KAISER CHIEFS

KAISER CHIEFS' new album, YOURS TRULY, ANGRY MOB, will be out March 14

KAISER CHIEFS on MySPACE.

KAISER CHIEFS continent-hopping >>>

Mar 9 2007 8:00P/Cardiff University Great Hall/Cardiff
Mar 10 2007 8:00P/Cardiff University Great Hall/Cardiff
Mar 15 2007 8:00P/Quattro Club/Tokyo
Mar 21 2007 8:00P/The Forum/Sydney
Mar 23 2007 8:00A/Prince of Wales/Melbourne
Mar 30 2007 8:00A/Royal Albert Hall/London
Apr 6 2007 8:00P/Electric Factory/Philadelphia
Apr 7 2007 8:00P/9:30 Club/Washington DC

[MP3] "Heat Dies Down"

[MP3] "I Can Do It Without You"

LAVENDER DIAMOND

LAVENDER DIAMOND. The very name reeks of richness. Sweetness. Decadence. Sweet decadence. Decadent sweetness. And so forth.

I'm not sure I entirely trust a band that does the bumper-sticker "Peace!" and "Find Your Center!" thing on their MySPACE page. Or that describes their sound as "the sound of love!".

But maybe REBECCA STARK's sweet, rich, decadent voice (along with my first taste of cheap, thin, decadent vodka this week) will help lift me out of today's gloomy, piss-poor mood.

LAVENDER DIAMOND's debut LP, IMAGINE OUR LOVE, will be released by Matador on May 8.

The band will be playing Joe's Pub in New York City tonight at 11:30 PM.

From the LP IMAGINE OUR LOVE, 2007 >>>
[MP3] "Open Your Heart"
[MP3] "Side of the Lord"

From the EP THE CAVALRY OF LIGHT, 2005 >>>
[MP3] "You Broke My Heart"
[MP3] "Rise in the Springtime"

DEW

Staying in Sweden...

The duo that is DEW hails from Halleforsnas, which is located about halfway between Eskilstuna and Flen. Can you picture that on a map? Excellent.

I should mention that I was beaten to the punch on these guys by the ever-nettlesome HITS IN THE CAR. At least he didn't inspire the post this time; we seemed to discover the group at about the same time. He's just a faster writer than I am. The bastard.

So... one of the reasons I bothered to mention Halleforsnas earlier is that it's one of the only bits of information that HITS neglected to insert into his original post. Thanks for the scraps there, fella. Sloppy seconds, anyone? Excellent.

DEW consists of friends TOMMY ERIKSSON and DAN OSTBERG. They started performing under that name in 2000, but didn't release their first album -- SOMEWHERE ELSE -- until 2005. As near as I can tell, the record isn't available for purchase at this point.

By the sound of it, this is a very casual collaboration, with the two musicians writing and recording whenever they can get a break from work and family obligations. Doesn't seem like they get many of those breaks, though their MySpace page does mention the possibility of a new band member joining the party.

As for their sound, it's highly evocative of '80s British indie-pop -- all jingle-jangle and bouncy basslines on parade. I can't quite peg it exactly, but artists along the lines of THE HOUSEMARTINS, AZTEC CAMERA, PREFAB SPROUT, and/or BILLY BRAGG might put you in the ballpark.

(HITS IN THE CAR was impudent enough to compare them to a group I'd never even heard of -- THE RIVER DETECTIVES. As if writing faster than me weren't already enough, now he's got to go all obscure on my ass. The nerve of the guy! At this point, I'm seriously thinking about hiring TOBY KEITH to stick a boot up his ass. It is, after all, the American way.)

DEW on MySPACE.

[MP3] "All That I'm Leaving Behind"

[MP3] "Still Looking"

DAVID & THE CITIZENS

I'm tired of using the same words -- over and over and over again -- when I write about Swedish music and songcraft. I'm sure you're tired of reading them. "Catchy." "Melodic." "Simple" yet "Sophisticated." On and on and on.

Of course, these labels don't apply to every song or artist under the Swedish sun; the country's ample enough to produce sticky-sweet bubblegum dance-pop, post-punk noise-rock, and everything in between. Still, there can be little question that the Swedes -- as a people -- have a way with a tune. The world was aware of this at least as long ago as ABBA and -- a decade later -- ROXETTE were making a lot of musical moralists and arbiters of high taste uncomfortable at their inability to resist such seemingly empty and ephemeral pop songs.

(But don't go getting too cool for school, Sweden. REDNEX's "Cotton Eye Joe" was an abomination worthy of a suitcase-nuke strike on Stockholm. And ACE OF BASE? Well... it was nice knowin' ya, Malmo.)

On second thought, let's throw Malmo a bone and steer the anti-Ace of Base jihad to... um... Helsingborg! (Hell, it's practically in Denmark anyway.) Why the shift? Because DAVID & THE CITIZENS are based in Malmo, and we can't have THEM getting anthraxed or dirty-bombed, now can we?

DAVID & THE CITIZENS are led by sometime-solo artist DAVID FRIDLUND and have been putting out consistently catchy, melodic, simple-yet-sophisticated indie-pop for a good seven years now. It wasn't until last year that they finally got an American release, and, as near as I can tell, they've yet to tour the States. They will, however, be playing SXSW in Austin on March 15 as part of Nordic Nights at Uncle Flirty's [see below for more details].

DAVID & THE CITIZENS on MySPACE.

DAVID & THE CITIZENS (and other Scandinavians) at Nordic Nights >>>

Thursday March 15 >
08PM: Marit Bergman (Sweden)
09PM: Funky Nashville (Denmark)
10PM: Mammut (Iceland)
11PM: moi Caprice (Denmark)
12AM: Rubik (Finland)
01AM: David and The Citizens (Sweden)

Friday March 16 >
08PM: IrinaBjorklund & Peter Fox (Finland)
09PM: Marit Larsen (Norway)
10PM: Vincent Van Go Go (Denmark)
11PM: Johnossi (Sweden)
12AM: Grand Island (Norway)
01AM: Reykjavik! (Iceland)

From the LP STOP THE TAPE! STOP THE TAPE!, 2006 >>>
[MP3] "48h"
[MP3] "Sad Song 2"

From the EP ARE YOU IN MY BLOOD?, 2006 >>>
[MP3] "Absent Mind"

From the EP BIG CHILL, 2004 >>>
[MP3] "Big Chill" [w/MATTIAS ALKBERG]

From the GRAYCOATED MORNING single, 2004 >>>
[MP3] "Christmas Eve"

From the LET ME PUT IT THIS WAY single, 2004 >>>
[MP3] "Let Me Put It This Way"

From the LP UNTIL THE SADNESS IS GONE, 2003 >>>
[MP3] "Let's Not Fall Apart"
[MP3] "New Direction"

From the THE END single, 2003 >>>
[MP3] "The End"

From the LP FOR ALL HAPPY ENDINGS, 2002 >>>
[MP3] "Pink Evening"

MISFIT MONDAY

A bit of an odds-n-sods starter for the week...

First, my beloved THE INDELICATES have finally put a new song up on their website. When I first wrote about them just about a year ago exactly, it went something like this:

"The Indelicates hail from Brighton and have only been in existence since September 2005. They are led by Simon and Julia Indelicate - whose married-in-name-and-novelty-only vocal interplay brings to mind the Shane MacGowan/Kirsty MacColl dynamic of "Fairytale of New York." Or maybe they're what would happen if you jammed Jarvis Cocker, Black Box Recorder, and Billy Bragg in a blender. You'd get something thick. A bit bitter. Dark. Delightful. Delicious. Ah, leave it to the Brits...."

The new song has more of a driving, "rock" posture to it. If "Fairytale of New York" was the vibe with some of their earlier stuff, then maybe MORRISSEY's "Jack the Ripper" can serve as a point of comparison here.

If you visit the Indelicates' site, by all means consider shelling out a little scratch for their great single "We Hate the Kids." You can get it at iTUNES or -- for the old-schoolers amongst you -- buy it on vinyl [HERE].

As for the rest of today's tunes... chalk them up to the "One-and-Done Syndrome." These would be the sole songs that I enjoyed off some current (and upcoming) buzzworthy wonders. As always, I never post anything on this site that I don't think is pretty damn swell from one angle or another, and one winner on an album is certainly better than none. For me, these were the ones...

[MP3] The Indelicates/"Fun is for the Feeble Minded"

[MP3] The Postmarks/"Let Go"

[MP3] Ruby Isle/"Atom Bombs"

[MP3] David Vandervelde/"Can't See Your Face No More"

[MP3] Menomena/"Duel"

[MP3] Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter/"I Like the Sound"

BEST OF FEBRUARY

Short month; full mix. Hope you find some items to your liking.

Left-click [HERE] for the tracks.

(Best of January still available [HERE].)

TRACKLIST >>>

01) The Cinematics/Race to the City
02) Starflyer 59/I Win
03) Cold War Kids/Hang Me Up to Dry
04) The Poems/So Soon
05) The Hours/Ali in the Jungle
06) Malcolm Middleton/A Brighter Beat
07) Papas Fritas/Vertical Lives
08) Eastern Conference Champions/Nice Clean Shirt
09) Soft Complex/Barcelona
10) Sahara Hotnights/Cheek to Cheek
11) Klaxons/Totem on the Timeline
12) Abernathy/Astronaut
13) Telograph/Eye for an Eye
14) Pernice Brothers/One Foot in the Grave
15) The Cinematics/Keep Forgetting
16) The Broken West/Down in the Valley
17) Elvis Presley/Suspicious Minds
18) Bad Cash Quartet/Too Bored to Die
19) Secretrary Bird/Tio
20) The Hellacopters/Make It Tonight
21) Blanka/Here Comes That Sound Again

BOB DYLAN

This was never intended to be a '60s-themed week, especially as I have a number of posts waiting in the wings that I owe to some decidedly contemporary artists (I haven't forgotten about you, folks... honest).

A few days ago, I finally got around to listening to BOB DYLAN's last album, MODERN TIMES. I didn't expect I'd like it much, and I didn't. This whole "blues" thing he's been getting so much praise for these past five years or so tends to leave me cold. (And yes, I realize that Dylan has always done the "blues" thing; I just much the prefer the man when he's in "folk" or "electric-folk" mode.)

Still, there were two songs on the new record that broke through for me, and there are at least a handful from his more recent canon that I'd rate as some of his very best. Well... the very best of his past 20 years or so, anyway.

[FYI: The Best of February mix will be up tomorrow. I hope you'll stop by and pick it up.]

From the LP MODERN TIMES, 2006 >>>

[MP3] "Workingman's Blues #2"

[MP3] "Ain't Talkin'"

From the LP TIME OUT OF MIND, 1997 >>>

[MP3] "Not Dark Yet"

[MP3] "Tryin' to Get to Heaven"

From the LP OH MERCY, 1989 >>>

[MP3] "Most of the Time"

BONUS TRACK >>>

[MP3] "Things Have Changed"