The Evening Three (or Four) - 5-7-09

For this edition, I have reviewed four albums, for reasons to be explained momentarily.

1) mewithoutYou - It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright.: I will give this album a one word review, based on the one-and-a-half songs I listened to: no. That is final.
Rating: 0

2) Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor: I don't know why I put off listening to Patrick Wolf for so long! Patrick Wolf's new album brings to mind words like "tortured" and "SLAYERRR!" Somehow, he's managed to put out an indie-pop-metal album of sorts, blending insanely catchy melodies and balladeering with the finest in heavy indie this side of Mastodon. I'm not really sure what Wolf's other albums sound like, but I do know that it's safe to say, after songs like "The Bachelor" and "Vulture," that I may fast become a huge fan of this guy.
Rating: 3.7

3) Röyksopp - Junior: I first listened to Royksopp years ago when the song "Poor Leno" was put on the soundtrack for the video game SSX Tricky. Since then I've been a massive fan, and Junior is the album to remind me of exactly why I'm a fan of these guys. It's hard to find respectable electronica that makes listening to dance music fun anymore (Daft Punk fun, I mean), being that it's one of the more intense genres around. However, the Norwegian duo are a reminder that dance music is not, in fact, serious business, and can be listened to by people who don't even know how to dance, and really don't understand Ricardo Villalobos.
Rating: 4

4) Gallows - Grey Britain: Punk never smelt so fresh. Gallows' sophomore album packs the same wollop as Black Flag's Damaged, combined with the same urgent, and yet still accessible, hooks that sparkled across more recent albums in a similar vein as Against Me!'s Searching For A Former Clarity, a hard thing to come across these days. This is a band to straighten out the youth of today who look not to the Henry Rollins' or Jello Biafra's of the world for their punk fix, but to the of Billy Joe Armstrong's or Mark Hoppus'. To those who say that punk is dead, I say this: listen to Gallows, and you'll realize that punk may have been dead, but it's back again, and quite frankly, it's fucking pissed.
Rating: 3.5