The Tune You’ll Be Humming Forever, All the Words are Replaced and Wrong; With a Shower of Yeahs and Whatevers, You Trade Me Away Long Gone

Wednesday. Well, back to the boredom. I've kept busy, but not the exciting kind of busy. More like the busywork kind of busy. To be exact, the "let's stare at an Excel spreadsheet screen all day compiling line item reports" kind of busywork. So, I guess being busy isn't always a cure for boredom, but it is helping pass the time I guess. Other than that, not too much going on as far as work goes.

During my time off I tried to discover some new tunes through my usual combination of searching Live Plasma for bands similar to the ones I already know and then sampling their songs on Amazon. I was typing in some band, probably Modest Mouse or Built to Spill or something, and it came up with a band called the New Pornographers. I don't know exactly what happened to the old ones (perhaps overtaken with the onset of digital media vs. video tape), but these were the new ones and I decided to check them out. Unfortunately, Amazon did not have any song snippets to sample. The reviews seemed favorable, and described music I liked, but I have been burned by this before. Someone says that some album is the greatest of all time and it sounds like this and that group, but when I actually hear the tunes they are nothing at all like the reviewer made it out to be (probably a lot like your respective reactions after hearing the music I discuss on this blog...). But, I decided I was going to take a chance on this one so I asked the music fairy to help me out and sure enough three albums appeared on my hard drive shortly after.

I had no idea who these guys were, so I decided to try to find some background info on this group. At this time, I would like to say that one should be VERY careful when researching a band named "The New Pornographers" when sitting at a work computer. If my post tomorrow regards my immediate dismissal, well, let's just say you'll know why. Anyway, it appears that the NP are similar to Broken Social Scene in the fact that the band is actually made up of people who are from other bands. The NP are also from Canada as well. What is the deal? I guess all of the coolest indy super-groups are coming out of Canada these days.

I didn't know which album to start with, so I went with Mass Romantic. I took a risk on this one and it paid off. I had no idea what to expect, but I ended up really enjoying this album. These guys are pretty cool. I don't really know how to describe them, though. They for sure don't sound like Modest Mouse or Built to Spill if that is what Live Plasma connected them to. They are more like over-the-top indy pop or something. Every single song is upbeat. There are no downers on this one. Even the depressingly titled My Slow Descent into Alcoholism is presented in a smiley-faced manner. My only complaint was that my copy of this album either had some pretty bad skips in it, or this was some of the roughest sound editing I've ever come across. I'm guessing it was the former, though.

I really liked these guys. Despite their name, Mass Romantic wasn't raunchy, obscene or misogynistic in any way that I noticed. Of course, for some of you that may be a disappointment, but I'm going to recommend this album anyway. I really liked it and I am excited to hear more of what this band has to offer.