The Best Songs of April 2009

---Top 20 Songs for April 2009---
(No Order)

1. The Limousines – Very Busy People – Perhaps the most instantly wonderful song since MGMT’s “Kids”, I instantly loved this song, after hearing it for 30 seconds. Similar to the Postal Service, this is perfect electronic pop music that is completely brilliant.
From The Limousines forthcoming debut CD (2009?)
http://www.myspace.com/thelimousines

2. K-OS – 4 3 2 1 – Similar in name to the Feist hit from last year, the only similarity between the two songs is how great they both are. By mixing rapping and singing, KOS returns with a brilliant first single off his excellent new album.
From the album “Yes!”
www.k-osmusic.com

3. The Decemberists – The Rakes Song – Off their huge concept album (The Hazards of Love), this song is both utterly horrible (lyrically – it’s about killing your kids) and wonderful. A great example of telling a story musically, yet still keeping things catchy enough to be great music.
From the album “The Hazards of Love”
http://www.myspace.com/thedecemberists

4. Manchester Orchestra – I’ve Got Friends – Reminiscent of Brand New, this song excels at the use of going from really quiet to really loud really quickly. Angry and dark, yet completely captivating and worthy of a sing-a-long.
From the album Mean Everything To Nothing
http://www.themanchesterorchestra.com/

5. Silverstein – Vices (Feat. Liam Cormier) – Off this year’s best album so far, it’s one of the darkest and angriest songs I’ve heard in awhile, while still featuring one of the most over the top yet brilliant lyrics in awhile - I’m not going home tonight, I’d rather sleep with the devil.
From the album A Shipwreck in the Sand
www.silversteinmusic.com/

6. Silverstein – The Tide Raises Every Ship – Shane Told's voice BOOMS in this one, explaining a lot of the lyrical story from the album. I struggled to pick just two songs from Silverstein this month, as their new album is absolutely brilliant and by far their best work, I highly recommend it.
From the album A Shipwreck in the Sand
www.silversteinmusic.com/

7. Bob Mould – Life and Times – A straightforward great rock song about reflection and nostalgia, the use of string instruments is minimal but works well, to accent how much the song rocks.
From the album Life and Times
www.bobmould.com/

8. Art Brut – DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes – Fun rock about the lighter things in life, and not wanting to take growing up so seriously. The chorus is catchy as hell, and it’s a self-referential song about comic books, of course I was going to include it this month.
From the album Art Brut Vs Satan
www.artbrut.org.uk/

9. MeWithoutYou – The Fox, the Crow, And the Cookie – Abandoning any of their hardcore elements, these folk-punk weirdo's new album is a simple but great folk-pop disc with lots of unique songs about animals, including this catchy song that is essentially just a children’s story.
From the album It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright
www.mewithoutyou.com/

10. Depeche Mode – Wrong – While the rest of this album is pretty boring, Wrong`s a dark and slightly morbid electronic gem.
From the album Sounds of the Universe
www.depechemode.com

11. Dan Deacon – Build Voice – Bromst is packed with electronic songs that start out slow but build to amazing conclusions. Build Voice may be the best example of this, like Silverstein, I really recommend Dan Deacons album this month, as its worth listening to from start to finish.
From the album Bromst
www.myspace.com/dandeacon

12. Dan Deacon – Padding Ghost – More spastic then Build Voice, the sounds are more upbeat, making for a great electronic dance song.
From the album Bromst
www.myspace.com/dandeacon

13. Doves – The Outsiders – A great rock song that builds to a great finish, almost like if Coldplay had a bit more balls.
From the album Kingdom of Rust
www.doves.net/

14. Mastodon – Crack the Skye – Despite thinking that every prog-metal sounds exactly the same, I really like this new single from Mastodon, its oddly catchy for being such an epic metal song.
From the album Crack the Skye
www.mastodonrocks.com/

15. Peter Bjorn and John – Living Thing – An oddly catchy song that features a lot of silent spaces to accent the core elements of the song, and how they all come together at the finish of the song.
From the album Living Thing
www.peterbjornandjohn.com

16. Trey Parker – Gay Fish – Even if you don’t watch South Park, I’m sure that you`ll appreciate this perfect parody of Kanye West’s Heartless. It’s a brilliant poke at Kanye, yet it’s still catchy, and once you start listening to all of the ridiculous lyrics, it just takes things to another level.
From the South Park episode Fishsticks
www.southparkstudios.com/

17. Silversun Pickups – There`s No Secrets This Year – With some wicked guitars, the Pickups kick off their pretty good new album in great fashion, with this wonderful song that will linger in your head for hours.
From the album Swoon
www.silversunpickups.com/

18. Wild Light – Heart Attack – While the rest of the album was a disappointment from California on My Mind, I really like this upbeat song with a fun chorus.
From the album Adult Nights
www.myspace.com/wildlight

19. Static-X – Lunatic – I love the guitar intro to this song a lot, and it never slows down from that point forward, in this speedy and aggressive track.
From the album Cult of Static
www.static-x.com/

20. The Sleeping – Bomb the World – Bit of a ludicrous title sure, but by the time the title is repeated quietly at 2:25 of this song, you`ll be a fan.
From the album What It Takes
www.myspace.com/thesleeping

Things I Am Looking Forward To

Heroes was really excellent tonight, and as a result, I am all excited and cannot sleep. Thus, we have a list of albums coming out in the next few months that I am really excited for - enjoy!

Silverstein - A Shipwreck in the Sand - At one point Silverstein were one of my favourite bands, but then their last album (Arrivals and Departures) seemed like a reaction to becoming popular off their softest song ("Discovering the Waterfront"). Since they got popular off a mellow tune (that wasn't reflective of their sound), I felt A&D was overly hard and lacked a lot of the melody their previous stuff had. The best thing about Silverstein (like Thrice) is the ability to merge quiet and soft moments with brutal moments of hard music.

This new disc is a concept album, meaning it will either be really goofy or really good. I'm optimistic, as other then A&D (which truthfully never got the second chance it deserved by me) I've always really liked everything they've ever record. (Out March 31st)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Its Blitz - Considering Blogger took down my post about "Heads Will Roll", I'm not sure if anyone saw how much I gushed how great that song is. I'm optimistic the album will live up to how great that song and the first single ("Zero) are. (Out March 31st)

Doves - Kingdom of Rust - I fell in love with Doves a few years back, and their second album (The Last Broadcast) is one of my favourite albums. I'm a sucker for long songs that build from seemingly nothing into epic and uplifting songs. It's been a while since they've had a new album out, but the first single ("Jetstream") was excellent and seemed like it could have been taken off of The Last Broadcast, so this should be great. (Out April 7th)

Metric - Fantasies - Another band that's been quiet for a few years, but both of their previous albums have been interesting and fun listens. Old World Underground is another great album, but the last disc was kind of boring and lost a lot of the fun. The first single, "Help I'm Alive" seems to capture some of their fun energy again, so again, I'm optimistic. (Out April 14th)

The Enemy - Music for the People - I love epic songs. The Enemy's first album (We'll Live and Die in These Towns) made even the most mundane aspect of life seem epic. I'm excited to hear any sort of follow-up. Hopefully they can make a dent in North America, but they sound super British, which can be a real hindrance at times. (Out April 27th)

CKY - Carver City - I love CKY. I love the movies, I love the music. It can be over the top, but both CKY Volume 1 and Infiltrate - Destroy - Rebuild are two really great and really complete albums. From start to finish I can listen and love those discs, the third disc (An Answer Can Be Found) was boring to me, and lacked something. No clue if I just grew out of their sound, of it they took a studio dump on album number three. We'll find out soon. (Out May 15th)

Taking Back Sunday - New Again - One of my favourite bands, Taking Back Sunday have put out three phenomenal albums, despite going through guitar/singers on those three albums. Now with backup vocalist number three (and Straylight Run and The Colour Fred spawned out of TBS), I'm hoping that album number four can be just as good. A lot of these releases have me "hoping" they can be as good as the music from the band that I've loved so much previously, and this is no exception to that rule. (Out June 2nd)

Billy Talent - Billy Talent 3 - BT 1 is one of my favourite albums ever - it's just a great rock and roll album from start to finish. BT2 was easily the most disapointing album of 2006 - it was awful then, and I still hate most of the songs on it. They're batting .500, hopefully they can come in and change that to .666 with BT3. (Out June 9th)

Jesus, there's a lot of hope in there.

Note: All of these release dates could change, only the first couple discs are slotted in for sure. Anything after Metric is based on information from Wikipedia, and who knows with that place, right?

Jesse.

MUSIC:
- I'm too lazy to list MySpaces for all of these bands but just take
http://www.myspace.com/
And add in the band's name after the slash.

8Tracks Mix Tape
This is a sampling of some of the bands listed above. It's all streaming, and not as good as Fav Tape, which is currently down.

Listen to Doves - Jetstream