LOVE IT ON TUESDAY: MAXÏMO PARK

When the best album of the week is a Maxïmo Park album, you know it’s not a great week for music. Well, last week’s best album was by a band in a similar situation, that used to be every other English band too, but succeeded to change its fate with a great second album. However, unlike The Horrors, Maxïmo Park wasn't that successful with Quicken The Heart. The album is fun to listen and all, but it’s pretty far from sounding like an honest work of art.

It doesn’t suprise me at all, cause I’ve seen Maxïmo Park live two years ago at Osheaga and it was as boring as a metro ride. The singer was funny cause he was stoned, but musically, the performance sucked. It’s probably more a question of commitment in music than a question of talent though, cause these guys made pretty good songs like Graffiti and Apply Some Pressure in the past. I don't know, maybe they should just stop smoking weed.

There are still some cool tracks on Quicken The Heart, like the opening track Wraithlike, that’s got a nice 7/4 verse and a catchy chorus, and The Kids Are Sick Again that is a pretty catchy song even though it's a bit weak for a first single. But the best song is definitely the closer I Haven’t Seen Her In Ages, that is excellent as a British post-punk pastiche. Unfortunately for Maxïmo Park, there are loads of real British post-punk bands to listen to before them.

Download Maxïmo Park - I Haven't Seen Her In Ages Buy it on

LOVE IT ON TUESDAY: THE HORRORS

I always kinda like The Horrors. A few years ago, a friend of mine showed me their debut single Sheena Is A Parasite, he asked me what I thought about it and I recall saying ‘Do you even call that a song?’ Sheena is pure intensity, it’s in fact nothing else than intensity and I think it's exactly what the band wanted it to be. I finally liked it, but there were at the time so many cool UK bands doing this kind of half-experimental/half-pop music that the Horrors kinda hibernated in my subconscious for a while. I wasn’t even aware until recently of their debut called Strange House released in March 2007.

A month ago, I heard their new single Sea Within a Sea that is such a serene piece of music that I wondered for a minute if it wasn’t wrongly attributed to them. But the song lasted and lasted until the 8:00 mark, and since Sheena was less than two minutes - which is unconventionally short -, it makes sense that their new single would be eight minutes – which is unconventionally long. The difference is that while Sheena was just unconventional, Sea is also genius. I want to apologize to these guys for thinking they were just every other English band. Listening to their new album called Primary Colours, I seriously feel like listening to Joy Division, Stone Roses and Buzzcocks altogether. But I don't feel like listening to a tribute: it's fresh, it's intelligent and it’s got everything I'm looking for in music.

The first track Mirror’s Image starts with more than a minute of quiet synthesizers. After a quick pass by a drummer who sounds like he was tired of waiting, the whole band kicks in and doesn't stop being good until the last track. The second half especially stands out as one of the best second halves I’ve heard in many years. Starting with the Joy Divisionesque Scarlett Field, going on with the long and calm I Only Think Of You, the weird and noisy I Can’t Control Myself and the happy nostalgic title track, it ends with the epic first single, Sea Within A Sea, that itself ends in the most beautiful way. I hope Pitchfork’s gonna rate it good, cause otherwise, I think I’ll e-mail to complain.

Download: The Horrors - Mirror's Image Buy it on 

GO HABS GO!

Last year, it was absolute craziness. The chances you would see a car with a Habs flag were around one on two. Do you remember the riot when we won the seventh game against the Bruins? Crazy! Tonight, we're playing our first playoff game against the Bruins (again) and nobody really cares. We may as well say fuck off and watch the free concert Metric are giving in front of the Apple Store tonight from 8 PM to 9 PM. They're probably gonna play the songs from the album they released last week. I haven’t heard it entirely, but judging by Help I'm Alive - the first single -, it’s probably not very good. I mean, the intro is ok what’s that chorus? My favorite Brazilian producers The Twelves still managed to make it more than listenable, exactly like Justice did two weeks ago with 'Get On Your Boots'. Here’s my prediction for tonight by the way: Habs: 3, Bruins: 2. 

Download: Metric - Help I'm Alive (The Twelves Remix)

'En avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil'

Yep, it's snowing again in Montreal. I don't mind that much about the snow, but the cold wind is a real pain in the ass. It's still not enough to stop all these albums to be released though. Among those I was interested in, there was the new Metric – overhyped -, the new Crystal Antlers – their EP was better -, the new Black Dice – too experimental – and the new Thieves Like Us – nothing really new here. There was also the new Neil Young, which came close to being my choice for today. But I thought, ‘Something that would have been good 40 years ago isn’t necessarily good now, right?’

I’ll rather talk about the new Doves. These guys from Manchester released their fourth album today. It's entitled Kingdom of Rust, after the name of the first single. We know this band for their very good singles There Goes The Fear from 2002 and especially Black and White Town from their last album, Some Cities, released in 2005. If you like bands like Oasis and The Verve, you will love this. If you don’t like these bands that much, like myself, you won’t love it, but you will probably still appreciate it. So I guess it’s good. Here's the album's lead track.

Download: Doves – Jetstream Buy it on: 

Who's handsome?

Tonight at Il Motore. 15$. (sold out - merci au gâcheur de party)

Download : Handsome Furs – Officer of Hearts Buy it on :

Cet album est excellent. T'as pigé, Harvey?

I don’t know about you, but when a big name releases a new album, I always feel a bit scared to be disappointed. Sometimes I am disappointed, like it was the case with the last U2 or Rolling Stones, sometimes I am relieved because it’s not that bad, like it was the case with the last Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney, but I am rarely amazed. Exceptions include 'In Rainbows' by Radiohead, 'Third' by Portishead and the album PJ Harvey released today.

Pitchfork reviewed it severely, but they’re way off base. As for me, ‘A Woman A Man Walks By’ officially joins the run to the best album of the year with ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’, ‘It’s Blitz’ and ‘Fever Ray’. The album is written in collaboration with a guy named John Parish. He’s kind of a nobody, but his contribution on this one is very important, in that he wrote the music while she wrote the lyrics. However, it’s probably a lot easier to make good music when you have someone like PJ Harvey as a performer, right?

The song you can download today is not for sensitive ears. It’s a real rocker that comes directly from the ashes of the 90s. For the most part, she's repeating the affirmation ‘I Will Not’. It’s not like she doesn’t want to do something or think something or feel something, it’s just a pure refusal of nothing… or maybe of everything. At the end, the volume of the instruments gets down dramatically, and a beautiful piano gets played over it. That's music how I like it.

Mediafire : PJ Harvey – Pig Will Not (192 kbps)

Photomontage In Tokyo

I remember very clearly that, two years ago, during a period maybe as short as one week, I used to visit Tokyo Police Club's myspace around twenty times a day to listen to their new single 'Your English Is Good'. At the time, I thought that song was one of the best I had ever heard. But this love story didn't last very long and by the time of their debut album 'Elephant Shell' last year, I had already forgotten of their existence. It's sad because their 2006 EP 'A Lesson In Crime' was so good, with songs like 'Be Good' and 'Nature of the Experiment' and 'Cheer It On'. 

But tonight, I'm gonna forget that I had forgotten them because they are playing with Ruby Coast at La Salla Rossa. It's a very cool venue and it's probably gonna be a very cool show as well. But it's sold out. If you still want to party, there's a Room 22 event at Club Coda with Mad Kids, formed by two ex-members of December Strikes First/Hello Dangerous, mixing some crazy music. Check that out!

Mediafire: Tokyo Police Club - Your English Is Good (240 kbps)

A Cruel And Brutal Fellow

One of the nice things about having a blog is that you have to make some research on your subject, and sometimes, you learn very interesting related facts, such as the meaning of the word 'ruffian', of which I was totally ignorant a few minutes ago. The band I was researching is called Born Ruffians and my research didn't go much further than the name. I only know that they are a band from Ontario and that last year, they released a very good debut album called 'Red Yellow and Blue'. They make catchy songs, and even though they stay faithful to the basic instruments of rock'n'roll, they are very good to experiment with the way they use them. They play tonight with Akron/Family at Il Motore. I think Akron/Family is headlining, but in my opinion Born Ruffians are better. Here's one of my favorite songs from 'Red Yellow and Blue'.

Mediafire: Born Ruffians - Foxes Mate For Life (168 kbps)

POMO - is it?

Have you ever heard of Radiohead? Uh uh… Before becoming experimental geniuses with Kid A, these guys were really good to take the rock clichés that bands like Nickelback uses all the time and arrange them in a way that makes them work, a little bit like Tarantino does with the clichés of cinema. A perfect example for this would be Fake Plastic Trees, a sentimental rock ballad Bon Jovi-style with violins and organs, but for a reason I can’t explain, when I listen to the song, I really feel something.

There’s a band from Montreal that also does that right. I wouldn’t say everything from them is good. I didn't go crazy on their bigger hits like ‘Montréal – 40’ or ‘Pâte Filo’ and I didn't go crazy on their new album 'Labyrinthes' neither. But when I finally got a hand on Trompe-l’oeil a few weeks ago, I discovered a song called ‘La Monogamie’ that made me go crazy. The song is already good from the beggining – especially the beautiful acoustic guitar riff – and until the half of the song, it's classic indie rock like we like it. Then, at 2:45, the outro begins, with a strummed acoustic guitar and the voice of Julien Mineau, it then evolves into a crescendo that's usually not my kind of thing and it finishes in a crazy chorale with drums and guitars and keyboards, and all this makes me feel something I can’t explain, a little bit like with Fake Plastic Trees. Ok, Malajube are no Radiohead. They’re not even close. But when I hear something like that, I feel proud to be a Québécois.

They are playing tonight at La Tulipe to promote their new album. The Montreal-based Hollerado is the band opening. I’ve seen them open for the Virgins a year ago and I can tell you they're cool. But... the show is sold-out. There’s still the possibility to pickpocket one at the door if you want to danse, danse, danse toute la nuit.

Mediafire: Malajube - La Monogamie (196 kbps) 

How to get girls when you're ugly

What is the cool thing to do when you have to play in a crappy venue in Montreal in front of 15 people who are just disappointed that Voxtrot had canceled their presence at the last minute? Simple, you tell bilingual musical jokes like, ‘You know what the guitarist from The Smiths (Johnny Marr) says when he’s bored of something? He says : ‘J’en ai marre’’ That's funny, isn't? The 14 people who were also there probably know about which band I'm talking cause the show was memorable. For the rest of you, I will satisfy your curiosity, I'm talking about The 1990s.

In addition to being a decade, they are a band from Glasgow, and their debut album was amazing. I don't know why they are still unknown here in America cause their songs are really catchy. I probably listened to ‘See You At The Lights’, ‘You Made Me Like It’ and ‘You’re Supposed To Be My Friend' more than a hundred times each. They are often compared to fellow Glaswegians Franz Ferdinand, the principal reason being that the ancient band of the singer Jack McKeown, The Yummy Fur, counted for a period Alex Kapranos and Paul Thomson, respectably singer and drummer of Franz Ferdinand.

And following Franz Ferdinand, who released their third album earlier this year, the 1990s released today the follow-up to Cookies, entitled ‘Kicks’. Second albums are always difficult, but this one, like the title say, kicks... lots of asses. Their sound is still as retro as before and that's for the best in my opinion. They even hired Bernard Butler, ex-guitarist of the really good Britpop band Suede, as producer to make sure they really sound like they were from the 1990s. But, what makes them superior to similar bands who are fond of remaking the musical history? Simple again, they don’t take themselves seriously, and that’s what makes songs like 'The Box' so enjoyable.

Mediafire: The 1990s - The Box (213 kbps) 

Bloc Party Should Never Enter A Recording Studio Again

I saw Bloc Party live two years ago headlining Osheaga. Before that, I had heard their breakthrough album ‘Silent Alarm’ - the apparent inspiration for the Knife's 'Silent Shout' released a year later -, but my friends and I didn’t really understand why they were generating so much hype. After having realized that the group of people I was with had gone back home, I miraculously made my way between 50 000 people and succeeded to get just before the stage.

And I was happily surprised, because even if Bloc Party’s songs aren’t as catchy and well-produced as the songs of Interpol or Arctic Monkeys who were playing earlier that day, this band made sure that the amps were at 10 and that the metronome was above 160 BPM. In top of that, the singer was on fire, the crowd was responding very well and their show was finally one of the highlights of the day.

I don’t recommend you to buy the album they released late last year, but I do recommend you to go to their show tonight at Metropolis. There are still some tickets available and it will cost you 43$ with the fees and the taxes. I think it’s worth the money, cause you’ll probably remember this show for a long time. You may also be interested by the opening band, who was featured earlier this week on Les Oiseaux Exotiques. Below is a song from their new album that is probably gonna make your feet dance when they play it tonight.

Mediafire: Bloc Party - One Month Off (232 kbps) 

'Let's get married and have a band'

Arcade Fire made people say that Montreal was the new Seattle. But even with all the good music these guys produced, the team of Les Oiseaux Exotiques - meaning me - would argue the best song this town has produce recently is by Wolf Parade and is called 'I'll Believe in Anything' - merci Jess. In top of that, this band's first album was a really good, almost perfect pop album.

But they have changed: Spencer Krug is turning more and more progressive while Dan Broeckner is turning more and more post-punk. As shown by their second album, that's hardly compatible. If I were them, I would just kill Wolf Parade before it gets more difficult. I guess they still have to earn their living with Wolf Parade so they can get as creative as they want with their respective side projects: Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs. But they should think about it, if they're interested in becoming Stone Roses-like legends.

Anyway, as for now, the side projects are doing really well, as proved again by the release on Tuesday of the second Handsome Furs album. I had some trouble choosing which song from it to upload. I first thought of a very nice track called '(White City)', but it's a bit short at 1:29, so I then thought of 'Thy Will Be Done', which really could have been produced by Martin Hannett, but then again, I don't know, so I finally set my choice on the track of the album that sounds the more like a Wolf Parade song, i.e. the closer 'Radio Kaliningrad'. Listen to that guitar riff, that's fucking beautiful.

Mediafire: Handsome Furs - Radio Kaliningrad (192 kbps) 

That's D.I.Y.

On Christmas Day, while you were at your grandparents' house, I was in Nicaragua and I had one of the weirdest experience of my life. Some friends had told me about a punk show that was going to happen in the most infamous bar of Leon, so I found a couple of people who were also interested, took the cab to a dangerous part of town, and arrived to a strange place called 'El Tunnel' with the dirtiest toilet in the world, much worst than the one in Trainspotting. 

There were four locals bands, and, even if they were more emos than punks, they totally rocked the place. I don't remember a lot of things, because I was already drunk when I got there, and got even drunker because the beer there is so cheap, but when I saw this video of the Black Lips live in Tijuana, it brought me back some souvenirs of the crazy ambience that was there.

Talking about the Black Lips, these guys released an album late in February and the single 'Short Fuse' was released on Monday. It's a very good song, not as immediate as the very cool 'Veni Vidi Vici' or the very crazy 'O Katrina' from their breakthrough album 'Good Bad Not Evil', but once you get accustomed to their weird style that they call 'Flower Punk', it's very enjoyable. After having India set on fire in January, they are now touring USA until the beginning of May and I hope they're gonna come to Montreal just in time for my birthday.

Mediafire: The Black Lips - Short Fuse (192 kbps)