MUSICAL FAUNA

I can admit to being wrong. I'd heard "Abel" by The National on KEXP a number of times and I'd liked it but I lumped them in with all the hot British bands of the moment - your Killers and what have you. Um, mistake. For one, they're American. Oops. LTR recommended them to me back in January and I gave Alligator a chance. Glad I did. They offer intelligent lyrics and a nice mix of moody music with instrumentation that features violin and cello in addition to your regular guitar and piano-driven songs and songs that rock, like the afore-mentioned "Abel" and "Mr. November," the rousing album closer. In fact, they remind me of American Music Club (helped by Matt Berninger's baritone) and that's not a bad thing at all. Highly recommended.

Tapes 'n Tapes has been touted by a number of music bloggers for a while now, going back to last year. I was a little slow in checking them out but once I heard "Cowbell" I had to go to their website a listen to a few more tracks. I liked what I heard and ordered up The Loon. It's definitely an indie record but it's the good kind - varied musical styles and tones, interesting lyrics (even if I haven't totally parsed them yet), and lots of energy. They can sound like Arcade Fire ("Manitoba," possibly my favorite track) or The Pixies (the fun instrumental "Crazy Eights") or what have you but it's never derivative. Here's one time where the hype is justified. Oh, they'll be playing live on KEXP tomorrow afternoon (3/25) at Noon PST - check it out.

I didn't know who Neko Case was before The New Pornographers (and I didn't discover them until Electric Version, but that's another story) but once I fell in love with that band I had to branch out to its individual members. I grabbed Neko's Blacklisted and picked up her live album when it came out in late 2004, which had me ready to pounce on Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. I think it's her best work yet and the first half is particularly strong. Her lyrics are full of strange images this time around and don't necessarily tell a story, yet they seem full of meaning. Meaning I haven't quite grasped yet. But that doesn't mean I'm not entrance by the folk and country-tinged strains of the title track and "Star Witness" and "Hold On, Hold On" and "That Teenage Feeling," which feels like a lost hit from the late 1950s. My only issue is that many of the songs fall into a range of 2:30 to 2:45. That lack of variety in song length can sometimes make the songs blur into each other, especially on the second half. But that isn't new for Case and it's no reason not to go out and grab the album.