01 – Neil Armstrong
02 – Capricornia
03 – Europe
04 – Some People Say
05 – Northern Lights
06 – Wonderland
07 – Tallulah
08 – The Letter
09 – Still Young
10 – My Sweet Friend

My Rating: 9.5

Fresh, young, hyped and absolutely wonderful. Dry The River is the London next big thing, and when everyone was expecting for a weak and badly recorded first album, the guys ran after Interpol’s and National’s producer Peter Katis, and I have to say, they ended up releasing one of the best folk stuff I’ve listened in ages. Shallow Bed contains 11 eleven songs, all of them pretty much enjoyable, from the indie anthem “New Ceremony”, which is being unstoppable  played on NME radio, going through the beautiful and delicate “Demon”, to the powerful hit “No Rest”; there is no such a bad song here. Even the extra track in the second half of Lion’s Dean is amazing. I’m on honeymoon with Dry The River, and not thinking of stopping listening to it that soon. Specially for fans of The Maccabees and Tribes.

01.Animal Skins
02.New Ceremony
03.Shield Your Eyes
04.History Book
05.The Chambers & The Valves
06.Demons
07.Bible Belt
08.No Rest
09.Shaker Hymns
10.Weights & Measures
11.Lion’s Den

My Rating: 9.7

“…I’ve heard there’s a place where we go when we die…”

When Blaine started singing these first words I almost had a musical orgasm. Man, I do love these guys. Seretonin’s following album is crowed by catchy and lovely songs, specially the three first ones. The sequence “Radlands”, “You Had Me At Hello” and the anthem “Someone Purer”, which is being played exhaustively in NME radio, makes a much more easier approach than the last one. Musically speaking, Radlands’ sonority it’s not that impressive, nor innovative. But by stopping using those electronic effects and influences from the last two albums I think they finally reached a point in which their sound can be properly analyzed as a whole. Despite “Someone Purer”, there are no huge, radio tailor-made songs. On the other hand there’s no even a single weak or below-average song (maybe except for “The Hale Bop”, hehe, I didn’t get this one at all). Radland is a nice collection of soft easy-listening melodies, which spread out more enjoable moments with “Sister Everett” and “Lost in Austin”. Eventually, it’s quite good to see again Blaine and Ree making an album together with Mystery Jets, they are the kind of band that will always be a pleasure to listen to, whether they’re playing to small crowed pubs or festivals. 

01 – Radlands
02 – You Had Me At Hello
03 – Someone Purer
04 – The Ballad Of Emmerson Lonestar
05 – Greatest Hits
06 – The Hale Bop
07 – The Nothing
08 – Take me Where The Roses Grow
09 – Sister Everett
10 – Lost In Austin
11 – Luminescense

My Rating: 9.5

Porcelain Raft is a project of a single man, this 27 year Italian British answering by the name Mauro Remiddi, who released this album in January (after a series of EPs last in the last year). Strange Weekend is a successful collection of weird and hypnotic sounds, layers, instruments and beats. Of course, all these sonorities are mixed with the best that dream-pop can offer. There are some really outstanding moments here, the ethereal song “Backwords” for instance, and the amazing second half, perhaps the best one in a LP I’ve listened so far this year, which ends with the memorable ballad “The Way In”. Everything related to Strange Weekend is so perfect that it’s hard to believe it’s home made.

01.Drifting In And Out
02.Shapeless & Gone
03.Is It Too Deep For You?
04.Put Me To Sleep
05.Backwords
06.Unless You Speak From Your Heart
07.The End Of Silence
08.If You Have A Wish
09.Picture
10.The Way In

My Rating: 9.65

01-Postcards To Strangers
02-Hissing Days
03-Straighter Than Jonathan Richman
04-I Like These Shoes
05-Amazon Wishlist

I remember it as if it were today. British channel NME playing Five “Threes” video like dozen of times in a day. I became addicted to this band in the first instant. I was cautious about their debut due of all expectation I had put on White Lies and they gave two week albums. So I had decided to not make the same mistake again, but I should have known that these Londoners CANNOT DO WRONG. What a stunning work! Seriously, it looks like every song received the proper attention, you do not get bored and the album closures in an amazing way. Besides Five Threes, other songs that must be mentioned are After The Flood, White Knight Position and All The Eastern Girls. Definitely, a celebration to the good British music scene.

1. Depths
2. Surfacing
3. Five Trees (Album Version)
4. After The Flood
5. White Knight Position
6. The Shore (Album Version)
7. Blind
8. Fine Light
9. O Maybe I (Album Version)
10. All The Eastern Girls
11. Paper Thin

My Rating: 9.7 

Why don’t you be the artist

and make me out of clay?

Why don’t you be the writer 

and decide the words I say?

Bobby Wratten é mesmo um ser abençoado. Por mais de duas décadas ele tem escrito muitas das melhores pop-songs. Seja com arranjos singles ou sofisticados, melodias atmosféricas ou de cunho pop; fica a impressão que ele realmente nasceu para isso. The Last Holy Water de 2008 já tinha sido um álbum especial. Mesmo a banda já existindo desde 1995, foi neste álbum que Bobby fez o amálgama de todas as suas bandas anteriores (The Field Mice, Northern Picture Library e The Yesterday Sky) e definiu de vez o estilo do Trembling Blue Stars. Fast Trains And Telegraph Wires mantém a qualidade do trabalho anterior, e nos dá de presente canções como “Could Colours”, “Half-Life” e a pérola “Frosting”. De quebra, a banda lançou junto com o álbum um EP extra, intitulado Cicely Tonight Volume 01. Download obrigatório

Fast Trains And Telegraph Wires

01 – My Face For The World To See
02 – All Our Tomorrows
03 – In Arrivals
04 – Frosting
05 – The Imperfection Of Memory
06 – The Dark World Of The Broken
07 – Cold Colours
08 – Half-Light
09 – Tropic Of Capricorn
10 – The Last Four Winters Of The WarGrey Silk Storm
11 – The Hidden Quarter

Cicely Tonight Volume One

01 – The Floating World 
02 – The Lowest Arc 
03 – Radioactive Decay 
04 – Not For Second Prize 
05 – Outside  
06 – The Floating World (Reprise) 
07 – No More Sad Songs 

Minha Nota: 9,4

01 Minotaur
02 Jerry
03 As the World Rises and Falls
04 Paul Verlaine
05 Strange Town
06 No. 33 
07 The Green Man
08 Nothing Here Is What It Seems

Não resta dúvidas que estes londrinos têm tudo para brilhar. “Five Trees” está tocando constantemente no canal da NME, e é uma daquelas músicas mágicas que nos leva de volta para o final da década de 80. Olho nessa banda!

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