North American Scum.

... is the title of a song by LCD Soundsystem, one of a bunch of American acts that are roaming my playlist right now. Exactly LCD Soundsystem had a heavy presence on Pitchforks top 500-tracks-of-the-last-decade countdown last week, which revived their (or his, actually), critically acclaimed album Sound of Silver. Try checking out 'Someone Great', 'Get Innocuous!' and 'All My Friends'.

Somewhere in the same dance-punk'ish alley I've discovered !!! (yeah, that's the band name equivalent of Sigur Rós' ()-album) from Sacramento. It's pronounced as 'chk chk chk' by the way. Check out 'Me and Giuliani Down by The Schoolyard (A True Story)' and 'When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Karazzee', both from their 2004 effort Louden Up Now.

I'm still enjoying Vampire Weekend's album very much, and to some extent Passion Pit too, although theirs hasn't really caught fully onto me yet.

Heading back to the superior side of the Atlantic (yes!), I'm right now listening to Dúné's new album, Enter Metropolis, available for streaming from Soundvenue. To be honest, I find it really boring and tiring (so far, I'm only up to track 8 of 14). Quite disappointing, since lead single 'Victim Of The City' vouched for something smashing. I definitely don't feel an urge to buy it.

Finally, I'm gonna get a hold of Arctic Monkeys' new record soon, there'll probably be more on that next week.

A wry, triumphant cacophony.

No More Stories
Are Told Today
I'm Sorry
They Washed Away

No More Stories
The World Is Grey
I'm Tired
Let's Wash Away.

Such is the title of the new album by Mew, which I got a hold of today. Here's a track-by-track run-through after the first few listens.

Opener New Terrain's main claim to fame is the fact that if played backwards, it's an entirely different song, called 'Nervous'. I don't have the software to do so, but someone will probably up it onto Youtube soon enough. The track does sound like something I reverse-looped on my Kaoss Pad, and it's really a peculiar and perhaps quite vulgar way to get off the grid.

Introducing Palace Players has already been in heavy rotation as the lead single, and it is a perfectly decent track. The syncopated drums and guitar make for an interesting hit single, yet one must acknowledge Mew's ability to create something accessible from such crookedness. This track is followed by Beach, a well-crafted indie pop track and Repeaterbeater, clearly two of the most accessible (and shortest) tracks on the record. They both bear clear resemblances to the Frengers-era.

A brief intermezzo follows, before the awkwardly-titled Silas The Magic Car, a bland ballad, which is honestly quite dull and unspectacular. Then follows Cartoons And Macramé Wounds (what the fuck hell is a macramé wound anyway?), a really schizophrenic and disturbing piece of work. It definitely has some sort of aesthetics, and some pretty passages, but I don't really get it. Maybe I will in time.

Hawaii Dream features Jonas chanting the title poem, and segues into Hawaii, which is a really daft caribbeo-polynesian-themed piece. It doesn't really ever lift off. The exotic instrumentation continues in Vaccine, which is one of the strongest tracks on the album. Tricks Of The Trade is an dark, drum machine-driven track which is interesting from a style/genre point of view, but this one too never really lifts off.

Yet another intermezzo follows. I'm not all that into intermezzi, but these ones seem to seperate different moods of the album quite well, both leading up - or perhaps rather down - to quite ballady tracks, such as Sometimes Life Isn't Easy, which kicks off as perhaps the most grandiose and exuberant song Mew have done since 'Comforting Sounds'. This too is definitely one of the instant favourites, and although it's neither CS nor 'She Came Home For Christmas', it is quite beautiful. Finally, Reprise is a typical Mew-closer - another ballad, which starts out as somewhat anonymous and ill-timed epicism, but closes out quite pleasantly.

It is hard to find the right adjectives to describe No More Stories. It's vulgar yet gloriously witty, creative yet anonymous, impressive yet wry, triumphant yet somewhat disappointing. Mew are still heavily reliant on Jonas Bjerre's angelic voice, which have been their strongest asset ever since bursting into everyone's attention with Frengers in 2003. In my opinion, Mew still peaked back then, but there's no denying that beneath the ovoid, evil-clown-like smiley face clad cover lies a world of musical creativity and border-seeking antics from a band which does exactly what it wants to. And having the seniority and critical acclaim to flip the bird at all norms and definitions of kitsch, beauty and cacophony might just be the biggest achievement of this record after all.

Clap on time, you fuckheads!

That was perhaps the only thing to be disgruntled about as Coldplay left the stage in Herning last night. Battling a seriously dull crowd, the London four once again proved themselves as being in the uppermost echelon of live acts on this planet. Headed by an ever-dancing
/jumping/joyous Chris Martin, the band performed a set nearly identical to the one performed at Roskilde. One could perhaps have wished for hidden gems such as 'Amsterdam', ' What If' or 'Don't Panic' to have been excavated, however Coldplay somehow define the saying that 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. We did get Will Champion singing 'Till Kingdom Come' though, which was quite a treat. The gimmicks, such as yellow balls for 'Yellow' and confetti-extravaganza for 'Lovers In Japan', worked their part, as did an extended (compared to Roskilde) LCD-wall backdrop of the band performing in distorted images. Even so, one got the feeling that compared to Roskilde, Herning was more of another day at the office. Chris didn't converse quite as much with the audience, and of course there wasn't that special Orange Stage-magic. Still however, a massive joyride of a show!

On a side note, White Lies really established themselves as one of the most mediocre live bands I've ever seen. Even if they had to fight poor sound, a crowd that basically just wanted them over with, and a stage and venue clearly too large for them to fill out, they just seem to lack an element of some sort. Maybe another guitar, or maybe they should just start utilizing their existing instruments some more. The rhythm section is too often too naked, and for gods fucking sake, get that supposed-to-be majestic synth in 'Farewell To The Fairground' in sync with the one in the recorded version!

A few side notes:

Those of you who have kept up with especially Pitchfork through the past weekend will probably have noticed quite a lot of buzz surrounding almighty Radiohead. Well, they did release a new song today. It's called 'These Are My Twisted Words', and it can be found here! It's very In Rainbows'ey, and not really all that intriguing.

Going home yesterday, we heard a track on the radio, which Johan and I deemed as being very reminiscent of Jupiter Day and Superheroes. It turned out it was The Raveonettes' new single, 'Last Dance', which is in fact produced by Thomas Troelsen, thus we weren't far away. It sounds promising, and I am - dare i say - slightly anticipating the new Raveonettes album.

Finally, I'm probably going to buy Mew's new album tomorrow. It was released today, and it has garnered rave reviews so far. There'll probably be more about that soon!

Look at us, through the lens of a camera...

... does it remove all of our pain?

Those are the lyrics of hit track of the week for me. It's a late discovery off Editors' album The Back Room, and it's really beautiful! It's called 'Camera', and you can find it here. Once in a while it's really good to have a ballad roam the top of your listening habits. I've finally started to count the days until Coldplay this Sunday, so I'm listening to that quite a lot too, especially beautiful 'Fix You' seems to have had its second coming. I haven't really been that up for it until now, since they delivered so massively at Roskilde, but now I'm beginning to feel the excitement. Believe it or not, it's actually my first real big stadium-kinda gig, and I hope they dwarf their Roskilde-show, although they're up to quite a task there.

I exchanged my surplus copy of White Lies' record to Vampire Weekend's eponymous one the other day, but I have yet to get it into my computer. But I listened to a good part of it (in the car), and it seems OK. A bit too Belle & Sebastian'y maybe, but let's see.

Oh and by the way, I have been pleased to hear Ginger Ninja's 'Sunshine' played so heavily on P3 these last few weeks. In fact, it was the eighth-most played track the past week. Just in case they'll be the next big thing, remember who hyped them first...

I'm going back behind the teachers desk tomorrow, fuck yeah!

And there's only about a month now until I'm leaving for the southern hemisphere - FUCK YEAH!

Sunday bits.

On an eventless hangover'y sunday, I thought I'd recommend a few tunes to pass the time! I always find that sundays I'm in the mood for cheery stuff, whether to remind one of a good time last night, reminisce over girls you did or wanted to make a pass on, or whatever. By the way, I heard Muse's new single 'Uprising' in town yesterday (which surprised me as most places in Aalborg are usually at least a few weeks behind on new tracks...), and god is it a massive tune. The theremin does everything for it, it might sound like a synthesizer, but it has a distinctive, genuine twang that's just unbeatable.

Anyway, I bought Passion Pit's album Manners the other day, and while I haven't totally gotten into the entire album yet, a few tunes like hit single 'The Reeling' and opener 'Make Light' are definitely worth a listen, as I find them very instantly likeable.

I hyped Newzealanders Cut Off Your Hands a bit before Roskilde, and while their show wasn't all that spectacular, a song like 'Oh Girl' you just have to dig. The lyrics are insanely simple, but somehow it works.

When it comes to being 35 years old and still being able to sound like an innocent and heartbroken 15-year-old, no one does it better than Håkan Hellström. He's really grown on me these last few weeks, especially the album Känn Ingen Sorg För Mig Göteborg, from which a song like 'Uppsnärjd i Det Blå' really strikes me as a beautiful tune. Håkan owes a lot to the beautiful and poetic Swedish language.

Finally, I've gotta introduce you all to Vampire Weekend. Their eponymous album is very high on my must-buy list. Try listening to 'A-Punk'.

Just another thing - I got introduced to a cool search engine-kinda thing yesterday, called Grooveshark. It struck me as being very easy to use, with a simple and efficient interface, easily-editable playlists and a big database. Hell, you can even find L:Ron:Harald on there! Try checking it out.

Muse go theremin.

Muse have released yet another song from their forthcoming album The Resistance, called 'Uprising'. This is the first single (as 'United States of Eurasia' was a teaser, not a single), off of the Devon trio's fifth effort. Very much more conventional than USOE, this will probably garner better reactions throughout the band's traditional fanbase. It is much in lieu of stuff from Absolution and Origin Of Symmetry, albeit somewhat slower, and it features the band applying the theremin. I don't know if this tune really catches me, but it's definitely nice to se that The Resistance won't be all mental.

'Uprising' is here.

I also just want to mention that I bought a few albums last week. One of them was Passion Pit's deubt album Manners, which really has some great parts, although the vocals become slightly annoying. Try listening to this.

I'm moving out of my apartment in a few days, which really excites me. These last weeks have just been a waste of time. I'm looking forward to getting my housing situation straight, going back to more interesting work than ice-cream trucking (which is really dull), and ultimately getting off this hemisphere in now only a month and a bit!