The Twilight Sad: Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did

An EP primarily composed of alternate versions of songs on a previously released album ordinarily wouldn't warrant a recommendation from me. Except when, as is the case here, the alternate versions are as extraordinary as the originals. James Graham's alternating deadpan brogue and soaring croon are still present, but the arrangement are, in most cases, now slightly overshadowed by thick slabs of drone. The songs are longer and seem more orchestral in comparison to the originals from Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters. Additionally, the EP is capped off with a cover of Beach House's Daniel Johnston's "Some Things Last a Long Time". At more than triple the length of Beach House's version from earlier this year, The Twilight Sad brings an additional measure of gleeful moroseness to an already maudlin song. Here, It Never Snowed. Afterwards It Did is a phenomenal release in and of itself, let alone as a companion to a stellar album.

DeVotchKa: A Mad & Faithful Telling

DeVotchKa first came to my attention with a recommendation from a trusted fellow blogger. Admittedly, I was more curious about their cover of Siouxsie & The Banshees' "The Last Beat of My Heart" than about anything else on their Curse Your Little Heart EP. Other than the aforementioned cover, I have to admit that I found little that impressed me at the time. I felt that the Balkan-rock fusion sound was being done better by contemporaries like Gogol Bordello and A Hawk and a Hacksaw. However, A Mad & Faithful Telling has handily won me over. The new album shows a great deal more dimension than the EP did. In particular, "The Clockwise Witness" and "Transliterator" are impressive examples of more evolved and nuanced sound. A Mad & Faithful Telling could be a critical and commercial breakthrough for this woefully underrated band.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy: Lie Down in the Light

With its uncharacteristic (at least for Will Oldham) optimism, Lie Down in the Light can be thought of as the conceptual sequel to Oldham's 1999 masterpiece I See a Darkness. The murky production of I See a Darkness is now replaced with a clarity that Oldham began to hint at with The Letting Go. The rich horn arrangements, the harmonies with Ashley Webber, the more abundant major key melodies and the upbeat lyrics shine sunlight into long-darkened corners of Oldham's psyche. Lie Down in the Light is probably the first Bonnie "Prince" Billy album that could be considered a worthy follow-up to the finest alt-country record of the 90s.

Kleerup: Kleerup

Swedish producer Andreas Kleerup is clearly fond of working with an array of female vocalists, but his music is more than just a showcase for the talents of Robyn and Lykke Li. The instrumentals sprinkled throughout his debut show that Kleerup doesn't need vocalists to hide his flaws, but chooses them carefully to enhance his strengths on certain songs. Last year's single with Robyn, "With Every Heartbeat", is certainly a coup for both of them and it might have been tempting to team up for an album-length collaboration. But the song only shows one side of Kleerup's music and he apparently has many more sides to show us. Diversification is how he avoids losing his own identity among a bevy of talented Scandinavian singers.

HEALTH: DISCO

To tell you the truth, I didn't really connect with HEALTH's eponymous debut. With the exception of "Crimewave", I couldn't find much on that album that moved me. DISCO, a remix album of tracks from HEALTH, however, introduces a greatly needed measure of diversity. If "Crimewave" was any indication, HEALTH's strengths are brought out by collaboration, and DISCO does nothing to dispel this conclusion. Additionally, it avoids the pitfalls that most remix albums fall into because HEALTH decided to treat it as an album in its own right, rather than a promotional gimmick for the album proper. The tracks are sequenced for listenability, avoiding the monotony that plagued the debut.

Titus Andronicus: The Airing of Grievances

Titus Andronicus combine the social and political defeatism of punk's early days with 60s pop tropes. The result is an unusually fun and compelling album in spite of its overwhelming pessimism. Titus Andronicus have a knack for weaving melody and low-fi arrangement to create what are essentially pop songs, abrasive as they may seem at first. Their sound reminds me somewhat of the Thermals or The Exploding Hearts, but it is actually much closer in spirit to The Pogues at their creative peak. This stellar debut at once shows off the band's talent for genre study and their own idiosyncracies.

diskJokke: Staying In

If Sweden has been hoarding all the attention lately, it isn't because her neighbor to the west doesn't have anything to offer. Take, for example, Joachim Dyrdahl aka diskJokke. His debut, Staying In, is some of the best Norwegian electronic since Biosphere. It even eclipses Röyksopp's phenomenal The Understanding, which is saying quite a bit. diskJokke's style has clearly been influenced by Kraftwerk's dancier albums from the late 70's and early 80s, but it is infused with a pristine quality that could be described as glacial. Dyrdahl leaves nothing to chance, agonizing to get every last detail exactly as he wants it, with every beat and beep serving the whole. It's disco that's equally well-suited for the dancefloor and the solitude of the bedroom.

Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend is a very rare kind of album - the kind that is actually as popular as it deserves to be. My ex-Goth instincts want to rage against the pop music status quo, choosing to pursue bands that were absurdly obscure and avoiding anything being played on even the alternative stations. I discovered Vampire Weekend's EP last year via Emusic and I was proud to have found out about a great band before having even read any reviews about them. My pride turned to indignation when I started hearing "Mansard Roof" on one of the Sirius alternative stations at my gym, of all places. I remember thinking, "Best new music? I've been listening to them since July." But transcendantly great music can never be hoarded for long, especially since Vampire Weekend's debut full-length more than delivers on the promise of the EP. Their South African-tinged college rock is literate yet sincere, with extraordinarily catchy songs that wear their Peter Gabriel influences proudly. I hope their success doesn't spoil their next effort, as it has with so many bands previously saddled with the unfair expectation of saving rock.

Honorable Mehntion #4

The Postmarks: "Six Different Ways" (from By the Numbers)

In the sixth installment of The Postmarks' free piecemeal covers album, they have chosen a well-loved Cure song. Usually bands who cover The Cure end up biting off more than they can chew, attempting to emulate The Cure's style on some level. The Postmarks, on the other hand, take the song in a completely different direction. Preserving only the melody and the lyrics, they base their own version on piano and horns. It's an endearingly maudlin affair and they succeed in making the song even sadder than The Cure did.

Paavohaarju: "Italialaisella Laivalla" (from Laulu Laakson Kukista)

This song is much more down to earth than most of Paavoharju's music, eschewing experimentation in favor of simplicity. The melody is uncomplicated but heart-rending. Even for those of us that don't understand Finnish, the mood of longing for earlier days comes across loud and clear.

Beck: "Gamma Ray" (from Modern Guilt)

"Gamma Ray" captures much of what I've always enjoyed about Beck and has been lacking from his more recent work. The lyrics features superior puns and wordplay to any song he's done since Sea Change. Stylistically, it's not as schizoid as his earlier work, but it's a more than competent exercise in straightforward psych/garage rock.

Atlas Sound: "Bite Marks" (from Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel)

I haven't quite bought into the Atlas Sound/Bradford Cox mania that has overtaken the hipster crowd as of late, but I can admire a sublime track like "Bite Marks". The song is tenuous and barely manifest; it continually materializes and dissolves in a foam of static. This track reaffirms the late 80s 4AD aesthetic and cements Cox's place among his labelmates.

Bear in Heaven: "Shining and Free" (from Red Bloom of the Boom)

Weird, gauzy and dissonant, "Shining and Free" seems to fall about midway along the spectrum between Slowdive and COIL. While the percussive crescendo at the end puts me off slightly, the majority of the song is unexpectedly alluring.

Albert Hammond, Jr. "Feed Me Jack or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peter Sellers" (from ¿Cómo Te Llama?)

While the production on "Feed Me Jack" is a little overbearing and does the song few favors, the melody rescues it from the tedium that overwhelms most of Hammond's sophmore solo album. It would have been extraordinary as a simple vocal/piano track, but the embellishments reduce it to nearly excellent. However, it's still the best track on the album.

Lykke Li: Youth Novels

Youth Novels is yet another in a long string of intelligent, nearly infallible pop albums to come out of Sweden in the past few years. Lykke Li's sound falls somewhere between the more bubblegum aspects of Robyn's self-titled album and the craftsmanship of Peter Bjorn and John's Writer's Block. The resemblance to the latter is no coincidence; Youth Novels was admirably produced by Björn Yttling. Yttling's production largely stands back and lets Lykke Li strut her stuff, providing more scaffolding than distraction. And unlike most pop produced in the U.S. these days, the substance of the songs is the selling point. If Lykke Li is part of a Swedish invasion force bent on world domination, let me be the first to defect.

Spiritualized: Songs in A&E

After the so-so Let It Come Down and the abysmal Amazing Grace, I had become convinced that J. Spaceman's best days were behind him. I wasn't entirely sure that I would even take a chance with Songs in A&E, but I'm glad I did. Spiritualized's latest album, much their masterpiece Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, is an epic meditation on mortality. However, while Ladies and Gentlemen pondered the real danger of going too far in pursuit of a high and never coming back, A&E is about slow deterioration and eventual quietus due to illness. The specter of death hangs in the background, and in some cases the foreground, throughout. Even while singing about the fire within, Spaceman sounds as if it may soon be extinguished permanently. It is likely that the tone of A&E is influenced by Spaceman's recent life-threatening illness. It seems that his near miss has caused him to find his purpose once again.

Wolf Parade: At Mount Zoomer

Wolf Parade's second album, while not as immediately rewarding as Apologies to the Queen Mary, is a more fleshed out realization of ideas introduced on the debut. At Mount Zoomer is a more challenging record, requiring more of the listener's attention, but it's well worth the effort. The ramshackle pop of Wolf Parade's early EPs is now more carefully honed with greater attention to detail. Each listen reveals previously unnoticed layers of dissonant tension and resolution. At Mount Zoomer is fully consistent with what I call the Great Canadian Clusterfuck sound, which includes associated acts like Frog Eyes, Sunset Rubdown, Swan Lake, Handsome Furs, etc. However, the album represents a stylistic departure from the intersection of these groups into Wolf Parade's own unique territory.

Girl Talk: Feed the Animals

Two years ago, Girl Talk's Night Ripper brought legitimacy to the art of mash-up and created a massive new audience for the genre out of the indie crowd. The excitement of the record was in its juxtaposition of every form of popular music of the last forty years, pushing all the buttons at once and exposing the common thread that ran through it all. Feed the Animals continues along these lines, but with less urgency. While it is slightly less exciting than its predecessor, Feed the Animals more than makes up for it with moments of genuinely sublime beauty. Many of these moments results from pairings of rap/hip-hop tracks with rock: T.I. with Sinéad O'Connor, Pras with Yo La Tengo, among others. In some ways, Feed the Animals is more daring than Night Ripper in its use of samples more likely to invite lawsuits. Hopefully Metallica, Prince and others can appreciate Feed the Animals in the spirit in which it was intended and not be as litigious as they have been in the past.

Destroyer: Trouble in Dreams

Destroyer's eighth album is probably one of the most straightforwardly "pop" albums that Dan Bejar has ever been involved with, as far as Bejar can be straightforward. All of the things that make a Destroyer record enjoyable are still intact: abrupt changes of direction, impenetrable lyrics, extraordinarily complex arrangements. One element present on Trouble in Dreams lacking from most Destroyer albums (or at least the ones I've heard so far) is brevity. With few exceptions, Bejar and company manage to encapsulate their ideas in under five minutes. However, it just wouldn't be a Destroyer record without epic, multi-part songs, and Trouble in Dreams has two of their best so far. "Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night's Ape)", in particular, seems short despite its length because of its Disintegration-like hooks.

SoiSong: qXn948s

SoiSong is the newest project of Throbbing Gristle/COIL founder Peter Christopherson and bandmate Ivan Pavlov. qXn948s is their first official recording, sold initially at shows on their first European tour, but it is expected to be available for purchase online soon. In the meantime, abrieviated versions of the tracks can be heard on their Myspace page. The music reminds me of COIL's lengthier ambient pieces, such as "How to Destroy Angels", but decidedly more Southeast Asian in influence. These four tracks, particularly the breathtaking closer "Jam Talay Sai", make me eager to hear more from SoiSong.

Smart Growth: Surrey

This Baltimore band has been getting a lot of well-deserved attention recently, thanks to Pitchfork Media plugging their track "Immigration Reform". Surrey is available for free download through the band's Myspace, but it would still be worth the average price for an EP, should the decide to sell it. Stylistically, it reminds me a lot of Battles, with lots of polyrhythmic synths and drum machines. Smart Growth also sample liberally from recognizable Phil Collins/late-period Genesis throughout the five tracks, but I'd argue that they handle them more competently than Collins has in twenty years.

Neon Neon: Stainless Style

Gruff Rhys, of Welsh psych-pop juggernauts Super Furry Animals, is proving to be even weirder and more versatile than most thought. His collaboration with Boom Bip, as Neon Neon, was anticipated to be a straightforward intersection of their respective styles. The result, however, is much deeper than that. Stainless Style is a concept album about John DeLorean that captures more than his rise and fall. It also convincingly adopts numerous musical styles from the late 70s and early 80s to portray the culture of money and blow that ruled American business at the time. While Stainless Style is fairly consistently great throughout, Neon Neon's best moments are when Boom Bip figures most prominently, such as on greedy, lustful hip-hop tracks like "Trick For Treat".

Shearwater: Rook

Shearwater's rise to greatness over the past few years has been woefully overshadowed by Jonathan Meiburg's other equally awesome band, Okkervil River. Rook signals their time to step out into their own spotlight. With this album, Shearwater establishes a sound that is different enough from Okkervil River's to warrant its independence, as Meiburg leaves his former colleagues behind to focus on his own work full-time. Rook is more delicately assembled, more intense, more emotionally wrought than Okkervil River's past two albums. Also present is a more direct sense of disappointment, as opposed to the seething resentment and self-deprecation of Black Sheep Boy and The Stage Names. Rook might just end up at the top of my year-end list a few months from now.

Man Man: Rabbit Habits

The biggest charm of Man Man's debut, The Man in the Blue Turban With a Face, was its ramshackle, schizoid feel. On Rabbit Habits, they seem much more organized and goal-oriented than before, much to the record's benefit. Man Man have begun to fortify their unusual niche among weirdo bands. Whereas their previous two albums seemed the result of random sketches from demented imaginations, they now more thoroughly explore territory they had stumbled into by chance before. This is still pretty much the same sound we have learned to expect from Man Man: the music of alcoholic circus contortionists, boxcar vagrants, puppeteers and arsonists. I hope this streak of unimpeachable albums continues for many years.

Radiohead/AmpLive: Rainydayz Remixes

This free EP almost never saw the light of day. You may recall that AmpLive originally intended to offer this set of remixes free to anyone who had legitimately downloaded In Rainbows. A cease-and-desist letter from Radiohead derailed his plans, but luckily they were able to reach an amicable agreement to release it to everyone. A project of this sort was guaranteed to be either a coup or a disaster. The anticipation of something as crazy as hip-hop remixes of Radiohead featuring the likes of Too $hort and Del Tha Funky Homosapien had me simultaneously salivating and bracing for the worst. Fortunately, the results are wonderful, for the most part. The remixes range from decent to excellent. And did I mention it's free?

Susu: Win

This EP showcases a woefully undermentioned band that's resurrecting a more abrasive aspect of the post-punk sound. Susu draw obvious comparisons to early Sonic Youth, but Public Image Ltd. might be closer to the truth. Win has been criticized for being too reminiscent of a particular sound from the past. Has it been done before? Sure, but rarely this well, even in the 80s. This might be blasphemous, but I must admit I like Win better than some of the canonical albums of the era. Susu are definitely a band worth watching.

The Weepies: Hideaway

Having discovered Hideaway via Emusic, I wonder why I'd never heard of them before. I'm an avid consumer of music sites like Pitchfork Media, Tiny Mix Tapes and the recently departed Stylus Magazine, none of which have published a review of any of the three Weepies albums. Even Metacritic, which collects reviews from dozens of sources, has no mention of them. It's unfortunate because, judging from Hideaway, The Weepies write more consistently solid songs than most of the current indie-rock critical darlings. As you might guess, this isn't the most cheerful music, but it isn't overly mopey either. The overtones of disappointment and heartbreak are balanced by a thread of hope. After all, break-ups wouldn't hurt unless there was an expectation that, just this once, it might have worked out.

Delays

The review for the new Weepies album has been delayed because I wasn't feeling well yesterday. It will appear tonight, along with my review for the Susu EP.