What I've Been Listening To: Week Commencing July 14, 2008

A love of all things Nineties, plus a rampage on my new favourite music site, emusic.com, informed my listening choices this week.

Slowdive - Pygmalion (1995)
Despite the seemingly effortless nature of their music, I love how the cessation of this band signalled the end of the shoegaze movement. To have that much power... Anyway, Pygmalion was a departure from their previous efforts, but it's still a gorgeous and mellow piece of work.

Failure - Fantastic Planet (1996)
I had a space rock fixation around Wednesday last night, for some reason. Not too sure why. Space rock kinda fascinates me for inexplicable reasons. I was drawn to Failure because of my obsession with the work of guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen (A Perfect Circle, Queens of the Stone Age) who's one of my favourite axe-slingers and first garnered attention with his work for Failure. Though he didn't play on Fantastic Planet, this is still a criminally underrated piece of Nineties alt-rock, overshadowed by the output of Smashing Pumpkins and Hum.

Cave In - Antenna (2003)
Frontman Stephen Brodsky admitted all he's been trying to do his entire career is rip off Failure, and though Cave In were originally a hardcore band, traces of Failure can be found in their Antenna disc, a radical departure for the band where they embraced a stronger and more commercial rock sensibility. Still, there's some killer riffs in here, and the songs are unobtrusively intelligently composed.

Codeseven - Dancing Echoes/Dead Sounds (2004)
Released on indie American label Equal Visions in '04, Codeseven were dogged by comparisons to Cave In their whole career. When Cave In ditched the screams, so did Codeseven. Coincidence? Ask the Tuttles. Dancing Echoes/Dead Sounds sounds like the natural evolution from Fantastic Planet, space rock for the 21st century. It's anachronistic, and there's some holes in the disc, but there are moments of brilliance.

Of Montreal - Missing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (2007)
Ahh, the sound of Kevin Barnes' brain eating itself. Gloriously pop, despite the dark nature of the lyrical content and its backstory. It's an erratic album that someone flows coherently. Mental illness hasn't sounded so good since Pet Sounds.