Twitter Review Session #1

For those of you not in the know: I started an Emotional Drumming Twitter account, and have been posting reviews of 2009 records that are under 140 characters long. Ridiculous, right? I love Twitter, I will be the first to tell you that.

Anyway, here is a collection of the first fifteen that I've tweeted:

(1) Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free - Akron/Family (Dead Oceans)
Solid effort. Like the psychadelic stuff more than the folk. "River" is one of best songs of '09. (7/10)

(2) Faces Change - Alexander the Great (Crossroads of America)
Pretty good dynamic, poppy emo-ish stuff with passionate vocals, albeit a little too much so. (6.5/10)

(3) It's Not Me, It's You - Lily Allen (Capitol)
Overall better than Alright, Still, but where are the "LDN" and "Smile" caliber jams? NOWHERE. Mediocre at best. (5/10)

(4) Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective (Domino)
Best album of 2009 thus far. Still up for debate if it's AC's best, but easily their must accessible. (9/10)

(5) Hospice - The Antlers (Frenchkiss)
Dark, somewhat spacey, melodramatic indie rock. Boring in parts and a little too long, but very pretty. (6.5/10)

(6) The Crying Light - Antony and the Johnsons (Secretly Canadian)
Way over my head. Pretty, but much too slow, boring, sappy and dramatic. Stick with Hercules, Antony! (4/10)

(7) Sagarmatha - The Appleseed Cast (The Militia Group/Vagrant)
The least inspiring, most underwhelming, boring post-rock album from a band I LOVED in the early 2000s. (5/10)

(8) Hush - Asobi Seksu (Polyvinyl)
Ultra poppy shoegaze. There are nice parts, and "Glacial" is an awesome song, but otherwuse, nothing special at all. (6/10)

(9) Two Suns - Bat for Lashes (Astralwerks/Parlophone)
Very dark, slightly Bjork-esque pop. Slept on it at first, but I think I get it now. Eerie and gorgeous. (7/10)

(10) March of the Zapotec EP/Holland EP - Beirut/Realpeople (Pompeii)
As great as Condon's voice is, I dig his electro-pop better than the cultural baroque pop. Still a snoozer. (5.5/10)

(11) As Seen Through Windows - Bell Orchestre (Arts & Crafts)
There are some interesting sections on a few tracks, otherwise just your run-of-the-mill instrumental post-rock. (5/10)

(12) Noble Beast - Andrew Bird (Fat Possum)
Nowhere near as good as "Armchair Apocrypha," but it is another Andrew Bird album, and as you'd expect, quite nice. (7/10)

(13) Rayguns Are Not Just the Future - The Bird and the Bee (Blue Note)
Top-40 style pop music done the way it should be: fun, catchy AND interesting. (7/10)

(14) Grrr... - Bishop Allen (Dead Oceans)
Cutesy indie pop with solid production, two sweet songs and not much else. (6/10)

(15) 200 Million Thousand - Black Lips (Vice)
Sort of experimental, messy, lo-fi garage punk. The Clash-esque "Drugs" is great, but overall, I don't get it. (4/10)