Over the past year, so many albums have come out that have just blown my mind. I mean “fuck me, what was that?” albums; Nick Cave, Portishead, Torche to name a few, but there is one album in the wings that I think, hope, pray is going to blow all these out of the water.

Now you’re probably going to laugh, but if you haven't guessed it yet its… ‘DEATH MAGNETIC’ - the new album by Metallicaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

I wasn’t around back in the day obviously, but there is something about this band I will always hold dear. Of course like many, I lost faith when ‘St. Anger’ was shat out, even more so when their slapstick approach to life in a band was publicly bared in the agonising ‘Some Kind of Monster’ documentary. These guys were never my heroes but as I spent the best part of two hours pointing and laughing at them; part of me sympathised.

It’s obvious they just want to make music - well at least two of them; Robert Trujillo doesn't count - but they have a barrier forbidding the fruition doing anything good. It’s more commonly referred to as an ‘Ulrich’.

Ian Breen OBE spouts his dirty mouth off...

Admittedly, output has been pretty slack as of late. I don't really have a valid excuse, other than that I've been getting fully absorbed by the following awesome things:


1. WAITING FOR 'THE DARK KNIGHT'

Hype has been slowly building around this movie and now it's finally here. Only one more week to wait before we get to relax in those comfy IMAX seats and get our minds blown by a dead man getting an Oscar and a Joker who is supposed to be on the same scary scale as Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth in Blue Velvet - from beyond the grave. Really cannot wait for this!

Weezer’s new record is shit.

You knew it would be but you just had to check it out anyway.

Anyone who heard recent single 'Pork + Beans' and thought “OMFG!£! Weezer have got it back” would have been bitterly disappointed with Weezer’s third eponymous effort which has managed to shit further on the Weezer legacy with painfully basic songs and Rivers Cuomo’s stab at rapping, for which he should be stabbed.

However, those that stuck it out were duly awarded with closer 'The Angel And The One'; the closest they’ve come to reproducing the plodding glory of The Blue Album’s ‘Only In Dreams’.

Chicken Selects are pretty much the only respectable munch you can get from McDonald's. They're easy to nossle on, pretty crunchy, plus you get a sauce to add a bit of taste to possibly the lamest meat available. Anyway, here's some select nuggets of aural/oral delight I'd like to big up your way...

Grails - The Burden Of Hope (Neurot)

If Godspeed You Black Emperor hadn't ballooned in the way they did following their inclusion on the 28 Days Later OST, then I'd bet my placenta that Grails would be on the mouths of many more post-rock musos. Things went a bit weird after this record's follow-up 'Redlight' with the band taking on a air of pomposity with the whole structureless and experimental 'Black Tar Prophesies' series which as whole seemed sadly pointless. Last year's 'Burning Off Impurities' got things back on track but their two opening records are a must own.

Production comes across as effortless but utterly perfect on 'Broken Ballad' and 'Canyon Hymn' with wooly guitar tones and drums that sound like they were recorded in a valley by a sloth. Loved by Neurosis as much as Mogwai, Grails' laidback instrumental noodlings demonstrate post-rock at its finest.

Hello folks, this is my top three records of the year so far!

SHELLAC - EXCELLENT ITALIAN GREYHOUND (Touch + Go Records)

I am a bit late jumping onto the old “Albini” bandwagon, many of his bands have just passed me by, and I feel ashamed to say that as now I can’t stop listening to Shellac. This is the latest offering from his brand of post punk/noise mongers. Taking their own satirical brand of silliness they provide the listener with sometimes Fugazi esque songs and tongue in cheek vocals from one Mr Albini. This is typical Shellac, executed perfectly well, one can only imagine that the live experience offers more than could ever be committed to wax.


HIGH ON FIRE - DEATH IS THIS COMMUNION (Relapse Records)

My top three records of the year:

BATTLES - MIRRORED (Warp)

This is possibly the most unusual record I've ever listened to. Absolutely spastic rhythms, time signatures and melodies that seemingly only appeal to chin-stroking art students. Yet they manage to make initially-impenetrable music incredibly catchy, dancey and FUN! Just listen to the cheeky glam stomp of "Atlas", the slick, backwards, sub-r'n'b melody of "Leyendecker" or the fists-in-the-air riffage of "Tonto" and you'll realise that Battles are the most interesting and exciting band around at the moment. If you haven't seen them live, then you simply have not lived.

STARS OF THE LID - AND THEIR REFINEMENT OF THE DECLINE (Kranky)

Summer is gone, as brief as it was, but all is not lost.
Here's some musical treats to cheer your face up.

DANANANANAYKROYD – 4077801_9975-ccc30 (Download only)

I best clear this up first. This song is not called 4077801_9975-ccc30. After downloading it from the band’s myspace a while ago, I forgot to rename it properly and the song has since been removed. I’ll probably never find out its real name but who cares. Displaying why the double drumming Scots are such a delight, its as if Faraquet took giddy pills supplied by Q + Not U then decided to play a few Forward Russia covers without bothering to learn them properly.
There’s no downside to it, Dananananaykroyd play to elate; just don’t spell their name wrong.

Let’s cast our minds back to the summer of 2000.

A plucky young lad (me) is starting his apprenticeship, meeting all kinds of new people he comes across a chap who introduces him to a type of music that would pretty much change his life. Now I must be honest, he didn’t really choose the obvious choices to introduce me to the world of progressive rock, far from it in fact. The man in question was a chap called Glenn, a good friend and someone who did me cd after cd of bands I had no idea existed. I would go home and listen, sometimes get high and think, wow this is what it was like in the seventies.

I was lent a DVD by a band called Dream Theater, I was bored one night and watched it, I can honestly say I was quite blown away by the stage show, theatrics and of course the musicianship. I followed up the DVD by borrowing an album called Metropolis Part 2: Scenes from a Memory. This is a concept album based around central characters (the actual band acting as the orchestra) who get involved in a murder that happened in the twenties. Yes it's typical prog.

Silly story aside, Dream Theater are one of the few bands dragging a pretty extinct musical genre into the modern age, of course there are the old bands plugging away, but few are trying something new (Porcupine Tree, Mars Volta, Radiohead).

Oasis – Be Here Now (Creation: 1997)

Following the third biggest selling British album and massively successful sold-out dates at Knebworth, Loch Lomond + Maine Road, album number 3 from the Burnage boys had to be a stunner and for a band renowned for pinching riffs from the likes of T.Rex + George Harrison beneath a blanket of Beatles inspiration, emerging with something that came close to previous efforts whilst nursing the blow incurred during the Blur/Oasis battle was a bigger feat than both Liam + Noel’s eyebrows put together.

I’m not going to have you believe ‘Be Here Now’ to be a perfect album or even a great album, just a record that was dealt a bad hand.
Had it surfaced prior to 1995’s ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory’, it would have been recognised as a gradual incline to worldwide dominance. However blurting claims of ‘we’re bigger than the Beatles’ and ‘the best band in the world’ and then coming up with something that half-inches the Fab 4 in some form and disappoints in nearly every song, the critics and record-buying public were going to come down heavy.
On the flip side, if ‘Be Here Now’ was everything it should have been, their star status would have been unprecedented. Sadly as last year’s ‘Stop The Clocks’ compilation proved, The Gallaghers are still paying the majority of their bills with the first two albums.

It's been a bit since the last instalment of 'Simpson Says'.
There's no particular reason for this.
Sorry.
Anyway, here's some wonderful music you check out...



Ramona Cordova – Take Flight (Album: The Boy Who Floated Freely)

Tonight I didn't go and see The Shins. It upsets me. I will hold my hands up and say I should have bought a ticket the day they came out instead of perpetually procrastinating but I still thought if I swallowed my pride and went to see the devil it would be ok.

FORTY FUCKING QUID!!!!!

Are you fucking insane? Would you like a fucking rim-job with that you sleazy piece of shit? There were even some cheeky enough to try fifty!

I figured waiting around for a while would help. I figured I could get them down to twenty-five and I really wasn't prepared to go any higher. Double face value is really pushing it.

It’s been a haven for all things weird and wonderful for as long as anyone can remember but in a move that will leave a big ugly hole in the heart of Manchester’s Northern Quarter, Afflecks Palace has been faced with closure. Developers Bruntwood who own the building, have yet to confirm if they will renew the lease on the building’s contract which expires June 14th with the likelihood of the upspring of yuppie flats.

You might have grown out of it ages ago and not set foot in it for years but this place is a Manchunian institution which draws visitors from all over the UK not to mention the world. It is far from a palace but for most, Afflecks was the first experience of ‘something else’ away from the cunt-ridden slabs of Market Street where customer and retailer were very much equal.

Providing a pedestal and a release for independent retailers offering everything from posters, hoodies, accessories, to other slightly less legitimate products including fortune-tellers for over 20 years, the loss of Afflecks would mean more than just a loss just to the people of Manchester but a blow to Manchester’s development and bowing down to the yuppie generation. Night + Day won its battle against its brainless neighbours so why the Afflecks plight have any different an outcome?

It’d be ridiculous to claim Affleck’s isn’t as popular as it used to be or a victim of the internet as thousands pass through its doors every week. Yes you can find much of what it offers on the internet but where’s the pleasure in clicking ‘buy’ and typing in your credit card number? Afflecks is rite of passage that everyone should have the opportunity to taste.