Music

    The Social Services are a kitschy band from Sweden. I recently came across the first single from their recently released album, It's Nothing Personal, It's National Security, titled The Baltic Sea. This song is about how Sweden is awesome, but how the people suck... Yeah, they are bitching about how sweet it is to be Swedish but they hate how people don't smile at each other. Boo Hoo. But don't get me wrong, this isn't some emo crybaby with an acoustic guitar and a funny accent just complaining about his 15 year old scenesteress girlfriend. This song is a tongue-in-cheek look at Swedish society. It's not terribly deep, but just good fun, well worth a listen.

Axl Rose SWEARS this time that Chinese Democracy will be released on November 23rd. For those of you not familiar with the storied legend of this album, it's basically been promised to us about 200+ times within the last ten years. This date is supposedly official this time, but like many, I'll believe it when I see it. And even then, I still may be a bit cynical.

    French Horn Rebellion are two guys from Wisconsin that make indie/garage dance music with plenty of beep-bop boop-bop in it. Their songs aren't all that groundbreaking, but they're fun to listen to. They currently have two videos on YouTube for Broken Heart and Up All Night. I've embedded the video for Broken Heart to the right. I think it's the superior video of the two. If you're anything like me you probably had flashbacks of any number of Flight of the Conchords episodes when you first saw either video.

    I'm really digging Broken Heart, it's a great song, it even has a guitar solo. The video is just icing on the cake. It's hilarious. I won't spoil the surprise but there is plenty of pay-off for sitting through a few minutes of watching these guys flail their arms around out of sync. It's great fun.

    Perhaps a better title would be "Is Metallica still relevant?" but that begs the question of whether they were ever really relevant to begin with... Metallica used to be a big deal, I mean c'mon... they did Enter Sandman and One, sure it's been fifteen years since they've released what most people would consider a 'good' album, but whatever. Anyone who was in middle school or high school in the nineties probably has fond memories of Metallica. Everyone knew who they were and when the Napster shit hit the fan it felt like the end of an era... probably the same sort of mass <liam> that took place when Load came out. And if you cashed out before that, just replace Load with the black album... I guess what I'm getting at is that Metallica is more than a band, they are an institution. It doesn't matter whether or not Metallica's future albums are complete shit or not. People will still buy their music, if only to criticize it on the internet. Metallica will always have fans out there and if they manage to release a decent record along the way it's just a bonus for the rest of us.

Remember 10 years ago when Weezer was just another awesome rock band who put out two amazing records, and then fell off the face of the Earth? For years I considered myself to be a genuine Weezer fan. If you asked me if I liked Weezer, I would say, "Yes...I like Weezer."

Then, like, five years later they made this "comeback" of sorts, and as much as we appreciated it, it just wasn't the same. All the sudden, with every subsequent release, the good-song-to-bad-song-ratio slowly became more and more lopsided.

    Last night Current aired a forty five minute long video from Sigur Rós' performance at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The show took place on the Icelandic Independence Day in June. At around the 25 minute mark the band's brass section plays the Icelandic National Anthem. The rest of the set is full of Sigur Rós goodness. Video can be found after the jump.

    I'm not sure what went wrong with this album. It should have been pretty good. When The Faint released The Geeks Were Right a few weeks ago everything seemed to be in order. It sounded like The Faint were picking up pretty much where Wet From Birth left off. But I guess not releasing an album in four years really messes with your sense of what sounds good and what doesn't. Apparently the single was a fluke, or a lie - or both... because it doesn't represent the rest of the album. I've managed to listen to this album five times through. Like any album, some tracks are better than others, but this is by far the worst Faint album yet.

    Since this album was release earlier this summer I've listened through it probably thirty times. I can say that I like all of the songs on the album, a few a better than others of course but there aren't any bad tracks. I'm not sure how to describe the sound of the Dodos since this isn't the kind of music I listen to very much. I guess the closest thing to the Dodos that I can think of, genre wise, would be the Dismemberment Plan.

    The Dodos are lo-fi without having that minimalist garage indie sound. Visiter is definitely worth listening to if you need a break from anything heavy or emo. It's just right...