Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion

Genre: Experimental, Freak-Folk
Year: 2009
Label: formally Paw-Tracks now signed to Domino
Who: Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Deakin (Josh Dibb), and Geologist (Brian Weitz)
Where: NY/Washington/Lisbon/DC
Like: Like usual, hookish beats and vocal slurs underwater
Rating: 6/10

Compare to: Panda Bear, Grizzly Bear, Ariel Pink

Follow up to their previous release, Strawberry Jam and latest EP Water Curses, Merriweather Post Pavillion (due out on Jan 20th) is pretty much the same deal. One noticeable change would be their tendency to steer stronger toward Noah Lennox's style and structure. Personally, I think that's unfortunate, but what can you do. Nonetheless, here is Animal Collectives 2009 release. Its decent, as usual their tracks pick up towards the end making for a jammish finale.

Choice Track: My Girls (aka House)


1. In the Flowers
2. My Girls
3. Also Frightened
4. Summertime Clothes
5. Daily Routine
6. Bluish
7. Guys Eyes
8. Taste
9. Lion in a Coma
10. No More Runnin
11. Brother Sport
*12. Grace
*13. On a Highway

Try it. p1. p2.
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Snake Flower 2 - Renegade Daydream

Genre: Garage, Psychedelic, Punk
Year: 2008
Label: Tic Tac Totally
Who: Matthew M. Melton, Johnny Axe, Carlos Bermudez
Where: Chicago
Like: Trippin down murdermile in a white '68 mustang convertible decked in suede
Rating: 6.5/10

Compare to: Bare Wires, Jay Reatard, Blank Dogs, Wizzard Sleeve, Honkeyfinger, Nothing People

Snake Flower 2's debut album, Renegade Daydream, is a dream scape of novelty garage punk with a twang of psych influence. Its like getting punched in the face by your lover followed by a subsequent blood filled rusty booze fest. This is without a doubt a ten track lamb of an audio treat. So genuinely rock.

Choice Track: Set You Straight


1. Flight of the Navigator
2. Talk About It
3. I Woke Up In a Dream
4. Snake Girl
5. No Way Home
6. Just a Dreamer
7. Younger Daze
8. Face in the Crowd
9. Set You Straight
10. Not This Time



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Brightblack Morning Light - Motion to Rejoin

Genre: Psychedelic, Ambient Blues, Folk
Year: 2008
Label: Matador
Who: Rachael Hughes, Nathan Shineywater, Paz Lenchantin,
Andy Macleod, Ann McCrary, Elias Reitz, Gail West
Where: New Mexico
Like: Heroin
Rating: 9/10

Compare to: Hypnotism

Great Band. Great Sound. Great Tonal Continuum. Great Sophomore Release. Yet again, I am thrust into uncontrollable waves of chills where I throw my head back and roll my eyes as if I'm falling into an extremely dense cloud of sexiness.
"I was not singing for war, but to engage the spirit of the maker of the arrowhead itself, to offer up Peace, that his warrior effort find a new respect, and to help my own warrior spirit sing in Peace," reveals Naybob (Nathan Shineywater if you please).
If you haven't heard of this seductively entrancing collective then jump on the mothafuckin train. Here it is, Motion to Rejoin.

Choice Tracks: Gathered Years, Past a Weatherbeaten Fencepost

1. Introduction
2. Hologram Buffalo
3. Gathered Years
4. Oppressions Each
5. Another Reclaimation
6. A Rainbow Aims
7. Summer Hoof
8. Past a Weatherbeaten Forecast
9. When Beads Spell Power Leaf



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Magik Markers - Pwtre Ser

Genre: Noise, Rock, Experimental, Garage
Year: 2008
Label: Arbitrary Signs
Who: Elisa Ambrogio, Pete Nolan and Leah Quimby
Where: Hartford, Connecticut
Like: Jamming the electrical socket, catching the wall on fire, and no one noticing, Triptastic
Rating: 8/10

Compare to: Old Time Relijun, Abe Vigoda, Raccoo-oo-oon, Pocahaunted, Yellow Swans

This elusive Magik Markers release hits hard with a lesser degree of vocalage and a more guttural instrumentation. Its significantly more ambient and slightly more minimalist and bit less palpable in comparison to their past releases. Pwtre Ser is like swinging too high for too long alone, or hanging out with people who don't listen to you scream.

Choice Tracks: Lengthy Rule

1. Star Jelly
2. Lengthy Rule
3. Sfosa-Mosa
4. Leah

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Mother Mother - O My Heart

Genre: Indie, Folk, Rock
Year: 2008
Label: Last Gang Records
Who: Ryan Guldemond, Molly Guldemond, Debra-Jean Creelman, Jeremy Page, Ali Siadat
Where: Vancouver, Canada
Like: Muffled brass on wet roads surrounded by lots of emotional sex
Rating: 7/10

Compare to: Immaculate Machine, No Kids, Metric, Mono in VCF

Mother Mother's previous release, Touch Up, was legitimately harder to come across, but that was before this recent blow up of album linking. Regardless, O My Heart, their 2008 sophomore album, shows up the chirp of a debut in good fashion. Perfect for a happily spent lonely day in your sunshine dimmed flat, Mother Mother harmonize vocals and instrumentation far better than any band has done in a few years now. The album has an amazing collection of variations making it quite effortless to listen to all the way through.

Choice Tracks: Hayloft, Try To Change, Body

1. O My Heart
2. Burning Pile
3. Body of Yours
4. Try to Change
5. Wisdom
6. Body
7. Ghosting
8. Hayloft
9. Wrecking Ball
10. Arms Tonight
11. Miles
12. Sleep Awake

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Honkeyfinger - Invocation of The Demon Other

Genre: Dirty Lo-fi Blues
Year: 2008
Label: Hoarse! Records
Who: One Sexy Creep of a Man
Where: UK
Like: Dirty blood coated backseats and sweaty shoulders
Rating: 9/10

Compare to: Flat Duo Jets, Tree Machine, Orange Goblin, Royal Trux, old Kills, D-66

A one man force of evil seduction. I dare say he tops Rob Zombie. Hailing from Bethnal Green, he describes his sound as skronk blues beast rock partial to fuzzy harmonicas and driving percussion. He's got the sound of an entire angry shotgun toting hillbilly ensemble all to himself, expect magnified to the grimmiest most careless sense of that analogy. Throw a little beatboxing loops and rattlesnakes into the mix and you've got one bad ass motherfucker. Oh wait, he's from the UK? I don't get it either, but it sounds pretty damn nastalgic.

Choice Track: Trouble

1 Honk N Skronkin
2 Got This Rage
3 Margarine Man
4 Jiherbode Boogie
5 Trouble
6 Parchman Farm
7 Cobra
8 True Believers

9 Farmer George

10 Fine Things

11 Margarine Man (Pt.2)

12 Burning Skull Blues

13 Boss Honk

14 Running On Empty

15 Subaquatic Homesick Blues

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Mac Blackout - Mac Blackout

Genre: Post-Punk, Experimental, Noise Rock
Year: 2008
Label: Dead Beat
Who: Mr. Blackout
Where: Illinois
Like: Grinding our teeth and taking sheers to bonfire
Rating: 9/10

Compare to: Blank Dogs, Digital Leather, Human Eye, Jay Reatard

Mr. Blackout's album is his side-project aside from his band The Daily Void. He's no newbie. In fact, he's been around putting out his work since the late 90s, but here is his full length released this year, an extremely cohesive and compressed collection of genuinely great post-punk noise rock. Very very listenable guy.

Choice track: You've Lost Your Eyes

1. Everybody Rock
2. Voodoo Doll
3. Heartache in the City
4. Dreamin’ of Summertime
5. Nowhere Man
6. March of Love and Hate
7. Baby Face Killer
8. Searchin’ for an Angel
9. The Lonely People
10. You’ve Lost Your Eyes
11. Delirium Trim Man
12. I Came from Another World

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Metallic Falcons - Desert Doughnuts

Genre: Freak Folk, Experimental, Psychedelic
Year: 2006
Label: Voodoo-EROS
Who: Sierra Casady and Matteah Baim
Where: Brooklyn
Like: Being in a rough tall tree patch at the foot of a mt. range
Rating: 9/10

Compare to: Jana Hunter, White Magic, Vashti Bunyan, Islaja

Casady of CocoRosie and Baim, make an enticing haunt of a duo. With densely Gothic vocals, Metallic Falcons take dark psyche to a whole new level of beautiful. Their albume Desert Doughnuts, released in 2006, certainly inspires visions of a young self figure in the 1800s splashing free-heartedly in a vine engulfed fountain.

1. Journey
2. Airships
3. Night Time And Morning
4. Snakes And Tea
5. Desert Cathedral
6. Silent Night
7. Berry Metal
8. After Metal (Sound Of Stars)
9. Pale Dog
10. A Heart Of Birdsong
11. Misty Song
12. Ocean
13. Disparu
14. Four Hearts

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Talkdemonic - Eyes at Half Mast

Genre: Post-Rock, Instrumental, Experimental, Strings
Year: 2008
Label: Arena Rock
Who: Kevin O’Connor and Lisa Molinaro
Where: Portland
Like: Traveling through the rundown country without stopping
Rating: 8/10

Compare to: Growing, The Octopus Prjoect, The Dead Texan, Horse Feathers, Whip

Formed in 2002, this folktronic duo, Talkdemonic, certainly knows the trade of instrumental music. Their September release of Eyes at Half Mast makes this their fourth studio album; one that is intricately orchestrated to an honorable degree, and meticulously dynamic throughout. It's a perfect fusion of electronics, strings, and percussion.

1. Leaving Light
2. Ending the Orange Glow
3. Duality of Deathening
4. Shattered into Dyes
5. Tides in their Grave
6. Civilian
7. Black Wood Crimson
8. March Movement
9. Dim Sky
10. Shallow Doldrums
11. Dust and Heat
12. Huancayo Orchestrelle
13. Dream by Heart
14. A Hundred Faces in the Neon Forest

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Lackthereof - Your Anchor

Genre: not-so-quirky, Lo-Fi, Folk, Solo Project
Year: 2008
Label: Barsuk Records
Who: Danny Seim
Where: Portland
Like: Driving over a big bridge in a foreign city
Rating: 8/10

Compare to: School of Language, Menomena, Field Music, Throw Me a Statue

Seim, the drummer and founder of Menomena, started Lackthereof in 1997, but since the recent touring and grand attention garnered by Menomena, Lackthereof has become the side project. Alone, Seim has a significantly less orchestrated sound, respectfully, as well as a noticably more energizing, light-hearted style compared to his usual, yet still achieves equal texture. Great for a midafternoon listen. Not peppy indie riffs, but instead a hint of electronic fuzz and lo-fi undertones mixed with extremely accesible vocals. Seim's third studio album for Lackthereof, Your Anchor, was released this july and has gained some critical acclaim thus far.

1. Chest Pass
2. Fire Trial
3. Choir Practice
4. Doomed Elephants
5. Locked Upstairs
6. Last November
7. Ask Permission
8. You Can
9. Vacant Eyes
10. Fake Empire

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Grouper - Draggin a Dead Deer Up a Hill

Genre: Lush, Dark-Ambient, Experimental, Shoegaze
Year: 2008
Label: Type
Where: Portland
Like: A muffled, slow-motion replay of a tragic montage
Rating: 10/10

Also listen to: Belong, Growing, TwinSisterMoon, Inca Ore

1. Disengaged
2. Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping
3. Stuck
4. When We Fall
5. Traveling Through A Sea
6. Fishing Bird (Empty Jutted In The Evening Breeze)
7. Invisible
8. I'm Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
9. A Cover Over
10. Wind And Snow
11. Tidal Wave
12. We've All Time To Sleep

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Wildildlife - Six (Limited Edition 08)

[Psychedelic, Accessible Noise Rock, Sludge, Hookish Experimental]

Yea thats right, hookish experimental aka Animal Collective gone manic! Just what we've always wanted! These guys do everything perfectly. Watch me dance to experimental doom rock, better yet watch a twee-pop indie kid (not me) dance to this album, because it'll happen. You just wait. O.K. maybe just the single, but whatever.
This is their debut album Six, formally of the SXSW showcase, each track is different and each incredible. Wildildlife is most definitely three Seattle men of top ability, especially on the track "Things Will Grow".

Slightly Similar to These Crazies or Vice Versa: Om, Earth, Raccoo-oo-oon, Pocahaunted, A Place To Bury Strangers

Wildildlife - Six(LE 2008) (pt. 2)

Wovenhand - Ten Stones (08)

[Gothic Americana, Rock, Experimental]

Finally, heres the fifth release from David Eugene Edwards' solo project, Wovenhand entitled Ten Stones. It's a wealthy combination of lulling drones, gothic nuances, and experimental charm. It's rock solid and a respectable follow up to 2006's Mosaic.

Slightly Similar to These Crazies or Vice-Versa: 16 Horsepower, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Celestine, Jay Munly, Bauhaus

Wovenhand - Ten Stones (2008)

Chairlift - Does You Inspire You (2008)

[Electronic, New Wave, Lushhh]

In some parts this band is too cute for me or shall say bubblegum, but despite their single "Evident Utensil" the album is a pretty solid mix between cute pop and trippy electronic rock. "Chairlift formed in Boulder, Colorado in early 2006 to make live music for haunted houses. Frequenting the Broker Inn on the edge of town for empty late-night jazz shows, Caroline Polachek, Aaron Pfenning and Patrick Wimberly were mystified by the 1980's faux-gothic architecture, oak-cabinet aquariums, vacant dancefloors, fake trees, crystal chandeliers and dark velveteen booths. The inn provided them with the ideal setting for a new breed of pop: a place where subtle clashes blossomed into uncanny pleasures."Their debut album, Does You Inspire You, following their EP, Evident Utensil, is a refreshing and appropriate upgrade. The album is growing on me for sure, especially "Make Your Mind Up." Some tracks her vocal tone gives me huge chills. The album is due out in stores at the end of October.

Slightly Similar to These Crazies or Vice-Versa: Chromatics, Beach House, Fountainheads, Lights the band, Acrylics

Chairlift - Does You Inspire You (2008)

Free Blood - Royal Family EP (08) & Never Hear Surf Music Again (08)

[Electronic, Dance, Indie, Fryk Beat]

"The concept was simple: A soundtrack for parties gone awry.

Music to fuel awkward sexual dalliances, desperate yelled misunderstandings on the dance floor, toilets over-flowing with the night's collective regurgitation, lonesome midnight ramblings, hair-brained (possibly illegal) parlour games, stereo components fried by heat and moisture, backyard furniture bonfires, power outages, mass hallucination, etc." This is pretty much perfect. I love this band.

"Free Blood, the Brooklyn-based duo consisting of former !!! (Chk Chk Chk) member John Pugh and fashion designer Madeline Davy, are releasing their debut single (through Rong Music / DFA Records) entitled “Never Hear Surf Music Again” (due out tomorrow on 12” vinyl and digital download). A second single dubbed "Royal Family" (due out July 15th) comes with the title track, the B-Side "Grumpy", and some bangin' remixes from The Brothers and Greg Wilson. You can expect a Fall 2008 full length release with all these singles and more. Below are a couple Free Blood tracks and a Hot Chip remix that will help convince you of this band's greatness."

Slightly Similar to These Crazies or Vice-Versa: Shocking Pinks, Muscles, Holy Hail, The Whip, Riot in Belgium

Free Blood - Royal Family EP (2008)

Free Blood - Never Hear Surf Music Again.mp3

Free Blood - Quick And Painful (Hot Chip Remix).mp3

Thee Oh Sees - The hounds of Foggy Notion (08) & The Master's Bedroom...(08)

[Garage, Lo-Fi, Psychedelic, Acid Folk]

These two album may just be my favorite garage albums of this year, though I am not fully certain yet. There is an admirable distribution of mellow riffs and memorable hooks throughout, but theres no telling if that'll be enough to drive this band toward the same kind of acknowledgment. All I know is I enjoy, listening to them even if they've been several different bands over the span of a few years. Maybe this will be their year. I personally prefer the faster pace of Master's Bedroom compared to the lullish lo-fi sound of Hounds of Foggy Notion.

Slightly Similar to These Crazies or Vice-Versa: No Kids, White Denim, Women

Thee Oh Sees - The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending The Night In (2008)
Thee Oh Sees - The Hounds of Foggy Notion (2008)

Women - Women (08)

[Noise Pop, Lo-Fi, Shoegase]

Women is a vaguely named quartet from my beloved Alberta, Canada, signed to Flemish Eye Records. Their respectively titled debut released this July is rapidly creeping up the yearly top charts of many fellow music collectors. The album was produced my veteran Chad VanGaalen in the guys' basement. I took a quick liking to it, but I am prone to loving the tacky lo-fi trend. Nonetheless, the album is a sturdy debut.

Slightly Similar To These Crazies or Vice-Versa: David Burt, Chorus, Dr. Dog, Parenthetical Girls, Animal Collective

Women - Women (2008)

Black Taj - Beyonder (08)

[Psychedelic, Hard Rock, Southern Drive]

Hailing from Chapel Hill, but you would never know it, Black Taj is one rock band of epic proportions. They do it right. This is a beautiful example of intelligent, quality, classic rock n' roll from a group of four highly talented men. This is what music is all about. By far a better example of their driving rock ability than their debut album in 2005, their 2008 release Beyonder is a must have psychedelic, dirty rock album, specifically the leading track "Move Me".

Sounds Slightly Similar To These Crazies and Vice-Versa: Idyll Swords, Helium, Pavlo, The Black Keys, Cuban Knights, Libraness

Black Taj - Beyonder (2008)

Tilly and The Wall - O (08)

[Female, Pop-Rock, Folk, Vomitously Catchy]

Tilly and the Wall sprang out of Omaha, NE - a Midwestern band of like-minded friends with pockets full of melodies, and a lot of pockets. The serendipitous result of five Omaha residents with a penchant for the same classic '60s pop, boy/girl harmonies and Americana folk records, Tilly and the Wall celebrates the petulant, determined, feisty nature of youth. They rejoice in tales of dreams followed, mistakes made, and hearts broken. If you're by chance a fan, here is their 2008 elusively, mysteriously named album, "O", follow up to Wild Like Children.

slightly similar to these crazies or vice-verse: Mates Of State, The New Pornographers, Rilo Kiley, Mirah, Eisley

Tilly and The Wall - O (2008)

Stay alive, judging by tomorrows narsty forecast, I will inevitably be bored into a posting coma frenzy.

Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual (08)

[Noise, Experimental, Hookish Lawlessness, Garage]

Ponytail is a noise rock band from Baltimore, known for the stop-on-a-dime fervor with which they assault their instruments and the animalistic sounds emanating from their vocalist, Molly Siegel. Currently releasing records on We Are Free with their brothers Yeasayer and Indian Jewelry. Here is their 2008 sophomore release, Ice Cream Spiritual.

slightly similar to these crazies or vice-versa: Times New Viking, Japanther, Deerhoof, Indian Jewelry

Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual (2008)