May 5, 2008
GETTING HIT
Frightened Rabbit - "Keep Yourself Warm". Frightened Rabbit's new one, The Midnight Organ Fight, is terrific and absolutely unrevelatory. The band aren't doing anything new - this is just same-old melancholy indie-rock, folk-inflected, full of wistful harmonies, booming choruses and bombastic dynamics, - but Frightened Rabbit do it so. very. well. Even Scott Hutchison's (pretty terrible) lyrics aren't an obstacle: his singing is still the band's greatest strength, turning turgid poetry into heartache, want, will. In my National Post column tomorrow I compare the band to the Constantines, Okkervil River and the Foo Fighters, and I like that there's a band somewhere integrating those three sounds into a single, simple pleasure. A song with the stupid-euphemistic lyrics "you won't find love in a hole" is nevertheless one of my favourites of the year. [buy]
Mr Gnome - "Pirates". On the night at the loft party, five stories up the concrete block, you spun and shook to dance music, and then the vodka you had drunk began to sour, and your friends were just blurs, and so you decided to go, brushed by everyone, slipped on your coat and ran a hand over your face. And you put on yr ipod (this song), closed yr eyes as you washed away the before and dove headfirst into the after; you pretended like the night had a crescendo all the same, listened to yr one night stand in your earbuds; yeah, yeah, yeahs; and when you fell down the concrete, heels over head, smashed and bloody, you didn't open your eyes or stop listening, you just fell, and heard the sound of your falling. [album out tomorrow]
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Saw Robyn last night. Had a really, really, really wonderful time.
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I've made a few muxtapes lately: 1 2 3
[sharkmeat photo by John Isaacs]