erics head

This year, I’ve been keeping track of various (silly) things using a free Daytum account. As we’re more than halfway through the year, I thought I would very quickly rate (out of [10]) the albums that I’ve acquired already this year:

Compact Discs

• Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record: incredible album; worthy of the Polaris Music Prize Short List [10]
• Dan Mangan – Nice, Nice, Very Nice: just like the BSS album above, although in a very different way, a great collection that belongs on the PSL [10]
• Great Lake Swimmers – Ongiara: since I spent so much time enjoying the latest disc from the GLS, I decided to go back and pick-up this one as well [8]
• Holy Fuck – Latin: personally, I don’t think it’s as strong as their previous release, but it’s still got some great songs [8]
• Ohbijou – Beacons: I believe that this album should have at least made the Polaris Long List this year, but it was released way back at the start of the eligibility period, so I’m hoping that it was just forgotten by the voting jurors [10]
• Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: a good album containing a few very good singles (1901, Lisztomania) [7]
• The National – High Violet: a really, really great album that, when you connect with it, digs right into your soul; a very worthy follow-up to the equally amazing Boxer [10]
• Wintersleep – New Inheritors: while The National followed up one great album with another, Wintersleep didn’t manage to do so. I am such a huge fan of Welcome to the Night Sky, but I just can’t get into this disc. I don’t know if it’s over produced or I just expected too much of it [5]

Zunior.com Downloads

• Chad vanGaalen – Soft Airplane: this guy took me a little time to connect with, and it’s certainly not for everyone, but if his style catches you, you’re in for a treat [8]
• Danny Michel – Feather, Fur & Fin: perhaps not a strong an album overall as the other Dan (Mangan), the stand-out tracks here are equally as good [7]

CBC Radio3 Give-aways

• The Acorn – No Ghost: I knew going into this album that it wouldn’t sound like Glory Hope Mountain, but I haven’t yet had enough time to get past that ‘expectation’ of mine to really enjoy it. But, even with that pre-conception, it’s a good album by this Ottawa-based band [7+]

Keep checking my Daytum account to see what else I acquire throughout the rest of the year. I’ll try to do a similar round-up in December of January to cover the rest of 2010. What else do I have on my radar? The new Arcade Fire, of course, and I still have yet to get a copy of the latest from Stars. There are also a few Polaris Long List artists/albums (e.g., Justin Rutledge, You Say Party!, Young Galaxy) or could-have-been PLL artists (e.g., Said the Whale) who I might pick-up.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.