Yeah, I think I'm gonna knock down Bitter:Sweet's rating by a star. Still a good album that I'd recommend getting, but I'm gonna try to be as sparing as possible with the 4+ ratings for this thread. Plus, as you say, their songs are generally pretty good even when they sound a lot like Thievery Corporation, but that they hit the heights when they produce that tracks that give off a good, swinging kinda vibe.
Cheers for flagging up the Postmarks as well - much as I loved Casino Royale, I've not heard of them before. Definitely sounds like it'll be my kinda thing all the same though. I'll check them out.
And, while I'm still around, here's a song that's been on my mind all day;
Artist: New Order
Tuneage: Ceremony
As some of you reading this may know, New Order's back catalogue basically means the world to me. After all, back when my voice was just starting to get deeper and blotches of acne started popping up on my skin, New Order were one of the bands I listened to regularly, and they're one of literally a handful of artists I loved when I was 12 or 13 years of age that I still listen to just as much to this day.
It was on a strange kinda whim that I first started listening to them. I vaguely remember talking to my history teacher in high school of all people about this awesome new song I'd heard called 60 Miles An Hour by a band called New Order. He told me to listen to Blue Monday, which I downloaded from the virtual sewer of the p2p file sharing networks and did so that very night. I had two reactions to it; 1) wasn't this synth motif on that American Express advert with Alan Shearer in it? and 2) awww hell yeah!
New Order's compilation of singles, b-sides and remixes by the name of Substance was the next port of call, of which this is the opening track. I'll admit that I never did like this song as much as, say, Temptation, Bizarre Love Triangle or True Faith until a few years down the line when I started listening to Joy Division, and thus got a taste for this kinda song. After all, this is one of two songs on New Order's debut which has a posthumous songwriting credit to Ian Curtis on it. These days (teehee) I think is pretty much the perfect piece of music. True, Bernard Sumner's far from the best singer on Earth and a terrible lyricist too, but his guitar and deadpan vocal delivery really make this track into something else, along with that beautiful, typically melodic Peter Hook bassline and that robotic drumbeat from Stephen 'the beast' Morris.
Basically, this song is one of many reasons why New Order were, to me at least, Manchester's greatest gift to music.
And, yeah, there'll be another album post coming up soon...hopefully tomorrow...
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