June: Albums We Haven’t Covered

JUNE: The rest of the month’s releases
words: Jamie Milton

For now, Music Fan’s Mic is still a small community of young writers who just about find the time to disregard their studies in order to write a review or two. If you’d like to be part of that team, send us an email (mfmicblog [at] googlemail.com]. But that means when you get a busy month like June, you can’t review all you might want to. Hell, you can’t even find the time to listen to what you’d want to. But over the past few days I’ve been playing catch-up. And here’s some short-spanning reviews of those records (some good, some not so) that we didn’t find the time to cover:

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AMAZING BABY – REWILD
Difficult to ignore the MGMT comparisons – the Brooklyn five-piece embrace last year’s sound of the summer and attempt to give it one last push. It doesn’t yet sound dated, but nor does it sound nearly as imaginative and groundbreaking as ‘Oracular Spectacular’. There are still, however, just a small pick of songs that truly take you a-back: ‘Invisible Place’ and ‘Headdress’ most notably.

6.7

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DEERHUNTER – RAINWATER CASSETTE EXCHANGE EP
More ‘Weird Era Cont.’ than ‘Microcastle’, Bradford Cox’s imagination runs a-mock once more, immersing itself in more energy than perhaps ever before, resulting in an even more accessible Deerhunter than the band exposed on the last record. This is exemplfied in the streamlined, Strokes-esque ‘Disappearing Ink’, a gorgeously simple pop song if the band ever wrote one.
mp3: Circulation // alt

8.0

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DINOSAUR JR. FARM
J Mascis and his fellow founding fathers prove that experience counts, even after a prolonged hiatus. Someway beyond…erm, ‘Beyond’, their last record released in 2007, the maintain the kick and the edge that somehow didn’t flee their sound since the 80’s, in fact they maintain pretty much everything, but it’s difficult not to bow down in respect. Such progression from the uninspired releases of the late 90’s, you get the sense they’re back for good.

7.1

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LET’S WRESTLE – IN THE COURT OF THE WRESTLING, LET’S
Simplified indie guitars and basic songwriting somehow become all the more intelligent under the brilliant album title and the disturbingly dark themes emerging at times from lyrics. Carrying the swagger and the charm of The Wave Pictures’, this “breakthrough” debut, within a few listens, is one prolonged, aggressive but intelligent chant of triumph.

7.5

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LITTLE BOOTS – HANDS
There’s more to ‘Hands’ than just the pathetically direct and turgid new single of Victoria Hesketh’s, ‘New In Town’. Heavy synthetics and dreamlike atmospherics displayed in aforementioned stinker are replenished and polished, transferred into something more enjoyable, particularly through the experimental, provocative moments of ‘Meddle’ and ‘Stuck On Repeat’. This artist has ideas, but through the bandwagon-jump to the electro sound, she sounds restricted, only occasionally free to roam within her own comfort zone.

5.0

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REGINA SPEKTOR – FAR
It’s depressingly difficult to decipher whether ‘Far’ is a step up from ‘Begin To Hope’, or a defeatist step down. Depressing, because Spektor made something mainstream and pop in her last record, on ‘Far’ she continues this to some extent, but whilst not producing anything as instantaneous and lovable as ‘Samson’, she’s also nowhere near her experimental best as of ‘Soviet Kitsch’. It’s directly in between, coming across as indecisive, rushed even.

5.9

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SUNSET RUBDOWN – DRAGONSLAYER
Spencer Krug, as per usual, enjoys the freedom to roam and express, as he did on this side-project’s previous two records. Whilst ‘Dragonslayer’ is devoid of the uplifting, overwhelming individual triumphs such as those on ‘Random Spirit Lover’, he’s removed the filler of that record and emerged with a piece more consistent and bold instead of something regulated and tied up.

7.8

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WHITE DENIM – FITS
The elaborate range of ideas arranged in debut ‘Workout Holiday’ have quickly followed up by something equally diverse in thought and movement. On ‘Fits’, whilst occasionally representing the basking hot Texas sound, cover the Spanish culture in ‘El Hard Attack DCWYW’, go warm, smooth and acoustic on ‘Regina Holding Hands’ and go gung-ho with relenteless, energised lo-fi rock ‘Radio Mild How Can You Stand It’. As of previous, they still haven’t mastered making a concerted, coherent record but you get the gist, that was never the plan.
mp3: I Start To Run // alt

7.6

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