Complex and modern themes are wound tightly inside Blacklist’s impressionistic lyrics. Their debut LP, Midnight Of The Century, is raw ambition mixed with raw power. Mixed by Ed Buller (Suede, Slowdive, Pulp, White Lies) and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Muse, Jeff Buckley, Iron Maiden, U2, Nirvana), it’s a potent dose of rock and roll maximalism.
Ulver / Eos
It’s rare to find music that requires you to go where it takes you. It’s impossible to listen to Eos and not be completely transported to this delicate, melancholy space. You could be walking along the summer sidewalk, cheerily lapping on an ice cream, and if it came on your iPod, you’d be wistfully staring across an epic, cold ocean of loss. More like recent David Sylvian than the Oslo inner-circle; long gone are the blast beats of Ulver’s past. But the same intensity is still there, just communicated in a different sonic language.
Sunn O))) / Aghartha
Not for earbud consumption. As long as you have the proper cans for these gloriously low doom tones, it’s totally entrancing stuff. You might think that living in a landscape like New York, music like this would sound out of place, more fit for blood rituals in a stone circle. But try putting this on as the greenish-grey-black thunderclouds are gathering over the skyscrapers, turning midday light into an apocalyptic dusk. Suddenly Atilla Csihar’s spoken word vocals are narrating your day, which is a pretty fantastic experience.
Glasvegas / It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry
An anthem about paranoia and desperation sung with a Scottish accent. How can you go wrong.
Slick Rick / Children’s Story
I’ve been listening to this since 1988 and I never get tired of it. Slick Rick is a master storyteller, and at a time when hip-hop was turning violent, he wrote this anti-gangster masterpiece. Ironically, he spent five years in prison for attempted murder shortly after.
The Mary Onettes / Dare
Sweden’s finest pull from the best parts of Echo and The Bunnymen, The Cure and The Church, with a sense of urgency and honesty that modern bands rarely aim for and seldom achieve. This is classic songwriting, exhibit A.
Xeno & Oaklander / Blue Flower
The arguable leaders of New York’s new minimal synth movement coo and croon under an icy layer of atmospheric synth. Machine music has never sounded so human.
Noel / Silent Morning
The best club jam Depeche Mode never made. Shit is dark and makes panties moist. Just like the Puerto Rican guy that sang it. If you don’t like this song, then I’m willing to bet that you are white, probably use Twitter a lot, and are an asshole.
Nymphs / Imitating Angels
While singer Inger Lorr was definitely high on her own supply, and quite simply a little batshit, fact is that the Nymphs pretty much ruled LA for a couple years in the 90s. Hot chick rock singers who were also crazy and fashionable were still few and far between at the time. Unfortunately, that was also their undoing. To wit, Courtney Love owes a good portion of her shtick to Lorr’s “looney broad” routine.
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