1. The Disciplines - Virgins Of Menace
I've always felt like The Posies had a more interesting and diverse sound than their power pop reputation gave them credit for, and Ken Stringfellow's extremely variedd career outside the band has helped bear that out, with three solo albums that ran the gamut from lo-fi to polished singer/songwriter country rock and piano pop, a collaboration with the African band WaFlash, and most recently the raw garage rock of the Norway-based The Disciplines. I didn't much care for the first Disciplines album a couple years ago, which felt a little too rushed and frantic, like Stringfellow was kind of playing a character. But Virgins Of Menace maintains that aggressive energy while adding a lot of melody and a distinct lyrical perspective, making for easily his best set of songs since 2001's Touched, and easily a more enjoyable effort than the last Posies album released just 5 months earlier.

2. Sonic Youth - SYR9: Simon Werner a Disparu
As I mentioned the other day, I just read David Browne's Sonic Youth biography Goodbye 20th Century and have been poring over my favorite band's back catalog all over again, so this record kind of had perfect timing for me to be excited about it. I've always been a little unenthused about the SYR series in general, other than "Anagrama" the early volumes didn't live up to all the potential of a totally freeform instrumental Sonic Youth record and I got off the bus around SYR5. But this is almost exactly what I always wanted out of an SYR, a long luxurious collection of jams with varying levels of composition and improvisation, mellow vibes and harsh noise. It's almost the album people who never much liked the band's vocals have been waiting for, although it'll be interesting to see if any of the riffs, or the general sound of this record, turn up on their next 'proper' vocal album -- I could see "Chez Yves (Alice et Clara)" turning in to a really great song. It's very definitely post-'90s Sonic Youth, but there are some things on here that honestly give me kind of a Evol vibe.

3. Dawn Richard - A Tell Tale Heart
I've been so obsessed with Diddy-Dirty Money's Last Train To Paris since it was released in December and quickly became my 2nd favorite album of 2010 that it's been fun to having some new stuff from the same team with the same kind of expansive, emotional dance/R&B sound to enjoy, including this mixtape from one half of Dirty Money. Richard's got some really strong material of her own, and hearing her voice by itself outside of Danity Kane or Dirty Money for the first time I'm realizing she has this really appealing raspy grain to her voice that reminds me a little of Brandy. Here's hoping she gets to launch a serious solo career off of this mixtape.

4. Diddy-Dirty Money - LoveLOVE vs. HateLOVE
As with A Tell Tale Heart, this feels like a wonderful little addendum to Last Train To Paris, collecting all the remixes of songs from the album that have been floating around along with some cool new songs like the amazing "Sade." I put all this, the original album and the Richard mixtape into one playlist for a crazy 3 hour shuffle party of all the stuff in this vein.

5. Patrick Stump - Truant Wave EP
I mentioned a couple months ago that the Fall Out Boy frontman's solo album Soul Punk is probably my most anticipated record of 2011, and this little 6 song digital EP he quietly put out while Interscope hems and haws about releasing the full-length has only made me more excited about the album. Some of the stuff on here has a kind of rushed synth pop feel that I'm not totally on board with, my favorite is the funky midtempo "As Long A I Know I'm Getting Paid," but there's a really appealing range of sounds and moods on here and his voice as always is fantastic.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 14, 2011 at 7:42 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.