MUSIC 2008

It's been an interesting year Musically -2008 has seen records from bands who most people had forgotten, or at the very least assumed were defunct. Most have proven Proven us dead wrong releasing whip smart relevant records.  Here's my favorite returning champs records this year:

THE BREEDERS- MOUNTAIN BATTLE 
OH MY GOD!!!! As readers of this blog already know I have serious Kim Deal love. (see previous Breeders/Kim Deal related post) . This record is everything I wanted it to be, every bit as fan base alienating as Title TK but poppier, seemingly liberated from expectation . It's a record that clearly wanted to be made. It feels like a old friend you never knew you had appearing suddenly, just when you needed them most. 
Check Out track- Bang On!

FREE KITTEN- INHERIT
What? Really?! A new Free Kitten Album??? WOW! The follow up to 1997's excellent Sentimental Education is an off the cuff noise rock affair with a summery almost shoe-gaze feel. Kim Gordon coos and Julie Caffey Calls and Yoshimi (sorta) keeps the beat.
 Check Out track-Seasick! 

PORTISHEAD- THIRD
    -ok now this is getting ridiculous.  All my favorite lost bands are putting out records! What's next a B-52s reunion (see below)??!!!!   For their third full length album and first new music, save for a Serge Gainsbourg cover song a few years back, Portishead defied convention and did not stick to what you know kid. Nor do they pander to the populist style du jour. As always they march to the beat of their own drum (machine) and offer up a bleak and minimalist tour de force ripe with anger and resentment just when need it most. If their now canonized debut Dummy made hipsters make love Third is a record to get even to.
Check Out track - The Rip

THE B-52's- FUNPLEX
Athens GA,s original new wave hipsters are back after the umpteenth repacking "best of" album , their first new album since Good Stuff in 1992!!!? Rather than sound tired, or try to sound like a hip new band they simply come out swinging , doing what they do best, sounding exactly like the B-52's . The production is dance-y and tweaked ever so modern but they remain true to form as always delivering excellent bizarre and wonderfully wacky pop songs. 
Check Out track- Juliet of the Spirits

R.E.M. - ACCELERATE 
Okay, yes R.E.M. has never taken an extended break , but the milquetoast and tritely heinous version of R.E.M. that went into the studio and shat out Around the Sun has gone around the sun again. Remembering what a phenomenal live band they are (and can be) on record Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills apparently listened with horror to their last record and decided to apologize to the world by offering up Accelerate. FUCKING THANK YOU!!!!! A rock record to rival Monster, the album is a guitar dream from start to finish with Stipe spitting lyrics as fast as he can.  
Check Out tack- Man-Sized Wreath

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