The Dirty Three has a new album coming out, their first new album since 2005's Cinder, a long break for the Melbourne trio who play violin, guitar, and drums, no singing, just brilliant music, the first and maybe only rock band to feature violin so prominently, or so impressively. The new album is titled Toward the Low Sun and is coming out in February followed by a tour of Australia and New Zealand in March and some festivals in the UK and Europe over the summer. No word yet on an American leg. But here's the first single.
Speaking of great bands with new albums after long hiatuses (hiatii?), Guided by Voices' first album in years (didn't they "retire" not too long ago?) is the first in decades reuniting Tobin Sprout with Robert Pollard and has only been mildly disappointing, as there are actually a bunch of really good throwback tracks, including the masterpiece below.
Hospital Bombers are a Dutch band releasing their 2nd album At Budokan, on Excelsior Recordings, recorded in Amsterdam and mixed in Brooklyn, and you can hear the whole thing streaming on the Excelsior website (which I believe is Dutch). I don't know anything else about them, except that yes -- the name of the band is from the immortal Mountain Goats song "The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton" (which will be referenced again in tomorrow's post! Come back!) -- from the line: "And the top three contenders after weeks of debate, were 'Satan's Fingers' and 'The Killers' and 'The Hospital Bombers'." They are definitely not death metal, but the first single sounds like something right from the heart of John Darnielle's catalog, even while the other tracks I've heard are distinctly more poppy.
Girls had one of the top albums on many year-end charts but it came out too late in the year for me to notice, although I'd heard one or more of their songs on SiriusXMU and loved it (or them). I finally got around to purchasing the album over the holidays and I'd say I was surprised to find myself somewhat disappointed, there were several tracks, including the single "Vomit" that well -- almost made me want to vomit, the grating repitition or Beach Boys-style cheeriness just turned me off completely. Even so, I did manage to find the track that delighted me back in the fall back on XMU and it would have been one of my top tracks of the year if I had noticed before now.
Speaking of 2011 leftovers, Yuck already had one of the great albums of the year, reaching my top 20 for their debut, but late in the year they released an expanded version that included several new tracks which were all just as awesome as the original album. I can't wait to see what these guys do next.
And lastly, it's going to be difficult for me to get more excited about a cover track than this version of one of my favorite New Order songs of all-time, recorded by one of my favorite artists of all-time. Back in the early '90s I lived and died by New Order and absolutely loved Power, Corruption & Lies, and while I haven't heard the rest of the cover tracks put together to commemorate the album's 25th anniversary (wow!), the Dan Bejar version of this is absolutely perfect.
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