On the wall this week...

Once a week, I'll be briefly talking about three albums from my collection that I've been listening to.

18/06/14

This week, I've satisfied my deviant aural desires with:

Click the pic to make it bigger. Sorry about the quality, I need to buy a real camera. 

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest: This experimental folk foursome from Brooklyn, New York released this, their third full length album, in 2009. Moving away from the highly experimental sound of their first two records, Grizzly Bear penned some very catchy choruses to release this baroque folk double LP with a touch of chamber pop and psychedelic rock thrown in. Beautiful, interesting, and memorable, this has to be one of my favourite records out of my collection.

Metronomy - The English Riviera: If you've only heard Metronomy's latest effort, Love Letters, don't let their recent attempts to sound like an Abba cover band discourage you from checking out this fantastic little LP. It's half an hour of brooding pop and disco utilising all the sounds of an English seaside tourist town; seagulls, crashing waves and tacky funfair organs combine with driving bass lines, intricate synths and catchy hooks to make this my absolute favourite album of 2011.

Nas - Illmatic: If you don't know what this is, I suggest you check out my full review on my Classics page. Illmatic is one of the most influential and definitive east coast hip-hop albums of its era, and it's blunt and brutal socially aware lyricism still rings true today.


14/06/14

This week I've been pleasuring my ear holes with:

Click the pic to make it bigger.


The White Stripes - S/T: Jack and Meg White blasted out of Detroit in the summer of 1999 with their self titled, punk tinged blues debut. It's a stripped down, raw and simple LP; full of crunchy blues licks and piercing guitar solos backed up by steady, no frills drumming, encased in a punk rock sensibility. Before becoming a full time bluesman, Jack was a furniture upholsterer and salesman, and his DIY attitude is injected into the veins of this LP. There's some classic blues covers on here, the best of which in my opinion is the Stripes' bone chilling version of Robert Johnson's Stop Breaking Down.

The Black Keys - Thickfreakness: Maybe putting the Black Keys and The White Stripes together was a bad idea, I might even get a drunk, rambling letter from Jack White... Anyway, Thickfreakness is The Black Keys at their peak, and if you've been digging their last few albums I strongly suggest command you to listen to their sophomore full length. Another blues based piece of garage rock, Thickfreakness is forty minutes of pure cool, the kind of cool that involves dark shades, Lucky Strikes, and cheap bourbon.

Red Fang - S/T: These beer swilling miscreants caught my attention when they released this beast unto the world in 2009. Messy, drunk and loud are the three words I would use to describe this stoner rock foursome from Portland. Don't be put off however; they may be drunk, high, and broke, but these guys rock hard and have a great sense of humour. Just check out the music video for Prehistoric Dog and tell me you don't want to make a suit of armour out of beer cans and beat up nerds.