The Best of the Rest

Hello to all my readers out there (yeah, just you, Dom.) Apologies for the lack of reviews as of late. Thought I'd get right back into it in style with Street Trash, a really classy, upstanding film full of warmth and adventure.

What have I been up to in the mean time? Why, obsessively buying new music, reading, and even watching some TV. So it's time for:

The Best of the Rest Music Edition

1) Final Fantasy (now Owen Pallett due to copyright laws) - Heartland:
Like all of Pallett's other work as Final Fantasy, Heartland is awesome and totally unique. Please go out and buy this masterpiece unless you're some sort of jerk who thinks violins are gay. I always say that the Constantines are Toronto's best band, but that's just because Final Fantasy is a one-man show (well, until recently.) Filled with gorgeous orchestration, vocal melodies that creep up on you with successive listens, and sometimes obtuse lyrics following a violent farmer in a mythical world who sets out to unseat his own maker, it still manages to sound immediate and un-pretentious. Also, "E is for Estranged" is imo Pallett's best song to date, and if I weren't sociopathic, I would probably describe it as heartbreaking. Heartland follows up the excellent Spectrum EP. A real stunner.

2) M.I.A.:
So I think Arular is totally underrated because everybody keeps going apeshit over "Paper Planes" and the rest of the Kala album. But you know what? Kala is awesome anyway. I like it because it feels like having a party, but you don't have to invite anybody. I used to hate anything international-sounding, but you know, I could get into it. Shout-outs to Sri Lanka, Africa, shit, even to her loyal following of indie-rock crossover fans like myself (the chorus to Pixies classic "Where is my mind" adapted into a club track, fuck yeah!)

3) Coheed & Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade & In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3 Imagine Rush were an emo band, and they decided to make a four-album emo-prog-rock-metal space opera. Imagine the story is a ludicrous mess involving filicide, planetary destruction, and cyborgs harboring a universe-threatening virus, and villains with such names as Mayo Deftinwolf. Add in a healthy dose of adolescent angst. Now, imagine that you are not a 13-year-old girl with black nail-polish who actually takes this music seriously. To normal peole this seems like a recipe for crap, but for a nerd like me it is the musical equivalent of The Labyrinth - an embarrassing and ridiculous yet enjoyable and hook-laden affair. The only difference is that everybody loves The Labyrinth because it features David Bowie and it's from the 80's. If we can all accommodate Ewoks in Return of the Jedi and still rate that among sci-fi's greatest, I'm sure there is room in some people's hearts for these dudes, lacking in integrity though they may be; although we can probably ignore their recent crap.

4) Mountain Goats:
Anything by John Darnielle is great. His old tape-recorded shit where he furiously strums at his acoustic guitar and sings about peanuts and baseball and bitterness is great. He's great when he turns out piano ballads about vague religious epiphanies. He's great when he does moody songs about killing yourself. He's great when he does metal songs about H.P. Lovecraft. He's great when he writes lengthy and feverish liner notes about veganism or angry shout-outs to departed friends. He's great when he names his albums after places like Sweden and Ghana and the album art is just a Swedish flag or an outline of Ghana. He's great when he rhymes "sentimental" with "Lincoln Continental." He's great when he writes a song about the Picts, but then changes to "The Anglo-Saxons" because it sounds better, regardless of historical accuracy. He's great even though so many of his songs sound the same; his songs, full of places to go, outsiders on the run, loves left behind in vague apartments, people driving themselves into ruin, insurance fraudsters, drunken Marduk fans; exiled, paranoid, proud, unapologetic and alive. Great man, no longer underrated. Wields his acoustic guitar like the saviour of all music.



5) Beat Happening - You Turn Me On
I never listened to their earlier stuff, but this sounds more or less like a perfect album to me. That effortless-sounding casual quality, cute and beautiful mellow tunes that sneak into your head until you can't get them out, stomping child-like bangers about witches and burning buildings, overall oddly resonant. I'd call it a lost classic since I never hear anybody mentioning it; definitely one of the best of the 90's.


6) The Silver Jews:
So I hear Pavement are reuniting. Olympic Island, though? Man, I hate these outdoor music festivals. Plus, on the island? That sucks, man. I hate taking the stupid ferry, waiting in line, sitting around on the grass with the crappy acoustics, a bunch of dopes sitting around smoking ganja, some bohemian twat dancing freakishly with her arms flailing wildly in the air... can I afford to miss the biggest reunion tour since the Pixies, which I also missed? Probably. And you know what? Pavement may be one of the best 90's bands, but The Silver Jews are better. There, I said it. Not that any of you readers could care less, but David Berman's weirdo honky-tonk Americana is both odder and more witty than Stephen Malkmus' best material with Pavement. Sorry Steve, I still love your shit, man, but hey... About time somebody gave the Jews their due. Lyrically obtuse, but they start to make sense the more you listen to 'em. Other than Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, what 90's album could rival the Jews' American Water? It just takes a while to sink in, is all. Making the familiar strange again.

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Lastly, Lou Barlow, if you are out there, my girlfriend and I saw you at the Dinosaur Jr. show at the Phoenix in Toronto (Jan 21 2010) and she was very impressed and mesmerized by your hair.