Best band (electronica)

My love of Passion Pit began with their first EP and has lasted ever since. Their fantastic debut was dampened slightly but what I regard as a less-impressive LP release (still great! I just liked Chunk of Change a whole lot more!). Surprisingly enough, this post is not about Passion Pit. They are the runners-up.

The glory (small as it is) here has to go to Los Campesinos!, whom I have been enamored with for a little longer. They've also been around longer, though I got only that train a little late (early enough to catch their debut full-length, though). I also haven't yet picked up their newest LP (Romance Is Boring) because I can't really afford it, but based on the tracks I've heard I'm willing to give this category to them anyways. The title track alone is good enough to warrant a purchase. A friend of mine (my erstwhile partner in this whole blogging business) showed me one of their videos, and I grabbed Hold On Now, Youngster on vinyl (it comes with some great pack-ins: a poster and a second platter with an extra song on one side and some art engraved on the other).

To summarize what Los Campesinos do with music, I'm going to go with saying that they manage to tell a coherent idea through nearly incoherent lyrics. Every line, on its own, would seem to be part of a nonsense song. It's not entirely unfair to say that some of their numbers are nonsense songs. But then you get one like You! Me! Dancing! or International Tweexcore Underground, that tells an involved narrative about the music scene and its effects on people, and you're forced to realize that you're listening to incredibly poppy electronica with a finely-honed edge, and that it actually has something to tell you.

Since I've apparently gotten myself into a cycle of including lyrics in my posts, one of the best ones off the top of my head is: "We have to take the car, 'cause the bike's on fire/We cannot trust your friends, 'cause they were born liars" from "This is How You Spell 'Hahaha We Destroyed the Hopes and the Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics'". Yes, Los Campesinos write more eloquent song titles than most bands write song lyrics.

Best band (indie rock)

Before we begin this particular love-fest, let me lay out what I mean by indie rock. I mean the kind of band that is mostly based around the guitar-bass-drums archetype, a "traditional" rock band. Basically, it's totally subjective.

So, after all that, I'm talking here about the Lonely Forest. So far the most popular group I've written about - not saying much, but they are the only one with a Wikipedia page - I first heard of them through total coincidence. While standing outside an underwhelming show at the Vera Project in Seattle, getting ready to ditch out on the show with a few friends, a very excited guy came out of the door and introduced himself as John Van Deusen, and urged us to stay until the last band, because it was his. He then left to get cookies. The show started with a room full of bored, stock still hipsters but ended with nearly everyone on the floor dancing. I went out and bought their concept album Nuclear Winter the next day.

Recently, the Lonely Forest released We Sing the Body Electric, their newest LP. Based on a couple concerts and a lot of listening on podcasts and the internet, it is a pretty fantastic follow-up. Whereas Nuclear Winter chronicled a single story of a family escaping a world war, WSBE is a more traditional album with a few stand-outs: the title track and Turn Off The Song And Go Outside among them.

I love this band not because of their musical style, but because of the sincerity of Van Deusen's vocals. The music is great, don't get me wrong, but the melodic, minimalist refrain of Two Pink Pills ("I hear a voice, so faint and weak, two pink pills to fall asleep") - so unlike the rest of their catalog - and the heavy lyrics of Turn Off The Song ("I've seen the tweakers struggle, syringes line the floor") tell the story of the songwriter's struggle with and overcome addiction in between albums.

http://www.myspace.com/thelonelyforest

Best band around right now

I first heard Hey Marseilles on the late Seattle radio show Too Beautiful to Live (now relegated to the realm of podcasting, or "imaginary radio"), and was immediately drawn in by the fact that they could not fit most of their band into the studio. After grabbing the track Rio off the KEXP Song of the Day Podcast and seeing a couple of their live shows, I picked up their debut CD To Travels & Trunks. It is fantastic - every song is a wonderful mix of the nine members (or so - there are quite a lot) and their various instruments playing both instrumental and lyrically incredible music.

They just released their album as an LP. I think I might buy it again. This is coming from a person who is actively concerned about whether he will have enough money at the end of the year to pay his taxes. Hey Marseilles are very good.

http://www.heymarseilles.com/

Best song around right now

Off the People In A Position To Know sampler CD (the origins of which I'm going to need to go into in another post) comes a fantastic track from a band I've never heard of. "Come On Mona" by Mona Reels is a bright, almost twee track with a solid piano back. In fact, listening to the song I'm unable to hear any guitar, just the piano and drums, with a few bits of harmony thrown in among the singing. Speaking of the singing, the lyrics are fantastic: "I found her very smart, she said 'you're just too dumb, and that's going to be the only time I tell someone'" is just one of the better bits. Despite a line like that, it's still an incredibly upbeat number. Check it out.

http://www.myspace.com/themonareels