Wand - Golem. Are you ever just sitting at your desk, doing boring work crap, and then the song that is playing on your Spotify is so rad that you just have to spontaneously say "fuck yeah, that is IT!" before going back to work? Well, that is the actual sequence of events that just occurred as "Floating Head" was playing. Load that into a turkey baster and jam it into my earholes. Now, this album is seven years old - this is not some new thing that you need to get into before it blows up. This album has apparently already had its chance to blow up and failed, because the world just isn't ready for psych stoner sludge rock grinders. I grabbed this album months ago when Wand was coming to play a show in Austin and the description I read on Twitter was appealing, and this is giving me all the vibes I was hoping for. In the normally confusing way of the world, "Floating Head" is not the most popular song on the planet, or even on this album, but I suppose that we all knew that the world was a broken place. It freaking rules, though. The top track is one called "Melted Rope," with 6.1 million streams.
Yeah, that one is dope too. But in more of a Tame-Impala-copying-Dark-Side vibe or an "I'm so high I can't get off of this couch" thing. I'm very much here for the harder edged pieces they have on this album. Also, the YouTube commercials that are already playing freaking Christmas carols are going to make me murder. IT'S NOT EVEN HALLOWEEN YET YOU PRICKS! But please, I need for you to forward to like 1:55 in this next song, and just let yourself bop along with the jam band groove for a minute, until 2:34 when Voltron forms out of all the fuzzy instruments in the world and they lock into a prehistoric groove that makes the hairs stand out on my eyeballs.
[Kent from Real Genius voice] LEMME HAVE IT!
Arcade Fire - WE. Weird album that has grown on me over time. The first few songs sounds like they are trying to make new synth-tinged Beatles songs, or maybe Pink Floyd, without any promise of radio play or popularity. But then songs six, seven, and eight feel like we slotted back into their best music that have made me love them in the past. I don't know what all is going on with the band, I remember a brouhaha after Win Butler was accused of sexual misconduct, which led to Beck bailing on their tour, and I thought someone quit the band. So maybe this disc is reflective of some of that angst and confusion? I don't know. The song titles are definitely pretentious as hell. But what I can tell you is that the exciting bits of "The Lightning II," which strangely builds out of "The Lightning I" but is actually a separate song, is when the disc gets interesting, and sounds like something that could have been taken from Funeral or Neon Bible. And they're very pop rock forward, where the first few songs are longer, stranger, less cohesive. I also really like "Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)," which means that maybe I just liked the second half of this album and not the front half. "The Lightning II" is actually the top streamer, but I want you to hear "Lookout Kid" instead, so here you go. Second-most streamed tune at 8.8 million.
Fun video too, and also just a really nice tune. I want to play it for my kids. And have them roll their eyes and tell me its terrible because no one raps. I'M NOT TEARING UP, YOU'RE TEARING UP! Too bad that the whole disc can't feel like the back half.
Sunflower Bean - In Flight. They have an older album that I really liked, which is why this one ended up in my new music queue. This one is just fine - they have a funny way of sounding British even when they are just some folks out of Brooklyn making poppy indie rock. Strangely, this album is not even listed on their Wikipedia. Not sure why that would be. Oh, it is because it is a single! Not sure how you call a five song release a single, but this is just a single. The full album is called Headful of Sugar, and it is even better than this little single release.
Sunflower Bean - Headful of Sugar. Let's try this again. Human Ceremony, from 2016, that was my disc from these guys. Had a cool mash of psych rock and indie stuff. This one is in the similar space, and they do a cool job of mixing the vocals between the male and female leads. But I don't love it all. Strangely, the last song, a bonus track, crushes the rest of the album for stream counts. No other song cracks 800k, but "Moment in the Sun" fires up 10 million streams.
Very different from the rest of the disc. Feels like they are going a different poppier direction. But it's a sweet little love song. I just wish it had more of the psych sound in it and not just that one little synth riff. The title song has a good woozy bit near the end that I dig. "I Don't Have Control Sometimes" is a bright little nugget of sunshine. I will admit that the album feels disjointed - the songs don't flow very well into each other. I wish there was a little more continuity or flow to the track listing. Or maybe I just prefer the songs with instrumentation more than the drum machine/synth tunes - like "Post Love," not digging that one. Up and down on this album.
Florence and the Machine - Dance Fever. In all honesty, I was semi-lukewarm about this album's singles the first few times I heard them. But then I went to see the band live at the Moody Center, had an awesome time, and a bunch of these songs are imbued with so much more meaning and emotion and feeling that I find them significantly better. There is just something feral and amazing about watching Florence belt these songs out like an animal caged on the stage, that brings a different prism to the tunes. Not sure I would have even noticed the album opener, a slow burner called "King," except that the eruption about halfway through was so visceral at the show that it gets my attention immediately now. "Free" is the big streamer, at 29.5 million listens.
Nothing like a good, random cry at your desk while you are supposed to be reading a loan agreement. Yeehaw! Thanks for that Florence! If you didn't sit still to listen to the lyrics, this section in the back half is insanely powerful to me, after she's been singing about her feelings overwhelming her: "Is this how it is? / Is this how it's always been? / To exist in the face of suffering and death / And somehow still keep singing? / Oh, like Christ up on a cross / Who died for us, who died for what? / Oh, don't you wanna call it off? / But there is nothing else that I know how to do / But to open up my arms and give it all to you / 'Cause I hear the music, I feel the beat / And for a moment, when I'm dancing / I am free." But there is nothing else that I know how to do strikes a real chord inside of me, as well as the freedom that comes from hearing the music. Wonderful song. "Choreomania" is also a good one, as is "My Love." I don't love every minute of the album, but the combination of my in-person experience and the tunes is a strong tie that binds me to these tunes.
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