New Album:
Panic! At the Disco’s new album Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die, released October 8 in the US, takes a pretty radical from their previous album, Vices & Virtues, which was a mix of emo influences and also Pet Sounds-era psychedelia. This album brings P!ATD’s sound squarely into the 2010s, with R&B and pop influences in their usual rock sound, as well as dabbling in electronica. Songs like “Miss Jackson” and “This Is Gospel” could be in the current Top 40 stations that usually cater to a more pop and R&B audience. Songs like “The End of All Things” and “Girls/Girls/Boys” also bring different elements to the fore, with Imogen Heap-esque layered vocals on the former, and new-wave synth lines in the latter. You don’t see much of the emo style that launched them to fame in the mid-2000s, the only one that could have appeared on any other of their albums without sounding like an aberration would be the penultimate track “Collar Full.” With its insistent drumbeat and chugging guitars under a solid vocal performance, it shows that they haven’t lost the ability to make great punk-influenced music. If you were a fan of the old Panic! At the Disco, but also a fan of newer pop music, check this out.
What I’ve been listening to:
Over the past few days, I’ve been listening to a lot of Jeff Mangum’s work, both solo and with Neutral Milk Hotel, whose material they chiefly used to make the remixes I talked about last week for Psycosis’ album. Anyway, his stuff before that is pretty cool, and I’ve been listening to NMH’s compilation Hype City Soundtrack, which has everything from raucous acoustic guitar jams with surreal lyrics to Beatles-esque power pop to noise rock, which Mangum all recorded in and around 1993. Choice tracks include “Tuesday Moon” and “Up and Over We Go”. Another album I can’t recommend highly enough is Nick Drake’s 1974 album Pink Moon. This folky album was recorded in two two-hour sessions and features just Drake and his expertly-picked guitar, except for a short piano figure on the title track. Throw this on if you’re alone on a cold winter night, doing homework or walking around or whatever, and I don’t know how to describe it, but it all just goes together so well and gives you a lot of feelings. No choice tracks here, listen to it all the way through. Finally, one of the greatest albums I’ve listened to this week is Fleet Foxes’ first album Fleet Foxes. This Seattle band has garnered a lot of attention with their newer album Helplessness Blues and singles like “Mykonos,” their first album is definitely one of my favorites because of its baroque-folk sound, intricate harmonies, reverb-drenched vocals, as they have on all their records, but songs like “Ragged Wood” and “White Winter Hymnal” just sound like they’re having lots of fun with what they’re doing and are at the top of their game.
Local Music Happenings:
1. Northampton-based Folk/Rock band Winter Pills will be playing at the Iron Horse on October 26 at 7pm in a concert called “An Evening with Winter Pills.”
2. The Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra will be playing at the Academy of music to kick off its 75th season, performing Johann Strauss’ “Kuenstlerleben” waltz, among others. The show is on Saturday, October 19, and tickets are $6 for students.
3. Support your fellow student musicians, or get up and play yourself if you’d like, with any of the open mics, and shows around campus. There’s the People’s Market open mic every Friday 5:30-7, the Music after Dark open mic at 8pm, and this week on October 17, UMass AMP is holding its first performance in one of the Herter auditoriums.