Opinz

Keane – Perfect Symmetry

Keane will never be blamed for inciting a riot, and being known as a marginally successful piano-pop band was good enough reason for them to try something new – that “new” is Perfect Symmetry, an attempt at self-reinvention that is pretty large scale, but ultimately falls flat because there’s no breathing room; every song sounds like it wants to be an anthem, and all of the vocals sound the same – like a bad impression of Better Than Ezra – and while it sounds like Keane is trying to catch up to The Killers, they end up sounding like an insincere cover band.
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Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective have taken the melodic tones of previous effort Strawberry Jam, the sunny, beachy colors of Panda Bear’s ethereal solo album, and the liquid sounds of 2008’s Water Curses EP and built them into something more accessible, dizzying, and entertaining than any album they’ve ever made before – a captivating hour of shimmering synths, pounding beats, gorgeous harmonizing, and (gasp!) amazingly catchy hooks.

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Passion Pit – Chunk of Change

Passion Pit is a group from Massachussetts that paints warm, magically textured electro-pop from a wide palate of shimmering sounds and lead singer Michael Anelakos’ falsetto, to mixed but incredibly promising results. (Single “Sleepyhead” is one of the best songs of the year.)

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Fall Out Boy – Folie à Deux

It’s almost too easy to hate a band who writes songs about the “emo scene,” but here’s the thing: if you can listen to this record and take completely at face value, you’ll find it at the very least sonically interesting (for the most part) and at best a fun collection of (mostly) well-written songs that are better than most “pop punk” music out there; Fall Out Boy are easily dumped into the Blink-182-clone trash heap but are doing more on Folie à Deux to escape it than in the past, and the result is a more enjoyable album than they’ve ever made. More »

Alphabeat – This Is Alphabeat

We defy anyone to create a happier, catchier album than This Is Alphabeat – there is so much pep that turning it off is akin to drug withdrawal…the problem is that while the songs are well crafted it quickly becomes apparent that no one on this planet should be this happy, and turns what should be a very good pop album into something of a guilty pleasure – the kind of music you listen to in your car, but only in the winter when you can’t roll the windows down so someone can hear. More »

David Byrne and Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

Byrne and Eno’s first collaboration since 1981’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Everything That Happens is a totally different affair, trading in sampling experiments for funky pop – often producing brilliantly entertaining results (“Everything That Happens”, “Strange Overtones”) but sometimes coming off as unfortunately dated.

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