Modern Minstrels

August Music Recommendations

Haven't updated the music recommendations in the sidebar for well over a month, so let's do that now. I've listened to pretty much just two albums this past week at work Catch Without Arms by Dredg and Illinois by Sufjan Stevens.

Nick turned me onto Catch Without arms a couple weeks ago, and I've really been digging it. The music is rather dark and heavy, but not in a loud and screamy way. At any rate, it's really good and now I'm really disappointed that I missed their set at BFD in June. Favorite songs include the title track, Not That Simple, and my favorite by far is Sang Real. Definitely check this album out.

I got into Sufjan Stevens from Ricci by way of Nick. When Ricci first played introduced me to them, I asked how he found out about them, and he said Nick. And I responded, "I thought so, because this sounds like music Nick would like". I'm not quite sure how to describe it, iTunes classifies it as Folk. And while there is some folksy-ness to it, it's much more complex than that. You should just check it out for yourself. My favorite songs so far Come On! Feel the Illinoise! and The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders.

The other album I've been listening to a fair amount recently is One Fell Swoop by The Spill Canvas. This may be a bit too "emo" for some people, and some of the lyrics are a bit too over the top for me. But nonetheless, there's a lot of good songs on the album. I definitely like Lusta Prima Vista and Polygraph Right Now, which are two of the more electric songs on the album. I also like the final ballad, Self-Conclusion, even if it is almost the same song as The Tide (my favorite song of theirs). The album is out on Tuesday and you can stream half the songs from it on their Pure Volume site.

Now I just can't wait until the end of the month which will see Jack's Mannequin (Andrew from Something Corporate) debut album as well as a new Death Cab for Cutie album. w00t!

And on a side note, best of luck to Andrew with his bone marrow transplant. You've got lots of people praying for you. We all know you will keep on fighting.