Blue Brain

Phoenix is a French alternative rock band started during their childhood by Thomas Mars, Deck D’Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz in the affluent suburb of Versailles, in the same culture that produced late-’90s bands such as Air and Daft Punk. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is their fourth studio album. I would describe their sound as Gorillaz meets Death Cab for Cutie; a blend of soft rock and electronic.

To be honest I had never heard of Phoenix before I stumbled upon this album, so I can’t really comment on what (if any) kind of evolution this album is from previous works. However, I can say that I really enjoyed this album and it’s great from top to bottom. There’s a sense of purpose about the album’s opening salvo of tracks: Liztomania and 1901, in particular, are so well done, so perfectly constructed as to outflank any reservations you might have about the band’s slightly dry approach.

There’s also a nice range of tempos throughout the album, Fences spikes the electro beat of Daft Punk with an urgent acoustic-guitar breakdown for splendidly danceable melancholy. To the near Brit-rocky rave-ups of Lasso.

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MSTRKRFT (pronounced “Master-craft”) are an electronic music group from Toronto, Canada. Fist Of God is their second album, following up their first album The Look
which was released in 2006. Fist of God is a high energy slap in the face of electronic, pop and rap vocals. This is not your grandma’s techno album. Featuring guest rappers Lil’ Mo, NORE, E-40, Ghostface Killah & Freeway just to name a few.

Keep in mind this album is dance music so don’t expect deep thought-provoking intelligent lyrics, the music is the main focus. Sadly you can’t help but notice that a lot of the songs on this album have a near identical sound to them, so about 4 tracks deep into listening you might find yourself feeling like this whole album is just one long techno track.

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Junior is the 3rd studio album from Norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp. The word Röyksopp is a stylized version of the Norwegian word for the puffball mushroom, “røyksopp” or literally, “smoke mushroom”. This is their first album release for the year. The group plans to follow up “Junior” with “Senior” which is slated for release in the latter-half of 2009.

I first discovered Röyksopp when the HBO series Entourage featured a remixed version of their song “What Else Is There”. Junior has been described as a mix between the styles of the two previous studio albums, Melody A.M. and The Understanding.

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