na: hold steady, mellencamp, etc
The obvious highlights of today’s new arrivals (The Hold Steady and The Artist Formerly Known as Cougar) come at an appropriately close hop/skip/jump away from July 4th — both peddle chunky-chorded anthems en route to painting their own versions of Life In America. And both, as it turns out, have given us solid albums from the “if you liked ‘em before…” camp.
It doesn’t end there, of course: a lot of great stuff has hit the site this week. Here’s a rundown.
The Hold Steady, Stay Positive: Craig Finn and his band of Bruce-lovers don’t stray too far from the formula here. Familiar characters, familiar scenes and familiar themes (there’s more to say about lapsed Catholicism, apparently!) all pop up and the sound is much like Boys and Girls in America’s chugging, beefy-guitar-and-piano template. The joy of course, as any Hold Steady fan already knows, is in the details (and the couplets).
John Mellencamp, Life, Death, Love, and Freedom: I’m a bit of a “Jack and Diane”-and-not-much-more ‘camp novice, but this album sounds pleasantly restrained in it’s folk-blues classicism. Produced by T Bone Burnett.
Spiritualized, Songs In A & E: For those keeping score: yes, there are song titles that include “baby,” “yeah” and “fire” (three “fires” in a row, even!). So sure, it’s Spaceman being Spaceman, but there’s an emotional tug here, too. One of my favorite music writers anywhere (Douglas Wolk) sez:
This time, death is the one out in front: between the time most of these songs were written and when they were recorded, Pierce was hospitalized with double pneumonia and came close to dying. (The title isn’t just a drone-rocker’s two favorite chords, it’s a reference to the British name for an emergency ward.) So, although the songs cover his usual emotional territory, it’s his most mortal-sounding record to date — not just the way his voice often becomes a struggling rasp, but the pained scrape of his rhythms.
A mortal, perhaps, but still strung out in heaven.
Peter Broderick, Float: Gorgeous, piano n’ strings not-quite-ambient-not-quite-classical record out on Type. Also, keep an eye out for the new Grouper album on Type for more gauzy goodness.
Sic Alps, U.S. EZ: More ultra lo-fi gems from Siltbreeze. Like a freakbeat-ier Atlas Sound at times here. I had just digested the last record I heard from these guys, so I’m new to this, but it’s sounding really nice right now.
The Black Ghosts, The Black Ghosts: Tasteful maximalist electro-funk. Not all winners, but a few major standouts (”The Repitition Kills You” coulda/shoulda/woulda been a hit).
That Sic Alps record is gonna end up being something.
Toldja! I hope so…
“I’m a bit of a “Jack and Diane”-and-not-much-more ‘camp novice,” me too but wow Upon ReFresh I’m gonna have to at least check out Mellencamp just becasue of the T.Bone Production.
Glad A&E came back was scared there for a moment. used my last 17 downloads on it (luckly I already had Soul on Fire cause it’s an 18 track album
) However the length stamps on it are all screwy. again I am very lucky because I used a tool called mp3Repair and stripped all the tag datas from it. Thanks eMusic for using basic Mp3 and not . . . darnit just as I’m typing that I look up and You Lie You Cheat which is listed as 5:21 after repair ends at 3:16 (and is the proper end of the song) Yancey I know it’s not a usual thing to do here but can you post a comment to this blog post when they fix this so I can redownload. Email me if you need to and I’ll FTP a copy of the Downloaded tracks even.
GROWL now I’m Angry
and the times on the page aren’t correct either You lie you cheat is listed (by emusic) as 3:04 and it was 4:00 which is wierd because WMP (like I said) says it is 5:21
No mention of [url=http://www.emusic.com/album/Patti-Smith-The-Coral-Sea-MP3-Download/11232631.html]this disc[/url], from Patti Smith and Kevin Shields? It’s spoken-word type stuff, but — as the lone reviewer says — it’s apparently “art, baby!”
Also, it’s been racking up [url=http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/smithpattiandkevinshields/coralsea]good reviews on METACRITIC [/url] (albeit on 8 reviews).
Okay, the hyperlinks didn’t work there. I’m trying it again, links only:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Patti-Smith-The-Coral-Sea-MP3-Download/11232631.html
http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/smithpattiandkevinshields/coralsea
It’s art, baby.
Also of note is the (evidently) fairly unknown The Great Northwest. [url=http://www.emusic.com/album/The-Widespread-Reign-of-the-Great-Northwest-The-Widespread-Reign-of-the-Great-Northwest-MP3-Download/11231971.html]“The Widespread Reign of the Great Northwest”[/url] arrived yesterday in advance of it’s release. And it’s fantastic. It’s the sounds of a carload of friends who have known each other since birth driving down abandoned country roads in comfortable silence as the fireflies zoom past, the moon waxes and wanes, a bottle of cheap vodka passed around. No need to talk at all. Mix Spiritualized with Dandy Warhols and Mazzy Star and you may concoct something similar.
Any word on whether or not eMusic will get the Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson album?
As a follow-up to my above comment, I have submitted an official Defective Tracks report to emusic prime about the Spiritualized problem.
As a non-followup to anything but that I have to tell somebody, Today’s new arrivals included -drum roll please – HULK HOGANS DAUGHTER BROOKE Hurrah
http://www.emusic.com/album/Brooke-Hogan-By-Heart-MP3-Download/11247583.html
:VOMIT: