John Doe & The Sadies - Country Club
I basically picked this up because I really liked the last album by The Sadies, who I supposed fall into the alt-country category. I wasn't familiar with John Doe. They're all competent musicians, but this album of country standards was pretty meh. If I'm going to listen to covers of country songs (not that I'm going to do that very often), I want a new spin on them, and there wasn't much spinning going on here. C-Passion Pit - Manners
I really wanted to love this album. They've gotten more press than nearly any other Boston-based band since I've moved back to the area. Some of my favorite critics had nothing but high praise. But the first listen was rough. I actually contemplated never listening to it again. The whole children's choir thing was doing nothing for me. The Stones got away with that in "You Can't Always Get What You Want", and the gimmick hasn't worked all that well for me since (I'm looking at you, Decemberists). In any case, I did listen again, and I liked it more. It's different, and I can see the kids wanting to dance to it. But I'll never love it. B-Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
My relationship to Wilco isn't so much love/hate as like/tolerate. The only Wilco album I really loved was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The only album I really disliked was A Ghost is Born (sorry, EINR). Whether or not I've liked their other albums pretty much depends on my mood any given year when they come out. I guess I was in the mood for a Wilco album this year, because I'm enjoying this one. It's not spectacular by any means, but I'm enjoying it more than the relatively tepid Sky Blue Sky. If you like Wilco, it's certainly worth checking out. If you're unfamiliar with them, this is not the place to start. B+The Accidental - There Were Wolves
This is the aforementioned 2008 album, and it didn't even come out in late 2008. But since it's one of my favorite albums that I've picked up in the last few months, I thought I should mention it. The Accidental is essentially a "supergroup", composed of British musicians from a variety of bands. The only person with whom I was familiar was Sam Genders of Tunng, a band I really like. I supposed this album could be called folky, but that would be doing it an injustice. Though there are certainly folk elements, there's lots of other genres mixed in there. Whatever you want to call it, I just know that relative to the other 20+ albums I've picked up in the last few months, I've been listening to this one quite a bit. The video below doesn't really do the music justice (this is not the album verison of the song), and if you can listen to the title track, start there. Good stuff. A-Coralie Clement - Toystore
I find albums lots of different ways, but I very rarely pick one up randomly. That's what I did with Toystore. I tend to like French female vocalists, so I thought I'd give it a shot. What I got can only be called Revenge Of the Blog Post. Back in May, when I reviewed Star Trek, I said that the movie had a bit too much Spock in it, which was annoying in much the same way that a band would be annoying if it had a bit too much ukulele. Well guess what the primary instrument on this album is? Maybe the album title should have tipped me off, but who would have thought some hot French chick would be jammin' to a uke for an entire album? The plus side is, I still like ladies singing in French, even though I don't understand a word of it. The ukulele, though distracting at first, grew on me. It's not a great album, but it's by no means terrible. I can't think of any reason to recommend it unless you happen to have the same musical fetish that I do, but I'm going to give it a B anyway.Carbon Leaf - Nothing Rhymes With Woman
Recently, Carrie Brownstein (formerly of Sleater-Kinney) wrote an insightful post about middle-of-the-road bands on her excellent music blog, Monitor Mix. Carbon Leaf is just such a band. They are neither great nor terrible. They just...are. I have one other album by this relatively prolific band that you have probably never heard of, 2001's Echo Echo. It's a slightly better than decent album, which is why I decided to give the band another try. I have nothing bad to say about this album...it just didn't do much for me. If you're really into Celtic rock (created by an American band), you might want to check it out. C
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