More New Music

New (and not-so-new) music I've come across of late that is very good:

The Feeling - Twelve Stops and Home
In Brief:
"The Feeling have an ability, even within the most ambitious song structure or accomplished piece of musicianship, to sound as if they are singing to you in a small, intimate club, rather - and this, lest we forget, is the primary reason that punk existed - than performing down to their audience from some lofty, lapsed-hippie rock star perch, with a thinly veiled contempt for pop and its listeners. Refreshingly, they rarely sound pleased with their obvious cleverness...They write ornate and soaring conversational love songs, full of heart, bittersweet observation and unashamed street-level Englishness...Not to mention innocence, energy, freshness, youth."

Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
In Brief
"Sometimes Explosions in the Sky start with a whisper and end with a scream, but on the first track here, they begin with a scream and proceed into a symphonic odyssey that Aaron Copland might have composed if he'd played electric guitar. Like Copland, EITS are cinematic, but with more kinetic drive than any film--except maybe Koyaanisqatsi--could match. Compositions like "It's Natural to Be Afraid" take you on epic journeys that roar like a Harley Davidson one minute and slip into taut contemplation the next, using the slow-tension build that EITS have perfected. All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone was produced by John Congleton, who has worked with lo-fi groups like the Roots and the Mountain Goats. They rely on the arc of their compositions and the integral twin lead guitar lines that never solo but always drive the songs. They can shift from power-chord aggression to the sound of plucked mandolins in an instant. This is progressive rock for people who weren't even born when prog reigned supreme. "


James Hunter - Believe What I Say
I've written about James Hunter before, his sophomore record, People Gonna Talk, was one of my favorites of 2006, but this is debut from 1996, and it is every bit as wonderful.
In Brief
The album, which features a guest spot by Van Morrison on not one but two tracks, jumps out of the gate with the swaggering and lovely “Two Can Play”, which will induce headshakes, finger snaps or both. Think of a cross between Sam Cooke and Bobby Darin and you would get the gist of this bubbly, bouncy and well-crafted horn-tinged nugget. The fact that he does it so gosh-darn easily is even more remarkable, as he tosses in some subtle but effective guitar licks.

From there, Hunter ups the boogie ante with the gorgeous “Way Down Inside”, which could have made him a part of some Motown revue. With all of the appropriate shrieks and squeals at all the right times, Hunter could be mistaken as hamming things up, but he never does. The middle portion isn’t a guitar driven bridge but a rollicking drum solo by Jonathan Lee. Perhaps the quality of the album originates from the fact that Hunter can slow things down without becoming as schmaltzy as Matt Dusk or some other non-Harry Connick contemporary crooner.