What I'm Listening To These Days

Of course, I'm listening to lots of great stuff sent to me gratis to review, but out of that batch what do I find myself returning to again and again. I'm really blown away by the reissue of the Manic Street Preachers clasic, The Holy Bible, and I'll have a big post about it next week including some rarely seen bits from Patrick Jones' fanzine he did in America about the Manics called Counter Language. Patrick is Nicky Wire's brother and is famous as a poet and playwright in Great Britain. The Konks garage blast is also in high rotation at Wally Manor. "29 Fingers" is one crazy good tune. I'll be reviewing the whole disc next week. Bmarkey already reviewed it at blogcritics, but I don't have the link handy so you'll have to do a search for it because you really should read his review - it's almost as much fun as the record itself.

But my two absolute faves of the moment are Black Lipstick and Architecture In Helsinki.



Sincerely, Black Lipstick is a wonderful melange of Velvet Underground and Television, with drawling vocals, snarling guitars, and tribal drums. It's the first CD in the player in the morning and the last thing I listen to before hitting the sack.



Black Lipstick hail from Austin, Texas, so maybe it's the Aus in the place that's grabbing me because Architecture In Helsinki are from Australia.



In Case We Die may have a title that seems like it would be a downer, but that's not the case. fun times await the listener to this twee release. Imagine the B-52's if they had grown up on a steady diet of indie-rock instead of Sixties singles. It's really hard to describe Architecture In Helsinki in just a few words, so look for a full scale review before the album comes out on April 12th.