Looking Back at a Few 2008 Releases

MGMT-Oracular Spectacular: By all accounts, I should hate this. It's synth-pop, and it's another attempt to capture the "voice" of our "generation." But some of this is great (especially the opener, Time to Pretend), I mean really great: "Yeah it's overwhelming/but what else can we do/get jobs in offices/and wake up for the morning commute." This is like the TV on the Radio album + (Sunflowers and Rainbows). By the way though, what awful fucking cover art. It looks like one of the computer games I used to play in high school.

The reality is that if this was piano or guitar as opposed to synthesizers and the voices were more distorted/offkey, everybody would probably be proclaiming this an indie rock masterpiece. As is, it's a really good indie pop album--poignant yet also easily accessible. The duo of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew Van Wyngarden are at their best when most cheeky and pushing the tempo, especially on the aforementioned Time to Pretend, as well as on Electric Feel and Kids.

The album on really falters, mostly in the latter half, when MGMT slow things down a bit. This is not to say that this part of the album is bad, more that it is just hard to live up to the first 5 or 6 tracks. At they very least, everyone should get on Itunes and pick up the Time to Pretend, Electric Feel and Kids. This is probably the closest thing to 80s music that I will ever enjoy/write about on this blog.



Vivian Girls-Vivian Girls: Beloved by many, hated by Bob Boilan, ignored by me (or, at least until now). However, one track on here, Where do you run to, is so fucking good that I had to look online and make sure it wasn't a cover. It's the one track on the album that slows down enough for the band to really hit their stride. The rest is a 21 minute whirlwind of average indie girl/noise/pop. Skip this and pick up Sleater Kinney's The Woods or Times New Viking's Rip it Off. Oh, but pick up Where do you run to on Itunes.

Hmm...maybe that was too dismissive. This isn't a bad album...there's just better stuff out there.



Blind Pilot-3 Rounds and a Sound: I must credit NPR's All Songs Considered for this one. They mentioned it on their year end show and played a great track, One Red Thread, and it was one of the best things I hadn't heard yet. The rest of the album did not disappoint. In fact, it is probably one of those rare albums which is able to execute a certain mood throughout the entire album. 3 Rounds and a Sound is an album of daytime lullabies executed to perfection by singer and guitarist Israel Nebeker and drummer Ryan Dobrowski.

A lot of the singing is similar to the lyrical style of Andrew Bird, with Nebeker weaving his words together to create as much of a sound as a story. The tunes are affecting as well, even if they're a bit cutesy--on Two Towns From Me, he tells us "I had a dream you were two towns from me/got to sleep spent the whole night running." But, here as in other places, Nebeker pulls it off as his voice is able to convince us of his sincerity. And while the sound is similar throughout the album, the tracks do not sound the same, each one has its own distinct feel. Overall, perhaps the best album of the three.

Tomorrow: A few words on Nobunny and maybe a couple of other things.