Monkey – Journey to the West – Somewhat of a spinoff from the band Gorillaz, this is the music to a play/musica/theatre production things. As such, don’t look for singles and a traditional album format. Sitll it’s a decent listen and anyone open minded who is also a Damon Alborn or Gorillaz fan should give it a listen.
Mystery Jets – Twenty One – Between the great single are some much more ho-hum songs. “Two Doors Down” is a catchy little tune and needs to be heard by a lot of people. The rest of the album is generally uninteresting. I think I liked their previous albums better.
The Mystery Tramps – We are the Mystery Tramps – I don’t know much about these guys but I’m going to guess that the members of this band are still pretty young (They definitely look it on the album cover). The songs generally fall into a pop-rock model, scarily close to some fake Disney band. Though the seven-song album is inconsistent, the song “Actors” is a total winner and shows that these guys have some promise.
Kate Nash – Made of Bricks – I really have a hard time figuring out the different between Kate Nash and Lilly Allen. I gues Kate Nash is more guitar oriented and loss cocky. Despite attempts at being edgy (songs like “Dickhead”) I find it all so cute and whimsical kind of like when a 2 year old kid flips you off. They may have seen the gesture and they are repeating the gesture but that little child has no clue whatsoever as to the actual meaning of that gesture. And that’s what Kate Nash (and Lilly Allen) feels like to me. They sure are trying hard to be taken seriously and to be important and all that. But in the end, it’s just a meaningless gesture.
Navel4Eve – Sex Makes Song EP – Fun little 3 song synthpop EP. It doesn’t solve anything and really adds little to the world. But it’s fun in it’s own way. They are trying so hard and I can commend that. Let’s see if an album ever comes out before passing full judgement. Musically, it sounds straight-out-of-the-80’s. Like a long lost Human League b-side.