Honeycomb 7"/Oshin/Swing Lo Magellan/A Thing Called Divine Fits/South Ossetia EP

Honeycomb 7" - Animal Collective (Domino, 2012)
Released early this summer, the songs "Honeycomb" and "Gotham" showcases the first official new music from Animal Collective since the Fall be Kind EP released late in 2009. While I consider these two tracks a little bit of a let down, they offered a good tease to hold fans over until this month's release of Centipede Hz, the band's latest full length. "Honeycomb" is a bright tribal number, not too unlike "Water Curses" from the 2008 EP of the same name. "Gotham" is a darker, slow burner that brings to mind the second half of the previously mentioned Fall be Kind. Synths and samples still seem to be reigning supreme in the Animal Collective camp, but what they do with them is still somewhat inspiring. And, the melodies are complex and top notch, per usual. I'll get back to you in a month or two with my thoughts on the LP.


Oshin - DIIV (Captured Tracks, 2012)
DIIV is a newer Captured Tracks band, and it should be no surprise that they fall into the same melodic goth/post-punk/dream pop sound that is characteristic of many other bands on the label, such as Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils, Craft Spells, etc. In fact, DIIV's core member is a live guitarist for Beach Fossils! How about that? While the songs on debut full length, Oshin, are usually mid or uptempo and the guitars bright and chimey, there's some murk to wade through here. The production is hazy without being even close to lo-fi, and you have to go digging for the catchy melodies as the vocals are completely buried. Despite the lack of synth layers and stadium sized drums, I can't help but shake the Disintegration vibes I get when listening to this. All of this makes for an awesome conundrum. The music here is dark and mysterious, yet these are thoroughly enjoyable pop songs. You have to put in a little bit of work to discover the best of the goods, but it is worth it. I must admit, I am not yet getting sick of all this 80s love that Captured Tracks and their bands have.


Swing Lo Magellan - Dirty Projectors (Domino, 2012)
In some ways, Dirty Projectors' follow-up to 2009's stunning Bitte Orca is underwhelming. Swing Lo Magellan is more stark and not so in-your-face in just about every way. Less wailing guitars, difficult to follow time signatures and R&B vocal acrobatics. More space, acoustic guitar and shorter song lengths. Trust me, this is a very good thing. While I was absolutely out of my mind about Bitte Orca, and love it deeply to this day, but, man, this softer, less aggressive side to Dirty Projectors is a welcome turn of events. Opener "Offspring Are Blank" is the closest that band comes to Bitte Orca here. "Gun Has No Trigger" is a poor boy's "Stillness is the Move," and though its my least favorite moment on the album, it's still solid and has some ridiculous harmonies. "Dance for You" and "Until Caesar" are big, fun pop songs, but the folkier elements of the title track and "Impregnable Question" are preferable. "About to Die" and "Just From Chevron" are outstanding, the former with its ridiculous chorus and the latter featuring the one occurrence of David Longstreth's guitar noodling (and also, it's the album's best song). It seems like all the hubbub about Swing Lo Magellan is that it is more accessible and much more personal than previous Dirty Projectors albums. Those characteristics are appealing to me as well, but what really gets me is simply that this band is still unbelievably good, and still have it in them to release album of the year material.


A Thing Called Divine Fits - Divine Fits (Merge, 2012)
Everybody knows by now that Divine Fits is a supergroup featuring Spoon's Britt Daniel, Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner and New Bomb Turks' Sam Brown. In spite of the facts that I recognize that Spoon is almost a perfect band and used to be obsessed with Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary, I did not care about the release of their debut LP, A Thing Called Divine Fits. That was until I heard Daniel's monster jam from it, "Would That Not be Nice." That got me interested. Now, after several listens, I have formulated an opinion, and that is that A Thing Called Divine Fits is actually a pretty damn good record. I good do without the majority of Boeckner's songs (though, "What Gets You Alone" is pretty bad ass), but for the most part, Daniel hits it out of the park. Along with the aforementioned track, "Flaggin a Ride" and "Like Ice Cream" are among the year's best. How much do all of these songs sound like the members' other projects. Well, Boeckner's stuff is pretty all over the place with the exception of opener "My Love is Real," which sounds like Handsome Furs. Daniel's songs are reminiscent of Spoon to a degree, but different enough to legitimize the new project. However, I won't deny that the most apparent effect A Thing Called Divine Fits has on me is that it makes me SO pumped for the next Spoon record.


South Ossetia EP - Driveway (Dog Years, 2012)
I'm glad this emo revival is lasting longer than I expected it to. I'm finding a lot of new bands that are doing the damn thing almost as well as the originals. Driveway isn't from the east coast (that's where most of the greats seem to be coming from these days), they're from Dublin! All three of the songs that make up the South Ossetia EP are totally good, landing somewhere between Braid and Texas is the Reason maybe, with a little more pop punk thrown in? I'm a sucker for interweaving guitars, stops and starts and emotion, and this EP has all of that in spades.