The Black Keys are Back. And Presumably, Still Black.

Under the Radar:

Each song is its own piece of soulful groove. Hurling forward at full-throttle, this is The Black Keys' most direct and consistent album yet. With the new audience the two have garnered from 2010's Brothers, expect to hear these songs on everything from car commercials to the nearly extinct rock radio. There isn't a bad song in the bunch, nor a moment to relax until you've ingested El Camino in full.

That sounds perfect, and indeed, exactly like what the album was promised: a full-on, rocked out stack of Clash-meets-Cramps stew. Only problem, and this is minor, is the album cover:

That is not an El Camino. That is a minivan (a '91 Dodge Grand Caravan, unless I miss my guess). And showing a picture of a minivan and deliberately mislabeling it an El Camino is about as funny as the generic labelling that accompanied Brothers. Which is to say, it's not all that funny at all.

Unless of course, it's some kind of trash-culture riff on how an El Camino is really just a glorified mom-mobile. In which case, they couldn't be more wrong. I like the look of the picture, and I like the lettering. But  I don't see how having an actual El Camino would not have made a better picture.

Summertime Blues

Summer's almost over, but Rocking out is still possible. At least, if you know where to get vinyl:

PLAY IT LOUD.

Record Store Day Releases: The Spin List

Spin is lame at best, but any info about Record Store Day releases are welcome, especially as I don't find RSD's web site terribly user-friendly. In fact, from a content-design point of view, main-page navigation kind of sucks.

What I might want:

1. 13th Floor Elevators 
2. White Stripes
3. Nirvana
4. The Dangermouse/Jack White/Norah Jones thing
5. Freddy King might be good
6. Mastodon's ZZ Top cover might be tempting
7. Pink Floyd
8. Velvet Underground

New Metal (Not Nu-Metal)

I've had my eye on this disc for a while. I got it yesterday at Best Buy when they charged me $10 to recycle an old TV and then gave me a $10 gift card in return.

I've been listening to it on repeat. I know almost nothing about metal, but I like this. I like it a lot.

If Everything That I Hate in Music Was Distilled into a Single Record...

...it would be this:

It's so miserable being a bad art student's shitty crayon drawing

First of all, the band name is just preciousness summa cum laude, an almost deliberately obnoxious display of off-putting, self-congratulatory wordiness, all to express an idea that's been moldering in the ground since William Wordsworth moped around Tintern Abbey. The name is so painfully earnest that it makes me wish to see them star on someone's FailBlog.

The cover art magnifies the effect. I detect a pale (naturally) echo of the pink-and-blue trend in indie album art. I'm at a loss to guess what else I'm supposed to see, save another whispy, ill-defined soul in chains. Why not just paint a sad-eyed unicorn or vampire? It would appeal to the target audience just as well.

And the music? They sound like the Cure. Sometimes they almost want to sound like the Jesus and Mary Chain, but they haven't the courage to go for it. So they sound like the Cure. The End.

In conclusion: there's such a thing as leavening your sensitivity with humor or guts. Try it sometime, dweebs.

Gallows Humor

Andrew Earles seems to lament a band called Gallows receiving the most recent style "PRESENT AND FUTURE OF PUNK".

I don't blame him. The cover art of their debut album looks like someone put strychnine in Roger Dean's acid.

New Strokes Album

Again with the pink and blue. Did I miss a meeting?

Blue and Pink Sets Indie Hearts A-Flutter, Wallets A-Open

Scrolling through Pitchfork, I find the following two album covers, right on top of each other:

Title shortened from "Gimme Some Plastic Surgery,
For the Love of God."

Irony and fatuousness mix in one complete package.

What happens when the collective unconscious becomes self-aware?