Toronto - Oh Ben Gibbard, your soft voice and softer sound have made moody adolescents swoon for nearly a decade now and while most casual fans anxiously await a second Postal Service album (or even a tour), you choose to continue with your original band - Death Cab For Cutie. That’s damn loyal. 2008 brings another DCFC album - Narrow Stairs.

After several listens, my opinion of this album is a bit meh. It sounds pretty much what I expected, only more mellow. I guess this comes with age, but when you are Death Cab, you can only be that laid back, anymore and you would fall over due to gravity. I guess this album has what is called a ’stripped down sound’. Very high on the vocals, with the amps on the instruments turned to ‘5′. There are very few tunes (”Long Division”, “Pity and Fear”) that will have you bobbing your head, maybe thats intentional, since most Death Cab fans probably spend hours in front of the mirror getting their hair just right, you don’t want to ruin that for a potentially danceable tune.

The lyrics for this album remain truly Death Cab, and I can totally see teenagers writing something like

These times I think of leaving
But it’s something I’ll never do
‘Cause you can do better than me
But I can’t do better than you

to each other. I enjoyed their last album - Plans, more then this one. I dunno, Ben Gibbard’s vocal range is fairly limited so any time you layer his voice, with his distinctive lyrics on top of some mellow music - you pretty much get a Death Cab song. That’s pretty much what you get with this album, and maybe because theres been six other albums already, its hard to get all excited about something that sounds pretty much the same, but slightly different. Having Pity and Fear cut off seemingly mid song is rather annoying too.

Death Cab For Cutie joins powers with Stars for “Indie Chick Fest 2008″ on the Island June 7 and tickets are around 56$.

 

 Death Cab For Cutie - Long Division: Play Now

Toronto - If you have followed this blog, you will know that I have been following this Hadouken! band for awhile now. I first discovered them sometime ago while hitting up their singles ‘Liquid Lives’ and ‘Tuning In’/ Well, after the inevitable one year delay between discovery and actual cd coming into production, the Leeds band finally puts out their debut LP - Music For An Accelerated Culture. It came out Tuesday.

One thing is for certain, the title is definitely appropriate for album. From the opening beat of ‘Get Smashed Gate Crash’ to the closing sounds of ‘Wait For You’, this is one album that does not take its foot off the gas pedal. Incorporating dance beats over some electro bleeps with James Smith spitting semi-rap semi singing vocals, Hadouken! takes what works off their singles and layers them over the entire album. Unfortunately, as we all have discovered in the past few years - a few good singles does not really translate into a good album and I think this is the case.

I found that a lot of the songs sound pretty much the same, and a whole 11 song onslaught of nu-ravey music is too much for my taking. There are some good tracks (’Declaration of War’ is awesome), but I didn’t really find enough variation between the tracks to keep me interested for the entire album which only clocks in at 36 minutes. I guess in the end it just sounded like noise to me. However, if you are a 19 year old neon wearing hipster from the burbs or enrolled in new media arts college, this might be perfect for you.

2/5

Anyways, here is a single of theres that was on Kitsune compilation

 

 Hadouken! - Tuning In (H! Re-Rub remix): Play Now

I love Kathleen Edwards. I have been wanting to review here latest, Asking For Flowers, for quite some time now. Seeing Kathleen grace the cover of the Canadian music essential publication Exclaim! this month finally got me off my ass.

Kathleen is an Ontario based Canadian singer/songwriter. Compared to other singer/songwriters, there is something about Kathleen that really makes her stand out . She isn’t as alternative as Basia Bulat, not at country as Christine Fellows and not as poppy as Sarah Harmer. Kathleen is just a fantastic, honest singer who will send the shivers up your spine.

In her Exclaim! interview she mentions that the last thing she wants to do is write about her life. This really surprised me as I would assume that all her songs would be personal ones. I mean, what else do singer/songwriters have to sing about? After listening to Back To Me in 2003 I thought to myself, ‘Shit, somebody hurt this girl real bad’, and as a male listening to it, I felt guilty for something that some other asshole did to her. On Asking For Flowers, Kathleen can still pierce you with some gut wrenching, honest lyrics, which is what she does best and why I keep listening. I still get the feeling that she is hurting, but now, in 2008, she is going to kick somebody ass because of it.

Here is my favorite track from Asking For Flowers, Sure As Shit. Girls who play guitar and swear get the OK from the Panic Manual.

You sure as shit
Know me better than anybody else
And for that in my heart I am hopeful
So I helped you pack your bags
And I folded up your snap shirts
And when you come back it will already be the winter
If you look at other girls working out in the night time
I don’t mind but I don’t want to know

I just cried a little.

 

 Kathleen Edwards - Sure As Shit (2008): Play Now

Toronto - I will admit, I am extremely late to the My Morning Jacket train, despite having friends professing their love for them for years. I always thought they were just southern hick band. Obviously I was wrong. So when I got a chance to take a sneak peek at the latest MMJ offering - Evil Urges, I put it on without much of a thought.

Boy. This album is good. Really good. It sounds like everything. After doing some reading on the album, I found out that this album was more experimental and that the lead singer Jim James wanted the album to sound more like their live shows. If this is what their live shows sound like - sign me up.

The album has a little bit of everything, yea some songs sound southern (”I’m amazed”,”sec walkin”) but theres some songs that also sound like an 80s ballad (the awesome “Smokin from Shootin”), hell you could argue some sounds sound like Prince (”Touch me..”). The lyrics to the romantic number “The Librarian” even has the word “interweb” in it. How could you go wrong? This album just seems to have it all and even at the longish album time (about one hour) it goes by quite quickly.

Highly recommended: 4.5/5

 

 My Morning Jacket - Librarian: Play Now

Toronto - Three words: Made of Stone. What do you associate with this? The Freakin Stone Roses. That is true for 90% of the people who read the blog. The other 10% are people who look at statues and wonder what they are made of, so they look at the label on the black of the statue and read “Made of Stone…. also Made in China”.

So when I found out that Toronto’s own Spiral Beach releasing a single called “Made of Stone“, I was like ..sweet a cover tune. Obviously its not a cover tune, so I was like ‘n***** whaaaaaa’. After recovering from the initial shock, I realize that this tune is pretty decent and features and has a nice “seventies in the midst of a drug haze” vibe to it. Which is weird, because Spiral Beach consists of a bunch of teenagers.

Anyways, Spiral Beach has a new album out called “Ball”. Actually it was released in October last year. .. man I am behind. They’ll be playing the Opera House on May 17.

 

 Spiral Beach - Made of Stone: Play Now

Toronto - Named after one of my favorite Street Fighter moves, Hadouken is a dance rock band from Leeds. They excel in that kinda nu rave genre that is all the rage in england these days, and their concerts will probably make anyone who goes feel old. Even if you are 12. Yup. You might have heard of them last year, as they had some success with the songs ‘Tuning In’ and ‘Liquid Lives’. A great ‘Tuning In’ Remix was on the always great Kitsune Maison Compilation last year as well.

Anyways, I think this band has some moderate promise and I have enjoyed their tunes. They have a new album called ‘Music For An Accelerated Culture’ dropping in a month or two and here is a single off of it - its got a great title. Its called ‘Declaration of War’ and its a lot better then the emo sounding ‘leap of faith’ song from a few months ago.

 

 Hadouken! - Declaration of War: Play Now

 

 Spain - Easy Lover: Play Now

PS. This is probably coincidence but man does the opening riff of the song sound like the opening riff of the Spain song ‘Easy Lover’ Check it out.