Cheap Trick - Rockford: Easily my number 1 pick for best album of the year right now, Rockford never lets me down. There's not a bad moment on the entire disc, in fact the band seems to act as if the dark days of the mid-late 80s never occurred - it's as if they picked up where Next Position Please left off. Rockford is fresh, invigorating, and surprisingly new sounding from a band that shouldn't have any right to sound this excited about playing music 30 years into their career.
Def Leppard - Yeah!: It's easy to scoff at a covers album, some even find it easy to scoff at Def Leppard but those are the people are just plain missing out. Yeah! is big ball of ridiculous fun as the band covers the songs that inspired them as young kids to become musicians, with the one rule being that they couldn't be the big hits. The result is a covers album that doesn't tread well-worn ground and in many cases may introduce the listeners to songs they've never experienced before. Read my review for tips on where to pick up the many bonus tracks.
The Futureheads - News and Tributes: You can put away your stuff by the Killers, the Bravery and every other band in between that sound just like them because you're going to get sick of them. Mark my words you will be sick of them very soon and you'll wish you'd invested in something that apes the same territory, with some real conviction and an obvious display of real love of the style they're lifting. The Futureheads cannot deny that they're stealing the sound of early XTC and the Jam, but at least they do so with an ear toward doing it right. On this, their second album, however they reveal a new intriguing influence that many might not have guessed at: Killing Joke, which makes for some interesting cross-breeding of styles.
Keene Brothers - Blues And Boogie Shoes: It's July and Robert Pollard has only put out four albums this year so far? Keene Brothers is his pairing with fellow ex-Guided By Voices guitarist Tommy Keene and is by far the strongest of the lot, including Pollard's own solo release (listed below.) Short, strong and full of huge guitars and incredible hooks, it's the kind of things GBV fans were hoping to hear after the band broke up New Year's Eve 2004 but didn't get with the consciously difficult From A Compound Eye. (If you're looking for the other two Pollard projects so far, check out the Takeovers and Psycho & The Birds - neither work quite as well as Keene Bros. or FaCE, but Pollard fans are a dedicated bunch and will probably want everything anyway, just like I do.)
Article comments
1 - Triniman
Have you heard Destroyer's Rubies? What about the new Flaming Lips?
2 - Tom
Flaming Lips: yes, and I find the album just too spotty overall to consider one of the year's best. I don't really find much calling me back to it, actually. But there's still 6 months left for it to win me over, and hopefully it will.
Destroyer: no. What I have heard of theirs simply didn't do much for me, but I do keep seeing this listed as one of the best, so I may take a chance on it soon. As I said, there's always more that's been missed out on, so I'm open and happy to alter the list!