Know By Heart

Today's Music of the Day is Know By Heart, by the American Analog Set. This album is something I found via eMusic, after having listened to AmAnSet in various places throughout the city and finally realizing that not having any of their music was threatening my relative hipster status. Also, I picked up their album Promise of Love and liked it pretty well; I don't know that I've given Promise of Love a proper review on this blog so perhaps that should be forthcoming also.

Know By Heart is a pretty decent album, albeit one that had to grow on me a little bit. This album is very much what I expected, a traditional AmAnSet album: downtempo songs, reserved vocals, an overall restrained sound. The songs have a remarkable progression and build to them, given the small range of volume in the album as a whole. I get the impression that their sound is as much a mindset as it is a musical dynamic, that AmAnSet never wanted to kill an arena full of black t-shirts. This album isn't even as rambunctious as Promise of Love, which isn't even what I'd call uptempo. (I think I prefer Promise of Love myself, but opinions vary.)

I'd probably go to an AnAmSet show, but I'd be curious to see what it would be like; I'd half expect beer-soaked loudmouths to ruin it, but it's hard to say. (Is this group still together?) I'm not sure that I have a favorite song on the album, maybe "Aaron & Maria". "Punk as Fuck" is easily the best song title, given how mellow the actual song is.

So, in short, this is not a hard-rockin' album, but perfect for just chilling or doing whatever. It has a pretty hushed sound, so be warned if your badass self needs to go to 11 to get things done.

In Other News:
I have a cold today. How is this freakin' possible? If it's not gone by the weekend, I will be livid.

Drive XV

Today's Music That Kind Of Wasted Jason's Time is Stereogum Presents Drive XV: A Tribute to Automatic For The People. It is what it looks like - an all-cover version of R.E.M.'s super-delicious 1992 album. Now, initially I was fairly excited about this. Then I downloaded it and forgot about it for a couple months. Then a few days ago I was cleaning my computer's desktop up and found it, and decided to give it a shot.

Well, I was fairly underwhelmed. Some of the songs were okay but nothing really stands out as being a track that I'd listen to again. In particular, I didn't care for Rogue Wave's cover of 'The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite', which is one of my favorite tracks on the original album. The Shout Out Louds' 'Man on the Moon' was equally mediocre. I would probably only recommend Catfish Haven's cover of 'Monty Got a Raw Deal' out of all the songs on this album, sadly.

Some other albums I've been listening to:
The Dandy Warhols (self-titled debut): pretty good, this one grew on me right away.
American Analog Set - Promise of Love: despite the bad, bad title this is a pretty great album. It's depressing to no end but I liked it anyway.