Blood On The Wall

Blood On The Wall, "I'd Like To Take You Out Tonight"

Blood On The Wall, "Mary Susan"

I'm feeling under the weather today; it snowed earlier and am sitting next to three Wharton MBA douchebags in this cafe. Needless to say, it's not a good time. To cheer me up, I have decided to post up some tracks from Blood On The Wall, the opener tonight for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Trocadero.

These songs come from their most recent album from 2005, Awesomer, which belonged in my Top 10 List. I came to this one late in the year, and didn't really have a chance to give it a thorough listening while making up the Top 10 list I did. It most certainly would have made it now, as it's mixture of indie, stoner rock and metal sound so right. BOTW is a trio, led by the brother-sister team of Courtney and Brian Shanks, who clearly were very influenced by the 80s indie scene. But this is not another retro band, copying its predecessors.

It's hard to put my finger on why these guys stand out so much for me, and don't fall into the black hole that is NYC hype bands. It really comes down to their songwriting ability and catchy songs, which force you to return to them again and again. Even in the midst of loud, sludgy song like the opener, "Stoner Jam," the band still keeps your attention with a good song underneath the guitars. Best of all, like Love Is All, they have that dual vocal, male-female Sonic Youth thang going, which y'all know I'm a sucka for.

Nick Sylvester gave it an 8.1 back in the day, and hinted at the reason this album works (if you can get through the pretentious name-dropping and gibberish). Tom Breihan from Status Ain't Hood has also shown love to these Brooklyners. The Simple Mission was also on the case months ago. Funtime OK posted up another tracks from the album recently. Cop the album here, you will not be disappointed.

-Brandon Stosuy had a nice piece on Blood On The Wall and the Brooklyn scene they came out of.

-Another nice thing is that the new Flaming Lips album, At War With The Mystics, is finally in stores, released yesterday. I'll put some tracks up in the next few days, although I am sure that everyone has already heard the album before it ever dropped. Even if you have, make sure you buy the album and support everyone's favorite drug explorers.

-The Brown Brothers are getting their site up and running, with promises of many mixes for download. In the meantime, they have up a Frank Ski mix from 1991 from a show on at [Via A Silent Flute]

-The best news of all is the downfall of this motherfucker, one of the worst, most corrupt human beings alive. The face of the modern day Republican Party and conservative movement.