The Swell Season, 'Strict Joy' (Anti-)
Oscar-winning couple break up. Listeners rejoice!
By David Peisner 10.23.09 1:52 PM
If Glen Hansard's and Markéta Irglová's roles in the hit Irish indie film Once unintentionally wove the tale of their real-life falling in love, their second album as the Swell Season weaves the story of their falling out of it. Strict Joy is a glorious bummer.
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The Twilight Sad, 'Forget the Night Ahead' (FatCat)
Droning, bummed-out Scots hit soph slump.
By David Peisner 10.19.09 2:36 PM
The Twilight Sad's 2007 debut album, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, firmly placed them in Scotland's tradition of intensely literate sad bastards (Big Country, Belle & Sebastian, Arab Strap). But the quartet spend most of their follow-up in hiding.
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Say Anything, 'Say Anything' (J)
Clever emo lad's self-conscious self-loathing.
By David Peisner 10.19.09 8:14 AM
"I can't define myself through irony and self-deprecation," Max Bemis sings on "Mara and Me," a wonderful spazz-pop waltz from his band's latest album. Oh, sure you can, dude.
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The Flaming Lips Are in Complete Control
From their low-fi, high-energy traveling circus to their cockroach like longevity to the hand-lettering of these very words, Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips are in complete control of everything they touch.
By David Peisner 10.15.09 12:26 PM
During the spring of 1994, while the Flaming Lips were barnstorming across America, convincing radio programmers and their own label that a brain-fryingly weird pop tune, "She Don't Use Jelly," from their album Transmissions From the Satellite Heart, could be a hit, I was engaged in a middle-class rite of passage, backpacking across Europe.
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Flight of the Conchords, 'I Told You I Was Freaky' (Sub Pop)
Even quality jokes wilt when they're rehashed.
By David Peisner 10.13.09 10:59 AM
If you laughed when you heard these musical parodies on the New Zealand duo's HBO show, you'll probably laugh again the first time you hear them here. But like most comedy albums, this one loses its luster upon repeated hearings. Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are uniquely talented mimics -- the title track's R.
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Exene Cervenka, 'Somewhere Gone' (Bloodshot)
Femme punk trailblazer strips it too far down.
By David Peisner 10.06.09 1:27 PM
In the 30-plus years since Exene Cervenka first lent her keen eye and wonderfully off-key warble to X's punky rumble, she has been called many things, but rarely boring.
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