What I'm Listening To - April and May Edition

It's been a busy  few months, but somehow I manage to still keep this place alive.  I even found time to write two reviews for the brand spank'n new releases by The Brains and The Dreadnoughts.  Not bad eh? Where do I find the time...

April was a pretty good month for me.  Specifically, it was a hot month for new punk releases.  Vetran Hellcat Records Street Punkers Left Alone put out their new self titled album to positive critical response, as did British psychobilly group The Grit.  Melodic punk rock group Unit F released their debut full length, and the Montreal country punks in Yesterday's Ring finally released their followup.  NOFX came back after a three year absence with Coaster, and Asian Man Records introduced a new band, For.The.Win., to the world.  I also finally got around to listening to a great little debut EP from Higher Giant, and finally remembered that I wanted to listen to the debut album from a great new, highly passionate street punk band known as The Have Nots.  The indie front was kind of slow, but I found myself really getting into "I Said Stop!"'s lively debut CD, Save the Dinosaurs - definitely worth checking out.  

May, also a little lighter, was also quite good to me.  Red Scare Records finally put out the great new Menzingers EP they had been boasting about, I found out about Alberta's folky country Rum Runner through their latest release, and got my hands on a new album by Dusty Rhodes and the River Band.  I also picked up the latest two Stomp Records releases, the first being a rather enjoyable second effort by The Real Deal, and the second being a reassuring followup by Vancouver's favourite sea shanty quintet, The Dreadnoughts.  In terms of indie I indulged in Electric Owls' long awaited full length debut, and was introduced to long time electronic group Fischerspooner.  

What I'm Listening To - February and March Edition

Well this sure didn't turn out as a monthly column, who would have thought that becoming a teacher would be so time consuming!  I'm in between my semesters right now, so I took the time to write a ton of reviews - enough to post new reviews on the weekly basis right through August, woohoo!  

Ok, so I'll do this chronologically.  February was an eventful month for indie, as I found myself enjoying new releases from Coconut Records, Ben Kweller, Robyn Hitchcock, Cotton Jones Basket Ride, and Animal Collective.  to sum up, I found Ben Kweller's new focus on country a little off putting, and while I don't find myself listening most of the others, the catchy beats of Coconut Records has proven itself with prolonged listenability.  For punk, I enjoyed new releases from The Loved Ones, Max Bemis' latest project Two Tongues, O Pioneers!, Passenger Action, and Fake Problems.  Not surprisingly, Fake Problems' folk infused disco tunes helped them come out with the crown for the month.

In March I focused on more indie than punk, limiting myself to new releases from Propagandhi, Trophy Stars, and Thursday.  I quite enjoyed all three, which surprised me since I never fancied myself a fan of any of the bands.  Indie on the other hand seemed to captivate me, as I had a quite a bit of listening to do.  I enjoyed new releases by punk-gone-indie staples Attack In Black, the sloppy acoustic strumming of Shotgun Jimmie, peaceful melodies of Peter Von Poehl, the folk sounds of Elvis Perkins in Dearland and Joel Plaskett, and the epic storytelling of The Decemberists.  Other than Peter Vol Poehl, everything else has stayed in constant rotation, making my listening habits cramped to say the least.

April has been a huge month for punk, so I'm going to combine that with May, and try doing this little thing every two months - a far cry from my original intent, but still better than abandoning it all together!

What I'm Listening - January Edition

January has been a relatively slow month for punk, but I've found that its indie offerings more than made up for this reality.  January 20th was a pretty big day.  The New Pronographer's frontman A.C. Newman put out his second solo indie-pop album, Get Guilty - and I like it.  I was introduced to Andrew Bird through his most recent outing, Noble Beast, and it's a really nice lazy, peaceful, outing good for background music.  The day also introduced me to a new band, Fiction Family, and their pleasant acoustic minimalism.  But the real show stopper was an oddly named band, Coconut Records, who released the year's first must have indie-pop record, Davey.  It's a mere 28 minutes long, but every second is undeniably catchy and original.  On the punk front, the only thing that really caught my eye was Lucero frontman Ben Nichols' debut solo EP.  It's a solid country album that doesn't stray too far from Lucero's signature sound, but differentiates itself by featuring a more stripped down sound featuring acoustic guitars and accordions.

I also just realized that Franz Nikolay, one of the masterminds behind The World/Inferno Friendship Society, just put out a solo record, so I'm gonna have to catch up on that.  Otherwise, I'm quite looking forward to February's offerings, with new albums by The Loved Ones (Feb 3), Fake Problems (Feb 17), and of course Ben Kweller (Feb 10).