This is shit, that is shit and being shit is great...

Malcolm Middleton - Total Belief
Ignoring all of the hype surrounding his bid for chart glory (last I heard in the midweeks, a disappointing number 26, with a bullet EDIT: a respectable 31), it's easy to forget that Malcolm Middleton is one of the most underrated songwriters of the past few years. The new mini-album Sleight of Heart is a much lower-key affair than the massive-sounding A Brighter Beat, which is a damn good thing; although it was interesting to hear him go that way, it didn't really suit him. Sleight is closer in sound to 2005's Into The Woods, which did the pop thing without being exhausting.

'Total Belief' has been a fixture of Middleton's solo shows for the whole year, and apparently wasn't good enough to make it onto A Brighter Beat (though he probably just couldn't find a way to make it a full band extravaganza with whistles, bells and a children's choir). It's far jauntier than his usual efforts, while the lyrics, as usual, straddle the fine line between candid and stupid. The track's pulled off with too much charm for it to ever lapse into self-parody, which seems to be a talent Malcolm Middleton is extremely good at. How the album will fare following the 'We're All Going To Die' pallava remains to be seen, but this is certainly not going to disappoint the faithful.


The Mountain Goats - Lovecraft In Brooklyn
The Mountain Goats - Source Decay

On top of the Middleton album, I managed to find a promo of the new Mountain Goats album. My theory on the Mountain Goats, at least as far as the newer, 4AD material is concerned, is that they alternate in quality. Tallahassee - great. We Shall All Be Healed - meh. The Sunset Tree - amazing. Get Lonely - alright. They were due another near-classic, and good Christ have they delivered. With Heretic Pride, John Darnielle may have just written his best batch of tunes since All Hail West Texas.

Lovecraft In Brooklyn is the heaviest thing on the album, and probably the heaviest track he's ever penned. It was also the one that struck me the most when I gave the album a cursory listen on the way back from work - the first Mountain Goats song you can dance to...if you aren't too busy listening to the lyrics, that is. Purists may be appalled at how much more produced it is, even than the rest of Darnielle's recent output, but it's nice to hear JD going in a slightly different direction from the introspective musings of Get Lonely. YET another of the first great albums of 2008.

Oh and Malcolm, seeing as you say you still can't get your head around them, let's see if the other track can change your mind. Source Decay is an older track from the boombox days of 2002's album 'All Hail West Texas'.


British Sea Power - No Lucifer
Aside from the absolutely glorious production, the best thing about Do You Like Rock Music?, the album this comes from, is hearing Hamilton (whose shaky, almost-twee delivery underpinned earlier tracks like 'Blackout' and 'The Land Beyond') come completely into his own with his songwriting and vocals; the three best tracks on the album are his, and he sounds far less scared of the microphone than he ever did before.

The whole LP is an epic pop monster - it merges The Decline Of...'s spiky punk temperament with Open Season's pastoral grandeur, and emerges as the most confident collection of songs the band have written yet. While Yan's songs veer into more epic territory (witness new single 'Waving Flags' or the multi-part epic 'Lights Out for Darker Skies'), Hamilton is writing the (relatively) straightforward anthems that cry out to be heard by more people. This is probably the best of the lot - hell, it's probably the best track BSP have ever done. If they don't release this as a single, they're even barmier than I thought...


Rivers Cuomo - Wanda (You're My Only Love)
It's common knowledge that Rivers Cuomo wrote at least 25 of the best songs of the 90s. His new collection of old demos, Alone, is essential for hardcore Weezer fans and innocent bystanders alike, and shows that there are plenty more waiting in the wings. This, originally intended for the soundtrack of the film Angus (no, me neither...) but pulled at the last minute), crops up on the album in the middle of the much-coveted run of demos from the aborted Songs From The Black Hole album, which appears to take attention away from the fact this song exists at all. A heartfelt countryish lament for lost love, 'Wanda' seems a little out of step with the rest of the demos on the album, which mostly sound like classic Weezer fare (aside from This Is The Way's dire excursion into synthpop and Crazy One's Elliott Smith-esque chug), but deserves a place in the hearts of any Weezer fans who didn't give it a chance the first few times they spun the record.


Longpigs - Jesus Christ
This one's really just a personal indulgence. The past few months of my life have been soundtracked by very little else but the first Longpigs album The Sun Is Often Out, and this has fast become one of my all-time favourite songs, and a compilation tape staple. It's got thrash, bite, guitars that sound like dying pigs and most importantly, a fucking fantastic chorus. TSIOO is easily one of the finest records of the 90's, and one that most bands nowadays could do with listening to before deciding whether or not they should even bother.

A x