If you head over to Bob Dylan’s official site you can download (for free, no email even!) the first “single” from his upcoming record, Together Through Life. The track is called Beyond Here Lies Nothin’ and it’s really bluesy and pretty rough. It sounds as though this record will be a slight departure from the last couple Dylan records and maybe heading toward the darker territory of Time Out Of Mind. Here’s Dylan talking about the record if you’re keen to get some insight into the background of the album.

Download:
Bob Dylan – Beyond Here Lies Nothin’

Imagine the Dylan of 1963 trying to wrap his head around this advanced mp3 thing. Or the internet. Or a computer. Jesus. Dude has staying power. Together Through Life will be in stores on April 25 here in Australia.

Metric kind of fell of my radar over the past couple years. I liked Live It Out but didn’t love it and since then the band have been pretty quiet. Emily Haines released a solo record (which was not bad but hardly earth shattering) but other than that the Metric family was pretty quiet.

Then late last year I heard Help I’m Alive on CBC Radio 3′s podcast and all of a sudden Metric came screaming back into orbit. The song, which kind of accidentally took off as the band never planned to release it as a proper single, is a bit schizophrenic but instantly memorable. Triple J even played the hell out of it and probably still are. Anyway, all of a sudden I was kind of looking forward to Fantasies, the new Metric record which comes out on April 11 here in Australia.

After a few listens to the record I am impressed. The thing that’s really standing out for me is how much this record sounds like four musicians playing in a room together. It’s not overly produced and it’s consistent from start to finish. And, dare I say it, it sounds a bit mature. In addition the band are putting this record out themselves, working different distribution deals with different independent labels around the world…and I always admire that.

Download
Metric – Sick Muse
Metric – Help I’m Alive (acoustic)

You can also stream the whole record on the band’s MySpace.

On May 18, Manic Street Preachers will release Journal For Plague Lovers, their eighth album. Today the band released the album cover (above) and the insane/overly pretentious tracklisting:

1. Peeled Apples
2. Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
3. Me And Stephen Hawking
4. This Joke Sport Severed
5. Journal For Plague Lovers
6. She Bathed Herself In A Bath Of Bleach
7. Facing Page: Top Left
8. Marlon J.D.
9. Doors Closing Slowly
10. All Is Vanity
11. Pretension/Repulsion
12. Virginia State Epileptic Colony
13. William’s Last Words

The album cover is a painting by Jenny Saville (she is also responsible for The Holy Bible album cover). In an article for the Guardian a few years ago, the painting that has become the album cover is alluded to:

Against one of the studio walls is the study for a recent painting, Stare. Again from a newspaper cutting, it is a picture of a young girl, one side of her face a large birthmark. Saville is animated as she talks of the picture. How you can charge a painting, create tension. The sense of the blood underneath the skin, how the stain becomes confused with the shadow of the nose. What she calls the pathology of painting. “I have moved from the anatomy of the body to the anatomy of paint,” she says. “That is how I see it. Spaces within the body of the paint are what interest me now.”

As I mentioned back in November, the lyrics on this record are all Richey’s (who went missing in 1995):

All 13 songs on the new record feature lyrics left to us by Richey. The brilliance and intelligence of the lyrics dictated that we had to finally use them. The use of language is stunning and topics include The Grande Odalisque by Ingres, Marlon Brando, Giant Haystacks, celebrity, consumerism and dysmorphia, all reiterating the genius and intellect of Richard James Edwards.

And if the cover, tracklist, and lyrics weren’t enough, the album was produced by Steve Albini. I know us Manics fans are a dwindling bunch but I am so excited for this record.

A few nights ago at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals played their final show together. If you’ll recall, late last year Ryan surprised everyone by announcing the end of the Cardinals and while he hasn’t completely ruled out the band playing some shows together again in the future, this is it for now.

Of course the final show was recorded and their are already three different versions of it out there. This one is my favourite so far…great sound.

The band were on fire for their final gig together and ended with, appropriately enough, Goodnight Rose. While the last couple Ryan/Cardinals records have been a little too safe for my liking, they always brought it live. This gig might, sadly, be the final live outing for many of these songs. Check out a few below or download the whole gig.

Download:
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Dear Chicago
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Bartering Lines
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – When The Stars Go Blue
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Goodnight Rose

If you care about this award you are probably already aware…but hey, I’m slow to update this thing. On Friday, Eddy Current Suppression Ring won Australia’s finest album award (that’s right ARIA) the Australian Music Prize for their kickass record, Primary Colours. In addition to the bragging rights, ECSR also walk away with $30,000 which I am sure they will put to good use in the production of their new album.

Joe has dubbed me The World’s Biggest Drones Fan and in my previous post on the AMP I stated I thought they should win; Havilah is monumental. But if it couldn’t be The Drones then it had to be Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Congrats, guys.

How about some old ECSR?

Download:
Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Let Me Be Honest With You

At the same ceremony, Jack Ladder was awarded the Red Bull Award which came with a $15,000 cheque.

Sometimes I neglect to write about a record for the simple reason that I’m not in the mood to compose seven or eight sentences about it. If this was a full-time job this wouldn’t be an issue but as it is I have to pay the bills with my “career” which generally leaves me drained at the end of the day. To be honest, I’m amazed A Reminder is still going. Anyway, this means records I really enjoy often go unmentioned here only to appear on my Top Albums list at the end of the year. I’m going to try to rectify this with micro-posts like this one.

School of Seven Bells released their debut record late last year. It didn’t spend enough time on my iPod to get it on my year end list but it probably would have had I got to it earlier. It’s a fantastic record that combines shoegaze and dream pop very, very well.

Download:
School of Seven Bells – Half Asleep

The band will be touring here in Australia at the end of April. Dates here.

Full Disclosure: I attended Coldplay’s gig last night for two reasons. One, I drag Amanda to a lot of gigs and I owed her one (or 43). Two, I love Mercury Rev and seeing them support Coldplay was the only chance I was going to get to see them. Alright…

While I used to enjoy Coldplay (loved Parachutes back in the day), I can’t call myself a fan now. I certainly wasn’t expecting to get into the final gig of their Australian tour last night at Acer Arena. But you know what?

Coldplay have nailed the arena show.

When you get to the stature of a band like Coldplay the inevitable problem occurs: how do you play large venues and still manage to make the gig work for everyone in the room. The only rock bands that have made it work to varying degrees are U2 and The Rolling Stones. So, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Combining elements from the aforementioned bands as well as a little bit of Sigur Ros and Radiohead chucked in, Coldplay have made the Viva La Vida tour a spectacle without going overboard. It was bright, colourful and enjoyable even if you are not a fan. One particularly great touch was a third (!) stage set up, literally, in the crowd that all four members retreated to for a three song acoustic set.

I was also impressed with the band’s willingness to mess with their songs a bit. When the four of them set up on the B stage they played two songs, crammed together with the drummer playing a drum machine. It gave the songs, God Put A Smile Upon Your Face and Talk, a totally different feel to their recorded versions. Even the awful The Hardest Part was rescued from complete inconsequentiality (< — new word?) by a simple solo piano performance by Chris Martin.

I’m not going to go on about the gig too much but I was surprised at how well some of the newer material comes across live (for the record I’ve only heard Viva la Vida a couple times). When the band dropped In My Place, Clocks, and Yellow within the first five songs I thought for sure they had painted themselves into a corner. But the new stuff is made to be screamed by ten thousand fans in arenas and the set never lost the momentum it picked up right from the, I shit you not, professional dancer who got the crowd hyped immediately before the band took the stage.

The last time I saw Coldplay was with my sister in an arena in Vancouver toward the end of the tour for A Rush Of Blood To The Head. I was bored the entire gig. The band simply could not connect with the crowd in such a large space. Coldplay are not that band anymore. In fact, U2 had better be firing on all cylinders on the U2360 tour or the torch will have officially been passed.

Setlist
Life In Technicolour
Violet Hill
Clocks
In My Place
Yellow
Glass of Water
Cemeteries of London
42
Fix You
Strawberry Swing
God Put a Smile Upon Your Face
Talk
The Hardest Part
Postcard from Far Away
Viva la Vida
Lost!
Speed of Sound (C-stage acoustic)
Green Eyes (C-stage acoustic)
I’m a Believer (C-stage acoustic)
(Viva la Vida remix over PA)
———
Politik
Lovers in Japan
Death and All His Friends
———
The Scientist
Fruit Salad (Wiggles cover)
Life In Technicolour II

Alright, now for the band I was excited to see, Mercury Rev. First of all, 45 minutes is never enough for a band you love but I knew that going in so I braced myself for a short set full of the more accessible songs from the band’s catalogue. I was pretty surprised then when the band opened up with a ten minute version of Snowflake In A Hot World from last year’s (disappointing) Snowflake Midnight. It was a big ask from the Coldplay crowd (who seemed pretty unimpressed with the set) but I loved it.

The set continued with as close to hits as this band have ever gotten. Holes was gorgeous as was Goddess on a Hiway which immediately followed. The band closed with The Dark Is Rising and when the final note hit it sounded like a bomb had gone off. Crazy stuff. Way too short? Yes. But I hadn’t seen Mercury Rev since Glastonbury 2002 so I was stoked to see them at all.

Setlist
Snowflake In a Hot World
Little Rhymes
People Are So Unpredictable
Holes
Goddess On A Hiway
The Dark Is Rising

Alright…time for a little gig break. M83 up next in a few weeks.

Great song, great video, great album.

Tour here please!

I enjoy Phoenix. They’re French, they’re catchy, and one of them knocked up Sofia Coppola. At V Festival a couple years back they were one of the day’s standout performances. Despite all that I wasn’t scratching off the days on my Boys of Phoenix calendar for the next Phoenix record to arrive. Until I heard this.

Download:
Phoenix – 1901

THAT SONG IS CAPS LOCK GOOD MY FRIENDS.

The album is called Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. It’s out in May. And it has the above song on it. All you need to know?

Bonus Phoenix Fun: if you want to remix the hell out 1901, head here and pick up the stems.

While Mogwai had their moments of greatness on Wednesday night, last night Black Mountain “brought da noize” for ninety solid minutes. Vancouver reprezent, yo. Playing the second night of a two night stand at the Annandale, Vancouver’s finest purveyors of dark, riff-heavy rock impressed the hell out of me.

Despite being from my hometown, I’d never seen the band before so I went in last night not really knowing what to expect. I really dig both albums so I was excited on that front but I was pretty surprised at how each member of Black Mountain independently blew me away. First up, only one guitar on every song? Crazy. But when you can play guitar like Stephen McBean I guess you really don’t need anything else. Jonny asked me to let him know how much Black Mountain “shred” last night. Oh, they shredded, Jonny, they shredded.

Everyone else in the band stood out as well. Whether it be the more prominent keyboards than I was expecting (very proggy at times) to the rhythm section (who killed it) or Amber’s ethereal vocals, every element combined perfectly in nearly every song. Opener Tyrants was absolutely monstrous and once that riff kicked in I knew it was going to a loud, raucous night.

While the bulk of last year’s excellent In The Future was played, Black Mountain still managed to bust out some highlights from their debut and a couple more obscure songs. The set never let up and when they returned for an encore of No Hits and Don’t Run Our Hearts Around the crowd went nuts. While they didn’t play Stay Free (love that one) I have absolutely nothing but praise for the band last night. They were loud, aggressive, and spot on from start to finish.

Seriously, where was this band when I was seventeen?

Setlist
Keyboard/synth intro
Tyrants
Angels
Wucan
Queens Will Play
Druganaut
Heart Of Snow
Thirteen Walls
Evil Ways
Shelter
Stormy High
———
No Hits
Don’t Run Our Hearts Around

A few photos here.

Download:
Black Mountain – Tyrants
Black Mountain – Druganaut