If you took Animal Collective, paired them with a barbershop quartet and sent them into outer space to form a band and record an album, you might be approaching the musical oddball that is Yeasayer. Following up their critically acclaimed debut of All Hour Cymbals, the Brooklyn-based trio has decided to surpass previous production capabilities and eclipse experimental boundaries.
Unabashed and carefree. These are the two words that most succinctly describe the Welsh septet Los Campesinos!
Very seldom do I find myself in the position of revisiting a band after it fails to impress me. In keeping in the spirit of the new decade, however, I've decided to wipe the slate somewhat clean and give new music from these folks a chance, and the first act on my list of acts to revisit is Vampire Weekend. Given my total ambivalence toward the band's self-titled (and overrated) debut and utter hatred for keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij's side project, Discovery, I was quite ready to pile a heap of negativity on top of Vampire Weekend's latest release, Contra.
No one really likes overly pretentious bands, and neither do Astronomers, the four-piece local band that describes itself as a bunch of danceable, yet intelligent rockers.
If - a couple days ago - you asked me to succinctly describe Zero 7, I would've said they are a couple British blokes that make downtempo instrumental tracks and get singers like Sia and Jos
With the dust finally starting to settle around Grounds, everyone is no doubt establishing their own weekly routine of responsibilities - or lack thereof - as the University continues its journey further into yet another fall semester. But it seems that someone somewhere may have said that "variety is the spice of life" or something like that, and we here at tableau want to facilitate living by this mantra.
Fun, the latest project from Nate Ruess, the former frontman of The Format, has a weird issue with its debut album.
Back in early 2005, if you asked me if I?d ever want to play a survival-horror game, my answer would have been an emphatic ?hell no.? Often plagued with poor controls and even worse camera angles, I was never quite sure how this genre managed to spawn famous video game franchises like Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark and, of course, Resident Evil.Then, as that year came to a close, I noticed that Resident Evil 4 was raking in awards, including Game of the Year from Spike?s Video Game Awards and ? more respectably and notably ? from the ever-popular game Web site Gamespot.
There are a couple of things that can be said about Late of the Pier, both good and bad, but the main thing anyone needs to know about the band?s debut album is this: If Christopher Walken had a fever and the only prescription was more synthesizers, he would certainly be cured by a dose of Fantasy Black Channel.
