May 2010
29 posts
5 tags
Standard Fare - The Noyelle Beat →
Trading boy-girl vocals over lyrics about the exuberance and confusion of youth, Standard Fare are clearly preaching to the Los Campesinos crowd (although there are substantially fewer members than in the Welsh collective). The debut album, named after a small French town the Sheffield band played sometime last year, is a simple, but not insubstantial, and bouncy affair with the occasional, and...
5 tags
Silver Sun - Dad's Weird Dream →
Sunday Sermons
I’m not sure if this one classifies as a Sunday Sermon or a Guilty Pleasure but since I’m supposed to be promoting gems from forgotten acts, Silver Sun definitely that bill. You may remember Silver Sun from such genres as britpop/powerpop/twee-metal - particularly their 1997 eponymous debut album, which was followed up with Too Much, Too Little, Too Late - an EP of...
5 tags
Smith Westerns - Smith Westerns →
Smith Westerns are a band from Chicago whose bedroom-recorded debut came out last year. Happily riding the chillwave scene, the album is full of fuzzed out and instantly catchy songs that are somewhat reminscient of The Ramones (the long haircuts help) but updated for a new generation of slackers. T-Rex influence also comes across strongly, particularly on the track Girl In Love. Spotted live...
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Ganglians - Monster Head Room →
The second Ganglians album was released a few weeks ago on Souterrain Transmissions - an independent label from Berlin whose other acts include CocoRosie and Ramona Falls. Monster Head Room sounds like what you’d get when you mash the Beach Boys together with The Flaming Lips - a wild, psychedelic, harmonising, acid-tinged beast of a record. Most enjoyable - and playing on the Pitchfork...
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Center Of The Universe - Apokryfa →
This is a crazy and awesome record. The first half reminds me a lot of Gorkys Zygotic Mynci - it’s full of smooth and ethereal indie pop songs. Nice but nothing earth-shattering. And then suddenly, half way through, it turns into an epic voyage through Eastern Europe with tracks allegedly inspired by long-forgotten Azerbaijani and Albanian folk music. I don’t know much about the...
5 tags
Sleigh Bells - Treats →
Sleigh Bells are all about noise - plain and simple. This electro-rock duo from Brooklyn release their debut album on MIA’s NEET label and it’s a corker. Listening to this on your crappy computer speakers probably isn’t going to cut it here because you need to hear the real distortion on these tracks. Ultimately, it’s probably not going to be remembered in the pantheon...
4 tags
Pearly Gate Music - Pearly Gate Music →
I’d love to be the first writer NOT to mention the connection between Pearly Gate Music’s lead singer, Zach Tillman, and Fleet Foxes drummer (and successful solo artist) J. Tillman. But, oh well, it helps with context. Pearly Gate Music is characterised by beautiful melodies strung together by a talented storyteller and songwriter. So much like FF then - only with a more country...
5 tags
The Rolling Stones - Exile On Main Street →
Sunday Sermons
Recently re-mastered and re-released, Exile On Main Street is the Stones’ greatest album and arguably one of the best of all time. Exile marks the apex of Mick’s swagger and Keith’s remarkable skill at blending country rhythms with a rock and roll soul. All the way through it kicks and stomps and drags you in to every boogie. Sadly on the Spotify version...
1 tag
HotSpotMusic. Updates
Some exciting new changes to HotSpotMusic today - a complete site redesign and a bunch of exciting new features. I hope you like it. Check them:
OTHER SITES!
Some say that HotSpotMusic reviews are definitive. But that’s not quite true, sometimes you just need a little more information. So, I’m happy to announce that now you can very easily search for the featured artists on a...
5 tags
Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record →
Sometimes collectives or supergroups such as BSS come together and find a sound of their own - a consolidated and consistent musical outlook. And sometimes they can be diverse collections of influences and ideas, bursting at the seams and thrashing together for attention. On Forgiveness Rock Record, BSS tread that narrow line very carefully and create a tight but intriguing radio-friendly...
5 tags
She & Him - Volume Two →
As delightful and faux-nostalgia-inducing as Volume One. Zooey Deschanel writes more confidently whilst M. Ward throws strings and harmony arrangements more freely than before. It’s definitely a more polished production. Whether you like this, though, will depend a lot on your predilection for 60s pop and genuinely saccharine melodies. But pick the right day (and, almost as importantly,...
5 tags
The National - High Violet →
After 5 albums over nearly 10 years, The National have really nailed their art. Each album seems like a confident and muscular improvement over the last. Using the extra time and artistic leeway provided for by the critical success of previous album The Boxer, they’ve clearly spent a lot of time in the studio polishing the edges until perfectly happy with this one. High Violet is bold and...
5 tags
Delorean - Subiza →
Taking equal parts from the beats of Spanish house music and the laid-back vibes from the rising chillwave scene, with an unequivocal slice of Animal Collective, the first full-lengther from Delorean is a pure slice of modern dance pop. It’s more focused and tighter than the Ayrton Senna EP which brought them attention from the blogosphere and this summer they look set to be a hit at...
6 tags
LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening →
And indeed it is. This is the third and, allegedly, final LCD Soundsystem record. James Murphy has always thrust his influences to the forefront of his music to a comically ironic effect and this album is no different. Somebody’s Calling Me is as clear a homage to Berlin-era Iggy Pop as I’ve ever heard (the beat is straight out of Nightclubbing). But, as always, he manages to pull...
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Peter And The Wolf - Golden Stars →
Comfortably slotting in besides other folk-rock acts such as Blitzen Trapper or Goldheart Assembly, Named after Prokofiev’s kids classic, Peter and the Wolf hail from Liverpool and create charming and vivacious pop songs without a hint of irony or bitterness - check second track, Out Of The Loop, as a great example. Add in some captivating melodies and you can see why Guy Garvey (of Elbow)...
7 tags
Elliott Smith - Roman Candle →
Sunday Sermons
This weeks Sunday Sermon moves out of the punk/new-wave scene of the late 70s/early 80s which has so far dominated the feature and back to one of my favourite songwriters of all time, Elliott Smith. Roman Candle was his debut album, released before he hit the big time with the soundtrack to 1997’s Good Will Hunting, and it has just been reissued seven years after his...
6 tags
The Dead Weather - Sea Of Cowards →
Whilst I love the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, I just can’t get into The Dead Weather (Jack White’s other supergroup side-project). It just all seems a little too self-indulgent, jam-band-y to me (which is essentially what it is). More Deep Purple than Led Zep. It’s gritty and rips through 10 dark, garage-blues songs before you’ve had time to notice. And...
5 tags
Broadcast 2000 - Broadcast 2000 →
After the breadth of 100-man indie bands on the scene today, each person seemingly contributing a single note to a song by hitting a pipe against a set of antlers, or the like, it was darn refreshing to hear these guys in Brussels Wednesday: simply three people creating quality sound. Singer and composer Joe Steer sings on his own or with a revolving set of backup, but after his two solo songs,...
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Phosphorescent - Here's To Taking It Easy →
Matthew Houck (the one-man Phosphorescent) has been making honest, earthy folk music for the last five years but this album marks a shift in his songwriting. This is a gorgeous sidestep into country-tinged rock. The first track, It’s Hard To Be Humble, has an Exile On Main Street-era bluesy boogie to it but with a strained and weary vocal whilst track eight, Heaven, Sittin’ Down, has...
1 tag
hotspotmusic's Half Birthday Celebration Playlist
Yes, hotspotmusic is 6 months old now and it’s been a hot half year full of tip top hits. It’s been a lot of fun doing hotspotmusic so far so I thought I’d put together a ‘Best of’ compilation playlist featuring some of my favourite records posted since we started. 60 great tunes on here; that’s over 3 hours of hotspotmusic piping down your earholes. ...
6 tags
Woodpigeon - Die Stadt Muzikanten →
I was turned on to Woodpigeon some time last year and became instantly addicted to their two excellent previous albums. This new one carries on the tradition of slightly bookish, cheerful and enchanting indie pop. One of the best, and sadly under-exposed, Canadian bands out there. If nothing else, they should be known for consistently having some of the longest song titles in rock. (Been...
5 tags
Iggy And The Stooges - Raw Power →
Sunday Sermons
There aren’t many albums that are more aptly titled than this one. It’s a blistering showcase for Iggy’s primal howl that has the potency to rip layers of skin right from the ears of the unexpectant listener. Their sound is never better defined than on opening track Search And Destroy but the tight, metallic guitars and thumping drums power through the whole...
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Harlem - Hippies →
Don’t be fooled by the name - this is neither Harlem sound nor the sound of Hippies. This is garage rock with an emphasis on the short and sweet - most songs on the album don’t top the 2.30 minute mark. There’s quite the garage-scene down in Austin, Texas these days and Harlem are a decent addition to the scene (although this album seems a little top heavy with the back half...
6 tags
The New Pornographers - Together →
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. The trick the New Pornos keep on pulling is in making writing incredible pop songs look so damn easy. The fifth album from this super supergroup is another slice of immediately familiar and hugely enjoyable power-pop rock. After Challengers, their most distant (but equally good) album, Messrs. Newman,...
4 tags
Surfer Blood - Astro Coast →
Because of their oh-so-in beach-themed moniker, Surfer Blood have been lumped in with the burgeoning chillwave scene. But there’s more to them than that and this debut album fits better with the likes of The Shins or Vampire Weekend. It’s full of big guitar hooks (such as heavily-blogged single Swim) and composed pop songs shrouded in crunching, fuzzing instrumentation. ...
4 tags
Lali Puna - Our Inventions →
Necessity is the mother of all invention. But there’s no such requirements on Our Inventions, German electronic outfit Lali Puna’s fourth studio album, and first for 6 years. It features exactly what we’ve come to expect from them - groovy grooves. This one steps back a bit and is a bit more chilled out and poppy, perhaps too chilled out and poppy? Despite being critically...
4 tags
New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies →
Sunday Sermons
This is New Order at their most brilliant. This is New Order at their most driving, most danceable, most potent. And this is the first true New Order record that really had a sound (that oh-so unique sound) of its own. Fresh off the club success of Blue Monday (which wasn’t on the original cut of this record but forgive me for posting the Collectors Edition with that...
6 tags
Roky Erickson - True Love Cast Out All Evil →
Legendary psychadelic rocker Roky Erickson teams up with Okkervil River to record his first album in 14 years. It sounds like a cathartic record as you can hear Erickson bare his soul on a number of strong tracks. The Okkervil River influence does not go unheard either - underpinning the record with powerful country-rock. The first track, Devotional Number One, has a gentle vulnerability to it...
1 tag
April Playlist
Technological malfunctions and real life got in the way a bit during April so this months playlist is a bit of a short one. But it also means that there’s now hundreds of albums waiting in the review queue…
This month saw the most exciting changes come in Spotify’s social update (and lots more features besides) and, while that’s still being rolled out over some people,...