Monthly Archive for January, 2009

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Album of the Week: Return to the Sea

Published on January 11, 2009 in Album of the Week. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Last week’s album was pretty much a downer (an excellent one though), so I thought this week I’d pick a more uplifting album. This week’s album is a 2006 release that I sadly overlooked and that has become my favourite album of 2008, when I first heard it. I’m talking about the debut album from the Canadian band Islands, called Return to the Sea.

This album captivated my attention from the first listen, and it is totally representative of what I look for in music. It is very unique, in times edgy, in times funny (lovely lyrics), extremely varied and very organic. I genuinely think that there is something in it for everyone. If you hate it, sorry that it’s not for you, but I’m being totally honest in here, I adored this album and listened to it endlessly. I particularly love the instrument variety and the drum work in the album, which makes some drum parts the lead parts for me and makes the drums feel like part of the arrangement and not just filler. I would highlight every track of it (maybe a bit less for Where There’s a Will There’s a Whalebone rap), and here is the amazing and epic album opener Swans (Life After Death):

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Album of the Week: The Midnight Organ Fight

Published on January 4, 2009 in Album of the Week. 3 Comments Tags: , , .

It’s time to clarify what I meant by “resolutions” and “sneak peek” in the previous entry. Well, I realized how important music is to me, it makes me happier and more motivated when I see such amazing artists pull out original sounds and rhythms. So, I’ve decided that this year, every week, around the weekend, I am going to do a post highlighting the album that I found most interesting in the past week. This will also make me follow the latest releases a lot more closely, which is a good thing for me as well!
This week, the artist I’m going to highlight is Frightened Rabbit with their latest studio album The Midnight Organ Fight. From Wikipedia:

Frightened Rabbit are a Scottish indie rock band from Selkirk, Scotland, consisting of Scott Hutchison (vocals, guitar), Grant Hutchison (drums, vocals), Billy Kennedy (guitar, keyboards, bass) and Andy Monaghan (keyboards, guitar, bass). The band has so far released two studio albums, with their second, The Midnight Organ Fight, receiving widespread critical acclaim.

Indeed it is an amazing album! I love almost the entire album, with particular highlights for The Modern Leper, Good Arms vs Bad Arms, Backwards Walk and Keep Yourself Warm. The lyrics range from very brutal and real to very subjective but clearly personal. I really like the musical arrangements and the overall uniqueness of their sound as well as the emotional vocals. I haven’t yet checked out their early work (except for the christmas albums) but I really look forward to it. Meanwhile, as their awesome label (FatCat) allows you to preview full-length at their website, I highly encourage you to go listen to it and if you like it, buy the album.