Select Date
The calendar requires Javascript.
Entries
HOT OFF THE PRESS (#11) - Peter Bjorn and John & Grouper
by Nick Courtright
It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s time for Nick Courtright’s weekly first glance at music discovered in the last seven days, whether it be just-released, just-leaked, or some long-lost gem that has remained under the radar. Click here for other recent editions of Hot Off the Press, featuring acts such as of Montreal, Vivian Girls, Bodies of Water, White Denim, Conor Oberst, The Walkmen, The Bug, Fight Bite, and Grizzly Bear.
Peter Bjorn & John – Seaside Rock
to be released on September 23 by Almost Gold Recordings
Report Card: B
Nothing like flaunting the international fame and acclaim you got with a dyed-in-the-wool pop album by making its follow-up an instrumental collection destined to be slept on by most everyone who was chanting your name last year. But at the same time, while Writer’s Block got all the teenagers in a tizzy with the dazzlingly poptastic “Young Folks”—not to mention the rest of the album, which was undoubtedly one of the last five years’ most solid and unabashed homes for catchy-as-hell sugar hooks—Seaside Rock is a testament to a band who’s willing to say a little bit of “fuck you” to the slavering masses, a testament that declares that musical integrity and continued exploration are more important to this band than a continued assault on the tender eardrums of the thoughtless youth. Either that or they’re running away, like pansies, from expectations.