Grant Manship

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 31st, 2006

Daniel Johnston - "I Lose" from Rejected Unknown

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 30th, 2006

Muse - "Supermassive Black Hole" from Supermassive Black Hole - Single

Deerhoof - Untitled EP

In honor of Chris Cohen, who is leaving Deerhoof to do The Curtains,  the band made their new E.P. available as a free download last week.  The E.P. features the band covering The Beatles, Canned Heat, Herman's Hermits, as well as My Bloody Valentine.  These tracks are in addition to several live cuts found on the record.  Enjoy!

Nikki Sudden - Death Is Hanging Over Me

Punkcast has posted four videos of Nikki Sudden's second to last live performance featuring his classic song "Death Is Hanging Over Me" which you can see below.  As the Secretly Canadian press release points out, the songs were performed at an impromptu in-store performance a New York City's The Cakeshop (named after the SWELL MAPS song) less than 40 hours before his tragic passing.  You can check out the other three videos here.

The Walkmen - Live at 9:30 Club

The latest installment in NPR's Live Concert Series features The Walkmen's show at Washington D.C.'s 9:30 Club.  You can, and should, download the whole show here.

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 29th, 2006

The Strokes - "You Only Live Once" from First Impressions of Earth

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 26th, 2006

Leonard Cohen - "Everybody Knows" from I'm Your Man

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 25th, 2006

Figurines - "The Wonder" from Skeleton

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 24th, 2006

The Walkmen - "Emma, Get Me a Lemon" from A Hundred Miles Off

Daytrotter Sessions - Drakkar Sauna

Daytrotter is featuring Drakkar Sauna this week so be sure to check out the band's story and free songs.

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 23rd, 2006

The Horns of Happiness - "Would I Find Your Psychic Guideline" from Would I Find Your Psychic Guideline - EP

Favorite New Release of the Week - May 23rd, 2006

The Walkmen - A Hundred Miles Off

The Walkmen's third full-length proves this is a band for the ages. Joining a post-motorcycle-crash Dylan vocal delivery with a Springsteenian of-the-streets spirit, whiskey-soaked singer Hamilton Leithauser leads his band through a set of rousing, sharply focused, late-night pleas and barroom romps that take the group well beyond its garage roots. From the swamp pop of "Louisiana" to the calypso bounce of "Brandy Alexander" and swaying blue-eyed soul of "Another One Goes By," the music draws upon timeless forms, and in the process itself becomes timeless. Though there's hardly a misstep, the triumph here may be the startling entreaty "Emma, Get Me a Lemon"—iridescent guitars, fervent organ and keyed-up, tribal-style drumming drive an impassioned vocal straight to the heavens. Mainstream success may not come easily, but the Walkmen deserve applause.

- Susan Visakowitz, May 23, 2006 via Billboard

Man Man Interview

Be sure to check out the Man Man interview over at Pitchfork today.

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 22nd, 2006

Richard Swift - "Losing Sleep" The Richard Swift Collection, Vol. One

Sound Team - Live at Headliners Music Hall

Sound Team made their second swing through the area on Friday night and put on another great show.  They played a new song which is tentatively titled "New Song" that fit in perfectly, and showed a nice progression, with the songs on Movie Monster.  You can check out some of the pictures I managed to snap below.

 

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 19th, 2006

Sunset Rubdown - "Us Ones In Between" from Shut Up I Am Dreaming

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 18th, 2006

Arab Strap - "Come Round and Love Me" from The Last Romance

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 17th, 2006

Clem Snide - "King of the Hipsters" from Suburban Field Recordings, Vol. 2

Antony News

I had some info in my inbox concerning what Antony's been up to lately and thought some of you might be interested in it.  The text of the press release is as follows:

In the wake of his I AM A BIRD NOW album, Antony has been working on a multitude of collaborations, film projects and live events. He co-produced and performed on the new album by Little Annie called SONGS FROM THE COAL MINE CANARY (Durtro/Jnana). He contributed the song "Hole In My Soul" on David Tibet's NOT ALONE 5-CD benefit for Doctors Without Borders (Durtro/Jnana), and has recorded duets with Bryan Ferry and Kembra Pfahler for a new Hal Wilner-produced collection of sea shanties to be released later this year. He's also contributed vocals to new albums by Matmos (Matador), Metallic Falcons (Voodoo Eros), My Robot Friend, and Joan As Policewoman (Reveal Records).

Antony is also prominently featured in the upcoming Leonard Cohen documentary I'M YOUR MAN, where he's presented performing the song "If It Be Your Will", and has songs featured in the feature-length films V FOR VENDETTA "Bird Girl", FREE JIMMY (a new song entitled "If You Love Me Then You Will Cut Me"), and LA VIDA SECRETA DE LAS PALABRAS by Pedro Almodovar protege Isabel Coixet ("Hope There's Someone").

On the live performance front, Antony just presented a concert in Leeds with composer Nico Muhly and the London Sinfonietta. He helped curate an evening in Poznan, Poland on June 30th, when Antony and the Johnsons will share the stage with Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective and Cocorosie.  Antony and the Johnsons will also be performing in Athens, Greece on July 2, and on July 15th in the Latitude Festival in Suffolk, UK.

Be sure to check out the trailer for the Leonard Cohen documentary below:

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 16th, 2006

Starlight Mints - "Seventeen Devils" from Drowaton

Sound Team - Live at woxy.com

If you're interested in hearing Sound Team's Lounge Acts performance from last week (05/10/06) you can hear it here.  Thanks to gorilla vs. bear for pointing out that this was available now.

Be sure to support WOXY if you can, the station's great and will hopefully be around for a long time to come.

Favorite New Release of the Week - May 16th, 2006

King Biscuit Time - Black Gold

The Beta Band at the turn of the millennium were a big, wet, slobbery kiss of too much at a time when so many bands were content to dole out single-serving power pop tunes like misers in bowl cuts. It's probably stretching it to call them the turn-of-the-millennium Faust when they were more like the British equivalent of an Elephant 6 band (less Brian Wilson, more Jamaica). But they certainly share that German band's lazy countryside psychedelia, love of jump cuts, and general stoner hobbit humor. Who could hate such good natured, effusive goofballs?

But good-natured or not, the Beta Band never managed to cross over. And in 2005, they broke up, disillusioned and in hock to the record industry, after delivering their weakest (and most conventional) album. Shortly thereafter, singer Steve Mason revived his King Biscuit Time side project. The first KBT releases, collected on 2000's eight-track No Style EP, mixed creaky jungle, spastic hip-hop, soundtrack effluvia, psychedelia, and soft pop. The new Black Gold opens with "C I AM 15", a grainy dancehall tune. But the song, with its burst of deejaying at the climax that takes a sideswipe at George W. Bush and Tony Blair, is a red herring; on most of Black Gold, Mason downplays the beat science.

Throughout Black Gold, Mason sings from under the covers or into his cellphone or half-asleep in an airport at 5 a.m. It's a melancholy record, with the same happy-to-be-sad feeling of Betas songs like "Simple". On "Left Eye", Mason implores, "love me, love me, love me" as descending piano notes disappear into a golden mist of organ. Rather than the communal sing-alongs of the Betas, Black Gold is for headphones, for humming alone on a late night walk. It's hard to imagine a rousing group chant of "loneliness, sadness, joyless, lifeless" (from "All Over You") at future King Biscuit Time gigs. "Paperhead" climaxes with a crescendo of distorted guitar, but sounds like it's fighting inertia to sound appropriately worked up.

But I could still listen to Mason's creaky, lonely voice all day. It was always the rubber cement that held the Betas' rickety balsa wood genre constructions together. And he's yet to lose his knack for gentle beauty. "Impossible Ride" stretches swooning woodwind into a horizon of reverb, while Mason's guitar pokes through like sunlight through pines. Like the Betas' Heroes to Zeros, Black Gold isn't a flashy record. For the moment, Mason seems to have abandoned the audience-baiting japes of "The Beta Band Rap" or 15-minute journeys into the heart of collage like "Monolith". But unlike Heroes to Zeros, Black Gold sounds agreeably homespun. This is electronic music made in the garden shed and psych-folk still connected to the twitching wires of modernity, and all the better for it.

- Jess Harvell, May 12, 2006 via Pitchfork

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 15th, 2006

Need New Body - "Poppa B" from Where's Black Ben?

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 12th, 2006

Beirut - "Postcards from Italy" from Gulag Orkestar

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 11th, 2006

The Spinto Band - "Crack the Whip" from Nice and Nicely Done

SOUND team - Live at Alchemize

Sound Team put on a great show last night at Alchemize .  Here are a few of the photos I snapped during the set.

Be sure to check out the band on one of their following tour dates if you get the chance.  The remaining dates are as follows:

• THU 5/11 Ann Arbor, MI Blind Pig
• FRI 5/12 Toronto, ONT Mod Club
• SAT 5/13 Montreal, QUE Main Hall
• MON 5/15 Philadelphia, PA Theatre of Living Arts
• TUE 5/16 Baltimore, MD Ottobar
• WED 5/17 New York, NY Webster Hall
• FRI 5/19 Washington DC Black Cat
• SAT 5/20 Louisville, KY Headliners Music Hall
• MON 5/22 Dallas, TX Gypsy Tea Room
• TUE 5/23 Austin, TX Antone's

WOXY Lounge Acts - Sound Team

Prior to Sound Team's show tonight at Alchemize, the band will be on woxy.com at 4:30 as part of the station's Lounge Acts series.

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 10th, 2006

Pedro the Lion - "Let Down" from Tour 2004 - EP

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 9th, 2006

Sound Team - "The Fastest Man Alive" from Work - EP

Favorite New Release(s) of the Week - May 9th, 2006

Danielson - Ships

If more bands that embrace being labeled as “Christian Rock” sounded anything like Danielson (aka Danielson Famile, Br. Danielson, Tri-Danielson), perhaps there would not exist such a pronounced spiritual void among the young people of today. Daniel Smith, the orchestrator of the sprawling and wild Danielson projects, enthusiastically acknowledges the Christian elements of his music, but his message is refreshingly innovative and free from trite and meaningless rhetoric.

Most of Smith’s earlier records – beginning with his senior art thesis-turned indie-rock LP Danielson – have been concept albums dealing with universal human concerns such as family, identity, and community. With Ships, Smith continues the concept motif, this time ambitiously taking on a much broader and nebulous aspect of the human experience.

The first track informs the listener of the meaning of the album’s title: “Ship the Majestic Suffix” reveals that Ships is a celebration and lamentation for those many, varied but distinct states of being that we refer to in English using a word ending with the suffix “ship”: friendship, lordship, apprenticeship, relationship, and so on. Other words, such as “craftsmanship” and “penmanship,” referring to specific qualities of human endeavors, also seem to be included in the scope of the album. Even the simple word “ship,” meaning a vessel of some kind, is given consideration as being an analogue to the human body and mind.

So what does all of this sound like once transmogrified into music? Ships is a bustling, rollicking record, wildly dynamic and raw one moment and quietly pensive the next, with tempo, key, and time signature changes all taking place within the span of a single track. Smith assembled an ensemble cast as players on Ships, including veterans from previous Danielson projects as well as new faces and hands (featuring notables such as Sufjan Stevens, Deerhoof, and Steve Albini, just to name a few). As to be expected with such a large conglomeration of musicians, singers, and engineers (the press release for Ships lists 34 participants), the record’s noise can be overwhelming in its more cacophonous moments, but the quality of the songwriting and musical direction that takes cues from Zappa and Beefheart keeps the train from jumping off-track.

With a list of instrumentation that includes guitars, piano, synthesizers, glockenspiel, marimba, flute, horns, woodwinds and more, managing the Ships project was clearly no small task. But this Smith does nimbly, instinctively steering the music into new directions at exactly the right moments: clanging and banging gives way to ethereal choruses, while Smith’s own distinct falsetto floats through the milieu on melodies that are at times cheerful and cryptic at others.

Although discernibly spiritual in nature, Ships is not an avenue for preaching or proselytizing. The lyrics are thick with meaning and personal exploration, but the overall message is one of joy and abundance, of celebration for life and family and friends and the ways that these aspects of civilized humanity affect individuals through love, pain, and redemption; through sorrow and happiness. Standout tracks are “Two Sitting Ducks,” a contemplation of the complexities of friendship, and the record’s first single, “Did I Step on Your Trumpet?”, which chronicles the process of apology and forgiveness. But joy appears to be the central theme of Ships: Danielson feels it, and wants you to feel it, too.

It seems that Smith has once again realized his ambition to create something both meaningful and unique with the release of Ships. It is a success in both sound and subject matter, which Smith writes about in a manner that is at the same time universal and intensely personal, and which gives the spiritual dimension of the record’s concept a compelling validity. And if not immediately accessible to all sets of ears that hear it, Ships will certainly make an impression; Smith’s talent as both a songwriter and musician are hard to ignore, even if one doesn’t quite get the mélange. This record will get to your head, if not your heart.

- Jason Bronson, March 10, 2006 via Transform Online

Beirut - Gulag Orkestar

My grandparents were Russian immigrants who spent their lives working in factories; when they got too old for that, they graduated to the cafeteria of a Queens high school. Visiting them as a kid, the thick accents of their incomprehensible language were, to me, the music of the so-called "motherland." When grandpa was spinning records, though, he opted for melancholic horns and voices or polka. He may have dug Gulag Orkestar, the debut album by Zach Condon aka Beirut.

Beirut's received quite a bit of pre-release buzz. He deserves some of it. His tuneful Balkan stomp is fairly unique within the indie realm, an aesthetic shared with Man Man, Gogol Bordello, and Barbez but few others. That, and for a 19-year-old from Albuquerque (now living in Brooklyn), he sounds like an old man sipping vodka and humming along to Tchaikovsky while the neighborhood kids play stick ball or drink egg creams. The sound is there, but beneath the atmospherics his themes of war, fallen curtains, bunkers, life on the Rhine-- his song titles are more fixated on Germany (and Slovakia and an imaginary Eastern Bloc) than Russia-- and Gulags, are vague and sometimes less than effective. That makes sense: He doesn't have the lived experience for those situations. Perhaps he studied W.G. Sebald to add some color, and in a very Sebaldian move the album's anonymous cover photos were found in a library in Leipzig, Germany. In the liner notes, Condon asks if anyone knows the photographer's whereabouts.

Beirut's brassy In the Aeroplane Over the Sea-like instrumental accents have garnered Neutral Milk Hotel comparisons. There's also guilt by association-- ex-NMH player Jeremy Barnes and his A Hawk and a Hacksaw compatriot Heather Toast contribute accordion, violins, and percussion. But while Condon writes generally spare, pretty tableau that can lodge themselves in your ear like hazy memories, his words aren't as intellectually, emotionally, or erotically invested as Mangum's feverish, tear-jerky lyrics. And that's OK-- it's unfair to hold a debut record up to one of the bona fide indie classics of the past 10 years. I mention it only to squash the impulse at the root, because exaggerated expectations shouldn't dissuade anyone from enjoying Beirut's best work, chiefly the gorgeous triumph "Postcards From Italy", an infectious, Rufus Wainwright-tinged love/death story accented by loping majorette drumming, a menagerie of horns, and a plucky ukulele lilt that mixes perfectly with Condon's airy croon.

Elsewhere, "Bratislava" is a celebratory march for the Slovakian capital-- a sweaty, saw-dusted cabaret jam with Gogol Bordello. It's at moments like these, his vocals placed further back in the mix, that you realize the kid sounds truly authentic and captivating. In the bubblier chill of "Scenic World", Condon arms the troops with dinky Six Cents & Natalie Casio drum machines and brings them into Magnetic Fields and Jens Lekman territory. It's two minutes of pretty pop, plain and simple. At the end, amid horn flourishes, accordion, and doubled vocals he sings, "I try to imagine a careless life/ A scenic world where the sunsets are all breathtaking"-- he holds the last word, letting it swoon and flutter, like Morrissey with a hammer-and-sickle Band-Aid on his nipple.

Time and again, the most powerful element of Gulag Orkestar, and what ought to be emphasized, is Condon's acrobatic, powerful, emotionally nuanced voice. It could carry any style of music. Fixate for a second on the stuff he's doing on "Rhineland (Heartland)". The lyrics are dopey, but his trills and whirls are mind-blowing. Pairing these melodies with Eastern European accouterments in lieu of standard guitar-pop creates an obvious appeal. Still, the question ought to be asked: Are the songs really so incredible or do they simply mimic and mine musical traditions unfamiliar to the average indie rock fan? That said, the best songs here are a joy and the average and ho-hum tunes even have a thick and aesthetically appealing atmosphere-- in other words, it's an impressive and precocious debut.

-Brandon Stosuy, May 12, 2006 via Pitchfork

Grandaddy - Just Like the Fambly Cat

Grandaddy have been delighting us for many a year with their unique take on synth-rock, but Just Like The Fambly Cat will be their last offering after the announcement late last year that they were splitting. The question is, is this album a fitting swansong to their impressive run?

The answer of course is a resounding yes. Just Like… is a captivating record, taking on more layers and levels with every track and with every listen. Over the space of fourteen tracks, the band cover twitchy ambience, thrashy punk and big fun rock, in some cases, utilising all of these in just one song (eg- the excellent “Summer…It’s Gone”, but more on that later.)

The album is, at first glance, a concept album about the family cat running away from home and its journey, this is most evident on “Where I’m Anymore” complete with cat-like meowing. But there must be more to it than that, there is an underlying menace and general twitchiness that hovers over this collection, even when the music is at its sweetest, the menace is always there, lurking in an acrimonious guitar or a rare sardonic snap in Jason Lytle’s otherwise honeyed vocals. But if there is more to it, then what is it?

Well, if you listen to album highlight “Summer … It’s Gone”, you can hear a desolation that runs much deeper than a cat that has eloped, both in the music and in the lyrics. It veers from an easy country strum to chugging rock to portentous synth rock, seemingly without structure, and is augmented by clanging bells and squalling guitars. The track is uncomfortable and fragmentary, it shouldn’t work, the parts are too incompatible, too disparate, but when coupled with the lyrics, it makes perfect emotional sense. “Summer is gone, and I don’t know/ where everyone went or where I’ll go” rasps Lytle barely audibly. He repeats this mantra multiple times until the end where he simply whispers, “it’s gone”. Here, it should become perfectly clear what the real concept of this record is, the “Fambly Cat” is Grandaddy.

Where The Sophtware Slump was concerned with the rise of technology in exchange for liberty, Just Like… is about themselves, a more personal record. That’s not to say that it is an entirely self indulgent and insular record, there are hints of environmental concerns peppered throughout the album, particularly on “The Animal World” and “Where I’m Anymore” with its allusion to “exercise equipment piled high”. But, this is certainly not the main focus of the record. Just Like… is the sound of a band coming to terms with the fact that they’ve given it all they can, and now it’s time to walk away into an uncertain future.

The opening track “What Happened…” consists largely of infant voices asking “what happened to the family cat?” until it descends into noise and the sound of the same children giggling. They were concerned about the cat for a while, but then forgot about it and found something else to entertain them, possibly a meditation on the disposability of pop culture that the band always were reluctant to get involved with, which, of course, was a contributing factor to their demise.

Elsewhere, “This Is How It Starts” sees Lytle lamenting the loss of the permanence of his band, “Things were stable yesterday/ but now they’re blown away”. Listening to this knowing that the band have now split, and set to such a despondent musical backing, is a truly stirring experience. This doesn’t mean, though, that you can’t fully understand the record without this particular piece of biographical information. It makes perfect sense alone and has meanings contained within it, that will make it a relationship break down staple for melancholy indie types for years to come. The album buzzes with conflict and uncertainty through the band’s scattergun and unhinged approach to song writing, and for this reason, it is one of the most interesting records you’ll hear this year, despite not having any immediate “hit” singles on it.

But, by the time the last track rolls around, where Lytle is resigned to misery to a backdrop of sweeping strings and a moody piano figure, singing “I’ll never return”, we can say that, yes, Grandaddy were just like the family cat. We took them for granted, and now they’re gone, and we’ll miss them. And on hearing their final record, we can only hope that the old cat can forgive us all and come back home.

- Ben Davis, April 24, 2006 via Contact Music

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

"Crazy." It's not only the name of the group's first single (already number one on the UK charts based on MP3 downloads alone). It's also what you'll call this music from the moment you hear Cee- Lo's soaring, soul tenor descend upon a pastiche of chaotic Klezmer-esque horns and jangly dance-hall beats in the opening track "Go GoGadget Gospel."

Fittingly, the theme of mental illness runs through this entire genre-smashing collaboration between two of hip hop's Maddest Hatters (Cee-Lo, of the Goodie Mob, and Danger Mouse, the art-pirate DJ responsible for The Grey Album — the controversial, illegitimate spawn of Jay Z's Black and the Beatles' White records).

Gnarls Barkley's oddly compelling sound — a witches' brew of rap, indie rock, techno, funk, blues, and who-knows-what-else—is positively cuckoo: from tracks such as "Who Cares?" — a hauntingly toe-tapping meditation on schizophrenia—to "Necromancer," a trip- hop-meets-acid-jazz tribute to the twisted joys of necrophilia.

In spite of (and perhaps because of) the professed insanity of its sonic landscape — including a rocked-out revision of the Violent Femmes' 1983 classic "Gone Daddy Gone" — the duo's debut disc is an irresistibly refreshing challenge to the predictable modern-rock and hip hop conventions, proving that music can be both loony and lovely.

- Channing Joseph, April 27, 2006 via VIBE

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 8th, 2006

Man Man - "Engrish Bwudd" from Six Demon Bag

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 5th, 2006

Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy" from St. Elsewhere

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 4th, 2006

Ambulance LTD - "New English" from New Engligh - EP

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 3rd, 2006

Drakkar Sauna - "There Is No Boon for Which We Do Not Render Service" from Drakkansasauna

Radiohead announce U.S. Theatre Dates

A big thanks to JAX, the Rock Insider, for the heads up on these shows.  The press release, with all the important info you'll need, follows:

Radiohead has announced a series of theatre dates in the U.S., beginning June 1 & 2 in Philadelphia and concluding with a pair of dates June 29 & 30 at Los Angeles' Greek Theater.

Set lists for the shows will draw heavily on the newer material the band has been working on over the past months. The performances will take place in smaller than usual venues, and will feature appropriately scaled down staging and lighting design, creating a suitably intimate environment for the first ever airings of several new songs.

The low-key theater dates will punctuated by a June 17 headline stand at the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tennessee, and will be preceded by similar dates in Europe and the UK followed by a run of UK/Europe festival dates including the already sold out V festival Aug. 19 & 20, with others TBA.

There are no plans for a Radiohead album release any time in 2006.

• June 1 & 2 - Philadelphia - Tower Theatre * ON SALE MAY 6
• June 4 & 5 - Boston - Bank of America Pavilion * ON SALE MAY 6
• June 7 & 8 - Toronto - Hummingbird Center * ON SALE MAY 6
• June 10 & 11 - Montreal - Salle Wilred Pelletier at Places des Arts * ON SALE MAY 5 
• June 13 & 14 - New York - The Theatre at Madison Square Garden * ON SALE MAY 5 
• June 17 - BONNAROO
• June 19 & 20 - Chicago - Auditorium Theatre * ON SALE MAY 6
• June 23 & 24 - Berkeley - Greek Theater * ON SALE MAY 14
• June 26 & 27 - San Diego - Bayside * ON SALE MAY 6
• June 29 & 30 - Los Angeles - Greek Theater * ON SALE MAY 2

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 2nd, 2006

Adam Green - "Hey Dude" from Jacket Full of Danger

Favorite New Release of the Week - May 2nd, 2006

Wolfmother - Wolfmother

Australia's Wolfmother are one of a handful of bands hell-bent on making heavy rock a sizable force in 2006. Their sound is a throwback to 1970s hard rock-- miles of galloping riffs, noodling organ, and guitar fuzz-- but what makes their self-titled debut rise above mere pastiche is how capably they strike a balance between meaty vintage metal and crisp, stoner-rock melodies.

Typically, Wolfmother plays it straight, employing the raw materials of some of the original prog/metal bands signed to England's Vertigo Records during the label's 1969-71 prime: "Colossal" booms with heavy power chords and woozy riffing, while frontman Andrew Stockdale's crisp vocals soar through the rhythm's open spaces, while "Woman" is a driving, upbeat monster with spacey prog-inflected keyboards. But they also test their limits on tracks like "The White Unicorn". Its opening bars recall Led Zeppelin's gentler side with clean-strummed guitar chords and Stockdale putting on his best Robert Plant, but tumbling drumfills inevitably welcome back the rock, leading up to a blissed-out, psychedelic bridge.

"Where Eagles Have Been" best spans the album's breadth: clean guitars turn dirty, organs wail during the transitions, and the slow and intense rhythm becomes upbeat and explosive just in time for the guitar solo. On "Witchcraft", the band evokes Jethro Tull with a Canterbury flute solo that ought to sound forced or hokey, but context is everything, and set against Wolfmother's wallop, it's a natural fit. Of course, not all their risks return rewards as worthwhile: The obnoxious three-and-a-half-minute garage-punk blast "Apple Tree" features the album's most uninspired songwriting and laziest delivery. Fortunately, they manage to take things out on a high note with the swampy "Vegabond", a track that, like much of this record's other material, authentically emulates a classic sound with the conviction and hunger of a young band on their way to finding a more singular voice.

 - Cory D. Byrom, April 25, 2006 via Pitchfork

iTunes Song Suggestion of the Day - May 1st, 2006

Hot Chip - "Shining Escalade" from Coming On Strong

Monthly Mixtape - April '06

The Monthly Mixtape for April is now ready for your listening pleasure.