album review: mystery jets. radlands. 30 april 2012. rough trade records
(buy here)

Back when I gave my glowing review of Mystery Jets‘ previous album Serotonin, I described it as the perfect indie pop album from a band at the top of their game. I stand by the perfect indie pop album comment, but not the top of their game. They’ve only gone and outdone themselves. Radlands, so named after an area that they came across while recording the album in Texas, is an album from a proper band. There is more talent on show here and more sound. Instrument is laid over instrument perfectly to produce a sound that no band that recorded ‘Zoo Time’ (I love Zoo Time by the way) should be able, or even allowed, to produce. The theme is still love, but this is no longer young love. This is very well observed comments on break ups, rebounds and the like.

Shortly after recording the album Kai Fish left the band. He was there for the recording, but won’t be touring or with them for future releases. I hope that this isn’t the beginning of the end for the band, because things are getting properly exciting now.

8.5

it seems like an age since i’ve mentioned mystery jets. considering that i used to talk about them constantly this is strange. i’m not sure why it’s happened, but let’s address that before they move to america and forget about us. the video for ‘serotonin’ is out and looking nice. very simple, but nice. basically it is the band and a load of hipsters sitting down, looking like their serotonin levels are increasing throughout the video. i see what they’ve done there. it was directed by good shoes frontman rhys jones, which is surely just another reason to watch it because good shoes are ace. notice blaine’s t-shirt as well. you don’t really need to suck up to the director when you’re the lead singer of the band, but nice work all the same. i’ve used the word ‘nice’ a lot here. goodnight.

coming up over the christmas period i’m with the family and all that jazz for most of the time so posts might be a little irregular. i’ll be trying to do a couple of features though and a few spotify playlists. first off, this one. i’ve chosen my favourite track from each of the 2010 albums of the year i picked, other than those that aren’t on spotify. as an extra bonus i’ve put in my choices from my favourite three eps from 2010 as well. what’s more, my two favourite singles that aren’t on any of those records (still with me?) are here too… that’s ‘the sea is a good place to think of the future’ and spanish sahara’ by the way.

sockformation’s top ten albums of 2010 and then some other tracks as well (spotify)

the above is a picture of how i prepared myself to decide on my favourite ten albums of the year. i’ve sort of been thinking about it for a while and in the end sat down, made a list off the top of my head and by checking itunes and my last.fm from the past twelve months. that sort of thing. a few i’d forgotten about came back into the running and i got down to a short list of 30something. i succeeded in getting it down to ten. sort of. i have given an honourable mention to one outside the top ten as well because it just wouldn’t have been right not to. you’ll probably understand why when you see what it is. rather than a chart, this is a collection of the top ten in no order (actually, fuck that – i’ll post them alphabetically) other than number one. there always has to be a winner. one other thing to note is that this is just albums. three of my favourite records of the year are eps but i decided to exclude them. i expect i’ll make a post about some of my favourite things of the year in general over the next fortnight and summer camp, spectrals and girls will all feature heavily in this.

with apologies to those that just missed out, including but not restricted to mount kimbie, los campesinos!, kele, yeasayer, abe vigoda, blood red shoes, sleigh bells, girl talk, janelle monae and (the last album to be dropped) foals, here is the albums that are between my second and ninth favourite of 2010.

arcade fire. the suburbs. august.

brilliant story telling album, that just reaffirmed arcade fire as one of the most reliable bands for delivering quality with every record. buy here.

bombay bicycle club. flaws. july.

i cannot tell you just how many time i have stuck this on during my journey to work on a miserable morning and it has cheered me right up. buy here.

the black keys. brothers. may.

one of my gigs of the year and, to me, their most accesible album is also their best. buy here.

crystal castles. crystal castles (ii). april.

another band that excelled live. maybe not quite as good as the debut, but ‘celestia’ is one of the most beautiful yet thrilling things i have ever heard. buy here.

flying lotus. cosmogramma. may.

he’s in even more experimental mood than usual and when flying lotus experiments, the results are always both interesting and superb. buy here.

gayngs. relayted. may.

there is no way this album should work. ever. it does though. now you get twenty odd mates together and write an album inspired by one track from 35 years ago and see what you come up with. buy here.

mystery jets. serotonin. july.

the eel pie island boys have now made the perfect indie pop album. this is. fuck knows how they’re going to improve on this, but i can’t wait to hear them giving it a go. buy here.

no age. everything is borrowed. september.

a cleaner offering than nouns hasn’t meant that no age have lost any of their edge. this may be clean, but is also wonderfully dirty. buy here.

wavves. king of the beach. august.

the best of the lo-fi chill wave type albums that all but took over the world this summer. josh’s favourite album by the way, since you ask. buy here.

let’s have a bit of a drum roll then. the best album of the year isn’t even an album in the regular sense. it is a combination of previous eps and releases from a teenager with a talent for making the unlistenable listenable. when you can’t really make out the guitar, it doesn’t matter because you’re enjoying his voice. when the lack of production and lo-fi sound cracks through the speakers it doesn’t matter because that tune is perfect. i have listened to so little else over the last few weeks that even now as i write i can hear ‘water turns back’ in my head so perfectly that it is as if i have the album playing now.

cloud nothings. turning on. november (i think?)

if you don’t already own this, you need it now. let’s see if first album proper, due next year, will hold the same position this time next year. buy here.

and finally the special mention. i couldn’t leave this out, despite it not quite reaching the heights i hoped it would. i’m seeing the film on tuesday, and i’ll let you know if this goes from an 8/10 album to 10/10 like i hope it will. i love you thomas bangalter and guy-manuel de homem-christo.

daft punk. tron:legacy soundtrack. december. (buy here)

what have i missed? what shouldn’t be there? let me know in the comments. by the way. i am fully aware that the ’0′ at the end of the ‘top10′ text on the cover art graphics is slightly cut off. i noticed after i’d done the last one and couldn’t be fucked to fix it, so live with it.

i’m well busy and stuff at the moment though. and i haven’t got internet in my new place yet. this place will become more interesting again in 7-10 working days. anyway, this is the video to mystery jets’ ‘show me the light’ from the fantastic serotonin. don’t you think kai looks a bit like oz from american pie in it?

so, reading festival, then. traditionally the home of hard rawk and the a-level celebration. on this year’s evidence, the latter very much dominated – you were never more than six feet away from a honey-limbed 18 year old in a class of 2010 hoodie. but who cares when the line-up’s this good.

pulled apart by horses made an early bid for performance of the weekend, killing the festival republic stage with a tight, energetic set. great song titles too, including ‘i punched a lion in the throat’; ‘e=mc hammer’ and ‘high five, swan dive, nose dive.’ from rock gods in the making to rock has-beens at the end of friday night, guns n roses turned up onstage an hour late and, my sources told me, performed a set nearly as bloated and lame as axl himself. i went for lcd soundsystem instead, who ran the gamut from their jokey electroclash beginnings through to the grown up dance music of their latest album this is happening. a class act.

onto saturday and mystery jets, who’ve come such a long way since their eel pie island, dad-in-the-band days. they might just have sneaked the song of the festival, not to mention the summer, with ‘after dark’, while the rest of the set showed a wholly enjoyable self confidence that left no one in any doubt that this band are here for the long haul.

a few notches up the bill, the maccabees combined a similar maturity and also self-deprecation at their thoroughly deserved main stage slot. singer orlando weeks’ voice has a real melancholy to it and songs such as ‘love you better’, ‘can you give it’ and ‘precious time’ got me a little teary eyed, i’m not ashamed to admit.

the libertines’ performance was on time and filled with all the hits and bromance you’d expect – get a room you two! note to axl rose, if pete doherty can do it, you’ve really got no excuse. arcade fire’s slot above the boys of albion was technically good and ticked all the boxes: great songs, lots of instrument swapping, régine chassagne’s silvery prom dress, but i just didn’t feel it as a headline performance. a lot of the festivalgoers, particularly the kids, seemed to agree, eschewing montreal’s finest to watch the rabble rousing pendulum on the radio one stage instead.

and then there was sunday. the weather didn’t know what to do – heavy rain, sun, wind – and the crowd were a little befuddled by that point too after a 48 hour diet of cider, bad burgers and no sleep. local natives soothed the bruised and the broken with gorgeous harmonies and songs about lost love. without question, one of my highlights. which is more than can be said for the drums. now, obviously, it’s not entirely their fault they were hyped to oblivion at the start of 2010, but really, boys, stop the posturing until you have the songs to match. otherwise, you’ll be just another bravery. and no one wants that.

living up to the promise of their early career, foals delivered a far more engaging performance that managed to be both intimate and huge at the same time. songs such as ‘spanish sahara’ and ‘miami’ from total life forever blended well with their earlier, more frenetic work.

over on the main stage it was left to the more mature artists – weezer, cypress hill and headliners blink 182 to the bring the party to a close in spectacular style. while klaxons’ set headlining the radio 1 stage was patchy – good when playing ‘echoes’ or anything from their first album, boring when attempting anything from their second effort – blink 182’s piece de resistance had the drum riser flipped upside down with the drummer suspended in the air. now that’s how to show the kids how it’s done.

words by helen parton

with the hardest working day of the week now consigned to water cooler history, and only four office days left until field day festival i thought i’d get home, relax and put my weary feet up with some terrible television. i wanted terrible but watchable tv. you know, shit, but still leaves you feeling warm inside (surprise surprise, howard’s way, that kind of thing). to my annoyance i’ve painfully just watched the first 41 seconds of ‘snog marry avoid?’ and i’m left questioning our existence. but instead of writing a tear and blood stained final message directed at jenny frost, ‘pod’ and overweight orange girls giving them the satisfaction they crave, i’ve instead gone through my itunes to make a rather more life embracing note of my favourite five albums of 2010 so far. so for all those looking for something other to do than start gang warfare against glowing perma-tan girls, go listen to the following…

foals. ‘total life forever’
raising the bar not just for bands from studious oxford, but for all british bands right now. amazing. 9
favourite song… ‘spanish sahara’

arcade fire. ‘the suburbs’
not out for a few days yet, but thankfully for us (but not their bank manager) it’s leaked and is currently set on repeat on my iphone. quite brilliant. 9
favourite song… ‘ready to start’

mystery jets. ‘serotonin’
the strongest middle of an album i’ve heard in a long time, irresistibly catchy. 8
favourite song… ‘show me the light’

avi buffalo. ‘avi buffalo’
sounds like the album mgmt tried (but failed) to make with their second offering. poppy and summery, lovely stuff. 7
favourite song… ‘truth sets in’

yeasayer. ‘odd blood’
in places sounds like a perfect pilled up, loved up, (but still relatively calm) summer rave. odd blood, odd sounds and oddly scattered bits of genius. 7
favourite song… ‘love me girl’

so there you have it, my top five. a special mention should also go to sleigh bells, the coral and two door cinema club who just failed to make the grade, i’m sure they’re crying into their supper right now. with that written, i’m off to watch ‘lee nelson’s well good show’. someone pass me a gun.

words by jamie day (twitter, blog)

album review: mystery jets. serotonin. 5 july 2010. rough trade records

a few weeks ago, in the infancy of the new sockformation, i made a very quick post about the new mystery jets album being pretty fucking awesome. nothing has changed. i still love it. with the album due to be released tomorrow i thought i’d give it a bit more of a fuller run down though. i’m good to you i know.

i have loved both previous mystery jets offerings… ‘making dens’ brought us the anthem that is ‘zoo time’ and the excellent ‘twenty one’ brought us multiple tracks that would get stuck in your head for days. but in a good way. both albums had heart and fun in equal measure, but is is with the new record that mystery jets have hit the jackpot. i know it is early in the review (but i won’t be going on for long anyway), but i’m going to describe it as the perfect indie pop album now. that’s the second paragraph and i’ve already called it that.

having said that, what would you expect? the album is produced by the man who brought us ‘different class’ and ‘never mind the bollocks’ amongst others. now, this album is not a pulp album (and certainly not a sex pistols album), but it does seem to hit its audience with the same perfect timing as those great albums did. you also get the feeling that it can have the longevity. i can’t imagine ever getting bored of listening to it.

so, what’s so good about it? the inventiveness? yes. the variation? yes. the lyrics? yes. more than anything though this is an album that takes the past mystery jets formula – write a song about love; put a little bit of fun in it; get it produced by some sort of genius – and does it to perfection.

the album title refers to something well scientific that i don’t really understand but makes us feel happy. i can’t think of a better title.

9

the new mystery jets album (serotonin) is, quite simply, the album the drums wish they’d made. the perfect indie pop album. i’ve already listened to it about fifty times and have no intention of stopping anytime soon. it is that good.