The Kills
Ash & Ice
The highlight of this week is the Kills' first album in five years, Ash & Ice. This is more for personal music taste reasons, but it sure was nice to see a return to Midnight Boom form after the experimental slog that was 2011's Blood Pressures. The beats are hard, the guitar is jangling, the bass is driving, and Alison Mosshart's vocals are more visceral and urgent than ever.
Of course, singles "Doing It to Death" and "Heart of a Dog" are instant Kills classics, but so are deeper cuts like the viciously fun "Bitter Fruit," the slow burn of "Days of Why and How," and ultra-intense album closer "Whirling Eye." The entire experience is equal parts goth dance party and hand-clapping arena rock, and the combination is highly addictive.
Paul Simon
Stranger to Stranger
The prolific and ingenious singer-songwriter is back for a thirteenth studio album, and it's by a wide margin the most interesting collection of sounds this year.
Most of the time when you see acts of Simon's...ahem...stature ("old", I mean "old"), like the Springsteens and U2's of the world (yes, I know they are later but the point will be made) you'll see great reviews of mediocre-or-worse music just because they're them. I'm positive Rolling Stone Magazine's policy is "if they were popular at anytime during the 70's give them 5 stars, even if it's the worst slop ever shat onto a recording studio floor."
Such is most definitely not the case here. Simon brings all of his talents to bear with full force: the snappy use of homemade percussion instruments, the sardonic lyrical witticisms, the jazzy use of backing wind instruments, and the perfectly plucked guitars. I'm not saying Baby Boomers will ever get their kids or...jeez...grandkids to like "old" music, but this could take a huge leap forward.
Whitney
Light Upon the Lake
If anything came out of the Smith Westerns or it's breakup, it would be this album. Whitney's debut, Light Upon the Lake, is like a classic rock flashback, like Kevin Parker dreaming about ELO. While I'm not ready to dub this band the next Tame Impala, it certainly sounds like that band's first album: crisp, vivid, easygoing, and on a small scale, flawless.
Light Upon the Lake won't make a big splash anywhere, but in its humble, low-key approach, it finds something close to perfection. Directors making period movies about the late 60's will accidentally use this for every montage or poolside romance. Nothing here is reinventing the wheel, but wheels work pretty well already. So keep on keepin' on, roll those car windows down, and let that summer air remind you life is good.
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