There may be worse ways to review albums than on your work PC, with the sound low, while you do other things. If you know what they are, please send me a little message because I can’t imagine what it is. So consider this the before the first review review, a true sneak peak, a listen and learn a little experience…
No Cities To Love – Sleater-Kinney – I realize my take on the band is in the minority and I won’t fight to uphold my take, but I thought they peaked with Dig me Out, if not “I Wanna be Your Joey Ramone” –definitely in the mid-1990s. A decade later I wasn’t buying it anymore and the biggest shocker about Wilf Flag’s Wild Flag is that it was better than The Woods. No Cities to Love is fine, angular, if not acute, hard rockers which for thirty minutes is unrelenting. “Bury Our Friends” remains the best track on the newbie, “Surface Envy” is loud and bothersome, “Price Tag will throttle you good to kick it off. It is really good but not any more than that – B+
Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance – Belle And Sebastian – I saw these guys at the Supper Club some 18 years ago, circa Are you Feeling Sinister, an album which, along with The Boy With The Arab Strap, essentially invented modern indie pop and remains the hallmark. This sounds exactly like those two albums without anything quite as arresting as “Seeing Other People” are “The Star Of Track and Field”. Plus at an hour it’s too long – B
Viet Cong – Viet Cong – I may over rate this a little because it lends itself to be listened to low, the noisy, industrial, late 1970s post punk sound breaks free of the clutter around you. It is all industrial beats meets post-punk hard rock before the 80s softened it and the 90s forced it into the mainstream – B+
Hear here.
