Not-so-new-to-me music reviews (part 1)

It has been a long time since I have done any music reviews. While I have acquired some new music since March, there is one thing that has been dominating my musical consumption to such a great extent, that there hasn't really been room for much else. That special something, of course, is the new Tool album, "10,000 Days".

But, I am going to try and review that album, as well as a few others that have fallen into my collection since March:

• Tool - "10,000 Days": What can I really say about this album? It's friggin' tremendous, and if you don't worship it yet, it must mean that I'm not your roommate, and I haven't been brainwashing you to like this album by playing it 3 times a day during Mario Kart sessions.

  Seriously, I could write a long, long blog post just about this album alone. It took me quite a few listens to get past the simliarities between "10,000 Days" and Tool's previous album, "Lateralus". But trust me, the new album is very different, and all together spectacular. I have been listening to this album non-stop since it came out (probably on average of twice a day), and like all previous Tool albums, I will be listening to this one for a long time to come.



• Air - "Moon Safari"": I fully realize that this album is quite old - I resisted picking it up for quite a long time. However, I was up in Berkeley (for some reason -- visiting Mike I think), and I picked up a used copy on a whim. As it turns out, the reason why I never bought this album (even though I read a lot of good things about it), was because I don't like the single - "Sexy Boy". Well, I still don't like that song, but the rest of the album is great. Atmospheric, without being too esoteric (if that makes any sense). My resident music doesn't like the accent that the female vocalist (Beth Hirsch?) uses on some of the tracks (he finds track #3, "All I Need", to be particularly offensive), but what does he know? Recommended.


• Pretty Girls Make Graves - "Élan Vital": It took me awhile to warm up to this album. I would say that it is a bit of a departure from their last album, "The New Romance" - less hard rock, more meditative and subtle. My favorite tracks on the album are the last two - "Wildcat" and "Bullet Charm". Overall, I have found this album to be to my liking, and I'm sad that this band is breaking up. If you are looking for something a little different, I recommend checking this album out.


• Sleeping At Last - "Keep No Score": It is slightly criminal how little that I have written about this band. I think that their last album, "Ghosts", is tremendous. I think it would have been my pick for the best album of 2005, had I ever written that blog post. Unfortunately, their new album, "Keep No Score", is a rare mis-step for this band. The songs tend to be incredibly delicate, meandering around without really ever becoming something great. The only exception to this is track #4, "Envelopes", which is a really, really, really good song. Seriously. I recommend that you check out that song, and if you like it, go and seek out their previous album, "Ghosts". While I usually like my music to be affiliated with Satan, don't let the fact that Sleeping At Last is unabashedly Christian stop you, when they want to, they can crank out some great stuff.


• The Hush Sound - "Like Vines": This album was highly anticipated, seeing as how it was co-produced bh the great Patrick Stump (the resident Music Critic made me say that). Seriously, while I do like The Hush Sound's brand of lo-fi happy pop rock, I found this album to only be okay. It's not bad, but it's not so transcendently awesome that I can't get it out of my CD player. The standout track is #6, "Don't Wake Me Up" (which Patrick apparently co-wrote) - it's got a nice beat, and can stand toe-to-toe with the best that any band has to offer (well, maybe not Tool). I recommend this if you're a fan of The Hush Sound, otherwise, just get Patrick's song.


• Gnarles Barkley - St. Elsewhere: Wow, this album is terrible! The main single, "Crazy", is amazing, and shows that this collaboration between Cee-Lo Green and Danger Mouse is capable of producing some tremendously good music. But curiously, they spend the rest of the album making stuff that is barely listenable. I spent a few weeks torturing the Resident Music Critic with this one, and then gave up on it.

Well, that'll do it for now. I have a few more albums to write about (including the new Fall Out Boy), which I'll hopefully get to next week.

-Andy.