okkerville river - i am very far (5/5)

In 2002 Okkervil River front man and (brilliant) songwriter, Will Sheff said; “I believe you have to open yourself up to the possibility of making something that’s laughable. I don’t want to make safe art, conservative art, or tidy art – I want to make a mess.” With the release of I Am Very Far it is safe to say that Sheff and co. have made something of a “mess”: a mess of passion, loving, literate songwriting so deeply committed to the art of storytelling. It is perhaps Sheff’s near singular obsession with teetering on the edge of failure that makes him such a brilliant and prolific songwriter.

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peter, bjorn and john - gimme some (2.5/5)

Remember in 2006 when everywhere you went people were whistling the impossibly catchy riff to Peter Bjorn and John’s first big hit ‘Young Folks’? Well, it’s unlikely that will happen in 2011. With the relative silence in the years in between – save 2009′s forgettable Living Thing – and the seemingly quiet release of Gimme Some it appears as if the whistling novelty of PB&J has simply worn off.

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the strokes - angles (3.5/5)

Almost 10 years ago to the day, the world was about to change. Soon the banal truth of the Y2K crisis would no longer be fodder for comedy; soon we would understand phrases like “homeland security”; soon we would comprehend what it meant to live in a “post-911” world; soon we would be told we told, “We are at war”…

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noah and the whale - last night on earth (2.5/5)

Back in 2009, Charlie Fink wrote a whole album (The First Days of Spring) of lovelorn breakup ballads about the end of his great love affair. In 2011, the world of Charlie Fink seems confidently reinvigorated. A new man – from the downtrodden to the positively positive.

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r.e.m - collapse into now (4.5/5)

There are large assemblages of people for whom R.E.M was “the band” – the band that changed the way they listened to music; the band that made them care about music; the band that has gone on to define much of their existence as a music fan. Those people have all been collectively holding their breath and hoping that New Adventures in Hi-Fi wasn’t the last great R.E.M record. Thankfully, it wasn’t. Collapse Into Now is the gorgeous sound of the collective sigh of relief of an entire generation of R.E.M fans.

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