Since FilingFrenzy's
output is greatly exceeding ours (and is damn funny to boot), I thought it was time to come up with some content. But I couldn't think of anything so here's another post about music...
Since the Frames' disappointing return, I've been casting about for someone else to worship and prosetylise for. Mogwai made a strong case with their recent Mr. Beast album - featuring Acid Food, which is easily the prettiest thing they've ever recorded and reveals an unsuspected talent for country and western miserablism (to add to the epic and brutal miserablism they've done so well in the past). Better yet, they've just released a soundtrack album for the Zidane movie which has all the rambling moodiness they used to be so good at before deciding that no-one wanted to listen to 30 minute tracks of Scotsmen abusing distortion pedals. Happy days.
But then again, lyrics are nice sometimes too. And given that Sigur Ros and Redneck Manifesto are still alive and kicking, the moody instrumental market is fairly crowded. I needed to look further.
So, enter Kate Bush. I've been tentatively poking at
Aerial and I can see why she is regarded as a genius. The Pi song has obvious appeal, and King of the Mountain is funky too. The rest of the album is hard work though. I dig bird noises just as much as the next guy, but I have a limit. No doubt it will grow on me, but it never seems to rise very high in my playlist...so that might take quite some time.
Exit Kate Bush.
But, hey. Here comes
Damien Rice with a
new album. The anti-Glen. Salvation!
Well, not quite. 9 isn't bad. It isn't bad at all. The lead single (9 Crimes) is great. But the rest of it sounds...a bit...well, like Damien Rice. Given the way his live shows were going, with songs like "Woman Like A Man" and "Me, My Yoke, and I", I thought he was going to piss off his record company by releasing a garage rock record. "Me, My Yoke, and I" makes an appearance, as does "Rootless Tree" (which is, for all intents and purposes, "Woman Like A Man, Part 2"), but both fall victim to Rice's increased recording budget. People with better hearing than me have already
bitched about the tendency of modern recording methods to squeeze all the life out of music. One of the things I liked about O was the fact that it made full use of the recording's dynamic range. It certainly sounded infinitely better than the over-compressed muck that comprised the last couple of Foo Fighters' albums.
Unfortunately, Rice's record company shelled out for a production job that would make the songs stand out on the radio. So the ferocity of "Rootless Tree" is blunted by the fact that the enthusiastically yelled "Fuck You" chorus is only slightly louder than crooned verses. "Yoke" gets neutered by the same temptations that sunk the last Frames album. The tempo is downshifted from the live versions and the instrument pile-up at the end just sounds messy. The rest of the album sounds a lot like O. Which isn't bad. But I keep forgetting that I'm listening to it so I'm not polishing the altar for this.
Desperation leads me to remember my deeply unfashionable and embarassing taste for pop-punk bands like Blink-182 and Motion City Soundtrack. So, I take a deep breath and sample the delights of
Fall Out Boy. Hey, a band named after a Simpson's character can't be all bad. Right?
My ears...the
goggles do nothing!
So. Brief spells with the Deftones album (
Saturday Night Wrist ...good if you're into screaming and massively textured guitars), Mew's Glass Handed Kites (ever wonder what Sigur Ros would sound like if their singer was even more effeminate and had a taste for prog rock and song titles like "The Saviors of Jazz Ballet"?) and Bjork's Medulla (pure unadulterated Bjorkness:
bjork bjork bjork.)...all leave me wondering if there's anything worth worshipping after the Frames. I didn't find any comfort in achingly indie bands like TV on the Radio (too dense) the Thermals (too simple) and Of Montreal (crap, basically).
It's a long wait for the next Arcade Fire album. Too long to spend as a godless heathen.
But there is a band.
One who rose to prominence in the same wave that brought the world the tuneless horror of Franz Ferdinand and the excerable Kaiser Chiefs. A band whose music supposedly fuses dance and rock in a way not seen since the cursed heyday of Primal Scream and the Happy Mondays (both of whom I hate with a passion I usually reserve for things like Republicans and Adam Sandler). A band who were the most hyped band in the U.K. until the Arctic Monkeys left primary school and released an album. A band I seemed genetically predisposed to dislike without ever needing to hear a single note of their music.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Silent Alarm by the
Bloc Party which has made a mockery of my carefully honed prejudices. Even with my notoriously truncated attention span, there is not a single track on it I'm tempted to skip. It has even sent me to the dark corners of the internet looking for remixes and b-sides. Remixes!
I could ramble on about how great it is. But there is already plenty of gushing about Silent Alarm on the web. It's taken up permanent residence on my mp3 player alongside my Motion City Soundtrack albums and it more than adequately fills my musical deity needs until Glen finally decides to cheer up.
