The Walkmen - Lisbon

Since their breakout 2004 album Bows & Arrows, with it's classic singles The Rat and Little House Of Savages, The Walkmen have been a pretty staunch 'album' band. Last album You & Me had very few tunes that stood out as singles, but instead saw the band craft a record more musically settled than their early work. The album showed a leap in maturity and songwriting that saw The Walkmen have their name mentioned as filling a gap left by disappointing recent work from bands like Interpol and The Strokes.

In comparison with You & Me, new album Lisbon continues in this same vein, albeit with a noticeable increase in energy and power on tracks like Angela Surf City and Woe Is Me. But married to this are a fine selection of laid back tunes, many of which are augmented by some gorgeous horn arrangements. Stranded in particular is a standout, with one of frontman Hamilton Leithauser's strongest vocal performances to date.

Juveniles opens the record with a jaunty guitar riff and a upbeat lyric from Leithauser - “I am a good man/by any count/And I see better things to come". One of the most impressive things about the record is the band maintain this optimism throughout the record, in terms of the lyrical content and the less world-weary feel of the music. Victory is a great example of this - the band pummel away at their instruments, creating a celebratory, raucous noise in the chorus as Leithauser screams "Victory should be mine" at the top of his lungs.

This really is a fine record, and will likely make a lot of indie fan's album of the year lists, but whether it is likely to expand The Walkmen's fanbase is somewhat unlikely. Not necessarily a bad thing, but these are songs that deserve to be heard by a wider audience.

9/10

Eels - Tomorrow Morning

Mark "E" Everett has had a pretty tough life. Anyone who read his 2006 autobiography Things The Grandchildren Should Know can attest to that.

Tomorrow Morning completes a trilogy of Eels records that started with the "12 songs of desire" of last year's Hombre Lobo and continued with this year's End Times, which was focused on the cheery subject of loss. End Times, in particular was a pretty difficult album to live with due to its subject matter, but to describe it as "misanthropic and boring" is pretty harsh for someone who's been through what Everett has (I'm looking at you Pitchfork).

So the focus for this new record? Redemption. And it's pretty clear thar Everett's life is on the upswing at the moment, as he screams "My baby LOVES me!!!" on the song of the same name. What I Have To Offer sees him listing a few of his better attributes to a prospective partner, somehow managing to still sound careworn while singing "For all the wear and tear, I look OK, I got good manners and I make a good pay".

This Is Where It Gets Good, at 6 minutes, stands as the centrepiece of the record. It pulls together a lot of the musical waypoints of the album - programmed drums, ornate strings, mellow electric piano, all pulled together by E's worn out husk of a voice. The final 4 minutes of the song are instrumental, the electronic drums building up and deconstructing repeatedly, as if to represent E trying to pick himself up but failing and trying again and again.

There's a fantastic childishness to the way Everett writes, throwing in different styles all over the record - delicate instrumental interludes (After The Earthquake), 8 bit electronica (Baby Loves Me), even gospel (Looking Up). The record doesn't quite hit the heights of his previous work (Beautiful Freak, the glorious double album Blinking Lights) but completes a trilogy that sees Everett stand at a new crossroads in his musical career. Where will he take himself next?

7/10

Mogwai - Special Moves

Ah, the live album. So many classics exist in this particular field that many modern bands have struggled to put together live albums that do their work justice. And when I say classics, we're talking mostly in terms of "classic" rock as well - Nirvana's Unplugged, Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous etc. etc. A few modern bands have taken them on, notably My Morning Jacket with their epic Okonokos set and Sigur Ros with the film related Hvarf/Heim album, but it would be a stretch to place these albums as "essential" releases.

Mogwai also fit this release to a live film, entitled Burning, but have elected instead to select a different tracklist for the CD release. Hardly surprising, for a band so centred on making albums in this modern patienceless musical landscape. On a full listen, the most obvious thing is the sense of progression the band have clearly aimed for through the course of the record. Opening with the slow burning double of I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead and Friend Of The Night, and shifting through the gears to culminate in the punishing one-two of Like Herod and a pummeling version of Glasgow Mega-Snake, this release could serve as a gentle introduction to a new listener, saving the harsher material for the end of the LP.

It's interesting to note the fact that the last Mogwai album, The Hawk Is Howling, was their first entirely instrumental effort. The few songs here which do feature vocals, such as the gorgeous, robotic melodies on Hunted By A Freak, are some of the strongest efforts in Mogwai's catalogue. Mogwai are also constantly accused of being that "quiet - loud -quiet -loud" band, but the glorious epics 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong and Mogwai Fear Satan rely solely on their simple, gliding tunes instead of constant shifts in dynamics.

These are some of the strongest versions of Mogwai's songs heard to date, especially compared to the Government Commissions set released a few years back, mainly as that was a straightforward collection of session tracks. When compiled with such care and recorded to capture the band in full live flow, this ranks as a strong demonstration of a band at the height of their live powers.

9/10

Young Legionnaire - Colossus single

As with most side project bands, every mention of this band is going to cover the members' day jobs first, so here goes - Paul Mullen (yourcodenameis:milo, The Automatic) has teamed up with Gordon Moakes (Bloc Party) to put together a straight-up, three piece riff heavy outfit. Completed by La Roux/Brontide drummer William Bowerman, the band have just released their first single on Holy Roar records, Colossus.

Opening with a muted guitar intro, Colossus explodes into life with Mullen screaming "Hope is all I've got now' as if his life depended on it. The tune crashes through riff after riff, thundering towards a frantic, galloping climax. B-side Iron Dream shows more range to the bands' sound, melding atmospherics to more full-on riffing. A seriously promising release then, promising a mix of the best of the respective members' previous work. It's especially good to see Mullen back with a band focused on a more leftfield sound.

9/10

Pennyfly Suitcase - Why Write I - EP

On first viewing, German band Pennyfly Suitcase seem to be aiming to confuse with their debut EP. The release ends with a track called Intro and opens with a tune called Tekkno - which could hardly be further from techno if it tried. But neither of these points are negative - the band have created an intriguing and promising debut EP which contains enough ideas for a full LP's worth of material.

Tekkno initially puts the listener in mind of Jupiter - era Cave In, before shifting through some dark Oceansize - style atmospherics a middle section reminiscent of Mew's skyscraping melodies. Not bad reference points to pass through in one tune, but it's to the band's credit that they maintain their own identity through the piece.

There are hooks aplenty in these tunes, and a tiny criticism would be that some of the more interesting melodies are occasionally lost as the songs twist and turn through various parts. Circe's Kin ups the heaviness, with some interesting changes of direction across its 6 minute duration and the closer Intro has a gorgeous Explosions In The Sky feel with its clean, delicate guitar lines. All in all, an individual and diverting effort from Pennyfly Suitcase, who clearly demonstrate they have enough ideas to move on from their influences and continue to develop their own sound.

7/10

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

After the fairly overwrought and occasionally plodding Neon Bible, it seemed that Arcade Fire had to recapture some of the musical fun and energy of their classic debut Funeral. Within seconds of The Suburbs, that energy appears to be back in spades, as the opening title track breezes in with jaunty piano and a hazy, soft focus production courtesy of Markus Dravs (Bjork, Brian Eno, Coldplay).

It sets up the wistful mood of much of the album perfectly, and is mirrored at the other end of the LP by a reprise of the song with different lyrics and a much more subdued backing. The lyrical focus of the album is centred on Win Butler's childhood in Houston, much of it being centred on negative memories. But this final track reveals how Butler really feels about that period of his life - "If I could have it back, All the time that we wasted I'd only waste it again. If I could have it back, you know I'd love to waste it again, waste it again and again and again."

Other reviews have thrown some big comparisons at this album - Neil Young, U2, Springsteen, even Blondie - but without fail, the band bring their own energy to each track - Suburban War shifts from delicate mid tempo strumalong into a thrilling fire-and-brimstone conclusion, propelled by what sounds like a massed legion of drummers. Following track Month of May injects some punkish attitude into the typical Arcade Fire sound, City with No Children is the likely root of the Springsteen comparisons and is lyrically the centre of Butler's reminiscences about his childhood. Full of engines failing, underground highways and "Millionaires quoting the sermon on the mount" this song captures the mixed feeling Butler has for his childhood perfectly, setting them against a jaunty, bass heavy and anthemic backing.

However, one new feature marks a change in feel to the band's previous work - both Half Light II and Sprawl II introduce synths to the already busy Arcade Fire sound palette. One thing particularly striking is how natural the change feels on these tracks, the new electronic elements slotting into the band's sound seamlessly and Sprawl II is particularly successful in this regard. All of the tracks sung by Regine Chassagne are given an otherworldly feel by her glacial, energetic melodies and offset Butler's occasional tendency to tilt over into preachiness.

At 16 tracks, one would think this album may be cursed by being overlong but it never feels it. The structure and sequencing of the album is incredibly well thought out, and rewards repeated listens. Not quite the classic that Funeral was, but a definite improvement on Neon Bible.

9.5/10