Pop, metal and more

The latest alumbs, the hottest musics and eerything you wanted to know about music. Here's a review.

Hot Chip — One Life Stand
Their last album, 2008’s Made In The Dark was one of pop music’s guilty pleasures and this swell electropop outfit from the UK reveal their fun side yet again. Shamelessly electro in execution and unabashedly channelling the early ’80s new-wave sound (who isn’t?), Hot Chip wants nothing more than for you to get up and dance and sing along for sure. Simple melodies and catchy choruses once again prove the rule that fun is where it’s at. And if you can throw in a little soul while you’re at it, then it’s all good. But the record does sound a little homemade at times, which, in my opinion, is its endearing facet.

HT Image

Beach House — Teen Dream
Another act you probably would never have heard of, yet they have been slowly and steadily building their fans, drawing them to their brand of dreamy pop music. If you have ever sat on a bench and stared at your shoes while waiting for something, and you hear sounds in your head, then that is what this album evokes and provokes. If you’ve had a long hard day at work and would just like to kick your feet up and float away and not think of anything, then this album is for you. The American duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally formed the band in 2004 and their eponymous debut was rated one of the best albums of 2006. Teen Dream is closer to melancholic perfection as it can be, tracks like ‘Zebra’, ‘Real Love’, ‘Silver Soul’ and ‘Take Care’ squeeze your heart till it’s dry.

Yeasayer — Oddblood
Straight out of New York comes this experimental rock band following up 2007’s ‘All Hour Cymbals’. Now experimentalism, as we know, can be quite tricky, often resulting in an avant-garde result that doesn’t always go down with everybody. Labels like ‘wanna-be’ and ‘pretentious’ are often thrown up in the air, much to the artiste’s dismay. But that’s because probably their minds are not as open as they need to be. Seriously. Every once in a while something comes along that is off the beaten track, something that makes you rethink all possibilities. And that’s exactly what Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton and Anand Wilder would have you believe. Here is some pop-psychedelic-electro-beat music that will send you on that awesome trip you’ve been meaning to take, but without the substances.

Blotted Science — The Machinations of Dementia
This is something that blew my socks off this weekend. This one’s exclusively for all you metal-heads out there. An all-instrumental extreme metal supergroup, that features guitarist Ron Jarzombek (Watchtower/ Spastic Ink), drummer Charie Zeleny (Behold… The Arctopus) and Alex Webster (Cannibal Corpse), this is some mad stuff. And I will say this, that it’s some of the sickest stuff you will ever hear, from point of view of playing, arrangements and production, it is the absolute s**t. And I will also say this, that if metal can be instrumental then who needs vocals, really. Anyway for the most part, metal vocalising is growls and grunts, which most of the time, for me, gets in the way of the music (all due respect to metal vocalists out there). But guys, give this a listen and you will be blown away. Truly. Oh and check out the tracks ‘Adenosine buildup’ and ‘Adenosine Breakdown’. Killer.