Finally picked up some new albums over the past couple weeks after a depressingly long run of around 2 months with zero new additions to my library. Outside of a Thee Silver Mt Zion album and the new TV On The Radio, I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular. Couldn’t find the new TVotR, but I did pick up a few solid albums…

Thee Silver Mt. Zion – Horses In The Sky (2005)

I’ve owned 13 Blues for a few years now and love every song so it was about time I picked up something else by these guys. Horses In The Sky came out a few years prior to 13 Blues, so it sounds like a transition album between their early GYBE-type stuff and their more rocking recent output. I especially like how the drumming/clapping/fiddle stomp thing at the beginning transitions to a pretty piano + group vocal combo around the 8-minute mark. These guys are quickly becoming one of my favorites. CIOIYL: Godspeed, post-rock, awesomely bad singing that sounds perfect from now on

TV On The Radio – Dear Science (2008)

The followup to their incredible, grit-tastic 2006 release Return To Cookie Mountain, Dear Science is a little more polished and somewhat short on said grit that imo made its predecessor so good. Even still, there’s plenty of great tracks on here to make it worth the purchase — “Crying”, “Family Tree”, “Love Dog”, “Shout Me Out”, and “Lover’s Day” are all solid TVotR. “DLZ” is about as close as they get to the “Wolf Like Me”-sound that I loved from RtCM — ie  it makes me feel like a badass. CIOIYL: Return To Cookie Mountain, rock/pop with some great layering and beats

Retribution Gospel Choir – 2 (2010)

RGC is Alan Sparhawk from Low – the slow + the loud and the fast and it = a string of albums that rival even my favorite Low output. The RGC debut is great but on 2, they do an incredible job of mixing catchy tracks (“Hide It Away”, “White Wolf”, “Workin’ Hard”) with tracks that really let loose and absolutely rip it (“Your Bird”, “Electric Guitar”). Since I know Team Slayer loves their guitaring, check out “Poor Man’s Daughter” above. The guitar and drum attack that starts building at the 3-minute mark is insane. Great album. CIOIYL: faster/noisier Low tracks, good old fashioned rock music

I made a few other purchases, so more to come…