He Is We - My Forever

Official album art, courtesy of MySpace

This album comes as the fourth installment of Album of the Day this week, and it is a very impulsive choice. I picked this album about 30 seconds before starting to write, just because this is what I am in the mood for right now.

He Is We is a fairly new indie pop band, and their music is still at its early stages, full of all the cheesiness you might expect. But what you don't expect is the repeatability of the music.

As someone who avidly makes light of pop music, I am surprised to say that this is a band I can listen to over and over again without getting tired of the music. Even though the band employs many of the standard lyrical themes and musicality of indie pop bands, they also manage to keep each song fresh and exciting.

Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back

Official album art, courtesy of Wikipedia

For the third part of Album of the Day, I decided to mix it up a little bit. This is an album of what I like to call reverse covers.

When I think of a cover, I think of a small indie band or an undiscovered artist on YouTube performing a song by one of the rock legends. However, in this album, a rock legend has chosen to perform a bunch of songs from modern indie bands, like Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, and Regina Spektor, and some not-so-indie artists like Radiohead, Lou Reed, Paul Simon, David Bowie, Neil Young, The Magnetic Fields, and Elbow. Okay, well, comparing the lists, it seems like he is not covering as many indie bands as I would like you to think, but even with the "legends", the songs are not their biggest hits, but rather those hidden treasures that most of us usually overlook.

I feel like this album is a great tribute to some of the great musical influences of the past, and a really cool way to bring together indie bands of the past--now famous names in influence lists of musicians today--with the indie bands of the present, who are silently bringing a musical revolution, and inspiring the young minds of today to create more freely.

April Smith and the Great Picture Show - Songs for a Sinking Ship

Official album art, courtesy of MySpace

For the second installment of the Album of the Day week, I present to you: April Smith. This is yet another album that has been sitting on my computer for a while, lost in a sea of yellow files, until today that is.

I have to say, this album is very fun. It is a retro revival album, with music that sounds like it walked straight off the stage of Grease. It always makes me want to get up and dance.

I could talk and talk for a while about the uniqueness of this album like I always do, but I feel like that is a job for the music itself, not me. I would like to take this unique chance to talk about another aspect of this band, and of modern indie music in general.

Songs for a Sinking Ship is a product of a recent phenomena of fan sponsored music--pretty much the ultimate in supporting the musicians you like; music on credit, if you will. Many small-time musicians often record home-made albums, on retail equipment, in living rooms across America (and the world), and generate a large fan base through the use of the Internet (with sites like YouTube). But recording a "real" album proves very difficult, and many artists find it more rewarding to turn to their fans for funding, in most cases, offering the finished product (and many more cool gifts) in return for their pledges. In respect to the fans, this is putting faith in a band you love that they will make a great album ahead of time, before you can hear samples of that music. To me, this is the best and most honest way of making music. It allows musicians without a multi-million dollar company to make amazing music using their talent, rather than sound editing.

Heartless Bastards - The Mountain

Official album art, courtesy of Wikipedia

First off, I have to apologize for my absence. Sorry guys. I've been deathly busy these past three weeks, that I haven't had an ounce of free time. There is a lot of backed up music sitting on my desktop as I write. So for those of you that haven't completely lost faith in me, I have some good news. Due to this extensive backlog, I will be doing Album of the Day features for this week. Yes, that's right, I will have five albums, starting today.

I don't think that there is much I can say about Heartless Bastards that their music doesn't say for itself. This is exactly the kind of band that the term Rock 'n' Roll was invented for. I can concatenate words like electric-folk-blues-rock, but it wouldn't mean that much when speaking about this band. Even though this band formed in 2003 (formally anyway) as a garage band in Cincinnati, they play the kind of Rock 'n' Roll that we haven't heard since the late 1970's.

Over the Rhine - Ohio

Official album art, courtesy of Google Image search

Back when lights didn't make the music, it all sounded like this. Today, this particular breed of folk lounge music is nearly extinct.

Even though this band has been around since before I was born, and this album was released when I still in junior high, the music is priceless. The music features that familiar relatability that comes from writing about life and universal experiences that are sure to bring you back to a more familiar, comfortable part of your life, whether you are 16, 25, or 60. The voice of lead singer Karin Bergquist captures your ears right from the first note, and leaves you waiting patiently for more during the instrumental parts, featuring a factor of repeatability that I would comfortably accept as the endless backtrack of my life.

Birdmonster - From the Mountain to the Sea

Official album art, courtesy of Bandcamp

It's probably not a surprise to those that regularly read this blog that I am in love with folk music. If you were ever wondering why that is, Birdmonster is that reason.

In no other area of music can you find so many unique and multifaceted band as folk music. For me, folk music brings out the roots of sound, and captures a feeling that transcends the boundaries of music and lyrics, to carry an emotion from one heart to another. As cheesy as this may sound, Birdmonster does just that.

Sitting in a dimly lit room, this album brings me back to a time when music was performed round a fire in a back yard, or on the front porch on a humid afternoon, rather than on a portable metal stage put up in some arena or ballroom, backed by guitar amplifiers and sound mixers. Don't get me wrong, music should definitely be a shared experience, but this band reminds us all why we need house shows, unfinished basements, and acoustic guitars.

The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin

Official album art

First off, I have to apologize for my absence this week. For the past two weeks, I have been either under a pile of work, or passed out from extreme sleep deprivation. This entry, in a way, comes directly out of that experience.

The desktop of my computer is covered with albums that I need to listen to, and I never seem to have time. This is one that has been on my desktop for a long time now. For past posts, it has been overlooked when time came to decide on an album. However, this week, the unique qualities of the music really stuck out in my lifestyle.

Under extreme sleep deprivation, sleep gets really hard for me, and even though I am tired, my mind won't let me fall asleep. This is when I turn to music, and find an amazing band such as The Low Anthem. This album always puts me in a trance state, in which my body feels asleep, but my mind stays lucid, and lost in the music. Even though I looked passed out, my mind heard every beautiful note of every song.