Le Voyage Dans La Lune – Air – The classic early silent movie is given a new soundtrack by the French techno duo Air. Meant to be played simultaneously with a viewing of movie, in context it must be a thing of intense beauty,. Spacey, weighless, It builds effortlessly to the 18 second "Homme Lune" (Moon Man). Without the movie it is like reading Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" with 10th grade French. You get the gist but get lost in the nuance. Grade: B
You Call That Brave – Ms. Fridrich – Keyboard based art rock which tiptoes into every genre and then retreats. Grade: B+
Go Fly A Kite – Ben Kweller – Far be it for me to dismiss the semi-populist indie-pop star. His songs take awhile to dg in, which is always gonna make a popsters job more difficult. The truth is, they will eventually, they do eventually. But who has the time to wait? Grade: B+
A Different t Kind Of Truth- Van Halen – My nephew loves these guys except for when they roll out the synth. This is powerful, straight ahead, while white white blues metal. If Eddie is a mess, either you can hide a fuck of a lot in the studio, or nobody bothered to tell him he was over. Grade: B
Ten$ion – Die Antwooord – They sound liked Scholly D on helium if D was into kinky sex instead of mass murder. These Afrikaneers are a blast who can change any weird freaky shit into a nursery rhyme. Grade: B=
Live From The Bowery – New York Dolls – With most of the band dead and buried for Decades, the two surviving members go looking for a kiss one more time. Enough of this live album is off their last two albums for nostalgia to be irrelevant.I have planned to catch em late last year but they canceled but this band should really kick live. Grade: A-
The Phantom Of The Opera At the Royal Albert Hall – Andrew Lloyd Webber – I am not suggesting you do want to listen to the best recorded version of this hugely successful (cmon, let's be honest) pop opera. But if you are, go with this one even over the Michael Crawford original. Grade: A
Be The Void – Dr. Dog – They remind me of Kweller in this sense: both are seii-populists who bore the fuck out of me but who are actually, not bad at all. A collection of pretty good, harmony indie alt rock with one foot in the classical. Grade: B