Of Miles Rausch

Bands That Need New Albums, k thx

TweetI’ve been patient, but enough is enough. For instance, two years is enough. More than that is more than enough. I real­ize, some of these bands may have bro­ken up, gone seper­ate ways, or what not, but I still feel cheated. I’m hold­ing on to the hope that they’ll release a full length within six months. (I apol­o­gize if most of this stuff is inac­cu­rate. My research is spotty this late at night.)

Desa­pare­ci­dos: Read Music Speak Span­ish (2002)

Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst fronted this side project. It was a heav­ier, louder alter­na­tive to Bright Eyes with a cyn­i­cal, almost bit­ter, tone to the lyrics. Top­ics of indus­tri­al­iza­tion, prof­i­teer­ing, iden­tity loss, and more, seemed aimed like arrows at the mid­dle class of Omaha. That being said, i don’t live in Omaha, so I liked it. Hav­ing been a side project means that this “new” album will prob­a­bly never come to alight, unfor­tu­nately for me.

The Postal Ser­vice: Give Up (2003)

This was also a side project. How­ever, this side project fea­tured Ben Gib­bard of Death Cab for Cutie (see below). Despite being four years old, music from this album con­tin­u­ally gets licensed for com­mer­cials all over the place. In par­tic­u­lar, the track Such Great Heights has taken on a life of its own, being cov­ered time and again by other artists. I’m hop­ing The Postal Ser­vice can release at least one more album in my lifetime.

The Faint: Wet From Birth (2004)

The Faint isn’t a band I get super-excited about. I do like their music, though. As a sound, they fall into an unusual place, com­bin­ing “harder” rock with elec­tron­ica, in a sort of 80s synth revival plus indie music orches­tra­tion from Hell. It’s hard to explain, but I’d like more, please.

Mason Blake: Where I Belong (2004)

Mason Blake used to live around Madi­son. I got to see him per­form a num­ber of times live, some times of which I was in the sin­gle dig­its of audi­ence mem­bers. He’s since moved to Cal­i­for­nia (pre­sum­ably) to per­sue a music career. I’ve heard a new album is com­ing soon, but it’s yet to materialize.

MC Chris: Eating’s Not Cheat­ing (2004)

MC Chris is a rap­per. Not only that, but he has a high-pitched voice. You know him bet­ter (if you know him at all) as MC PeeP­ants from the [adult swim] show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. When he’s not doing char­ac­ter voices, how­ever, he’s putting down geeky rhymes. Who doesn’t love a rap­per that has a song called Fett’s Vette?

Radio­head: Com Lag (EP) (2004)

Radio­head is in the stu­dio. They are mak­ing music. They are tak­ing their time. I want a new album now. Being sub­scribed to an offi­cial band’s blog is a bit like smash­ing your fin­gers with a ham­mer on pur­pose. Sure, you got some­thing accom­plished, but it hurt a lot. I get to read straight from the minds of the musi­cians them­selves, but it only makes me want their album to come out sooner. With­out the blog, I prob­a­bly wouldn’t even think about it.

Death Cab for Cutie: Plans (2005)

Death Cab really took out all the stops for this last album. Plans really took on an epic scale as song­writ­ers and musi­cians go. One of the songs, I Will Fol­low You Into The Dark, has kinda become our song (Holli and I). I’ve read that they are head­ing into the stu­dio, and let’s hope they get some­thing cooked and shipped rather soon.

Kunek: The Flight of the Fly­nns (2005)

Kunek is a small-time band. They’re indie, and they’re bring­ing about quite a fol­low­ing, thanks entirely to the inter­net. They’re last album was cold and star­tling, like a sud­den winter’s breath. I lived in this music for a while when I first heard the tracks on Garageband.com, which inspire me to buy the album. I’m very inter­ested to see in what direc­tion they take their next album, assum­ing they make a second.

OK Go: Oh No (2005)

OK Go made a lot of waves with this album. Their songs are catchy, poppy, and their music videos are quirky, fas­ci­nat­ing and chore­o­graphed. These are the guys who did the long dance to A Mil­lion Ways and then fol­lowed it up with the tread­mill dance in Here It Goes Again. They have fully embraced the “new” medium of inter­net dis­tri­b­u­tion. Not so much in dis­trib­ut­ing their album, per se, but in dis­trib­ut­ing them­selves. YouTube is a haven for any OK Go fan as the band posts videos semi-regularly. How­ever, I think we have all the mileage we can get out of this album. Next please!

The Secret Hand­shake: This Is Big­ger Than You And I (EP) (2005)

I know for a fact that The Secret Hand­shake has been work­ing on an album because he sent me a link to some demo tracks. There was an EP released last year, but I want full lengths, so he makes the list. This is another band that is indie but up-and-coming. Thanks to his unique sound and his full embrace of the MySpace cul­ture, The Secret Hand­shake has been mak­ing a name for itself, tour­ing and sell­ing records and t-shirts, for a while now. You can pre­order the new album now, and I can’t wait.

Sigur Ros: Takk (2005)

Sigur Ros brought me back into their fold with that album. I had, at first, loved the () album, but then I found it hard to go back to. Takk wel­comed me in. It was like all the best parts of () and Agaetis Byr­jun with a help­ing dash of fan­tas­tic arrange­ments. I know that they’re releas­ing a DVD and dou­ble CD set in Novem­ber, but I don’t have it yet, so they need to get on the ball.

Suf­jan Stevens: Suf­jan Stevens presents: Come on, Feel the Illi­noise (2005)

I was cau­tious of Suf­jan Stevens when I first heard of him. Pitch­fork Media was wav­ing his ban­ner tall and proud, and I didn’t know what the deal was, but every­one was talk­ing about him like he was the Indie Music Sav­ior. So I resisted jump­ing on that band­wagon. I resisted until a cou­ple months ago. And, boy, was I wrong. Suf­jan is, above all things, sub­tle with his music. He favors sim­ple arrange­ments with deli­cious melodies, and his vocals are quiet and thought­ful. In par­tic­u­lar, I like his lyrics. He, appar­ently, has a Christ­mas album out from 2006, but I’m not call­ing that a full release. At least, not until I go out and buy it.

Wolf Parade: Apolo­gies to the Queen Mary (2005)

I need a new Wolf Parade album. I’ve been sat­is­fied by the Hand­some Furs and Sun­set Rub­down, but nei­ther of those bands are Wolf Parade (they are, in fact, “spin-offs”). And I so fell in love with that album. I remem­ber my brother, Bryce, ask­ing me what new music he should lis­ten to, and I said “Wolf Parade”, and I was ignored. But I was right. I even went so far as to shoot a music video for this album, a rare occas­sion. The album has car­ried me through, but how much longer it will last, I do not know. Come to my res­cue, Wolf Parade.