Sound Machine Dream

I did not hear this album when it was a new release. All the acquaintances I have who either got the album / heard on the radio of The Black Angels, were unimpressed, they had no praise to give. Their first single I heard did nothing for me either, so figuring that my friends had good taste enough to know when something should be ignored, I intentionally avoided hearing Passover. Turns out that they were wrong, and The Black Angels are awesome. I was blown away—perhaps due to low expectations—but I think it has to do with me actually loving their music. The sonic inspirations they draw from, the clever yet hazy flow of the lyrics, the simplicity, the blatant ode to late 60's underground rock 'n' roll, it all inspires reserved excitement and longing for what once was. I am totally into the post-modern, we have no avant garde, redo-our-cool-past-again attitude.

The first five seconds of track that I heard immediately made me think of shiny boots of leather, from The Velvet Underground and Nico. There is strange droning in the background, a complete 60's era recorded sound, the guitar distortion sounds like screwdrivers shoved through speaker cones, it is amazing. These guys must love Lou Reed. I hear Brian Jonestown Massacre, as well as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, some of the more experimental Stones recordings and similarities with the Raveonettes. It is a dark, dreamy, drugged out vibe.

the black angels are from texas, and apparently in the desert you only hear 3 chords. Song structures leave a little to be desired, sometimes the droning becomes monotonous when songs last longer than 3 minutes, or the verse skips a chorus change, and sometimes the vocal lines leave more melody to be desired. Overall this disc is a hit with me. It creates a nice balance of mood, intelligence and romanticism for a bygone era in rock music. I would recommend this to anyone that has listened to Loaded more than once, or thought that BJM was far superior to the Dandy Warhols.

Do not listen to my friend Jeff, he is wrong, we should all like The Black Angels.

I am not a fan of The Cat Empire. This album, while full of good tidbits of quality musicality, underwhelms as a whole. Let us get into why.

First off, Vocals. I cannot get into the vocals. The voice of the lead singer does not do anything for me, and I do not really feel that it does anything for the music either. On top of that, the vocal melodies are not as well formed musically as is everything else.

The everything else I am referring to are the overly complex orchestrations of The Cat Empire's music. Musically it appears that this band has some great talent. However, the complexity of the music does not really seem to serve a purpose. The way the singer delivers the lyrics, and what the lyrics seem to say, does not do justice to the songs. I hear nothing smart to balance the jamming mess of the accompaniment.

Fun, dancey, this stuff is party music. However, I feel somehow that I am being let down by the performance on the record. I bet that live these guys are amazing, and then my whole view of the record might be changed. But, I did see them perform on Leno, and I was not impressed. So, seemingly good musical ability, mediocre singer, unimpressive lyrics and vocal melodies, overly complex orchestration and jams... I prefer simple fun over complex fun, so the Cat Empire has yet to impress me. Fans of Phish, Ozomatli, maybe the Dead, I could see liking this, though they do not seem as smart or as precise as the aformentioned groups. Upbeat - yes, fun - sure, impressive - no. There you have it.

Thank you lord. I loved Funeral so much that I was worried I might be let down by Neon Bible. Thankfully, that is not so. Arcade Fire has managed to create a second, epic, rock and roll masterpiece. hurray!

This album is beautiful. Remarkable arrangements, amazing instrumentation, and really solid song writing. I have a real respect for the lyrical ability of Win Butler. He appears to be a real critical guy. A former american himself, his sort of anti-war, anti-america, anti-fundamentalist stance creates a very interesting, and conflicted album. I mean conflicted in the sense that Butler probably does not want to hate his former homeland... but does he really have a choice? Perhaps not.

This is an amazing follow up and proves once and for all what I have always believed - that the Arcade Fire is, without a doubt, a great band.

* Arcade Fire - Neon Bible\n* The Shins - Wincing the Night Away\n* Modest Mouse - We Were Dead before the Ship even Sank\n* Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder\n* Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha\n

The man known for playing the simple guitar riffs and rythms in The Strokes has decided to come out from the shadow of Casablancas and gives us his solo debut.

An album entitled yours to keep had better be worth keeping. After my initial listens I don't know if it is. This is an enjoyable 12 songs, however I don't know if it will hold up against time. In four years would you have to pay me a grand to stop listening to it? Ten years? I don't think so. With that in mind, prepare yourself to be rocked gently and simply. It is hard to distinguish where the last strokes album ends and this one begins. There is more emphasis on melodic guitar lines, and a greater array of instrumentation, but the song structure is at a minimum, and arrangements remain simple, repetitive and under-developed. As far as song titles, Cartoon Music for Superheroes has the best name, 101 seems to have the best beginning, Holiday is the most "strokesque", Call and Ambulance and Scared seem the most out there to me, and i subsequently enjoy them the most. The vocals sound occasionally like Billy Bragg from the first Mermaid Ave album. There is an attempt at being experimental and folky, but the attempts fall flat. In the simplicity there are some songs that float above the rest as really likable, and then some filler to skip through.

Afterthought: So, I have had a revelation. I am picking back up writing this after a brief sojourn on an airplane, and I have decided this. I don't like this record. It underwhelms. There are a few that are Well...All Right, but overall I wouldn't tell anyone to go buy this, maybe to listen to it if a friend already has it—I have not yet been impressed by it. there, the more you know.

How is it that a band that so many people give semi-critical acclaim too escape me for so long? Its not that I didn't like the smiths, its just that I never listened to them, and now, wow! I love them. However, its strange I feel that I really enjoy the album "louder than bombs" but when I actually listen to the whole thing, there are several filler tracks that I occasionally desire to FF over. There are also a couple songs that I love. The through aways are more than balanced for me by the few songs I have fallen for. Thus an album which while listening earns a few ughhs, finds itself still somehow diefied in my memory. Half a Person and Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now are my two stand-out favorites on the album. There is something still current about the song-writing, and I am a sucker for simple and poppy, yet still "smart".

This collection of Solo Material from morissey does not dissapoint either. Bona Drag is a collection of all Morrissey's solo-act Singles and B-sides previously released by 1988. The songs and production show maturity and individual vision that I do not think the Smith's material did previously. Despite not being particularly hot in sales, this compilation shows to me that Morrissey really was a pop-music visionary who had some great skill at melding melody, picking the right producers for his sound, and creating intricate, smart lyrics that do not stand out against the simple music they ride over.

sidenote: Strangely, while writing this I was reading yet another Chuck Klosterman book in which he describes a smith and morrissey convention in Los Angeles. Apparently, modern, urban latino youth are huge fans of the smiths. Who knew?

So I am finally getting to the point where I am going to be happy with the site again. Hurray. I tried a couple of different things, but in the end I just decided that the old page looked pretty good, so we're going back roughly to that styling. Anyway, I've a lot of new and old albums recently added to the collection, so look forward to many and sundry reviews in the near future.

If you would like your album to be considered for review by the soundmachinedream staff email soundmachinedream at mac dot com for an address to send your album to - or - you can set up a way for us to download the mp3's (yousentit is a nice way, free and easy... and it makes it simple for any of our contributers to get)

I found this not too long ago and was quite intrigued. They recently had some server problems due to too much traffic, but I think their problems have been solved. Anyway, it sounds like authentic, old recordings, and - well you just have to hear it. Basically it is Bob Dylan singing Dr. Seuss... so yeah, its amazing. Check it out at dylanhearsawho.com.

Once upon a time a young gentleman listened to a lot of music. He and his friends gathered together to enjoy all that was indie-rock. College graduation came, the friends parted ways, and the ease of sharing musical likes and dislikes was greatly hampered. This site was created to battle this downward spiral.

We now have feet of snow in minneapolis. wow. This week has been a record snow week i believe. wow. Just letting you all know that the site is obviously going through some major overhauls, but that content is slowly being brought back in along with the redesign and new functionality. We'll also be adding a SMD store section with products like shirts and button packs available. The review style is going to change to a disc by disc basis, which means more entries and less to read each time. Wow.

In the waning moments of the year top ten lists are about as omni-present as snow and frigid winds in winter-land chicago (where I find myself now). I feel some temptation to join in such musical end-of-the-year revelries, but rather than trying to gather the blue-ribbon winning bands into a little pen for a casual critic's petting zoo—admittedly an alluring idea when considering options like Grizzly Bear, the Mountain Goats, or Band of

Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s – The Dust of Retreat
My friend bought this at a promo sale at his work because he thought the cover looked cool. Turns out this might be the best release I heard this year.

We took a break in November, and now are back at the end of the year with some amazing goodies for all of you. We hope to be posting many and sundry lists and rants on the state of music in 2006 and what was the best, what was the worst, what rocked hard and what was just crazy. As I sit here typing the first real snow has just started to fall here in Minneapolis, the Rolling Stones Their Satanic Majesties Request is on the stereo, and an eery

Holy shit! I was prepared to be very underwhelmed by this recording. Instead, it overcame all my preconceptions and really impressed me.

Tommy is a rock and roll classic. There, I said it. Before the pedophilia charges, before being banned from all holiday inns, before the rhythm section ended up under ground, there was Tommy. Pete Townsend's crowning rock achievement, besides the windmill move... Tons of rich orchestration, rock and roll, pinball, story born out of a drug trip, what more could you ask for? I recently re-watched the feature film version, and that spurred my renewed interest in the album. The theatrical version contains spots by Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Elton John, and of course The Who. The album features Roger Daltry singing all parts that would later be filled by the greats I just listed. My preference is for Roger Daltry. Maybe it is the distance in time seperating the film from the album, but Roger's voice carries much more weight on the songs than any of the later guests. (take for example Elton John's Pinball Wizard... need i say more?) In addition to Tommy, i also have been playing Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy, and older English import Who greatest hits album. Go hear yourself a Who.

There is something about South Dakota that seems to drive people into severe sadness. If you have listened to any Kid Dakota records, you may know what I am talking about. Haley does have a way of making the melancholy cute however (a glance inside the album jacket shows her grinning a bright smile with a cheerfully green windbreaker on).

The next album I have to gush over is Everything all the Time. If you have yet to listen to Band of Horses, do yourself a favor and do it. I was told on numerous occasions to give this a listen - not wanting to believe that it would actually be good, did not - until now! The wall I had built to keep out the sounds of Band of Horses was finally broken after visiting their very nice website and downloading their mp3's. I then bought the album. Picture Oh! Inverted World era Shins, a healthy dose of the Arcade Fire, the vocals from a My Morning Jacket song, and voila! you get a decent idea of what this record sounds like. They kick the record off with a song aptly titled The First Song after which they take it up a notch with Wicked Gil. The Funeral, track 4, is probably their most played "single." The Great Salt Lake is an epic start to the second half of the record, followed by the most playful and good-times-indie-rocking-and-rolling song off the record, Weed Party. The last few tracks wind down to a sleeper of an ending in St. Augustine, which though a lovely song, does not in do the right sort of justice to the rest of the tracks. All-in-all a very nice full-length from Band of Horses, and it keeps the interest up as to what they might do next.

The Magnolia Electric Co. album (They'll always be songs:ohia to me... everytime i start to talk or write about them, songs:ohia comes out first...) is beautifully done as per usual. The songs are very nice, and the sound of the band continues to be more and more refined.

This is an album that I cannot believe is over a decade old already. Amazing. It still sounds current, still sounds exciting, still sounds like it has urgency and meaning, still sounds just plain good. This album has been showing up quite often in my itunes shuffle rotation. It is something that I never could quite place just hearing it in the background. However, once it finally came to me that all these songs I was hearing were on one album, and that it was a yo la tengo album, i got a little hooked.

Starting with Decora (which Spoon covers on a compilation album by the Believer Magazine of favorite indie covers by other indies) you know you are off to a good start. The album as a whole has a nice combination of noise and melody and excitement and energy and just the perfect hint of quiteness to bring it down a notch in just the right places.

“Tom Courtenay,” track 4, is one of my favorite songs on the album. The opening has the correct amount of memorable melody and memorable lyrics - “Hilary Christie, the rumors are true...” great opening lines. The songs placement in the order makes the Tom Coutenay suddenly rock pretty hard.

As a whole there is a nice flow from song to song, a general cohesive feel to all the songs without them all simply sounding the same. I love that in an album. There are some sonic refernces to the Velvet Underground in the types and durations of distorted song endings, particularly the song “Attack on Love,” a sort of sonic battle which sounds as though it could have come of of the Velvet underground and Nico.

Yo La Tengo has just released a new record called “I am not afraid of you and i will beat your ass,” wow! The new album shows remarkable growth over the last decade. Now there are several albums in between, but just listening to the two in a row shows that it is still the same band, but that they have a new matured sound that has lost the angst but gained a wry wit that shows in smart piano parts and milder distorted guitars, flutterly falseto vocal lines and lovely, snappy drum parts.

I have had the pleasure to know this band for some time now. While at my lowly 2024 records intern position these guys were signed to the label. I have probably seen them play live about fifty times now, and each time they are just as grateful that everyone has come out to see them. I do not think the realization that the twin cities really enjoys them has sunk in yet.

This is their first proper full-length as a band. The original album that got them all their hype and shows was simply an EP that band leader Andy Flynn recorded with T.W.Walsh (of Pedro the lion album production fame). It was simple and slow and beautiful. The full band effort reinvisions some of the EP's songs with the “full band feel.” The guitar parts lazily mingle with one another, the drums trudge evenly along, and the vocals float beautifully above it all. There is no rushed feeling to any of the numbers, they all keep an even pace, moving from one song to the next, marching steadily from beginning to end.

My favorite duplomacy song is still Coppertone, which has been given new life since the EP. I just love the lyric “Maybe we should call it off, leave what's bad enough alone / such a sunny attitude, without a drop of coppertone.” Another aspect of Dupe's songs that always catches me are the internal song transitions. There is a big build up in some of the numbers that always takes you by surprise. Suddenly a wall of distortion blows into the mix, or the tempo suddenly changes, or perhaps the song takes a complete twist.

That is the beauty of the album, the song structures may be simple, but Duplomacy is not afraid to change it up unexpectedly to give you something new and original from some well-trodden territory.

Camera Obscura are fans of Mo-Town music. This may not be a for sure fact, but it is what i take away from listening to their music. Particularly on “Let's Get Out of This Country,” they sound as if they have channeled Phil Spector and his vintage reverb into their recording. The drum beats are there too, the few standard mo-town beats fill a songs like “Lloyd, I’m ready to be Heartbroken,” “Come Back Margaret,” and “Let’s get out of this Country.”

They have the feel of a more nostalgic to Belle and Sebastian, nicely orchestrated with female vocals that sit firmly on top of the music. They fall into the sonic realm that i really enjoy to just listen to over and over again. At first the music is enjoyable enough on its own to read or eat or cook or design websites too, but as you continue to listen you start to hear the nuances in the lyrics, and pick up on the extra sounds and harmonies floating amongst the rest of the mix. Another album that might not blow you away like Funeral or Oh! inverted World, but that will be enjoyable for many listens to come

Do you like Black Sabbath or Led Zepplin or maybe AC/DC if so than go and buy this right now. i mean it, right now. There is absolutely nothing original about this album, nothing, all of their chops and tricks have been taken directly from the pantheon of the hard rock gods. The only thing is that they haven't been done in a while, and maybe what everyone needs right now is this decades Masters of Reality. The fact remains that while this album may not be original it is fun to listen to. And for all you kids out there who's parents did not own any Sabbath or Zepplin perhaps this will do for you, and maybe even sound engagingly fresh. The song “Woman” is the stand out track for me on this record, it is plain and simple and rocks. And that is what this album is all about, 3 kids from australia playing hard rock simply and plainly. Fun but nothing fancy, brainless enjoyment for the masses who missed out on early ozzy. Oh, the album artwork is totally awesome. Cliche in the same way as the music, but awesome none the less.