10 CD Thurdsay: Hey, I know that one edition
Our selections this week come from the back of my CD closet, and are all by groups I shelved (with the intent to listen later) for different reasons. In the meantime, they got buried in my pile and famous (relatively) in the real world.
The Grey Race "Give it Love"
OK, this album just came out Sept. 17, so I'm not too behind the times. I wrote about these guys before, and coincidentally received their CD in the mail a week later. Actually, it probably wasn't a coincidence, as their publicist emailed me back in October to thank me for the mention. Whatever.
I like it. I like it a lot. It's dark and acoustic and paranoid and melodic. The lead singer kind of reminds me of XTC in a minor key. The band is from Brooklyn, so although they're not on tour currently, with any luck we'll see them haunting the local clubs soon.
The Go! Team "Proof of Youth"
Another September release, I have no idea how this got shoved to the bottom of the pile so quickly. I already loved these guys when I received this CD.
Anyway, like always, every song's a party.
Don't you want to be friends with these kids?
Pop Levi "The Return to Form Black Magic Party" (Feb. 2007)
I think this name is only so familiar because he played a string of dates in New York recently. Anyway, it's solid British psych-rock with an obvious Beatles influence (Levi is also from Liverpool, according to Wikipedia). It's been done before, obvs, but he does a good job with it. I wonder what it would sound like if you played it backwards. This album makes me miss LPs.
more after the jump ...
Division Day "Beartrap Island" (Oct. 2007)
I'm, like, kind of into this. It sounds like something I should like — indie rock with fuzzy guitars and messy vocals — but so far it's not really grabbing me. I think I'm going to withhold judgment for now, and like it in about a month or so.
Keyshia Cole "Just Like You" (Sept. 2007)
Just so you don't look like an idiot when talking with your friends, her name is pronounced like Keisha — don't just sound it out like it's spelled phonetically. Who would do that? Definitely not me. NOT ME, I said.
Anyway, I've heard some snippets of her music, and I've enjoyed them (esp. this one). The CD altogether though? A little too poppy for my tastes. The sooner that female singers can unlearn vibrato and melisima, the better off we as a society will be. I blame you American Idol. Well, and Mariah Carey.
Doveman "With My Left Hand I Raise the Dead" (Oct. 2007)
I don't know if in another time or place I'd enjoy this, but right now I just don't have the patience for it. Admittedly, approaching 6pm Thursdays are my most stressful (and usually cranky) times in the week, and it's tough for any CD to win me over, but it has been done. This contender — an elegiac wallow through 16 tracks of misery, every other one of which is an instrumental interlude — just isn't doing it for me.
Tiny Masters of Today "Bang Bang Boom Cake" (Aug. 2007)
Another one of those Brooklyn kiddie groups (by tweeners, not necessarily for tweeners) that the New York Times made a stink about a little over a year ago. Their album is as mature as any grownup punk rocker's (not very — but that's part of the fun). I wanna hate, because these kids have a record deal and I don't, but I just can't. They also scored indie-hot guest stars Karen O. and Kimya Dawson.
Kings of Leon "Because of the Times" (April 2007)
Um ... I didn't love it, but then I got distracted by actual work ...
Verdict: A whopping four out of six, with a withheld judgment on one and an incomplete on one.
eh.www.amNY.com
