If It's Too Loud...

Album of the Week : Artist : Stephen Malkmus Album : Groove Denied Quick Description : New album from the Pavement frontman. Why You Should Listen : Stephen Malkmus has earned the right to do what he wants at this point. Overall Thoughts : At least when Radiohead went weird, they didn’t try to alienate most listers right out of the gate. If you can get past the first track of Groove Denied , however, you’re in for a real treat. Malkmus’s output over the decades has always been a strange mixed bag even if it’s perpetually compelling, and this album is the vision of a man just spreading his wings as much as he wants and presenting the results. Sort of a Kraftwerk via the American West Coast amalgam of ideas and concepts through much-to-most of the affair, this is not going to have the sort of wide appeal of his early solo work or the indie smart takes of the most hardcore of Pavement enthusiasts. This is a bizarre record, but it’s also kind of brilliant and really works as long...

A few high-profile releases combined with some indie highlights form the foundation of this week's new release schedule: Volcano Choir - Repave : I don't consider myself a fan of Bon Iver, even though I find Justin Vernon to be incredibly talented and interesting. I don't know what it is about Bon Iver that doesn't resonate with me, but I do know that Repave , the second Volcano Choir album, inhabits the space I wish Vernon was always in for me. It's stark and weird and different without being completely inaccessible, and while it has a lot of indie tropes that people love to hate on, it's an album that deserves to be heard at least once, and probably multiple times. Definitely tops my list as the most interesting new release of the day. Over the Rhine - Meet Me at the Edge of the World : Over the Rhine is a folk band that exists in the same headspace as Hem, mostly because I saw them open for Hem a number of years ago. Their music is both more folky an...