Currently listening: The Shins and The Earlies (and still Of Montreal)

I recently bought three incredible albums from iTunes, three that have all jumped to the into the top tier of my favorites list. The first from Of Montreal, "Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?", I've mentioned before. It is an incredible and striking album without a single weak song. Favorite songs are "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse", "Gronlandic Edit", "She's a Rejecter", and "We Were Born the Mutants Again With Leafling".

To that one, I have also added the new albums by The Shins and The Earlies. I think the The Shins new album, Wincing the Night Away, is their best to date. The lyrics are very moving, and the music is some of the most beautiful I've heard since Beck's Sea Change. My favorite tracks are "Phantom Limb" (the first single), "Sea Legs", and "A Comet Appears".

The Earlies new album is very good to, but in a slightly different way. I first heard of The Earlies a few years ago before they had released anything or, to my knowledge, had even recoded anything. My brother, Kyle, is married to the lead singer's sister-in-law, and the two of them had been friends in college. So Kyle had told me about the unusual beginnings of the band. They released their first album, "These were..." in 2004. I thought it was good, but not great. Although none of the songs struck me as particularly memorable, the overall feel of that first album was interesting enough that I could hear the potential for some really incredible work. Their second album, "The Enemy Chorus", came out, and boy oh boy, it fulfills much of that potential. The tracks are much more full and complete. The sweep in the way that psychedelic rock tends to do, but without drowning in itself, as that type of music can do sometimes as well. They are more complete stories through music, not just lyrically but musically as well. Their first album was simply too amorphous for my tastes, but the new album seemed more structured, but without losing the appearance of spontaneity. Favorite tracks are "Gone for the Most Part", "Foundation and Earth", and "Breaking Point"

iTunes:
Of Montreal - "Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?"
The Shins - "Wincing the Night Away"
The Earlies - "The Enemy Chorus"