Neko Case: Middle Cyclone

It has been 3 years since Neko Case has graced the world with a studio album and this time she's back with a broadsword. If anything, this interim has delivered us a Neko even more polished, shinier and even more ready to cut your head in half with her vocal skills if not her considerable skills at carback sword fighting. "The Pharoahs" is a jewel of scintillating guitar riffs thrown up in the dust of what used to be your heart and is vocally strong enough to be a fortress in the storms that are running all over this record. Throughout her ventures in country music Neko case has challenged people's conception of what a country singer can tackle lyrically, stylistically and culturally. In spirit, if not in style, she is the inheritor of the storm front named Emmylou Harris that was pushing hard against the Nashville clone factory in the early 80's and winning. Middle Cyclone weaves a whirling path between stark beauty and lavish sonic storms, dipping through your hometown and up the highway towards the lights on the horizon.

A preview of this record is up on NPR.

The Whitest Boy Alive: Rules

The Whitest Boy Alive is the greatest elevator band you've ever heard. They are dancing quietly in a light disco limbo between Belle and Sebastian and The Postal Service, wagging their fingers to the beat. They write minimalist electro inspired pop compositions that have nothing to prove, they are breezy and light on their feet, smiling the whole time as they dance through your headphones. By the time "Intentions" is playing you've already introduced them to your mother and invited them to come stay the weekend. Just when you think that they can be written off as a light handed pop band from Berlin, "Timebomb" comes along and you realize there is something lurking under the covers of their hotel sheets. Something dangerous, something cool and unknown that you need more of. It's OK, they're not going anywhere yet and there's plenty more on this album that bears repeated listening.

Some previews are up on their Myspace page.

Phosphorescent: To Willie

To Willie is an album long tribute from one very talented singer-songwriter (Matthew Houck) to another. These are the faded memories of honky tonk bars sung from the bottom of a lonely well, a near perfect selection of Willie Nelson tunes representing a broad spectrum of his career dancing on the fingers of a deft arranger and his reverb drenched production. Standing out among these gems is “Can I Sleep In Your Arms” which is treated with all of the warmness and intimacy Phosphorescent can offer. It is as delicate as a snowflake on your fingertip and as strong as the wind outside the windows. Willie did much the same for his hero Lefty Frizell in 1977 with To Lefty, From Willie and it is fitting that the man receive his tribute in turn. This is country music as it is meant to be; fresh, funny, heartbreaking and played with an undying love of the art.

Good for: Lamenting your bourbon soaked memories, or making some new ones.

Built To Spill: Keep It Like A Secret

Built to Spill loves you. They want you to have a good time and think about how you're living all at the same time. Imagine if punk rock wasn't screaming in your face about your TV habits, more sidling up next to you at the bar to have a nice long talk about it all. There is social critique here, but it slides past your defenses and makes you think you're listening to pop music.

Mind you, it's not too cute, Keep It Like A Secret has an edge of sorts, but I think they keep it in their back pocket folded up. This collection of songs is the score for people watching in the suburbs, the endless milling of the masses around shiny new things. Here the food court anthem, there the trendy store sonata.

Some songs are human, beating the point home with driving beats and thick bass lines, others floating above you like seagulls in the parking lot outside. It is full of hope and a chance for living outside of the rules we pretend to obey. This album is trying to help you down the road with Modest Mouse, The Get Up Kids and Jets To Brazil.

Good for: Wondering what the hell post-punk is, staring longingly at open fields though plate glass windows.


Listen to samples at Last.fm!

Fleet Foxes: Sun Giant EP

If we were a tribe in a Zach Braff's head, this is what we'd be playing every night around the fire. There's this other worldly thing floating around Fleet Foxes, like the monsters from under your bed have all come out to join the band. I'm standing in a field watching a faerie tale evolve in front of my eyes and I cannot move. Fleet Foxes play what they describe as baroque harmonic pop, but I think it sounds like the Doors have come floating down through the ages to sit in on a Decemberists session and play the tambourine.

There is this amazing vocal harmony work running throughout the album and other passages that hit a simplicity that I really only find in traditional bluegrass and the like. This EP is their second and I'm really looking forward to going back to their self titled EP and being just as mesmerized by these shining strands of hope and loss that they call songs.

This EP is glittering in my mind with TV on the Radio, The Flaming Lips, Broken Social Scene and Neutral Milk Hotel.

Good for: Watching birds dance high above the tree lines, smoking a pipe and thinking it might rain.

I don't normally do this, but they don't have anything on Last.fm.
You can hear a few tracks on Myspace.com

The Twilight Singers: Twilight As Played By The Twilight Singers

If you ever needed an excuse to wear black suits and sunglasses, this is your chance. Not that anyone needs an excuse really, more of a score for drinking in an empty bar on a well lit city avenue. The Twilight Singers started as a side project of Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli and several friends that evolved into his full time band. "Twilight" was reworked and co-produced by Fila Brazillia which is one of the reasons that it sounds so different from their later works.

This is such a supremely melancholy album that it makes want to cry. If it weren't for the nice fat Big Beats propping it up, it would be a suicidal depressing endeavor. Instead it comes out as emotionally sincere, darkly sexy and extremely listenable.

This is a fine wine of an album, layers of flavor requiring the utmost attention to gain its full impact. This album is writing poetry and crying with The Postal Service, Portishead, Massive Attack and Radiohead.

Good for: Driving old cars down new streets, singing fresh lyrics over new beats.

Morphine: The Night

Morphine has one of the most unique sounds I've ever heard, a baritone rumble of a band with and endless supply of spectral, seductive lyrics. If I had to make up my own term, it would be Rock Noir. It sounds like your sub-woofer has caught a terminal case of the sexiness and it's not gonna survive.

So quick, get yourself a bottle of whiskey and join us on a trip into the underworld. This is what Bruce Wayne listens to after a long night beating the crap out of psychos, smoking a cigar on the veranda of Wayne Manor, watching the sunrise glint through the remnants of a twenty year old scotch sliding down the side of a crystal glass. The Night is watching you from an alleyway with Robert Rodriguez, Graeme Revell, Chet Baker, Akira Yamaoko, David Lynch and Trent Reznor.

Good for: Watching the city slide by on a rainy night through the window of a broken down, filthy train.