This is my 100th post since I started this blog! It doesn't even feel like I've been doing this for more than 3 months. And somehow it coincided nicely with this month's end of month post. (I didn't plan this. Honest)
What this post would be about is 2 albums that I've been uncovering more about day by day. After finding out yet another song in the album that hooks me in line and sinker, there would be another song glittering under everything else, waiting to revel in it's full glory.
I hear that the Miike in their name was derived from Japanese director Takeshi Miike, that they are fans of his. For Miike Snow's self-titled album, Animal came out guns a blazing as the first single. (oh btw, this came out at the unusually sweet ending for the latest Gossip Girl episode. also, I think they got the singer wrong for Ready For The Floor which is by Hot Chip. They listed a female singer when the song obviously was sung by a guy.) These guys, Andrew Wyatt (who does the vocals and the songwriting) combined with the production of Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (more known as Bloodshy & Avant and produced/wrote Britney Spear's Toxic and Piece of Me), spared nothing in their arsenal. There's the balladic and emotional Silvia contrasted with the heavy house beats present in In Search Of. I can't make head or tails of what A Horse Is Not A Home could mean, and the cryptic lyrics did nothing to help, but it is a pretty catchy number, though not the best they could muster. And one wonders what Miike Snow could be doing with a song on the affairs of the heart, but here they are with Cult Logic, wondering if somebody can free him from the logic of love that he knows. There are slow numbers like Faker - very pop-ish with the piano in the background and a tinkle of electronic, to the uber catchy buzz of Burial sang to the tune of morbidity.
A very pop-ish feel, with heavy electronic influences, it's reminiscent of a male version of La Roux, with a vocalist fronting the production. However, Miike Snow is(or are) Miike Snow, and it's hard to fault what Pontus and Christian are doing and Andrew doesn't let down either with meaningful (and a dose of huh?) lyrics not usually present in pop. But of course, the album isn't perfect, with a song like Plastic Jungle which sounded like a mish-mash of odd lyrics plus weird la-la-las. Like "sometimes i wanna get slain" and "I was choked by the jailor and fucked the gorilla." just throws you off kilter. A lot of people say they sound a bit like Passion Pit, but I think both are unique and have their own identities, and I love them both.
Next up is British group and Mercury Prize nominee, Friendly Fires, also with a self-titled album. Ed Macfarlane met bandmates Jack Savidge and Edd Gibson at St Albans School, said to be one of the oldest school in Europe.
First things first is their really arty cover. It's obviously something broken, but I really can't think of what it could be. The white stuff that seems to be scattering, immediately brings to mind the Skeleton Boy video, which by the way just oozes with catchy beats and trippiness. They seem to be going all ravey in the video. Suspiciously, Lovesick sounds very similar, even the lyrics are about love. What do you think? There's the obviously dance and remix friendly Jump In The Pool. Dance beats, check. Awesome chorus, check. Groovy melody, check. So there. Like Miike Snow(the album), there are songs that just don't fit. Maybe as a debut album, it's experimental on their part, but Photobooth has Macfarlane going so high(as in pitch) about a photobooth. Ditto On Board which sounds like something out of a drag show. But here, we have a saviour inParis. It makes me just wanna turn it on on the rooftops of an apartment (doesn't have to be in Paris), but preferably somewhere with an awesome night view under the stars, like in the song. Just dancing to it, or leaning over the parapet gazing out and over, even just lying down and watching the stars, see if they twinkle to the pulsing beat. And here I am wondering how they could make ooh-ooh-oohs sound good in Kiss of Life while Miike Snow just botch it with la-la-las. (ok it could get a little grating after repeated listens to the song - the ooh-ooh-oohs). White Diamonds is just unadulterated rock. While it doesn't culminate in a bang, it has the prerequisite chorus and highs and lows, not forgetting the hard drumbeats pounding behind.
Like what Edd Gibson notes: "The hardest thing I think is to know what to leave out, to know when something is enough." They nearly got that, except for a few ughs here and there, like Miike Snow, it's rolling as a debut. I particularly love these lines in Paris - "I'll find you that French boy/You'll find me that French girl", don't ask me why.
These two have put together really tight songs that just literally force your legs to start moving or sometimes pensive songs that want you still - just listening. Not forgetting the dearth of remixes for both album, I could leave them on for hours and maybe not finish one cycle.
And now essentially, I've actually done 2 album reviews in one post, but what I was looking to do was to just talk about them, which I realise the music has more than sufficiently done. Really look forward to their sophomore album. This marks the end of this post, but with these groups, it just heralds more for us music lovers.
