This is THE rock album of the year for me, so far. Holy crap it is good. Haven't heard guitar come alive like this in a recent album by a "young" band. And I'm not talking about the kind of cool bluesy, spacy kind of guitar solos, i.e. Nels Cline in Wilco's latest, although that kind of guitar licks is great, too. I'm talking about the late 60's, early 70's wall-of-sound, psychedelic kind. The jams at the end of the song "Baltimore" & "Elmo Delmo" are just not of this era. Love how these songs push past 5-6 minutes, let the guitar wail & the song wander into place. Janet Weiss from Sleater-Kinney takes over on drums & I hope she f*&^ing stays for good! The lyrics are kooky, as you can expect from any Malkmus record. But I grew up listening to Pavement, so it's more endearing than annoying for me. My favorite rock record so far, bar none.
awesome! i'll definitely get it. I love guitars. actually, I think they're what the rock world needs right now. some loud fucking guitars.
I held off on picking this up because I wasn't crazy about Face The Truth, but this is a monster record. Sure, some of the songs meander a bit, but once you get past the somewhat surprising length of the songs you get sucked into the charms of the album. I definitely picked up on the "Wilcoesque" vibe of some of the songs, but overall it kind of sounds like Malkmus jamming with Dead Meadow (which would probably be a great combo - Matador, get on it!).
And on that note, if you like this definitely check out Dead Meadow's newest album Old Growth (also on Matador), which also mines the 70's rock vein, albeit in a heavier way. And my favorite concert so far this year was Black Mountain, who released a real scorcher of an LP with In The Future. It's a great time for 60's/70's rock in the 2000s!
Just a heads up to anyone who likes this album, there's an exclusive Stephen Malkmus 10" for "Record Store Day" this Saturday. It's technically a single for 'Cold Son," and has 3 unreleased tracks as well. The packaging is pretty neat too, it looks like an old Folkways release (with a glued-on cover and everything).
If you're wondering what stores are participating, go here: Record Store Day
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Just a heads up to anyone who likes this album, there's an exclusive Stephen Malkmus 10" for "Record Store Day" this Saturday. It's technically a single for 'Cold Son," and has 3 unreleased tracks as well. The packaging is pretty neat too, it looks like an old Folkways release (with a glued-on cover and everything).
If you're wondering what stores are participating, go here: Record Store Day
Patrick - thanks for the heads up! But no stores in Manhattan are participating? C'mon! I don't want to trek to Brooklyn on a Saturday...
It might be worth it - there are some pretty neat exclusives. In addition to the Stephen Malkmus 10" I know there are 7"s by REM, Built to Spill, Vampire Weekend, Death Cab for Cutie and more. Plus, the guys at the local record store told me they have tons of stuff to give away and are doing raffles as well (I know one of the prizes at their store was a signed Feist album). However, I'm going to be away all weekend and they were nice enough to let me snag the one record I really wanted.
Oh, I found out that Other Music is doing Record Store Day, so I might be able to go. Better yet, they have a killer live appearances throughout the day by Tapes & Tapes, Black Keys, the dudes from Grizzly Bear & Deerhunter, and... Interpol! WTF! That's a better line-up than a lot of summer fests out there.
NY Times on the Record Stores dying out in the city, plus on Record Day. Too bad, NY Times, that Patrick was ahead on the story & broke it here! 
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