hell yeah!

i cannot begin to describe how much i love this band. mostly because Karen O's genius vocals take a bit of me with every listen. they rock the NY way - in that noisy, smokey, garage pub rock way and suddenly do the turn and slip into the acoustic with supreme ease. they can put me out of any misery i may have. they make me tell the world to fuck off. this Brooklyn art-rock trio isn't trying to please anyone. they do their thing just they way like it. so get your leather on or fuck off (it's the music doing the talking now).


the Yeah Yeah Yeah's 2006 album Show Me Your Bones was a gargantous album with tracks such as 'Cheated Hearts' and 'Gold Lion' making it to the top of many charts. they broke all bounds with that one. their new album - It's Blitz - has a brand spanking new sound - a daring reinvention with disco beats that resonate from Brooklyn streets, a synth-pop touch, and a cleaner, maturer style, but with the only constant - Karen Os clear-as-water 'Budweiser-banshee wail'.


'Heads will Roll' is as exlposive as its title - a slick disco-rock call to the dancefloor. ear open for the barely-audibly, but sexy as hell, 'uh-oh's' in 'Soft Shock'. 'Skeleton' is breathtaking. for YYY lovers there's a pop rendition of their previous beautiful acoustic number 'Hysteric'. then Karen's O's crying vocals in 'Zero' enunciates the band's underlying ethic - that they'll play their music the way they want to and the critics can, well...fuck off.




http://www.yeahyeahyeahs.com/










Link:

bonding with the devil

folk-rock again. can’t help it. AA Bondy’s sophomore album (2009) - When the Devil's Loose – has got me hooked to its roomy languid music and haunting lyrics.


Scot Bondy’s got a lot of flak for dramatically moving on from much-loved Verbena – his earlier indie-rock band – to his acoustic guitar and harmonica. so it came as a surprise when his debut album American Hearts, a one-man show, got the number of listeners it did. for When the Devil's Loose, Bondy’s put together a band and the results have been stellar.


his lyrics are poetry and the intricate detailing of music (echoing mics that complement the song ‘When the Devil’s Loose) is genius. the opener ‘Mightiest of Guns’ is a favourite with its Dylan-like lyrics and feel. that indie sound picks ‘I Can See the Pines are Dancing’ as the winner; weary yet soul-lifting, its lucid and earthy lyrics remind me of Neruda’s poetry. 


I Can See the Pines are Dancing


this is a hammer
this is a hymn
this is a match
to a ball of lies
this is the blade
this is the beauty
these are the stars
raining down from the sky



this is the light that shines and
I can see the pines are dancing
this is the leaving of another love
this is the howling at the moon
these are the arms you fell into
i am a fire and I must burn today


this is an echo
this is the glory
this is the pounding of a midnight heart
this is the mountains
this is the lightning
this is the man pulling on his iron chains
this is the light that shines
and I can see the pines are dancing
this is the leaving of another love
this is the howling at the moon
these are the arms you fell into
i am a fire and I must burn today


just had to.

chief's modern rituals

this one's for those days when you're good, no great; when you all you need is the day to unfold in unexpected beautiful folds around you.


Chief's full-lenght debut album - Modern Rituals has the unmistakable Californian folk-rock buzz. the boys started their days in Santa Monica, California, then moved to NY (weird how they wrote these impossibly melodious songs in urban NY) for a bit and now they're back in Cali. the quartert's soulfully strummed mellow songs can bring in the long road and the breadth of the Appalachians into a room.


not many have taken to them but that indie sound loves their guitar licks, their end-of-summer lyrics, their warm earth feel, and most importantly, their long hippie hair :)


Modern Rituals gets better with every listen.


http://www.chieftheband.com/

keyed up

minutes after i turned on Brothers, my under-versed-in-indie brother hopped into my room asking me what in the blue blazes the fantastic music was. it was the hopping that confirmed my hope of Brothers being the album of the year. hopping still isn't that generous an action for it. there are people who want to marry the album, yes the album, for godsake.


this blues-rock duo - Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney - have put out fifteen of the fiercest and freshest tracks for the year. that indie sound need not actually write any more posts for they've done the work for the music industry. to hell with what the critics say. burned-barn riffs, vintage floorborad-creaking beats, Auerbach's wicked stripped-down, sandpaper howl, and percussions with an eighties feel is what you'll get from their latest album.


i can't decide which track i love the most. they're all stupendous. their opener - 'Everlasting Light' - is sacred, with Auerbach's acid vocals preened to perfection, hymn-like with its choir-ish background vocals, and Carney's drumming abandon. 'Tighten Up' begins with playful whistling and carries a torn-jeans raw edge through, till at the last minute there's a sneaky swerve, changing the tempo - it made my head spin. gold, pure gold.


'The Only One' is a bluesy rock ballad. and then there's wind running through my hair, riding a caravan through a vast expansive desert road past a solitary church - restless tumbleweed rasping at its door - where a choir sings its blues in Too Afraid to Love You. if you think i exagerrate here's what my favourite music reviewer said when he first heard Brothers: 


'I would let Dan & Patrick violate me in ways that aren’t even human. And I would let Patrick play bongos on my buttocks.'


this coming from a married, father-of-three man.

http://www.theblackkeys.com/


past must-listen-to album: Attack & Release

an indie year

2010 is the year of indie music, and that called for a space (or a few drinks if you will). there are bands that are playing some incredibly sweet music. we know of a few - Arcade Fire, The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective - but there's so much more that is happening in the indie scene, although confined mainly to the US - where a renaissance of americana, folk-rock, vintage rock is flowering - and of course internet radio stations.


so what is indie music, you will ask? technical answer: bands that work with smaller, independent record labels, which may/or may not go commercial later in their career. some say 'underground music'. that indie sound prefers not to describe it. it knows indie music when it hears it. but it you’re putting a gun to its head then here it: stoned rock made up of sea-washed lazy guitars, echoing riffs overhung with percussions, alive with pulsating drums, and most important heady, mind-blowing lyrics. that indie sound is putting up, as best as it can, the bands that are making this music happen.