Butterfly Boucher – ‘Scary Fragile‘ : A good, “Tungstall-esque” romp thru 11 tracks. Not as emotionally powerful or invested at the singer’s debut release, but still heads and shoulders above her contemporaries. A good summer album, and soundtrack to a yet-to-be produced Zach Braff film.
Zero 7 – ‘The Garden‘ : (Boy, heavy on the Braff fav’s, huh? Sorry about that.) Zero 7’s new (to me) album contains a lot of what made them successful the first go-around; landscaping sonic movements, a wonderful integration of acoustic and electronic noise, and oh yea… Sia Fuller. The thing I really like about this album though, is the fact that it’s a lot of things at once. It’s a club album, and it’s a backyard summertime album / it’s got hit songs, and it’s got songs you want in the background. Similar to the debut album, it’s one you should have in the collection.
Fastball – ‘Little White Lies’ : My feeling is this – If you’re a one-hit-wonder, you’ve still proven that you can give the buying public a hit, and that is more that what 85-90% of every other band can do. Enter “The Way” rockers, Fastball, and their new album. For the most part, Fastball isn’t re-inventing the wheel here, but they’re making pop-rock music that I can stand, and get a little nineties rock nostalgic about.
And of course, my favorite album of the summer, (that almost no one pays attention to) is Phoenix’s ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix‘. Yea, I don’t know, just something about it. Give it a listen or something. I think you’ll like it.
-kk
