Sorry if we are late to the show but this band is probably the best breakout band for 2011. A bold call, especially when there are still 6 more months to the new year? I think not. So what can we expect from the Vaccines?
Add a pinch of Interpol/Editors, throw in a tablespoonful of the Ramones, blend in some JAMC-isque vocals, and you will get the perfect Poptart vaccine for a bad week at work. Seems like this London-based quartet has managed to retrieve the best elements from our favourite rock bands and formulate this uniquely-but-yet-familiar sound of theirs.
What did you expect from the Vaccines is short, fast-paced and direct. Clocking in only at a total of 33 minutes or so, this 11-track album is reminscent of those punk records with 1 to 2-minute long songs. The band jumps straight in with Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra), and wastes no time in signalling their intent in one minute and twenty-four seconds. And before you can say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, it is then followed up with my favourite track of the album, If You Wanna. An extremely infectious, quick-paced song that has been looping on my itunes for the last few days now:
“But if you wanna come back it’s alright, it’s alright!
It’s alright if you wanna come back!
If you wanna come back it’s alright, it’s alright!
It’s alright if you wanna come back to me!”
This album is also laden with useful advice; another favourite, Post Break-up Sex, tells us that post break-up sex helps you “forget your ex” and to “leave it ’til the guilt consumes”. Great!
Perfect for: A home-made poptart party.
If you wanna – the vaccines (right-click “save-as”)
Norgaard – the vaccines (right-cick “save-as”)
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Having formed in 2003, the cross-continent duo, Alison Mosshart and James Hince are back with their 4th studio album, Blood Pressures. IMHO, the band only hit the “mainstream” gold with Midnight Boom – a couple of songs found their way into commercials, movies and teen American T.V. shows such as Gossip Girl and 90210. ’Cheap and Cheerful‘, ‘U.R.A. Fever‘ and ‘Tape Song‘ were the outstanding ones.
Their sound is best described as minimalist garage rock revival or art rock, and with The White Stripes now retired, the Kills are left to fly the flag, probably alongside B.R.M.C. and Y.Y.Y’s .
We hope that you do not expect Blood Pressures to have that immediate punchy effect as Midnight Boom – it does not. Apart from ‘Satellite’ and ‘Heart is a Beating Drum’, most of the other songs are a tad bit slower, grungier and bluesier. Not to discount Blood Pressures, the album has it merits, of course. The songs on Blood Pressures are definitely more intimate, and closer to their hearts. I mean, what’s the point of making an album that sounds like the last 3? Not unless you’re the teenage fanclub. LOL.
Jokes aside, take a look at ‘The Last Goodbye’ – a piano driven track, accompanied by Mosshart’s earnest vocals and a string section. This is the stand-out song of the album, most definitely un-Kills-like, but absolutely brilliant and heart-wrenching.
“Can’t quite see the end
How can I rely on my heart if I break it with my own two hands?
I heard all you said and I love you to death
I heard all you said don’t say anything”
If this isn’t close to the heart, I don’t know what is.
We like Future Starts Slow, Pots and Pans, Heart is a Beating Drum, Nail in my Coffin.
Good for: Drinking Beer to, in a dingy, dirty pub.
Good for:
*None of the files linked here were uploaded or hosted by the author of this site. The links are not tested and are found simply by searching the net. Any music file you acquire following provided links, use only for your own evaluation purpose, and delete it within 24 hours. If you like anything of the music presented here, please buy it.
Get it right, it’s McVeigh and not Potter we are talking about here. Ritual as a sophomore album proves that White Lies are more than just a Joy Division tribute band. Ironically enough, McVeigh cited the Talking Heads as an influence, rather than Joy Division. He said, “we weren’t alive during that period of music…” Or so he says. Honestly, one doesn’t need to be alive during any particular period to be influenced by that period’s music, right?
In Ritual, the band has ventured into a slightly more electronic sound, on top of their usual brand of rock. And when i first heard it, these bands came into mind: Depeche Mode and the Smashing Pumpkins (during the Machina era), so what’s the lowest common multiple here? Alan Moulder and Electronic sounds/beats/textures on top of their usual modus operandi.
Coincidently enough, he (Alan Moulder also co-produced Ritual) worked with Yeah Yeah Yeahs on their It’s Blitz! LP as well, when they decided to swap their distortion amps for electronic sounds.
Ritual, took me more than a few listens to fully appreciate the album. Not all the songs are as catchy as To Lose My Life’s – a sign that they don’t have to impress anyone anymore, perhaps? Some tracks do get a little draggy, but the few gems we here at Poptart love, make this album still somewhat worth the time. We recommend listening to Holy Ghost, Strangers and Bigger Than Us (the first single from the album). A decent try, but White Lies should stay loud, euphoric and uplifting.
Good for: Wearing black to.
*None of the files linked here were uploaded or hosted by the author of this site. The links are not tested and are found simply by searching the net. Any music file you acquire following provided links, use only for your own evaluation purpose, and delete it within 24 hours. If you like anything of the music presented here, please buy it.
Bursting onto the indie-rock scene almost 2 years ago to the day, this 3-piece Welsh band gave us a free download of their 8-track EP/minialbum called A Balloon Called Moaning (see what we said about it HERE). How we have pined for their virgin LP, and with only two singles released in 2010, we thought it’d never come.
Well, that wait has finally come to an end! 12 glorious anthemic, power-chord, dream-pop vocal-driven tracks to RAWK on to (actually 7 new tracks – read on!).
Big Roar kicks-off with “Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”, an apt starting song for further epic-ness to come. A 128-bpm track with nontoocomplicated lyrics and dreamy Ritzy vocals, both playing support to the wonderful distortion-induced rifts found in the chorus and bridge:
Nothing outside will care enough
Nothing outside of you
The dangers of showing
Any kind of weakness
Just to forget your born,
Nothing outside of you
In fact if I were them, I’d open my gig with this song.
Basically out of the 12 tracks on Big Roar, only 7 new tracks are brand new, 4 are from the A Balloon Called Moaning EP and 1 was a single that was released last year.
We like “A Heavy Abacus” and “The Magnifying Glass” out of those 7 new ones. “Bouy” and “Maruyama” are rightly placed in the middle of the album to give the listeners a little breather, before picking up the pace again with the ever-brilliant “Cradle”. The epilogue is then left to “The Greatest LIght is the Greatest Shade”, also from their first-ever EP to leave us craving for more.
Perfect for: Listening on the way to POPTART : D
Any ideas on how to come up with a name for a band you have just formed? Well, these 4 guys from Springfield, Missouri do:
- The name should be long or,
- Include a famous name of a politician and if all else fails,
- Just name it after the title of your brother’s school essay.
Although having formed in 1999, SSLYBY only released their first album, Broom, in 2005. They subsequently signed with Polyvinyl and followed up with Pershing in 2008. In recent years as with most bands, the first album is always a sort of a bang, the second somewhat lukewarm, and the third, if they ever get that far, often has the backing of a well-known producer to up the band’s production values and help perfect the band’s distinct sound (if it has one, that is).
SSLYBY has headed in that said direction it seems – Let It Sway was produced by Death Cab for Cutie member/super producer Chris Walla and continues that tradition of catchy songs. Overall, the album has some great hooks that makes me glad to be walking around on a sunny day or happy to be cleaning the house? (see below) One big BUT here: I was looking for that missing punch from boys – bigger drums, bigger explosions into the choruses, added dynamic changes in some tracks perhaps?
This is no doubt a good album, but what is preventing it from being a great one are the epic/anthem-ic tracks that are missing, imho, of course. Maybe the big sound isn’t part of the band’s DNA; we shall see what they might do on their forth so don’t write them off just yet.
Listen to Sink/let it sway, My Terrible Personality, Back in the saddle and Critical Drain. These jangly, powerpop-driven little numbers alone make Let it Sway worth your time but as most music blogs and critics have pointed out, it is the sequencing of the songs that somehow stunts the momentum of the album. Maybe a little re-arranging on the itunes playlist is all it needs?
Perfect for: Cleaning the house to.
Links—>
Sink/Let it sway (Right-click “Save As”)
