One of those professional obligation sessions in the Uncut office right now: we’re on Track Eight of the Panic At The Disco album, “Pretty. Odd”. Interest piqued by some frothing and slightly dubious suggestions that “Pretty. Odd” is a landmark of WEIRD! and AMBITIOUS! rock music, imagine our surprise when it seems to sound a bit like The Feeling and those shabby Beatles pastiches that Tears For Fears came up with in the ‘80s. We do, however, have new records by Paul Weller, Peter Walker and James Blackshaw.
Thanks for all your responses to the Raconteurs and REM blogs yesterday. I'm glad I wasn't the only one to feel underwhelmed by the REM Albert Hall show.
A load of new stuff again this week, much of it pretty interesting. The Brethren Of The Free Spirit, incidentally, are a duo featuring the guitarist James Blackshaw, who's received much love here over the past year.
The playlist comes a bit earlier than usual this week, since we've been finishing the next issue today, and I haven't had a chance to write a proper preview. You probably should know, though, that the new Fall album on first listen appears to include, besides the usual murky paranoia, a faintly jazzy song about crows (and possibly "J-Loaded Brown", though we could have misheard that) called "Alton Towers".
As you might imagine, a fair amount of excitement round these parts at the prospect of a six-hour Neil Young gig tonight. I'll report back first thing tomorrow; it's going to be interesting to see how much the show resembles the one Damien saw in Edinburgh. Please keep filing your reviews of the shows, too - I'm fascinated to know how - or if - the spectacle will evolve as the month progresses. Maybe "No Hidden Path" will just get longer and longer?
That time of the week again. Here are the records that we've played over the last day and a bit in the Uncut office. One thing here worth explaining: Retribution Gospel Choir are fronted by Low's Alan Sparhawk and produced by Mark Kozelek.
Morning all, here's the latest rundown. I guess the most significant new arrival this week is from Spiritualized: "Songs In A&E" just arrived. We're on Track Five right now.
A welcome return to the playlist this week for Howlin' Rain, whose "Magnificent Fiend" has finally got a UK release date in April. I know I've been promising to blog on this for over six months, but I'll get there in the next few days; it still sounds great, fortunately.
I found myself in the centre of a mild media hurricane yesterday, thanks to the musical map of Britain published in this month's Uncut becoming something of a hot topic. If you heard me trying to explain the principle of beats per minute on a local radio station, or trying to convince all of Scotland that they only listened to Runrig, I can only apologise.
