Album of the Week (4/22/2014)

Protomartyr
Under Color of Official Right
Hardly Art

At long last, the true reincarnation of Joy Division has arrived. With 14 tight-knit, post-punk songs that both rage and lament, Protomartyr show us what satirical bluntness sounds like. Under Color of Official Right is the kind of album you listen to partying, driving, dancing, crying, or working out. It's lyrics are viscerally unpleasant, it's music is darkly romantic. Though it only runs 34 minutes, you can lose yourself in its dense aural jungles for hours. Here, Protomartyr set the bar so high it may never be reached by their contemporaries; but despite the complexity of the journey, it is nonetheless an essential one.

Listen:
Ain't So Simple
Pagans
Scum, Rise!
Come & See

Album of the Week (4.15.2014)

Happy tax day everyone! As you sit around waiting to get audited, take a listen to this. It might help with your mid-career angst.

EMA
The Future's Void
Matador

Erika M. Anderson is the only combination of Bat for Lashes and PJ Harvey I've found that is actually worth listening to. Granted, I don't think there are any other variations of that combination in existence, but nonetheless the bluesy, lonely vocals over washed out industrial noise and string arrangements make for evocative listening. The term "masterpiece" is thrown around a lot, and while I'm not ready to give it that designation just yet, EMA's sophomore effort is a dazzling look into how digitalism is affecting everyday society, especially the creation of music. But where St. Vincent's near-perfect, self-titled album from earlier this year was about the rejection of the ever-expanding inclusion of all things internet, The Future's Void is about acceptance: that the age of the World Wide Web is here to stay, that the age of privacy is dead. The future is indeed void, and the void stares back.

Listen:
Satellites
So Blonde
Neuromancer
Solace

Also, there's a song called "Cthulu." What more could you possibly want?

Album of the Week (4/08/2014)

Sisyphus
Sisyphus
Asthmatic Kitty

If you thought Sufjan Stevens' The Age of Adz was a departure from his previous work, get ready for his Einstein-Rosen bridge. Sisyphus is an industrial-rap trio consisting of Stevens, rapper Serengeti, and trip-hop musician Son Lux. Most of what is offered is fairly non-offensive rap that most people would feel comfortable having their kids listen to (note: this is not actually recommended), but the combination of Serengeti's smooth cadence over Lux' alternating ethereal drone and dirt-crunching beats is something to behold. Add into the mix Stevens' as-always beautiful vocal performance as the group's "straight man" (he does not rap, sorry to disappoint you) and obvious musical damper (he keeps their aspirations from getting a little too lofty), and you have a sound that is both gorgeous and ear-worming. As rap, it's overly complex and far from ordinary. As pop, you won't be able to stop listening to it.

Listen:
Alcohol
Lion's Share
Rhythm of Devotion

Album of the Week (4/01/2014)

While I'm not really into the hijinks often accompanying today's random calendar placement, it must be acknowledged that today is April Fool's Day, as seen by Google's nearly-constant, ongoing "prank" of not letting me connect to Drive.

That said, awesome stuff is happening in the music world. So let it begin...

Cloud Nothings
Here and Nowhere Else
Mom & Pop

Dylan Baldi's vision for Cloud Nothings was to take it from a semi-pop band to a nihilistic punk-Nirvana. He succeeded in achieving the first part of that goal with the band's previous effort, Attack on Memory, but Here and Nowhere Else achieves the second. Being an emo-Kurt Cobain is as hard a job as any redundancy, but being more emo than Kurt Cobain while simultaneously sounding awesome and being a better lyricist is something close to astonishing.

The music here is raw to the point of touching nerves, and plays as fast as possible while trudging through a bleak winterscape. Here, Cloud Nothings perform with reckless abandon and hope they don't leave too many of us behind. They want us to go on this journey with them, but they want us to despise them for it.