Tuesday, July 07, 2009

New Music, Round 2

A week or so ago, I ordered 3 new CD's. I'd done so well the first time around, I figured I still had the juju. Yeah, maybe not.

In order of current preference:

1. Metric - Fantasies

This took a couple of listens. I really like thrashing guitars and discordant melodies, neither of which were delivered on this album. But there's a lot of catchy hooks in their songs, making them easy to want to sing along with (of course, I do not sing along; nope, not me). But the more I listen to it, the more it grows on me. The slow songs are too slow for my taste, but I still find my toe bopping along.

So this one has been on repeat more than the other two, and I think I like it a little more with each listen. Not too bad (especially since I can't freakin' stand the recent shoe-gazing tripe coming out of studios these days, i.e., the Shins, the Yeah Yeah Whatevers, and the rest of 'em).

2. Silversun Pickups - Carnavas

I'd read a fair amount about the guitar rigs after a few listens to Swoon. I had correctly surmised the lead guitarist uses a Big Muff distortion pedal, and I kept encountering inquiries about a song from Carnavas: Lazy Eye. Evidently it's a good one, so I bought the album. Talk about a difference between two albums from the same band. This one is much less aggressive, and that caused it to spend a week on the floor. I gave it another listen yesterday, and it's not bad, it's just different in a direction that I wouldn't have expected. Frankly I don't think the instruments are played as well on this album. There are some strange, almost off-beat notes that feel forced in a couple of places. All in all, it's not bad, just...I don't know...weird? Meh. Yeah, that sums it up: meh.

3. The Mars Volta - Octahedron

Ok, I liked Amputecture. I do not like Octahedron. It's still painfully avant garde, but that's frankly boring at this point.

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I've also pulled out some of Amanda's last purchases, and I can't handle them. Feist does little to nothing for me, and Arcade Fire is just plain dreadful. I remember watching them on SNL with her and wondering why she thought that was good. Sheesh.

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Finally, in Amos-family music news, Alastair has now begun to be hyper-aware of lyrics. Oh, dear. One of his favorite albums as a baby was Scissor Sisters Ta-Dah! Uh, yeah... "Daddy, he said 'fuck'!" "Yes, he did, but you don't have to repeat it."

1 comment:

JamieSmitten said...

Our family rule about bad words in songs (admittedly, there used to be a lot less of them on the radio) was that if you were SINGING the word, it didn't count as a swear. Of course, I'm a total potty mouth, so maybe that's the end result of singing along.