Album Review: Regina Spektor - What We Saw from the Cheap Seats

Regina Spektor has been in the music game for six albums now, including this one. She broke out with 2004’s Soviet Kitsch, and five years later she was on every mixtape due to the movie 500 Days of Summer. Then 2009 came around and she released Far, which was quite good and gave her a little push into a bigger audience.

And now we’re at her latest album, the greatly titled What We Saw from the Cheap Seats. Spektor continues her fantastic piano ballads and unique singing voice all over this record. But, unfortunately, Spektor floods her beautiful songs with a lot of mediocre fluff. Many have found Spektor to be a musician who has a lot of good songs but never really a good album, something that could describe Cheap Seats.

Other than that usual fault the album still is very nicely done. The blues-like “How” is incredibly saddening and vulnerable for Spektor and the single “All the Rowboats” is a nice anxious sounding track after such a lovely downward spiral. Though the odd noises Spektor makes during “Open” causes cringing moments that reminds one of Soviet Kitsch’s “Your Honor.” But what can ya do? It’s Regina. 

And that’s the real point. It’s Regina Spektor. She is what she is and that is what makes us fans of her musical career. She has average songs but those songs are much better than a lot of things out there now. Bravo, Regina. You made another neat album full of jams, even if some of them are a little creepy sounding.

Grade: A- 

Album Review: Sigur Rós - Valtari

Originally demoed in 2009, scrapped, and then returned to, the songs off of Sigur Rós’ sixth studio album Valtari have a nice placement in their strong discography.

Not being poppy-like from their 2008 album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, Valtari remains a very atmospheric album which is something the band hasn’t done since 2007. The song “Lúppulagið” (which funnily translates to “The Loop Song”) from last year’s live album Inni reappears on Valtari but retitled “Varðeldur.” The rest of the album features song electronic aspects but not in the way you imagine. Members of the band have said that it is not “like a dance album! It’s an organic thing.” There are some electric drums and some sounds that obviously aren’t organic, but the sounds are definitely added in for the atmospheric sound.

What’s interesting with bands that are described as atmospheric is that it can mean two things: Boring or enlightening. Sigur Rós continues to be on the enlightening side of things, giving whatever your doing throughout your day a nice soundtrack to bleed into. Valtari goes back to the band’s earlier years and brings it out in a delightful way.

Grade: B 

Retro Album Review: Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

Writing a beginning to this review is hard to me because Silent Alarm is one of my favorite albums ever. I could talk about how if I were to take an album out on date, it would probably be Silent Alarm. But instead, I’ll try to sound as unbiased as I possibly can. Thank you for your time.
The best albums are albums that instantly bring you back to the first time you listened to them. Your surroundings, your feelings, what was happening in your life at the time, they all come rushing forward once you press (or click) “play.” Bloc Party’s 2005 release Silent Alarm is one of the most perfect examples of this sort of album. Everyone I have met who has listened to Silent Alarm always talks of a story on how they still listen to that album weekly or how they don’t care for that genre anymore but it still is a staple in their rotation of CDs. Even good ol’ Mark Hoppus digs the album. It simply is an album that stands out and never gets old.

Once “Like Eating Glass” opens the record and that echo begins hitting the ears, the fast tempo of Silent Alarm kicks in ASAP. Even when “Positive Tension” begins at a slow pace, it suddenly gets faster and faster as it goes on. Especially when singer Kele Okereke says “So fucking useless.” It kicks a lot of ass quickly.

Someone once said to me that Silent Alarm is the perfect driving album. Now, I doubt they said that only because it lands at a the 50 minute mark, the amount of any good quick road trip, but also because it’s an album that inhabitants something close to a car’s engine. Sometimes the album smokes because it’s going so fast and then realizes it has to calm down with tracks like “So Here We Are.” And while doing so, it lets the passengers just sit back and welcome their time. It’s a hard analogy to create, I’ll admit, but Silent Alarm gives something that a lot of albums don’t go for anymore. It has longevity and creativity sprinkled all over it, making it extremely beautiful to listen to years later.

Grade: A

Album Review: mewithoutYou - Ten Stories

Somehow mewithoutYou has kept their head above water in the dwindling indie music scene. One could definitely point out it’s because the band has a much different sound than majority of the bands currently around, and that one person will be pleased when they listen to Ten Stories, the latest album from mwY, because it maintains their unique sound without veering into odd territories (which wouldn’t be very odd anyway cause it’s mwY after all).

Even while maintaining that good ol’ sound, Ten Stories actually has some surprises though. The song “Cardiff Giant” that actually sounds, well, poppy. Probably the most poppy the band has ever been, and even more surprisingly is that the song is good too! It’s a nice little treat and actually gave me a cool little smile on my face that said “Those sons of bitches” in the nicest way possible.

The album sorta goes back to the band’s sound of their fantastic 2006 album Brother, Sister which is a very good thing for the band to experiment back to. ten Stories keeps up any expectation anyone had with the band, but it doesn’t do much other than that (other than that poppy-sounding song of course). Not necessarily a bad thing but the album could go forgotten about in years to come.

Grade: C+

Season Round Up: Parks and Recreation season 4

Season Round Up is an expansive look at a certain television show’s season. Obviously many TV shows are going on their normal Summer hiatus so through the next few weeks there will be coverage of show’s most recent seasons. 

Parks’s fourth season showed the best the show is capable of doing. During the second season, we learned that the show can pull out some great standalone episodes with jokes set on rapid fire. Then in the third season we were given fantastic story arcs and characterization with a dab of romantic sub plots. So in season four, we were given all of those things in a higher gear. Sometimes it was a little overwhelming and sometimes it was the most perfect episode on that week. 

Leslie Knope’s season-long arc of running for city council of Pawnee was the best route for the series to go. It tested her, all of her friends and co-workers, and her relationship with Ben Wyatt (How great was the fact that he lost his job for her and we encountered a depressed Ben going “Pizza? Never heard of it!” Classic). The writers sharing Leslie’s arc with Ben’s arc of getting over his past stint of being a young mayor for his town and creating the terrible Ice Town, was nothing short of brilliant storytelling and relationship building. 
On a subplot level, Chris Traeger going from being “literally” a robot with no feelings to a tin-man looking for a heart was, well, heartbreaking. April Ludgate caring about her friends and job became a favorite story of mine among every other TV show this season. Not to mention that Aubrey Plaza somehow became more attractive this season too, but that’s neither here nor there.
Paul Rudd’s character Bobby Newport gave the season a face to hate, even though we all ended up loving that charming sad bastard. 

If there was one thing that irked viewers this season it would have to be Tom and Ann’s sudden relationship. Admittingly, I loved it when it was first introduced cause April was the one who set them up, and I loved it when they were annoying her at Jerry’s birthday party (I guess I just love April in situations she hates but she has to care) but I can definitely see where people got their complaints from. Tom and Ann are just a thing to do for the characters to have fun and jokes. As odd of a plot point that it is, it could be worse and we should be thankful that Parks doesn’t ever get worse.

Overall, season four was a success! I can’t recall any dud episode (maybe ”Dave’s Return,” if I had to pick). The season had emotional moments and it had break out in laughs moments as well. So all in all, it was another season of Parks and Recreation. Good times were had and KNOPE 2012 will live on forever.

Next Up: New Girl season 1