The 5 Most Disappointing Releases of 2008

I figure I haven't pissed enough people off this year, so here's a list of five albums that just didn't resonate with me like I had expected.

Here's hoping 2009 finds these acts returning to form.

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Narrow Stairs - Death Cab For Cutie
Barsuk
Buy (Amazon.com)

Since Transatlanticism, Death Cab's been on a bit of a downward slope. This album wasn't really that bad, but it didn't live up to expectations.

"I Will Possess Your Heart" wasn't too bad though...

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Skeletal Lamping - Of Montreal
Polyvinyl
Buy (Amazon.com)

A mixed bag that provided flashes of Kevin Barnes' brilliance, alternated with flashes of his penchant for indulgence. Again, not really that bad of an album, just a disappointment.

Their live show still kills though.

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Dance Gavin Dance - Dance Gavin Dance
Rise Records
Buy (Amazon.com)

The latest victims of Boys Night Out Syndrome, Dance Gavin Dance took everything that made Downtown Battle Mountain good, and tossed it out the window. That's not to say that fate wasn't conspiring against them; line-up changes and heroin addiction do not an opus make. But, I'm just asking, why does every good post-hardcore band have to water things down with handclaps, chanting, and kitschy call-and-response? Is it a stipulation in the contracts, or something?

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Donkey - CSS
Sub Pop
Buy (Amazon.com)

Just, no.

I don't get it.

Sorry.

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Saturdays = Youth - M83
Mute Records
Buy (Amazon.com)

It's a lonely society, the group of us who weren't completely enamored by Saturdays = Youth. In fact, I believe myself to be the sole member. I don't know, maybe I need to quit asking for a sequel to Dead Cities... and just be happy with what I get. It's not 2003 anymore, and I need to wake up.

But still, I just don't get it. I will continue to listen to this album, much as I have since early this summer, and I will keep trying to see what everybody else sees. Until then, though, I just don't see what the big deal is.

Call me ignorant, plenty have.

Songs of the week: 10/28/08

Sorry for the not-so-brief intermission between installments of Songs of the Week, but I think the free full lengths were worth it.

A bunch of record reviews are in the pipes, so stick around, and have a nice week.

***songs of the week #8

1. I Can Feel A Hot One - Manchester Orchestra (Off of Manchester Orchestra's recently released EP, this is easily one of their strongest songs to date)
2. '98 Freestyle - Big L (Might be one of the best flows I've ever heard...I mean, if you're into that whole rap thing)
3. Comfortable - Lil Wayne (Overlooked track with a sick beat from this summer's Carter III)
4. Women's Studies Victims - Of Montreal (One of the more interesting tracks from the mixed bag that was Skeletal Lamping)
5. My Moon, My Man (Boys Noize remix) - Feist (Fun bass to end all fun bass)

of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

2008
Polyvinyl Records
Buy (Amazon.com)

6.5/10

When did Of Montreal get so raunchy?

I know that Kevin Barnes & Co have always done their thing with a certain sexual flair. Songs about cunnilingus, Barnes performing a set in the nude, I guess Skeletal Lamping was just the next logical step. Naughtier than cheesy French electrohouse, Skeletal Lamping is an hour of pop-but-not contradiction. The tunes are catchy and infectious, par for the course on any release by these Athenians, but you're not going to hear "For Our Elegant Caste" on an Outback commercial anytime soon. It's still a lot of fun though, at least for the most part.

The music works for the same reasons that it doesn't. It's just so god damn over-the-top. Sometimes it's charming: the whimsical harpsichord of opener "Nonpareil of Favor" and its insistent four on the floor and sudden tempo shifts sound like the most fun Of Montreal have ever had in their long, storied indie career. Sometimes it's a bit disappointing: "Death Is Not A Parallel Move" is listless and lethargic, never really going anywhere. And in the case of "Plastis Wafers", it's a bit of both. The ambient, jungle funkiness of its extended coda conjures up illusions of Animal Collective covering the intro to "Sympathy For The Devil", and I'm still not quite sure where I stand on that.

A little heavy-handed on the "guilty" and a bit skimpy on the "pleasure", Of Montreal are not playing their "A" game here. But whenever you tire of the Gay Parade, need a break from those incessant Sunlandic Twins, or get scared of the dark and mysterious Hissing Fauna, Skeletal Lamping has just enough to shimmer to warrant a listen, or maybe seven.

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Key Tracks:
Women's Studies Victims
Nonpareil of Favor
Triphallus, to Punctuate!