The Hold Steady - Teeth Dreams

Today The Hold Steady released their 6th studio album and I am so excited. Here's to another album about broken boys and girls in america, psychic druggy visions, growing up, cigarettes, heavy drinks, and trying to stay positive through the haze. Craig Finn writes these catchy, beautiful songs that always seem to get scratched into your head, stuck there between everything else.

Here's a song from the new album that rocks pretty hard.

The Hold Steady
Spinners

Evaporating Anger

  I took a walk through the city center one night after a long fight. It was about something dumb, like the dishes or who had fed the bird last; but it had ended in shouting. The kind of shouting that becomes blinding, that fills up the air with a red haze of anger and you just lose sight of anything resembling reason. And so I was walking through the early summer evening air. Trying to let the anger evaporate. I was doing my best to think of the many reasons I still loved her. Trying to think of the glue that held us warmly together, but with each warm thought of love the anger would rise up from the depths and swallow the love. The more I tried to love, the more I just felt overwhelmed with bitter anger.

   This went on for several blocks until I heard a voice mournfully singing. I looked to find a man with thinning hair perched atop a stoop with an accordion. I stopped to listen.  This is what he sang:

                                         Take me....
                                              Take me...
                                       Take me back to the land
                                           that tore the iron curtain down

                                          Take me back to
                                              The salty air
                                                 and colorful houses

                                         Take me...
                                              Take me...
                                       Take me back
                                                  to Gdánsk

                                         Take me back to Gdánsk
                                    Sometimes Danzig
                                           but my darling city
                                             will always be only
                                                 Gdánsk for me

                                        Take me...
                                               Take me...
                                       back to Gdánsk
                                            my one true love

  I felt tears at the corners of my eyes. I slipped the few dollars from my pocket into his accordion case. He smiled and just shook his head sadly, as if to say this was a heartbreak that a plane ticket could never mend.

   The stars had begun to blot the blue out of the sky. I walked on, finding that the old man's song had blotted the anger out of my heart. I was left with only longing and love.

San Fermin - Methuselah

  San Fermin is a large group with orchestrated songs from the mind of Ellis Ludwig-Leone. They have songs about modern love and mythology. The horns and voices and strings intertwine on each song to create these utterly beautiful things. Their song Methuselah is about a lost love and it references the character from the bible, Methuselah, who was said to be the oldest person ever at 969 years of age when the flood came.

San Fermin
Methuselah

Tokyo Police Club - Argentina (Parts I,II, III)

I've liked Tokyo Police Club since they came out with their EP, A Lesson in Crime, full of frenetic energy and post apocalyptic songs. Their two full lengths were each a bit different, with the initial freneticism of A Lesson in Crime lost for more thoughtful avenues. I think it was the summer of 2010 when my brother and I saw them, they were pretty damn great.

  They've released two singles from their forthcoming album, "Forcefield" available March 25th. One of those singles is this sprawling three-parter, Argentina. It contemplates how much love you can find in a life time, temporary relationships, falling asleep to to infomercials, and wondering what it'd be like to be a lighthouse. And for a video mainly comprised of the lyrics, I really really like it.

Tokyo Police Club
Argentina (Parts I, II, II)



video credits:
Directed by Jared Raab
Shot by Mike Mclaughlan
Produced by Matthew Miller
Production Assistance by Graham Wright and Earl Oliveros

Sleeper Agent - Waves

Sleeper Agent is a six piece group out of Bowling Green, Kentucky. They make stomp and clap along alt rock that sounds a bit like a mash up of Paramore and Rilo Kiley and something else entirely. They sound like summer nights. And it is great. You've got gang vocals, attitude, slightest of slight country tinges and synths to create an entirely upbeat sound.

   The video for their song Waves is mostly made up of inverted camera angles that can seem a bit dizzying. Though I found it to be entrancing. Hope you enjoy!

Sleeper Agent
Waves

The Wombats - Your Body is a Weapon

 The Wombats are a three piece indie rock band out of England full of energy, synths and lyrics about failed sleeping patterns, doomed crushes, and dancing to depressing 80's music. So, yes I love them. "Your Body is a Weapon" is a single off of their forthcoming, yet to be named third album. The music video is like a Schoolhouse Rock cartoon gone wrong, it's fantastic.

The Wombats
Your Body is a Weapon

Tired Pony - All Things at Once

  Tired Pony is a super group. I did not realize this when I first heard them, and originally thought it was a solo project with a unique name. Tired Pony is made up of Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Richard Colburn from Belle and Sebastian, Iain Archer a singer song-writer out of Northern Ireland, Peter Buck of R.E.M, Scott McCaughey from The Minus 5, and Troy Stewart. The band was formed in 2009 and just released their second album last year entitled "The Ghost of the Mountain". Their sound is somewhere between country, folk, 80's Sting and U2, but more than anything it is heartfelt and sorrow tinged.

Tired Pony
All Things at Once

Gotye - Bronte

  I really enjoyed the music videos that accompanied the songs from Gotye's 2011 album Making Mirrors. I featured a few of them here at the time. Bronte is one of the more solemn songs from the album, the characteristic large beats and percussion are mostly absent. Its a floating song with an animated video that feels sentimental and nostalgic, like a Miyazaki film; full of imagination and the feeling of leaving childhood behind all too quickly.

Gotye
Bronte