For your Audio and Visual Pleasure:  ”Little Lion Man”

A Day To Remember- Over My Head (Cable Car) (The Fray)

Atreyu- You Give Love A Bad Name (Bon Jovi)

Lostprophets-  Cry Me A River (Justin Timberlake)

Framing Hanley- Lollipop (Lil Wayne)

Thrice-Send Me An Angel (Real Life)

Miss May I- Swing (Savage)

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Indie heroes The Arcade Fire have recently left this postcard post on their new website, which raises the question of what is the single called and when is the album being released.  According to some various sources the single to be released in a week is entitled “Suburbs” and the album is to be named at a later date.  A lot of speculation has gone on regarding an Amazon.com list showing a new Arcade Fire album preorder that is scheduled to be released on June 7th this year.  Funeral the debut from the band is probably one of the best records released in the past ten years and arguably could be in top 100 of all time.   Their follow up Neon Bible was a worthy follow up and I can imagine their new release easy being an Album of the Year contender considering the awesomeness and originality of the band.  I can’t wait for the single and even more so the album, I hope it’s been worth the wait.

I recently acquired the new Band of Horses album Infinite Arms but was unfortunately let down a little bit considering it didn’t rock as much as the last one.  The band has gone for a more stripped down approach then before and losing the rock sound they had is part of the process it looks like.  The first album Everything All The Time is a fairly decent album with some solid tracks and well received by most critics who praised their mix of folk, country and rock all in one.  The follow up and arguably their best album was Cease To Begin a folk album with rock n roll elements to it that had almost a flawless tracklist.  The band has been known to be very hippy like and been playing more and more “stoner” festivals since the release so I can see the direction they are going in as a band.  Infinite Arms in my opinion is an average album and wasn’t really what I was hoping for but I just hope the album takes awhile to grow on me.

The opening track “Factory” doesn’t really do it for me as the opener but it’s a fair track but nothing spectacular  and I wish they would have done a more similar track to their previous album to make that transition into the new one.  The following track “Compliments” is a solid track and the second listen I really enjoyed it and would say it’s single worthy at some point on their major label release.  The third track “Laredo”, which I believe is the album single is probably one of the better tracks on the album and I would suggest listening to this first before buying this album because it probably sums the album’s sound up.  The album is filled with mediocre tracks in my opinion and the only other tracks that “wow’d” me were the songs ”Dilly” and the album closer “Neighbor” which were more Band of Horses I remember.  If you want to check this band out I would suggest giving their last album a listen before this one and deciding which sound you like better.  I’ve only gone through two times with this album so I may be jumping the gun on my review but nothing has blown me away yet.  This band is for fans of The Shins, Modest Mouse and The New Pornographers.  Check out the album single below.

Got inspired by the “Stare At The Sun” acoustic and really enjoy this one as well.  It’s called “The Whaler” and he’s comparing his life on the road in a band to an early 1900′s Whaler whose out for months at sea away from his family.  It’s an amazing and pretty deep song, especially so for the acoustic version so check it out.

Before Indie rock was cool, there was Sonic Youth a post-punk genre band from Brooklyn New York who were into fashion and fuzzing out their guitars.  The band was almost too original for the time period that they had  very heavy cult following, but that was it for years.  They had early albums such as their self-titled release, Confusion Is Sex and Sister which started getting some mainstream attention from critics and was considered by Pitchfork Magazine as one of the greatest albums of the 1980′s.  It wasn’t until 1988 that Sonic Youth started making an impact with their art, fashion, experimental style in the already burnt out music scene, where New Wave is a dying star.  The band had gained some ground in the Indie Rock world and once they released Daydream Nation an experimental daydream of epic musicianship and songwriting.  Daydream Nation was immediately well received by critics and already considered an album of epic proportions with most tracks ranging in the 7 minute area.  The album has been considered by many magazines and critics as one of the top 100 albums in the past several decades as well as put into The Library of Congress’ audio collection. 

Now receiving mainstream success Sonic Youth did the inevitable and moved to a major label despite much bitterness from long time fans.  The band released Goo a fairly successful first run at the mainstream but many of their songs still ranged in longer playtime.  Their next release was their most popular among mainstream fans and it was entitled Dirty, an album that had much shorter and simplified songs then previous releases.  Though the album had huge hits that gave them MTV recognition, it was criticized by fans as having too simplistic guitar riffs and lack of depth and many accused them of selling out.  In my personal opinion, the album is fantastic and showed a simplier side to the band with experimental guitar riffs with just shorter jam outs.  The band started playing major festivals such as Lalapalooza and Woodstock ’94 as well as opening up for major bands at the time such as Nirvana and Soundgarden.  The band also appeared on The Simpsons episode of  “Lalapalooza” where Sonic Youth was constantly getting yelled at by Peter Frampton for stealing food from his cooler. Yet throughout most of the 90′s Sonic Youth released odd records such as Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star and more returns to their older style in A Thousand Leaves, which has continued into today’s current albums by the band.  The band’s most recent releases Rather Ripped and The Eternal have gotten much praise from critics and fans alike and say it’s Sonic Youth at their best again.  If anybody enjoys 90′s grunge or just great experimental alternative rock then I suggest giving Sonic Youth a chance.  The dark trippy guitar effects and beautiful voices of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon give the band so much depth it’s easy to find dozens of songs to love by the band.  With over a dozen albums over the years it’s easy to dislike many but love just as much and to get started I would suggest Daydream Nation because it’s absolutely flawless from beginning to end.  If you want to start off easy I would suggest Dirty which has their more mainstream hits with more simplified musicianship.  Either way the band is as cool as Indie rock is today and so is this song below.