This blog isn't dead. It's lazy.

Soldier’s Grin – Wolf Parade
Wolf Parade has always been a bit of an anomaly for me. As you may know, the band is led by Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner, both of whom feature heavily in other bands, such as Sunset Rubdown, Frog Eyes and Handsome Furs. Well I don’t like any of these bands. At all. Yet when they come together, everything fits and I’m enchanted. Early listens of their forthcoming album suggest that they’ve somehow done it again. Rather than looking for an explanation, I think I’ll just sit back and enjoy the music.

Summer of 88 – Velveteen
I’ve always wanted to be in a big band with a highly anticipated album. Not for the fame or anything like that. No, I just want to able to leak a fake album and laugh at all at the people who tried to download it illegally. It would make finding a real copy harder and probably pick up some good publicity along the way. Just so long as everyone realised it was a fake before moving on in disgust. Well this almost happened with Death Cab For Cutie’s new album Narrow Stairs, except that it was fan behind the cunning leak. They grabbed an album by German band Velveteen, who just so happen to sound identical to Death Cab, and rebranded it as Narrow Stairs. It’s not the first time it’s been done, but this one managed to fool quite a few people, including myself. Not only was it an amusing little experiment, but it has also exposed some great new music. I’m yet to find a song on the real Narrow Stairs that beats this one by Velveteen.

Dragonfly Pie – Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks
I won’t pretend to be a Malkmus expert, because I’m far from it. But in recent times I’ve been listening to more and more Pavement and really hammering home just how great he is. But then it’s always hard to know where to go next when you’re getting into a band/artist with so many albums. Stick to the ones you love or try something new? Which one? I think for now I’ll have to give the rest of his post-Pavement stuff a miss and jump straight to his latest release. Early impressions are certainly very promising.

A-Punk – Vampire Weekend
Considering that they’ve been topping the hype charts for months and are already the most requested on national radio, there probably isn’t much need for me to tell you about this band. But just in case you didn’t already know, Vampire Weekend are brilliant. They’ve put out an album that’s fun and fresh the whole the way through and I’m loving it. This probably wouldn’t be my favourite song, but after seeing the cool clip they made, it's stuck in my head.

Holiday – The Holidays
Now I’m not normally one for keeping photos, but somehow I’ve ended up with one of myself drunkenly looking on at a band playing at a friend’s party. That band was The Holidays and it just so happened to be their very first gig. Since then, I have sat back in amazement as they’ve rapidly ascended up the musical hierarchy in the space of one short year. I really shouldn’t be surprised, though. Their distinctly clean sound made an instant impression on me and I’m sure it’s doing the same for everyone else. I’m still deciding whether I think their music is actually good or not, but I guess it doesn’t matter much. This time next year they’ll probably be playing shows on the other side of the planet and my opinion will count for less than it already does!