Recommended Listening

These days, Band of Horses are my go-to band for getting people into indie rock. Both of their records are so solid, and such good signifiers of everything stereotypically "indie" (jangly guitars, loping, pop-inflected vocals, effective appropriation of another genre- in BoH's case, countrified southern rock) that they're a can't-miss proposition.

The best thing about BoH, though, is that even for someone thoroughly immersed in the last 15 years' worth of independent music, they throw in enough catchy hooks, ear-grabbing lyrical turns, and barreling rock riffs to stand out in the crowd. It's refreshing, in a way, to hear a band so thoroughly comfortable with themselves, so free of affectation or the artificial drive to be "experimental" (ps GOD I am tired of LA noise bands jesus SHUT UP about the Smell scene already).

What I am trying to say is that if you listen to Cease to Begin and do not enjoy it, I'm pretty sure there is something wrong with you. It's a great record.

It would be easy to describe this record simply as "The Knife 2.0," but that would be selling it short. Fever Ray is the solo album by Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of The Knife- but to hear this record, you'd think she made up 60 or 70 percent of that band. The eerie pitch-shifted vocal harmonies are present, but the kooky witch-party-on-a-pirate-ship lurch and swagger of Silent Shout has been replaced by a brooding, paranoid-nostalgic sense of melancholy. The lyrics read like blog posts filtered through a fugue-state, and the wonderful compositions back them up superbly. The overall atmosphere is something like if Depeche Mode did a dubstep record, but even that description doesn't do this record justice. Like all of Dreijer Andersson's previous work, this one must be heard to be believed.

OH MY DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS I CANNOT STOP LISTENING TO THIS RECORD.

Royksopp, perhaps best known for the catchy little ditty used in those Geico commercials, have put out what is unquestionably their best work yet. I may do a track by track breakdown at a later date, as every song deserves its own paragraph, but here's the Cliffs Notes version: Insanely catchy songs, jawdropping, amazed-laugh inducing disco diva vocals from the likes of Robyn and The Knife/Fever Ray's Karin Dreijer Andersson, and production that's always glossy but never overpowering. Easily the most addictive electronic record since Daft Punk's live album. Can't recommend it enough.

Don't believe the hype.

That being said, this is a pretty good record- I say "pretty good" only because with the album essentially bookended by two of the best songs Animal Collective have ever written ("My Girls" and "Brothersport") the bulk of it seems diminished in comparison. Still, every song has its merits, and only occasionally do they veer into the annoying Animal Collectivisms (the yelping, oh god the yelping) that hampered so much of their earlier work. Definitely worth checking out.

Whereas Chromophobia was like a strobe-light rave on the beach, Take My Breath Away is like a disco-ball freakout by the poolside. Wait that sentence is USELESS AND PITCHFORKY NEVERMIND

Basically this record is melodic, syncopated, accessible techno that doesn't mark a significant deviation from Boratto's previous work, but adds a slightly different flavor to the mix. Basically the record is worth buying/downloading/whatevering for the track "No Turning Back," which is the single most epic thing Boratto has yet recorded. Yeah, the vocals are a little cliche, but JESUS when the main hook kicks in it's a hell of an adrenalin rush. Highly recommended, especially if you're just getting interested in modern dance music. It's a great gateway drug.

Insane, epic black metal from members of Orthrelm and Behold...the Arctopus. All the typical BM signifiers (ragged-throat screeching, high-velocity tremolo picking, blastbeats) are there, but instead of the typical black metal soup they've been superheated and spun out into a breathtaking Gothic blood cathedral. Flowery metaphors aside, the riffs are astounding, the recording is superb (a sad rarity in the BM scene) and the songs are incredibly good. "Energy Chasms" drops my jaw every time I hear it.

High On Fire style riff-metal with crazy-ass dual drumming and well-placed psychedelic flourishes. Finally, a two-drummer band that gets the mix right.

Hey, welcome to the new QC Recommended Listening page. The way this is gonna work is whenever I find a new album or band that I like, I will post a short review here! Pretty simple. I'm using Blogger because I can't be arsed to cobble together something that exactly matches the rest of questionablecontent.net, but that may change in the future depending on how ambitious I get.

Anyway, I hope these recommendations will be useful to you. As a final thought, please consider monetarily supporting the artists whose music you enjoy. Music should be free, but it is also expensive to make.