Album of the Week Mix

by Treble Staff

09.22.2009





After you spun our previous installment of the Album of the Week mix a good hundred or so times (we certainly did), it's probably time for a fresh batch of jams. This time around, we've got 18 new songs to share from our favorite new records of the past few months. There's soul, dance, folk, black metal-inspired indie, punk, noise rock and hip-hop this time around, and each track is a guaranteed winner. We promise. And we certainly hope you get a chance to spin all of these tracks a few hundred times as well. At least until our next installment...


Megafaun "The Fade"
from Gather, Form & Fly

"Megafaun launches into the wonderful harmonies and pop majesty of "The Fade," the closest thing on the album to alt-country. It's a wonder they don't do it more often, as they're incredibly good at it. Its chorus is an awe-inspiring exercise in pop songwriting, as the group harmonizes "oh-whoa-oh-oh" before the hushed refrain of 'I long to see your face.'"

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Lee Fields and the Expressions "My World"
from My World

"The title track is the best thing on the record, laying out a brash and surprisingly nuanced critique of the systemic bullshit circulation that prevails in the 21st century everywhere. He howls heart-in-throat over mournful strings, chiming guitars, and a thick rolling bassline. It is a classic soul jam that sets up shop effortlessly in the here and now."

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YACHT "Psychic City (Voodoo City)"
from See Mystery Lights

"'Psychic City (Voodoo City)' is a cover of an obscure song by Rich Jensen, but also one of the most transcendent moments on the entire album. Evans sweetly declares "I told you your dreams would come true" over a delightful tropical groove that stands as one of the summer's most joyful singles."

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Ten City Nation "Take Me Down"
from At the Still Point

"'Take Me Down' is one of the best things I've heard in 2009, somehow recalling Noel Gallagher and Helium. Mike Smith's vocal's have a wonderful knack of conveying bucket loads of sincerity, effort, and an abject lack of interest in what anyone else thinks."

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Pictureplane "Goth Star"
from Dark Rift

"'Goth Star' has already been making the blog rounds for a few weeks, and with good reason; it's one of the year's most outstanding electro-pop songs. With a choppy bassline that sounds vaguely like Gary Numan's 'Are `Friends' Electric,' the song gives way to snippets of Fleetwood Mac samples and sweet keyboard twinkles. I can't really say whether or not it's goth, but it's definitely one of the album's stars."

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Timber Timbre "Lay Down in the Tall Grass"
from Timber Timbre

"Standout 'Lay Down in the Tall Grass' is balanced on an organ figure that immediately brings to mind Screamin' Jay Hawkins' 'I Put a Spell on You.' Like that classic song, it is addressed to an unnamed you (who digs the narrator out of a shallow grave with a pocket knife) and ends up being some sort of love song with violence coursing around the edges, off-screen, just beyond what actually gets said."

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The Antlers "Bear"
from Hospice

"'Bear' is one of the album's shorter songs, falling just short of four minutes, and easily one of its most amazing peaks. It opens with a 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' riff played on what sounds like a celesta, but escalates into a mesmerizing chorus, in which Silberman sings 'we're too old/ we're not old at all.'"

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Pissed Jeans "False Jesii Part 2"
from King of Jeans

"In leadoff track 'False Jesii Part 2,' the group plows mercilessly through a Stooges-like punk rock raveup as frontman Matt Korvette begins what ultimately becomes an odyssey of masochism, misanthropy, hopelessness and apathy, snottily vomiting lines like 'I could put on a tight black shirt/ but I don't bother/ I could hit the gym so it looks real nice/ but I don't bother.'"

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Brendan Benson "Don't Wanna Talk"
from My Old, Familiar Friend
 
"Benson seems to possess what a lot of today's songwriters seem to be lacking, the ability to create a simple yet memorable hook. From one song to another, you are entreated to an entirely new and distinctive melody, with choruses you'll be humming for days. Seriously, try to listen to `Don't Wanna Talk' and see if you're not recalling it for the next month."
 
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Mount Eerie "Wind's Dark Poem"
from Wind's Poem

"The closest that Elverum & Co. come to the blistering, cavernous roar of Xasthur or Wolves in the Throne Room is on the opening track, 'Wind's Dark Poem,' a furious rush of distortion and sweeping, majestic riffs that sounds not so much like a poem as it does an extended clap of thunder. It's big, and it's mighty, and at times emits high-pitched shrieks that are somewhat frightening. Suffice to say, it's awesome."

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Wildbirds & Peacedrums "My Heart"
from The Snake

"Another standout is the closer, 'My Heart,' a seven-and-a-half minute ballad floating on the surface of a clatter of handclaps, xylophone keys and, eventually, ricocheting drums. It is an anthem, a love letter to the singer's own heart and the rhythms that make and remake life."

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Mew "Beach"
from No More Stories…

"`Beach' shares some similarities to a band that shares a song with the same title, New Order. According to Mew, it is their most straightforward track ever, and it works for them. I could easily hear `Beach' sitting alongside other songs on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack."

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ILAD "Extraordinary Machine"
from Here//There

"'Extraordinary Machine,' after a hypnotic, gentle start, turns itself into an early '80s lounge funk masterpiece. You will not want this track to stop, but at least we get five minutes of its genius."

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Wild Beasts - "All the King's Men"
from Two Dancers

"'Girls from Rodean/ girls from Shipley/ girls from Houndslow/ girls from Whitby,' sings Fleming, Thorpe yowling in the song's recesses beneath him (nothing compared to the deep, bestial harmonies taken up between verses). The sexism expressed in the lyrics is, again, a kind of joke played straight faced, carried by the masculinity of Fleming's voice. But the song itself strikes one as immediately gratifying, odd and wooly as it may be. You are drawn in (thoughtlessly) and then forced to think."

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Yo La Tengo "More Stars Than There Are In Heaven"
from Popular Songs

"Yo La Tengo is past the point where reinventing oneself is part of the game, and what results is just a really fucking good album."

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HEALTH "Die Slow"
from Get Color

"When HEALTH released single 'Die Slow,' however, it was a game changer. In a mere three minutes and 24 seconds, HEALTH distilled all of their destructive, chaotic, digitally filtered recklessness into a perfectly perverse pop single. Never before had the group sounded so melodic and so majestic at once, laying heavy and commanding beats beneath throbbing distortion and Jake Duzsik's spectral, distant vocals."

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Raekwon - "House of Flying Daggers"
from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II

Even better is 'House of Flying Daggers,' a militant J Dilla production that reincorporates elements of 'Clan In Da Front' and finds Meth, Inspectah Deck, Ghostface and the marquee headliner spitting lyrics lined with lighter fluid. Best line: 'Bury me in Africa with whips and spears and rough diamonds out of Syria.'"

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Taken By Trees - "To Lose Someone"
from East of Eden

"'To Lose Someone' opens the album on a sustained note of mourning, of things slipping away—a time, a place, a person—before what needed to be said could be said."

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