Here’s a new one from Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes, Desaparecidos) off his upcoming solo release.

Download

Los Campesinos! - My Year In Lists (desperate youth, bloodthirsty babes)
She & Him - Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? (Zooey’s deer-in-headlights expression works in faux-death)
Albert Hammond Jr. -GfC (music visualized)
Sea Wolf - You’re A Wolf (meh to the video, but the song is excellent)
Saves the Day - Shoulder to the Wheel (because they’re still one of my favorite bands)

CSS first hooked us in late 2006 with their insanely catchy video “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above”. They hit the mainstream with their placement in an iPod commercial, and next week they will release their second album, Donkey.

Much like the band’s last release, the 80s, drinking, dancing, and partying play lead roles in the both the sound and lyrical content of the album. This should come as no surprise, as the first track “Jager Yoga” declares “we came here to take you out!” Furthering CSS’s agenda are the vaguely disco “Move” and “Let’s Raggae All Night” - a song with nothing remotely raggae about it, but with the key line “if you are my friend you can make dance beats for me / just for me.”

While partying may dominate CSS’s repetoire, they aren’t a one-trick pony (or donkey, for that matter). “Rat is Dead (Rage)” takes on some darker subject matter, and “Left Behind” is a bit more subdued and heartfelt than their usual fare. “Believe/Achieve” is sexy as hell, despite the often creepy lyrics (”I’m gonna take your eyes / use them as a seed”), but the best track on the album is “Beautiful Song”. Having some of the most coherent lyrics on the album, its fast-paced doubled guy/girl vocals and catchy instrumental melody lines make it a stand-out cut.

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Donkey drops on 07/22/08.
Click here for downloads and more.

Wolf Parade’s At Mount Zoomer is weird and nuanced and filled with bizarre energy. For the most part this works for them, but occasionally it works against.

At Mount Zoomer starts strong with the synth-accented 3/4 swirl of “Soldier’s Grin”, which builds to an impassioned release. The skipping piano march and hollowed-out vocals of “Call It A Ritual” continue to please. Zoomer also ends strong with the reigned-in 80s vibe of “Fine Young Cannibals” that would do Hall & Oates proud, and the grandiose epic that is “Kissing the Beehive”.

Though their quirkiness is part of their charm, Wolf Parade gets a bit too weird for the less-adventurous listener. Misplaced pop (”The Grey Estates”), a lengthly retro organ jam (”California Dreamer”), and an odd dance (”Bang Your Drum”) work together to make the middle of the album a little off-putting for the more sober among us.

This murky ground can be ignored, however, by the inclusion of “Language City” - a track that is earnest, stark at points, but still teeming with movement and warmth - and “An Animal in Your Care”, which begins relaxed and pretty but grows into a fierce declaration.

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At Mount Zoomer dropped 06/17/08.
Get downloads and more from Wolf Parade’s Sub Pop page.

On their self-titled LP, Fleet Foxes sound like the Beach Boys had they grown up in the middle of a forest instead of a sunny beach. Or like My Morning Jacket if MMJ was made up of classically-trained choir kids. Or The Shins on a granola high. Fleet Foxes paradoxically sound like everyone and no one at the same time.

The group’s main feature is their mastery of vocal harmony. It’s thick and echoing and cathedral-worthy and used more often than not, which makes lead singer Robin Pecknold’s voice that much more powerful and striking when heard on its own.

Several of Fleet Foxes’s songs evoke quasi-nebulous places, like the country road sunset of “Ragged Wood” and the dusty southwestern sprawl of “Your Protector”.

The non-verbal humming on “Heard Them Stirring” completes the overall tapestry of the piece (yes, Fleet Foxes make you use words like ‘tapestry’ - but without gagging) and the short piano addendum to “He Doesn’t Know Why” is downright beautiful.

Tracks like “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” and “Meadowlarks” wouldn’t be out of place in your average New Age shop, but they translate well enough into the indie-folk world to keep people from smashing their heads into the wall from boredom and spite (it may be from the merciful lack of pan flutes and chimes).

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Fleet Foxes dropped 06/03/08.
For the MP3 and video of “White Winter Hymnal” click here.

Perspective and circumstance shouldn’t have a bearing on musical perception, but it does. The initial listen of Falcon’s self-titled EP warranted a good but by no means stand-up-and-shout review. However, after learning of the backstory to the Falcon legacy, things fall into place and what on first glance is run-of-the-mill shows itself as extraordinary.

A blind listen to the Falcon EP yielded notes that were generally favorable but had an overall want for growth and sophistication. There was promise in tracks such as “The Sandfighter”, which had instrumentals that strove to be epic a la Appleseed Cast & Explosions in the Sky but didn’t quite get there. “Birds and Mice” felt a little Snow Patrol-y, as did “Listen In” when it strayed from the rather interesting combination of darker claps, kick beats, and bass drops. Departing a little was the decidedly 80s feel of “Q of T”, featuring a smooth bass line and hooky chorus. Rounding out the EP was the early indie sound of “Bees”.

After taking it all in, I read Falcon’s bio to familiarize myself with them a bit. The story of their formation and what the EP really is struck me and gave me a new outlook on what I’d just heard. In short, all of Falcon’s songs were written between 1987 and 1988 by a fourteen-year-old prodigy (Jared Falcon) and recorded onto a Fischer-Price tape recorder prior to his death from spinal meningitis. Twenty years later, a couple of his former classmates and their friends (including members of Longwave) took Jared’s songs and gave them new life.

In a new context, the songs take on a new shade. They aren’t good because they were written by a fourteen-year-old - that’s not it. It’s the fact Jared Falcon was able to anticipate so many styles and sounds that work long after he’d written the last note. It’s also not that Falcon (the band) has zeroed-in on a moving story - it’s that they managed to take acoustic recordings two decades old and make them something palatable and relevant.

Jared Falcon wrote “You only feel right when you’re alone,” but in the case of the Falcon EP things feel right with his friends.

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Falcon EP drops 07/22/08.
Get more information about Falcon here.
Right-click to download “Q of T” and “The Sandfighter“.

In June, Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis) released Feed the Animals for download. The 53-minute LP is another frenetic mash-up drawing on a prolific scope of musical styles. Kicking off with the Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin’”, one of the most recognizable song openings in recent history, and encompassing everything from classic rock and roll tunes (Roy Orbison, Question Mark and the Mysterians) to more recent flash-in-the-pans like Soulja Boy, Feed the Animals is guaranteed to put a smile on your face and to get you up and dancing.

Girl Talk and Gillis’s label, Illegal Art, have made the album available for download at whatever price you want to pay. The album is worth at least a few dollars, and for $10 you’ll get a hard copy of the disc once it’s released on September 23. To get your copy, go to Girl Talk’s MySpace page.

A short and sweet album gets a short and sweet review. This time around the subject of our scrutiny is the Bloomsbury EP from California’s Princeton.

Kicking off the EP is “The Waves” - its percussive clapping, thick instrumentation, and appealing lead vocals give off a distinctly beachy quality without being sun-bleached and dumbed-down. On the other side of Princeton’s influential coin is “Ms. Bentwich”, a track which pays homage to the British invasion and features a somehow dainty-yet-pounding harpsichord outro. “Eminent Victorians” fits in with the EP on the whole, but isn’t as noteworthy as “Leonard Woolf”, which makes itself memorable with interesting musical shifts and a backyard quality that has a hint of Ben Kweller about it. Bloomsbury offers a promising taste of more to come from this threesome.

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Bloomsbury EP dropped 07/08/08.
Get more on Princeton here.

Elbow - Grounds For Divorce (sepia-toned grit)
CSS - Rat Is Dead [Rage] (Cher’s closet has been raided)
Willoughby - Frankenstein (a whole new world for Frank)
Jamie Lidell - Little Bit of Feel Good (if Stevie Wonder courted unicorns)
Spencer Davis Group - Keep On Running (it’s old but I love it and it’s perfect for summer)

Later this summer, Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez will release his first solo  effort, Why Is Bear Billowing?.

Opener “A Magic” is a thesis statement for the album - the acoustic guitar is relaxed and breezy and Alvarez serves up quirky and unexpected lyrics with his satiny voice. Though the album is fairly consistent (and consistently good), there are a few standouts and breakaways.

“All With Golden Locks” features fable-like lyrics, while the next track goes out a little farther on the limb with lines like “boy are you a sight for my pinecone eyes.” Said track (”Pinecone Eyes”) also has some lovely and slightly off-kilter picking at the end that is the musical equivalent of throwing your arms out and spinning til you fall in a sun-drenched field.

“Love for Longer” gets a little deeper in sound, but the timbre of “The Letter B” transports listeners to a bongo-filled beat coffeehouse. Another destination on Alvarez’s musical trip is the Spanish-tinged guitar and punchy claps of “Mostly A Friend”.

A magical romp, Why Is Bear Billowing? manages to be fantastic without becoming precious or silly. For fans of Mason Jennings or Fionn Regan, this is the perfect soundtrack for soaking up the summer sun.

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Why Is Bear Billowing? drops 08/19/08.
Click to download “Mostly A Friend”.
Check out Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez’s MySpace page here.