Pretty great little tune from a band I recently discovered thanks to their recent appearance on the KEXP Live Performance Podcast. These guys hit me in sort of the same place as the excellent debut last year from Real Estate, but I plan on talking a little bit more about them in the coming weeks, once I've had time to more fully digest the album.
Meanwhile, this was posted some time ago, but I completely forgot to link to it here. This is the nice year-end wrap-up feature I was a part of over at Metro Pulse. Neat little blurbs about the staff's favorite albums of the year. I wrote three blurbs for the piece, one each for The Flaming Lips, Baroness, and Animal Collective. In case you might be too lazy to scroll around over there, here are my blurbs:
Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
The addition of huge hooks and bass-heavy rhythms to the band’s atmospheric trance was so natural it’s a wonder they didn’t arrive here sooner, although they might not have hit upon such a thrilling and timeless pop formula without the years of experimentation. Merriweather Post Pavilion provides a fitting cap to one of the decade’s most surprising success stories.
Baroness, Blue Record (Relapse)
Anyone who thought Mastodon had the whole “Southern sludge metal goes prog” thing wrapped up with Crack the Skye had another thing coming when Baroness released its second long-player in October. Blue Record picks up where Red Album left off and delves even deeper into King Crimson territory. Just a cursory listen as the instrumental “Ogeechee Hymnal” bleeds into the ferocious “A Horse Called Golgotha” reveals far more depth than most doubters are willing to grant metal. But the monster riffs and the fiery guitar solo on “Bullhead’s Lament” prove where these guys’ hearts lie.
The Flaming Lips, Embryonic (Warner Bros.)
The Flaming Lips bounced back in a big way this year and shattered expectations lowered by 2006’s mediocre At War With the Mystics with this absolutely stunning late-period masterpiece. Wayne Coyne and his cohorts did more than simply return to their psychedelic roots, eschewing their recent upbeat pop leanings in favor of darker, more outré material. Free-jazz guitar solos, interstellar mathematical transmissions, and even cellular interference all found their place in Embryonic’s world, giving us an unexpected late-career game-changer and one of the year’s easiest albums to get completely lost in.
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