Some of you may know that I'm a big music fan, especially in the indie/alternative department. With so many new albums coming out and so many thoughts to share about them I figured I'd make myself an album review thread! Think with me, discuss, or share your opinions! First few up:
MGMT - MGMTI was already familiar with opening track "Alien Days", which I really like. But after listening to 2/3's of the album and skipping back through the songs I realized none of the other tracks stuck. In fact, the only thing I remembered about any of them was a certain level of "wtf"-factor. Problem being; every melody, lyric, chord progression, or any sound in general is so distorted, warped or echoed hardly any of it is recognizable.
Not to mention some of the songs are nothing more than the most cliche of chord progressions at the core (Introspection, Plenty of Girls in the Sea), while the rest dwells somewhere in between the realms of ambient soundscapes and actual songs. No-mans-land, really.
So that's a big disappointment on first listen. I really thought MGMT would reinvent themselves with powerful, quirky and spaced out tunes. Unfortunately only the space out part is true, but with nothing to stand on the result is out of grasp even for someone who loves psychedelic stuff as much as I do.
With a band that has been as steady as a rock for over almost a decade I had little worries from the start. They're one of my favorite bands, and I love them for their quirkiness, psychedelic lyrics and for some reason simple but complicated indierock songwriting.
B-Room is their 6th major full length release, and it is no surprise some songs feel like we've heard them before (Distant Light for example). Where B-Room shines are the tracks where it is clear the band had a ton of fun writing and recording them like Long Way Down, Cuckoo and Love. Quirkiness all around, these are the tracks where you hear something new every time you put em on.
Compared to the multi-instrumental masterpiece Fate (2008) and the solidly focussed Shame, Shame (2010), B-Room falls in the same category as predecessor Be The Void (2012): the band has a lot of fun in the studio, and experiments are born rather than wrapping a full album in the same sound. To me it makes B-Room not as memorable as Fate or Shame, Shame, but the album has put a smile on my face every day since I got my hands on it.
Like everything Dr. Dog releases, it's worth listening to.
The first song on Dream Cave is called Scream Rave. I like that touch.
Much more focussed than it's predecessor Bliss Release, Dream Cave makes for a lot tighter package. Treading on various psychedelic grounds, the mood shifts per track, but not in an out of touch kind of way. "Promises" is a stomping song that just oozes frustration and heartache, and the filthy bassline on "Island Living" made it the most memorable track. There's even some 80's dream-pop touches here and there, but everything still feels in place.
If you liked the coconut paradise hippy sounds of Bliss Release, than you may be put a little bit off. But to me Dream Cave sounds like exactly what the title suggests: it's dark for the most part, but plenty of colourful swings make it a unique, deep, very entertaining album.
