New Music

After a looooooooooooooong hiatus, and admittedly, a lack of interest, in seeking out and purchasing new music, its been rekindled, and here's what I bought--in chronological order of purchasing.

1. Godspeed You! Black Emperor -- f# a# (infinity)
One of the progenitors of the "post-" genre, the three-song album clocks in at about 63 minutes, and the track East Hastings is featured in the "realization" scene in the film 28 Days Later.
Not for everyone, but a dark, moving piece of musical orchestration.

2. Comets on Fire -- Blue Cathedral
A brilliant car wreck of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, this album moves seamlessly from start to finish, never letting you out of the strange creepy rock orb it puts you in.

3. Ulysses -- 010
A quality, straight-rocking, down-to-Earth, lo-fi album from a band from Kentucky. There are some standouts on this album, and the band doesn't make songs any longer than they need to be, which is hard to find.

4. Death Cab For Cutie -- Plans
Oops, yeah really. I never really dug them because they were too mainstream and I lumped them in with Modest Mouse, etc. This is a good mellow-out album that reminds me of The Shins wrapped in a blanket of a quiet Eels album.

5. Arctic Monkeys -- Whatever People Say, That's What I'm Not
Another solid London-based Brit-rock band with blues roots hits gold with this one. With the collapse of The Libertines and their spin-off, Babyshambles, frontman landing in prison, let's all hope the Arctic Monkeys can keep their shit together.

6. Muse -- Origin of Symmetry
This is their third newest album upon their recent release of the new one. I actually like it better than their last, Absolution. Moody, deep space rock with a lot of falsetto. Obvious comparisons are Radiohead, etc.

7. The Thermals -- The Body, The Blood, The Machine
The Thermals are still pissed about Bush being in office, and about losing their drummer, too, I guess. I was hoping for more out of this album, especially after two amazing and under-the-radar albums with Fuckin-A and ...More Parts Per Million. Still, there's more than enough standout tracks to justify the purchase. The lead singer's voice changed, though, it's kinda weird.

8. Jesu -- Silver
I'm actually just giving this EP it's first go. For a brood rock "band" (is one man a group? no.) the album isn't as defeating as I'd expect. It's heavy, and still horrendously introspective, so I gotta say I enjoy it thouroughly already. Now all Justin Broderick has to do is fucking tour outside of the goddamn U.K. for once.