黄 嘉 維

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Right from the get go with “French Navy”, My Maudlin Career is a sweet poppy confection. The album’s strength lies in singer Tracyanne Campbell’s voice, especially in “James” where you can feel the heartache in her singing.

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Art Brut continues to have fun with their quasi-punk rock and culturally specific lyrics. Eddie Argos still doesn’t really do too much singing but, then, that’s what we’ve come to expect.

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It’s different from their first two albums – less screaming and more poppy. It works. Also, anything that can preserve Karen Oh’s voice can’t be all that bad.

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This album is good. It’s really fuckin’ good. It’s what indie pop should always sound like. The Brooklyn-based Shakes should find itself with a younger-skewing audience not unlike that of Vampire Weekend.

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The Hazards of Love takes, I repeat, takes several listens free of distraction to truly appreciate. On first listen, it really seems like it’s meandering with nary a climax in sight. Many – that cannot be stressed enough – listens later and I got the rock opera album concept. This is probably going to play great live.

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There’s a beautiful minimalist quality to the backing guitar, piano, and other instruments, lending greater weight to Nadler’s beautiful voice. I suspect this will make the year-end list of best albums.

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We absolutely loved Neko Case’s last album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood to death so to say that Middle Cyclone is just as good is no small praise. Though you can definitely save yourself some time by skipping the final 30 minute plus track – you’ll know why once you’ve listened to the album all the way through once.

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Though their best days are seemingly behind them, I still don’t get what all the hate on U2’s last few albums are about. They’ve been around forever – if you didn’t like them 20 years ago, you probably won’t start liking them with No Line on the Horizon. Fine, I get that. Stop ragging on them just because it’s fun to do so. That said, this isn’t their best album and Bono’s still a preening douche but Edge’s guitar work continues to wow.

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