The Decemberists - The King is Dead

I can't say I've ever had a favorite Decemberists album. I love their first four albums all pretty much equally. Castaways and Cutouts introduced them as a unique band with poetic lyrics and intricate melodies. Her Magesty and Picaresque did pretty much the same. The Crane Wife was especially ambitious and progressed the band even further. Their fifth album The Hazards of Love has some fantastic songs (namely The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid, A Bower Scene, Won't Want For Love), but seems a little too over the top to be a Decemberists album. However, on The King is Dead, we can hear a refreshing return to their earlier material.

The opening track 'Don't Carry It All' sets the mood perfectly and makes it clear with its resonant harmonica and powerful harmonies that The Decemberists have scrapped the whole epic, dramatic progressive-rock sound from H.O.L, while still retaining the captivating, lively folk-rock sound that made me start listening to them in the first place. The next few songs keep the pace going and the vibrant melodies don't let down. Towards the end though, the songs start to get weary and a little bland, but luckily the last track 'Dear Avery' ends the album comfortably.

Clearly The Decemberists weren't looking for another huge album. They chose a very familiar route for this one, but in general the songs on the second half of it are fairly dull and too neutral to stand out. I don't like it as much as their first albums, but I could see myself listening to The King is Dead in the future, and it's certainly a good road trip album, like any Decemberists album.




Tracklist:
1. Don't Carry It All
2. Calamity Song
3. Rise to Me
4. Rox in the Box
5. January Hymn
6. Down By the Water
7. All Arise!
8. June Hymn
9. This Is Why We Fight
10. Dear Avery

-Julian

Best Breakout Performances of 2010

Best Breakout Performances of 2010
I am very proud of the performances of great leading men like Colin Firth and James Franco this year, but when it comes to the breakout performances of 2010, this one belongs almost entirely to the girls. I hope you enjoy the list.
-Brendan

5. Hailee Steinfeld-True Grit: I am not the biggest fan of the film True Grit, but what made the film so intriguing to me was the ability of this young actress to carry herself so well through such a gritty movie and still be able to look like the star next to leading men like Matt Damon and Jeff Bridges.
4. Emma Stone- Easy A: I have noticed this girl in her silly and ditzy performances as “that girl” in Superbad and Zombieland. But, I never would have expected the comedic talent of this actress. Her performance in Easy A made this dumb teen comedy completely hilarious dry humor and quips. I expect to see great things from this girl.
3. Andrew Garfield- The Social Network: This young Brit truly was one of the best parts of the social network for me and gave a very thought provoking performance as the Facebook founder’s unknown co-founder. If he was not up against such great supporting performances like Christian Bale, I would give this boy the Oscar
2. Chloe Mortez- Kick Ass: If you have seen the film Kick Ass, I don’t think I even have to explain the pure awesomeness of this girls performance. But, if you haven’t Chloe gave by far the most hilariously shocking performance as the murderous super hero, Hit-Girl. I have not seen her in the new vampire flick Let Me In, but I expect another mind blowing performance.
1. Mia Wasikowska- Alice in Wonderland, The Kids are Alright: I would like to be the first to start the campaign for this young actress to get an Oscar nod for her astounding performance in The Kids Are Alright. However, this young Aussie actor will remain under the radar for her performance as a girl truly losing her innocence, but she will remain in my mind the breakout actor of 2010.

January Songs

Here's something cool. Darren Hayman, who was the lead singer of Hefner, is releasing a song every day for the month of January on his blog. For those of you who don't know, Hefner was an indie rock band who release a couple of very good albums in the late 90s, and unfortunately broke up in 2002. You can check out the blog here. Most of the songs so far are pretty good. Who knows, maybe he'll release an album sometime this year.

Happy listening!

-Julian

Our Most Anticipated Albums of 2011

2011 is already looking good so far for music, with a bunch of great bands scheduling their new releases in January and February. The promising Decemberists and Cloud Nothings releases in January and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's new LP in March are just a couple albums that should keep us busy until several bigger releases with names we don't even know yet come out later this year (Coldplay and Radiohead, we're looking at you guys). We hope we'll like most of these, but even if we don't, we're sure there will be plenty of really important stuff to talk about this year.Here are some of the albums that we're looking forward to the most, grouped by month:

January:
Cake - Showroom of Compassion
Cloud Nothings – Cloud Nothings
The Decemberists – The King is Dead
Cold War Kids - Mine is Yours
Destroyer – Kaputt
Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
Smith Westerns – Dye it Blonde
Tapes n Tapes - Outside
Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil

February:
Bright Eyes – The People’s Key
Cut Copy – Zonoscope

March:
Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong
Panda Bear – Tomboy
Peter Bjorn and John - Gimme Some

Here are those previously mentioned albums that we don't know much about yet except they're coming out at some point this year. We hope.
The Shins – TBA
Radiohead – TBA
Death Cab for Cutie – TBA
The Strokes – TBA
Neon Indian – TBA
Santigold – TBA
Beck - TBA
Islands - TBA
Portishead - TBA

- Owen and Julian

Wilderness Survival - On Belay Belay On

If there was one record that had to sum up the decade in indie music, 'On Belay Belay On' would be it. It's not as though any bands in particular come to mind when I listen to Wilderness Survival, but it's more like a mesh of past indie bands that I hear. There's the sweet yet flat tracks like We Fall Asleep and Drive Me Wild, the dark and breathy vocals, and quick, often electronic beats. There isn't much that's notably unique about this mix, but the way that this band picks up elements of many different genres and strings them together so smoothly makes the likelihood of someone listening to the whole record instead of just one track that much higher.

Something else that I picked up on pretty quickly was how immediate the songs on this record are. This San Diego-based duo clearly aren't looking for deep, 3-dimensional songs that grow on you over time, but rather catchy songs that anyone can enjoy.

The one thing that kind of annoys me though is something I mentioned before, and that's the dark, slightly raspy vocal delivery, which bothers me on some tracks more than others, like Overnight, I Didn't, and Catch and Release. I just feel like I've heard that voice way too many times before.

Despite its few shortcomings, Wilderness Survival have made one of the most listenable albums of 2010. I can't decide whether this is necessarily a good or bad thing, but all I know is I'll be listening to this album several more times in the coming months. Maybe even in the coming years.



Listen to the album here.
Favorite tracks: All the Ways I Do, Hierarchy, We Cannot Lose, Byzantine Empire, Well Made Ads

-Julian