I don't know who chose today as the release date for Matt Pond PA's new album, Last Light, but the music couldn't be more perfectly suited to the waning days of summer. From the painfully timely title track to the gentle acceptingness of the final song, "It's Not So Bad at All," the music perfectly captures that mix of depression and optimism that has plagued my summer-fall transition since my first year of school.
Not surprisingly, I picked this record as one of my September must haves. 
When I first picked up Canadian singer-songwriter Feist's breakthrough album, 2004's Let it Die, I thought it was perfectly pleasant background music. Her '70s-infused, lounge-y songs seemed perfect for a dinner party, or for playing faintly while I flipped through a magazine. Only the catchy "Mushaboom" really made me sit up and take notice, wedging itself in my head for days on end. 
There is a whole breed of baby-voiced women — Joanna Newsom, Satomi Matsuzaki of Deerhoof, and, to a lesser extent, Bjork — whose singing style suggests that of a tiny girl stranded on an amusement park ride. When the creepy/cutesy effect works, it's stunning, and when it doesn't, it can just be grating. That can definitely be said of CocoRosie, comprised of sisters Sierra and Bianca Casady, whose third album, The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, hit stores this week.
If you're a regular BuzzSugar reader, you know how much I've been looking forward to the new Bright Eyes album — that is, very much, for months. Each new track that trickled out only heightened my anticipation. If the whole album was as well-crafted as the fiddle-laden "Four Winds," I thought, then Cassdaga would do nothing but rule.
In the din of hype surrounding the new albums by Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, and the forthcoming Wilco and Bright Eyes, you might miss the quiet genius of Andrew Bird's new release, Armchair Apocrypha. But after spending a few weeks with the album, which hits stores today, I'm already willing to say it's likely to end up on my year-end best list.
The hippest thing ever to happen to the pizzicato violin, Andrew Bird is just as adept at crafting string-laden pop songs as he is writing rhymes so sing-song, it takes you a moment to hear the words. RSS Feed 
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