I’ve been bumping the debut of Broken Bells

I gotta say, I love it.  From the lo-fi beginning of The High Road, to the spiky guitar and chorus of The Mall and Misery, I love it.  James Mercer from The Shins and Danger Mouse have created something that I enjoy even more than his last collaboration, Gnarls Barkley.  No disrespect to Cee-Lo.  

Pretty much all of the tracks have something that stand out about them to me, which is rare these days.  It’s great music for just chilling out, studying, listening to rapid-fire Mandarin outside of my window, and walking to class.  

Faves:

October - plucky keys make this song.  great hook.

The Ghost Inside - James Mercer gets his falsetto on, something I always enjoyed from the few time he did it for The Shins.  

Vaporize - My favorite on the album.  Organs swelling throughout the song, while Mercer sings about a couple who didn’t want the same old typical life..  I guess I’m just a sucker for organs (see Yeasayer’s Ambling Alp (specifically the last ten seconds))

In other music news, I got the new Frightened Rabbit (great so far, I’m on my third listen) and the new Gorillaz (not as immediately great as I though Demon Days was, but I’ve only gone through it twice and you have to give Gorillaz a little more time than that to sink in.)