Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone is one of my favorite albums. It’s weird, irreverent and often jarring; the album sounds like a couple of adolescent boys hyped up on Fun Dip decided to make a rock album where no idea was too big or too far out there. My favorite thing about The Unicorns were their lyrics: they were always clever, playful, and fresh.

From Who Will Cut Out Hair When We’re Gone:

“Child Star”

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But that was a long time, many band members, and a band name ago. The Islands’ new album, Arm’s Way, has much of the same energy and lyrical cleverness, but the youthfulness has aged into a less chaotic sound.

“Creeper” is a great example. Nick Thorburn, always obsessed with death in its various forms, sings about being stabbed by an intruder in his home. It’s not some cliche love song. It’s musical equivalent Drew Barrymore’s scene in Scream. And oddly enough, it’s danceable and fun.

Some might complain Arm’s Way doesn’t sound like Return to the Sea or Who Will Cut Out Hair When We’re Gone. But the imagination and creativity Thorburn puts in his music never ceases to entertain me.

From Arm’s Way:

“Creeper”

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“Kids Don’t Know Shit”

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Islands will be playing the Siren Festival at Coney Island this weekend.

Photo by josephinegbg

Last night’s Love Is All show at the Bowery Ballroom was great. LIA has a great, infectious energy. Nicholaus Sparding broke a guitar string during the first song. It created an unexpected pause between the first two songs, but I kind of love when bands are forced off of the script. Needless to say, Nicholaus broke another string about twenty minutes later which required him to borrow a guitar. If you have any doubt about the energy Love Is All plays with, count the broken guitar strings.

The band played a few songs from the impending album, A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night, which is rumored to be released in the fall. Everyone enjoyed the new songs, but the old songs coaxed people to dance.

Josephine Olausson is an impressive front woman. Last night, she looked a shorter, punkier Parker Posey on stage. She had this great, easy coolness as she worked the crowd. At one point, she even bent over to let some guy in the audience sing the chorus into her microphone. The best shows are always the ones where the band is having as much fun as the audience.

Love Is All covered “I Ran” by Flock of Seagulls which was pretty great live. You can hear a recorded version over at Electrorash.

If you haven’t heard Nine Times that Same Song, you’re missing out.

From Nine Times that Same Song:

“Ageing had Never Been His Friend”

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“Spinning and Scratching”

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The Best of Radiohead was released on Tuesday. This disappointing compilation didn’t include any songs I, and I imagine most Radiohead fans, didn’t already own. Futhermore, a bunch of Radiohead songs jumbled together on two discs borders on sacrilege. Would you tear random pages out of several books, staple them together, and then sell them? A boxed set would have been a much better product.

Honestly, if this greatest hits collection is a cynical attempt by a record company to monetize their Radiohead catalog (as some people are suggesting in their reviews of The Best of Radiohead), a better way to cash in on Radiohead would be to release a compilation of all of the b-sides before Kid A. These b-sides are hard to find and are a great reminder of why many of us fell in love with Radiohead’s early sound. Radiohead fans would buy this collection of b-sides in droves. It would be a great product that serves not only the record company, but also the artists and the fans.

Case in point, “India Rubber” and “Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong” are incredible songs that harden back The Bends. It would be a shame for gems like these to molder in some dusty archive.

From Fake Plastic Trees – Part 1:

“India Rubber”

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From My Iron Long:

“Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong”

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Photo by Rocco Kasby

Tilly and the Wall released “Pot Kettle Black,” a track from their new album o today. PKB is shocking. I’ve only listened to TatW’s first album, Wild Like Children, with it’s twee-kling songs about dancing, kissing, and being wild like children.

From Wild Like Children:

“Fell Down the Stairs”

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“Pot Kettle Black” sounds like Jamie Pressnall traded her tap shoes for some heavy boots and Tilly is looking to start a knife fight.

From o:

“Pot Kettle Black”

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I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album, which will be released on June 17th.

Admittedly, I was slow to warm up to MGMT. But now I think Oracular Spectacular is the best new album I’ve heard this year. The music is so eclectic; it’s kind of a jumble of the familiar (Prince, The Beatles, David Bowie, et al) and the strange. It has the youthful exuberance and humor of The Unicorns’ Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?, but it is much more accessible.

Last Friday night, I was in this bar. Some untenable hip-hop song with stupid lyrics like “Jesus may forgive you, but I won’t” or something was on the jukebox. The room was freaking languishing under the influence of this kill-joy song. I went to the jukebox and paid a dollar pick the next song. I played “Electric Feel” and the vibe in the room did a 180. People started dancing and laughing. It was great. I don’t know how the Summer Song is picked each year, but I think “Electric Feel” is a great contender.

From Oracular Spectacular:

“Time to Pretend”

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“Electric Feel”

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If you know the name of that Jesus song, please tell me.