Rogue Wave returns with a new album for a new decade.
Permalink is slated to drop later this year. In the meantime, the band has released its first single, 'Good Morning.' After a couple of spins, it is quite fetching.
On Odd Blood, the band takes its brand of culturally diverse pop music to new frontiers. Where its predecessor could generally be found someplace between Western and Middle Eastern influence, Odd Blood sounds almost like worldbeat for an Earth-like planet in a distant solar system.
One of the album's songs that has found steady rotation for me lately is "O.N.E."
"O.N.E." is like an '80s pop gem funneled through hazy reverb and tribal rhythms. There's something both nostalgic and futuristic about the song that's enough to start a global dance party. You can listen to it below:
From "proto-Sanskrit Minoans" to "Porto-centric Lisboans," Andrew Bird's dense lyrics occasionally read like a dissertation, but his sense of melody always pulls them back into range. His musicianship is outstanding - looping pizzicato violin with guitar and an otherworldly whistle that's enough to send shivers down your spine. Noble Beast is a pastoral record for Bird - mixing witty, alienated apocalypticism with a keen sense of belonging to the earth, its creatures and its history. Easily one of the best performers I saw this year, or any other.
Ah, yes. The old "Year in Review" list. Everyone seems to have an opinion on what the best records of the past 365 days were, and now, so do we. Without further ado...
The Lonely Note Presents: Our Favorite Albums of 2009 (Part I)
Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová earned a heartfelt Academy Award in 2008 for their song, "Falling Slowly," from the film Once (in which they both starred and performed the soundtrack). Their follow-up, Strict Joy, is as cathartic, focused and intimate as the struggling musicians in Once, while allowing their success to shine through in confident, climactic swells. Watch the video to: The Swell Season - "Low Rising"
When I first heard "Girl With One Eye" nearly two years ago, I had a feeling it wouldn't be the last I'd hear of F+M. Lungs is an apt title for this debut, because Florence Welch has got 'em. She croons and wails in a Kate Bush-meets-Grace Slick style. Welch's dramatic vocals are backed by delicate harp pluckings and thunderous war drums, yet always manage to soar above the fray. Florence is a machine - a voice to be reckoned with in the new decade.
Swoon takes the band's dreamy pop shoegaze to a new level, pushing for grandiose layers of distortion without taking away from the hooks. Waves of guitar fuzz build a wall as hypnotically steady drums crash against it. Singer/guitarist Brian Aubert's whisper-to-a-scream vocals resonate perfectly with those of bassist Nikki Monninger. Swoon is a more progressive, yet accessible side of the band.
Undoubtedly, the indie breakthrough band of the year. The xx play coy, night music for the Zoloft-popping hipster generation. It's dark and pensive, yet sweet and refreshing. The boy/girl vocal trade-offs are those of isolated romantics. Influences from The Cure to Chris Isaak can be heard swirling throughout. It's a debut with enough raw innocence to be strikingly beautiful. This is a rare effort for any band.
Acute studio precision. Sonic craftwork. Superior artistry. Veckatimest is an almost perfect record. Shedding the lo-fi, shortform structure of many of their indie colleagues, Grizzly Bear birthed something of an acoustic dazzle in 2009. Veckatimest is so flawless, so tight, that the band’s dexterity may be rivaled only by classics Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, The Beach Boys and, notably, contemporaries Animal Collective. Many Baby Boomers claim they can recall the exact time and place they first heard Sgt. Pepper. Where were you when you first heard Veckatimest?
Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks"
Check back soon for Part II of Our Favorite Albums of 2009 list!