The Decemberists
The Hazards of Love
March 24th
Capitol Records
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that The Decemberists would try and create a rock opera at some point in their career. Their last album, The Crane Wife, was damn close to being one itself and their has always been a cinematic feel to the stories within Colin Meloy's songs. But with everything linked together on The Hazards of Love, the songs kind of seem a little too overpowering at times. They are extremely dense songs, once again showing off Meloy's penchant for wordiness, but occasionally cluttered musically. It's almost as if The Decemberists tried to do too much for their rock opera. Still, there are a lot of good moments on here just none of those catchy moments that originally hooked us on this band.
Grizzly Bear's Edward Droste has been slowly leaking information to the populace about Grizzly Bear's highly anticipated new album through his twitter page: how the recording is going, what stages they're at, etc. Well, finally after the bewildering and rather non-helpful clue that the album begins with a "V", Ed has revealed to us that the album's official title is Veckatimest. What? According to Wikipedia, "Veckatimest Island is one of the Elizabeth Islands of Dukes County, Massachusetts...and was uninhabited as of the 2000 census." Ed also recommends it as "a pretty speck of land to explore." Now we only have to wait and here the thing, which doesn't have an official release date, but is due to surface in May. I really hope the completed version does not get leaked. Here are some live recordings of a couple songs on the album.
Grizzly Bear's Edward Droste has been slowly leaking information to the populace about Grizzly Bear's highly anticipated new album through his twitter page: how the recording is going, what stages they're at, etc. Well, finally after the bewildering and rather non-helpful clue that the album begins with a "V", Ed has revealed to us that the album's official title is Veckatimest. What? According to Wikipedia, "Veckatimest Island is one of the Elizabeth Islands of Dukes County, Massachusetts...and was uninhabited as of the 2000 census." Ed also recommends it as "a pretty speck of land to explore." Now we only have to wait and here the thing, which doesn't have an official release date, but is due to surface in May. I really hope the completed version does not get leaked. Here are some live recordings of a couple songs on the album.
Beach House’s hazy and haunting cover of Queen’s "Play the Game" was inexplicably left off of the physical release of the recent Dark Was The Night charity compilation, only to be later tacked on as an "album only" bonus track that can only be had at this point by purchasing the entire thing from iTunes. Or, you could just take a listen at the duo’s myspace page.
Beach House will play a number of great bills at SXSW, including the Blackberry Showcase with Grizzly Bear, Peter Bjorn & John, Dinosaur, Jr. and more at Cedar Street Courtyard on Friday, March 20.
Photos from a recent FOE gig - a friend of our friends Hold Your Horse Is - she’s gonna be big!!! Read the gig review after the jump.
Shots of North Carolina’s folk-rocking Avett Brothers’ stop in Glasgow - 22.08.11
Read the review of the gig here.
Take a look at the acts and art on offer at this year’s Latitude Festival in Suffolk. Included are the likes of Fight Like Apes, Lykke Li, Sea of Bees and Seasick Steve. Photos from our own...
Good time with Bad Guys. Photos from the May 29th gig at the Old Blue Last. Read the review by the Bad Guy himself, Stuart London after the jump.
Artrocker.com exclusive: for fans of White Lies and Crocodiles we’ve got some fresh pictures from their UK show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier this month, courtesy of Alessandro...
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