Band of Joy by Robert Plant.

From Rolling Stone

Band of Joy follows the intimate, moody vibe of his Grammy-winning collaboration with Alison Krauss, Raising Sand, but the songs are more powerful, like the blazing spiritual classic “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” and a hard-driving take on “Harm’s Swift Way,” a rare Townes Van Zandt track.

Resurrecting the Band of Joy, Plant picked out top-notch roots musicians and session players for the group: multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott, guitarist and co-producer Buddy Miller, drummer Marco Giovino and bassist Byron House. “I’m working with arch-bishops of good taste,” Plant said.

The band first hit the studio last December, recording in the 10 days leading to Christmas, but Plant was a bit disappointed with the results. “It sounded like Moby Grape outtakes,” he said. “I was in absolute heaven. But I took it home and realized there was absolutely nothing that kicked up.” He called up Patty Griffin and asked her “to add her Shangri Las-type vocals,” Plant said. The singer gave the group the jolt Plant was seeking: “After Christmas, we went into overdrive.”

Band of Joy hits stores September 14.

The Orchard by Ra Ra Riot.

From PopMatters:

More so than the debut, Ra Ra Riot’s The Orchard feels like a labor of love. One of the best things about The Rhumb Line was its sense of urgency, the feeling that these songs had something to say, that they couldn’t have been released at any later date. There is a kinetic energy on Rhumb that permeates every track, giving each word and note a sense of necessity. Not a sound or second is wasted. The Orchard is the flipside, offering a set of songs that takes its time to impress, reveling in the small details along the way.
This is a good thing. The Orchard not only sounds like a labor of love, but also, in its heartfelt outpouring, like it’s about love. In this respect, the band hasn’t traveled thematically very far since Rhumb, which still seems like one of the most romantic and emotional indie debuts in a long while. Vocalist Wes Miles is a big reason why—his fragile tenor quivers with an honest vibrato that feels more heartfelt than just about any other vocalist around. Ra Ra Riot makes emo for adults.

Ra Ra Riot embraces an unexpected and completely awesome influence on The Orchard: ‘80s Abacab-era Genesis, with its slick synthesizer patterns, rhythmic basslines, and monstrous, ornate drumming (courtesy of newcomer Gabriel Duquette) that ably recalls some of Phil Collins’ beastliest. The Invisible Touch is most visible during the instrumental bridge of “Too Dramatic”, where huge synths fondly echo those of Genesis keyboard master Tony Banks both in tone and rhythmic emphasis, while Duquette throws down on an assortment of busy percussion instruments. It’s refreshing to hear a band follow its own musical compass, chasing the influences that matter most, whether they’re cool or not (as for Genesis, uncool would be the case in today’s indie rock landscape).

The Suburbs from Arcade Fire

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From Pitchfork.com

Arcade Fire never aim for anything less than grand statements. That quality has played a huge role in making them very, very popular; it’s also their greatest weakness. Funeral was wracked with agony and grief, but what made it one of the transcendent records of the 2000s was that it avoided easy answers. It proposed that the fight of our lives is just that, a fight, but a winnable one. But when they turned that same all-or-nothing intensity outward on Neon Bible, otherwise propulsive and elegant songs were sometimes bogged down by overblown arrangements or pedantic political statements. You’d figure an album bluntly called The Suburbs that focuses on The Way We Live might repeat some of Neon Bible’s worst tendencies. Instead, it’s a satisfying return to form– proof that Arcade Fire can still make grand statements without sounding like they’re carrying the weight of the world.

The metrics of The Suburbs are misleading: At 16 tracks, including interludes and multi-part songs, it might seem like Arcade Fire are shooting for their Sandinista!, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, or Sign O’ The Times– a band at the peak of their powers reacting against the walls closing in by blowing everything up and trying anything. But the album actually plays out more like Bruce Springsteen’s The River, a generously paced collection of meditations on familial responsibility, private disappointments, and fleeting youth, much of which takes place in moving vehicles. It also reintroduces much-needed levity to an act that can be overbearingly self-serious. On the deceptively chipper chamber pop of “Rococo”, Win Butler borders on patronizing, evoking Nirvana’s “In Bloom” and using the title word as a sword to skewer an easy target: the hipster more concerned with following trends than locating a genuine understanding in the world around him. But the point is that Butler values directness and truth, and throughout The Suburbs, what he lacks in poetry, he makes up for with honesty.

No Better Than This from John Mellencamp

From nodepression.com

Mellencamp and producer T-Bone Burnett obviously belong together. That was clear on 2008’s Life, Death, Love and Freedom and even more so here. Both are men born a generation or two late; they would rather be in Clarksdale, Mississippi in the 1930s or Nashville in the 1940s than a modern corporate-run world where oil is gushing out of the ocean, the Supreme Court overrules the people’s choice for President, and we are fighting a war against a country who didn’t attack us. I’m not saying that not be political, but because it’s the truth. Mellencamp has always dealt with political and social issues in his music, but usually in a way that looked to the past for answers. In “Rain on the Scarecrow” he longed for the days when a man could “work his fields and cows.” in “Ghost Towns Along the Highway” he spoke of towns that were once great that were now in despair. In “To Washington” he detailed everything that led up to the invasion of Iraq, but began the song by talking about the “eight years of peace and prosperity” that preceded the Bush administration.

“Save Some Time to Dream” kicks things off with a slow guitar and plenty of reverberation. Any connoisseur of classic American music will not need to look at the credits to know that this was recorded in Sun Studios. On the classic sides by Howlin’ Wolf, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and countless other legends the studio itself was an instrument and that proves to be the case here as well. Mellencamp delivers one of the best songs of his career, an uplifting, spiritual ballad that dispenses advice such as “save some time for living and always question your faith” before telling us to “save some time to dream, ’cause your dream might save us all.” Mellencamp’s cigarette-weathered voice sounds totally relaxed and at home, making this a real highlight of the album.

Arcade Fire releases their third album on Tuesday and WNRN has your chance to win it first! All weekend, we’re giving away copies of The Suburbs before it hits stores! Stay tuned through Sunday night to get your copy first!

CD of the month club members: keep your eye on the mail. The Suburbs is also our Modern Rock CD of the month!

Dark Night of the Soul

From NPR
Danger Mouse and Mark Linkous (a.k.a. Sparklehorse) first came up with the idea for Dark Night of the Soul while working together on the 2006 Sparklehorse album Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain. Linkous had written a number of songs he wasn’t comfortable singing, so Danger Mouse suggested getting someone else to do the vocals. The result is an all-star cast of guest artists on Dark Night, including The Shins’ James Mercer (who most recently worked with Danger Mouse on the Broken Bells album), Julian Casablancas of The Strokes and Iggy Pop, each of whom offers his own interpretation of the Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse songs.

Dark Night of the Soul is about as strange and gloomy as you might expect from David Lynch or Mark Linkous, who tragically took his own life earlier this year. (One of the guest vocalists on the album, Vic Chesnutt, also committed suicide last December.) But Dark Night has its uplifting moments, too, with catchy pop and rock hooks and rhythms. It’s the perfect marriage of joy and sorrow, and one of the most memorable collections of songs from the past year.

Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows
From Paste Magazine
The songs of dirt-road troubador John Prine are malleable—simple, elegiac tales of people living out simple lives. They’re easy tunes to cover, which means this smartly-assembled tribute album is long overdue. It draws from the legion of neo-folk acolytes Prine has helped shuffle into the spotlight, with the Avett Brothers, My Morning Jacket and the Drive-By Truckers, among others, scribbling the margins of his well-thumbed volumes in their own shorthand. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver welcomes “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)” into his misty, distant world, and Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band follow up with a ramshackle “Wedding Day in Funeralville.” Elsewhere, Old Crow Medicine Show nails the gorgeous, bruising “Angel From Montgomery,” Josh Ritter ambles through “Mexican Home” and Jim James hangs his head low on the heartbroken “All The Best,” all providing graceful spins on the American experience and Prine’s sharpened take on the impossible mess that humans make of it.

Rounder Records announces the release of the new Delta Spirit record on June 8, 2010. Entitled History From Below, the record was produced by My Morning Jacket keyboardist Bo Koster and Eli Thomson. History From Below is the follow up to the band’s critically acclaimed debut, Ode to Sunshine, which Spin hailed in its four-out-of-five-star review, saying, “This rousing debut impresses mightily,” while Filter called it “pure joy” and Jim Fusilli of the Wall Street Journal said, “I make no pretense of objectivity with Delta Spirit, I love these guys.”
History From Below was recorded at Prairie Sun Studio C in Cotati, CA – the same place Tom Waits has recorded almost exclusively since 1991. The record is brimming with incredibly deep and moving songs that are alternately grand and explosive, always eloquent and melodic. It has a powerful energy that radiates musically, lyrically and vocally from the moment you hit play as it finally captures the uncontainable spirit the band exudes on stage.

Modern Rock CD of the Month club members will be receiving their copies of History from Below in the mail. Stay tuned this weekend to pick up your copy before it hits shelves.

From Oregonlive.com:

“NPR says: “Though it sacrifices consistency for diversity, Destroyer of the Void rewards those patient and ambitious enough to seek out its rewards.”

You could argue that’s true of every Blitzen Trapper record. I actually think this is the band’s most consistent record to date. It’s also possible that I’ve listened to so much Blitzen Trapper in the last two weeks that songwriter Eric Earley’s drive for diversity is what I expect, and anything else would seem inconsistent.

There is a lot to play with on this record. The title track is basically three songs. A lot of people will mention Queen when they hear it. Earley did, too, but he also thinks it’s as much, if not more, Bowie influenced.”

All Acoustic Sunrise CD of the month club members will be getting their copy of Destroyer of the Void in the mail. Stay tuned this weekend for your chance to win a copy before it goes on sale!

From PopMatters:

Together is an unabashed return to the big, bold, and brainy power-pop of Twin Cinema, the 2005 LP that won critical acclaim from all corners and cemented the band’s reputation as a rare supergroup that actually deserves the title. As on previous albums, the creative frenzy is anchored by three forces: the Pet Sounds-inspired sunshine of de facto leader A.C. Newman, the detached vocal Bowie-isms of Dan Bejar, and the enchanting vocals of Neko Case. The push and pull of these three forces give the Pornographers their unique sound, at times colliding into one another unexpectedly, at other times effortlessly working in unison, at other times miraculously doing both.

Thank you to everyone who supported our spring fund drive and joined the CD of the month club! All new and returning members will receive this album, written and produced by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim with guest appearances by Sharon Jones, St. Vincent, Steve Earle, Tori Amos and many more.

The British act Mumford & Sons are coming back to the states.  The band has just unveiled a North American tour.  The group will start things off in Montreal on May 13^th and wrap up at Bonnaroo 2010.  You can also catch Mumford & Sons in Washington DC at the 9:30 club on May 20^th.  Their album Sigh No More is also the Acoustic Sunrise CD of the Month.

The Winter of Mixed Drinks by Frightened Rabbit.

From Wikipedia: The Winter of Mixed Drinks is the third studio album by Scottish indie rock band Frightened Rabbit, released on March 1, 2010 on Fat Cat Records. The album marks the first studio appearance of multi-instrumentalist Andy Monaghan, who joined the band in early 2008, shortly after The Midnight Organ Fight was recorded.
Vocalist and guitarist Scott Hutchison states that The Winter of Mixed Drinks is “more of a storytelling record” than the band’s previous two albums, and that the album is “about an escape and maybe even a slight breakdown. I have to say, it’s semi-fictional. There’s a protagonist who is possibly male but it doesn’t really describe my life because if I did that it wouldn’t make for an interesting album this time around as I’ve been quite solid and content, thankfully.”
The album was preceded by the singles, “Swim Until You Can’t See Land” and “Nothing Like You”, released during November 2009 and February 2010, respectively. The album’s title comes from a line in the song “Living in Colour”, with Hutchison stating, “I think we’ve all had odd, lonely, fallow periods in life, where you find yourself detached from everything, drifting and lost. That’s what [the title] means to me, but most importantly, it’s the moments of joy afterwards, during recovery, that defines the dark period.”

From mumfordandsons.com: Since they formed in December 2007, the members of Mumford & Sons have shared a common purpose: to make music that matters, without taking themselves too seriously. Four young men from West London in their early twenties, they have fire in their bellies, romance in their hearts, and rapture in their masterful, melancholy voices. They are staunch friends – Marcus Mumford, Country Winston, Ben Lovett, and Ted Dwane

Then came the time to record their debut album – and then came the extraordinary producer who wanted to work with them. Markus Dravs recorded Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, Björk’s Homogenic and The Maccabees’ Wall of Arms, and he saw similar crossover potential in the Sons

From Pitchfork.com: Baltimore’s Beach House are singer/organist Victoria Legrand and guitarist Alex Scally. Because they come from such a well-defined tradition– the boy-girl duo making lovesick, narcotized rock with lots of depth and sweep– it’s pretty much impossible to listen to this, their debut, without making certain connections. Bands like Mazzy Star, Galaxie 500, Spiritualized, and Slowdive will come to mind, but this is neither pastiche nor homage. While a lot of their sounds and shapes are the same, Beach House’s recipe of fairground waltzes, ghosted lullabies, and woodland hymnals feels more intimate than those of their forerunners. The Hope Sandovals and Jason Pierces of the world mostly wanted to make their songs bigger than their heartaches, to rub out messiness with beauty; Beach House play their songs for a much smaller room, and aren’t afraid to stare down a mistake if it comes bounding back in echoes.

From LauraVeirs.com: Laura Veirs’ seventh album July Flame, which Colin Meloy calls “the best album of 2010,” explores the emotion of mid-summer. Drenched in wood smoke, sunlight, pollinators, pastoral dales, fireworks and warm nights, her lyrics explore the dichotomy between one’s desire for permanence and security and the realization that such things rarely exist.

Laura gave us a preview of July Flame when she visited Charlottesville in September.

“Transference” by Spoon

From Stereogum: Transference is due 1/26 in North America via Merge and 1/25 in Europe via Anti-. If you’ve been asleep the last 13 years or so, there’s free MP3 from each of Telephono, A Series Of Sneaks, Girls Can Tell, and Kill The Moonlight at spoontheband.com to help you understand why new Spoon album news is good news. After that, have fun imagining the sounds associated with the Transference’s tracklist:

01 “Before Destruction”
02 “Is Love Forever?”
03 “The Mystery Zone”
04 “Who Makes Your Money”
05 “Written In Reverse”
06 “I Saw The Light”
07 “Trouble Comes Running”
08 “Goodnight Laura”
09 “Out Go The Lights”
10 “Got Nuffin”
11 “Nobody Gets Me But You”

“The Day After Everything Changed” by Ellis Paul, his 15th album.

Ellis Paul is a Maine native who now lives in the Charlottesville area. Ellis is one of the leading voices in American songwriting. He was a principle leader in the wave of singer/songwriters that emerged from the Boston folk scene, creating a movement that revitalized the national acoustic circuit with an urban, literate, folk pop style that helped renew interest in the genre in the 1990’s.

From Nora Guthrie (Woody’s daughter): “Ellis is one of our best human compasses, marking in melodies and poems where we’ve been and where we might go if we so choose to.”

Enjoy the version of “Rose Tattoo” from Ellis’ performance on Monday Morning. Look for it on his new album “The Day After Everything Changed”, our CD of the month for January!

“Saints and Scoundrels” by Sharon Shannon