Albums of the Month - May 2012
Without much question, May has been the standout month of 2012 in terms of new music. There have been quite a few masterful releases during the span, including the highly-anticipated Beach House and Sigur Ros albums. But just like last month, the most-expected releases didn't make my final three. Here are my three favorite albums from last month.
3.) Royal Headache (Self-Titled)
It's tough to say there's anything more to Royal Headache's self-titled reissue than conveniently well-packaged, murky garage rock. There's an inherit vagueness that plagues most of the lo-fi structure of the genre, meddling much of the West Sydney punk vocalist known as 'Shogun.' But despite the near-classic muffled choke of vocals, you can get an easy sense that there's more style thrown into the album than what the lo-fi template originally offered. Songs like "Down the Lane" and "Distant and Vague," despite following a fuzz-rush of garage punk tracks, stick to a soulful idea, sounding as eternally sweet as the other songs filter their vigor. The attachment is there, despite only 26 minutes of endurance to the album's more endearing finishers, culminating with "Honey Joy," the most sincere the band has ever sounded.
2.) Japandroids - Celebration Rock
1.) El-P - Cancer For Cure
It's not simply the verses for EL-P (Jaime Meline) that do him justice anymore, or since his last studio album, 2007's I'll Sleep When You're Dead. There's a chasm of industrial technique behind his Brooklyn-centric diatribes, not merely settling for dead-end typical hip-hop production. With the album's first half, culminating with all-star standout "Tougher Colder Killer" featuring Killer Mike and Despot, Cancer For Cure (Insound) kills as much with eye-popping verses as it does with claustrophobic metal beats. There's so much packed together within the first six tracks, that if it had stopped it there it would almost seem acceptable. But the songs continue to trek with sophistication unreal to the rest of modern hip-hop, spilling mind-out-of-matter lines from the alter egos that we, and El-P, understand.
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