A Few Serious Albums...

Do you ever find yourself in a really bad mood, trawling through post upon post of upbeat dance remixes, synth pop next big things and twee indie rubbish? Well... even though it was me who wrote all of it, sometimes I find myself agreeing with you! So this post is designed as the antithesis of that; so that you can download a few moody tunes and go and sit in your room, wishing that Nirvana still existed.

The picture at the top is a bit of a give away, so I had better talk about Crystal Stilts first! Their recent album, "Alight Of Night" really hasn't got as much attention as it deserves; it's a Smiths-meets-Glasvegas reverb drenched masterpiece of mood that is quite probably the official sound track to the world economy of 2009.

Crystal Stilts - The Dazzled

Effortlessly more optimistic than the previous is The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's (from hereon in known as TPOBPAH, no way am I typing that all out again) eponymous debut. The fact that Pitchfork are fallating them as we speak may be hard to get past - but if you do manage to overcome that superficial factor, then you'll find TPOBPAH's debut to share Crystal Stilt's affinity with the Smiths esq jangly guitars, but this time mixed with big Band of Horses choruses. I said that Crystal Stilts weren't getting as much attention as they deserved - but when their competition is bands like TPOBPAH, I'm not surprised.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Stay Alive

Finally, with Elbow most probably spending 2009 on a well deserved lap of honour of the UK's more accommodating venues, there has been a Mancunian shaped hole left in the UK music scene, and the Doves' epic sound from preview single "Jetstream" sounds like they'll fit the bill very nicely, thank you! "Kingdom of Rust" is released on April 7th and you can preorder CD and cinyl for £3.50 on their website!

Doves - Jetstream