Evidently, Radiohead’s reputation for industry-questioning release strategies (or lack there-of) precedes them, so upon the release of The King Of Limbs, rush releasing the album within 5 days of its announcement was just not enough. Perhaps making a mockery of the rigid structure of release dates currently employed in the industry, the decision has been made to, instead, release the album today digitally. Whether they are trying to make a point or not is purely obsessive speculation, but, whatever the motive… The end result is the same, and I’m not particularly close to complaining about getting a new Radiohead album a day early… Although if they could be slightly more thoughtful next time and consider my blood pressure, state of my arteries and general health, that would just complete the package.

As exciting as this prospect is, it’s also a slightly terrifying one, for having a predecessor with the stature of  In Rainbows doesn’t forgive you for your mistakes, but highlights and heightens them…  Despite the hysteria and hype surrounding another unconventional release, as soon as the downloading has been done and you realise that there’s another 80mb of Radiohead sat in your computer, the  unavoidable question starts to emerge; where, in Radiohead’s arguably unequalled hegemony of albums, does The King of Limbs sit?

The answer was never going to be clear or predictable – two qualities that Radiohead, and The King of Limbs, are mercifully free of. And it was never going to be conclusive either, or even an answerable or relevant question. But it’s just unavoidable. The fragmented drums and directionless wanderings of keyboard of album opener “Bloom” seem almost wilfully obtuse, whilst the rest of the album relaxes into more methodical songwriting, whilst still bearing the typical hallmarks of Yorke’s creativity.

Elsewhere, “Lotus Flower” was presented today as something of a lead-single of the album by the release of its slightly not-worth-watching (and definitely not worth repeating at 2am in any city of the world) video, a move explained by a rumbling bassline that will have anybody who thinks that they are very cutting edge describing as “post-dubstep”. We’re also especially pleased to announce that the very obsessed soul who identified the song that Thom Yorke played in Cambridge last year as “Give Up The Ghost” was, indeed, correct. What he didn’t know was that the whole thing would sound hundreds of times better with the warmth of Johnny Greenwood’s”Reckoner” reminiscent guitar. Preceded by the stunning “Codex”, though, it’s tough to appreciate. A paradox of a quietly throbbing synthetic beat, and simple stripped down piano chords backed by Yorke’s wail, it works unbelievably well. They may not have been the first to mix acoustic and electronic, but as always, when they’re not the pioneers themselves, they’ve surpassed all previous attempts. In fact, The King of Limbs could very well be seen as a reconciliation of the physical and electronic aspects of music, and as dubstep lurches and folk reclines at opposite ends of Radio 1’s A Playlist, this reminder that the two can be perfect bedfellows could be a perfectly timed example.

It’s clear that Radiohead have avoided trotting out 8 “Radiohead-ish” tracks on The King of Limbs and simply cashing in on an eccentric release strategy that has the world’s media in rapt attention, and for that we can only do them the decency of appreciating the album as its own. Endless comparisons with In Rainbows will abound but are nothing but futile analysis – In Rainbows is its own great album, and The King of Limbs is a fascinating piece of music, but ‘great’? Investing time is the only way to tell, and the least we can do is hold off complete judgement until minutes and hours have revealed what the album has to offer, regardless of the instantaneous nature of 2011’s music journalism. All we can say for sure is that “Lotus Flower”’s video definitely proves that Thom Yorke has still not discovered 2011’s equivalent of the Macarena. The search continues.

Radiohead – Little By Little by Not Many Experts

Post-’Only By The Night‘ loathing aside, I feel pretty sorry for Kings of Leon. Where it was once ‘cool’ to swear by the Tennesse foursome, it is now the absolute antithesis: street credibility is whipped away faster than Tiger Woods’ endorsements at the mere mention of enjoying the BRIT award-winning “Only By The Night“.

Predictably then, the expectation surrounding “Come Around Sundown” has been massive, both from the relatively new fanbase won over by the mid-atlantic pop-rock churned out on the previous record, and the disgruntled die-hards, eager for another “Aha Shake Heartbreak“.

As a consequence, KoL find themselves very much in a hard place in terms of the reception of this album; it seems nigh-on impossible for both audiences to be satisfied at the same time. 7 or 8 listens through however, it seems as though the band have attempted the impossible. For the fans introduced to KoL through the commercial industry’s exhaustive use of “Sex On Fire” and “Use Somebody” however, the less polished southern indie-pop of “Come Around Sundown” seems far less likely to once more induce mass-hysteria. I hope. For the die-hards yearning to hear Caleb’s once-beloved indecipherable vocals over heart-meltingly badass riffs (see King of the Rodeo, California Waiting), the news is not great. Save for one brief thirty second stint at the beginning of lead single ‘Radioactive‘, there are not many (if any) old school KoL moments. It seems to me that in so obviously aiming at the middle ground, “Come Around Sundown” achieves a kind of southern rock/pop puree that will inevitably satisfy neither die-hards or casuals fully.

However, despite counting myself as a die-hard fan, hooked from the first minute I heard “Red Morning Light” on “Youth & Young Manhood“, I like this album. Sure, it’s nowhere near the standard the band set themselves earlier in their career, but other than satisfying the cult listenership the band already held, what would be the point in returning to that sound after an album like “Only By The Night“, for which they probably received more attention, and more importantly, money from than all of their other records combined? Who can blame them for revelling in the limelight? For all that it is not a ‘masterpiece’. Sonically, from start to finish it is a pleasant experience, with tracks like “Pyro” and “Birthday” sure to be sneaking up the “Top 25 Most Played” on your iTunes for the remainder of the year. Love them or loathe them, you can never abandon them.

Kings of Leon – The End by NotManyExperts

Magnetic Man’s debut came out on Monday, an event of course overshadowed by my review of it being unveiled on the same day on The Line Of Best Fit. To be concise, it’s conclusion was lukewarm to the point where I can’t see it troubling the upper echelons of mine, or indeed anybody else’s, end of year album lists. Nevertheless, it’s worth a look if you’re seriously into the overblown wobble sound (I am not), but Skream’s “Outside The Box” (released earlier this year) is a much better example of major label “dubstep”. Better still, be controversially two-years-behind and download Benga’s “Diaries of an Afro Warrior” or Burial’s “Untrue”. If I haven’t put you off enough, you can read the original here or peruse it below.

“Despite there being nothing more annoying than a trust-funded, Topman covered, squat-posing hipster babbling that “dubstep is the future” based on the evidence of Katy B’s new single, these particular brainless bandwagon humpers are probably right. A whole generation of youth are eschewing guitar lessons to familiarise themselves with Ableton or Logic, and given the increasingly technological-centric nature of society within the past decade or so, this trend is fairly inevitable. Yet this alone cannot be counted as an argument in favour of Magnetic Man’s debut album; unfortunately for them, their pasts as Skream, Benga and Artwork bring enormous expectations and the question to be asked is whether they’ve done themselves justice, or whether they’ve thrown together generic radio fodder and laughed all the way to their next Radio 1 session.

Well… the answer isn’t quite as straightforward as the question. Without a doubt, the trio have nothing to be embarrassed about; next single ‘Perfect Stranger’ is going to propel them once more chartwards via its scattering beats and a vocal from woman of the minute (hopefully literally) Katy B, whilst ‘The Bug’ brings a darker and more refined sound to proceedings that will satisfy cynical dubstep connoisseurs. Admittedly, there are isolated mistakes.’Box Of Ghosts’ fails to go anywhere remotely interesting, but it’s ‘Fire’ that is particularly disastrous, though this is undoubtedly down to Ms Dynamite’s laptop-smashingly irritating nasal vocal delivery. It sounds particularly weak following the unexpected wrong-footing of album opener ‘Flying Into Tokyo’ on which they resist the urge to drop straight into towering beats, and instead carefully conduct violins and glockenspiels, creating a beautifully unconventional opening track.

This, though, is where their foray into the unconventional ends, which, given their intimidating skills, could be seen as a wasted opportunity. But it shouldn’t be. Never was this supposed to be an album that dragged dubstep forwards. Their union with Columbia was (and they have gladly admitted it themselves) to all intents and purposes a contrived effort to bring dubstep to the masses, to have it headlining festivals and dominating clubs. In this respect, undoubtedly they have succeeded, though to name a track ‘Anthemic’ is trying slightly too hard, despite its accuracy. ‘I Need Air’ has already quietly become a bellowing animal of lurching dubstep that is regularly tearing apart clubs, and there are plenty more album tracks like ‘Mad’ and ‘Crossover’ which are more than capable of shaking foundations and rupturing ears like Magnetic Man intended.

Their success, of course, will bring detractors. There will be those who talk of the beauty of dubstep being its underground, counter-cultural and sinister roots. Undoubtedly, these people are desperately trying to stick a label on a cultural phenomenon that is impossible to define; the word “dubstep” itself has already become a meaningless term. In actual fact, Magnetic Man draw on garage, UK funky and drum and bass as much as they do sub bass. This obsession with the term “dubstep” is superficial – it’s this season’s musical fashion and on those grounds it must be ignored for Magnetic Man’s ability to craft terrifying, buoyant electronic music with a tangible sense of emotion transcends genre boundaries. Despite this, the rise of this genre of music to ubiquity is irrepressible, whether we feel the need to call it “dubstep” or not, and if Magnetic Man are the trio who ring in this change, well, we could do a lot worse.”

Magnetic Man – Karma Crazy by NotManyExperts

Everything Everything have only made one blatant mistake on “Man Alive”; it wasn’t released in 2006. Sitting in 2010’s strange stable of musical fads, and without a chill waves or lo-fi in sight, you could be forgiven for seeing them as slightly out of place. But you shouldn’t do. Undoubtedly they’re not the most fashionable of bands. Radio 1 like them far too much. They’re signed to a major label. Their gigs probably contain more than one attractive teenage girl, which, as you will all know, is one too many for the pretentious and discerning muso. But “Man Alive”, for all its staunch refusal to conform to these fashions, is a gloriously conventional record. That they chose to open with “MY KZ UR BF” is as much a clear statement of intent as you’re likely to get from them; “Man Alive” is packed with hooks, and unless you are amongst the most pretentious of music fans then this can hardly be seen as a problem.

Elsewhere they are far more restrained, however, and its this restraint that saves “Man Alive” from the same fate as so many indie rock bands. “Tin (The Manhole)” is the finest piece of music on the album, a starry-eyed paean to, apparently, a fox. We won’t question their motives. Most surprisingly, although the album is more accessible than a scouse woman after half a bottle of vodka, it would be a challenge to pick another single after those that they’ve already released. They’ve got the balance between big pop songs and the more introverted lyric-driven tracks absolutely right, and the album is far more interesting and unselfconscious as a result.

Year of release aside, the only enormous complaint to be made is of portentous album closer “Weights” which sounds just as embarrassingly earnest as it did as the closer to their live set, although the lyric of “I can tell you how this ends” after 5 directionless minutes takes on a satisfying new vein of irony with repeated plays. They’re easily forgiven though, as the rest of “Man Alive”, without managing to be ambitious, is an enormously fun album that the posturing muso in all of us can quietly enjoy in the knowledge that it has just enough depressing songs to not even be a guilty pleasure. Whether or not “Man Alive” will slowly turn Everything Everything into the platinum-selling band that the BBC Sound of 2010 and their record label envisaged, I could not possibly say, but neither would I want to – “Man Alive” has enough quirky twists and turns to keep us interested whilst they slowly work out where they’re going.

Everything Everything – Tin (The Manhole) by NotManyExperts

Everything Everything – MY KZ UR BF

Nobody asked the Mystery Jets to redefine our perceptions of music with third album “Serotonin”, and they haven’t. In a way, “Serotonin” is predictably accessible, slightly left-field art-pop that should be leapt upon like the drug itself by owners of skinny jeans and emotions. Yet the middle third of the album is a heart tearing bicep of a musical centre that contains, without a doubt, some of their best material yet. Around the edges, things threaten to slip into familiar hazed 80s pop, but are saved by the bands’ slightly dyspraxic twitchings and irresistible melodies. The label’s changed, but the game’s the same; Mystery Jets continue to, if not redefine music, then shift the margins of quality in British guitar music with this fine return.

Mystery Jets – Serotonin by NotManyExperts

I felt the need to flog this dead horse just a little more. As has been painstakingly recorded, “Lights” is nothing special. In short, yeah, it’s a decent pop album, but the trouble with investing in a very precise and unvaried (perhaps gimmicky) style is that, in effect, you end up with 10 songs, 4 of which are very good, and the other 6 won’t be given the time of day by anyone with two ears connected to a brain. That said, this approach is bound to bring Ellie Goulding enormous success beyond anything that even the most optimistic bloggers imagined early last year. Bit of a depressing paradox; banality = success.

There’s a slightly uneasy feeling throughout that the whole electro-pop cliché has become far too forced. Ironically, it also brings the album some of its more original moments thanks to the exceptional production of Starsmith (see new version of “Wish I Stayed”), but it slowly becomes tired when laboured over the entire album.

Without sounding too presumptuous, “This Love” is going to destroy this year in commercial terms, “Wish I Stayed” and Starsmith’s stuttering chorus production has similar potential, and we always knew that “Starry Eyed” and “Under The Sheets” were decent pop songs, but…. beyond that? Quite literally, beyond that there’s very little to waste your seconds on, except 6 slightly inferior, but never bad, variations on a theme du jour.

I wouldn’t call it a backlash… In actual fact, all anyone really predicted was that Ms Goulding has a lot of talent. And she does, you’d be a fool to argue against that, however the emphasis of “Lights” is clearly fixated on commercial success over a full realisation of her enormous potential, and for that reason, “Lights” is bound to be forgotten. The debut album that never happened.

Adapted from something that I wrote here. Yes, I really am that lazy, and no, I wasn’t joking.

By the way, I hope you appreciate that I avoided the two stock introductions to Ellie Goulding reviews:

1. “I am very very clever and first wrote about Ellie Goulding in the year 150BC, here.”
2. “Due to recently being named the BBC Sound of 2010 and winning a Brit Award, there was always going to be a lot of hype surrounding Ellie Goulding. The question is, though, has she lived up to the hype?!?!?!?!?!”. Cue disappointing review in which they will probably conclude that, no, she has not.

If you are very well mannered, old fashioned or intrigued then you can buy the album here. I’ll be honest, I can think of a lot worse ways to spend £10 and at no point did I say it was a bad album; just disappointing. But you know… music’s subjective and all that so part with your cash and see what you think.

Hype. Terrible thing, really. In fact, it’s almost become a derogatory term. The thing is, hype can make you so appealing to professional journos flailing around in an overcrowded sea of “music critics” (let’s face it, having the intellectual athleticism to make a few clicks on blogger.com does not make you Pete flipping Paphides) that they are driven to fling out record reviews earlier and earlier, attempting to beat the keyboard wielding masses. Unfortunately, though, this culture of desperation breeds only a tendency to fling out shittier and shittier malformed opinions of records that they, often, have yet to get their heads around. So be this the case with Marina and the Diamonds, who, as it is mercilessly intoned in review upon review, is from Abergavenny, not that 99% of the population actually know where that is, nor that it reveals the mysteries of her debut album, “The Family Jewels”. They must get paid by the word, these days. Perhaps obscure Welsh villages come with bonus points.

Some of these early reviews came with a general air of derision and disappointment, yet failed to properly articulate where the problems lay. This led to a blanket complaint of Marina’s apparent “grating voice” (The Times, BBC, The Guardian) , an excuse that seems to serve as little more than a vague attempt to explain why these critics and their sensitive (and now grated) ears weren’t happy. Though it is, of course, a matter of taste, the suggestion that her vocal delivery is offensive is absolutely ludicrous; original, different, slightly appealingly masculine, yes, but “grating”? Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that banality is the unchallenged norm in popular music, when a sly trace of originality is treated like a venereal disease by professional critics.

The Times’ Mark Edwards goes on to suggest that Marina’s song writing lacks innovation, whilst X Factor puppets and auto-tuned R&B ironically climbs the charts in the background, and singles out “Are You Satisfied” as a “potential hit”. If nothing else, this alone constitutes enough evidence to convict the reviewer of a little too much haste; “Are You Satisfied” is unarguably streets behind “Oh No”, “Girls” or “Shampain” in terms of commercial appeal.

The BBC doesn’t start off promisingly by opening with berating Marina for being “not weird”, and then labelling her “insane” in the following paragraph. After the customary mentions of this mysterious “grating voice” and the token reference to Abergavenny, Marina is then accused of having a “massive ego”, thanks to the first line of “Oh No”; “Don’t do love, don’t do friends / I’m only after success”. The BBC clearly didn’t notice that this line was delivered uncharacteristically po-faced, yet the following line of “Don’t want money, don’t want cars / want it fast, want it hard” emerges from an explosion of those “grating”, ballsy Marina vocals. Now, call me presumptuous, but my GCSE in English Literature suggests to me that it is the second of the two couplets that is Marina talking… Of course I am not an internet-naive caveman and understand that a BBC journalist is going to get the album even before it leaks online, but the fact that the review was delivered on 12th February (after editing) can only indicate that the journalist was strangely interested in getting one up on those shit munching bloggers waiting for a leak.

The Independent’s review, meanwhile, put to bed these infantile suggestions of a “grating voice” and instead approached the record from a very different perspective. Unfortunately, this perspective was to talk about The Dresden Dolls for as long as legally possible, then reluctantly making some disinterested comments about “The Family Jewels”, before, presumably, finishing the irksome work of reviewing new music and returning to ploughing through The Dresden Dolls’ back catalogue. When not talking about other bands, though, the review is once again pioneering in the nature of its criticism, choosing to approach the album by ignoring irrelevant musical content and, instead, evaluating the obscurity of each song title. Our reviewer observes that a song about feeling numb is called “Numb”, and that another about being rootless is called “Rootless”, quite shockingly, before concluding with the opinion that a song about being guilty is called “Guilty” and, therefore, this album can only be shallow, unintelligent drivel. If we don’t take these “criticisms” at face value, we can assume that he seems to think that a lack of subtlety is the album’s problem. Yet he complete fails to either listen to or understand the irony of the song “Hollywood”, and instead complains about the obviousness Marina “wearing stars and stripes” in the song’s video… Apparently, it is not Marina who lacks the intellectual depth, but this particular reviewer who is in need of picking up on some of the record’s subtleties. It’s going to take a fucking lot of tedious su doku to exercise that grey matter, Simon Price.

Ultimately, “The Family Jewels” has been somewhat shunned by a select section of the professional press who seem diametrically opposed to pop music of any nature, only willing to praise a succession of bookish acts with the intellectual stamina of Radiohead or Battles.  Fortunately, there is a large contingent of the press who are not embroiled in a restless search for the musical equivalent of a PhD dissertation on the thermodynamics of a lump of metal (ie, fucking boredom), and instead can do nothing but commend Marina for bringing a conscience back to a pop music landscape that was quickly becoming a succession of vacuous noises devoid of any sincerity or intelligence. Thankfully, these reviews appreciating the album for its importance to pop music far outweigh this limp dicked micro-cosm of reviews who seem to have convinced themselves that Marina has vocal chords capable of damaging ears, and that you’d be better off listening to The Dresden Dolls. I stated quite unpoetically back in January that “we need a pop star like Marina”, and whilst Dickens might have delivered it in a more, well, Dickensian manner, and Wilde would have found it easy to spin this truth out into a cunning epithet, sometimes subtlety and spin are far less important than the hard-hitting, straight-talking facts.

PS: You can, and should, buy the album here. Illegal downloading is so not fashionable anymore, but you can stream a few tracks above.

Frontman Jack Barnett will breathlessly tell anyone who will listen that he can’t stand unlistenable experimental music, yet “Hidden” is a record that keeps it’s alluring dark heart very well concealed. It’s far from an obvious album that will relinquish itself to you; if you’re going to enjoy it, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty. Given the time though, “Hidden” gives itself up as a record with more than its fair share of familiar pleasures. In fact, once past the early awkward stage and being slightly terrified by the mammoth drums that cave in from every song, “Hidden” appears incredibly listenable, catchy even, and seems to prove all of Barnett’s philosophies. Sorry for doubting you, Jack – not only were you right, but you seem to have made the first great album of the year, as well.

Buy from Rough Trade.

The trusty BBC say in the opening salvo on the seven-years-in-the-making “Heligoland” that:

“While an army of griping fans and sniping critics will argue that Heligoland doesn’t match their early triumphs, or break as much new ground, there will be younger listeners who hear it as something entirely new and recognise it for the gloomily, beguiling beauty it is.”

And so, seeing as my knowledge of Massive Attack doesn’t extend beyond a few fleeting moments of “Teardrops” that my parents used to play from time to time, I genuinely feel quite privileged that I’m so ignorant to Massive Attack’s past that I can approach “Heligoland” almost entirely objectively, with little or no expectations, and so appreciate it for the sparsely alluring record that it is.

Massive Attack’s influences, or, so I am told, those who have been influenced by Massive Attack, emanate from every other song. TV On The Radio, Burial, Radiohead and Portishead are all obvious reference points, but “Heligoland” is so expertly spun out that it doesn’t come close to sounding like a diverse collection of plagiarisms. Instead, it rings of a subtly original and carefully pieced together album; very much a proper record that was meant to be heard as a whole.

In fact, though I gather that “Heligoland” does little to break away from Massive Attack’s back catalogue, its gaunt mix of shadowy beats and casual lyrics effortlessly capture the paranoid spirit of today. From small beat pioneers to the dubby zeitgeist of murky modern day life; Massive Attack have stopped short of breathless originality, but “Heligoland” remains an enormous, funereal achievement that should be appreciated without any unrealistic expectations.

Toro Y Moi’s “Causers Of This” is far from a classic, with a couple of tracks lapsing into the dangerous territory of being little more than vaguely chillwave-ish, yet when he gets his hazy beats just right, “Causers Of This” is completely unmissable. Worth your attention for the many moments of brilliance studded throughout an album that, if nothing else, promises much more from Toro Y Moi.

Sorry to be so concise, exam in a few days!

“Causers Of This” is out on February 23rd on Carpark and you can pre-order here.

I recently threw down some (many) words for the popular and very well respected Liverpool based music blog getintothis concerning Spoon’s new album. You can read the track-by-track review here , and then sample a couple of my highlights below. My review was positive, but I’ll leave the conclusion about the album open to you – “Transference” is, if nothing else, interesting for the way in which it has split opinion. Some call it the sound of a band disinterested even with themselves, whilst many believe it to be yet another solid album from experimental indie rock’s most consistent providers; what do you think?

Beach House’s latest, “Teen Dream” has been a receiving a well deserved hammering from my iTunes ever since it inadvertently tripped its way into my computer at the end of last year. With the actual physical and legal (and thus a bit less exciting) album dropping on Monday, I thought that now was as good a time as any to let you know that, if you don’t get yourself properly acquainted with Teen Dream, you’re going to be missing out on an album that would have easily fitted well into the upper levels of last year’s end of year lists. Actually, I did see someone who had got the leak and didn’t realise it wasn’t out until January who had put it in their “Best Albums of 2009” list. I guess that tells you all you need to know, really.

For those of you who aren’t happy with the casual and lazy reassurance that lots of other people like it, Beach House are the calmly retreating waves of woozily brilliant dream-pop that are being over-run by the scores of the ADD-affected synth-pop bands who are quickly becoming the flotsam and jetsam in this particular over-laboured analogy. And whilst it might be the case that Beach House are (quietly) railing against the mooted “sound of 2010” (synths, keyboards, infantile yelps), this only serves to single them out as effortlessly original. Most importantly, though, whether in the context of 2010 or not, the songs speak for themselves with a hazy strength and pop genius that underlies their placid composition. For this reason alone, “Teen Dream” is an album that promises to out-live hastily prepared end of year round ups.

I was about the write a ground-breakingly wise review of Delphic’s debut album “Acolyte” (released a couple of days ago on Polydor), epitomising the record with just a few well chosen words, but then I realised that:

• I would probably ramble on past the ideal of “few well chosen words” and end up with an obese and messy essay.
• More importantly, Breaking More Waves had already said everything that I wanted to say, exactly how I wanted to say it. Do have a gander.

To be brief (as I have sort of promised I would), “Acolyte” is certainly worth your time, and it really is a very well executed piece of music. There’s no doubt that they have developed quite a distinct and original sound that genuinely is half-way between indie and dance, but it’s a sound that’s almost ruthlessly efficient and faceless, at the risk of being difficult to connect with. That said, there are many real moments of promise here, not least when they let go of their inhibitions with the incredibly layered album closer “Remain”, and its refrain of “Give it all / just to get it”. In fact, it is vocalist James Cook’s lyricism and urgency that lift “Acolyte” to being very good; for every metallic wave of synth, there’s a lyric loaded with warmth and spirit.

In a cliché; easy to like, but hard to love – Delphic have definitely proved that all of their hype was well deserved, without surpassing any expectations. Don’t let this put you off though, “Acolyte” is an album that you need to hear, if only for the many moments of brilliance that seem to promise that, with just a little more humanity, Delphic are capable of much, much more.

Buy Acolyte from Rough Trade here.

These next two are completely essential:

PS; sorry, I tried not to write a review, but it ended up being too difficult not too.

As much as I enjoy being away, I can’t help coming back thanks to the promise of free music. The Christmas period is always relaxing, but there comes a time in early January when the hypem.com charts are clogged with music from everyone’s “Best Of” lists and remixes by bands that nobody has even heard of yet, and all that you can wish for is that the whole faux-religious festival would just go away so that albums can start leaking again and musicians can start twanging and banging (drums) again.

Speaking of leaking, Yeasayer’s second album, “Odd Blood”, will be in stores in early February, and you will be able to exchange bits of paper for bits of plastic then, but if you are impatient or still pretending to be poor in order to avoid your conscience, then I do believe that it is currently freely available on the internet. I would know this because, as a white middle class male, I have convinced myself that I am a poor student and have acquired said megabytes through the medium of crafty use of Google. I would very highly recommend you doing the same, as “Odd Blood” is the first great album that 2010 has offered me. Which, considering we are only a few days in, is hardly a bad deal.

I am afraid that I am far too tired to scribe out a proper review, and I also can’t help feeling that reviews are the unnecessarily formal poison that fills the NME, amongst other (much worse) publications, but that’s not to say that come the end of the year I won’t be readying myself to throw together 200 words in an effort to describe the ins and outs of this fantastic album, and why “2010 was the year that Yeasayer really came of age”, or similar pretentious identi-kit journalism. Suffice to say that if you read 2009’s “Best Of” lists and felt slightly humiliated that you hadn’t heard of many of the albums being mentioned, you need to get your illegal copy of “Odd Blood” now. Simultaneously unrestrained expression from a band who are very fleetingly on this planet and a knuckling down to more conventional aesthetics, without feeling disjointed or hypocritical, “Odd Blood” shimmers like the psychadelica of Animal Collective, but pounds like the finest parts of 80s pop. There is your sub standard journalism, now go and break the law.

Yeasayer – Madder Red

Yeasayer – One

Hmmmm… So a précis of the current situation would probably be that I completely and majorly ballsed up the ID tagging and naming of 3 of the remixes in Part II of the most epic and drawn out series of remixes in the history of the curmudgeonly titled blogosphere. In a blatant attempt to try and placate the masses, then, Part II.V is following (that’s two point five if you go to a comprehensive school) (ONLY JOKING!) with two extra remixes hooked onto the end that I have been enjoying in the brief cessation between posts. There will probably not be a part III unless I seriously fail again, so enjoy!

On another, more cogent, point; two of the remixes involve Calvin Harris, who was recently announced as the headliner for this year’s fantastically curated and organised Liverpool Sound City. It’s sort of like England’s SXSW, except with Mr Chips instead of barbeques and the M57 instead of Austin’s dusty expanse. Luckily, I seem to have a soft spot for Mr Chips, so it looks like it’s going to be incredible! Check out the link above for the full (fantastic) line up. More to follow…

Calvin Harris – I’m Not Alone (Deadmau5 Remix)

La Roux – In For The Kill (Skreams Lets Get Ravey Remix) (High Contrast Re Edit)

Passion Pit – The Reeling (Calvin Harris Remix)

Metric – Help Im Alive (The Twelves Remix)

Heads We Dance – When The Sirens Sound (Don Diablo Remix)

(Reposted minus streaming options since YYYs record label are being ridiculous)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ most recent long player was rush released digitally on March 10th after the most 21st century of crimes was committed – the album was leaked a good two months before it’s expected release date. Finally, after a month and a half of listening, I have at last come to some sort of conclusion about “It’s Blitz”; whilst it stoically aimed to be obstinate and challenging for Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ fans, “It’s Blitz” has proved itself to be a remarkable piece of work and has not only won back their original fans, but has earnt them many more. This gamble alone makes this haunting, pummelling, danceable record the most bold and daring of 2009. Where “Zero”, “Heads Will Roll” and “Dragon Queen” provide single potential and dance floor fodder, the effortless scope and range of the album is confirmed in the beautifully bleak “Skeletons” and my album highlight, “Hysteric”. Just listen to Karen O proclaiming that “Flow sweetly/hang heavy/you suddenly complete me” and try to disagree. Their fans placated, then, and their critics smitten; the next time you hear of “It’s Blitz” will be when thousands of critics are hailing it as one of the best albums of 2009.

Despite being a great album in its own right – “It’s Blitz” has also unknowingly prompted Erol Alkan to carefully mould first single “Zero” with his signature touch and create one of the finest remixes of recent times. When I heard him drop part of the remix a month or so ago in Chibuku, I really was completely underwhelmed. Having heard the song again though, I can only conclude that either:

• I was far too inebriated to properly appreciate the song or
• The song was unfairly juxtaposed next to Proxy’s “Dance In The Dark”