Almost Ready

Hello folks.

The new Pearl Jam album is out soon. Click on the link to see the video to new single, The Fixer.

Listen to the song I pinched the blog title to this time here.

Check the side bar for the Cynical-C blog, saw it in The Guardian a few weeks ago and only just looked it up again. Priceless.

The Real Thing

The indie guitar template is being dispensed with! First The Horrors, now The Maccabees! There is hyperbole all over the place about Primary Colours (listen free here) but with a powerhouse independent like XL (Thom Yorke, White Stripes, Vampire Weekend) behind them then you ought to expect it. This isn't to discredit what they're doing, Sea Within A Sea is a monster, it's just a bit different with The Maccabees. The first album was chocker with poppy singles but there was a lack of bite; no real substance.

Love You Better is a new beast. They've added horns and keys to their arsenal and sculpted a track full of self-doubt and longing that makes better use of those yelpy vocals. Its a lot more fulfilling and there is a greater maturity about the band themselves. The song builds and you expect some sort of woolly, overwrought machismo to burst forward but the song maintains the tenderness of the opening bars and climaxes with a tidy flourish. Nothing over the top, no bolshy megalomania, just a well-weighted pop song. The majority of the guitar bands that have come and gone since the turn of the century have faded away because they have failed to match the initial hype/buzz/whatever (thanks, internet) or because they were always a bit crap and people just love finding new things these days rather than stuff they genuinely enjoy. Love You Better is a captivating listen and ranks with Glass and Hysteric as my favourite track of the year so far.

Shame that I can't listen to them more, but The Power of Lard is taking up the majority of my time at the moment...

Shine a Light

ATP is fast approaching and I am getting excited. There's a good mixture of bands on the bill now and with offers currently out to Wolf Parade, MGMT, Jesus and Mary Chain, Beck, Harvey Milk, Jeffrey Lewis, Errors, Xiu Xiu and Parts & Labor, it could be even better still. Having seen Beck and Errors before I'd rather see some of the others, but Wolf Parade are my top choice. I don't like MGMT though, so I hope they see themselves as too big for this sort of mission, quest, thing...

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Rad

What is this? What is THIS? This is a lovely widget from the lovely people at 4AD, which I have pilfered to highlight the intense Castanets cover that Sufjan Stevens has recorded for their Red Hot compilation. Its got lots of other great bands on it too, and you can make your own widget too by simply clicking on the one above, with other songs to pick from. I plumped for The National and Bon Iver because, well, they're The National and Bon Iver.

You can get the album in less than a fortnight, and its pretty cheap on amazon, considering its a double disc. Its for AIDS, so you should probably buy it. If you download it it makes you a chump, I reckon.