Run-Away-Super Furry Animals

Ahhhhh….

To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, you don’t know how much you’ve missed something ’till it’s back again. Yet another oddity amongst UK bands, SFA don’t know the meaning of the word “dreary”. Every release is more summery and technicolored than the last, and nothing has changed on their latest, Hey Venus! ‘Run-Away’ is the obvious choice for the single, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a distillation of everything the band does well: take the bouncier, more joyous elements of mid-60s English psychedelia, and frame it inside a perfect synthesis of every other style they can lay their ears on. Let’s go down the list, shall we?

Spector-esque Wall of Sound percussion and vocals? Check.

Sublime, layered Beach Boys harmonies? Check.

Bittersweet, confessional abstract lyrics, a la Pavement? Check.

Tight, catchy songcraft on a par with Teenage Fanclub? Check.

All tied together with a chorus that can barely be contained.

It doesn’t really matter what Punxsutawney Phil sees on Saturday; summer just got here early this year.

An Embarrassment of Riches

I purchased an embarrassing amount of music in 2007. Seriously. Some old, some new. Here are my ten favorite releases from the last twelve months (in alphabetical order).

Augie March- Moo, You Bloody Choir

As much as I enjoyed AM’s last release, sophomore album Strange Bird, it had a scattershot, try-everything quality that sometimes made for a disorienting listen if you were in a more cohesive, measured mood. Moo…. focuses that sprawl for a warm, inviting record that is rustic in demeanor but polished in presentation. In other words, your vaguely hippie-ish buddy who’d rather camp out than sell-out has trimmed his beard, washed his hair, and thrown on a nice suit. Don’t worry, though. It’s for a wedding/funeral, not an interview.

Key tracks: One Crowded Hour, Mother Greer, Bottle Baby, There Is No Such Place

Gravenhurst-The Western Lands

This one kind of came out of nowhere for me. I’d heard of Gravenhurst, but for some reason thought that with a name like that, they must be some crappy emo mall-punk band, and therefore avoided them. Thank God for popmatters.com. A glowing review accompanied by the video for single ‘Trust’ was all I needed to send me out looking for this album. There may only be ten tracks here, but they’re a meaty ten tracks that split the running time between delicate folk and dreamy neo-psychedelia/shoegaze, occasionally even combining the two to great effect.

Key tracks: She Dances, Trust, Hourglass, The Collector

PJ Harvey-White Chalk

I’ll be honest: I don’t “get” a lot of PJ Harvey’s early stuff. The dissonance, the anger…must be something to do with me not owning a vulva. But I love the weird torch songs of To Bring You My Love, and the dense, noir-ish pop of Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. As has been the case over the latter half of her career, it seems like I only truly enjoy every other album. I skipped Uh Huh Her, but here I am back again with White Chalk. I think it’s strange that adjectives like “creepy”, “unsettling” and “paranoid” got tossed around so much in reviews of the album; ultimately, it’s a very  consistent collection of pretty, melodic songs that may sound odd on first listen, but I think that stems more from PJ’s use of unorthodox instrumentation and sparse production. Admittedly, the lyrics are pretty bleak–but anyone who’s surprised by that after over fifteen years of the same is kidding themselves. In any event, I tend to treat PJ’s voice, especially in these songs, as just another instrument in the mix. I don’t focus so much on what she’s singing as how she’s singing it, and I really appreciate the vulnerability and fragility she’s able to convey after spending so much energy over the years demonstrating how tough and empowered she is. And the fact that she’s comfortable enough to do so is demonstrative of her empowerment in and of itself.

Key tracks: The Devil, Dear Darkness, When Under Ether, To Talk To You

Richard Hawley-Lady’s Bridge

It’s no Coles Corner. But it’s pretty damn good.

Key tracks: Valentine, Tonight The Streets Are Ours, Lady Solitude, The Sun Refused To Shine

Idlewild-Make Another World

My favorite Scots make the transitional album that probably should have followed The Remote Part before heading into the more Americana-heavy Warnings/Promises. It’s a pretty even synthesis of their post-punk roots and their more current trend toward grand folk-rock.

Key tracks: In Competition For The Worst Time, Everything (As It Moves), No Emotion, Future Works, A Ghost In The Arcade

Manic Street Preachers-Send Away The Tigers

Man, had I written off these guys. After each album getting successively more accomplished both lyrically and musically, the Manics squibbed it with 2001’s half-okay, half-god-awful Know Your Enemy. I was so disappointed that I didn’t even bother with 2004’s Lifeblood. But the duet single ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’ (featuring Nina Persson of The Cardigans) was sprightly enough to pique my interest, and I was delighted to discover that the boys are back with a renewed sense of purpose. While there’s nothing new here, and it seems to musically be a retreat back to the Everything Must Go/This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours era, there’s a lot of winning guitar-pop here to satisfy even the most jaded fan. If you’re a fan and you’ve missed the Manics of the 90s, check this out.

Key tracks: Send Away The Tigers, Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, Indian Summer, Autumnsong

The National-Boxer

I’ll admit it–I was late getting into The National. My friend Leslie burned me a copy of Alligator a couple years back, and I just could not get into it. I turned it off halfway through ‘Secret Meeting’. Not in 4/4? Circuitous melody? Subtle hook? Fuck that. I’ve got shit to do.

Then my other friend Gary emails me the mp3 of ‘Mistaken For Strangers’ last spring, raving about Boxer and how amazing it was. I didn’t even bother listening to it. I just went to the store and bought both Alligator and Boxer and called Gary, telling him that they better not suck.

Lo and behold, they did not. Boxer especially is one of the most consistently gratifying albums I own. It helps that Matt Berninger has the kind of voice I would listen to even if he was singing the phone book.  And the band’s musical backdrop is so engaging. Bryan Devendorf’s drumming is some of the most musical that I’ve ever heard, and the songs’ success is just as dependent on him as they are on the other instrumentalists. If I was actually ranking these, this might take the number one spot.

Key tracks: Fake Empire, Mistaken For Strangers, Green Gloves, Slow Show, Apartment Story

Patton Oswalt-Werewolves and Lollipops

No, it’s not musical. Yes, it is spoken word. Guess what? Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Werewolves is perhaps the most consistently rewarding comedy album I own. I can listen to it over and over again and still laugh just as hard as I did the first time I heard it. Am I a bit biased because I see myself in Patton? Sure. That doesn’t mean this album is less funny if you don’t perfectly identify with it.

Warning: If you think George W. Bush is a genius, this probably isn’t for you.

Key tracks: America Has Spoken, The Dukes Of Hazzard, The Gatekeepers Of Coolness, Death Bed

Radiohead-In Rainbows

The first two tracks are great. Unfortunately, they don’t quite fit the rest of the album. However, if you’re a brainy weirdo, the rest of In Rainbows might actually help you get laid. Because it’s damn sexy (to brainy weirdos).

Key tracks: Nude, All I Need, Videotape

The Rosebuds-Night of the Furies

Other than ‘The Lovers Rights’ and ‘Boxcar’, sophomore-slumping Birds Make Good Neighbors was pretty disappointing. Gone was the fun and new romance of Make Out, replaced by dour, hook-less meditations on post-honeymoon love. So it was pleasantly shocking to hear “comeback” single ‘Get Up, Get Out’ urge me to do just that in all its synth-tastic glory. It was even more pleasing to discover that the remainder of the album was just as good. I get the feeling Ivan was listening to a lot of New Order and Labrador/Sarah Records artists during the recording of this album. Pretty unimpeachable credentials, if you ask me.

Blue Light-Mazzy Star

It’s difficult to talk about Mazzy Star without their lone semi-hit ‘Fade Into You’ receiving mention. I was admittedly a latecomer to discovering Mazzy Star, first hearing the aforementioned track during the prom slow-dance scene of charming/cloying coming-of-age film Angus as a freshman in college, a good five years after the song’s parent album So Tonight That I Might See came out. ‘Fade Into You’ possessed an effortless elegance helped along by its simple melody–it’s no surprise the song became a hit.

What is surprising is that the album was not. I mean, it sold respectably, for an album by an underground band with only one discernible single and an unfashionable (at the time) neo-psychedelic aesthetic. But there were at least three other songs on the album that were just as melodic and pleasing to the ear. Included in that group is ‘Blue Light’, an airy, languorous track that meanders for over five minutes while singer Hope Sandoval delivers vague, pseudo-stream-of-consciousness lyrics against guitarist David Roback’s unobtrusive organ and guitar-led musical backdrop.

Not really selling it, am I? That’s ok, because the fact of the matter is that ‘Blue Light’ is one of the greatest make-out songs of all-time. The lyrics may not be much more than a description of a pleasant high shared with a “best friend”, and the music may be Nuggets-by-the-numbers, but the confluence of these albeit basic qualities with Sandoval’s hypnotic, breathy singing and Roback’s less-is-more arrangement and laid-back pacing turn what on paper sounds uninspired and boring into a modern-day torch song classic.

A lot of people would argue that ‘Fade Into You’ is a better make-out song. But the problem with using ‘Fade Into You’ in that context is that it has too much of an aura of gee-whiz innocence about it. It’s the song you listen to right before you get up the courage to go in for the first kiss on the couch. ‘Blue Light’ is the song you listen to on the third date just before you get up and move things into the bedroom.