Just stumbled across this this evening. Had no idea Built to Spill had any music videos, let alone for one of their best-ever songs, “Untrustable Part 2,” from their best album Perfect From Now On. Granted, it’s a truncated version of the song, but it’s still quite amazing that this got produced. Thinking the band had watched Tool’s videos from Undertow one too many times when they dreamt this one up.

Fascinating new music by James Blake:

With vocals that fall somewhere between Bon Iver‘s Justin Vernon and an auto-tuned Aaron Neville, on top of down-tempo, sparse electronic bleeps, bloops and digital beats, Blake is heading into uncharted territory.

Read a little more about it over at Another Rainy Saturday.

Me, over at Another Rainy Saturday:

After the Broken West became permanently broken in 2009, Ross Flournoy languished in obscurity for about a year. According to the Apex Manor page over at their label Merge Records, Flournoy was inspired to get back into songwriting by participating in a weeklong write and then record contest over at NPR’s Monitor Mix:

Now feeling inspired for the first time in months, Flournoy began writing at a feverish clip, penning more than 25 songs, nearly a third of which were co-written by Adam Vine. Flournoy then teamed up with former Broken West bandmate Brian Whelan to record some proper demos, and Apex Manor was born.

Haven’t had a chance yet to purchase the new Apex Manor album, which debuted on January 25, but if it’s anything like the above song, I’m all over it.

UPDATE: We would be remiss if we didn’t mention that Apex Manor plays at the Tractor Tavern tonight with Red Jacket Mine and Spanish For 100. It’ll be $8 at the door, 21+.

Live show review: Grace Potter and the Nocturnals at the Crocodile (from ARS)

My first concert of 2011 was outside the indie-rock realm, but at one of my favorite venues in Seattle.

Now, this is not to say that there aren’t any sexy female-led bands in indie rock. Chan Marshall, Neko Case, Liz Phair — these are all “sexy” women. But there’s is an understated sort of appeal. And there is nothing understated about Grace Potter. At 27, she’s got the band, the crowd, the scene all wrapped around her Flying V guitar.

Read my full review of the Grace Potter and the Nocturnals show at the Crocodile over at Another Rainy Saturday.

Fleet Foxes, with the title track from their forthcoming sophomore album, Helplessness Blues. Expanding from the Crosby Stills & Nash sound upon which they built their foundation, this new song has everything I loved about the Fleet Foxes from the very beginning: changing time signatures, echo-laden harmonies, and full, rich acoustics. Dig it.

Meanwhile, over at Another Rainy Saturday…

New for 2011: linking from The Bacon Review to what I write in other places (usually at Another Rainy Saturday). First up, a preview for tomorrow night’s Grace Potter & The Nocturnals show at the Crocodile:

Grace Potter, the 27-year old firebrand with the Janis Joplin gravel in her chest, leads the Nocturnals, her Southern Rock-based band, with anything but grace. Try blunt-force, ton-of-bricks, knock-your-socks-off electricity.

New URL means re-posted RSS feed

Yesterday I switched the URL for The Bacon Review from http://baconreview.tumlbr.com to http://baconreview.com. And of course, this means that the RSS feed has reset itself, presenting the most recent 20 entries for you to re-read. So sorry about that!

Hope you like the new look of the place, too. If you’re reading this in your RSS reader, please click here to jump over to the site and check it out. I’m simply using a great new Tumblr template called Effector Theme by Carlo Franco. I plan on tweaking some things to make it feel more like my own soon.

One of my favorites from 2009 is finally releasing a second album. Rural Alberta Advantage, the young threesome out of Canada, put together some of the best original indie rock stuff out there. Jaw-dropping drumming (listen closely to it on the above video upon your second time through the song), piercing and powerful vocals, and desolate lyrics born out of rural Canadian upbringing: a winning combination that I just can’t get enough of. Their new album, Departing, comes out March 1 (or Feb. 15 if you order from the Saddle Creek website) and they’re coming to the Tractor Tavern on April 10.

I don’t recall ever having seen a video that made me like a song less, but leave it to a band with a terrible name to find and exploit that untapped spot in my brain.

Even so, it’s a fantastic song. John in the Morning has been playing this song every day for the past four days, and he was right when he tweeted:

holy mother baby jesus on a cracker, “colours” from Grouplove?!?!?!? I’m freaking out. Its perfect. (sic)

Head. Explode.

Not so keen on the music — it’s not bad, but that’s not the story here. Just watch.

Directed by Cyriak Harris. Music by Eskmo.

One of the strangest videos I’ve ever seen. Good song, though. It’s the title track from Destroyer’s upcoming release “Kaputt,” out on January 25.

New video for fast-rising Seattle hip-hop star Macklemore. The man sure knows how to pull at the home-town heartstrings.

New Noah and the Whale song, “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.,” from their forthcoming album Last Night On Earth, which comes out March 8th. That chorus just sticks to you, like peanut butter.

#1 on the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar

High Violet by The National

If you’ve talked music with me at all since May 30, 2010, then you most likely predicted what would be #1 on the Musical Bacon Calendar. While I had listened to High Violet a bit before heading into Sasquatch!, I hadn’t expected much from The National’s performance that fateful day in May. Here’s what I wrote up for Click & Dagger after the fact:

The National’s recorded music, powerful in its own right — with most songs building from a quiet, understated point to a frenzied climax, doesn’t seem like it would translate to the big stage. But I’m so happy to report that I was 100% wrong. The band puts everything into their set. Matt Berninger’s baritone vocals just melt across the crowd when he’s singing quietly. But as each song builds, he becomes a powerful force that commands attention. Brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner, swapping guitars back and forth throughout the set as only brothers could, add a little bit of a necessary damper to Berninger’s onstage antics. And the National’s second set of brothers, Scott and Bryan Devendorf, on bass and drums, respectively provide the undertone and the excitement to the set. With Padma Newsome on violin and keyboards, the band performed one amazing song after another.

Watching Berninger on stage really brought things to life. He throws mic stands; he bounces around the stage; he pounds his fist into his open palm over and over again, to the point that you wonder if the man suffers from a slight form of Asperger’s. But each and every song was powerful. You could feel the energy emanating from the stage. And when Berninger took to the crowd, during “Abel,” from their Beggar’s Banquet debut Alligator, he provided me with one of those once-in-a-lifetime festival experiences. He waded through the crowd, singing at the top of his lungs, spreading his overflowing energy from one person to the next. And he walked right next to me, holding his mic to his mouth with one hand and the cord for the mic up over the crowd with his other, singing the song’s “chorus” — the shouted line “My mind’s not right” repeated over and over and over again — right next to me. That’s some powerful stuff.

So powerful, in fact, that nothing has been able to match it since. I could have even given Berninger a hug, but I managed to restrain myself, shouting right along with him — to the point where I lost my voice. It was a religious experience, in the purest since of the word.

I saw The National play again later in the year, headlining their own show at Marymoor Park, and while that show was really, really, good, it still wasn’t better than the Sasquatch! set. And the tone of High Violet changed for me from that day forward. Every time I heard it — probably once every three or four days for the rest of the year — I relieved that feeling of Berninger, not 2 feet from me, shouting “My Mind’s Not Right” to me and 15,000 other people.

That feeling, and this album (along with the rest of The National’s albums), will be burned into my brain for the rest of my life. But while you won’t be able to have the same emotional connection to this album that I do, High Violet is still worthy of #1. It’s a hard-rocking, make-you-move kinda album that just carries you through the entire record. There are some slow moments, but they’re necessary to keep you moving through to the next rocking song. Pick up this album, and live with it for the next year. You won’t be sorry.

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2. The Winter of Mixed Drinks by Frightened Rabbit
3. The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens
4. Odd Blood by Yeasayer
5. Mines by Menomena
6. Contra by Vampire Weekend
7. Go by Jónsi
8. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
9. Gorilla Manor by the Local Natives
10. The Head and the Heart by the Head and the Heart
11. Special Affections by Diamond Rings
12. Treats by Sleigh Bells
13. Write About Love by Belle & Sebastian
14. Wild Smile by Suckers
15. Learning by Perfume Genius
16. Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene
17. Expo 86 by Wolf Parade
18. One Life Stand by Hot Chip
19. Big Echo by The Morning Benders
20. Here’s To Taking It Easy by Phosphorescent
21. This is Happening by LCD Soundsystem
22. The Mistress by Yellow Ostrich
23. Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter
24. Been Listening by Johnny Flynn
25. The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth
26. Lisbon by The Walkmen
27. Scratch My Back by Peter Gabriel
28. All Day by Girl Talk
29. A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head by Bobby Bare Jr.
30. 03 to TEN by Knathan Ryan
31. In This Light On This Evening by Editors

#2 on the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar

The Winter of Mixed Drinks by Frightened Rabbit

After a large number of somewhat out there — but nonetheless great — albums across the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar, we now come to a great, straightforward indie-rock album. You may not be familiar with Frightened Rabbit, and if that’s the case, do what you need to to ge acquainted. With ballads, guitar picking folk ditties, and hard rocking anthems, there is something in The Winter of Mixed Drinks for every rock & roll fan. Editor, lead writer, and all-around owner of the site I do my “professional” writing for, Chris Burlingame at Another Rainy Saturday, summed the album up quite well by saying, “The newer album succeeds at finding a fuller, more complex sound that includes adding string and horn arrangements to their mix. Polished, maybe, but the sound is richer and I think for the better.”

I had the immense pleasure of seeing Frightened Rabbit play at Showbox at the Market earlier this year, and I reviewed their performance thusly:

Scott comes across as one of the most sincere people I’ve ever had the pleasure to hear sing. He and the other four guys in his band have “nicest blokes you’d ever meet” tattooed all over them. I want to bring them to my grandma’s house, where I imagine they would introduce themselves and then volunteer to shut all of her storm windows for the pending winter. Scott’s brother Grant plays drums and sings backup. The band is filled out with three more guitars (and the occasional vocals, bass, additional percussion, or keyboards) played by Billy Kennedy, Andy Monaghan and Gordon Skene.

Frightened Rabbit have three full length albums to pull from, but with the exception of one song, “Be Less Rude,” from their debut album, Sing the Greys, they stuck to songs from their more recent, more successful albums. They managed to play nearly everything I could hope for: ten songs from 2007’s The Midnight Organ Fight, and seven from this year’s The Winter of Mixed Drinks. The one glaring hole in the setlist was “Skip The Youth,” my favorite song from the new album.

“Skip the Youth” is still my favorite song on the album, but there’s not a bad one in the bunch. The rather sweet video above is for probably the second-best song on the album, “The Loneliness & The Scream.”

While the band is still unheard of by mainstream U.S. standards, I feel they’re on the verge of breaking into the mainstream. This album, while it’s been out for most of the year, could be the one that pushes them over the hump. True, it’s proving more and more easy to hear new music online, but reaching the ears of the masses is inversely more difficult. I’m not entirely sure it’s even possible without a major label’s help. But, fingers crossed, these five guys from Glasgow won’t be hidden away on countdowns like mine in the near future.

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3. The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens
4. Odd Blood by Yeasayer
5. Mines by Menomena
6. Contra by Vampire Weekend
7. Go by Jónsi
8. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
9. Gorilla Manor by the Local Natives
10. The Head and the Heart by the Head and the Heart
11. Special Affections by Diamond Rings
12. Treats by Sleigh Bells
13. Write About Love by Belle & Sebastian
14. Wild Smile by Suckers
15. Learning by Perfume Genius
16. Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene
17. Expo 86 by Wolf Parade
18. One Life Stand by Hot Chip
19. Big Echo by The Morning Benders
20. Here’s To Taking It Easy by Phosphorescent
21. This is Happening by LCD Soundsystem
22. The Mistress by Yellow Ostrich
23. Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter
24. Been Listening by Johnny Flynn
25. The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth
26. Lisbon by The Walkmen
27. Scratch My Back by Peter Gabriel
28. All Day by Girl Talk
29. A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head by Bobby Bare Jr.
30. 03 to TEN by Knathan Ryan
31. In This Light On This Evening by Editors

#3 on the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar

The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens

On Dec. 1, when I started the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar, Sufjan Stevens was not on it. The Age of Adz1 had been out for barely a month and a half (released Oct. 12), and it simply hadn’t been on my radar. Sufjan hadn’t released any new song-based full-length records since 2005’s phenomenal Illinois, and what he had released since that time were b-sides, scores, and other somewhat uninteresting stuff. I didn’t expect much from his new album, so I hadn’t sought it out yet, even though I’d known it was released.

Thanks to one friend of mine, who knew I was doing the countdown and had a pretty good grasp of my musical tastes based on past years’ calendars, who proclaimed, “You simply cannot complete the advent calendar without having first listened to this album.” Boy was he right. I picked up The Age of Adz on his insistance. And from that very first listen, I knew I had an album that would make the countdown. Since the countdown had already begun, I had to cut #30 or #29 from the list to make room for the late addition. And from that day forward, The Age of Adz slowly climbed the charts. First at #27, then up to #10, then to #3, where it finally hit a point that it couldn’t surpass.

I predict listening to this album well into the future. It’s much more interesting — née fascinating — than Illinois or anything that followed. And I rank Illinois quite high, falling in my Top 10 Albums of the Oughts list somewhere between #10 and #35. I also predict this album to get more and more airplay throughout 2011. It just hasn’t yet been given its due, even though it debuted at #7 on the Billboard 200.

Missing the Sufjan Stevens show at the Paramount earlier this year will go down as a big mistake on my part. According to another friend who talked highly of this album, the show Sufjan put on in Portland immediately following his performance here in Seattle was “the best show [he’s] seen in the past five years.” Based on hearing this album, damn. If I had seen that show, I’m guessing this album would have been #1.

The Age of Adz is much more experimental than anything Sufjan has produced previously. It begs listening multiple times, with headphones, as there are so many electronic layers of sound going in and around the melodies, it’s impossible to get everything on the first pass. There’s only one sore spot on the entire album, and it comes about 10 minutes into the epic, 25+ minute “Impossible Soul” at the end of the album. Sufjan plays around with a lot of new things on this album, but autotune should not have been one of them.

So, thank you Ryan, and thank you, Pete. Without you two feeding me music from time to time, I might very well miss some of the best stuff around. Now, if you could create a time machine to help me go back and see the Sufjan show at the Paramount this year, you would be miracle workers. (Don’t put it past me to waste a great opportunity like a time machine by simply going back and seeing a great concert.)

Stay tuned for numbers 2 and 1! I know you simply can’t wait

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4. Odd Blood by Yeasayer
5. Mines by Menomena
6. Contra by Vampire Weekend
7. Go by Jónsi
8. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
9. Gorilla Manor by the Local Natives
10. The Head and the Heart by the Head and the Heart
11. Special Affections by Diamond Rings
12. Treats by Sleigh Bells
13. Write About Love by Belle & Sebastian
14. Wild Smile by Suckers
15. Learning by Perfume Genius
16. Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene
17. Expo 86 by Wolf Parade
18. One Life Stand by Hot Chip
19. Big Echo by The Morning Benders
20. Here’s To Taking It Easy by Phosphorescent
21. This is Happening by LCD Soundsystem
22. The Mistress by Yellow Ostrich
23. Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter
24. Been Listening by Johnny Flynn
25. The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth
26. Lisbon by The Walkmen
27. Scratch My Back by Peter Gabriel
28. All Day by Girl Talk
29. A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head by Bobby Bare Jr.
30. 03 to TEN by Knathan Ryan
31. In This Light On This Evening by Editors

1. Pronounced “The Age of Odds”, and I’ll be damned if that italic z doesn’t look fantastic here. ↩

#4 on the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar

Odd Blood by Yeasayer

There are only nine bands on the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar that I didn’t see live this year. Four of them are in the top 10, and Yeasayer is one of them. But it wasn’t supposed to be this way: as I mentioned at #12, I had to leave the sold-out Sleigh Bells / Yeasayer show at Neumos early because of a medical emergency at home. I think it’s probably the only show I’ve ever left early that wasn’t my choice, and it could have been the highest-ranking show of the year (excepting Sasquatch!).

But even without having seen them live, Odd Blood, the second release from this Brooklyn band, sees regularly play at home. Like Contra, it’s been out for nearly the entire year (released Feb. 8), and has been in heavy rotation ever since.

It’s an interesting album. The first song, not even a song really but more like an intro to a horror movie, with heavily distorted Pink Floyd-esque vocals, doesn’t sound like it belongs at all. I’d love to know why they decided to put that “song” on the album at all, let alone first up. (According to Wikipedia they put it there because it was meant to be a major departure from the last song on their debut album, All Hour Cymbals. It feels to me it was meant to deter people from giving the album a cursory listen and then buying it, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why you’d want to deter anyone from buying your album.)

The strength of the album can be demonstrated by the difference in length between the Wikipedia page for the album, which is over five times longer than the entry for the band itself. Hit play on the video above, but don’t let the ridiculousness that ensues deter you from purchasing the album. This is a great record that would fit right in where Duran Duran left off back in the 80s. Which, strangely, isn’t a bad thing.

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5. Mines by Menomena
6. Contra by Vampire Weekend
7. Go by Jónsi
8. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
9. Gorilla Manor by the Local Natives
10. The Head and the Heart by the Head and the Heart
11. Special Affections by Diamond Rings
12. Treats by Sleigh Bells
13. Write About Love by Belle & Sebastian
14. Wild Smile by Suckers
15. Learning by Perfume Genius
16. Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene
17. Expo 86 by Wolf Parade
18. One Life Stand by Hot Chip
19. Big Echo by The Morning Benders
20. Here’s To Taking It Easy by Phosphorescent
21. This is Happening by LCD Soundsystem
22. The Mistress by Yellow Ostrich
23. Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter
24. Been Listening by Johnny Flynn
25. The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth
26. Lisbon by The Walkmen
27. Scratch My Back by Peter Gabriel
28. All Day by Girl Talk
29. A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head by Bobby Bare Jr.
30. 03 to TEN by Knathan Ryan
31. In This Light On This Evening by Editors

#5 on the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar

Mines by Menomena

What can I say — I’m a sucker for horns and strings. And Menomena regularly employs a bass saxaphone to fill out the low end of their songs. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg of the talent of the three main guys in the band. Any one of the three could sing lead on a song at any given time. And if they aren’t singing lead, they’re singing backup, all the while playing their myriad of instruments.

The song structures found on the wonderful Mines are quite unique. Their last full-length, 2007’s Friend and Foe, was also a fantastic album, but thankfully with the new record the band has grown away from the sound they share with bands like TV on the Radio.

Every song on Mines is insanely great. However, I’ve just spent three hours shoveling 18” of snow out of the driveway of the house I’m staying at here in Boston, and just cannot think or move my fingers any more. Just buy the damn album already.

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6. Contra by Vampire Weekend
7. Go by Jónsi
8. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
9. Gorilla Manor by the Local Natives
10. The Head and the Heart by the Head and the Heart
11. Special Affections by Diamond Rings
12. Treats by Sleigh Bells
13. Write About Love by Belle & Sebastian
14. Wild Smile by Suckers
15. Learning by Perfume Genius
16. Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene
17. Expo 86 by Wolf Parade
18. One Life Stand by Hot Chip
19. Big Echo by The Morning Benders
20. Here’s To Taking It Easy by Phosphorescent
21. This is Happening by LCD Soundsystem
22. The Mistress by Yellow Ostrich
23. Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter
24. Been Listening by Johnny Flynn
25. The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth
26. Lisbon by The Walkmen
27. Scratch My Back by Peter Gabriel
28. All Day by Girl Talk
29. A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head by Bobby Bare Jr.
30. 03 to TEN by Knathan Ryan
31. In This Light On This Evening by Editors

#6 on the 2010 Musical Bacon Calendar

Contra by Vampire Weekend

We’re now into the albums that will live on past their debut years, looked back at fondly with memories of good feeling. The album at number six has been out since January 11, so in terms of what’s listed on the Musical Bacon Calendar, it’s been out a long time. But even with that length of time gone by, Contra, the sophomore effort from Vampire Weekend, still finds its way into the rotation at least once a week. It came out in the dead of winter, but it feels like summer every time you listen to it.

After listening to the debut album exhaustively for two years, I was pleasantly surprised that they could take their unoriginal sound, expand on it, and make it even better. Bouncy, jangly guitars over ska-like beats extends the pattern Vampire Weekend started on their smash debut album, also called Vampire Weekend. They’ve fully embraced the sound started by Paul Simon on his Graceland album, and taken it to new heights. Contra is a great album that will be listened to well into the future.

The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, and subsequently earned a grammy for “Best Alternative Album.” According to Wikipedia, the band, along with their record company XL Recordings and photographer Tod Scott Brody, are being sued by Kirsten Kennis, the model on the cover of Contra, over the use of her image.

Vampire Weekend themselves are the type of band that are begging to be hated by more than just the model on the cover of their album. But it’s damn near impossible to do so. Four guys, dressed in pastel-colored polo shirts and khakis, with eternal smiles on their faces — I just want to punch that smile right off their faces. But try as I might, the music they make is undeniably catchy, indelibly delightful, unbelievably timeless. It’s pure joy, wrapped up in 1s and 0s.

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7. Go by Jónsi
8. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire
9. Gorilla Manor by the Local Natives
10. The Head and the Heart by the Head and the Heart
11. Special Affections by Diamond Rings
12. Treats by Sleigh Bells
13. Write About Love by Belle & Sebastian
14. Wild Smile by Suckers
15. Learning by Perfume Genius
16. Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene
17. Expo 86 by Wolf Parade
18. One Life Stand by Hot Chip
19. Big Echo by The Morning Benders
20. Here’s To Taking It Easy by Phosphorescent
21. This is Happening by LCD Soundsystem
22. The Mistress by Yellow Ostrich
23. Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter
24. Been Listening by Johnny Flynn
25. The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth
26. Lisbon by The Walkmen
27. Scratch My Back by Peter Gabriel
28. All Day by Girl Talk
29. A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head by Bobby Bare Jr.
30. 03 to TEN by Knathan Ryan
31. In This Light On This Evening by Editors