Album Of The Week....

Demiurge

Hey everyone. I don't know the age demographic or music preference of people around here, but I actually run a band message board ect...and we have an 'Album of the Week' each week....where the members suggest an album. I randomly pick 5 and then there is a vote to see which one wins. We then host that album on our server for everyone to download.

I figured that I should let you guys have it as well every once in awhile if you'd like.

This weeks album is:

Rilo Kiley - The Execution Of All Things

Just click on that link and right click on each song and select 'save target as'

Rilo Kiley is a great band IMO. It's good rock considering they have a female lead singer. Outstanding tracks would be:

The Execution Of All Things

Paints Peeling

Better Son-Daughter

Hope you enjoy it.

STUFFMD

Love the post, Great idea, keep it up.!!!!! Always good to hear new music. I really mean that. Thanks...!!!!
As for Rilo Kiley..didn't think much of em. Band was OK sounded like all the other collage bands, Her vocals I thought were kinda weak, tell me that last song isn't a Replacements rip off.
My 2 Stuff

Demiurge

Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett are singers, guitarists, and incidentally, both grown-up child actors....they front the band and write the material. Also in the band is Pierre de Reeder and Jason Boesel on bass and drums, and some eclectic guest musicians (some pedal steel, but also accordion, strings, and even a little vibraphone). Almost all of this stuff is used tastefully on the diverse material, and though this is their most complicated production so far, it stays loose enough for sudden explosions and guitar solo outbursts.

Lewis is singing lead on almost every song, is more restrained but more effective than on the earlier albums. She switches between two styles:

At times she's blunt and plain-spoken, taking no **** and saying "the 'f' word" a lot, which gets her compared to Liz Phair, everyone's favorite empowered indie rocker.

At others, she takes on a quieter, melodic voice, marked by a bit of southern twang and a twinge of something doubtful an emotional edge that can be interpreted a dozen ways...it could hint that she doesn't believe herself, but more likely, that she doesn't think you believe her. This edge enriches her bitter lyrics and helps the ecstatic ones soar IMO.

All of the words on this album are descriptive and articulate, but gracefully rendered. Perfect images and phrases litter the verses, some of them upbeat but more of them conflicted. Like the scattered confrontations in "Paint's Peeling". Lewis also gets autobiographical in her almost stilted poetry on "And That's How I Choose to Remember It"....a calliope-sounding song about her parents that's been cut in three pieces and slipped between the main tracks.

Around these often bleak lyrics, Lewis and Sennett wrote catchy and energetic music, with perfect hooks and choruses that knock down the walls. "Paint's Peeling" and the title track have both entered repeat mode on my CD Players in my car and at home, and the lilting strings on "Capturing Moods" are just plain addictive.

Blake Sennett's turn on the looping "So Long" and the anthem-like "Three Hopeful Thoughts" are effective, as well. He isn't a real shocking singer nor, as charismatic as Lewis, but he's genuine enough to sell lines like, "I hope that I drive tonight/ Into the last of the great sunrises."

You could call The Execution of All Things a feel-good album, but there's enough going on that it rarely sounds like froth. Aside from a couple of small missteps....like the hyper-bouncy keyboards on "My Slumbering Heart"..... the band almost always hits the right tone.

To compare this to 'most college bands' is just a very unfair arguement after one listen. If many cases music can take a few listens to take. This isn't the type of music that gets shoved down your throat by the mainstream. I respect your thoughts, and it's not going to be for everyone.

In my estimation they do Americana without the alt-country cliches and cowpoke pacing, and the undercurrent of environmental concern is rich rather than blunt. So when they reach the last track, "Spectacular Views", they've earned a giddily big, vibrant California pop anthem, on which they completely let go and allow Lewis to take in the coast and the stars, screaming, "It's so f'ing beautiful!" Who's gonna argue?

Thanks for responding though. I'm glad you took the time to try something new. I'm curious.....what other music are you into? What bands? Rilo Kiley has been a favorite of mine for a long time....as I'm sure you can tell ....I'm not often into female singers in bands like these, but I love this.