped this (which had just been released)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05kzylUx69E

and followed it up with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ZY3uSf0Hw

Me and my remaining mate went nuts for 25 minutes or so, smug that everyone else had gone. I remember it as one of the best half hours of music I've experienced.

When we got back to my house, no one believed us. I facebooked him this track yesterday saying "we'll always have The Green Door Store." And we will.

spring hall convert said:

This is the new track - http://pitchfork.com/news/58523-***...r-announces-new-blanck-mass-album-dumb-flesh/. It is mega.

EDIT: The link doesn't work becuse of the swear filter. I'm sure you guys can find it.

That Blanck Mass GDS gig was amazing. IIRC, it was a late night VICE thing and he came on about 3 o'clock in the morning and the crowd had thinned out. My group was still there but some of us were flagging and he played a load of the noodly, ambient stuff off his first album which isn't really what youy want to hear full of love at that time in the morning.

Aside from myself and one of the rest of the party, everyone went back to mine to continue the night. Almost as soon as they left the room he dropped this (which had just been released)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05kzylUx69E

and followed it up with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ZY3uSf0Hw

Me and my remaining mate went nuts for 25 minutes or so, smug that everyone else had gone. I remember it as one of the best half hours of music I've experienced.

When we got back to my house, no one believed us. I facebooked him this track yesterday saying "we'll always have The Green Door Store." And we will.

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I was utterly shitfaced having been to the Hanover beer festival before it. Me and my girlfriend were leaning on each other eyes closed at 4 in the morning, ears bleeding. Beautiful. Mr Power and I had been in contact before and he'd asked me to say hello at the end. It was brief (as he probably saw how mullered I was) but he's a nice chap. Such noise, can't wait for the next album.
The vinyl package for the first album was a thing of beauty too.

The Blanck Mass link for anyone who is interested

https://soundcloud.com/sacredbones/blanck-mass-dead-format

tinycowboy said:

New song by Lower Dens probably my favourite track of the week - Drive-soundtrack-tastic.

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Albumen said:

New Lower Dens album in March, and a fairly decent narrative music video released yesterday. Good stuff. They've gone a little more synthier on this track, hopefully we'll see not too much of it on the rest of the album. I prefer their wailing noise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2iSVHh_Wn8

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They clearly want to lose you as a fan, and gain me. Perhaps their evil plan is working - they know how much I spend at the merchandise stall and they'd love a piece of that.

Theatre of Trees said:

The Blanck Mass link for anyone who is interested

https://soundcloud.com/sacredbones/blanck-mass-dead-format

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Bloody hell, that's brilliant. I shall investigate further.

spring hall convert said:

2. I love the fact that the Radar award (up and coming) is their desperate attempt to look cool, they've gone for an artist that's released 3 stone cold classics since 2012 and released his last record on that tiny, unheard of, independent label 4AD. It's also by some distance his whitest sounding album.

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****ing priceless - http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/dean-blunt-pranked-the-nme-awards-last-night

They... didn't...even....know....what...he...looked....like.