Monday's Leaky Faucet

Who: Sunset Rubdown
Title: Dragonslayer
Release Date: June 23rd
Label: Jagjaguwar
Thoughts: For all my bitching and complaining about the Wolf Parade side projects and their inability to match the heights reached on Apologies to the Queen Mary, I actually really enjoy Spencer Krug as a musician and most of what he does with Sunset Rubdown. Their latest album, Dragonslayer, is a return to form after the lackluster Random Spirit Lover. The songs here bristle with a renewed sense of energy and passion, the songwriting is crisp, and even Krug’s unique vocals are more focused then they have been in the past. Songs like the first single, "Idiot Heart", and "You Go Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)" are some of the finest pieces of music Krug has ever written, and the increased presence of Camilla Ingr’s backing vocals brings a greater range of depth to the entire album. It’s still not on par with Apologies…, but at this point I think I have to resign myself to realizing that that was one of those albums that will never been equalled. Spencer is a prolific songwriter so there are going to be down moments here and there, but so far Dragonslayer may just be his most complete effort to date.
Listen: Sunset Rubdown - "Idiot Heart"
Sunset Rubdown - "You Go Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)"

Who: Bowerbirds
Title: Upper Air
Release Date: July 7th
Label: Dead Oceans
Thoughts: Success often breeds change, and the success of Bowerbirds last record, Hymns for a Dark Horse, led to a lot of changes for this North Carolina trio. Where the songs on Hymns were focused mainly on the nature around them in North Carolina, Upper Air sees the band a bit more introspective following all the hours they’ve logged on the road since the release of their last album. In that time they’ve toured with the likes of The Mountain Goats, Bon Iver, and John Vanderslice to name a few and that too has played into the bands music a bit. Yes, it is still the same folky rock people fell in love with but there’s small changes here and there that echo what they would have seen on the road. It’s a good album, but it doesn’t have the same wow factor that Hymns for a Dark Horse had. That album was fresh and imaginative, here we find a band that is looking inside themselves like so many other bands instead of at the world around them, but that too is a result of all the changes that Bowerbirds have gone through in the past year or so.
Listen: Bowerbirds - "Northern Lights"
Bowerbirds - "Teeth"

Who: Iggy Pop
Title: Preliminaires
Release Date: June 2nd
Label: Astralwerks
Thoughts: Following the death of Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, a lot of people wondered where Iggy Pop would go from there. Would he continue on with a new guitarist? Would he continue to play the classic Stooges songs? Would he just retire from the business all together? But it seems that Pop had been prepared for this day for some time and instead changed his focus from the guitar driven rock he’s been doing for decades to Parisian jazz that you would never have expected from Iggy Pop. After reading a novel by Michael Houellebecq, Pop became obsessed with the sounds and went out and recorded Preliminaires thanks to the influence of that book. Folks that are looking for the old Stooges Iggy Pop are going to have to look elsewhere as this doesn’t even bare a passing resemblance of that Iggy Pop, but for folks with open minds and ears this album does offer a very imaginative and fun sound to it. The jazz, the New Orleands swing of the sound is something our ears may not be truly attuned to but somehow Pop’s booming voice and the wild sounds of the music work perfectly together here. Even when Pop’s singing in French you are captured by the passion with which Pop is singing. This is not Fun House or anything close to it, this is Iggy Pop trying something totally out of left field, and he seems to be enjoying himself while doing it.
Listen: Iggy Pop - "I Want to Go to the Beach"
Iggy Pop - "Spanish Coast"