A few weeks ago, my Australian friend Chris brought his girlfriend to Kansas City. After I’d dragged them to the requisite KC stops – Oklahoma Joe’s barbecue, the Nelson-Atkins art museum, $1 beer night at the Brooksider – we three thought it would be fun to see a movie.
We sallied forth to the theater in the mood for something light and airy – something that would match the summer evening’s potential for mental and emotional laziness. Which is how, later, we found ourselves wrapped in some of the Midwest’s best theater armchairs, watching Jake Gyllenhaal swarth it up in the Prince Of Persia.
My movie aficionado friend John, along for the ride as my date, was appalled at our choice. He contended that we would have been better-served taking a group nap or trying for the ever-elusive Wobbly H (known, in Australia, as the Warbly H1). John was sure that Prince Of Persia was a stinkbomb; as unworthy of our time as the latest James Patterson “novel”.
Despite playful protests to the contrary, I knew that John was probably right. So, as we took our seats behind a kid wearing a black Incredible Hulk T-shirt, my expectations were lower than a Hobbit in a limbo contest.
When the movie turned out to be highly watchable, thanks in large part to the movie’s playful spirit and effective cast (Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, and the cocksure2 and lovely Gemma Arterton) I was pleasantly surprised. Chris, his girlfriend, and I all left the theater satisfied.
John was nearly apoplectic. I shrugged and told him that my low expectations had allowed me to enjoy the movie. I even went so far as to say I had “liked” it. He shook his head in silence, walked home, and, I assumed, watched obscure documentaries while his girlfriend massaged his back using butter saved from the bottoms of indie-theater popcorn buckets.
Unfortunately, the expectations trolley can run downhill just as easily.
As we Americans endured the longest winter since PETA’s campaign against mastodon poaching, I took solace in my anticipation of new spring and summer releases from Band Of Horses, The National, the Black Keys, the Deftones, MGMT, Drive-By Truckers, The New Pornographers, and Broken Social Scene.3
Multiple bands, all in the primes of their careers, and many of them among my favorites.
As was inevitable, some of the albums missed the mark; their artists “lost the plot” as Twitterer @AdamJKovac joked recently.4
The problem wasn’t lack of quality as much as it was sameness. If it had been given to me in a vacuum, I might have thought the new National album to be the best recording of the year. But, after playing that band’s previous two albums so much that the songs on them were close to becoming MP2s, it was inevitable that I was going to get bored and revolt, if only a little.
Today, then, I give you a replacement guide; four albums that, like me, you probably thought couldn’t miss. And then, their replacements; four albums that you might not know, but should.
Band Of Horses. Replaced by Deer Tick.
You thought you were going to love the new band Band Of Horses album, Infinite Arms. But then you realized that it sounded a lot like the other Band Of Horses albums and you couldn’t even really say that it was worse, just that you were a little tired of that near-falsetto and every song pretty much sounding the same. Plus, you weren’t sure about dudes with beards singing about Now & Later candy.
To help you believe in alt-pop-folk-country again, you should probably get Deer Tick’s The Black Dirt Sessions
Sure, it’s gravelly. Sure, it sounds like they recorded it in a lean-to. And, sure, the lead singer’s voice might piss you off. (For some reason, my brother thinks he sounds like David Gray.) But eventually, I think The Black Dirt Sessions which, like Infinite Arms, is the band’s third album, will have a greater impact on your life, if only because it sounds like a band trying to grow, instead of a band trying to grow an audience.
(Disclaimer: My opinion of Band of Horses has soured recently. I’ve seen them live three times this summer. All three times I’ve thought they should have been better. Also, to the boys in the band: Let’s pick it up with the album titles. Everything All The Time, Cease To Begin, and now Infinite Arms? It feels like you put Danielle Steele in charge of naming your records.)
MGMT. Replaced by Delorean.
If you couldn’t get behind the pretentious, faux-psychedelic weirdness that populates MGMT’s second album, like everyone else who A) has ears and B) doesn’t work for Pitchfork, buy Delorean’s shimmery, summery Subiza. These hairy (seriously, I’ve seen them live) Barcelonans packed everything they learned at Pacha and Shoko5 into this album of electro-pop deliciousness.
As for MGMT. Do me a favor: don’t fall in with the backlash-to-the-backlash crowd. MGMT’s second album is really, really bad. The oddness of the band’s members doesn’t mean those members are geniuses. It just means they’re strange. Remember, too, that despite everyone’s masturbatory response to MGMT’s first album, it really only had three good songs. Granted, two of them were so good that most of us (author included) lost perspective. We don’t need to hold that against MGMT, we just need to not listen to their crappy second album.
New Pornographers. Replaced by My My My.
If, as listening to the New Pornographers’s Together, you thought, “If we applied ourselves, my friends and I could probably make this album,” you need My My My’s Leather Silk
While in Toronto, preparing for an Athletes For Africa charity basketball game by creeping around bars with my friend Chet, I caught My My My in a tiny club as part of the North By Northeast music festival. I thought it would be a one-night relationship, but after a well-timed tweet (by me) and a well-timed read (by them), they shipped me a copy of Leather Silk. I expected (oh, those expectations) mediocrity, but didn’t get it.
Leather Silk is what the New Pornographers would have put out if they hadn’t been so focused on experimenting with how many times they could write the same song. It’s fun, loose and, while it treads on the same friendly, poppy ground as any of the NP’s work, it doesn’t make me think that I’m listening to music the receptionist at the dentist’s office would buy, which is starting to be true about the New Pornographers.
Broken Social Scene. Replaced by Crystal Castles.
On the same trip to Toronto, I had the pleasure of watching Broken Social Scene at the Toronto Island Festival. I even got to meet the namesake of BSS’s song “Ibi Dreams Of Pavement”, the author Ibi Kaslik (whose first book, Skinny, is quite good).
The live show was fantastic; it was everything I thought a Broken Social Scene concert could be.
However, the band’s most recent album, Forgiveness Rock Record…isn’t quite as good as that live show.
So, if you listened to it like I did, thought, “What happened to weird Broken Social Scene music?”, and really like Canadians, consider turning your ears toward Crystal Castles’s second effort, Crystal Castles II.
I know how tired you are of reading music writers attempt to describe how things sound using increasingly bizarre analogies, but grant me one attempt:
If Crystal Castles’s first album sounded like the crash-landing of a MiG fighter with a bumpin’ stereo installed, this one is the mid-air collision of a Concorde jet and a hot air balloon, each of them with bumpin’ stereos installed. That is, just as cool, but a little smoother.
Deer Tick, Delorean, My My My, and Crystal Castles would be good additions to your collection under any circumstances. But if you were left wanting by some of the indie stalwarts listed above, I think you’ll be especially pleased with them.
As long as you can keep your expectations about them in check. Because, now, I’ve done to you for music the opposite of what my friend John did to me for Prince Of Persia.
Shit.
1These quotes are entirely fictitious.
2I’m not sure you’re supposed to describe females as cocksure, but I think that’s sexist.
3Don’t you hate it when people put lists in sentences?
4Adam was talking about the New Radicals, a nineties band who put out a fantastic first album and then, yeah, lost the plot.
5If you can get into the latter, do it. If you can get into the former, you’re a slightly overweight Finnish girl who got her free pass from the guy handing them out on the beach.
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I’m glad you didn’t replace The Black Keys. Those guys can do no wrong.
It begs the question though – if they had made your replace list, who would’ve taken their place?
Wasn’t Deer Tick also the name of one of Danielle Steele’s first novels? It was an interesting read, to say the least. Got me super horny.
Good read. I’ve been listening to Crystal Castles since you played them on FlipCast a while back. I’ll have to give My My My a listen. Also have to say I share Ben’s opinion about the Black Keys.
Crystal Castles is the best thing that happened to me in 2009. I’m totally with you on that.
I’ve seen Delorean live twice now, just recently this past weekend at Pitchfork. They played on Saturday at 2:30pm when the crowds were pretty weak. It was 90 degrees & miserable, yet everyone was dancing during their performance. More so than most of the later acts. I have a feeling they’re going to do great things
Where do you go to listen to music now that Lala has been shut down? I always had it open when reading your articles so I could listen to the (new to me) bands that you were recommending. Any suggestions?
lastfm.com. great place to check new music.
dig the national. any of these others….meh. this 80s vibe thing crustal castles can have sometimes rubs me the wrong way. musicians by now should have learned… two good things came out of the 80s: the police and 1990