New Music Roundup 5/29

A lot of quantity this week, although I'm less certain on the quality.

The Walkmen - Heaven

For quite a while, the Walkmen had one song I liked - the truly enjoyable "The Rat" from 2004's album Bows + Arrows - and a lot of stuff I had zero interest in.  Then in 2010 they released Lisbon, which was a big departure for the band.  Whereas once the band was overbearingly jittery, Lisbon had a mellow minimalism, which made the entire album a much more listenable affair, even if it was a little too low energy for my tastes.  In other words, it was a bit of a hangover album, but a little too much so.  Their new album Heaven manages to split the difference between the band's earlier work and their last album quite nicely: it's still passes by easy enough, but there's a little more rock inserted into it than their last album.  This results in quite a few songs I would consider catchy, particularly the jangly title track.  I could see this album growing on me a bit.

Selections

Heaven

Nightingales

Heartbreaker

New Music Roundup 5/22

First off, for those who use spotify, I have started a Drunk on New Music playlist there.  This is going to be an ongoing rolling list of my favorite [number to be determined; right now it's 21] songs.  It won't be an entirely new list of songs each week, but I think I'm going to stick to a set number, so that when I add a new song I'll be taking off an old one.  If you subscribe to the list, I believe it will automatically update the playlist for you every time I change it. 

Along those lines, not an album, but The Gaslight Anthem have released a new single called 45, and it's on this week's spotify list.  It's about what you would expect from the band, which works perfectly fine with me.  I suspect it will not be my favorite track on their upcoming album (due out sometime in July), but it's another catchy rocking song, and having listened to it several dozen times since finding out about it, I have to say it grows on me.

New Music 5/15

Pretty interesting week, I have to say.

Tenacious D - Rize of the Fenix

As I said before, the D is fucking back.  I'm not sure how funny I find the band's relatively unchanged schtick, but when the actual music is this good, who cares?  This collections of songs is easily the best they've had since their self-titled album back almost a decade ago, and this is just great rock music, made by comedians or not.  The genres they dabble in are a little more varied here, with a pretty awesome Springsteen/Tom Waits impression on "39" and a flute-filled English folk take on "The Ballad of Hollywood Jack and the Rage Cage."  If I have any complaint, it is that a couple of their songs are a little too short, as if they're afraid that the joke is too one-note.  Still, this is one of the best old-school rock albums I've heard this year.

Selections

Rize of the Fenix

Roadie

39

The Ballad of Hollywood Jack and the Rage Kage