New Music and New Soreness

Day 2 of the gym leaves me actually feeling pretty good. Sore, but good. I lifted some weights tonight- they were surprisingly heavy. I feel- I don't know- more energetic? better. Definitely better. I'm going back tomorrow- I'm pretty much going to go until my body tells me I need to take a break. Except Thursday- that day the disc golf course beckons.

Let's try something different. I acquired some new music and tried to listen to most of it in the last 24 hours. Here are some quick thoughts.

Panda Bear/Person Pitch. The Beach Boys on acid. Well, more acid. How did I miss this? It made all the top ten lists from last year. And I love it. I listened to it twice today. I'm not going to say its for everybody- and I know the guy is from Animal Collective which has never done much for me- but this is very melodic and "m.wardy". I just made up that word.

REM/Accelerate. Surprisingly not bad. The promise of a more rocking REM album is definitely fulfilled. I expected this to be a 1 listen then banish to the dusty REM folder, but I will leave it in the rotation for a while.

The Sword/Gods of the Earth. I loved the first album for its unabashed slow grind metal feel. In an admittedly abbreviated review, the 2nd album appears to follow the same formula, but not in a way that makes me think it's stale. The jury is still out.

Nada Surf/Lucky. 2 years ago Nada Surf surprised me with the excellent "The Weight is a Gift". A quick spin around last years "Lucky" seems to follow that same track. Nada Surf is not a band I go around preaching about, but they grow on you. So far so good.

Metallica/Master of Puppets. It holds up. God, I love their instrumental songs.

Of Montreal/Satanic Panic in the Attic/The Sundlandic Twins. As my music pal will attest, I have yet to grow tired of "Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer" by Of Montreal. That album has completely taken over my ipod. Even though I listened to a ton of music today, I still listened to this entire album. Its absolutely brilliant. So I went back and am in the process of checking out the 2 albums before it. Sort of like when I heard Yankee Hotel Foxtrot I went back and got Summerteeth and Being There. And the analogy is apt- the earlier Of Montreal sounds very basic compared to "Hissing Fauna". I haven't touched Sundlandic Twins yet, but Satanic is very tame to me. Not bad, but tame.

Acquired but not listened to is the new Sun Kil Moon. I loved "Ghosts" and I hear good things.

Others still in heavy rotation are the new Raconteurs and Black Keys. Both are fantastic.

But seriously, get a hold of "Hissing Fauna". It will kick your ass.