Frontwomen - Gwen Stefani and Shirley Manson

For some reason I had no idea that No Doubt where releasing a new album so I was pleasantly surprised when I found it late last night. Not brilliant, but quite good poppy, I thought. This morning I decided to look for a clip for "Stand and deliver". It's growing on me, that song, and I wanted to pass it on to a friend of mine. What I found, made my eyes fill up with water; two of my favourite frontwomen on one stage. There are few that have such presence, energy, uniqueness and are so much themselves as Gwen and Shirley! Feel that energy, darn it, wish I had been there!Didelly qua qua!


(I think there will be more about the No Doubt album later, it's really growing on me. You can listen to it here.)

New Album: Maximo Park - The National Health

Thankfully a spare moment to write a little blog post. The last year has been full off work and studies and stress from one place to the other. Now my studies are over and I actually have three days of for the first time in longer than I can remember.

Hope you are having a good summer everyone. We had a fantastic 2 week summer as I was writing my latest assignments for my studies. When it went to over +30C in the appartment, my boyfriend started fanning me and kept serving me ice cubes constantly. I want that kind of weather now! Or maybe in the beginning of July. We are also moving soon, so I think there might actually be some posts in the "life" category too, soon.

So! To Maximo Park. Maximo Park snuck into my life maybe 7 years ago. I kept hearing their song (Going missing) on a local radio station again and again and loving it and wondering what it was. This was on the other hand one of these radio station that only tells their listeners once every hour what you have been listening too, and by the time they revealed that information the headphones were off and I was out of the tram and safe and sound at home. Finnally I found out what it was and since I have been a fan.

I loved parts of singer Paul Smiths solo album that came out a few years back, but very excited to hear a new Maximo Park album. They have a very unique energy and intensity that makes me want to jump up and down and go crazy to the music. The single from The new album with the same title, The National Health came a while ago and I instantly really loved it. On this album they have more electronic elements, sounding like 80's synths, but in difference to other bands (like on the latest The Editors album ) they mange to blend it seamlessly in with their angry rock guitars. So far I think my favorite track is "Hips and Lips" that does just that perfectly. Beautiful lyrics about not understanding the other person and the way conversations can be puzzling. I am working my way through the rest of the album and I also like it so far. I have a tendency to like a few things at the time and then move over to the rest after a while. :)

Also it feels like rock is back a little this spring, exciting rock, and it makes my heart skip with joy. (Latest Graham Coxon album for instance ) It is nice to hear some real will behind the music, that's the only way I can describe it :) Paul Smiths voice just sounds real, I believe everything he's singing too me. Also there are not only angry guitars on this album, it feels like they have explored the whole spectrum of emotions more. "Reluctant love" almost sounds like some Joy Division in the beginning only with a soft vocals that sounds like Kings of Convenience. "Write this down" sounds like more classic Maximo Park. "Banlieue" mixes synths and guitars brilliantly again. "This is what becomes of the borkenhearted" has a little of the Coldplay desperation and piano. "Take me home" is a cute little number about being out and wanting to go home with someone :) I quote: "There will be no prosponding, any of our emotions tonight. Take me home, I want you."

Wow, this album just keeps getting better and better.

 Enjoy the fantastic video for  "Hips and Lips". What a fantastic kid :)

New album: Dodgy - Stand Upright in a Cool Place

In the late 90's I was given three Dodgy albums at once. And I was very thankful, they were brilliant then and I still think they are great. It's not often that one likes all the songs of three albums. I hope that's not only because anything you listened to when you were 19 is steeped with memories and intense feelings. I was, as you can imagine, thrilled to find out that Dodgy had gotten back together and even more thrilled now, when I found out there is a new album coming out!
The new single sounds a lot like what they used to sound like, some kind of classic Dodgy sound. It's just catchy, smooth and wonderful. It's a bit like if someone has blended the classic rock bands of America of the 70's like The Eagles and Chicago and Noel Gallagher solo somehow, I think. To me it most of all feel like I have been asleep and someone put on real music again. Very curious about the rest of the album, get ready for the 20th of February! I am sure I will be back with more then.
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New music and new album: The Duke Spirit - Bruiser

Since I first heard The Duke Spirit, I have been hooked. For me it was such a fresh breath of air to hear someone who still makes good arrangements, have great guitar riffs, and last, but not least, the voice of Liela Moss. She also is one of the greatest front woman I have seen in a long, long time. She in some ways remind me (and others) of Debbie Harris in Blondie. Thought they are very different, she certainly have the same edge and is able to hold you under her spell.
It makes me believe in contemporary music. It's been a long time since I have seen this kind of soul, heart and drive.

On their latest album Bruiser, they have done it again. This is classic great rock'n'roll that makes you want to party and run around the room, but thankfully there are more depth to it as well. Lielas voice is the core of it all, she takes you by the hand and takes you through tough screaming hard core rock tunes, but also more tender moments with an intensity that reminds me of PJ Harvey at times, for instance in the beginning of the song "Sweet Bitter Sweet". The guitar riffs are always edgy and if they had just gone totally through every song, it would have been very boring, though quite powerful. Thankfully The Duke Spirit are also masters of building up to climaxes and arrangements of instruments and when to take one or all away to give the music air and excitement. Brick walls of guitars works extremely well in small portions and I think they know :)

In addition to all of this the intensity is always present. I feel like shaking my head constantly to the beat. I always like artists that play and sing like they would die if they weren't allowed to do it, and I get that feeling from The Duke Spirit. I also tend to love music that I would love to play myself, because it sounds like they are having so darn much fun. This is no exception.

My favourites so far are "Everybody's Under Your Spell", "Villain" and "Surrender". They all have some kind of "perfect hit" sense about them. They are just darn good songs and good . But I am starting to love the others more and more. They are growing on me for every play. I love how "Everybody's Under Your Spell" has an amazing beginning of rhythms. You think you finally got the rhythm, but then it changes, before it plummets into the deep and drags you with it, and reaches a climatic refrain. So sexy, so raw, so cool. "Villain" is just deep haunting and grand.

To fully appreciate The Duke Spirit, you need to see them live though. I can see them live in my head when I listen, and to me that adds an extra dimension to the music. So here are my favourite live clips and other useful links:

Bruiser on Spotify
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New music and New Album: Veronica Maggio - Satan i Gatan

It's not often that the first round I listen to a album I find myself really enjoying and listening to the lyrics. Whenever that happens, it's quite a miracle and deserves a blog post just for that. I just put on the new album to the Swedish artist Veronica Maggio, just for fun and was totally blown away. Beautiful pop song with so much soul and honesty and power, lovely stuff! I am looking forward to checking out every little detail of the album as I go along. And her voice is amazing, it captures you and draws you in. It's sharp, demanding and clear, but in a very very good way. Great music for a Saturday morning, though not always so happy lyrics. If she continues in the tracks of the last album, very likely from what I have heard, she is highly self ironic and talks about her own little party life a lot, and I just like it. I wasn't sure when I heard her old album, it just sounded winy, but for some reason it now works! It's almost as catchy as Kent at times. And she's amazingly good at build ups to. Guitar riffs are almost as catchy as Håkan Hellstrøm. I guess this is Swedish delight. Makes me shake around the room. :) Enjoy!

Spotify link

And Jag kommer - I am coming.
This may easily be the one that ends up as my first favourite. Here is the video.

New music and new album: Gorillaz - The Fall

Well, as I have stated in this blog before, I pretty much like any music as long as Damon Albarn sings. And when it comes to the new Gorillaz album it's no exception. From the moment I put this record on it was just clear to me that this is a darn good record! It's something with the flow of the whole thing. It's just beautiful! Hurrah! Great new music, there is almost nothing like it.

Yesterday I read up a bit on the story of the Gorillaz as well and how that whole thing started. I love it:

"Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett created Gorillaz in 1998 when they were living together in a flat on Westbourne Grove.[10] The idea to create the band came about when the two were watching MTV, "if you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell – there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that," Hewlett said".(quote from Wikipedia).

I also read somewhere else that from the beginning the idea behind the band was to mix all kinds of genres and just see what happened. To me that must be the greatest idea for a band I have ever heard of. It made me respect and love them even more.

The new album The Fall was also recorded and made in a very interesting way.

"The entire album was recorded on group founder Damon Albarn's Apple iPad, during the American leg of the Escape to Plastic Beach World Tour in October 2010, and mixed in England by Stephen Sedgwick"(Wikipedia)

. If you look at the albums track listing it's very clear that this songs were made in different places in America. Most of the songs titles have some reference to the place where they were made. And to make it all in a quite new media and within the boundaries of that seams like a brilliant idea. To me that means you have to be creative in a whole other way than if everything is available to you. It seams like it can be both a comfort for the "musicmaker" and a horror. The Gorillaz succeeded, that's for sure. I want to make my own sounds too.

In some ways, the new Gorillaz album is what I hoped that the new Radiohead album would be.. It just sound fresh and exciting and new, but of course very much like Damon made it :) It will be exciting to see what Mr. Coxon will release upon the world soon. Oh how I wish someone could make these too make music together again. That would result in something truly new and exciting, I think.

Spotify
There is also supposed to be a new video on YouTube for Amarillo, but I can't find it. Feel free to look :)

New music: Arctic Monkeys and Foo Fighters

It feels like the whole of 2010 went past with any quality rock music. All my favourite rock band seamed to want to start playing some weird kind of 80's rock hard synth pop style and throw the guitars out the windows. Well, I like guitars, so shoot me. I like them a lot together with tons of interesting electronica effects too. But not rock bands who just removed all trace of the guitar band they once was. Some examples are the latest album from The Strokes', The Editors' and Kent's latest albums. And it seams like Radiohead has stopped doing rock and guitars too.

In all of this, I am extremely happy with the latest album of Foo Fighters and what I have heard so far from the latest Arctic Monkeys album. The Foo fighters are still masters at both amazing use of rhythms and the skills of hit writing that is almost at Bon Jovi and U2 level. The songs that stick around in your mind and you just love. I need to listen more to the new album, but so far it's just great and makes me go "oh, cool! " That is not often in my musical world. Arctic Monkeys released another single from their upcoming album on their web page to, and it just sounds as great quality as always. They just have their own significant and quite brilliant signature that stays with them even if they expand and grow. Let's hope the future will see more of this at other people too. There must be time for some rock'n'roll soon now. The last years have been either metal or pop.

Foo fighters new album on Spotify
Arctic Monkeys new single

The new Imogen Heap album!

This is so beautiful it makes me cry!! What a musician, what a composer and last but not least, what a producer!! ENJOY!