New Music Friday - Passion Pit, Eminem and more

I've written reviews of new releases a few times on TSAD (here, here, and here), but today I'm upping the ante. A bunch of great/interesting music has been released since last Friday, so let's begin.

Passion Pit - Manners
Say hello to 2009's version of MGMT. We may be the last music blog on earth to write about these guys, even though their album just came out on Tuesday. Passion Pit's deeply textured electro-pop first caught the industry's attention with their release of the EP Chunk of Change last year. Manners features fast paced beats, solid bass lines, high pitched vocals, and hooks that will have your head bobbing within seconds (sound familiar?). But this is not a retread of MGMT's Oracular Spectacular. It's more focused, sticking to the electro-pop and not descending into weird psychadelia. Sure it's a little goofy, but I can't get enough of it. And at the end of the day, wouldn't you rather listen to catchy electro stuff instead of hookless stuff from Animal Collective and TV on the Radio? I know I would. Listen to the first two tracks and I think you'll agree. If you only check out one album that I write about today, make sure this is it.

Manners - Passion Pit

Eminem - Relapse
Eminem is back with his first new release in nearly five years (disclaimer: I am huge fan of Eminem's first three albums, I think they are as good as rap gets). The title of this release gives you an idea of what's to come. Em spends a lot of time discussing his valium addiction while still staying true to his roots: violence, crazy stories, and celebrity bashing. The beats are great (dre never disappoints), the flow is still tremendous, but I just can't get past his delivery on this album. WTF is he doing with his voice on so many of these tracks? That weird Jamaican wannabe voice sucks. Eminem's regular delivery is second to none, he has no need to do this weird shit. What happened to this guy? There are some highlights: Crack a Bottle is a great party song and will be on my next playlist, and Bagpipes From Baghdad, Stay Wide Awake and a couple others are listenable. But Stay Wide Awake is a perfect example of his delivery problems: the parts where he raps with his normal delivery are great, the other parts, not so much. At the end of the day, Relapse is better than Encore but not even in the same ballpark as Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers, and Eminem Show.

Relapse on Lala

Iron & Wine - Around the Well
Around the Well is a double disc release of rarities, b-sides, and songs that got cut from Sam Beam's albums to date. More Iron & Wine is never a bad thing. The album has a nice symmetry: the first disc is comprised of older Iron & Wine tracks from their lo-fi days, and the second disc features their more recent work. Serious Iron & Wine fans (and I'm one of those) will recognize a few tracks. Hickory is a classic track from their lo-fi days, Such Great Heights is a Postal Service cover that appeared on the Garden State soundtrack, and The Trapeze Singer is often the pinnacle of Iron & Wine's live shows (and my favorite song by them, it's great to see this song make it onto an official release). Some guitar riffs on the album are very similar to other songs that actually made the previous releases, which is probably why these tracks were left off. That doesn't make the songs bad though. Sam Beam never disappoints. If you like Iron & Wine, this is a must have.

Around the Well on Lala

Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood - Live at Madison Square Garden
The Blind Faith band mates reunite at MSG to play tracks from their 1969 self-titled release as well as tracks from both artists' extensive libraries. Putting one of the great rock guitarists on stage with one of the great rock keyboardists (and my personal favorite singer) can't be bad, right? It isn't.

Clapton and Winwood live at MSG on Lala

Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown
Green Day's latest release following the widely beloved American Idiot. I personally am not a big Green Day fan, but I can tell that this is an album that will be well liked by people who are into their stuff. Not as strong as American Idiot, but good stuff nonetheless.

21st Century Breakdown on Lala

I hope all this new music helps make your Memorial Day weekend great!

Stew