http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfOa1a8hYP8

I was on a posting hiatus when the new Radiohead album came out. Maybe if it was a life-changing piece of art like some fans regard each of their albums, I would have bothered to throw up some words on it. Don’t get me wrong, I love about half of their catalog, but Amnesiac is pretty garbage. But to come back around to talking about their newest output, The King of Limbs, it’s definitely a slow, minimalist album that most people think has more in common with Thom Yorke’s solo work than Radiohead’s past music. If I had listened to The Eraser more than once maybe I could relay my opinion. I like this song, though, and hearing it at the bar along with some other good tunes like “Bloodbuzz Ohio” from The National helped me forget that my friend actually asked me, “So did you see ‘Atlas’ this weekend?” I shouldn’t have to explain why that is at once both amusing and depressing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhzOE35057M

The newest Mogwai album is fantastic. It came out two months ago, but considering I haven’t posted any music on here since last year, this is as good a song as any to bring attention to. I thought about the song “Rano Pano”, which I actually posted on Roto Hardball months ago, but this track title is about twenty times more awesome. I imagine the American equivalent would be Portland Reagan Death Party? Some public square in the Pacific Northwest, anyway, or one in a poor black neighborhood. 80s conservative leaders aside, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is an hour of great instrumental (mostly) music to listen to while writing blog posts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubcdb-oAIu8

How many times have I said I wished I could describe music more intelligently? I’m also at a loss for words when it comes to convincing someone to listen to a band. Usually I’ll just resort to saying they’re awesome. And that’s what I’m going to do here. I recognize the cover Black Mountain’s self-titled album from five years ago, but I never got around to listening to them until hearing how great their latest album, Wilderness Heart, is. After a half-dozen listens, it’s one of my favorite albums of the year. This is actually the hardest-rocking song out of the ten, but they’re pretty much all fantastic. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvokOD-EnMw

I’ve been tempted to post another Sleigh Bells song, but I have finally gotten around to checking out The Suburbs a bit over the past week or two. This YouTube video has been around for three months, so I’m definitely way behind. Anyone reading this has probably already listened to this song. Oh well. At least I’m documenting my listening habits with these posts.

The Suburbs is a grower, but even after a few listens, I still prefer a bunch of other albums this year — including the one from the aforementioned Sleigh Bells. Fuck, that album is just too fun. I also still prefer Neon Bible, if only because there’s a few songs on that album that are just phenomenal, and better than anything on The Suburbs for me. But we’ll see if it grows on me anymore in the coming months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s92DwkAjVqk

I have to give @310toJoba credit for posting a Russian Circles song on his sadly now-inactive blog. He posted “Geneva”, a song I was close to posting myself, but I forced myself to mix it up. I also have to give credit to @DrewGROF for making me go back to the band after only listening to their newest album a couple of times. Now I’ve been listening to all three of their instrumental albums. I think I made a nice selection. The song builds up wonderfully — like some charging, galloping force — then explodes in a ridiculous wall of sound, pulls back a bit, and then finally goes totally apeshit. It’s awesome.

*sigh*

So The National’s latest album, High Violet, is actually out, so I hope posting this mp3 is cool now. And just because maybe some people already listened to this song the first time I posted it, I’m going to add this performance of “Afraid of Everyone” on Letterman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CRPz3kvou0

Edit: Just listen to “Bloodbuzz Ohio”, which is embedded in the comment below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNXwicxlsvI

This album isn’t out yet, but considering this was uploaded to YouTube by the band themselves, I think I’m cool in posting this. Brothers is immensely fun to listen to, just like every other Black Keys album. I’d say it’s cleaner than their previous albums, but it arguably only makes them more entertaining to listen to. Sure, a raw sound is sometimes great to listen to, but I think Danger Mouse has really helped focus their sound in this second collaboration with them. The result is an awesome album to listen to while driving with the windows down. Trust me, I tested it out a couple of days ago.

Edit: Man, I really should have gone with “Funkasaurus Rex Song of the Week” for the title.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN90uEDk3bQ

I was tempted to go with a Black Keys song off their latest album slated to be released in May, but I figured after how the last music post with a leaked song turned out, I’d go with a track that’s already been officially released.

Hopefully this song sufficiently blows your mind. Maybe you don’t like a multi-layered sound with brass and electronic noises and flute all coming at you at once accompanied by abrupt time-signature changes, but you should. And if you do, check out the full album (also by the name One-Armed Bandit), as it’s fantastic.

I find that the only albums I find myself listening to over and over front to back beginning to end are ones where there’s arguably too  much going on.

Note: For whatever reason, the flash code for embedding mp3s wasn’t freaking working, so I unfortunately have to post a low quality YouTube video. Garbage.

Note 2: I should acknowledge @deathbyvolcano‘s superior music knowledge, as he was the one who told me to check out this album.

Lots of albums have leaked recently, but High Violet is really the only one I’ve listened to. And I’ve kinda been listening to this one song from it over and over. I’d go on and review the album or all the songs that comprise it, but I’ve stated numerous times how unqualified I feel to talk about music. It’s definitely a great album and I highly recommend checking it out — when it comes out legally, of course. The National’s previous album Boxer put me to sleep at times, and I guess that’s a weird criticism if I’m posting this song from High Violet, but I just find the latter much more varied and less minimalistic.

Note: If the very beginning of the song is corrupted for you, let me know. I had a weird issue listening to the MP3 directly in Chrome — which, combined with other bugs, has me close to writing a negative post about the Google browser. It worked fine in Firefox.

Note 2: I was emailed by Web Sheriff to take down the song, which I almost thought was a joke at first, and then I found the Wikipedia entry. Damn.

Note 3: The New York Times has the album streaming until April 27th. Go and listen now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GdlsaQH6ao

If it sounds this good on Jimmy Fallon’s stage, the studio version will be pretty damn incredible, especially since Matt Berninger’s voice is much more suited to the studio from what I’ve heard. He really does sound great here, though. High Violet hits on May 11 (if you didn’t catch that) — be sure to check it out.