Just because I figured we’re at some bizarre non-specific time into the year, that I’d go ahead and do quick summary reviews of everything I’ve listened to so far this year that I can post a concrete opinion on (and there are a bunch I can’t). I’ve revised some opinions on things I’ve previously reviewed due to familiarity changing my feelings and the like. I’ll include players for songs I’ve posted. This should be fun for RSS subscribers.

Andrew W.K. – Close Calls With Brick Walls

Andrew W.K. does more of his partying hard, but this time without a lot of the studio polish that being on a major label provided. In turn, this album is kind of hard on the ears, and the better your audio equipment is the more apparent it is how poorly mixed it is. There are some choice tracks worth listening to out of context despite the poor mix, especially Pushing Drugs (which is nearly an Electric Six song), You Will Remember Tonight, and Not Going To Bed.

Archie Bronson Outfit – Coconut

Archie Bronson Outfit, apparently resigned to not making another Derdang Derdang (a.k.a. a near complete masterpiece) instead moves in an entirely different direction. Namely, directly toward bizarre claustrophobic static-y grooves with guitars and synths alike so distorted you’re not really sure who is playing what. Is that, perhaps, the drummer, banging on a keytar? The world may never know. Regardless, Coconut is a good record, a grower perhaps, that I might rediscover in a few years and shit myself over, just like I did with Derdang.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat The Devil’s Tattoo

This is the first BRMC album I have ever listened to. While it was enjoyable enough, while it distracted my subconscious while I got paid to surf the internet for other, better, less kitschy blues-rock revival music to listen to, it just didn’t do it for me. I guess that’s my main problem: I just don’t like blues rock. The titular track is pretty damn good and will probably end up in my regular rotation, but as far as being an album I’d actually listen to instead of something else? Not it.

Blitzen Trapper – Destroyer of the Void

This is more of the same from Blitzen Trapper. There’s not much else to say about it.

Caribou – Swim

My like of Caribou begins and ends at Andorra. I don’t “get” this album. Even the sad music I listen to makes me happy, but this album, I don’t know, it’s just a mellow harsher. Couldn’t even get through all of it.

Clem Snide – The Meat Of Life

Clem Snide is like if you took Wilco and made them a little edgy, like you put a dash of a modern day Bukowski in the Wilco stew. They lack whatever it is that makes Wilco something you want to listen to a lot though, and after one listen I pretty much had enough. There’s at least two good songs, Denise, and the one about Wal-mart parking lots.

Cloud Cult – Running With The Wolves

This is just a new Cloud Cult song and it sounds a lot like what a Cloud Cult song would sound like, so take that as you want.

Eels – End Times

Oh yes, it’s the second Eels album to truly disappoint me. I mean, Hombre Lobo had a few good tracks but in general it just wasn’t, you know, Blinking Lights, which is to say it was ultimaty disappointing in at least some small way. I remember E being quoted saying something about how Blinking Lights was basically the swan song of his career and he wouldn’t even bother making something else that good again—and I have no way of knowing if I just made this up in my memory without knowing this or if I actually read it—and End Times is a pretty clear indicator that he wasn’t kidding.

Fang Island – Fang Island

I was initially pretty smitten with Fang Island during a prolonged period of sobriety but once I started to get stoned again and listened to the album high, it just wasn’t as interesting to me. Something about the separation on the instruments is too extreme—there’s just something too precise about it and I guess that’s just me not liking the math- part of the math-rock. For those who don’t remember, this is the band that sounds like what you’d get if Yeasayer, Ponytail, and Parts & Labor all joined up into a super group.

Frightened Rabbit – The Winter of Mixed Drinks

Frightened Rabbit, now on their third album, are hit by the sophomore slump a little late. Most of the same stuff from Midnight Organ Fight is here, but all of the folky undercurrent is pretty much completely obliterated and all that desperate sorrowful pining for warm holes is replaced with that general empty headed rock vibe that you can’t relate to or even find any sort of meaning in. In short, this album makes me a sad panda, but bonus track Fun Stuff almost makes it almost OK by being all the sexual longing and sorrow of Midnight Organ Fight summed up into one awesome song.

Holy Fuck – Latin

Holy Fuck cuts down a little on the manic energy, discards their second drummer, and sets their sights on more melodic and emotional tracks. They accomplish their goal, but in the process they forget to include a track as memorable and powerful as Lovely Allen or really any of the tracks off LP. A good album that is pretty far shy of great.

The Magnetic Fields – Realism

This is a Magnetic Fields record and the theme this time around is natural sounding acoustic instruments. In all other ways it is just your normal Magnetic Fields record. If Merritt suddenly started writing bad songs that didn’t make you feel all TWEEEE! inside then that would be something worth mentioning, but alas, he hasn’t.

The Morning Benders – Big Echo

I can hardly even remember listening to this.

OK Go – Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky

OK Go decide to stop sucking for long enough to make a pretty good record pretty blatantly inspired by Prince and other Prince-like artists who dabble in falsetto and synthesizer. Several good songs, including, but not limited to, White Knuckles just to me still sounds like Pavement doing Passion Pit.

Peter Gabriel – Scratch My Back

This is the most offensive thing I have ever heard in my life. I don’t know what possessed Peter Gabriel to think it was a good idea to sleepwalk through tracks a lot of people hold near and dear to their hearts and then layer the awful vocal over over the top orchestral arrangements. It’s just bad, it is so so bad.

Sleigh Bells – Treats

This whole album is a revelation. Sleigh Bells is the truth, the light, and the way.

The Soft Pack – The Soft Pack

Hey remember that band The Strokes? These guys are like the Strokes but from San Diego, so just think of them as “Sun(ny) Strokes”.

Spoon – Transference

Initially an album I got obsessed with on levels approaching Gimme Fiction except that Fiction had staying power and Transference is ultimately rather forgettable. I think a lot of it has to do with the lyrics, which I was never able to parse any meaning from at all. Nonsense lyrics are great for upbeat slick studio jams (like Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga), but when you’re dealing with pensive atmospheric tracks, Fiction‘s prog-like storylines make for much better songwriting. Got Nuffin comes as close to this as it gets on this album.

The Strange Boys – Be Brave

Initially I was a bit gobsmacked by this album because of how interestingly it channels The Animals through a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah vocalist, but after a while the whiny-ness of said vocalist got on my nerves and for the most part I can’t listen to most of it anymore.

The Tallest Man On Earth – The Wild Hunt

There’s a lot of singing and guitar playing on this album. None of it approaches the lyrical awesomeness of King of Spain, though it all sounds rather like it, but YMMV as this just isn’t totally my cup of tea.

Ted Leo and The Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks

Ted Leo deserves credit just for being one of the most consistent and dedicated live acts I have ever seen. Sure, I’ve only seen him twice, but both times he left a big impact on me. The guy is an indie lifer—20 years now and will he ever play a venue bigger than The Troubadour? Probably not, but he seems like he’s OK with that. His fans love him and he loves his fans. On the upside, he also releases awesome albums, and The Brutalist Bricks is one of them. There’s a handful of killer songs on this record, which is also so well paced (the good songs come in the middle!) I should mention it here.

Titus Andronicus – The Monitor

Titus Andronicus writes a punk album about what it’s like to move from New Jersey to Boston and contrasting it with what life was like during the Civil War. It doesn’t really sound like it’s possible, but it is, and it’s pretty damn good. This is what Green Day’s American Idiot would have sounded like had Green Day ever actually been a punk band.

Vampire Weekend – Contra

Vampire Weekend meets the sophomore slump in a big way.

Yeasayer – Odd Blood

Initially my favorite album of the year for quite a while, I couldn’t get enough of it. I listened to it something like 17 times in a relatively short span of time. After a while though, cracks started to show: while it’s a pretty damn good album, the synthesized drums give it far too much of an 80′s feel. I find myself wondering what this album would sound like if there were a real drummer performing on it. Not just what it would sound like, but how much better it would sound. Still, a good album, but one that makes you think about what could have been had they bothered to hire a drummer.