April 2010 Archives

The Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt (Dead Oceans) [upcoming shows] [audio]

The best thing about The Wild Hunt is that this brand of folk would sound just as sincere and graceful if it were delivered any time in the last fifty years. The best thing about The Tallest Man on Earth is Kristian Matsson's voice. It's a beautiful, gravely mess of a voice that squeezes out each emotional mini-story of a song into a united collection of memoirs.

What Cheer? Brigade - We Blow, You Suck (Anchor Brain) [upcoming shows] [audio]

Providence's own alternative marching band has been winning over diverse audiences for five years and counting, led by a drumming chimp and usually upwards of twenty people blowing into brass instruments and/or pounding drums. Marching bands tend to have a heavy visual and atmospheric element to them that cannot be replaced, but these are crystal clear live recordings and inbetween songs, children comment on how much fun they are having. Parents, children and hipsters love them. In short, you have to be a real asshole to hate marching bands.

Alkaline Trio - This Addiction (Epitaph) [upcoming shows] [audio]

Alkaline Trio sounds exactly like Alkaline Trio. It's like how Morrissey sounds like Morrissey, and as the years go by the sound changes very little as the lyrical themes remain a constant. This Addiction continues the band's fascination with love and death, using imagery befitting an angst-ridden goth's t-shirt or popular tweenie vampire movie. But as so many others have proven, trouble in love brings about a hearse-load of amazing melodic hooks. As on past releases, it's bassist Dan Andriano's songs that stand apart as the best.

Various Artists - Greenberg Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Virgin)

James Murphy is sort of boxed in by LCD Soundsystem at this point, so spreading out into other styles with the music for the film Greenberg had to be liberating. It's almost uniformly low key, but he moves among sounds similar to Brian Wilson's Smile to flamenco guitar and on to piano bits like Harry Nilsson. All of this music connects the contributions from other performers like Steve Miller Band and Galaxie 500, and very nearly creates a movie of its own without pesky visuals.