Valerian Swings - A Sailor Lost Around the Earth (2011)

Sometimes you know instantly when a band is going to fill you with sweet joy.  From the opening few seconds of "Dr. Pengle is There" from Valerian Swings 2011 release, there was no doubt that entered my head that this would be anything less than stunning. The excellently named group are from Italy and you can expect a lot from them over the course of "A Sailor Lost Around the Earth". While a lot of other bands wear their genre's on their sleeves this trio make it a bit trickier. A group with an equal love of progressive rock, psychedelic rock, jazz,  metal, post-rock, and mathcore.  Blend on high.  Throughout the album you just wont care what your hearing because its always so well crafted. Vocals occasionally make a nice appearence as well. This is just an album that begs you to sit down and soak up because it's just that incredible. Wonderful song structures as well that always flow from one great idea to another. Driving to soft and Hard hitting to calm, never missing a beat or your interest.

A Sailor Lost Around the Earth (2011)

Angels of Light - The Angels of Light Sing "Other People" / Akron/Family

After leaving the amazingly excellent and influential band "Swans" Michael Gira settled into his new project Angels of Light. That's when it happened.... the "settling".

The Settling - When an aging musician picks up an acoustic guitar and begins spinning intimate lyrical themes.

This as we all know can go one of two ways be incredibly mediocre or translate the musicians vision to a new genre perfectly.  In the case of Mr. Gira he pulls this off without nary a hitch. He even brings along his newly discovered hopefuls "Akron/Family" (A Brooklyn based "freak folk" group) to back him for his next album The Angels of Light Sing "Other People".  They themselves just released their first album which by all approximations was and still is a flipping great album. Let just not talk about anything after their split release it tends to get a little muddled after that.

Back to the whole point of this post. The Angels of Light song "My Sister Said".  Yea its a good album no doubt but this song is unimaginably gorgeous in every way. One of my favorite songs of all time.  I don't have many songs I would say that personally speak to me but this one rocks my very core. EVERYONE at some point in their life needs this song and I cant say that strongly enough.

The Angels of Light Sing "Other People"

Akron/Family (2005)

Akron/Family and Angels of Light Split

The Psychic Paramount - II

It seems like too long since their last release but for most of these former Laddio Bolocko members this is their greatest to date. Lets get down to the run down. This is heavy psych like a cloud of electric smoke in your face on a moon filled night. By the way when I say heavy I mean HEAVY. From the first opening notes this trio will try to pummel your face against a wall. Structurally krautrock and drone loom their heads but its done so flipping loud and emotionally you never get the feeling of boredom.
II marks a special turning point for psychic paramount. Finding them in 2011 they have seemingly identified their strengths. Far from saying previous releases were bad but just II is that incredible. Its easy to see that the noise has been dialed back and this showcases just how varied this trio can really be. I've been spending an extended period of time as of late with II and can justifiably say that it gets better with every listen

II

Monsoon Bassoon

psych-rock w/math elements

I don't really think psychedelic rock is a fair tag for this. Active in the mid to late 90's Monsoon Bassoon flits about in their own universe. Not exactly what I'd call a math rock band but they do exhibit occational time changes. Odd tunings and complex rhythms are more what you run into here. Guitars chug energetically through chorus's getting a tad bit stale after a few songs. In all fairness this is highly influenced by prog-rock of the 70's and more contemporary independent groups of the 90's. Its some good stuff and a nice hidden gem 

monsoon bassoon