Twenty albums you should hear (Part III)

Islands - Return to the Sea

It took me a few listens to start liking this - probably because people had been recommending Islands to me since high school and there was no way it could live up to my expectations - but it's definitely good low-key dreampop.

One major complaint though - the first song, "Swans (Life After Death)" doesn't do anything for me. And it's nine minutes long. Bad start to the album, and perhaps that's what left a sour taste in my mouth for so long. It's not that I have a problem with long songs - "Bay of Pigs" and "Rubies" are two of my favourite Destroyer tunes, and they clock in at a combined 22 minutes - it's just that this one is low-key to the extreme and never really gets me into it.

Things pick up right away, though, as "Humans" kicks of a run of four awesome songs and seven good ones. "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby" is probably the catchiest of the bunch and a great starting point, while "Tsuxiit" is a fun little instrumental ditty. Fun summer music mostly.

It drags a bit at the end again - "If" and "Ones" are a bit too dreamy for my taste, and "Renaud" combines that with the cardinal bonus track sin of only starting after several minutes of silence.

Overall though, fun little album.

Metric - Fantasies

Obviously a great album. It won the CASBY award for Best Album of 2009, and who am I to disagree with an award I'd never heard of until a few months ago?

The problem is that the four songs released as singles thus far can all be found in the first six tracks - so if you go into this already knowing the singles, as I did, the back will really seem to drag and not be as good.

That's not to say that the back half is bad - it's a little less polished, as if the bulk of the production work was spent on the first half, but it's still strong female-fronted pop that at times borders rock. And actually, "Stadium Love" is quite good.

But let me just say a few words about the songs in the first half: They. Are. Freaking. Awesome. "Gimme Sympathy" is a little more low-key and would probably sound great acoustic, "Gold Guns Girls" and "Sick Muse" are just plain great, and "Help I'm Alive" is probably the weakest of the singles but still solid.

And, hey, a girl singer. Apparently I don't discriminate like that anymore.

The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

Considering how much I absolutely love everything these guys have ever done, it's surprising how easy it was for me to pick this album over the rest. Mass Romantic goes a little overboard with the zaniness, Challengers is a little too low-key and mellow, and Electric Version is close but ultimately not quite as just plain fun as this one.

We start off with the titular track, which is catchy, singalong-able (by design), and very high-tempo. Great song to kick off a concert, and of course good way to start the album. The follow-up is "The Bones of an Idol", which is a decent enough song that really sounds like it belongs on Challengers more than here.

Then we get into a frankly awesome run. "Use It" and "The Bleeding Heart Show" are two awesome songs which should catch on with anybody who ever hears them. The harmonies, the hooks, the repetitive catchy choruses - it's all there. "Jackie, Dressed In Cobras" is the first Dan Bejar contribution, and it works well because it's considerably less insane than what you usually throws on one these albums. Or maybe it just seems this way because Carl and Neko provide more vocals than usual for a Dan song.

"The Jessica Numbers" is a strong power-pop callback to the previous albums, and "These Are The Fables" is something completely unique in the NPs' catalogue - a Neko-sung ballad. The structure is really, really simple, but it's still a lovely song. The back end of the album is a little more disjointed - not bad songs, but they don't flow as nicely as the front half does. The album ends on "Stacked Crooked", which probably wins my vote for most underrated NPs song of all time.

Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

I...don't really know what to say about this one. It's indie, but it's not the sort of indie most of the rest of this list is. It's quirky, unorthodox, and highly sexual. I think you have to listen to it to fully understand what I'm talking about.

There are a few songs I particularly enjoy, so I'll comment on those and ignore the rest. Nothing terribly bad though.

"Nonpareil of Favor" is the first track, and it's a false start of sorts - it makes you think this might just be another album full of typical indie love songs, albeit a good one. And maybe a little more instrumental than most. This idea is shattered in the first line of the next song, "Wicked Wisdom" - and the second, and the third, and pretty much every recognizable line in that song.

"For Our Elegant Caste" has a chorus where the obviousness of the hinting at bisexuality is matched only by its ridiculous level of catchiness, "An Eluardian Instance" is back to heterosexuality, and "Gallery Piece" is obtuse in whether it's meant as a love song or a love/hate song.

"Women's Studies Victims" is oddly catchy for being more-or-less spoken word. Same goes for "And I've Seen A Bloody Shadow". "Death Is Not A Parallel Move" sticks out as being a little more electro than most of the album, "Beware Our Nubile Miscreants" is a little more overt than most of the album, and "Id Enganger" is a little more fun than the rest of the album.

A couple other notes - the funk influence is kind of neat, and some songs do have that thing going on where they were probably originally two or three separate songs. Still a fun, if somewhat different, album.

R.E.M. - Out Of Time

It's no Abbey Road, but it's the other old album on this list. (I thought the Tragically Hip's Up To Here made the cut, but apparently not.)

I have a bit of a bias towards this album because it was a standard for me to drum along to when I was starting out with that. Doesn't change that it narrowly beats Automatic For The People as my favourite R.E.M. album.

"Radio Song" is an unusual song, at least by R.E.M. standards - a slower opening half followed by a rap collaboration with KRS-One of all people. "Losing My Religion" is up next, and it's a pretty well-known song, so I won't say much about it other than that it was probably the first song I ever liked the lyrics of. "Low" is, well, low - moody, short on instruments, but still enjoyable.

"Near Wild Heaven" is a fun song where ten-year-old me thought it sounded like the band was having a party, plus I like hearing Mike Mills on lead vocals. "Endgame" is again something different - certainly not a pop song, a bit of Stipe scat singing, also a lead trumpet solo. (I'm a firm believer that any song can be improved with a trumpet solo, this will be the subject of a future post.)

I'm not as familiar with the rest of the album, because my parents had it on tape and I usually just listened to the A-side most of the time. "Shiny Happy People" is what it is, obviously. "Belong" has spoken word vocals and nice Mills/Buck harmonies, probably the most underrated song on the album in my opinion. "Texarkana" is another catchy Mills-sung tune, and I don't have much to say about the rest.

And this is probably the only review ever of Out Of Time not to include the word 'mandolin'.

...dammit.

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A couple quick programming notes.

The final batch of five albums will make these seem like the ultimate of the mainstream.

Tomorrow is Grey Cup day. I definitely will not be doing a liveblog the way I have previous years - essay season is unfortunately in full swing, and I've already set aside a couple of hours for Chelsea/Arsenal (I've turned into a soccer fan, apparently).

If I watch the game, there's a better-than-decent chance I'll give livetweeting a try, so follow me on Twitter or something.

For the record, I think it's the Als' year.

Also, Andrew Coyne is anti-feminist. As usual with Coyne, I don't disagree.

--Ryan