eFaithFarm

Recently I’ve been expanding our iTunes library, at least doubling the space used on the iPod for music in the span of a month or so. Now, I suppose should say that this musical harvest has not been through altogether legitimate means, but nonetheless! I now bestow upon thee my reactions to select titles from my new catalog.

• Kings of Leon (Come Around Sundown, Because of the Times, Aha Shake Heartbreak, Youth and Young Manhood) – The last two albums in the list are much newer additions, so I haven’t had enough time with them to make any kind of determination of their worth, but the first two have, along with a previous find in Only By The Night, served to cement KoL as one of my very favorite bands. I realize that liking the newer stuff better (and I do) means I’m a bandwagon jumper and not a true fan, but I’m not too concerned with any of that. The older stuff is good, too; it’s just so different that it sounds kind of like an entirely different band. I just happen to think the band as it is now and recently is a really, really good one. [Best Songs: "Pyro", "The End", "Charmer", "On Call", "The Immortals", "Birthday", "Knocked Up"]
• Keane (Hopes and Fears, Under The Iron Sea) – A few years ago my wife picked up Twilight and read through it, followed quickly by the rest of the series. Then she went through it again, this time reading aloud with me. Becoming fans of the series, we checked out the author’s website, and found that she was a very devoted music fan, and had listed long playlists on her site to show what songs had inspired her as she wrote her novels. A friend of ours had taken the playlists, compiled CDs of the mixes, and loaned them to us, providing a serious jolt of new music to our then-rather-stagnant collection. These mixes introduced us to a wide variety of indie, punk, alt-rock and emo bands, such as Muse, Blue October, My Chemical Romance, Death Cab for Cutie, and Keane. Some of these (such as Muse) have become favorites in our household; others (like Blue October) not so much. But one band that intrigued me was Keane, and when I discovered a quick and easy means to get more familiar with them, I jumped at the chance. It was an excellent decision; Keane compares favorably with Coldplay and U2 in their ability to write beautiful, infectious alt-rock. Both of the albums are marvelous, although I would probably give the edge between them to Iron Sea because its standout moments are just as strong but the time inbetween the moments is just, well, stronger. [Best Songs: "Bend and Break", "Leaving So Soon", "Is It Any Wonder", "She Has No Time", "Crystal Ball", "Everybody's Changing"]
• Paramore (All We Know Is Falling, Riot!) – My first exposure to Paramore was also related to Twilight – they contributed a song, “Decode”, to the soundtrack that I really liked. I didn’t know enough of the band to be able to tell if this was a departure from their regular sound, or if punk-influenced alt-rock was just their normal thing. Turns out it’s pretty much what they do, and I think they do it very well. Hayley Williams has good moments and bad ones, but the good ones are good enough that some of the bad ones can be overlooked. As I listened to the huge glut of music I’d downloaded on shuffle, I found myself nodding along each time a new Paramore track came on, something I couldn’t say for everyone. I think the word “infectious” applies perfectly to Paramore’s style of rock. [Best Songs: "Whoa", "Hallelujah", "Conspiracy", "That's What You Get", "Here We Go Again"]
• Death Cab for Cutie (The Photo Album, Plans, Something About Airplanes, Transatlanticism, We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes) – Death Cab was a band I heard first on one of the Twilight playlists, and since both songs were pretty down-tempo, I wondered if that was just their M.O. I was further intrigued by their single from the New Moon soundtrack, “Meet Me On The Equinox”, which was not down-tempo, but was squarely up my alley. I found a batch of their albums and stuck them into rotation as quickly as I could. What I found was interesting – it really made me start to understand (along with exposure to Radiohead) what the appeal of indie rock is, which is that there are greater joys to music that doesn’t immediately hook you because you actually have to stop and consider it. My feelings toward Death Cab are not actualized in full, because I haven’t even listened to all of the albums, but I’m a fan. I think this indie thing has some real merit. [Best Songs: "Meet Me On The Equinox", "Your Heart Is An Empty Room", "We Looked Like Giants"]
• The Killers (Hot Fuss, Sam’s Town, Day & Age) and Brandon Flowers (Flamingo) – I’m lumping these together because they are closely related, as Flowers is the frontman for the Killers (in case you didn’t know that); plus, the two share many sonic themes anyway. I first heard of the Killers back when everyone else did, when “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside” hit the radio waves back in 2004/2005, but really didn’t take too deep of an interest until I saw them on Austin City Limits, where I heard a bit more of their catalog and started to think of them positively as more than one-hit (or maybe two-hit) wonders. They re-entered my musical world when (once again) they showed up in the Twilight playlists, and I found that “Mr. Brightside” was one of my wife’s favorite tunes from the entire collection. (She even uses a clip of it as her text message ringtone.) I downloaded the Killers’ albums partly for her, hoping she’d find the rest of their stuff to be as good, but I picked up the solo album for myself after hearing the single, “Crossfire”, on the radio and being quite dumbfounded when the DJ mentioned that the song they’d just played was by the guy from the Killers. It didn’t sound like the Killers to me; but it did sound really good. As it turns out, the Killers have their style and niche, and they do what they do, and it works fine. Flowers’ solo record is also strong, although the single is probably its highest point. I have more mixed feelings about Flowers and the Killers than the others in this list, but I’m still glad to have them in the mix. [Best Songs: "Smile Like You Mean It", "When You Were Young", "Mr. Brightside", "Crossfire", "Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts", "Somebody Told Me"]

Overall, there is a lot of new stuff on my iPod, more than I will be able to reasonably figure out for some time yet. I’ll try to post an update when I’ve gotten through some more of it – there’s still Anberlin, Audioslave, the Arcade Fire, Jon Foreman’s EPs, Jack Johnson, the Fray, the Script, K’naan, Neon Trees, OK Go, Pearl Jam’s Backspacer, Snow Patrol, Five For Fighting, the Black Keys, and John Mayer.

So stay tuned.