Laura - Radio Swan Is Down

01 - Radio Swan Is Down (Part I)
02 - Is There No Help For The Widows Son?
03 - I Hope
04 - Number Stations
05 - Every Light
06 - Lake Vostok Beachfront
07 - It's Kind Of Like The Innocent Smiles You Get At The Start Of A Relationship Before You Fuck Everything Up
08 - Radio Swan Is Down (Part II)
09 - Patterns Not People
10 - Cambridge Bypass
11 - Another Near Miss

Every year there are albums that come out of nowhere. This year, at least half of my favorite records came out of nowhere, but no album came quite out of the blue like Laura's Radio Swan Is Down. I had not heard of Laura untill one day, while browsing through rateyourmusic.com I stumbled upon a list someone made of his favorite releases of the year. The list was similar to what my list of favorites would have looked like, but up near the top he had Radio Swan Is Down. I downloaded the album and didn't give it much attention so it stayed idle on my computer for a while... untill the day I finally got around to listening to it and was completely blown away.

Laura's Radio Swan Is Down is a mammoth of unrelenting post-rock perfection. From the haunting opener on "Radio Swan Is Down (Part I)", to the beautifully climaxing guitars on "Is There No Hope For The Widow's Son?", to the beautiful synths and vocals on "I Hope", to the Bark Psychosis-like tribute on "It's Kind Of Like The Innocent Smiles You Get At The Start Of A Relationship Before You Fuck Everything Up", to the slowly building to vocal perfection on "Cambridge Bypass", to the... as you can see this album does not cease to pummel you with unrelenting force.

This album is not to be messed with, and neither are these Aussies. Respect!

Dustin Kensrue - Please Come Home

01 - I Knew You Before
02 - Pistol
03 - I Believe
04 - Please Come Home
05 - Blood And Wine
06 - Consider The Ravens
07 - Weary Saints
08 - Blanket Of Ghosts


Every now and then there comes along an album that is ridiculously anticipated by a certain circle of music fans, but ends up with the enormous potential to satisfy an entirely different fan base. The latest album to have such an effect is Dustin Kensrue’s Please Come Home.

For those of you who don’t know, Dustin Kensrue is the lead singer of the recently experimental post-hardcore band, Thrice. Though Kensrue is known by most for his gut-wrenching screams and aggressive guitar playing, every avid Thrice fan knows that he has the ability to become a very successful singer/songwriter, by compiling his acoustic b-sides over the course of the past few years. However, all these b-sides have led fans to gather up enormous hopes for Kensrue’s first solo affair, Please Come Home.

Upon listening to Please Come Home fans are immediately struck with "I Knew You Before", a folkified version of Kensrue’s most prominent b-side, "Folk". Inviting the listener into the second track, "Pistol", are harmonicas, which immediately make fans wonder where this album is headed. Never the less Kensrue’s lyrical abilities on "Pistol" are reminiscent of his past material and grab hold of any listener. Entering the third track, "I Believe", every fan will finally jump to the conclusion that THIS IS A COUNTRY ALBUM! Little do they know that the folkiness of the album has just started and that track five, "Blood and Wine", sounds like a second coming of Johnny Cash. After "Blood and Wine" come "Consider the Ravens" a stripped down acoustic song, and "Blanket of Ghosts" an incredibly heartfelt bluesy ballad, both of which may be the highlights of Please Come Home.

For all those people who were expecting Please Come Home to sound like Thrice’s acoustic version of "Stare at the Sun" or any of Kensrue’s b-sides, forget about it. Please Come Home can not be compared to anything Thrice has released in the past. They are worlds apart. Please Come Home should not even be considered an album for Thrice fans. No. Instead, it is an album that should be getting airplay on country stations across the U.S. Unfortunately, I don’t think any country radio station is paying attention to Dustin Kensrue, but I hope you will be.

Don't Look Back - Brighter

01 - Six Feet Under Ground
02 - Remove All Trace
03 - Joyrider
04 - Nothing Just Happens
05 - Farewell To The Bright Side
06 - All Day Long
07 - Dark Mobson
08 - 1887/D.I.Y.A.
09 - Kids Got Shadows In Their Eyes
10 - Ask The Dust

When Decoymusic.com posted up their Top 50 Instrumental Releases of 2005 I pillaged the majority of the bands listed by downloading their albums because I’m a thieving bastard. Well, I downloaded Don’t Look Back’s Brighter about eleven months ago but until last week it was lost among the many other zip files I downloaded.

Anyway, when I finally got around to listening to Brighter I was a little disappointed that I never listened to it in the previous eleven months it was in my possession, because this album is pure pwnage. It is the best post-rock album heavily dependant on audio samples that I’ve heard since Mogwai’s Come On Die Young, if not better. The samples used are all very intriguing and make you focus more on the music than you normally would. Also, the interplay between the music and the samples especially on "Nothing Just Happens" are absolutely perfect. No sample is out of a place or unneccessary, they are all used to absolute precision.

To sum up what Don’t Look Back sound like, let’s just say that Brighter is pretty, it’s heavy, it’s brutal, it’s just pure awesomensauce.

I Would Set Myself On Fire For You - ...Believes In Patterns

01 - Twelve
02 - Let The Jazz Band In
03 - Six
04 - Terrible Noise
05 - Seven
06 - #
07 - Three
08 - So This Is Our Home
09 - Eight
10 - Nine
11 - Country Song


It's that time of the year ladies and gentleman when all us elitist hipsters cast in our votes for album of year. Well if you've been following my music rants since July, you'd know that IWSMOFFY's ...Believes In Patterns has firmly held that spot. ...Believes In Patterns is the best and easily most innovative album to come out of the emo scene since Circle Takes The Square's As The Roots Undo in 2004. With their combination of three vocalists - two male and one female - a violist, and a utility jazzist/percusionist, IWSMOFFY is an amalgation of sorts; mixing emo/screamo, post-rock, free-jazz, and dare I say art-rock.

The most impressive quality of IWSMOFFY is their fluidity. Not only do the songs on the record flow perfectly from one to another, but each song has impeccable flow within itself. IWSMOFFY is able to mix so many different styles with screaming and singing without ever having a song feel disjointed. To simply put it, the vocals on this record are perfect, the instrumentation is flawless, and the lyrics are excellent - though you might not be able to make them out while listening. The only thing else I can say about this is that it is an essential must listen. So do yourself the favor and listen.

Yndi Halda - Enjoy Eternal Bliss

01 - Dash and Blast
02 - We Flood Empty Lakes
03 - A Song For Starlit Beaches
04 - Illuminate My Heart, My Darling!


How often does it occur that a band can become one of the forefront groups of an entire genre after recording only four songs in their entire career? I know what you're thinking, it's as rare as spotting Nessy in great ole Scotland. However, this rarity that has so blessed our modern music scene is Yndi Halda, an incredibly young and talented band heiling from Canterbury, Kent in the UK.

Yndi Halda, which translates to "Enjoy Eternal Bliss" in some dialect of Icelandic, have brought to our attention four songs of epic proportion and beauty on their EP Enjoy Eternal Blis. Don't let the title of EP fool you, although Enjoy Eternal Bliss is only four tracks, it clocks at a little over 60 minutes, not one minute of which drags or fails to stir up emotions. Yndi Halda displays an ideal mix of Godspeed You! Black Emperor-like epic proportions and the breathtaking beauty of Explosions in the Sky, and they deserve every right to be compared to those two bands. If Yndi Halda releases one or two more records better than or up to par with Enjoy Eternal Bliss, I will easily class them as the greatest post-rock band ever without a faint of doubt, that is unless the upcoming Explosions in the Sky album matches The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place in magnificence.

Anyway, Enjoy Eternal Bliss was originally released in 2005 with only three tracks on it, which excluded "A Song For Starlit Beaches". There were only 300 copies of this original release all of which were pressed by the band and had individual hand-made album artwork, some of which can be seen here. Which means, all 300 copies of the original Enjoy Eternal Bliss were different and are floating around in the hands of a lucky few. However the band re-realesed the EP recently with four tracks on it via Burnt Toast Vinal.

Every track on the EP is absolutely remarkable, although "A Song For Starlit Beaches" sticks out the most because since it was recorded later, it sounds like a different, all-be-it still as remarkable as ever, Yndi Halda. Unlike the other tracks like "Illuminate My Heart, My Darling!", who alternate from soft to loud and build into epic crescendos in what seems to be two seperate parts, "A Song For Starlit Beaches" builds and builds, but always plateaus rather than stirring into a giant uproar of noise which you would expect from post-rock bands. Thus the song creates more tension than any other song, which makes the eventual crescendo extremely satisfying and worth the time and effort you've put into listening to the song.

So all-in-all, Yndi Halda is an extremely talented band with a very promising future that would even make Chaucer happy. Cheers for the future of post-rock!

Explosions In The Sky - Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever

01 - Greet Death
02 - Yasmin The Light
03 - The Moon Is Down
04 - Have You Passed Through This Night?
05 - A Poor Man's Memory
06 - With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept


For all those of you who don't know, I am an enormous fan of post-rock. The music I listen to on a daily basis is almost entirely comprised of post-rock. But if I talked to you about the genre, you would never be able to tell that I was introduced to the genre no more than a year ago. I had always wanted to hear something big, something that was more than just music. And the day I stumbled upon Those Who Tell The Truth... was the the day I found that something big. Those Who Tell The Truth... paints a beautiful landscape of sounds before your ears where each song flows seemlessly into the next leaving you wondering where one begin and the other ended. The music is some of the most breathtaking and cinematic music you will ever hear and upon finishing listening to the album you will feel like a different person and your ears will never be the same. With all this said Those Who Tell The Truth... is not even Explosions in the Sky's best album. That spot is reserved for my favorite post-rock album of all time, EITS's The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place. Though Those Who Tell The Truth may not be EITS's best album, it doesn't stop it from being in the 99th percentile of post-rock albums and one hell of an introduction to the genre. Trust me, I know from experience.

Gregor Samsa - 55:12

01 - Makeshift Shelters
02 - Even Numbers
03 - What I Can Manage
04 - Loud And Clear
05 - These Points Balance
06 - Young And Old
07 - We'll Lean That Way Forever
08 - Lessening


Every now and then an album comes along that is sheerly breathtaking. An album that makes you want to curl up into the fetal position because you feel so completely insignificant in comparison to it. Gregor Samsa's 55:12 is 2006's curl-into-a-ball album of the year. It's slow, it's quiet, it sometimes goes nowhere, but it is the best album compiled of nothingness since Talk Talk's Laughing Stock. Like Laughing Stock, 55:12 is one of those albums whose total is greater than the sum of its parts. Granted, there are about seven members in the Gregor Samsa, but you could never tell. All that matters is that you truly understand how beautiful this album is, and that after listening to it, you will feel like nothing.