New Editors Video "Papillon"

Editors have released their first single "Papillon" of their upcoming album "In This Light And On This Evening" which is due for release October 12th. It's even more heavily inspired on New Order, Joy Division and Depeche Mode but also still very Editors. It sounds very promising so here is the new video. What do you think?

Read more!

Album Reviews: The Short Versions

Writing posts for your blog is pretty time consuming and writing album reviews can cost even more time if you want to do it properly. So I listen to a lot of music but it's impossible to write lengthy reviews for all the new albums coming out that I listen to. Since many are worth reviewing I decided to do a short version of album reviews to be able to give you my 50 cents. Don't forget to let me know what you think of it.

Brendan Benson - My Old Familiar Friend (Ronald Says 7 out of 10)
I like his song writing and hopefully his part in the Raconteurs can help him break through to a bigger audience. The album has some nice songs but could use a bit more spicing.


The Black Crowes...Before the Frost...Until the Freeze (Ronald Says 7 out of 10)
Nothing new from the Crowes here but a solid southern rock album as we're used of them.


Moke (Ronald Says 6 out of 10)
Their sound is a lot bigger and so they seem to aim for the highest here. Sounds all very much overproduced with strings, horns, the works causing the music unable to breath. Besides that it's all too obvious and planned and every song has a "heard this before" side to it.


Wild Beasts - Two Dancers(Ronald Says 8 out of 10)
A dreamy album with nicely arranged mellow songs. Ringing guitars with falsetto lead vocals that wrap around you like a warm summer breeze. Aah, don't you just wish the summer could last forever?


The XX - The XX (Ronald Says 7 out of 10)
A highly acclaimed album that gets great reviews but I guess I'm missing the boat here. It's a nice album but nothing to go all crazy about. It's a sober album with thin, quiet, delicate songs that somehow isn't all that appealing to me. Maybe it needs to grow on me.


Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs(Ronald Says 8 out of 10)
Although this is a band that has been around for quite a while and made over a dozen albums I'm not that familiar with their music. It's a diverse record with rock songs combined with more mellow pop tunes and beautiful ballads.
Read more!

Arctic Monkeys Definitely No Humbug

"Bah! Humbug" said Ebenezer Scrooge in the famous A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. And telling from their third album that's what the band must have thought when looking at the world. It's a dark world the boys live in. Is it real or a nightmare?

Arctic Monkeys - Humbug (Ronald Says 8 out of 10)
Heavy gloomy guitar riffs and drum grooves spiced up with strings and sinister organ parts accompany Alex Turner's poetic lyrics. The mysterious singer shows once again he can be considered one of the most talented musicians today. Growing up in one of the most promising and succesful rock bands of this decade sure isn't at all peaceful for him. But his lyrics are not about today´s state of the world at all but about missing his lover, or a relation gone wrong.

Josh Homme was the right person to help them recreate this dark image and transform it into an album. He took them to the desert to dive into themselves and come out as grown ups. The result is an impressive mature album by such a young band. "Crying Lightning" the album's first single is a relaxed track with that unique Arctic Monkeys sound. And yet is sounds quite uneasy like a big monster lurking in the closet. This is the feeling you get from most of the songs. Although some songs still sound like the old Arctic Monkeys like "Dangerous Animals". Other tracks like "Pretty Visitors" carry the Homme signature with heavy repeating guitar riffs.

This album gets better every time you hear it and slowly creeps on you like the lurking animal that seems to be around the corner. No humbug at all but serious business.
Read more!