out 4/7 and 4/14...doves...bat for lashes...erasure...junior boys...juan maclean... at the Amoeblog

posted on April 24, 2009 at 10:14pm

posted on April 25, 2009 at 12:20am

out 4/7 and 4/14...doves...bat for lashes...erasure...junior boys...juan maclean...

Posted by Brad Schelden, April 24, 2009 10:55pm | Post a Comment

These last couple of weeks all seem to be weeks spent waiting in anticipation of new albums by some of my favorite groups. It is always exciting to first hear that second or third album by the bands that you fell in love with when their first album came out. It doesn't always work out like you had hoped -- that experience that you have when you first hear that first album by a new band can never be replicated. For some bands, the first time you are hearing them might be their second album, so then when you finally get around to hearing their first album it is sort of like going back in time, experiencing something that already happened. It is your first experience with the album but not your first experience with the band. Two of my favorite albums from 2006 were So This is Goodbye by The Junior Boys and Fur and Gold by Bat for Lashes. They both have new albums out this month. It is the second album for Bat for Lashes and the third for The Junior Boys. That first Bat for Lashes album seemed to come out of nowhere. One day I had never heard of them and the next day they were my favorite band. Bat for Lashes isn't really a them -- it is just a her. Natasha Khan is Bat For Lashes. The new album does not disappoint. I have been listening to the single "Daniel" over and over again for the last couple of months.

She is sort of a mix of Kate Bush, Stevie Nicks, Tori Amos, and Bjork. A nightmare for anyone not fond of the weird dark female singers, but a great new artist to fall in love with for those of us who like the weird ladies.

This new album is called Two Suns. It is one of those super sad albums that manages to somehow also have some joy and happiness hidden inside of it...one of those albums that has the ability to make you cry but yet you still keep going back to, like a really good dark movie that you can't stop watching. I didn't get a chance to see her tour for the last album but I will be making an effort to see her this time around. She is playing at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on June 13th and at the El Rey in Los Angeles on June 16th. I will be there for sure. I really do love the album cover as well. It is a nice combination of Stevie Nicks and Rozz Williams from Christian Death, but it also sort of makes me think of the cover of some Goa Trance album. I recommend

you get some Bat For Lashes in your life. But start with her first album if you have not yet enjoyed it. Bat for Lashes also does a great cover of "The Forest" by the Cure. You can find it as the b-side on the 7" for "Daniel, and it is also on the Cure tribute album that came out a couple of months ago called Perfect as Cats. There have been about 20 Cure tributes but this one is a bit different and is actually very good.

The new Junior Boys album is called Begone Dull Care. This album is yet another one of my current favorites. It is the reason that I have not been able to spend as much time as I would like with some other albums that have come out recently. I keep coming back to it. The first song on the album

"Parallel Lines" is a nice intro to the album, but the best song on the album comes two songs later-- "Bits and Pieces" made me fall in love with the album. It is just one of those songs that has already marked this month for me in my memory. I am probably about to wear out this song. I tend to do that too often. I wish I could cherish it more and only listen to it sparingly, but instead I listen to it over and over again until I finally get a little sick of it. Lucikly that has not happened to me just yet. I still have a couple more weeks to go with it. I always go for the albums with the most synth and electronics. Junior Boys are great at creating playful electronic songs. They don't necessarily mak

e me want to get up and dance, they just make me feel good. The songs are the nice and mellow synthpop that I have come to expect from the Junior Boys.

The new album by The Juan Maclean got me to forget about the Junior Boys for just a bit. I had heard that it sounded like a Human League album before I actually got a chance to hear it myself. Being a big Human League fan, this only made me more excited to hear it. I was looking forward to a more modern sounding Human League, but this albums does really sound like a Human League album. Like, exactly. I love it. The song "One Day" is one of the best on the album. It could have easily been a single by Animotion, The Thompson Twins, or The Human League. I always love the songs that have the back and forth

male/female singing. I don't know why, but I love it every time. The contrast just sounds great up against each other. I am quickly filling up my list of my favorite songs of the year, and it is only April. I do like the whole album a lot, but I keep going back to this song. It will be just like that Junior Boys song, only I don't see myself getting over it any time soon. Juan Maclean is actually John Maclean. He was in the great band that was Six Finger Satellite. The Juan Maclean goes in a much different direction, but it works for him. With a little help from DFA and James Murphy he sort of found himself with The Juan Maclean. This is his second album as The Juan Maclean but I actually like this one better. I am going to happily be going back into a Human League phase soon thanks to this album, but for now I will just keep listening to this Juan Maclean album. For sure this will be one of the most fun dance r

ecords of the year.

I really would have been satisfied for the rest of the year with the albums that have already come out so far. I didn't need any more. I still have some quality time that I need to spend with the albums that came out towards the end of last year. There are even some albums from 2008 that I am still discovering. My coworker just turned me onto Telefon Tel Aviv a couple of weeks ago. Somehow I escaped through last year without having listened to their new album until n

ow. Immolate Yourself is now one of my favorite albums from last year that I fell in love with this year. It is one of those albums that I feel like was made especially for me, as if I just thought it up myself, combining different elements of all sorts of bands I love and putting it all together on one album. The band is very similar to M83 -- dark and super interesting electronics. One of the main members of the band also just died under some mysterious circumstances very recently. It makes me sad I didn't get into the band earlier. It also gives the album an extra layer of darkness. It is a brilliant album and already has a very special place in my heart. It remi

nds me of Bark Psychosis as well. Good sad stuff.

But it does get even better. The album that tops them all is the debut album by Thieves Like Us. I have managed to quickly fall deeply in love with this band in a matter of weeks. It is getting to the point where I don't want to listen to anything else. I still hardly know anything about this band, I just know I love them. I got really obsessed with that album Reality Check by The Teenagers last year. It reminds me of that, just without the humor. A bit more dark and intense, but still super catchy. Two of the guys in the band are from Sweden and the third is from the United States. That is about where my knowledge of the band sto

ps. Their Wikipedia page even got deleted. There are so many great songs on this album -- you can quickly fall in love all of them. I am warning you now that this album is super addictive. They have elements of lots of different bands, but it is hard to really compare them to anything. Maybe they remind be a bit of the Legendary PInk Dots mixed with some New Order. You just have to listen to them. I have big hopes for this band. My favorite song is probably "Fass," but I really, really love "Miss You" and "Sugar and Song" as well. I just want everyone to love this album as much as I do. Part of me wants to keep it as my little secret, but I know Thieves Like Us already has tons of fans and I am sure all those fans will keep spreading the word about how great this band is. You can visit them here on their myspace page. Here are some videos of their songs as well. You must fall in love with them like I have. I don't know how you can't...

"Drugs In My Body" by Thieves Like Us...