New, insanely astute, observations on recently posted material

Sigur Rós- Heima film: After a week watching snippets on youtube I went out and bought the actual DVD. Performances range from playing to a community hall packed with children and elders sharing tea, to the stunning setting of the ultimately doomed dam protest camp at Snæfellsskála, to the overall beauty of this band, their homeland, Jónsi's unearthly singing and the group’s silent cohesion. Highly (HIGHLY) recommended.

Beach House: “this is damn, damn fine stuff” henceforth re-classified as “this is, yeah, hmmm…not that bad”. Beach House’s swaying dream-pop is amazingly catchy but perhaps best left for those headphonal* moments right before sleep as opposed to those more awake moments of lane jockeying with brazen pickups during the morning commute. Also, it is impossible for me to get the vision of this woman’s bad hair out of my mind (I’m really not that deep).

Vampire Weekend: In the span of one month, my esteem for this new band from New York has gone from casual reference to weighty proclamation of “favourite band of the moment” (albeit to myself and few others), to, after noticing their recent SNL, talk show and magazine cover appearances, questioning my internal mainstream barometer. This parallels the band’s own meteoric rise to stardom and the inevitable/ coinciding media witch-hunt. But this is one band that I’ll happily ignore all external references for. Their blend of clean guitars and slightly kooky vocals have me hooked. I anticipate the love affair will not last long, but then again I am still enjoying the Arctic Monkeys and they were equally derided during their salad days of yore.**
Song :: M79 by Vampire Weekend

The Charlatans: file under “you get what you pay for”. Not much to be gained from the free download of The Charlatans’ new work. Stick with the singles “oh! vanity” and “you cross my path”.

Flogging Molly: Any propulsive celtic tune is mighty fine but when will bands that attempt to re-create the magic of The Pogues realize that without a Shane MacGowan type vocal, or something mildly unique at least, that they are just going to come off like any generic Atlantic Canadian kitchen party band? Good, sure. But it's not this:
Video :: If I Should Fall From Grace With God by The Pogues


Look! Shane once had his front "teeth"!!!

*new word alert!
**update: i think they're already past their sell-buy date with me