The review wasn't dead, just resting.

In some ways I think the break was for the best, because now instead of writing about records I bought last week I'm writing about records I bought six months ago. Often when listening to something new there's an initial "love affair" period where I listen to it frequently, so in the interests of a fairer take on a record it isn't a bad idea to let it sit for a while before starting to write what I think. I see that as an unintended perk of the hiatus.
Explosions in the Sky are a group of Texans who write instrumental post-rock worthy of Sigur Rós or Mogwai. "Post-rock" sounds kind of silly to me, but it's shorter than listing bands, some of which -- Godspeed You! Black Emperor, for instance -- have somewhat convoluted names. Sub-genre naming conventions aside, though, post-rock is a genre that has appealed to me since I discovered Sigur Rós close to five years ago.
There isn't as much rock here as on Mogwai's Mr. Beast, the guitars and keyboards are clean. The musical phrases are shorter than Sigur Rós, so despite the length of some songs (It's Natural to be Afraid clocks in at 13:27) it isn't as demanding on the attention span as any given record by our Icelandic friends. Often the melody is driven by clean piano while the delayed guitars supply texture, which would make the music sound thin if it weren't for the meaty drumming. There's a fairly substantial dynamic contrast between the parts of songs where the drums are present versus absent, so it can be hard to listen to this album while in an environment with substantial steady background noise (e.g. driving, flying).
The melodic payoff is great; if you like other post-rock, you'll probably like this. The only real criticism here is that Explosions in the Sky don't really do much to differentiate themselves from Mogwai, so if I want to introduce someone to post-rock, Mr. Beast is still my first stop. Explosions' effort shouldn't be overlooked, though.
The Record: All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone (Explosions in the Sky), 2007
One-line Verdict: Good post-rock.
Standout Tracks: The Birth and Death of the Day, So Long Lonesome

I picked this up in New Zealand on the recommendation of a relative. The first track was absolutely captivating -- mellow, understated, with a complete absence of climax that leaves you wanting more. A thing of quiet beauty.
Unfortunately, there's nothing else like it on the album. There's a fair amount of variety, and all of the material is competently performed, but none of it quite reaches that level, at least to me. There are moments in some of the ballads that come close, though. The harder rockers have some melodically interesting elements, but there are also some thematic re-uses that could have been done without. Using the same interval in a few different keys as the core of a few different songs gets old fairly quickly. More subtle thematic referencing would have been more interesting.
There's one outright jarring moment, too -- part of the hook from Saddest Song in the World sounds quite a lot like the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Shihad's spin on the riff makes for a good song, but it's impossible to keep the Stones' classic out of my head when I listen to Shihad's tune.
Overall, I do like the album, but I don't love it. None of the Above is going to be a staple on my playlists, but the rest of the album will be a much less frequent listen.
The Record: Love is the New Hate (Shihad), 2005
One-line verdict: Hit-and-miss.
Standount Tracks: None of the Above, Dark Times, Stop

I saw this album on shelves in New Zealand and made a note to check it out when I got home. As it turned out it was available on iTunes, so I picked it up. It's hard rock, with conventional lyrics and more than a hint of screamo. The guitar textures are interesting and novel, but the melodies themselves are generally fairly straightforward.
There are a few interesting tracks, especially the first and last, but even they are just very good examples of the genre rather than anything unusual. The album as a whole suffers from the curse of sounding too consistent for its own good. The songs blend together and many of the middle tracks just aren't memorable.
There isn't much more to say about this one. It's an enjoyable listen, but easily displaced by the next purchase.
The Record: End the Silence (Blindspott), 2006
One-line verdict: Unsurprising, but solid.
Standount Tracks: 1975, Pray for Me

David Bowles has said that his intention in crafting this album was to create "intellectual dance music." In this he succeeded admirably, and I find This Insubstantial Pageant significantly more palatable than I find most conventional dance music. My tastes in the electronic tend more toward Orbital, Boards of Canada, and Nine Inch Nails, though I do enjoy traditional four-on-the-floor bass drum electronic dance music if I'm in a club.
Somewhat predictably, the highlight of the album for me is the blues vocals over acoustic guitars and synth backgrounds in the opener, Huckleberry Juju. Bowles has a good singing voice, and I'd love to hear him record a real acoustic blues number... which leads me to my main complaint about the album: the effected vocals. Frequently, the vocal tracks have an effected bass tone that sounds synthetic, even if it actually isn't. Sometimes the bassified vocals work for me, but most of the time I find myself wishing for uneffected or possibly distorted vocals.
Some tracks are possibly a bit longer than strictly necessary, though that's more a much more useful "failing" in dance than in other genres.
Melodically, This Insubstantial Pageant is considerably more interesting than a lot of other dance. That's also true lyrically -- at least, when I can make the lyrics out. The effected vocals make it harder than it should be.
Overall, though, when I want to pull a dance record out of my library, this is one of the first ones I go for. Quite enjoyable.
The Record: This Insubstantial Pageant (David Bowles), 2007
One-line verdict: Dancey.
Standount Tracks: Huckleberry Juju, Ineluctable

I bought two Dream Theater albums in December 2006 and have been listening to them almost constantly since then. I figured it would be enough to review one of them and mention the other, but I waffled back and forth on which one to write about. Originally, I intended to write about their 2003 release, Train of Thought, which is sometimes referred to as "the heavy album," and clearly exhibits the influence of the complete Master of Puppets cover show that the band did around the same time. Lately, though, I've been listening to Octavarium a lot more. While it's more hit-and-miss, it's also more varied.

One of the things I really enjoy about Dream Theater is that you can tell what they've been listening to by the sound of their albums and songs. Train of Thought exhibited a definite Metallica influence; Octavarium has some tracks in that vein, but also references Muse, among others. Musically, they're open about their influences without being derivative -- indeed, it's hard to imagine a band with the raw musical ability of Dream Theater writing something that sounded more like another band than like themselves. There's more variety in Octavarium's 24-minute title track than in many complete albums, and yet it doesn't feel a second too long. Some of Dream Theater's longer songs are a little too musically varied, without enough thematic consistency to really tie them together. Others require some history, making thematic allusions to songs on previous albums. The title track, though, is self-contained, and within its 24-minutes there is frequent musical self-referencing and subtle thematic modifications to keep the song cohesive through a wide range of musical styles. This, more than any other I've heard, is the song that reveals the depth of Dream Theater's virtuosity.

Having said that, there are a couple of tracks on the album that I consistently skip over -- they just get too cheesy for me. Train of Thought is more even, but it's also more consistent sonically, especially when compared to the variety of sound on Octavarium. In the end, I really enjoy both albums, but if you're looking for an introduction to Dream Theater and you don't love Metallica's Master of Puppets, start with Octavarium.

The Record: Octavarium (Dream Theater), 2005
One-line verdict: A little hot-cold, but the ones that are good are really good.
Standount Tracks: Never Enough, Octavarium

Between a lot of travel and my continuing addiction to Mr. Beast, I haven't bought anything new since that record. Last week, though, I picked up a record that had been on my "to investigate" list for a while, by a group called Neverending White Lights. The only thing I knew about them when I bought the record was that they're Canadian -- or so I thought. Actually, "they" aren't a band at all, as such. Neverending White Lights is a project spearheaded by a fellow named Daniel Victor, a Canadian, but most of the tracks are collaborations with other artists, some from as far afield as Scotland. The collaborators are usually vocalists, though I was interested to note that Mogwai (see? Scotland!) supplied music (I don't know how much) for the album. My love affair with Mogwai continues!

Now that I've given away the ending: Act I: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies is good. Even though each song has a different singer, the album remains cohesive, which I can only credit to what must be Victor's strong sense of musical direction. The album is laid back, but more in the way of latter-days Moist than something more groovy like Zero 7. In parts it reminds me of Chris Vrenna's 2 A.M. Wake-Up Call, released under the pseudonym Tweaker; there are blends of instrumental and electronic components that strike that same sort of aural chord. Neverending White Lights are much more consistently uplifting than Vrenna, though that's hardly surprising given that the latter became famous as one of the founding memebrs of Nine Inch Nails.

At 16 tracks and 79 minutes, this is one you may not have time to focus on from start to finish all that often. However, unlike many other albums that come in at 14 tracks or more, Act I doesn't have any tracks that I think of as "filler" or skip over consistently (though there are a few tracks, mostly enumerated below, that I often skip to when I just want to hear one or two tracks).

Victor is apparently working on a solo album now, and with the reasonable commercial success of Act I in Canada, is also reported to be looking at Act II. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for both.

The Record: Act I: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies (Neverending White Lights), 2006
One-line verdict: Mellow, yet varied.
Standount Tracks: From What I Once Was, A Littlepiece, The Grace, Life Is A Dead Scene

A couple of years ago at a friend's party in Montréal, I spent some time talking about music with a girl from Vienna who, upon learning of our shared taste for bands like Sigur Rós and Muse, told me that I should really check out Mogwai. A day or two later, I made my way to downtown Montréal and picked up Ten Rapid as well as Come On Die Young. I liked them both, but I wouldn't say I loved them. I wasn't quite sure what all the fuss was about, though I did think they had a gift for simple yet compelling hooks.

A few months ago, I started reading a webcomic called Questionable Content that, among other things, regularly and lovingly pokes fun at the indie rock and indie rock fandom. It's an amusing strip. Judging by the author's news posts, which accompany the daily comics, my taste isn't that similar to his, but there's enough overlap that I read his list of recommended 2005-2006 albums with some interest. On that list I spied Mr. Beast. I didn't know that Mogwai had a new album out, and when he referred to it as their "heaviest record to date," I was sold.

True to my expectations, it rocks. There isn't much of the clean guitar diddling that CODY is built around; in its place is the double-barreled assault of full chording and meaty distortion. The hooks are still simple, and as spectacular as ever. The piano melody that Friend of the Night builds to gets stuck in my head on a regular basis, even when I haven't been listening to it.

The album does have its quiet moments, but for me these work best as interludes between bouts of heavier material -- though they're decent, I don't find that they stand as well individually as the heavier tracks do. As a whole, though, it's a cohesive, moving, solid record.

Vocals, as usual, are largely absent. It didn't bother me in the slightest, though people who listen to music for lyrics first and music second may find themselves bored.
My copy of the album, downloaded from iTMS, came with two live tracks as well. Those are nothing special; they sound pretty much like the album versions.

Mr. Beast is definitely my favourite of the three Mogwai albums I now own. It's pretty accesible, too, so it's a good place to start for people who don't own any Mogwai or have never heard of them. As long as such people also like heavy riffs, that is.

The Record: Mr. Beast (Mogwai), 2006
One-line verdict: Compelling.
Standount Tracks: Auto Rock, Glasgow Mega-Snake, Friend of the Night, We're No Here

Thom Yorke's first solo effort is another record I had no idea about. I suspected that it would sound like "The Thom and Johnny Show," which is how I tend to describe Radiohead's electronic meanderings when I'm feeling charitable. As it turns out, I was both right and wrong, and The Eraser surprised me. It's unpretentious, straightforward, and, well, pretty good. It's largely electronic -- mostly sparse melodic loops over stuttering synthetic rhythms -- but there are real keyboards, and even (gasp) guitars to be heard. What's really interesting is that if this performance is any indication, the material really holds up live. I'll be very curious to see if a sanctioned live EP ever surfaces.

The album is pretty light and maintains the same steady mellow mood throughout. I don't think that hurts it, as it isn't long enough that the tracks really start to blur together. Still, it isn't exactly upbeat. I also found that The Eraser got lost a little bit midway through, wandering off into musical diddling, but it found itself again by the end without losing my attention.

If the electronic bits of Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief were as good as the ones on The Eraser, I'd probably listen to those two Radiohead albums a lot more than I do. This is definitely a step forward from that material, and bodes well for future Radiohead releases (something the band says are a long way off). The Eraser will certainly keep me interested in the meantime.

The Record: The Eraser (Thom Yorke), 2006
One-line verdict: Mellow, but pretty good.
Standount Tracks: The Eraser, Black Swan

I had no idea that this record was coming out until the day before its release. In some ways, that's probably a good thing, because Muse's last album, Absolution is on my Top Five All-Time Favourite Records list -- an incongruously-named list that changes on a semi-regular basis. In any case, I adore Absolution, and had I known it was coming I would have anticipated this record as breathlessly as I awaited Radiohead's follow-up to The Bends almost ten years ago. I do like OK Computer, but I'll always have The Bends.
I sometimes read Pitchfork Media, one of the snootiest review sites out there, and I'm somewhat conflicted about it. In some ways it helps that they disdain me and much of my taste in music (Lateralus was awarded a whopping 1.9/10; I would reverse the digits in much the same way as the Canadian government did with its underreported budget surplus in 2004) and that as a general rule I return the favour, but by the same token, there have been times when they've directed me to some gems. Boards of Canada are a good example.

In any case, Pitchfork's review of Black Holes and Revelations proposes that Muse's "vision of rock" is composed of three elements: "1) distortion is always better than no distortion; 2) every measure of music should contain at least one drum fill; and 3) the future will be dominated by robots." Now, these somewhat hyperbolic tenets are things of which I generally approve (though I'll admit to being somewhat ambivalent about the robots thing), which is why I prefer Absolution to a great many other less full-sounding, less hard-rocking records. I also own Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry, and until BHaR I thought Muse were getting noticeably better with each record.

BHaR takes the OoS sound as a basis and then dials it back to about 1987. Unlike some, I don't particularly have a problem with bands appearing to follow trends -- and Muse have definitely been influenced to some extent by the explosion of dance-rock bands like The Killers (ugh) and The Music (worth looking into) -- but that doesn't mean I have to like the result. My initial reaction as I made my way through BHaR was "what happened?"

I also find it puzzling that as far as I can tell, the "bonus" track, Glorious, given to people who pre-ordered or downloaded the album from iTMS (I didn't), sounds better (where "better" means "more like something from Absolution) than anything on BHaR"). The hard-rocking Assassin is nice to hear, but the pure 80's pop of Starlight is a bit much.

I don't mind the record as a whole, but the best endorsement I can give it is that it's decent. It grooves in places and rocks in places, but it also makes me wonder why I bought it in places. Absolution, then, will still be the first Muse record I recommend to anyone. Actually, it will probably remain one of the first records I recommend to anyone, period. If BHaR is any indication, Absolution's place on the Top Five is in no danger of being usurped by another Muse record.

The Record: Black Holes and Revelations (Muse), 2006
One-line verdict: What happened?
Standount Tracks: Assassin, Hoodoo

I wasn't a big fan of Metric's first release, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? on my initial listens. A friend of mine went away to Finland for a few months and came back with a new appreciation for dance-pop; when he picked up Old World Underground... and said it reminded him of Finland in some ways I was snootily unimpressed. Metric could have been the Cardigans, for all I cared. I approached the genre later, mostly by way of the dance-beat-driven groove rock of bands like The Music and The Jimmy Swift Band. Finally, a good year or so after first hearing Metric, I caved in and picked up Old World Undergroud.

I liked it right from the opening couplet:
Old world underground, where are you now?
Subtract my age from the mileage on my speeding heart credit cards

Emily Haines does have a way with words, and can write catchy lines when she sets her mind to it. This holds true on Live It Out which by its release in late 2005 I'd been waiting to hear for roughly half a year.

Unfortunately, Live It Out takes a couple of steps back for its step forward. As much as I like gritty guitars, in a band as musically upbeat as Metric they do sound somewhat incongruous at times. The notable exception is the "I fought the war, I fought the war and the war won't stop for the love of God" refrain in Monster Hospital, where the guitar texture is completely appropriate. However, Metric in general is a lot more about synths than guitars, and if they were trying to reinvent themselves this time around then the effort has fallen flat on its face.

That's not to say that Live It Out is a bad record. I still listen to it from time to time and I enjoy it, but if it weren't for the production values you'd think this was their first album and Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? was their second. If you're looking to get to know Metric, their first album is still the place to start.

The Record: Live It Out (Metric), 2005
One-line verdict: Decent.
Standount Tracks: Poster of a Girl, Monster Hospital, Live It Out