These days I don’t really take the time to talk about an album unless it’s captured me in a big way. There are so many new releases every week that it can be hard to stay afloat and really give each the time they deserve to be absorbed well.

Neon Bible had a bit of an advantage because of a preexisting love of their last album, Funeral, combined with plenty of publicity. From playing two of their new songs (Intervention and Keep The Car Running) on Saturday Night Live right before the release to Idolator’s persistent hype, the Arcade Fire crew was hard to ignore.

That said, I can’t help but plug Neon Bible for myself, because saying it lives up to the hype hardly does the album justice. From start to finish, Win Butler and company get innovative with instruments and sound effects, channeling equal parts David Bowie, Talking Heads, Neutral Milk Hotel and Springsteen, but still making it their own by throwing in more fresh and unique sound than you could shake a stick at (does that even make sense?).

As Pitchfork noted, the lyrics aren’t anything hot, but I’m not much of a lyrics guy in the first place, so that’s fine with me. The ‘Fork put it well: “Butler’s words, however, have always carried less meaning than the way he sings them and the sound in which his band envelops them.”

I highly recommend this album to, well… anyone. Those with less broad tastes may find it a bit hard to digest at first, but those records are often the ones that stick with us the longest. I know I won’t be getting tired of it any time soon.

Underoath and Taking Back Sunday played at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo tonight.

Underoath live: absolutely great. Taking Back Sunday live: not so much. Considering TBS went on at 9:15 pm and it is currently 9:55 pm as I write this and it takes at least twenty minutes to walk to my car and drive home from Cal Poly and I’ve been home for 15 minutes, you can conclude what happened here.

And I very rarely leave a show early.

Stay tuned for some deep thoughts in the near future. Spare time is… sparing lately. I have not abandoned you, blogosphere.

1. Bjork - “It’s Oh So Quiet” (Post)
2. Bjork - “Hyper-Ballad” (Post)
3. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - “Storm” (Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven)
4. Akon - “I Wanna Love You” (Konvicted)
5. Calexico and Iron & Wine - “He Lays In The Reins” (In The Reins)
6. Plan B - “Sick 2 Def” (Time For Plan B)
7. Van Morrison - “Gloria” (At The Movies)
8. !!! - “Heart Of Hearts” (Myth Takes)
9. Brand New - “Jesus Christ” (The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me)
10. Brett Dennen - “When I Go” (Brett Dennen)
11. Brett Dennen - “Ain’t No Reason” (So Much More)
12. Brett Dennen - “Darlin’ Do Not Fear” (So Much More)
13. Autechre - “Vletrmx21″ (Warp 10 Vol. 3: Remixes)
14. Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore - “Way Back Into Love (Demo Version)” (Music & Lyrics Soundtrack)
15. The Sounds - “Tony The Beat” (Dying To Say This To You)
16. Explosions In The Sky - “What Do You Go Home To?” (All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone)
17. Eluvium - “Taken” (Talk Amongst The Trees)
18. The Mountain Goats - “No Children” (Tallahassee)
19. Eluvium - “As I Drift Off” (When I Live By The Garden And The Sea)
20. Explosions In The Sky - “The Birth And Death Of The Day” (All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone)
21. Johann Johannsson - “Part I” (IBM 1401 A User’s Manual)
22. Mika - “Grace Kelly” (Grace Kelly Single)
23. Rhymefest - “Fever (Dirty)” (Blue Collar)
24. Eluvium - “Prelude For Time Feelers” (Copia)

A while back my best friend started keeping a monthly playlist. Any particular song that she felt was a favorite or most-played item was added to this list. The idea is that, at some undefined point in the future, she’ll appreciate being able to go back and see what she was listening to at a particular era of time.

I took the idea and changed the rules to fit me a little better. I create a monthly playlist but it not only contains favorites of the time, but any song that caught my attention (in a good way) during the month, whether or not I really listened to it a huge amount.

So now I’m going to post these on my blog at the end of each month. For this introductory post I’ll post January’s because it’s the first playlist and I need to catch up. February is soon to follow. Oh, a little disclaimer: the songs aren’t sorted in any order other than whatever order they went on the list.

Monthly Playlist - January 2007

1. Band Of Horses - “The Funeral” (Everything All The Time)
2. The Black Keys - “Thickfreakness” (Thickfreakness)
3. Brand New - “Sowing Season (Yeah)” (The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me)
4. Calexico and Iron & Wine - “He Lays In The Reins” (In The Reins)
5. Calexico and Iron & Wine - “Sixteen, Maybe Less” (In The Reins)
6. DragonForce - “Through The Fire And Flames” (Inhuman Rampage)
7. Eluvium - “The Well-Meaning Professor” (An Accidental Memory In The Case Of Death)
8. Fujiya & Miyagi - “Ankle Injuries” (Transparent Things)
9. Fujiya & Miyagi - “Collarbone” (Transparent Things)
10. Gomez - “See The World” (How We Operate)
11. Jeremy Enigk - “Been Here Before” (World Waits)
12. John Mayer - “Slow Dancing In A Burning Room” (Continuum)
13. John Mayer - “Bold As Love” (Continuum)
14. Birdman & Lil Wayne - “Stuntin’ Like My Daddy (Street)” (Like Father Like Son)
15. Neko Case - “Star Witness” (Fox Confessor Brings The Flood)
16. Ratatat - “Wildcat” (Classics)
17. Ray LaMontagne - “Be Here Now” (Till The Sun Turns Black)
18. Regina Spektor - “Fidelity” (Begin To Hope)
19. Ryan Adams - “The Shadowlands” (Love Is Hell)
20. The Crystal Method - “High Roller” (Vegas)
21. The Decemberists - “The Perfect Crime #2″ (The Crane Wife)
22. The Shins - “Phantom Limb” (Wincing The Night Away)
23. Damien Rice - “9 Crimes” (9)
24. Caspian - “Quovis” (You Are The Conductor)
25. Caspian - “Further Up” (You Are The Conductor)
26. Portishead - “Glory Box” (Roseland NYC Live)
27. mewithoutYou - “Carousels” (Catch For Us The Foxes)
28. Explosions In The Sky - “The Only Moment We Were Alone” (The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place)

I’ve been too busy to post lately. RPM Challenge and side web projects were taking up all my spare time. But the RPM Challenge is over and I succeeded at writing and recording an album in the month of February! Its quality, however, is questionable. I’m proud of about two thirds of it. We’ll leave it at that.

More random musical-ish posts coming soon!