February 12, 2013

• Cappadonna: Eyrth, Wynd & Fyre [RBC]
• Darwin Deez: Songs for Imaginary People [Lucky Number]
• Fear of Men: Early Fragments [Kanine]
• Foals: Holy Fire [Transgressive]
• Lisa Germano: no elephants [Badman]
• Pissed Jeans: Honeys [Sub Pop] (streaming above)
• Veronica Falls: Waiting for Something to Happen [Slumberland/Bella Union]
• Bullet For My Valentine Temper Temper [RCA]
• Matt Costa Matt Costa [Brushfire]

Sneak Previews

• Iceage You’re Nothing
• Matmos The Marriage of True Minds
• Mark Kozelek Like Rats
• Eat Skull III
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Push The Sky Away

Stuff Critics Liked This Week

• Actress Silver Cloud EP (“[E]ach track unwinds into a tapestry of intense sonic detail if you just give it a little time to recline.”)
• Night Beds Country Sleep (“[F]or a lot of people, nothing cuts through the noise like a 23-year old singer-songwriter who wants to tell you over either acoustic guitars or weepy, reverbed ones how he drank, loved and lost beyond his years. Winston Yellen, essentially the creative body of Night Beds, does both.”)
• Frightened Rabbit Pedestrian Verse (“The quietly fierce drumwork of Grant Hutchison now forms the backbone around which guitars needle and prod; unexpected textures are layered deep into the tracks, with horns and string swells rippling against gauzy curtains of distortion. The chorus dynamics err on the side of restraint, avoiding Arcade Fire’s apocalyptic urgency or Mumford and Sons’ tweedy bombast.”)
• Cakes Da Killa The Eulogy (“Cakes is maybe the closest thing hip-hop has right now to a Lil Kim figure, a raunchy-ass bitch who absolutely owns being a raunchy-ass bitch, and has enough on-mic charisma to convince us that this is an admirable personality type.”)
• Le1f Fly Zone (“[U]nlike most goal-oriented mixtape rappers, Le1f wisely prefers to show his crossover potential rather than to rap about it. On Dark York his vocal performances tended to be about as spacey as the beats behind them, but since then his flow has developed a heft and muscularity that it lacked before, as if he’s only just now figuring out what his limber vocal chords are capable of, which includes everything from deep, unexpectedly Tupac-like growls to a girlish squeal that he sometimes deploys during punchlines.”)
• Pissed Jeans Honeys (“Nearly everything could pass for “the single”– edge-of-sanity tantrums that make for great singalongs because the chorus is either an exasperated yell or just the song title. Without sacrificing visceral force, Pissed Jeans allow themselves enough versatility to keep Honeys intense and interesting throughout.”)

Opposing Opinions

On Toro Y Moi’s Anything In Return

• Pitchfork’s Ian Cohen - “Anything in Return serves as a tidy synopsis of everywhere Bundick has taken Toro Y Moi to date. So there’s silky R&B, roller-rink pop, bubblegum funk, tasteful chillout music, all unified by a voice that’s grown more confident with time.”
• The Quietus’ Tom Watson - “While no one can fault his work ethic or commitment to pushing his sound in new directions, as yet they’ve not been enough to make any of his releases – including this one – feel particularly striking as complete pieces of work.”

Miscellaneous

• JT dropped a new one (a new song, that is). I have a weird thing where I’m pro-Timberlake, but I think he’s waaayy overrated as an SNL host and the FutureSex/LoveSounds had maybe five legitimately good tracks. Maybe I’m not pro-JT.
• Kurt Vile is pretty cool and he wrote a nine-minute song.
• New Postal Service! Your move, Owl City.
• The Thermals are back. It seems like they totally disappeared for a while, didn’t it?
• Jenn Wasser is pretty great, so I’ve got time for her new pop thing with Dungeonesse.