|  Release
Name: Desperate Youth, Blood
Thirsty Babes.
Artist: TV on the Radio.
Label:
4AD
Date Of Release: 07.06.2004
Website: www.tvontheradio.com
Defining moment: Probably track 2, ‘Staring At The Sun’, when you realise
that track 1 wasn’t a fluke. Or maybe track 3, ‘Dreams’, for confirming that track
1 and 2 weren’t flukes. And so on.
Best Track: ‘Wear You Out’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined It: Every track takes a risk. Every track
succeeds. Not even the intervention of the US State Department could ruin things
here.
 Release
Name: Love The Cup
Artist:
Sons & Daughters
Label: Domino
Date Of Release: 12.07.2004
Website: www.sonsanddaughtersloveyou.com
Defining moment: When, about a minute into opening track ‘Fight’, the benchmark
is set – Scott’s nonchalant vocal slump up against Adele’s virulent tones on a
bed of peaky mandolin, straggly guitar and repetitive drum shuffle.
Best
Track: ‘Johnny Cash’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined It: That the
rerecorded single release of ‘Johnny Cash’ made the album version seem inferior
out of context.
 Release
Name: From A Basement On The Hill
Artist: Elliott Smith
Label: Domino
Date Of Release: 18.10.2004
Website: www.sweetadeline.net
Defining moment: Defining moments will be mined out of this, his final
masterpiece, by death tourists forevermore. ‘Fond Farewell’ may well be one of
them, but it is also him at his most simplistic and divine, and is probably the
way he should be best remembered.
Best Track: ‘Kings Crossing’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined It: Knowing that maybe it would have reached
our ears in a different form under more favourable circumstances.
 Release
Name: Homesongs
Artist: Adem
Label: Domino
Date Of Release: 29.03.2004
Website: www.adem.tv
Defining moment: The first time he opens his mouth. We’re talking a golden-syrup-on-fresh-toasted-crumpet
type of lovely here. What a secret to keep. Best Track: ‘Ringing In My
Ear’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined It: Don’t be so rude! Alright,
so he ambles a bit, but that’s exactly the point.
 Release
Name: Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Artist: Modest Mouse
Label: Epic
Date Of Release: 19.07.2004
Website: www.modestmouse.com
Defining moment: ‘Black Cadillacs’ does a damn fine job of hopping between
the whimsy and worldly wonderment that defines them in equal measure. Best
Track: ‘Sat In A Coffin’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined It: Too
left of field to be MTV. Too MTV to move freely across the left side anymore.
Would be swinging aimlessly in no-man’s land if it weren’t for the best set of
tunes since ‘Deserter’s Songs’. Isaac graduated this year.
 Release
Name: Up All Night
Artist:
Razorlight
Label: Vertigo
Date Of Release: 28.06.2004
Website:
www.razorlight.co.uk
Defining moment: The moment he steps up and starts writing universally
in ‘Golden Touch’
Best Track: ‘Golden Touch’
Thing That Most
Nearly Ruined It: There are copious occasions, often in the same track, when
Borrell’s pretentiousness threatens to tip the whole thing over.
Much to our
chagrin though, he doesn’t.
 Release
Name: No Cities Left
Artist:
The Dears
Label: Bella Union
Date Of Release: 11.10.2004
Website:
www.thedears.org
Defining
moment: ‘Don’t Lose The Faith’ is expert forgery Smiths and the first moment
on the record that they hit the bull’s eye they’re so clearly aiming for. Best
Track: ‘We Can Make It’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined It: The minor
hardcore epileptic fit at the climax to ‘Never Destroy Us’ jars with the serenity
and is, frankly, unnecessary.
 Release
Name: You Are The Quarry
Artist:
Morrissey
Label: Attack/Sanctuary
Date Of Release: 17.05.2004
Website: www.youarethequarry.net
Defining moment: That heart-stopping moment 2 minutes and 2 seconds into
‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ when the track falls to its knees and the guitar
revels in a rampant headrush.
Best Track: ‘First Of The Gang To Die’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined It: That it wasn’t all quite as good as ‘Irish
Blood, English Heart’.
 Release
Name: The Futureheads
Artist:
The Futureheads
Label: 679 Recordings
Date Of Release: 12.07.2004
Website: www.thefutureheads.co.uk
Defining moment: ‘Danger Of The Water’ for marking them out as a burgeoning
climax of capability, rather than just another set of kids with a small deck of
chords and an antique Paul Weller poster on their collective creative wall.
Best Track: ‘Decent Days & Nights’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined
It: Every track is too short. But then perfectly so. So no complaints at all,
actually.
 Release
Name: The Lyre Of Orpheus / Abattoir Blues
Artist: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Label: Mute
Date
Of Release: 20.09.2004
Website: www.nickcaveandthebadseeds.com
Defining moment: The second ‘Get Ready For Love’ bursts open, the
man reawakens and his truly awesome band lay all of their cards on the table.
Best Track: ‘Hiding All Away’
Thing That Most Nearly Ruined It:
Nick Cave and Starbucks seem unlikely new bedfellows for one horrific moment,
that is until you back-track, find the full phrasing (“I went to bed last night
and my moral code got jammed/I woke up this morning with a Frappuccino in my hand”)
and realize that not only is everything okay, but that the lyricist of his generation
is on devastating form.
Editor's Best Of The
Rest
Still looking for ways of ridding yourself of the cash and the tokens
you got for Xmas? Then look no further than this little lot:
The Shins
- Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop)
Mixtape Suggestion: 'Kissing The
Lipless' - It goes from very quite to very loud very quickly. As bitter and as
sweet a love-song as your last girlfriend is likely to merit.
Half
Cousin - The Function Room (Gronland)
Mixtape Suggestion: 'Country
Cassette' - Rubbery combination of jug-band instrumentation, island hysteria and
White Album daftness. The Concretes - The Concretes (EMI)
Mixtape
Suggestion: 'You Can't Hurry Love' - Infectious shuffling pop with a cast
of thousands. Sounds old. The beauty is: it isn't.
Juana Molina - Tres
Cosa (Domino Records)
Mixtape Suggestion: ‘Insensible’ - For a
moment I was lost in a creamy old heaven of black and white cult children's tv
dramas like Belle and Sebastien and White Horses. Haunting, spectral
and guilty of just about every other maudling adjective you could throw at it. William
Shatner - Has Been (Shout Factory)
Mixtape Suggestion: 'Together'
(with Lemon Jelly) Sounds like evertyhing the Jellies have ever done but with
the bonus of having a novelty starship captain on board too.
Ella
Guru - The First Album (Banana)
Mixtape Suggestion: ‘On A Beach’
- Likely to make you cry like a great big soppy wuss. It's also a hidden track
on the album.
The Libertines - The LIbertines (Rough Trade)
Mixtape Suggestion: 'Music When The Lights Go Out' - How the hell something
manages to be both tender and arse-over-tit at the same time is a mystery.
Gravenhurst - Flashlight Sessions (Warp)
Mixtape Suggestion:
'I Turn My Face To The Forest Floor' - Finger twiddling acoustic nightmare that
briefly glimpses genius.
The Killers - Hot Fuss (Island/Lizard King)
Mixtape Suggestion: 'All These Things That I’ve Done’ - Widescreen glam/gospel
effort building toward impossible to ignore choral sign-off. Classic pop.
DJ Sharkey - Sharkey's Machine (Babygrande)
Mixtape Suggestion:
‘Snobird' featuring The Pharcyde - A croonful, spoonful of easy-listening sauciness
and tomfoolery.
Crud Magazine 2004©
October - December 2004- News Archive | |
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