Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi - Rome (2011)

When an album takes five years to make, you have to wonder if it's gonna be worth the wait. Well thankfully this is. In traditional Danger Mouse fashion, Rome is a nice genre-blending record that's engaging and of course, well-produced, incorporating elements of alt. rock, folk and chamber pop. The recurring theme of this record is spaghetti western films, and it comes across well in the record, as this could very well be the soundtrack to a modern western film. In addition to all this, Jack White and Norah Jones supply terrific vocals to some of the tracks. At 35 minutes, this album is short, sweet and a definite front-runner for AOTY. Highlights of the album for me were 'Season's Trees', 'Roman Blue' and 'Her Hollow Days'.

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Sun City Girls - "Funeral Mariachi" (2010)

The final studio album from Sun City Girls. For those not familiar with the band, the Girls formed by brothers Alan and Richard Bishop in 1979 in Phoenix, Arizona, who formally disbanded in 2007 after the untimely death of drummer Charles Gocher. During their nearly three decades together they released a dizzying array of some of the most unique and challenging experimental music to come out of America. Combining influences ranging from surf rock, punk, movie soundtracks, freejaz, traditional Middle Eastern and African music, spoken word, and free improv (as well as having borderline performance art live shows) the group may seem absolutely impenetrable from the outset, especially if you don't know where to start.

Well, "Funeral Mariachi" is a pretty good place to begin. While most SCG albums are seemingly entirely idiosyncratic and chock-full of unpredictable weirdness, this album has probably the most coherent number of actual "songs" in their catalogue, while still remaining unmistakably Sun City Girls. This is very obvious from the first few moments of the opening track "Ben's Radio" which eventually gives way to a spaghetti western vibe which is densely prominent throughout the majority of the album. There is heavy Ennio Morricone influence here, especially in the second half of the album (including a cover of Morricone's "Come Maddelena"). The standout track for me is "The Imam" combining Middle Eastern instrumentation and chanting with SCG flair (I swear I hear a rubber ducky as part of the percussion). While tracks like "Black Orchid" and "Blue West" are straight out of 60s Italian Westerns.

"Funeral Mariachi" is a wonderful final record to one of the most mysterious, engaging, and challenging bands of the 20th century.

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A Forest of Stars - Opportunistic Thieves of Spring (2010)

In 2008, "Victorian occult" band A Forest of Stars surprised listeners with a refreshing take on black metal. From the from first song onwards listeners were engaged in a see-saw battle between eerie western themes (similar to the sounds of The Assassination of Jesse James , or Carnivàle) and a mid-paced (although possibly falling towards the edge of generic) black metal that twists and shines above one another, distorting the already dark sound of each into the atmosphere of a dust storm in the height of night.

To their possible credit, they achieve much of the same with their most recent adventure, 2010's Opportunistic Thieves of Spring. One is drawn into their steam-punk vision with ease. Violins tremble, pianos chime and guitars bury while the screams and shrieks from the vocalist so aptly named Mister Curse (even good bands need their kitsch) send us pain, only to be lifted with hope from the subtly sweet sounds from "Katheryne, Queen of ghosts". Also to their credit, while being samey, they are much tighter. As we look back, their debut, Corpse of Rebirth, seems almost more like an exhibition of their style, more than it is an album. Even with the atmosphere underneath it all, it was disjointed. Transitions could have been better, and riff-work wasn't quite strong enough to feel like it was given much care, but that certainly has been improved.

The counter to that, however, is that nothing really hits me quite hard. While this may be due to a lack of time to let it settle (despite that I am a bit late on this review), or just a general malaise (or sleep deprivation), I haven't really found any moments where I truly thought it was brilliant. For example, in the song Female, from their debut, it begins with a very cold piano section leading into the haunting violins, building towards the doomy riffs and the stunning anguish as Mister Curse groans about how "The moon pushed the sun down the spiral staircase of time"* all of which hit me into what, I feel, was their intention throughout the entire record. While I was taken out of that atmosphere less often, I just never found a moment quite like that in this recent effort.

Still, everything is in its place. The agony, the chill, the shining grace, all can be found if you navigate the gauntly dust bowl conjured by this album.

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