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

“Them Crooked Vultures” by Them Crooked Vultures