Pick Up :: 01.23.07

I just bought a Wii today, so I won't be able to afford any new CDs until I get paid at the end of the week. However, you can bet that I'll be getting the new Shins and Menomena records. Here's what I wrote about them for the Free Times in an album preview a couple weeks back.

The Shins - Wincing the Night Away (Sub Pop)
It would be so easy to hate this album. Just get Natalie Portman to mention you in a pseudo-indie flick whose soundtrack plays constantly at every coffeehouse in America and sells truckloads of copies at Best Buy, and it would be so easy to draw critical ire for your next album. Here’s the problem, though — Wincing the Night Away is, by all indications, going to be amazing. The first single, 'Phantom Limb,' is easily one of their best songs yet, wholly frustrating elitist music critics everywhere. You win this time, Shins...

Menomena - Friend and Foe (Barsuk)
While technically its third album, the upcoming release from Portland’s Menomena feels like a debut album because of how much its sound has changed in the few years since its inception. Originally a piano-bass-drums trio a la Ben Folds Five, Menomena have expanded its musical repertoire so that all three members can boast the title “multi-instrumentalist” and perfected its post-everything sound on the road. Just check out “Muscle’N Flo” on their MySpace site to see why this is will be one of the most important albums of 2007.

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In other news, I caught most of the "secret" Johnny Irion and Sarah Lee Guthrie show at The Red Tub last night, and it was pretty great. Sarah singing 'California Stars' is just achingly beautiful. Once I get the pictures developed, I'll post them. Unless they suck, which is a very distinct possibility.