Well my first listen to this record brought a palpable sense of relief that the last record had been decisively consigned to the rearview mirror.  Some people may have loved it, but it felt to me a lot like an album which was smothered by the weight of its own grand concept.

This is immediately and obviously conceived, or at least recorded, with a far lighter touch than its predecessor, which is a very good thing.

The problem for me, though, is that for all their grandiose ambitions misfired occasionally, when it did click, it made the band great.  Sometimes if you’re going to aim high, you have to accept that a few failures are the price to be paid for the extent of the heights you can achieve when it does work.

This record, for all I am glad it is not as involved or overblown as The Hazards of Love has unfortunately, in reining in its more flamboyant excesses, also lost its character.  The songs are all just so very plain, and at worst (the drearily mid-paced country pop lite of Rise to Me, the horrible Ooo-oohs on Calamity Song) they accept far too much of their aesthetic from bland adult orientated acoustic pop.

There are a couple of real highlights, such as the delicately lovely January Hymn and the more strident  Down By the Water.  But in general these are rare moments of sparkle in general mist of songs which just never grab me, no matter how many times I listen to them.

The Decemberists’ sound has fallen somewhat foul of fashion, but once these trends blow over and once the last five to ten years of music are consigned to more distant history, I am sure I will listen to Picaresque, Her Majesty, Castaways and Cutouts and at least half of The Crane Wife again with genuine pleasure.  This record, whilst never really being offensive by any stretch of the imagination, strikes me as one I am unlikely to feel compelled to listen to again from the second I publish this review.

The Decemberists – Calamity Song

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The Decemberists – January Hymns

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Fresh Air, after giving its hard-working students an entirely deserved and not at all excessive four months off over the Summer, is back on the interweb airwaves this week.  And you know what that means, don’t you?  Yes, Ruth calling me names for an hour and a half while we play songs!  Hooray!  Kind of.

We’ve been off the air for ages, and I actually haven’t seen Ruth all that much in the intervening time, so it will be nice to have a chat and catch up, although I promise to try and do most of that whilst the songs are playing so as not to bore you too much.

Live from 8pm (UK time) – listen here.

The player on the page linked to above can be a little flaky, so just pause and un-pause it and that should sort it out.  Alternatively I am pretty certain you can find us on iTunes quite easily.  We’ll be updating the playlist live below as we go along, so feel free to chip in with comments during the show and we’ll… well, probably just tell you to piss off, really.

1. Meursault – Crank Resolutions
2. Jackson C. Frank – Blues Run the Game
3. Sweet Baboo – I’m a Dancer
4. Onions – I Want to be a Dancer
5. The Decemberists – Down by the Water
6. The National – Terrible Love (New Version)
7. The Driftwood Singers – Coco Ellis
8. Oz St. Fossils – The Jeweller’s Daughter
9. Trips and Falls – I Learned Sunday Morning, on a Wednesday
10. REM – I Believe
11. Ray’s Vast Basement – The Story of Lee
12. Pet Shop Boys – What Have I Done to Deserve This?
13. Sparta Philharmonic – Devotion
14. Nick Drake – Blues Run the Game

Before you break out into a cold sweat about having to sit through another list of the best albums of the decade, don’t worry, this is not one of those.  Although most of these songs would be there or thereabouts if I were actually compiling a favourite songs of the decade list, that’s not why they’re here.

Basically, rather than try and rank anything against anything else, all this is is a meander through the last ten years and me chattering about how my relationship with music has changed and what sort of stuff I was into at what times of my life.

Basically, this is the soundtrack to a perfectly normal, albeit enthusiastic, music fan’s descent into full-on deranged internet mania.

Toadcast #99 – The Decade

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01. Eels – A Daisy Through Concrete (04.09)
02. Goldfrapp – Pilots (10.04)
03. Grandaddy – The Crystal Lake (14.17)
04. Lift to Experience – To Guard and to Guide You (23.13)
05. Interpol – NYC (30.46)
06. Tom Waits – Kommienezuspadt (34.57)
07. The Decemberists – Red Right Ankle (40.41)
08. The Walkmen – The Rat (44.06)
09. The Mountain Goats – Dilaudid (51.20)
10. Broken Records – Lies (Demo Version) (57.07)
11. The Savings and Loan – Christmastime in the Mountains (64.11)

I am stumbling towards the Christmas break like a punch drunk boxer dreaming of the bell.  I made up my to-do list for the rest of the year and it’s pretty fucking terrifying.  Still, time spent in France with my Mum fussing like a bloody mother hen and being determined for Christmas to be just so and me ruining it by being rude and too busy to be festive.

There tend to be some musical disagreements in our house around Christmas time.  Mum likes her festive shit, even if it is bordering on being a parody of itself at times.  I like what I consider to be relaxing music – that downbeat, morose stuff which is both warm and comforting.  Stuff like The Willard Grant Conspiracy, Micah P. Hinson, Leonard Cohen, that kind of stuff – The Boatman’s Call by Nick Cave is a favourite, for example.  Not for Mum, though, it seems.

So we both have pretty definite ideas of what kind of music should be played around Christmas time, but it just happens to be in total opposition to the other’s.  The difference being, of course, that I am right and she is not.

Last week we had the top five songs vote, probably just shaded by something by Withered Hand, but I’ll do all the proper counting before the new year and make some grandiose declaration of electoral triumph.  Which leaves this week for us to vote for our favourite album of 2009.  So that’s all the Friday Fives are this week – just list your favourite five albums released this year.  And for anyone wondering, voting for The Low Anthem is just fine, if that’s one of your favourites primarily because I can’t be arsed splitting hairs about self-releases, re-releases and all that other shit.  So please de-lurk and say hello and have a vote – these things are always more fun when more people join in.

Meursault – Salt Pt.2 2008

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Grinderman – No Pussy Blues 2007

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The Veils – Not Yet 2006

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The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together 2005

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Cannibal’s Hymn 2004

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I recently did an interview with Billy from The Scotsman’s Under the Radar blog (amongst other venerable organs) which took the form of an interesting chat about the current tension between  bloggers and professional journalists.  He has played off my opinions against those of his friend Mike Diver, who is currently the online editor for (the excellent) Clash magazine.  The whole thing can be found here, along with plenty of comments from Ally and Milo, professional writers from around these parts, and myself and Tart, on the side of the bloggers.  The comments on that thread make for some rather interesting reading in themselves, I have to say.

It’s an interesting debate, frankly, and one which, as a blogger with aspirations, as opposed to someone who is happy to simply chat for the sake of it, I have applied a fair deal of thought to.  Ultimately, though, I think it is something of a false dichotomy: some of the best reporters keep blogs as ways of expressing themselves outwith the constraints of the editorial policy of whatever rag pays their wages and a lot of the best bloggers end up parlaying their writing skills into professional careers in journalism.  And of either side there is a vast amount of detritus, professional and amateur.

So, yes, the Toad once again holds forth passionately on subjects he knows far too little about and may in general be making a fool of himself once more.  The, erm, songs are good though.

Toadcast #76 – The Presscast

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01. Billy Bragg – Which Side Are You On? (03.17)
02. The Decemberists – Cautionary Song (Live) (11.03)
03. Jens Lekman – No Time For Breaking Up (14.09)
04. The Meteors – Out of Time (22.21)
05. Franz Ferdinand – Darts of Pleasure (32.47)
06. The Dead 60s – Horizontal (35.17)
07. Sleepy Horses – Lubbock Love Song (42.27)
08. Eels – I Write the B-sides (52.05)
09. The Replacements – Unsatisfied (62.30)
10. David Cross – My Kids are Amish (68.09)

Well as you read this I will be in a day-long meeting with one of Proper Job’s most important clients.  The product, about which I really can’t divulge all that much, is a really interesting one.  It’s one of those things which may well in some form be essential in about five years time but at the moment is really rather embryonic and still basically on the drawing board.  It makes for a very interesting day’s work however, albeit a very argumentative one.

So whilst I am choking on shit sandwiches and bursting with excessive coffee intake, please sit back, relax, gently stroke your mouse and fire in your five frivolous Friday fuckwitticisms.  It’s not about being first, funniest or anything like that, just chip in.

Tonight there will be monumental levels of drunkenness for myself and my darling girl Mrs. Toad.  We are going to the Bowery to see Rob St.John and Broken Records singe everyone’s eyebrows with all sorts of raucous nonsense.  Well, maybe not Rob.  But he’ll still be good, I can promise you that – I’ve never sen Rob play live and not been impressed.  Broken Records will be different.  In a room that small they might just make your ears bleed.  I, for a change, will not be reviewing or filming or anything like that.  Mrs. Toad and I will be down the front enjoying ourselves and nothing more.  We will be drunk, we will be grinning like fools and staggering about like muppets and in general we will be warming up for a splendid weekend.  There are still tickets available, should you want to join in, just swing by the City Cafe some time tomorrow.

Now, in case you were intending to be so foolish as to attempt anything productive on a Friday, stop right now.  Before you go any further do you love me.  Will you love me forever; do you need me?  Will you… oops, sorry, that was a Meat Loaf lyric.  I’ll stop.  Right now.  Delurking is required, and the filling in of five of the most frivolous answers you’ve ever produced in your life.  Have a good weekend, Toadlings.

1. Best blag you’ve ever pulled off.
2. Most fortuitous ticket.
3. Biggest waste of an expensive ticket purchase.
4. Most unexpected brilliant day.
5. Forced participation which actually turned out okay.

The Decemberists – Mariner’s Revenge Song

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The White Stripes – I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart

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Fanfarlo – Fire Escape

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The Men They Couldn’t Hang – Island in the Rain

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Barenaked Ladies – One Week

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I sort of have two reviews for this album: one from a music fan, which I am, and one from a ‘reviewer’, which I’m not really but bear with me.

The music fan, simply, says that this is pretty rubbish, really.  Stodgy, lumpen, and with the odd exception devoid of tunes.  It’s not lovable.  It may be an album you can respect for its ambition and all that sort of stuff but when I stick an album on the stereo I want some sort of sense of satisfaction or enjoyment or something, and all I feel with this is the urge to kick them in the bollocks and tell them to just bloody well stop poncing around and get on with it.

Put simply, whilst I presume it is very high on intellectual achievement, the instinctive, artistic side – the side which irrespective of anything gets you tapping your feet and humming the tunes – is thinner than Calista Flockhart on the last day of Lent.

If I am trying to be a music critic then there’s a lot to praise.  The exploring of themes, the over-arching concept, the boldness, the bravery of forging on into new territory when you could just trot out some more Neutral Milky alt-folk; all these things are to be praised.  In fact they are to be really loudly praised.  The proggy guitar stuff, the shameless embracing of the idea of a concept album, this all requires more than a little bit of balls, particularly when aloof irony is the chief currency in the world of the hipster, so I really do salute them for their creativity and their artistic integrity.

I want to like this album, really I do, and I do respect it.  But music is for enjoying and at this, I am afraid, it fails miserably.

The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)

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The Decemberists – The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid

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Website | More mp3s | Buy from Amazon

No, we’re not doing that this week actually, although Five Ways to Leave Your Lover would be a fine Friday Five at some point in the future.  Nothing too insulting, nothing too pedestrian, and points given for believability combined with strangeness.  Nice idea actually but, well, maybe later.

This week’s five were suggested by the excellent Mr. Team Turnip on the Pains of Being Pure at Heart review, I think.  It was all about bands who develop their songwriting and those who simply consolidate once they have found a style with which they and their fans are comfortable.

This is a nice one actually, because it exposes our prejudices.  The sum total of all music criticism pretty much boils down to ‘I like this… and I don’t like that.’  It’s an instinctive decision and as much as we can try and rationalise it afterwards, no amount of good argument can make you like or dislike anything much more than you do instinctively.  I suppose being pointed out that something was ripped off from somewhere or that such and such is a dickhead or so on can make you cool on something, but basically I think we’re mostly left with just a gut reaction, as far as music is concerned.

So for all we praise bands for developing, complain that they are derivative or criticise them for standing still, there are always plenty of groups we love who make total hypocrites of us for doing so. So chip in with yours, please, and take this opportunity not to worry about the fact that 90% of the comments on this site come from the same ten or fifteen people.  Ignore them, they’re harmless, and I’d be delighted to be introduced to a new lurker, should you fancy it.  Take the plunge, the water’s lovely.

1. Band who just knock out the same old shit time after time, but you love them anyway.
2. Band who have impressed you by continuing to develop, despite having a lot to lose.
3. Band who have become better and better with time.
4. Band who are a total rip-off, but you don’t fucking care, thank you very much.
5. Band you love who make you feel like a total hypocrite.

Eels – Sweet Li’l Thing

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The Strokes – Vision of Division

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – We Call Upon the Author

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The Decemberists – Red Right Ankle

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Babyshambles – Delivery

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Well, kids, it’s been a strange old sleepless week & a bit. Of course, what with the Presidential pageant all a hoo-ing & a hah-ing at every turn, I managed to mince about pretty much unnoticed for the most part.

The weather has been atrocious to say the very least. Did I pack for ground frost? Torrential rain? Near hurricane-strength winds? Like fuck I did. Added to that, I’ve been averaging 2am to bed (a foldout in the livingroom of the rented space – sharing with 4 others) & 5.30am wake up calls.

Ed, my (un)usual USof travel companion, has insisted on cooking breakfast for us every morning at 5-cunting-am. The smell of slowly charring bacon has gagged me awake every fucking day – including my one & only day off. On Monday, at 6am, he set the smoke & fire alarms off in the whole apartment complex as he set fire to the electric oven hob with another of his dodgy homegrown concoctions.

The cooker was ruined &, as the rental is billed to my credit card, I’m expecting a sizable bill in the near distant to repair or replace. I’ll go into the finer details of our latest adventure on next week’s show.

So, then, to this week’s show, which has been done on the hoof, via laptop, as I flitted about the States like a ninny. There’s not so much chatter – I was knackered most of the time & the mic I had wasn’t up to much & I am to much of a tight arse to buy another just for one show – but the music more than makes up for it. Some of it, in my humble, is nothing short of astonishing.

Expect, then, many brand new tracks from as yet unreleased albums by the likes of: hillary & the democrats, brooke waggoner, little boots, anna kramer & the lost cause, pete & the pirates, meursault, babian, the welcome wagon, hurray for the riff raff, the cotton jones basket ride, andrew bird, plants & animals, raise high the roof beams, jolie holland, bobby bare jr., hari & aino, the kazoo funk orchestra, warpaint, climber, alela diane, anya marina, the decemberists, basket of figs, miss emily brown, ragged claws, clem snide, & samantha crain & the midnight shivers.

You know what to do.

The Waiting Room: Wednesday 21st January

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This is a Muppet News Flash.  It isn’t, but there is certainly news afoot at the moment.  The larger labels appear to have woken from their brandy-induced Christmas comas and managed to poke their spotty interns into action once more.  And the result: we have inboxes with Important News once again.  In order, not of how famous the band is and therefore how how highly the news scores on the Official Indie-Kid Excitement Scale, but in order of just how excited I personally am about the release of each track I bring you:

Elvis Perkins in Dearland:

Elvis Perkins’ last album was blindingly brilliant.  Aching, sad, uplifting, and literate enough to be beautifully crafted, but never arch.  To say that I am looking forward to this release is an understatement.  Shampoo is brilliant, with enough stomping funeral blues and ghostly choirs of the underworld to give it massive presence, and fucking hell his voice is in g0od form.  I love this, and I can’t wait.  A couple more tracks can be streamed from his shiny new website.
Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Shampoo

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Neko Case:

Fox Confessor Brings the Flood was so beautiful that I hurriedly scampered through her back catalogue, only to be slightly disappointed.  It was a bit too Lady-country-lite in places, and I find myself slightly fearing that Fox Confessor was an aberration of brilliance, surrounded by a sea of above-average music.  Listening to this song doesn’t reassure me all that much, I have to confess, but I still have hope.
Neko Case – Maneater

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The Decemberists:

Their last album was hardly a classic, despite several great moments.  Something, somehow, didn’t quite click with it, and there were a couple of really duff songs; Summersong and The Perfect Crime were gratingly bad.  The Rake’s Song isn’t all that great, I have to say, and it sounds like it has been prematurely terminated to serve as a preview.  The song doesn’t feel over when it fades out.  But again, I have hope, albeit just a little less in this case.
The Decemberists – The Rake Song

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Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs:

I think it’s safe to say that we can expect smart lyrics in this release, although what we can expect musically might be less predictable.  After last year’s filthsterpiece he seems to have returned to a more textbook songwriting format, and the instrumentation of this seems pretty straightforward as well.  Not sure what to expect – this is a pretty good song, and I would be very surprised if this wasn’t a really good, enjoyable album with plenty of wry internal laughs to be had.
Aidan Moffat & the Best Ofs – Big Blonde

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