The Quick and the Dead Clever

Quite by accident, c/- emusic, I've found something outstanding that I missed during the late '80s/early 90's.

Always a fan of Magazine, and appreciative of Howard Devoto's solo album, I'd failed entirely to encounter Luxuria. What a miss! Two great albums - you'll have to scour the blogs to find the first, Unanswerable Lust, but Beast Box is here. If you're new to emusic, you can get a bunch of free downloads to sample their excellent service.

Luxuria maintains the sneering, pulsing, arty punk that Magazine perfected with a nod to what was occuring musically at the turn of the '90s.

Frayed nerves

I'm I alone in wondered what on earth commercial radio sees in songs like "How To Save A Life" by the Fray or "Bad Day"? Why does this stuff get airtime? Dreary is in the eye of the beholder - I'm not afraid of a bit of miserablist, just ask Interpol, but where is the redeeming feature in this cack? Please, stick with your Umbrella and leave the serious stuff to artists who can actually write songs.

The National - Boxer

The National are never going to be world beaters: they are a band who play best when you're sitting round a table drinking red wine and tapping the glass - Oh - yes - there was a terrific video of "Start A War" from 2007's Boxer via Blogotheque that trailed the album where the band sit round a picnic table and more-or-less a-capella this song.

2005's Alligator was a grower that gets as much airplay chez moi as the rest of that year's output combined. My favourite track changes like London weather. The big question for me is whether Boxer could match it. And it does. It makes Alligator much harder to listen to - it's that good. Current fave is Apartment Story, but it could just as easily be any of the other tracks on the disc in some way - and it may just turn out that's the case over the coming year.

Start with Fake Empire and move on to Mistaken for Strangers - and go wild from there.

Days gone by

Only fair you know where I'm coming from. The following is a brief *very* brief namecheck of some of the stuff I've liked over the years. This is NOT intended to be comprehensive, merely setting a flavour.

• Magazine - Howard Devoto's outfit from 1978 - 1983 produced some AWESOME work. First three albums were each outstanding in their way, but I think it's Secondhand Daylight (1979) that has kept it's flavour best over the past 30 years. Oh - and in one of his songs, a lyric said "Thirty years ago i used your soap..." - that prediction is now coming through.
• Wire - namechecked frequently, again three initial albums of sheer genius. Chairs Missing is the one for me, and I will recommend it whenever I can. 1978.
  
• Gang of Four - Bloc Party? Franz Ferdinand? Shitdisco? Yeah, terrific stuff and with their own individual sound... but without 1979's Entertainment! where would they be? Well, still there, but sounding a bit different. Sample lyric: "and the rubbers he hides/in his left hand pocket..." - ahead of it's time. Just so sad that nothing else they did even came close to matching up
• Neil Finn - OK - so I'm a Kiwi too, but really... can you beat "Try Whistling This" (1998) ??? I just listened to it again tonight accidentally and it is a sheer genius of an album.
  
• Duels - Bright Lights and What I Should Have Learned (2006)- what happened? This should have been huge but wasn't. Love it. Shades of Bowie, the songs just WORK
• The Rakes - Ten New Messages (2007) - I really wasn't a fan of their (generally well received) debut but this works. Available on emusic.
• Neil Young - the godfather of grunge has had some moments of gnius: born to live on Sugar Mountain? Down By The River? Oh, how about Hurricane? Sixties and Seventies, sure, but even this decade he remains more relevant than a 60-something should. Pure talent.
  

Interpol - Our Love To Admire

four stars (out of five)

Interpol were a big discovery for me a few years back: brought back all that great post-punk stuff I'd loved and brought it bang up to date. When I found Antics and Turn On The Bright Lights there on eMusic I was v. happy. Then they went and signed to a major (EMI subsidiary) for this release. They've taken heat all over the place for that.

And yet... this is a really good record - mostly. The first four songs are as muscular, punchy and un-leaveable-alone as anything on their earlier stuff. Probably more Antics than TOTBL but that's not biggie either way. So presumably the hate mail is either backlash for 'going major'. Pah. It's the music that matters.

One note on that, btw: by going EMI we can still get this as MP3, not turgidly limited iTunes or WMA locked files. Happy with that... and have a feeling this will be a recurring theme on this blog over the coming posts.

I've read a few reviews that have talked up the last two tracks on the album - Wrecking Ball and The Lighthouse. At first glance these have been the weakest links for me. Will try and persevere with them. But when you consider the way the album starts, Pioneer To The Falls, No I In Threesome, Scale and The Heinrich Maneuver are almost as terrific a way to start an album as the way Wilco's maligned Sky Blue Sky starts off. More of which, I suspect, later.

Craccum rocks

Ok - it's about time we got this thing underway. Why Craccum? Way, way, way back as a spotty teenager I started writing (mostly record) reviews for the student newspaper at my Uni (Auckland). Thinking for a while about doing this and finally craccing (!) this was the first name that came to mind.

If anyone objects... well tough, shoulda got there first... or something. If it REALLY bugs you, let me know.

My goal here is simple: I want to keep a record of what I like over time. Mostly that'll be music. Sometimes books or films. Sometimes random stuff. Who knows. If you like it - tell me. If you don't, don't bother - unless it's something I can change.

If you disagree with what I say, that's just fine. You're welcome to. If you agree, that's good too. This is ultimately self-indulgent, like most every other blog I've ever read.