Broken Bells - Broken Bells

Since March Madness started today I thought I would share my Final Four: West Virginia, Duke, Kansas, Kansas State. It was one of the best first days of the tourney that I can remember, alot of close games and overtimes. Exactly the reason why everybody loves this time of year!

But enough about sports, this is a music blog after all and I wish I had some witty tie in from basketball to today's album but it's late and I'm not feeling that creative. I do have some great tunes to share with you though and they come from one of my favorite musicians (James Mercer of The Shins) and one of my favorite producers (Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse). As is popular in today's music, this side project takes the best of both worlds from the music contributions of each artist. Mercer takes his catchy songwriting skills and brings it to Burton who drops the bright pop of The Shins and adds a dark tinge to the proceedings and encompasses all the songs in his trademark vintage sounding atmosphere. Burton, who revitalized Beck's career last year, forces Mercer expand his musical vocabulary, making him a more interesting artist to listen to. As you can imagine this mixture creates some great songs and this album is full of them. The lead single, The High Road, is a laid back tune with Mercer's familiar vocals crooning over some Burton played percussion and electronics during the chorus. The Mall and The Misery is another personal favorite, one of the few songs on here that has a true Shins like feel to it featuring strings in the beginning and then has fun with a psych-pop riff and Mercer's echoing vocals. However, the highlight for me is The Ghost Inside which is all Danger Mouse. The riff and beats are some of his staples and he has Mercer sing with a rare falsetto throughout which is catchy as hell.

Broken Bells make take a couple listens to sink in but once it does it will be stuck in your head for quite some time. I encourage you to try something a little different and check out this album.

Track Highlights: The High Road, Your Head is On Fire, The Ghost Inside, Mongrel Heart, The Mall and The Misery

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Bells-Video/dp/B003B06Q40/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1268978817&sr=301-1

Ben Howard - These Waters

Well let me first apologize for the long delay in between posts. I got busy with work and other things and had not made an effort to update this blog. But I received some encouraging news tonight that in fact my mom is not the only one that has looked at this thing, so thanks to the girls at Ponchatoulas I will be updating once again!

It is currently about 1:30am here in Ruston, LA and as lame as it is to say so that is probably the latest I have been up on a weeknight in a couple of months. I needed some good chill music to listen to before I went to bed so I put on an artist that I think alot more people need to know about. Ben Howard is an acoustic singer/songwriter out of the UK. He has no record label and is a surfer who writes some damn good music. This guy is an amazing slap guitarist and has one of my favorite voices in music today. If you have any interest in John Mayer, Damien Rice, Ray Lamontagne, etc. then you owe to it yourself to download his debut EP These Waters. It is a short six tracks but he packs so much emotion and story into it that has been on constant repeat on my Ipod. The highlight is Cloud Nine, a story of heartbreak and meeting again somewhere down the road. This song is a perfect example of Ben's skill of using the slap technique to give his guitar playing an almost percussion sense. Another one of my favorites off the EP is The Fire, a song with such raw passion in the lyrics that it really is a stunner. It features one of my favorite lines from any music I have listened to in the past couple months, "We'll show the fire how to burn". For some reason that lyric just really struck me...

Anyway this guy is someone I think will be very popular someday so listen to him know before he becomes mainstream. If you enjoy acoustic music at all then this will be well worth your time.

Track Highlights: The Wolves, Cloud Nine, The Fire

http://www.amazon.com/These-Waters/dp/B002FVQ52E/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1268807935&sr=301-1