Sungrazer - Mirador

Mirador, I haven't listened to you like I did the first, so I'm not going to give you some in-depth thoughtfully developed review.
it's not as ridiculously bassy, but I dislike the production compared to the first.
the first just hit all the sweet spots for me. super melodic everything, intense loud bass that sounded more fried than baked.
I'll still be keeping it, but I never get over being disappointed by a personal favorite.

Behind is just stupidly sick though.

this is the 100th post tagged with "320," so that's a milestone as well.
I'm going to be trying to flex my writing muscles a little more as well.

get

'n

Boris - Pink

even more boris
pop drone
dare you to say "entry-level"

get

'n

Boris - Heavy Rocks

Boris does many things
and they do them well

post some toe, doug

get

'n

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum

so this is what got BMSR on the map
vocoder-core
tobacco
damn do these guys have a lot of tags or what

get

'n

Colour Haze - Temple

more similar Colour Haze glory.perfect

get

'n

Yawning Man - Vista Point

Yawning Man has been around since the late 80s, but their first releases were in 2005, a double-header of a full length album, Rock Formations, and an EP by the name of Pot Head. In Vista Point these two are condensed into one psychedelic, relaxing, remarkable package.

Yawning Man mixes soaring, psychedelic guitar work with a driving rhythm section and comes out with something better than the sum of its parts. There's no vocals present, and the instrumentation takes present; at times, the album feels like an extended jam. Which would be a bad thing in the hands of lesser musicians, but these are the Lalli brothers, who were and still are hugely influential on the current stoner rock scene. Of course, not many people know about them: this review's purpose is to tell you that you should.

With the title track and Perpetual Oyster, which are both exactly 5:22 minutes, the album gets off on a strong start. The next three tracks, Stoney Lonesome, Split Tooth Thunder and Sonny Bono Memorial Freeway, start to feel a bit samey, but Yawning Man are lucky in that they're peddling a pretty damn good ware. Airport Boulevard stops something that could have turned monotonous with it's rolling drum beat and vicious guitar work. Advanced Darkness is classic stoner played by masters of the craft. A few more tracks, and we're into Pot Head, which finishes off the album.

Pot Head is admittedly a weaker album than Rock Formations, and perhaps could have been structured better: Digital Smoke Signal, one of the best songs on the album, and 7 minutes long, would probably have served better as the concluding track instead of the third last. Yawning Man make up for this, though, by just having Digital Smoke Signal existing.

The main thing I'm trying to get across here is Yawning Man is fucking awesome and sound like the dawn. No, really. There is no more dawny sounding music than this. It sounds unrestrained, too, like the perfect soundtrack to stealing your Dad's car and driving until the gas runs out. When I finally get around to stealing my Dad's car at dawn, this is what I'm putting on.

Get it.

Yeasayer - Odd Blood

Odd Blood, Yeasayer's second album, is the most poppy thing they've released yet. The willfully weird experimental rock band that nN likes to inaccurately label as the poor-man's Animal Collective (those in the know would know that Animal Collective is the poor-man's Animal Collective) have made an album of compulsively singable tunes. Whether they'll stand the test of time is up in the air, but I hope they do.

The album starts out with The Children, perhaps the least singable track on the album. A decidedly sweeping track, it perhaps would have fared better without the robotic voice. But never mind: lead singer Chris Keating's vocal cords are on full display for the rest of the album, singing such earnest, slightly embarrassing lines as "You must stick up for yourself, son/never mind what anybody else done." The track that's taken from, Ambling Alp, is perhaps the perfect example of the infectious power of Yeasayer. Driven by that chorus and buzzing synths, it's a track that worms into your head and stays there.

Yeasayer's power lays in selecting the best of the music world and making it into garish hooks. On Strange Reunions, the band walk down the beaten psychedelic path, but even then, they can still make it hummable. ONE sounds positively foreign. But Yeasayer is no Vampire Weekend, and a good thing too. While Vampire Weekend seem to be almost serious about their vaguely African sounding music, Odd Blood is bursting with tongue-in-cheek flippancy. They also know how far to take that flippancy, and the album never becomes a farce, even with lines like "Everybody's talking 'bout me and my baby, making love till the morning light."

That last lyric? That's off Mondegreen. No, I didn't know what that meant until Wikipedia. The most important thing is that with Odd Blood, Yeasayer have made an album bursting with fun. You might not want your friends to hear it (unless they're hipsters), but you will want your ears to.

-K