Musing

There were quite a few "big names" in my library that released new albums this year.  For the most part, everyone's effort was appreciated.  As usual, we have the Outstanding, Good, and Eh? groups of albums. Outstanding: Violet Street by Local Natives Local Natives went a bit sideways with their second and third albums, so I wasn't really tuned in to their 4th album's recording status.  They recorded videos for several tracks that were recommended to me through YouTube; luckily I trusted the system enough to click and watch.  Not only is the album Album of the Year, the song "When Am I Gonna Lose You?" - video below - grabs Song of the Year. Consequence of Sound has a great track-by-track breakdown of the whole album by the band that talks about the evolution of each final song that's really interesting.  There's also a "leftover" that was just released called "Nova" that's really good. My Finest Work Yet ...

Website of the Year - The Wertzone Adam runs a great sci-fi and fantasy-centric blog that reviews both new releases and releases that are new to him. He's fairly even-keeled, which is really saying something for a Random Reviewer Dude With A Blog. It's always interesting to compare and contrast his reviews with Pat's over at the Hotlist . Book of the Year - Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Prisoner of Heaven Although a little lighter than its predecessors, this third volume in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet finally starts bringing pieces together and giving us some direction for the fourth and presumably final book in the series. This lightness has been widely criticized, but personally at the point in the story, I'm not sure that an extra 100 pages of exposition would have added any value to the story. We know our players. We know the scene. We think we know the plot...but when your narrator is crazy, how far can you trust him? Maybe this boo...

Keane's Strangeland Editor's Note: This is the 7th in a quasi-weekly series of reviews marking my favorite ten albums of 2012. The 10th edition is wrapped into the larger year-end post I call "The Ho Media Awards", which will be published just after the new year. Stay tuned! Keane turned in a weak effort with their last album, which I panned a few years ago. They've since released an EP that was received with scorn by pretty much the entire fan community. Things were looking bad, which was great news for me. I have a theory that artists only make good albums when they're experiencing tough times. The corollary is that they make lousy albums when they are at the height of their popularity/having good tours/etc. Coldplay and The Killers are two fine recent examples. Now Keane joins that list. This album does a sharp U-turn away from the synth-filled excess and sunshiny melodies of the previous two works and journeys back to the pianos and themes of...