Les Savy Fav - Lets Stay Friends

New York indie rockers Les Savy Fav returned from a couple of years of self-imposed exile with their fourth full-length, Lets Stay Friends, which pretty much picks up right where they left off. Their invigorating, visceral-yet-cerebral brand of Wire-influenced art-punk-cum-modern-rock is still full of left-field lyrical sensibilities, hellbent rhythms, and knotty guitar riffs. If anything, their attack is more refined and focused here, serving both the head and the body in equal measure.

Rolling Stone (p.85) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[Harrington] doesn't' disappoint here, with werewolf howls and party chants, plunging through political turmoil with his usual humor..."
Spin (p.106) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[I]nvigorating....[With] an unfakeable impetuous fervor."
Entertainment Weekly (p.82) - "The group is malevolent and charming at once, still a beguiling combo..." -- Grade: A-
Uncut (p.116) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]his is a band who manage to conjure an anthemic chorus out of the unlikeliest material....[T]he best music of their career. It's a welcome return, to say the least."
Alternative Press (p.160) - "4.5 stars out of 5 -- "They retain some of the tightly wound post-punk angularity they've always favored and even bust a bit of old-school punk, but the real advances are melodic."
Magnet (p.101) - "This heady mix of stratospheric rockers and inventive, smart and slyly revolutionary lyrics yields Les Savy Fav's best album yet."
Kerrang (Magazine) (p.57) - "Songs like 'Patty Lee' and 'What Would Wolves Do?' combine exquisite swathes of guitar with the odd burst of abrasive noise..."

Alicia Keys - As I Am

The third full-length from contemporary R&B diva Alicia Keys is called As I Am, a title that adequately reflects the album's straightforward, confessional soul-pop. Keys built her popularity making stylish, reflective, voice-&-piano music; As I Am continues that trend, albeit in a poppier vein that balances neatly between neo-soul and adult contemporary. This is reflected in the mid-tempo grooves, songs of empowerment ("Superwoman"), and stirring ballads ("The Thing About Love").

Keys's collaborators on the album include songwriter Linda Perry, who co-wrote three of the album's tracks, and John Mayer, who twines voices with Keys on the sensual "Lesson Learned." Top-notch arrangements, which include gorgeous, retro-tinged flourishes via strings and horns, make the set shimmer, but it's the strength of the hook-heavy tunes and Keys's moving performances that make As I Am stick. It's not the five-star album she's capable of, but it leaves little doubt that Keys is moving steadily in that direction.

New tracks
Tyra - Givin Me A Rush Lyrics
Letoya - Swagger Lyrics
The Dream - Livin' A Lie Lyrics
Lil' Kim - Kimme More Lyrics
Rihanna - Is This Love Lyrics
R. Kelly - Pull Your Hair Lyrics

Arab Strap - Elephant Shoe

Made up mainly of simple and repetitive guitar and a drum machine, Aidan Moffat and David Gow's Elephant Shoe is a beautifully stark and intimate masterpiece. Very few musicians can come across as being completely honest and personal in their music. However, like Smog, Songs: Ohia (whose last album Moffat and Gow played on), and very few others, Arab Strap make you feel like you can see their most personal thoughts, fears, and weaknesses. They let you see their biggest mistakes, darkest secrets, weakest moments, and insecurities.

"One Four Seven One" (I assume the equivalent to *69 in the US) expresses, to the backdrop of a minimally picked guitar and a drum machine, insecurities about a lover's faithfulness (or unfaithfulness). "You said it yourself, you can't help but flirt...I know it was just once, but isn't once enough?" You can actually hear the pain in his voice, and it is completely heart wrenching.

For those music fans who worry that an album with only guitar and drum machine might not be enough for them, don't worry. Not all of the music on Elephant Shoe is as basic as it sounds, the duo also use cello, keyboards, real drums, and a mix of electric and acoustic guitars to round out the sound of the album. Moffat and Gow have made an unforgettable album full of engaging and poignant stories and beautifully simplistic music that is so real and honest that you can't help but be emotionally effected.

Ian Brown - The Greatest

Granted, Ian Browns solo albums have all been rather patchy hit followed by miss affairs, but this collection smashingly rectifies that, creaming off the best of the harvested crop, mining carefully for the diamonds. And boy has there been some diamonds, "My Star" and "Corpses" make for an astonsihing opening barrage guitarist, co-writer and fast friend Aziz Ibrahim magnificently poignant on both. "Dolphins were Monkeys", "Be there" and the anthemnic "FEAR" are other high points reminding the listener just how good IB solo work can be. Unfortunately the forgettable plodfest of a collabaration with Noel Gallagher, "Keep what ya Got" snuck in through the back door but hey, at least the CD format spares us the embaressing video!

New single "All Ablaze" is a magical return to form reperesnting Brown at the height of his powers and closing number "Return of the Fisherman" is a slice of the cryptic and mysterious gnostic stuff that fans so adored the Roses for.

He'll never top the Roses, but for my opinion nobody will so just enjoy this collection for what it is! And what it is is the Greatest!

Blonde Redhead - 23

On 23, Blonde Redhead's second full-length outing for 4AD, the New York City-based indie-rock trio, fronted by reedy-voiced singer/multi-instrumentalists Amedeo Pace and Kazu Makino (Simone Pace rounds out the line-up on drums), continues to refine the intense, artfully eccentric sound that it crafted on Misery Is A Butterfly. Although there are nods to the band's guitar-driven formative aesthetic (see the majestic title track and the searing "Spring and By Summer Fall"), even these more energetic moments carry a fascinating, dream-like quality, recalling the mesmerizing atmosphere of the Cure's Disintegration, while other tunes mix goth splendor with Beatlesque flourishes (as on the disarming "SW"). Easily one of the most intriguing indie albums of early '07, 23 is required listening for aficionados of intelligent, expansive rock.

Fresh songs
Scarface - Girl You Know Lyrics
Kanye West - Flashing Lights Lyrics
Ashlee Simpson - Outta My Head Lyrics
Colbie Caillat - Mistletoe Lyrics
Cupid - Say Yes Lyrics
Jack Johnson - If I Had Eyes Lyrics

The Decemberists - Picaresque

The Decemberists' third full-length release takes the fanciful lyrical subjects and defiantly non-rock musical tendencies of Castaways And Cut-Outs and Her Majesty The Decemberists and infuses them with the more muscular and electric sound of the 2003 mini-concept album, The Tain. The combination provides singer/songwriter Colin Meloy and crew with their first true masterpiece, an album that not only fulfills, but exceeds, the promise of their earlier records.

Meloy's pet obsessions with historical romance and the sea get their due, culminating in the nearly nine-minute suite "The Mariner's Revenge Song," but he also examines more real-world topics in the Morrissey-like portrait of runaway teenage hustlers "On the Bus Mall" and the embittered social commentary of "16 Military Wives." The true highlights, however, are the sarcastically jaunty Kinks-like shuffle "The Sporting Life," a first-person tale of dishonor on the playing fields set to the record's most insidiously catchy tune, and the churning opener, "The Infanta," where Meloy's linguistic over-achievements mesh surprisingly well with Chris Walla's assertive, harder-edged production.

Manu Chao - Clandestino

The first solo album from the former frontman of Mano Negra is an enchanting trip through Latin-flavored world-beat rock, reliant on a potpourri of musical styles from traditional Latin & salsa to dub to rock & roll to French pop to experimental rock to techno.