The New Boredom

Yeah Yeah Yeah’s- It’s Blitz!

The YYY’s jumped into my life with Fever To Tell which will be one of my all time fav. They followed that up with Show Your Bones which was something of a dreary, sad feeling album to me. Nothing wrong with that but it lacked the screaming and yelling that I had expected. Then came an excellent EP, Is Is which sounded more like Fever To Tell than I expected. When I first heard about It’s Blitz and how they were going a dancier route with more pop synch type stuff going on, I was skeptical. Dancy-pop synth stuff huh? Didn’t everyone else do that like 2 or 3 years ago?

Well I get the album and throw it on the speakers and my first listen through proved me wrong. Sure everyone else has done the dance-synth stuff a couple years ago… but the YYY’s did it in 2009 and it is grand. The album has some weird tracks but overall provides a plenty enjoyable listening experience. It seems that they have learned that Karen O doesn’t have to scream and yell to be mysterious and quirky and haunting all at the same time. The energy isnt as high as I had hoped but one thing is for certain, with the YYY’s doing this dance sounding stuff now, I absolutely cannot wait for The God to reach down from the heavens and high five me in the form of a dance infused YYY’s live show. Holy shits, I can’t wait for that.

Peter, Bjorn & John – Living Things

Those guys shown above wrote Young Folks?! They look so sad though? Does it rain all the time in Europe? Well, whatever, Young Folks was probably the catchiest song of Writer’s Block and was literally every damn where that whole summer… thanks whistling. What that song did was drown out the entire rest of that last album which was rich with great and catchy (though less mind destroying) songs. This new album is much more like the entire rest of that last album. I need to give this one a few more listens to really soak it in but with each new pass through the album I keep finding new things to like. I certainly hope that these guys are not destined for one-hit-wonder status. They have a few more tricks up their sleeve than simply whistling and putting that to creepy original Johnny Quest style animation.

Sahara Hotnights- Sparks

These classy gals started out for me as a substitute to The Donnas as a pop-punkish rock group of hot chicks and their sound did that just fine. Lately though, their sound has shifted quite a bit. They no longer sound like The Donnas at all to me. And I suppose that’s a good thing, you really only need one Donnas in your line up. Lately they sound like…. well crap, I should have thought this through a bit better… Heart and Abba had a civil union in Sweden and then they made this album? Mess Around is an absolute snooze-fest for me and I dont even consider it part of this album but Japanese Boy and a cover of Cass McCombs’s City of Brotherly Love are pretty indicative of their new sound. There’s also a pretty neat-o cover of the Foo Fighter’s Big Me.

Metric- Fantasies

Emily Haynes can do no wrong in my book. I love early Metric. I love dancy Grow Up and Blow Away Metric. I love her Soft Skeletons solo album. I love the new Metric. This stuff sounds the most like Old World Underground, the album that is the reason that I love Metric so much. There’s some political plea songs, there’s some mad at society stuff, there’s some have fun and cut loose songs. This album feels really nicely balanced and I fear that this album might just be the thing that blows them up on the mainstream radio and fills their shows with the kind of fans that are just giant bags of shit taking up space at their shows. I don’t know. Maybe Metric is just bigger in Canada but around here, Crystal Castles sold out their last show, not Metric headlining. I’d like to keep it a tighter knit club of people who just plain like Metric (and have boyish crushes on Emily Haynes).

Fever Ray- Fever Ray

Well… I think we know who is the fucking weirder one out of The Knife. Though I guess we should give the dude a chance to put out something even weirder. I don’t know how to explain this album in any kind of cohesive review. I mean, if you like The Knife, you probably already have this album. And if you don’t like The Knife, you’re probably not going to be that into this stuff. Fever Ray makes most of Silent Shouts sound like a god damn Sesame Street jingle. It’s dark but vibrant, moody but fun, downright oniony with layers but simple in its delivery. I have no idea what else to say here. I like it.

Wavves- Wavves

Imagine for a second if you smoked a shit ton of weed every day but instead of sitting on your couch eating Doritos and playing Wii… you grabbed a guitar and some really shitty music recording gear, got hyped up through the roof, and made an album. Well, I guess that’s what happened here. Clearly not a musician in the conventional sense, this guy is probably free from the kinds of dumb rules that everyone else can get bogged down by. His stuff is noisy, fast, obnoxious, and ultimately pretty damn fun.