This week is a relatively quiet week due to the Bank Holiday in the UK, but there are still a few gems. Taking album of the week honours this week is the debut full length from Los Angeles duo No Age. Nouns follows on from last years fantastic compilation Weirdo Rippers. They have remained high in my playlists this year through their involvement with the superb Stereogram-Björk covers compilation, Enjoyed. Released on Sub Pop, Nouns is no disappointment. Noisy, fuzzy and distinctly lo-fi, this is a great set of tracks. Loose instrumentation tied with intense, shouted vocals all drowned in layers of feedback. A real return to the heyday of the great Seattle label.
Runners up this week are Chicago three-piece Russian Circles. Heavy as anything I’ve heard this year, this is epic instrumental stuff. Comparisons to stuff like Isis and even the prog-rock brigade headed by Mogwai etc abound, but this is more post-metal than rock. Cycling between bass-driven riffs and more introspective passages, the six tracks are a proper treat.
Also well worth checking out is the debut full-length from Canadian indie-rockers Tokyo Police Club. Stepping up their game from relatively samey and uninterestind EP A Lesson In Crime, the group have produced a taut, yet melodic, record. The main problem still remains the love or grate vocals. Single Tessellate is a particular highlight.
Definitely worth avoiding is the debut platter from haircut rave-rockers Hadouken. This is about as cynical as marketed music can get, finger on pulse referencing by numbers. I mean their Myspaz page claims them to be Asbo-Disco. Who the fuck would want to go there? It doesn’t even have the sense of humour of scenemates Does It Offend You, Yeah?. Awful.
Elsewhere a personal favourite of mine, Southampton’s Delays, release their third LP Everything’s The Rush. Still dishing out sunny rock to ever diminishing returns, this record unfortunately sees them take a step towards self-parody, with nothing to really grab you like Valentine or Lost In A Melody. A perhaps inevitable shame, but a shame nonetheless.
Folk-indie brings us a couple of peaches this week too. Devon Sproule re-releases her acclaimed 2003 record Upstate Songs, and the much-chanted Fleet Foxes put out the Sun Giant EP. Amongst the fans of the Seattle five-piece are Bristol legends Massive Attack, who included them in their Meltdown line-up. The EP itself has some gorgeous melodies, a real taster for the upcoming album.
More straight up indie can be had from both We Are The Physics and The Wave Pictures. The former come off as an updated Blondie, all jerky rhythms and urgent stabs of guitar. Looking forward to catching them at New Slang this week, supporting US greats Les Savy Fav. The Wave Pictures take a twee-er slant on things, not so much Belle & Sebastian as My Life Story, minus the orchestration. Not really my thing but recent single I Love You Like A Madman is great.
Elsewhere, Elvis Costello clouds the 30th anniversary of the seminal This Year’s Model with the patchy and absurdly titled Momofuku. Belgian noisemaker Fear Falls Burning follows his split LP with Nadja with another slice of ambient-noise, Frenzy Of The Absolute. Sounds like a Muse title, that. Norman Records’ album of the week is by Leeds’ The Declining Winter, whose Goodbye Minnesota is a beautiful piece of work. Check out Summer Turns To Hurt on his Myspaz.
Last week, WoW readers voted these as releases of the week:
1. Half Man Half Biscuit – CSI: Ambleside
2. Portishead – Third (How? I mean, come on!)
3. Madonna – Hard Candy
Don’t forget to vote for this week’s poll, situated in the left sidebar.
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