Evil And A Heathen

There should be little doubt about how biased I am as I am writing this. “Highly” is an understatement.

Grinderman – Heathen Child

I am pretty convinced Nick Cave needs but breath and everything that comes in contact with his carbon dioxide becomes pure genius. Heathen Child was blessed with far more than Cave’s breath, so prepare to forget about Christ, Buddha and Krishna. Cave graces each second of this dirty sultry blues, each of Warren Ellis’s epically insane guitar riff with his part prophet part madman voice, with his story that might as well be turned into a novel like the Faulkner-scented And The Ass Saw The Angel. The album, Grinderman 2, is to be released on the 13^th of September and, be damn sure, there will be a very biased review up on this blog.

The Twilight Sad – Throw Yourself In The Water Again

The band’s upcoming EP, The Wrong Car, should be here as a whole, there is no denying. Both songs are fantastic and the remixes (one by Mogwai and one by Errors) are wonderful reworks of the original Forget The Night Ahead tracks. So why this particular track? Because of the paranoia the swirls of guitars voice each moment. Because of the way the pounding drums kick in the song biting hard into the air. Because of the distorted vocals the get lost in the web of the melody. Because of the way the instrumental fades when James Graham almost shouts “And I’m dancing over your grave”. Because of the sonic blast that follows that very moment. And, because, after all this, Throw Yourself… proves to be an insanely catchy song, the kind that follows you around all day, quietly playing itself in the back of your head.

Flowers Is Still a Killer

Brandon Flowers - Crossfire

When The Killers announced they will take a break, my heart skipped a beat. Usually, a break actually means a break-up, as we all know from previous experiences. But the guys pretended they were just tired. However, Brandon Flowers decided to rest no more, announcing a solo career. His first song, Crossfire, could be easily confused for a Killers track: same voice, same sound and lyrics like "We're caught up in the crossfire / Of heaven and hell / And we're searching for shelter / Lay your body down". But it's so damn catchy and loveable that you won't actually care.

*You can listen to this song on Brandon Flowers' official site.

The Way To...

Klaxons - Flashover

There are many bands we eagerly await the return of. But few names turn us into blabbering fools and Klaxons are one of them. Like all their Myths Of The Near Future, Flashover hits you and leaves you on the ground not being even able to wonder what. It provides continuity without repeating the major themes of their debut album. There's a spaced-out weird pop catchiness about it but it veers shamelessly into what could be prog-rock and the key swifts are almost too sudden to let you fall into singalongs. Not interested in adding new words to the British dictionary, Klaxons shed all the cryptic adjectives and metaphors but the effect is just as unsettling: “Now we have become so un-alone” they sing in high pitched cold harmonies giving you the chills. Flashover, while just a bite of the upcoming album, Surfing The Void, has all the crazy elements that should hint to a new brillian material. It's a fitting reintroduction to Klaxons' twisted world and, my, don't we love it.

Sonic Spirit

The Depreciation Guild - Crucify You

Why should this piece off the American trio's new studio release, Spirit Youth, be on just about any playlist? Because it has bit and pieces that are strange and vague reminders of My Bloody Valentine's Paint A Rainbow. Because the lyrics are weird and slightly psycho (“You could never get away/ With your arm chained to the gate“) but give you a feeling of comfort. In fact, we guess it wouldn’t be far fetched to say it sounds like an upgraded/updated version of the said MBV song, one that could never end up sounding dated like most of the British bands tracks.

All These Flashing Lights

Interpol - Lights

As hermetic as always, Interpol return with one fine piece of art. Yes, we call this art, not mere music. While maybe the first three minutes or so are a bit of a grower, all the tension and build up of the intro blasts in the speakers as the guitars bloom and the song draws to an end. Paul Banks delivers his masterful lyrics with the same grace that put him amongst his generation's most talented vocalists. And Lights, with the band's by now branded moody feel, only makes us pray the new album will be arriving soon.

You can download the song from interpolnyc.com

Hurts - Better Than Love

Besides being incredibly Depeche Mode, Hurts's upcoming single (out the 15th of May) could posibily turn out to be one of the best songs this year. It's positively addicting, it makes you dance and has great 80s harmonies. Plus, much to our great surprise (and delight), the video for the song was filmed in Bucharest. Check out the strange making of on their myspace(the post is named 'Dragostea') and the video below.

I Think I'll Just Call You Good

Sophisticated Lemons - Life in 2D

Sophisticated Lemons are a bunch of highschool kids who came down to teach us the meaning of the phrase "I danced and sang and clapped until my hands got on fire". I saw them live twice and I must say they are one of the few opening bands that were called back on scene for an encore. Life in 2D is a song I'm really obsessed with - it has an instrumental that seems especially created to awake up the wild punk kid that lingers in each one of us, and a catchy chorus that creates addiction ("From here I can't see your face, but I'm sure it's beautiful, yeah, I know it's beautiful... I think I'll just call you love, that's what you remind me of, that's what you remind me of"). Keep up the good work, guys.

A Rumor In Africa

The National – Terrible Love

In my world, it’s sheer blasphemy not to play The National’s music on repeat. If a song comes on the player, I listen to it at least twice. Which means less time to listen to other songs/bands. And because time is of essence these days, I’ve been trying to fight it now. I really have albums I should be listening to at least once. Alas, I have failed. I wake up singing it, I feel sorry I don’t have it on my phone, I have to play it before I go to bed. And I don’t even have a decent version of it but the rip of their Jimmy Fallon live. And I now realise I could’ve written one line: Damn them, they’re doing it so right again it hurts!

65daysofstatic – Weak4

With these guys, it’s really different. 180 degrees different, even. I always tell myself I should listen to their music carefully but I never do. Weak4, their new single, is probably their first song that got me. It is true what they say, if we were to judge by this little gem, the new album due in April is going to be epic.

The Universal

Xiu Xiu – Chocolate Makes You Happy

Obviously a universal truth and Jamie Steward knows it. Sure, the lyrics are a bit (just a bit) cringe worthy but the percussion and pop elements Steward throws in once in a while are just as delicious as chocolate.

Broken Social Scene – World Sick

Yes, they are back and my, what a song they have for us. A lush, epic, cinematic song. The chorus has no mercy: it just hits you over the head. The joint vocals make it sound so ethereal and the percussion is impeccable. Only makes us more eager to hear the new album.

California Flavour!

Back in 2008 we were granted the joy of hearing Cypress Hill live at one of our best music festivals, never ever having seen so many white sneakers, baggy pants and caps in my life! Luckily, connections were tied with one of our finest rapper, Bitza. Ergo the single Straight From The Sun from Bitza, featuring as mentioned B-Real and (apparently one of B-Real’s protégés) Young De. A song with pretty much your classic chill out instrumental, not Bitza’s finest songs, but it has an interesting mix of Romanian and English lyrics. Nice English chorus and funny Romanian lines like "Deschide vinul, nu ma fa sa astept/ Ca am bagat rapid trei fumuri in piept/ Cu o tequila ca sa curat glanda/ Si o asteptam pe Mary G sa vina din Olanda" (translation: Open the wine, don’t make me wait/ Cause I’ve inhaled three smokes/ With a tequila to clean up the throat/ And we wait for Mary G to come back from Holland).

Beneath The Veil

Marina and The Dimamonds - Obsessions

Ok, I don't really like her previous stuff, but this Regina Spektor-scented piano song got straight to my heart and it reafuses to leave my taughts. I went to sleep with it in my head two days ago and I'm still repeating the 'we've got obsessions' bit.

Hurts - Wonderful Life

Slow-disco at its best. Get your quirky dance moves on, this is going to be one of this year's most played songs.

Arks Up

Late Of The Pier – Blueberry

It’s The Beatles-meets-Bowie-meets-Horrors-remixing-skills. A yummy piece until the very last drum beat, the very last insane guitar chord. The last 30 seconds or so are completely off the hook.

These New Puritans – We Want War

One of the weirdest out of the post-punk revivalists, yes. But that’s what makes them so insanely lovable. Kick-ass drums, cold chants, prog-rock hints, swords unsheathed. Oh, what the hell, in short an amazing and mind-blowing orchestration. Judging by this track alone, These New Puritans sophomore will be EPIC.

Delphic – Doubt

It’s New Order-ish, it’s strangely reminiscent of Foals’ math-rock, has bits and pieces of bleepy electro and, despite its coldness and angst that invades the speakers, it is so uplifting. Fingers crossed these guys will get shortlisted on BBC Sound of 2010. They are well worth it.

Dick Diver – Walk For Room

This Aussie band is completely adorable (even when they say ‘fuck’) and utterly brilliant. And this song is an instant classic, a perfect gem of magic lazy pop. It also has one of the cutest guitars solos (well, sort of) we’ve heard in a while.

Take Your Revelation To The Station

Kumm – Mister Superman

Kumm is a Romanian band which is not very well known outside the country's borders, in spite of its twelve years of musical activity. They have released an album at the end of October, maybe their best album to date, called Far From Telescopes, and the opening song happens to be my current obsession. It starts with a simple guitar line, then you can hear the drums somewhere in the background and after a few more seconds you hear the voice, and you guess from the very first line what it's all about: "We have always been here, we don't wanna fight, the future is so clear, just like a cat in the night". As the song flows, the sound becomes more diversified, with harmonica and tambourine coming in to support the guitar. I listen to it at least once a day, and I haven't got bored yet. On the contrary, I still find myself singing at work the obsessive chorus "It's just another way of falling of the roof if you can watch and see who's choking on your youth". And that's something, considering it has been almost a month since I've heard it for the first time.

What Else?

Table Manners – East Is The New West

Minimalist post-punk via London. And when we say ‘minimalist’, we mean these lads have been listening to too much Einstürzende Neubauten and bottled it all up in one track. A haunting, really addictive track. Probably one of the few times a band can get away with having a French accent.

Suicide Party – Paranoid

Your typical uber cool band: from their leather jackets to their shades to their music. Paranoid, a four minutes gem, oozes that Sonics meets Cramps meets Fuzztones vibe that’ll make anything else sound… get ready for it…lame. The riffs are mighty raw, the voice is pure rockabilly. From what we’ve heard, these British boys are famed for their live performances and when we think of how Paranoid sounds on record, we can but pray we’ll get to see them on stage.

Feels Like Summer

Fyfe Dangerfield – Walk In The Room

You know how Guillemots have these perfect pop songs with perfect tiny webs of guitar chords that give them perfect retro vibes? And then Fyfe adds his soft and rather bluesy vocals and the songs turn into perfect sing-along? His Simian La Breeze scented song Walk In The Room (taken off his upcoming solo debut Fly Yellow Moon) is no different: it’s just a bundle of infectious joy. It actually makes you happy not to be sad.

The Dead Weather – I Cut Like A Buffalo

I think it’s pretty obvious this foursome can do absolutely no wrong. Not in a million years! This musical piece might remind some of Beastie Boys (on even more crack than usual) or the reggae beat might seem to be of Clash influence, but what is really important is that it’ll be really really hard not to play it over and over again (with your volume all up to 11).

Internet Forever – Cover The Walls

This brilliantly-named London-based trio has the cutest and most sincere songs ever. Laura Wolf’s soft and carefree vocals, the sugar-coated fuzzy guitars, their casiotone-pop, the summer vibe, it all makes Cover The Walls a great single and guarantee you’ll fall in love with it instantly. You just know there’s no escaping.

Daydreaming.

Lupe Fiasco - Solar Midnight

You remember how one of the team members, Smaranda, was praising the New Moon soundtrack a few posts ago? Well, here I am doing almost the same thing. I mean, it’s a fabulous soundtrack. It stands right up there with 24 Hour Party People and RocknRolla. So, maybe unsurprisingly, the bonus tracks are immense as well. One of them is Lupe Fiasco’s Solar Midnight. Let me just put it this way: it’s dope. It’s a song with a really dark mood and, as Lupe himself said, is influenced by Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Anthony Kieds. What’s even better is that Lupe, while being a well-known (and great) rapper, takes a step into the alternative rock world and does it better than most people who claim to be alternative. Hats off!

Just Two Friends In Lust

LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou

A cover after Alan Vega’s 1981 song and what a cover it is. James Murphy has always been able to take the anthem out of every song he’s ever covered and this is no exception. A sexual Daft Punk scented new wave gem that will surely fill every dancefloor around the world.

Los Campesinos! – There Are Listed Buildings

Los Campesinos! amaze us with yet another great track from their upcoming album. While it starts as a twee song, it evolves into a noisy, shouty (and rather dissonant) piece. The subject at hand is a typical one – boy like girl, girl doesn’t like boy – but Gareth Campesinos! twists the words with a Morrissey-an skill (‘We are but two atheists in lust, you know, we gotta make our own luck’).

Grammatics – Double Negative

Reasons why it’s arguably one of the best singles of the autumn: the overly dramatic cello, the marching drums, the way Owen Brinley’s voice almost turns into whisper as he reaches the bridge, the exploding chorus.

It's The Beat!

So this is an old story: ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’ gets remixed. Yes, the album. Yes, we know all the comments, all the bitching, all the ‘oh, this has nothing to do with the original’. And still, it’s hard to say it’s a bad remix album. Sure, there are two actually bad versions. First, Jonathan Krisp’s remix of ‘Bag Lady’: utterly pointless, some beats and a voice that don’t fit together plus the main riff to remember us of the original. And then the last five minutes of Andrew Weatherall’s ‘Peeled Apples’: while the intro is quite interesting, after a while it gets far too repetitive and all you can think of is ‘Ok, I get it!’.

And then you have the three actually lush/fabulous/even-better-than-the-original-at-times remixes:

1. William’s Last Words (Underworld Remix)

What makes this one so great? The tambourine, the echo-like vocal effects, the choir. The crescendo and the way it goes from a very basic and lo-fi instrumental to big lush arrangements. And the fact that Underworld’s rework keeps all the pain and nostalgia of the original.

2. All Is Vanity (Errors Remix)

Errors really did what anyone would do when remixing a song: added a beat. No reinterpretation, no follow up to the original like The Horrors or Fuck Button did. But they did it right. They took the vocals, slowed them down (really, Bradfield could put any rapper to shame) and added a slightly bouncy rnb beat. The end result: wow! Just wow!

3. Facing Page: Top Left (Adem Remix)

‘Facing Page’ is a very simple song: a harp, a voice, a guitar. Why ruin it, right? Just keep the intro and first stanza the same and gradually add chimes, another set of vocals in the background to make it grand and you have the perfect song to play over and over again.

Shine A Light

Themselves & Why? – Canada

It’s the kind of song that sticks in your head. The reasons? Too many. It could be the little chiming bells or just the overall effect of the twee (and utterly brilliant) instrumental. It could be the ethereal voice of Themselves’ lead singer Dose One or the way his vocals and those of Why?’s Yoni intertwine as the songs comes to an end. It may as well be the songs general softness and gentle vibe whereas it’s obvious the lyrics evoke some sort of resign and anger. It could be that line everyone finds it hard to ignore, ‘You’re showing your pinkest parts in my absence’, or just the one that seems to be such a Wolf Parade reference – ‘You are your father’s daughter and I am no runner’. Which ever you prefer, which ever bit’s in your head when you walk out of the house making you feel stupid because you forgot to put the song on your iPod… yes, it’s going to be embedded on your brain for a long while.

Let's Forget That D.O.A.

Islands - Heartbeat/Devout

It’s hard not to smile when you think of Islands. Their lead singer used to call himself Nick Diamonds and the drummer’s stage name is J’Amie Tambeur. Not since We Are Scientists’ take over at NME Awards 2008 did we have such a good laugh. And, just like We Are Scientists, one can imagine that taking themselves seriously isn’t really one of Islands’ things.

You get that feeling when you hear ‘Heartbeat’. It has all those things that no, we do not like… no. Even T-Pain would blush due to the heavy use of Auto-Tune and it’s been tagged as ‘what Kanye imagines when he listens to *insert ‘indie’ band here *’. It’s finger licking tongue-in-cheek.

Not far from the tongue-in-cheekiness of ‘Heartbeat’ is four-to-the-floor disco number ‘Devout’ with its 1-2 drums. At any rate, both songs are a clear reminder that, nowadays, the ones who make brilliant pop songs are our alternative heroes and not the actual mainstream MTV stars.

They Bang The Drums

Los Campesinos! – The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future

Say goodbye to the ‘I’m a nerdy losers and enjoying every moment of it’ atmosphere these guys got us used to. What we get here is a darker sound that’ll just make you want to file them next to The Smiths in the ‘Songs that leave you lying hopeless on the floor’. Best bit? The strangled shouty vocals that embody all the pain and angst one can go through.

Hadouken! – M.A.D.

Remember when Hadouken! were well… the shit? Before their ‘Meah, I think I’ll pass’ (yet with a great title – Coupland much?) debut? Yes, that band is back. So get your glowsticks out of the freeze and your neon-coloured hoodie out of that box in the basement and let’s bang those drums.

Dananananaykroyd – Some Dresses

There’s shouting, there’s a crazy chorus (‘Pop pop! Something irrelevant Huh huh!’), there’s a guitar that sometimes makes you feel this is actually a Hot Club de Paris song and there’s a chant in the beginning which only adds up to the whole HCDP-air of it all. Really now, if you can pronounce or spell or whatever this band’s name, learn how and learn it fast. They’re so worth it.