Most Disappointing Album Of The Year: Smashing Pumpkins – ZeitgeistI can’t understand it. I actually liked Corgan’s last couple of efforts, but this was supposed to be the thing where he returned to his element–a chance to flex hius muscle and recreate the magic that made Siamese Dream an instant classic and still keeps Gish in rotation. But no. While it’s always a treat to hear Jimmy Chamberlin’s chaingun drumming and Corgan’s technical prowess is still razor-edged, it’s a wash of samey-ness that, upon first (and even second) listens felt like a party you really were looking forward to but turned out to be just some dude and a couple friends playing X-Box. I saw myself out pretty quick.

Smashing Pumpkins: blog, Gish review (for nostalgia’s sake)

Best Band Whose Two Releases I Can’t Seem To Find In Any Music StoreLove Like Fire

I stumbled across these cats on the Net, as I so often do, and lucky I did. Theirs is a style that I find immensely satisfying. Ann Yu’s confident vocals are backed by a solid lineup of Dave Farrell on drums, Ted Parker on guitar and Robert Kissinger on bass. They hint of shoegaze, but rein in the indulgent impulses with a tight song composition and nifty playing. But then I love the shoegaze stuff. Visit their MySpace presence and check out the phenomenal “Delusion” for a taste of what this band is capable of. Can’t wait to see what shows up from them in 2008.

Love Like Fire: official site

Song Of The Year From An Album That Actually Came Out In 2003“We Used To Be Friends” by The Dandy Warhols.

By itself, the song kicks some meaty rock ass. But it dominated my airspace this year because it happens to be the theme song for Veronica Mars. You see, I waited until the series was canceled before actually picking up the first episode. Since then it’s been Ms. Mars on repeat. As my friend Ryan says, the show is “methadone for Buffy addicts.” Yeah, that’s about right. It’s a bout a precocious teenager who gets into situations way more complex and dangerous than the average high school girl and happens to learn something about human nature in each episode. Toss in a pair of Buffy alums and we’re deep into Joss Whedon territory.

Anyway, it’s tempting to imagine the show’s success was due entirely to its canny choice of theme music, but the show itself was well-written, well acted and featured Charisma Carpenter wearing far less than she ever did in Buffy or Angel, so yes, one must downplay the role of the theme song when weighing the show’s success.

Except… for some reason when the third season kicked off, someone thought it would be a good idea to take that kick ass rock song, siphon out its steely guts and replace it with marshmallow. What had once been an energizing sprint off the cliff of danger at the beginning of each episode became a soporific hello and a lackluster beckon. And then the show was canceled. Draw your own conclusions.

Veronica Mars: Bars For Mars (campaign to prevent show’s cancellation)
Dandy Warhols: “We Used To Be Friends” video

Best Album By A Band Whom I Love Because They Were My First Concert And I’ll Always Love Them No Matter How Irrelevant They Become To The Younger Generation:Rush – Snakes & Arrows Without a doubt. Those three dudes are still cranking out tunes. Wish I could have seen them on their last tour, because really, how many more of those have they got in them? The album itself was fine, but we’re talking about someone who knows all the basslines, the lyrics and album credits by heart for every album between 1973 and 2003, so how do you blame me? Best in class of 2007. Hands down.

Rush: official site, glowing review at Allmusic.com

Albums I Was Apparently Supposed To Like But Just Didn’t For Whatever Reason Five Way Tie:

Scott Walker – The Drift
Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam
Prinzhorn Dance School – Prinzhorn Dance School
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Amy Winehouse – Back To Black

Albums I Might Have Liked Had I Not Been Tricked By Pitchfork’s Implication That There Is Time In A Year To Listen To Everything And Actually Gotten Around To Trying:

Chromatics – Night Drive
Pylon – Gyrate
Bishop & Allen – The Broken String
Josh Ritter – The Historical Conquests Of
Little Dragon – Little Dragon
Daphne – Carmin
Uusitalo – Karhunainen
Minus The Bear – Planet Of Ice
Cassius – 15 Again
Richard Hawley – Lady’s Bridge
Arrested Development – Since The Last Time

And these, because I’m tired of typing: Ohmega Watts, Castanets, Avenged Sevenfold, Film School, The Fiery Furnaces, Oakley Hall, Percee P, Low, The Sadies, Nick Lowe, Shocking Pinks, Devendra Banhart, The Twilight Sad, Rogue Wave, Black Francis, Clipse, Kanye West, Stereo Total, Good Bad Not Evil, Shout Out Louds, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, The Horrors, Bjork, Sarah Shannon, Julie Doiron, The Loose Salute, Rihanna, Talib Kweli, A Place To Bury Strangers, The Perishers, Kathy Diamond, Interpol, Aesop Rock, Rilo Kiley and a couple others.

And that’s it for 2007. I’m done.

Unless I get around to typing up all the runners-up in the Ten Tracks That Mattered list, but that’s more typing than I want to do without copious booze.

Do you know the name? I’ve no idea how I stumbled upon her 2007 release, Ghosts. A mention somewhere here, a glimpse of the cover art there; who the hell knows? But I heard “Don’t Give It Up” somewhere and I had to try out the album. Maybe it was at one of those ridiculous parties up on Sunset Plaza Drive where no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find anyone I knew or cared to know or who seemed to be into the same music I am and wouldn’t tell me what music was playing at that moment.

Or wait, maybe I didn’t go to one of those parties.

Still, sometimes I come across and wind up loving something that’s sooo far afield from what I usually listen to that I can’t help but think that I was drugged into liking it. Or seduced. Or drunk at the time.

These are a few of the left field albums that I came across and… well… loved in 2007. Just don’t tell anyone.

Britney Spears – Blackout:

I’m not certain what it was about this one that I kinda dug. I wish I could say it was the strength of the material that brought her onto this list. Or rather, I wish I could say it with conviction. But the truth is, even though I like the music (especially the New Wave-y “Heaven On Earth”) that would imply she had anything really to do with it. In truth, I think that, given her catastrophic personal life, which gets worse by the minute, we expected the music equivalent of the movie “Waterworld.” When that didn’t happen we were quick with the praise. And I say “We” because I kinda like the album, too.

Britney Spears: the latest

Yacht Rock:

It’s probably old news by now, but Yacht Rock is the weird YouTube sensation that dropped into my awareness last year. It’s the brainchild of J.D. Ryznar and Hunter Stair, and while irreverent, is an affectionate homage to the soft rock hits of the Seventies and Eighties, a genre that tended to intermingle and blend. Michael McDonald, for example, has a starring role. But I’m actually not referring to the show itself, but just the idea and the iceberg of music that lurks beneath the tip that the appears in the show.

My friend Jackie promised to make me a Yacht Rock compilation early in the year, an offer I jumped on with glee. Wow. A Yacht Rock comp! I waited for weeks for the damned thing. Every time I asked her about it she’d say, “It’s coming, it’s coming. I just need to burn it and yadda yadda yadda…” She finally brought it in and I understood what took so long. I was expecting a single disc. She brought in 10 discs of material. Good God. 10cc, Walter Egan, Seals & Crofts, Elvin Bishop, Ambrosia, Air Supply, Todd Rundgren… the list goes on. This is the stuff that was on the radio when I turned it on. This was what I heard but never learned. Going through this collection was like a rediscovery of my youth. I keep going back to it.

Delta Goodrem – Delta:

I was in Australia for a couple weeks this year. One day, I’m wandering around a Newcastle shopping center and I finally drop into a Sanity store (which is, like, Australian for Wherehouse.) I’d seen Sanity stores in Sydney and Canberra as well, and I thought it was time I checked one out, to see what Aussies are digging these days. Mostly, it’s American punk and rap (the biggest selling album in Australia to date is Eminem,) but the number one disc for that particular week was Delta by Delta Goodrem. “Who the hell is Delta Goodrem?” I can hear you think. Ohh, you self-centered American, you. I don’t think there’s an American equivalent, really. I want to say Celine Dion, but I can’t stand Celine Dion, and anyway, she’s Canadian. But she’s a pop princess, to be sure, and she’s one of those interesting people who go through some seriously harrowing shit and come out the other side as if it’s no real big thing and keep on doing what they do best. And Delta? Well, she sings.

Delta Goodrem YouTube: “Believe Again”, “Out Of The Blue”

Kelly Clarkson – My December:

I’ve blogged about her before. I take that all back. Maybe she’s like Zelazny’s Amber. She’s the pattern after which all American Idol wannabes aspire. The very first. The primal paradigm. I dunno. I’m no fan of Ameridol, but lord help me, I love “One Minute.” Maybe it’s the power of Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s writing (he turned me on to Pink, after all,) or maybe I’m getting old and this is a mid-life crisis type thing. Whatever the case, I’m liking this more than I expected. I suppose it’s a delayed reaction to Breakaway, which was too weirdly good for me to like at the time. I don’t know. And in truth, the album, as a whole, isn’t as riveting by a long shot as the few tracks that I like, but it’s enough to make me go, “Huh?” and in my book, that’s kind of huge.

And if you get that Zelazny reference earlier then I worship the ground upon which you walk.

Kelly Clarkson: official site

Kick it off by hitting play on the fine, fan-produced Underworld video below and read on:

#14. “Pluto”/”Pluton” by Clare & The Reasons.

The album is lush and delicate and melodic with just a dash of nostalgia. “Pluto” is an adorable little tune that breaks the news of its demotion to our recently de-planetized satellite and then console it with words of encouragement (” Chin up Pluto, the stars still want you and we down here do too.”) “Pluton” is a reprise of the same tune in which Clare Muldaur’s voice evokes a quiet, spacy theremin inflection. Marvelous. One of 2007′s little-heard gems. [hear the songs on their myspace page.]

#15. “You’re a Wolf” by Sea Wolf.

I caught Sea Wolf in the same evening as the aforementioned Earlimart/Echoplex gig. I dug them enough to try the album. The song is a perfect little pop jewel, sparkly and quick, with a nice underpinning of strings to hold it down. I couldn’t get it out of my head for days after first hearing it. [myspace]

#16. “There’s So Many Colors” by Akron/Family.

The timing was just right, I guess. On a late flight bound for Washington, DC, I leaned back in my coach seat, half asleep, headphones on, and this proggy tune drifted into my world. I listened to it several times a day for the next week while hiking through our nation’s capitol in 90-degree humidity. It reminds me of heat and sweat and pandas. [official site]

#17. “The Lingering Procession” by Eric Enocksson.

If I were being truthful, the only reason this isn’t in my top three is because it comes from a movie soundtrack. Don’t ask me to explain that, because I don’t think I can. As for the tune itself? I blithered about it quite enough here.

#18. “Best Mamgu Ever” by Underworld.

See video above. A common complaint about “Oblivion With Bells,” the new album by Underworld, is that it sounds like every other Underworld album. I’m not going to argue with that. But when Underworld is as good as they are at what they do, I don’t really mind. It’s not the same without Darren Emerson, and I think it took them an album to figure that out, but this time out, they put together something that holds together really well. [amazon]

#19. “Give It A Night” by Bella.

I love this song for the feelings it stirs. It feels like an affectionate nod to Eighties synth pop with an energetic rhythm and marvelous, romantic lyrics. Bella is another of those acts that sort of snuck on the scene and dazzled anyone who noticed. [official site. myspace.]

#20. “UnBiloTitled” by Babyshambles.

I don’t know what it is about the new album by (ex-Libertines) Pete Doherty and company, but Shotter’s Nation is sooo much more interesting than the last one. In fact, I wasn’t even going to pick this one up (the cover is hideous as well) but the reviews were strikingly good. This tune is exactly my type: a simple build from slow shamble to all-out jam.

#21. “Tarnished” by Dälek.

As if it weren’t enough that Dälek shared his name with the evil entities of Dr. Who fame, he puts out some really dark, twisted, electronica infused rap. “Tarnished” is a slow, ominous rage against the decay of a society that aspires to gloss and glitter but finds itself wallowing in nightmare. It’s a soundtrack for the disaffected. Check out his music at his myspace page.

Oh hell. Is that more than twenty? Sue me.

This wasn’t really a contest. And to anyone who’s been by my last.fm page lately (yes, that’s Seals & Crofts at #3,) it wasn’t really a surprise. Annie Clark, recording as St. Vincent, put out what was just a hair’s breadth shy of the album of the year. That honor actually rests with Deerhunter’s Cryptograms (see previous post) but only because that album held together better as a cohesive whole. This album is a little more fractured, but only because Ms. Clark’s imagination has run wild throughout. The number of music ideas on Marry Me is staggering. It’s a fantastic collage of sounds and melodies and moods and words that, months after its release, still resonates.

The album is meticulously produced. The sounds that we encounter on even a cursory jaunt through the track list are varied and precise. There are handclaps, horns, bells, piano, synths, harmonics and strings, often within the same 32 bar stretch. It’s an explosion of texture, and it’s all held together by Clark’s sense of melody and her throaty, pliable voice. One gets the sense that she’s a restless genius, trying out everything that comes to mind and having the audacity to pull it off. She played and toured with both The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens before putting this album together and it feels as if these ideas had been stored and were building pressure before she released them.

“Your Lips Are Red” is the embodiment of this chaos and beauty. It took a few listens before the genius of the tune struck me. It’s simple on the surface. There’s a driving rhythm. Interwoven throughout are off-kilter vocals, minor key guitar riffs and explosions of sound, little Trevor Horn-like bursts of cacophony. It’s aggressive, unnerving material, seemingly without form, but building to something (we hope) bigger and different. As it progresses it begins to get beneath the skin. The discomfort grows. We need it to turn somewhere, to resolve, to come into a different sort of focus. We’re off balance. We’re tilting.

The turn comes at almost the three minute mark, and what a jaw-dropping, head-spinning turn it is. Like a fading storm, the chaos recedes and we’re left with a strumming guitar, a mournful violin voice and then, finally, a full bore, major-key finale. “Your skin’s so fair / Your skin’s so fair it’s not fair,” she repeats, as if it’s supposed to make sense, but though it doesn’t really mean anything taken literally, we feel like it does, because the music somehow provides the meaning that the words do not. The piano still bangs away in the background, the strings still spin about like dervishes, and a chorus of voices join in, but it holds together and as the last violin settles into quiet, we get it. I don’t know how it works, but it does.

It’s powerful stuff. And I can’t seem to get enough of it. In fact, I’ve perfected a way to inject it intravenously. Saves the ol’ iPod battery.

So hey, that’s it for the Ten (12) Tracks That Mattered in 2007, but I’m not done bloviating about the year in music. Not by a long shot, so stay tuned. I’ve still got the runners up to talk about, the stuff I didn’t like (even though I was supposed to) and the stuff that I never got around to listening to but I thought I’d mention anyway in case you’re wondering where [your favorite band] is on the list. Plus, Delta Goodrem! Can you stand it?

St. Vincent: Pitchfork review

St. Vincent – “Your Lips Are Red”

Preconceptions. Sometimes you hear of a band, or see the cover of their album, and you immediately get it in your head that you’re not gonna like it. And usually, because your prejudices are so strong, you don’t. it took me six months to finally getting around to trying Cryptograms. There were plenty of reasons to avoid it. I’d heard it described as “noise,” for example, which, granted, isn’t very descriptive and could really be applied to music of any sort, or I’d gotten the impression from reviews, perhaps, that it was difficult, or maybe even I just assumed, based on the name, Deerhunter, that they’d sound like one of those bands I was supposed to like but didn’t, like The Mars Volta or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Or maybe it was because I didn’t realize that Bradford Cox has Marfan Syndrome. Who knows? It took me while.

When I finally got my mitts on a copy I dropped it in and hit play and walked away, content to let it try and win me over from the background. I went to another room. I forget why. Maybe I was hunting llamas. When I came back some really interesting noise filled the air. I actually forgot what I’d put on. I had to check. It was still Cryptograms, but rather than the atonal screech-a-thon that I, for some reason, had been expecting what I was hearing was lush, atmospheric and, well, lovely.

[photo by akmal naim]

It’s beauty with a blade hidden within its folds. There’s a central paradox in this stuff. It’s music borne of pain but it serves as a soothing anodyne at the same time. To hear it is to walk a lovely path, but to listen to it–I mean really listen–is to discover the darkness beneath the surface. It moves from one stage to the next, balancing noisy pop with shoegaze atmospherics, sometimes within the same tune (this one is case in point) and with such skill that it’s hard to believe that the album came out of sessions so fraught with confusion and depression and aimlessness.

It’s best listened to as a whole experience. Tracks intertwine and stretch and bunch and do other non song-like things, so it was difficult to single out one cut, but “Spring Hill Convert” comes the closest to encapsulating what, for me, is the album of the year. (Yes, thought it’s my favorite album of 2007, my fave track of the year comes from somewhere else, as I’ll write about tomorrow.) And in a bitter twist, Deerhunter has ostensibly gone on hiatus. Hell. But then we hold no illusions. One can’t (and shouldn’t) hope for another Cryptograms. Cox has got a new project in the works (Atlas Sound) and he’s still making music. If we’re lucky, it’ll be bigger and different and completely strange and weirdly beautiful.

Deerhunter: official site, Pitchfork review & interview, amazon, itunes, the deerhunter blog

Deerhunter – “Spring Hall Convert”

The Pitchfork review of Autumn Of The Seraphs makes a good point. They claim that Pinback’s last proper album, Summer In Abbadon has more of an autumnal, frostbitten sound where as this new one feels more like summer fare. They’re right. When I go back and listen to its warm-ish tones and relaxed rhythms I can’t help but think of the lazy days of the school-free season. That helps these days. New Mexico weather has been chilly and gray. It’s almost possible to set the album on repeat and huddle in front of the speakers, hands extended, rubbing away the chill.

Pinback is intricate, precise and articulate indie pop music. The album is layered in ways that reveal new insights with each repeated listen. If you want to get an feel for the songs you have to listen to them more than once. “Bouquet” was no exception. There’s a division that happens at about 2:50 which turns the undercurrent of tension with which the song begins into a lustrous lament. The final lyrics go something like this:

You can take that how you want

I adjust the time
For you to be here

Don’t go

And you taste my tears
And we share our souls

I’m walking on my own
I’m walking all alone

But this is no straight recital of verse. True to Pinback form the voices leapfrog over the words, piecing music from lines in a decidedly non-linear fashion, lines that seem more constructed by how they sound than what they mean, and come up with something both potent and pretty.

Pinback: official site, itunes, amazon, nice fansite

Warm your hands:

Pinback – “Bouquet”

It was a fine year for Glen Hansard. In January his band, The Frames, puts out The Cost, which, but for an unexpected development, might have amounted to just another futile attempt to knock on the door of American Awareness. That development was the unexpected success of a teensy independent Irish film called Once. Written (and directed) by John Carney, it’s the tale of a pair of offbeat street musicians, who meet, make “beautiful music” together and, on occasion, wrestle vacuum cleaners. Glen Hansard’s starring role in the picture, along with the use of the Frames music throughout, brought attention to both him and his band. And then to seal the deal, his co-star in the film is Marketa Irglova, with whom he also recorded his “solo” debut, The Swell Season. This all made for a sort of built-in promotion machine. The Movie plus The Frames plus the Soundtrack equaled something close to a critical mass.

I had only heard of the Frames when Coachella rolled around last year. I hadn’t heard them. But I made it a point at the festival after reading this Allmusic review which mentions that they “often get picked ahead of U2 at being the best live band at home.” The live show was excellent, as predicted. The film? Amusing and simple and not manipulative in the way that music films can be. And the music itself? Well, here we are.

I’m into this tune because it’s got everything I love about a Frames song. It’s serpentine in construction, heartfelt in delivery and it’s got those swelling strings for ample sonic hugging. Also, the other obvious choice, “Falling Slowly,” which Hansard and Irglova released on Swell Season, has achieved market saturation. It’s in the movie, on the soundtrack, on their album and then, on The Cost, reworked in a bigger, grander style. We don’t need it here.

To get a sense of what the Coachella show was like, check out this video at YouTube, which catches them in their set opener, “Dance The Devil.” Especially worth note is Glen Hansard’s energetic outburst at about minute 4:10.

The Frames: amazon, itunes, popmatters (review of Once)

Enjoy:

The Frames – “Song For Someone”

How could I not? I mean, did Radiohead really need another amazing album? Couldn’t they have just slowly faded like U2? Well, apparently not. I liked their last album. Hail to The Thief had some interesting stuff on it. It was a bit of a return to their tighter Bends-y construction, a step away from the rampant experimentalism of Kid A and Amnesiac. So I didn’t know what to expect with In Rainbows, and frankly, I wasn’t dying to know. Radiohead released the album themselves in that peculiar “Pay What You Want” fashion that was either brilliant or daft, depending on your point of view. I paid nothing. I picked it up out of curiosity. And then I sat on it for weeks for some reason, perhaps not wanting to be disappointed, perhaps afraid of getting suckered by hype, perhaps I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind. But finally, sitting at a coffee house tapping away at the novel-in-progress, I decided to give it a spin.

I didn’t listen to anything else for three days.

This isn’t peer pressure. This is not me going, “Oh Gawd, since everyone else says it’s good, I might as well squeeze it into the top ten.” This is me going, “Holy pus bucket, Batman!” which, in non-derivative slang translates to, “Heck, these guys have put out something really special.” It’s tough to single out a solitary track to represent this album, and indeed, as we climb higher in the ranks of Tracks That Mattered, we’re getting away from songs and focusing more on albums. But I love this one. “Bodysnatchers” is a paranoid, rapid-fire growl with rich, rounded guitars and a humming bassline. Thom Yorke howls about abduction and paralysis and defeat:

Has the light gone out for you?
Cause the light’s gone out for me
It is the 21st century
It is the 21st century
You can fight it like a dog
It brought me to my knees
They got scared and they put me in
All their eyes wrapped around my face
Although everybody else can see

This is classic Radiohead. The stuff I love, come back again to haunt.

Radiohead: official site, in rainbows (no longer available as a download), Bodysnatchers (youtube)

Listen and weep:

Radiohead – “Bodysnatchers”

A curiosity more than anything, this odd collaboration between Brit producers Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip has nevertheless been quite the phenomenon in both England and the States. There’s not much to it, really. Le Sac lays down the metallic beats and Msr. Pip speaks/raps through a series of commandments. I’ve come back to it a few times since I first heard it and every time I dig it a little more.

I think the appeal lies in its lyrics. There’s a stand being taken here. It’s a manifesto of sorts that cautions people from doing things like worshiping pop idols who are, in the end, “just a band,” or against assuming that anyone nice to children who are not their own must be a pedophile, and even insists that Phoenix be spelled more like it sounds. It’s all tongue in cheek and perhaps, this time next year, I’ll chalk this up to a sort of zeitgeist-y fad, but for now, I’ll keep playing it. At very high volume.

The video is worth checking out as well. Rather than embed it here, though, I’ll send you over to Techsploder, which posts the video AND the lyrics. There’s also a nifty Kam Denny Mix out there that does some great dance floor stuff with the track (also excerpted below.)

Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip: myspace

Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip – “Thou Shalt Always Kill”

The night before my friend Michael and I hopped into the car and headed to Coachella we stopped off to see Earlimart christen the Echoplex in Silverlake. It was a stellar lineup. Opening for them were The Watson Twins, Sea Wolf and (that portable festival of exuberance) The Parson Redheads. When Earlimart took the stage they did so with a small string section (The String Dream Team) in tow. Earlimart have no problem creating a full, luscious sound, but having the string section up on stage kinda pushed them into a critical mass and helped bring their meticulously crafted album tracks to life.

Now, I’m an Earlimart fan. That’s a strange thing for me to say because in these days of music saturation, where every week some new indie band is popping from the woodwork and every previous band ever formed is releasing a new cd there just isn’t time to develop a fandom. I’m not certain how that happened, but I picked up the vibe way back in 2002 when I heard the Avenues EP. Treble & Tremble, with its gorgeous post-Elliot Smith essence and its seamless construction pretty much sealed the deal. That, and then seeing them burn through a marvelous set in their stomping grounds at Spaceland three years ago (did I really drink that many margaritas?)

So the interminable wait between that album and the release of Mentor Tormentor in August seemed even longer then the nearly four years it took. It also made the first notes of the album, as I finally got to sit down and listen to it, all the sweeter. That’s why the album’s opening cut, “Fakey Fake,” is here. As Nick Hornby writes about mix tapes, “you’ve got to kick it off with a corker,” and that’s just what they do. It’s the kind of song that says, “Hey there, did you miss us? Cool. Well, buckle up.”

The other cut, “Don’t Think About Me” is here for another reason. Which I won’t get into. Because it’s private.

Oh, fine. It has to do with a girl. But only barely, so shut up.

The album isn’t on any other year-end lists that I’ve seen (alright, there are a few exceptions.) I consider that a crime, but then that’s what fandom is all about. Catch them live if you can.

Earlimart: official site, amazon, itunes, the other Earlimart

listen:

Earlimart – “Fakey Fake”

Earlimart – “Don’t Think About Me”