Chendizzle

I got to say...I hadn't heard of these guys before a couple of weeks ago. Really digging this album ('Slow Show' is my most immediate favorite). I'm ready to go into their back catalog...it sounds like the consensus is that "Alligator" is their best? Should I start there? What the band's story?

 

Cheers.

Alligator is generally regarded as their best, yes. Time will tell if Boxer's popularity eclipses it. And yeah I def. agree Alligator is much much more uptempo than Boxer.

Anywho, start with Alligator, one of my favorite albums period, and if you enjoy that check out Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers and the Cherry Tree EP. Sad Songs is pretty great top to bottom, and Cherry Tree is a more relaxed, acoustic affair witht he song "About Today" being one of my favorite songs they've recorded.

And if you stilll really like those, the s/t ain't bad either, but all their subsequent albums have been vastly superior.

Start a War is great. Puts me in quite the melancholy mood.

"Whatever went away I'll get it over again. I'll get money, I'll get funny again..."

And Apartment Story is just amazing.

And Fake Empire has been in my head for a week

Damn, I love these guys.

If anyone says Dave Fridmann I'll carve their heart out with a spoon.

totally. i feel like i don't want to miss out on the next great thing, but this means trying to listen to dozens of new albums every month. oftentimes those would-be "grower" albums will fall by the wayside because i just run out of time to listen to everything that i want to. too often i feel lucky to give an album ONE listen. i've constantly got albums on my iPod that i mean to check out, but before i know it they're months old. honestly, this is when i rely heavily on album reviews from sources that i trust to tell me what to listen to.

I used to have this problem as well. I'm a student at college and since September I've been employed as a bus driver part-time. I usually listen to albums straight through while walking around campus to class and when I'm on the job I can use a personal radio, so I bring along the Ipod speakers and get another 15 hours a week to just chill, drive around and listen to music. So basically I guess I'm lucky I found a way to escape music ADHD

Elliott Smith, Isaac Brock, Jeff Tweedy

Although some of the lyrics do seem a bit juvenile/forced I suppose....

Which is why I usually skip it

Bryan Devendorf = amazing on drums.

His stuff on Alligator is incredible, but he's amazing on this too.

This is def not Alligator pt. 2, and although I'm digging it so far, I think it is going to take a while to find out if I love it just as much as Alligator. The National make records that creep up on you.

Hell yeah!

I am only on my second listen, but it sounds pretty awesome

I seriously love these guys, I must have listened to Alligator and Sad Songs like 10 times this week in anticipation of this leak.

It's definitely a more mellow affair than Alligator and not much besides Fake Empire and Mistaken for Strangers stuck out at my on the first listen, but the best National songs reveal themselves in time, so I hope that is the case on Boxer as well.

I love it, I love all things Ted Leo. The man can do no wrong in my eyes.

The National - Cherry Tree EP

 

Man, I'm getting antsy waiting for The Boxer to leak...

Same on both both counts.

Here is an awesome video of About Today in the meantime:

http://mathieu.saura.free.fr/site/nuit/fil...TTODAYlo600.mov

The good songs are great, the bad songs are downright terrible. Hot Knives and Make a Plan to Love Me are possibly the worst two songs Conor has recorded since before even Letting Off the Happiness, and the production on the entire thing just drags it down. Just because you have a lot of money to spend making an album doesn't mean you should spend it. I'm just disappointed, I'm a big bright eyes fan but I think overall the ep blows and this, at the very least, is certainly his least consistent album yet.

Dude, album's been leaked for a few hours.

Damn, no New England dates

Just saw them in December but I'd see them again in a heartbeat.

This will be the worst album of the year for me hands down. It's awful: from Brock's awful singing on the opening track to the closing track an hour later (it feels like three days later) I was waiting for it to end.

Quick, name some non-epic length MM albums.

So far, it reminds me of a combination of Good News and The Moon & Antarctica. It's certainly a much more solid album than Good News, but still doesn't really live up to the quality of The Moon & Antarctica. I think people just need to get used to the fact that Modest Mouse isn't going to be hearkening back to the days of Long Drive anytime soon. The new stuff is enjoyable, just different, and arguably hard to accept if you're expecting their old sound.

Very true.

I really love it.

Sinister and Arab. Stay away from the live shows. Unless you need a good nap.

Yeah not the most thrilling band live, but I saw them play with the New Pornos and I had a really good time. It was on the Life Pursuit tour, and I think that album definitely lends to more dancing and general upbeatness. Plus my good friend Jose Cuervo accompanied me, so how could I have gone wrong?

The percussion on all of their songs is always sooo good.

And yeah, Mistaken for Strangers is out there as a pretty crappy radio rip.

I'm calling it: Boxer = Album of the Year!

outtasite lol, those lyrics go REAL DEEP.

 

i know you dont talk much but your such a good talker, ohhh whoaa

Hey, still better than Either Way or What Light.

Or, alternatively, there's nothing wrong with you, but you just don't like it.

Or you lack "proper vintage" and still suck because you don't like it. Duuuuuhh.

Sounds like Isaac being Isaac. I know he's always been a little out there but I hope he hasn't gone too far off the deep end.

But anyway, hooray for Lupo's in Providence, general admission tix

Such a bizarre album--sometimes pleasant, sometimes noisy, sometimes just strange...but almost always beautiful in a fragile and awkward kind of way.

Pretty much sums up Sparklehorse and why I love them

Not sure what your problem with this song is, but I think it is destined to be a classic. I mean it. You will hear it on radio stations 20 years from now.

 

I for one find it very refreshing to hear Jeff write some lyrics that are very simple and direct. I also find it very uplifting. Does that make it cheeseball? Maybe I'm just getting old....

It's not that they're direct, they are overly sentimental, simplistic and come off as contrived. Very cheesy, especially the "hey everyone, JUST SMILE and keep on keepin' on, you got this LIGHT thing inside of ya!" type message. Can't say I saw Jeff writing this song after what we got with YHF.

such a great album.

Somedaaaaaay, I will treat you good!

Usually advil and tums before bed cancels out any potential hangover for me, but the roommate and I usually start off Sunday mornings with the song of the same name by VU.