New Releases.
Riding high from the amazing release week we just had, I was quickly brought back down to earth this week, which has proven to be nothing but disappointment for me and my ears. -PL
Mumford & Sons
Mumford & Sons is an amazing act and I have nothing but positive things to say about them as people, the music and lyrics they write and the happiness I usually feel after listening to them. While I don't think this album is at all bad, I am a little underwhelmed. This might as well be Sigh No More, because that's all I heard while listening to Babel. Only, Sigh No More had "Little Lion Man," and this album does not. I fail to hear the glaring hit they scored with "The Cave," in their eye-opening performance at the 2011 Grammys. That song, that performance, was a call to arms, awakening people to a genre of music long since forgotten by fans and even the industry. Not only did that performance launch their career, it also launched the entire genre into the mainstream. Babel does not have the same uplifting feel and for that disappointment comes.
Because I am such a HUGE fan of this band, and who they have become over the last two years, I will keep listening to this album, until the disappointment subsides and happiness overcomes me... -PL
Tracks: Babel, Holland Road
No Doubt
It doesn't suck as much as I thought (read: hoped) it would. But it's not good. Much like the Commercially Driven Corporate Punk Rock Group formerly known as Green Day, No Doubt is so far from where I thought they would be, disappointment doesn't even begin to explain how I feel about this album.
In 1995 I thought Tragic Kingdom was one of the best albums I had heard at the time. Fast forward 17 years and three albums, I wouldn't recognize this music belonging to this band if I had heard Push and Shove in passing. To me, this album is not No Doubt. It's Gwen Stefani. Nothing about this album says Tony Kanal or Adrian Young (or Tom Dumont. I didn't want to leave him out). Push and Shove should have been a Gwen Stefani solo project, plain and simple. It actually pisses me off a little that Kanal and Young (and Dumont) allowed the No Doubt name on this album. What I don't understand is, Stefani doesn't need to ride the coattails of the No Doubt brand in order to sell records. She has had a very successful solo career, why did she need to attach the band name to this album? A question that can't be answered. Or at least not by me.
Perhaps my nostalgia gets the best of me and, unlike the band, I am unable to move on from the past but this album is simply a disappointment. There is no rock. There is no roll. There is nothing but an album full of dance-pop hits, created purely for the sake of making money. I will not buy this album. I will not go see them live (not even if it's free, ZING!). And as far as I am concerned, No Doubt is dead to me *dramatic expression* -PL
Tracks:
For a complete list of new releases, please visit Album of the Year!!
Anticipation.
Muse - 10/2/12
Converge - 10/9/12
Bat For Lashes - 10/16/12
Ben Gibbard - 10/16/12
Pinback - 10/16/12
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - 10/23/12
Further Seems Forever - 10/23/12
Paul Banks - 10/23/12
SOUNDGARDEN!!! - 11/13/12
Alicia Keys - 11/27/12
