Quick Hits, Vol. 177 (Forming the Void, First Aid Kit, Car Seat Headrest, Brandi Carlile)

New A$AP Rocky/Gucci Mane/21 Savage track called "Cocky" is pretty salty.  Hope this bodes well for a new Rocky album coming out soon?

Forming the Void - Relic.  oooooooooooh yeah.  Gimme all the fuzzy metal crunch I can handle.  This band's bio is, like their music, basic and amazing.  "FORMING THE VOID is a heavy rock band from Louisiana."  That's it.  Rock and roll, baby.  Their top track is the first one off their album, "After Earth," but I choose to give you this one (with only 5k streams, so no one is listening to this stuff), "Unto the Smoke" because it has a video of sorts.

Psych rock.  Stoner rock.  Heavy rock.  All those things.  I dig it.  And even better, they close out the album with a righteous cover of Zeppelin's "Kashmir," which jams.  Well, to be honest, it kind of plods along a little bit, but still, it's Zep, so it is better than the majority of anything else you could listen to...  I've listened to this album many times by now while my New Music playlist was otherwise empty, and I like it.

First Aid Kit - Ruins.  These guys are a contentious band in my mind.  How can their published music be so wonderful while their live performance so lackluster?  Isn't it supposed to work the other way around?  I think I need to go back in time and get them to play a 50 person room before they were big, and maybe their sound will match the power of their studio work.  Well, this is more of the same from them: fine harmonies, slightly countrified indie rock, nothing too exciting but all quite lovely.  I am grateful that they left off the angry ass single they put out last year, and nothing on here is as strong as "Silver Lining" or "Stay Gold," but it is all very good.  "Postcard" is where the country really takes the forefront in the music, but the top single is not so country.  More like a 50's tinged torch song - "Fireworks" has 5.1 million streams and a sweet 80's video.

Yeah.  This album isn't as strong as Stay Gold, but it still is very good stuff.  I'm going to keep it around and make the kids listen to it on our way to Colorado in a few weeks.  Should be entertaining for me.  "Ruins" might be the best song on here, the one that best reflects the classic sound of the band.

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy (reissue).  I'd love to go talk to 10 year old Jack right about now, to let him know that someday, you'll listen to more than just R.E.M. and U2 and Midnight Oil, and instead you'll listen to a handful of bands where their band names sound like some complicated list of phrases you need to use the next time you play MadLibs.  This post is especially on point.  So, this album was actually released in 2011, to little fanfare, and so Will Toledo went back to it recently and re-recorded the whole album.  If I heard the original tunes, I have no recollection, but these version are freaking good.  Like his last kickass album, this is full of 90's buzz bin fuzzbox guitars and his plaintive singing, but this one sounds like lyrics to a lost lover or crush.  The track they keep playing on the radio is the top tune only if you count streams from a single version that came out before the album.  "Nervous Young Inhumans" is that one, with just over 500k streams, and it shows off some Beach Boy harmonies and 80's synths added in to the buzzy rock sound.

 For some reason, that video is only 3:07 long, while the track on the album is 5:26.  I guess that is the more popular single edit, which is probably actually a good thing, because the last few minutes of the real track are of Toledo mumbling a long spoken-word screed.  The other track that rules is "Beach Life-in-Death," but it is 13:19 minutes long, which is a little long for the blog.  But it rules, like a multi-part song that builds and jams, then mellows out, and then builds even higher with the power pop, super yellable chorus "the ocean washed over your grave!"  That line gets mirrored again in "Famous Prophets (Stars)," the other crazy long tune (16:10).  This album is very good.  Can I please see him play live again right now?

Brandi Carlile - By the Way, I Forgive You.  Very nice folky/Americana tunes.  In my mind, this gal was country music, but none of these really fall into the usual country tropes, they stay out on that Americana thing, which I like much more.  She sounds like Lucinda Williams at times, Aimee Mann in bits, and other times like Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders, with a vulnerable tilt to her voice that is very endearing.  Lyrically, this disc can be fantastic.  "The Mother" is very good.  "Hold Out Your Hand" has an annoying way of feeling like I'm being yelled at.  But just about every other song on here is good.  The top song is the second one on the album, "The Joke," with 1.4 million streams.

Killer video.  I sure wish we still had a television channel that provided us with music videos all day long.  Although if that was on there I'm sure half the country would just change the channel.  I love it though.  Enjoyable album.

Look at that!  All four albums in one post getting the thumbs up!