If I didn’t have things like “topics of discussion” and “expanding my horizons” to consider, it’s entirely plausible that my listening pile for a few months could be comprised purely of mid 1990s indie rock. Yet I have the nagging desire to institute another round of iPod Chicanery, which will launch once I finish loading up my Nano with a few more albums.

This time around I will not be “going back” to any albums. To the best of my knowledge, I have not listened to any of these albums in their entirety. Roughly two-thirds of these albums were released prior to 1990, which given my normal listening habits is a monumental achievement. Many of them are mirrored in my growing vinyl collection. Rap, jazz, and 1970s and 1980s post-punk are well-represented. Since I am not currently commuting anywhere on a daily basis, I’m going to try my best to listen to my iPod in my living room and on my computer, although this may actually detract from my focus on the project. I will once again try to post every fifty to one hundred songs, which should be easier now that I don’t have any “comfort tracks” to lean back on. I won’t keep myself from listening to other records during the project, but I will try to keep this habit to a minimum.

I have a feeling that this iteration of the project will be profoundly trying, so bear with me.

This clip was featured on VH1’s Best Week Ever, but they didn’t credit the band: Kevin Federline sings a Pilot to Gunner song on One Tree Hill. I would say that the J. Robbins protégés deserved a healthy cut of money for the (mis)use of their song, but perhaps it’s a source of bragging rights in Brooklyn.

There has already been a 2CD benefit compilation for J. Robbins’ son Callum (featuring exclusive songs from Channels, The Life and Times, Mission of Burma, and Pilot to Gunner’s excellent “All the Lights”), but the second benefit release to surface is an entirely different beast. Gordon Withers has recorded an entire album of cello-only Jawbox covers. If you had told me ten years ago that someone had recorded an entire album of cello-only Jawbox covers, I would put good money on it being me, but thankfully Withers is a far superior cellist as his performance on “Desert Sea” attests.

I should probably just do a large YouTube post, but here are some of my recent favorites: Shudder to Think performing “Hit Liquor” and “X-French Tee Shirt” back in 1993, Girls Against Boys performing “Bulletproof Cupid” in 1993, Shannon Wright performing "Louise" in 2007, a batty video for Colin Newman's "B", and a fruity video for Wire's Eardrum Buzz.

This recap took me far longer to finish than anticipated, in large part because I enjoyed not listening to these songs for a few weeks. Here is the zip file of disc two of my year-end mix.

201 / Eluvium / “Amreik” / Copia / Temporary Residence

I would have preferred to include “Indoor Swimming at the Space Station,” but including a ten-and-a-half-minute long ambient song didn’t seem like the best approach.

202 / The National / “Fake Empire” / Boxer / Beggars Banquet

I’d largely avoided The National on the assumption that they were another bland indie rock band that Pitchfork heralded, but after seeing Boxer on too many reputable year-end lists to ignore, I gave it a shot. Turns out that Boxer is an excellent 11:30pm record and "Fake Empire" is an excellent opener. Now I feel like a jerk. Thanks.

203 / Battles / “Atlas” / Mirrored / Warp

You either grow to love the chipmunk vocals of "Atlas"or they quickly drive a hole into your brain. Those are your two choices. On a side note, scene kids have this new thing where they raise their hands in the air and “conduct” all of the words of a song. “Atlas” was a huge target for this behavior. Please make it stop.

204 / Minus the Bear / “Knights” / Planet of Ice / Suicide Squeeze

Minus the Bear’s foray into prog-rock still came with some clear singles and “Knights” was the best of them. While I miss the finger-tapping extravaganza of their early work, Dave Knudson’s “the lead guitar is in this loop pedal and I will stomp it accordingly” act is impressive enough. Two albums until he uses a chainsaw.

205 / !!! / “All My Heroes Are Weirdos” / Myth Takes / Warp

I can only take Nic Offer’s vocals in very small doses (or preferably not at all, in the case of the far superior Out Hud), but “All My Heroes Are Weirdos” was one of the highlights of the generally improved Myth Takes. When !!! swing and miss, it’s ugly, but this song is a nicely condensed version of their aesthetic.

206 / Marnie Stern / “Every Single Line Means Something” / In Advance of the Broken Arm / Kill Rock Stars

“Every Single Line Means Something” is an outlier on Marnie Stern’s debut, since it thankfully never gets too close to album’s standard Sleater Kinney meets Deerhoof approach. Her guitar pyrotechnics are largely held in check here, but it’s for the better of the song. I’m hoping that her second album holds more of these gems.

207 / The Race / “Ice Station” / Ice Station / Flameshovel

Ice Station became my go-to record once a few major storms hit Boston—“There’s no escaping / This ice station” is just too fitting for being stuck in traffic. Previous to the weather changing, my go-to song on Ice Station was “Evil Love,” with its circular vocals and new wave production.

208 / The Twilight Sad / “And She Would Darken the Memory” / Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters / Fat Cat

After seeing the Twilight Sad live at the Middle East Upstairs, I shelved their album for a long time. While I preferred the sonic depth of the record to the band’s curious stage presence, I avoided listening to the album for some unfounded reason.

209 / Port-Royal / “Anya: Sehnsucht” / Afraid to Dance / Resonant

Port-Royal is the best example of a genre record from this year hitting the spot. “Electronic post-rock you say? You’re completely competent at it? Sign me up!” I had to trim this song down a bit since they fade off for a few minutes.

210 / Les Savy Fav / “What Would Wolves Do?” / Let’s Stay Friends / French Kiss

Les Savy Fav records compete with the band’s live spectacle and often lose, but Let’s Stay Friends showed remarkable resiliency against this trend. I would have liked to include both “Pots & Pans” and “The Equestrian,” since I can’t think of any two songs in better conversation with each other musically and lyrically, but in lieu of plugging two tracks from a record into these mixes I chose the single.

211 / LCD Soundsystem / “All My Friends (Single Edit)” / Sound of Silver / DFA

This may be the only LCD Soundsystem song that I like, but any collision of New Order and Steve Reich is worth a listen.

212 / Mary Timony Band / “New Song” / The Shapes We Make / Kill Rock Stars

“New Song” reminds me of Helium’s The Magic City, mainly in the combination of Timony’s guitar riffs and the background keyboard. This comparison is both a blessing and a curse, since while The Shapes We Make is a more accomplished album than its predecessor, the trimmed-down garage rock approach of Ex Hex was a more surprising turn in Timony’s career path.

213 / Shannon Wright / “In the Morning” / Let in the Light / Quarterstick

Shannon Wright was essentially the anti-Tara Jane O’Neil, starting her solo career with the nuanced acoustic songs O’Neil plays nowadays before her gradual progression into furious, oppressive rock songs seething like Rodan’s “Toothfairy Retribution Manifesto.” While I respected this progression, Over the Sun was its logical conclusion and her collaboration with Yann Tiersen was its logical epilogue. Let in the Light is the next book. “In the Morning” has all of the intensity of Over the Sun without the hand to the throat of “Portray” or “Birds.”

214 / Bottomless Pit / “The Cardinal Movements” / Hammer of the Gods / Comedy Minus One

“The Cardinal Movements” was one of four tracks to be released in a pre-album sampler EP last year and resurface on Hammer of the Gods. Since I viewed that EP as an unofficial release, unlike Silkworm’s Chokes! EP, I held off on including any Bottomless Pit songs last year. “The Cardinal Movements” was simply too good to pass up again, even with Midgett’s equally impressive “Leave the Light On” making Hammer of the Gods.

215 / Wire / “No Warning Given” / Read & Burn 03 / Pink Flag

I skipped through Wire’s discography somewhat haphazardly, getting hooked on 154, then moving to Chairs Missing, finally getting Pink Flag, and then fast-forwarding to A Bell Is a Cup Until It Is Struck. I’d dabbled with the first two Read & Burn EPs and the resulting Send LP, but none of those grabbed me as much as Read & Burn 03, which sounds more like the 154-era Wire that originally hooked me. “23 Years Later” is the EP’s biggest statement, but at nearly ten minutes it simply wouldn’t fit.

216 / Mt. St. Helens / “City Of” / Of Others / Two Thumbs Down

Whereas previous Mt. St. Helens albums had one or two songs that were above and beyond their counterparts (“Always on Time,” “Ghostly Presence”), Of Others’ consistency made it more difficult to choose a winner. Despite my fondness for the album’s mid-tempo tracks, I opted for the tight post-punk of “City Of.” It keeps ratcheting up the pressure without losing form. Hopefully they will tour the east coast in 2008.

217 / This Flood Covers the Earth / “The Tetris Chainsaw Massacre” / Barnburner / Self-Released

This Flood Covers the Earth broke up after one too many tours fell apart, but the self-released Barnburner came quite close to approximating the fury of their live set. It would have been far ballsier of me to include the epic hardcore song at the beginning of a disc, but it fit best after the Mt. St. Helens track. I’m a sucker for half-time hardcore riffs and the outro of this song has a prime example.

218 / Last Days / “Swimming Pools at Night” / These Places Are Now Ruins / N5MD

If These Places Are Now Ruins was a bit more consistent in terms of quality, it would have been the third ambient release to make my top twenty. Unlike Stars of the Lid and Eluvium, Last Days stick to the electronic post-rock side of the ambient spectrum, particularly on the gently whirring “Swimming Pools at Night.” The layering of this track forced me to include it over the simple piano ballad “Saved by a Helicopter.”

219 / Jesu / “Blind and Faithless” / Split LP with Eluvium / Temporary Residence

Figuring out the closer for this disc was a difficult process. I didn’t want to mirror the first disc and have the ambient song finish things off, but most of my remaining potential selections (Alcest, Ulrich Schnauss, Nadja) didn’t fit the flow. I preferred Jesu’s Sun Down / Sun Rise, but those tracks were far too long to fit on a mix, and I didn’t allocate enough time for the title track of Conqueror. So instead I included an instrumental cut reminiscent of the Silver EP

Enjoy.

I’ve accepted that physical mix CDs aren’t in vogue in 2008, so I’ve included links for the entire CDs and the artwork for my best of 2007 2CD set. Many of these songs have been pared down in order to fit onto an eighty-minute CD, so download presumed duplicates. If you want to receive a physical copy of the CDs—the packaging, as usual, is involved and not a task well-suited to anything other than my assembly-line production—send an email to Sebastian @ this domain name. Otherwise, here is the track listing and my commentary on the first disc of music (111 mb). The second disc and artwork uploads are forthcoming.

101 / Epic45 / “The Stars in Spring” / May Your Heart Be the Map / Make Mine Music

“The Stars in Spring” was the clear highlight of the lite post-rock May Your Heart Be the Map. Thankfully absent are the listless vocals cluttering other songs on the album, thankfully present is a focus to the layered arpeggios and drifting electronics.

102 / Prints / “Easy Magic” / Prints / Temporary Residence

I’ve played Prints’ “Easy Magic” for a number of people and the response is either “I wanted to stop listening to it, but I couldn’t” or “What in God’s name are you listening to?” I fall on the former side of things, obviously. My favorite song of 2007.

103 / Pelican / “City of Echoes” / City of Echoes / Hydra Head

The first time I heard about Pelican was from Centaur drummer Jim Kelly after they’d shared a bill in Chicago. Upon hearing their debut EP, I was surprised that the sludgy instru-metal band raved about Hum. While I caught hints of this affection on The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw, the title track for City of Echoes could essentially be a blueprint for a Hum reunion. The dueling leads of “City of Echoes” extract Tim Lash’s flourishes on “Isle of the Cheetah” and “Dreamboat” and combine them with the churning riffs of “Stars” and “Winder.” I would prefer Pelican not to be an instrumental version of Hum, but if this track is any indication, I would wear any potential tribute record out.

104 / The Acorn / “Flood Pt. 1” / Glory Hope Mountain / Paper Bag

Whereas Canada’s more famous indie export spent 2007 disregarding the memories that made their debut a success and taking little joy in commenting on the present, the Acorn provided everything that their countrymen sorely lacked. “Flood Pt. 1” is an organic trip through the singer’s mother’s native Honduras. Given their folk origins, the quieter songs on the record are just as great, but “Flood Pt. 1” does a great job of mirroring the subject matter in the musical composition.

105 / Dinosaur Jr. / “Crumble” / Beyond / Merge

I wanted to include one of Lou Barlow’s excellent contributions to Beyond, since “Back to Your Heart” and “Lightning Bulb” surpass anything Barlow’s done since maybe Bakesale, but “Crumble” was too good of a J. Mascis anthem to pass up. Lou gets the shaft again.

106 / The Narrator / “SurfJew” / All That to the Wall / Flameshovel

All That to the Wall had four songs up for consideration—scorching opener “Son of Son of the Kiss of Death,” the chiming surge of “Breaking the Turtle,” the preemptive regret of “Start Parking,” and the hit single charm of “SurfJew.” It probably came down to my fondness for the doubled vocals on “And on this day son, you’ll be a man / Or on this day, you’ll be just another one of us / Who knows.”

107 / Blonde Redhead / “23” / 23 / 4AD

When I overhead Blonde Redhead’s shoegaze homage “23” in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, I figured that my time with the song was coming to a swift and unjust end. Thankfully this did not occur.

108 / Deerhunter / “Hazel St.” / Cryptograms / Kranky

My first listen to Deerhunter’s Cryptograms fizzled out after the first half, which meant that I missed the album’s indie rock payoff. Whoops. “Hazel St.” is a great coming-of-age story that reminds me of a half-asleep (and considerably less saccharine) version of Poster Children’s “He’s My Star.”

109 / Errors / “Salut! France” / “Salut! France” 7″ / Rock Action

Errors should have a full album out in 2008, but the “Salut! France” single was almost enough to tide me over. I’m putting the over/under on the length of their record at 35 minutes. I am going under.

110 / The Berg Sans Nipple / “Of the Sung” / Along the Quai / Team Love

Noticeably absent from this year’s list are Do Make Say Think, whose last three records were in my top fifteen for 2000 through 2004 (a list which needs to be updated). You, You’re a History in Rust took a wrong turn toward Broken Social Scene territory. While I enjoyed finally getting to see them back in March, I was more impressed by their opening act, The Berg Sans Nipple, and spent far more time with their record than with DMST’s album.

111 / Wilco / “Impossible Germany” / Sky Blue Sky / Nonesuch

Two quick points about "Impossible Germany": first, I always hear “Impossible jiminy / Unlikely Japan,” second, the three-guitars-resolving-parts-at-once moment at the end of the song makes me smile regardless of its classic rock cheese factor.

112 / The Forms / “Oberlin” / The Forms / Threespheres

The Forms practice a dangerous brand of lyrical economy. While “Oberlin” floats along on barely recognizable syllables, album opener “Knowledge in Hand” has its more effective vocal melodies worn thin by far too many iterations of its title phrase. I chose less inflammatory option.

113 / Picastro / “Hortur” / Whore Luck / Polyvinyl

Picastro still hasn’t released a fully engrossing album, but “Hortur” is easily on par with past highlights “Winter Notes,” “No Contest,” and “Sharks.” Liz Hysen sounds like she’s sleepwalking through an intense dream, never letting her laconic delivery match the lyrical tumult. It’s a deft trick in which the lulling cello and anxious piano are fully complicit.

114 / Bill Callahan / “Sycamore” / Woke on a Whaleheart / Drag City

Woke on a Whaleheart never fully clicked with me, perhaps because I spent most of 2007 enamored with Callahan’s last release as Smog, 2005’s A River Ain’t Too Much to Love. Yet “Sycamore” stood out when I saw Callahan at the Museum of Fine Arts and not just because of the “I want to be the fire part of fire” lyric.

115 / Menomena / “My My” / Friend and Foe / Barsuk

I never got into Friend and Foe as an album, but “Muscle ‘n’ Flo” and “My My” stuck out as quality indie rock songs with excellent production values. “My My” made the cut because its tone fit the mix better, but both are worth hearing.

116 / Explosions in the Sky / “The Birth and Death of the Day (Jesu Mix)” / All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone Remixes / Temporary Residence

I had initially planned for this song to represent both Explosions in the Sky and Jesu; I prefer it to any of the original versions on All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone and many of the best Jesu songs from 2007 were too long for inclusion (“Conqueror,” “Sun Rise,” “Weightless & Horizontal,” “Farewell”). Eventually I caved on that logic, giving Jesu a song on the second disc. “The Birth and Death of the Day (Jesu Mix)” was one of the few post-rock epics that didn’t disappoint this year. Whereas All of a Sudden lacks the narrative scope of past EITS albums, this remix succeeds through churning layers rather than cathartic crescendos. It may not surpass Broadrick’s remix of Pelican’s “Angel Tears,” but it comes very close to equaling it.

117 / Stars of the Lid / “A Meaningful Moment through a Meaning(less) Process” / And Their Refinement of the Decline / Kranky

I’m fairly sure that putting the ambient classical piece at the end of the disc after the epic post-rock song is an enormous cliché, but it just fit better here. The highly affected piano chords in the last half of the song were too great to pass up.

In the "better late than never" category, here are my top twenty records for 2007. I blame the following things for the delay: ruminating endlessly on fifty-word blurbs, spending too much time trying to one-up last year's design, and attempting to cram a few more 2007 albums into my listening pile after perusing other sites' lists.

More posts to follow now that I have cracked the seal.

My friend and former Signal Drench cohort Mark T.R. Donohue (Western Homes) asked me to do the layout for his NATN feature on the Monolith festival. Here is is. If you've ever wondered about how I design web sites, here's the gist: I come up with a good idea and figure out the least efficient way possible to execute it. Framing those photographs took much, much too long before I figured out how to accomplish it with less aggravation. I'm still happy with this design, though, since it's the best looking thing I've done since my 40 of 2000s feature. It's somewhat amazing how long it'll take me to get back into the swing of graphic design, but now that my muscles are loose I'm off to tackle the Juno Documentary site.

My apologies about being MIA. Without a steady flow of leaked records to fall back on, my go-to topic for regular updates has deserted me. Here’s a rundown of notable recent events, purchases, and developments.

1. Finding the double LP of Dirty Three’s Ocean Songs at Rrrecords in Lowell, MA. As much as I enjoy paying exorbitant prices for out-of-print vinyl on eBay, it’s a much bigger thrill finding a sealed copy in a physical record store for a reasonable price. I've given up on "finds" in Boston record stores, but Rrrecords seemed promising from my one visit.

2. Seeing a free screener of The Darjeeling Limited. I’m not sure how it ranks among Wes Anderson’s films at the moment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it fares like The Life Aquatic; somewhat disappointing on first viewing, while growing steadily upon further consideration. I am a bit concerned about the difference between thematic consistency and treading water and where Anderson falls within that divide, but I think Darjeeling is different enough from his prior works (particularly in setting) to avoid being seen as a suspect. This all seems like faint praise, if praise at all, but I should reiterate that I did enjoy the film and will snap up the DVD whenever it hits shelves.

3. Buying the Folio Society edition of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman from eBay. My affections for first-edition hardcover copies of my favorite books simply won’t work with his novel, since I do not have a grand to drop, but this copy has some amazing illustrations and a much better cover design than the current Dalkey Archive paperback. As much as I like this copy, I’m glad that I didn't have to buy three more at full price within a month.

4. Seeing Bill Callahan at the Museum of Fine Arts. I may review this concert in full at a later date, but my pictures from the show are posted. If you have a chance to see him on this tour, definitely go.

5. Seeing The Narrator and Monotonix at Great Scott. The Narrator didn’t have quite as much energy as they did the last time I saw them (I have a feeling the previous night's show in Vermont was the one to attend), but "SurfJew," "All the Tired Horses," and "Breaking the Turtle" were all excellent. No "Son of Son of the Kiss of Death," but this acoustic performance makes up for it. I finally grabbed their debut seven-inch and "The Cavaliers" is a solid jam. Would you like to see some pictures of their performance? Sure, sure you would. As for Monotonix, they did not lack energy. The Israeli garage-rock band avoided the stage at all costs, opting to run around the whole of Great Scott, jumping on the bar with their highly mobile drum kit, leaping from table to table, and stretching their instrument cables to their limits. If that wasn’t enough, the singer also swung a garbage bag around and then put it on his head, drank beer out of his shoe, and seduced his guitar player. I can’t remember much about their music, but the spectacle is still fresh.

6. Hearing the Acorn’s Glory Hope Mountain. I admit to having a bit of a head start at this one since I share a fantasy hockey league with their bassist, but this Ottawa band deserves your full attention. I can’t think of any other indie folk records that have made an impression on me, but Glory Hope Mountain strikes the perfect balance between the personal and the timeless. The double vinyl is import-only at the moment, which makes it about $30 including shipping, but it’ll be hard to justify not picking up this album. They’ll tour Canada in the coming months, but a US tour should follow in early 2008.

7. Setting up the Juno documentary message board. Yeah, it is operational. I still need to apply an actual color scheme to it (and redesign the main site to match), but if you have any questions or comments about the project or just want to shoot the shit with Jon or me (since we’re the only two members at the moment), join up.

Les Savy Fav - Let’s Stay Friends: Besides having one of the best one-two combinations in the “Yes, we’re still a band” lilt of “Pots & Pans” and “Fuck yes, we’re still a band” throttle of “The Equestrian,” Let’s Stay Friends is a solid follow-up to the singles compilation Inches. If “party like it’s 1999” is in reference to repping a solid year in non-trendy indie rock, they are certainly partying in said fashion. Please book US dates in the current calendar year, however.

Port-Royal - Afraid to Dance: Port-Royal made the logical, if instrumental follow-up to the electronic-oriented post-rock of Lights Out Asia’s Garmonia. I’ll take a shorter album comprised of the longer tracks, since “Deca-Dance,” “Anya: Sehnsucht,” and “Leitmotiv | Glasnost” are more memorable than their shorter brethren.

Epic45 - May Your Heart Be the Map: Sometimes I think of records in terms of what format would better suit them. Marnie Stern’s debut would be better suited as a five-song EP, for example. Epic45 would be better off taking a cue from their name and trimming their layered acoustic-meets-IDM melancholy down to the gorgeous, outstanding “The Stars in Spring” and the graceful “We Grew Up Playing in the Fields of England.” Malcolm Middleton released a 2005 single for “Loneliness Shines” b/w “No Modest Bear,” so the precedent has been set. (Album cut “Solemn Thirsty” was equally worthy of inclusion, but it sounds enough like Arab Strap that I don’t need to worry.)

Jesu / Eluvium - Split LP: Jesu’s songs sound like the melancholic cousins of the tracks that made it to Conqueror. Though that may seem like faint praise, I’ve already listened to these three songs more than that album, so perhaps Jesu is better consumed in EP format. (See also: the new-ish "Sun Down" / "Sun Rise" LP.) As for the Eluvium song, it’s long and very ambient, but it is on vinyl, which is more than I can say for the rest of his catalog, cough cough.

Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight: Halfway through this record, I picked up on its repeating subliminal message: “I am a big turd.” “Silver Lining,” the opening track, reminds me enough of Jenny Lewis’s solid solo album to get a free pass, but everything else seemed like a perverse game of “spot our 70s rock influence.” It’s amazing that Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky mines 70s AOR with such success and Under the Blacklight fails mightily in a similar pursuit. Note to all bands: if you sound like Heart, I will turn you off.

I hadn’t even heard of the Download Festival until this week, but shortly after seeing a commercial I found out how to get complimentary tickets. Three and a half bucks in Ticketmaster charges to see a bill of former indie bands I won’t pay full price to see anymore? Sure, I’ll suffer through an all-day outdoor/indoor festival.

Since the festival’s web site didn’t list set times for the bands, we got there early. Oops. Door prizes? Well, we got free corporate schwag from the festival’s numerous sponsors, but we also had to see an unlisted local opener (the Adam Ezra Band) who played jam band lite, a “real” jam band (Apollo Sunshine), and a hair metal revival act (Bang Camaro). I can just imagine the festival executives shaking their heads over the prospect of an outdoor festival without a reasonable draw for local stoners before having an epiphany. “Shit, we could book those bands early on! We don’t even need big names! We can still meet our drum circle quota!” Phew. As for the hair metal revival, I’d be fine with its existence only if the Jersey shoreline split off and became a sovereign nation under the despotic control of the Jon Bon Jovi / Bret Michaels administration.

Just before Band of Horses started playing, I heard a familiar racket coming from the Volkswagen “garage rock” display, in which they had set up amps, guitars, and drums for the kids to play. Prior to this point, it had been the kind of aimless jamming that I’d expect from this scenario, but this time it was some local band playing their youthful attempt at Les Savy Fav worship. It’s hard to dismiss the value of context for this situation—if I’d heard this band at the Middle East, it would be par for the course, but after seeing Bang Camaro’s wretched party metal, it threw me for a loop. Thanks kids.

Band of Horses played a solid mix of songs from their forthcoming album Cease to Begin and last year’s Everything All the Time. While none of the new songs hit quite as well as “The Funeral,” the new tracks seemed more fleshed-out instrumentally than their older counterparts, incorporating piano and pedal steel effectively. Wolf Parade followed with an even greater prevalence of new material, returning to only “I’ll Believe in Anything” and “Shine a Light” from Apologies to the Queen Mary. I tend to only listen to three or four Wolf Parade songs before getting bored or sick of ’em, so having two of their five new songs qualify as great is essentially on par from the last record. Their set seemed short (play “Fancy Claps,” goddammit), but the stage banter was humorous enough to excuse their early exit.

The rest of the show was in the concert shell, so we took our seats and waited for Neko Case to start. I’ve tried getting into the New Pornographers and simply found them too peppy for my liking, but Neko’s voice carried well and Kelly Hogan (a guest vocalist on a Silkworm record or two) did some excellent back-up vocals. I enjoyed her songs enough, but can’t remember a single one of them.

I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs play in City Hall Plaza last summer, so this setting was hardly alien for a band I first saw open up for three other bands at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. Karen O came out in something that looked like a metallic owl costume, then stripped down to her leopard print leotard and pranced around the stage. Yep. Just another day for her. Their set list again ignored “Y-Control” from Fever to Tell and seemed to go a little long, especially with a false start of “Maps” in its standard electric version before switching over to an acoustic take, but on the whole it brought some energy back after Neko Case’s set. They need some songs to bridge the gap between “Maps” and the rest of their set, but that’s what third albums are for, right?

I knew that I’d heard Guster, since they were once the subject of a “guess this song” question at team trivia (we were not successful), but I couldn’t remember what they sounded like. The people in front of us had no idea either, so we exchanged guesses like “light rock for dudes who like Dave Matthews Band” and “Wilco lite” (followed by “Isn’t that Wilco lite lite now?”) before their set started. As it turned out, we were fairly accurate, as Guster’s overwhelmingly bland adult-oriented rock blared out into the amphitheater. The polarization of the crowd was humorous enough—while the vaguely indie people around us left to smoke, nearly everyone else stood up and hugged their girlfriend, bro, or both. Whether that’s a conditioned response to bongos is unclear, but I zoned out until the headliners.

I’d only seen Modest Mouse once before, back in 2000 with a then-unknown Shins started off the bill, but they might as well have been separate bands except for Isaac Brock’s drunken ramblings. I don’t think the band played anything prior to Good News for People Who Like Bad News, with the majority of their set coming from their newest record. I was intrigued to see how Johnny Marr and Brock would mesh as guitarists, but their respective styles didn’t truly spar until the set’s elongated closer, “Spitting Venom.” Marr’s smooth leads worked well against Brock’s raw tones as they stretched the end of the overwhelming highlight of We Were Dead… longer and longer. They waited a few minutes before heading out for the obligatory encore, after which point I bolted to the parking lot to avoid becoming a permanent residence.

I can’t complain too much about spending less than four bucks to see the five worthwhile bands on the bill, but I imagine that I’ll avoid outdoor shows that aren’t sponsored by sunscreen companies for the rest of the summer.

At only ten songs and barely thirty-three minutes, Mt. St. Helens’ self-proclaimed “magnum opus” values economy over accumulation, a rare and admirable aim amidst far too many bloated track listings. Of Others is an enormous step up from their prior attempts at combining Chicago punk aggression with mid ’90s D.C. complexity, gearing more toward the latter without losing the bite of the former. I usually call out bands for the hubris of tags like magnum opus, but I’ll be damned if Mt. St. Helens didn’t shame their past work on Of Others.

The band’s improved across the board. The balance between dynamic, mid-tempo tracks (“The Time of Low Volume,” “Seething Is Believing”) and muscular rockers (“City Of” and “Massive Dosage”) is spot-on, giving Of Others more range and than its predecessors. Quinn Goodwillie’s vocals no longer relapse into yelping/bellowing after finding a solid melody, suggesting that his work in the poppier Sleep Out has bled over. Ben Geier’s drumming trades flash for purpose, earning the long-awaited improvement in drum production. The guitar lines are tighter, complementing rather than crowding each other. Even the slight missteps are forgivable: the devil-horn evocation of “Centicorn” doesn’t fit into the album’s nervous energy, but at only a minute long, the ode to a hundred-horned unicorn is an intriguing departure before the closing slow burn of “Interruption.”

Of Others will be officially released on August 31 on Two Thumbs Down Records, the band’s new home after Divot closed shop. No word on a national tour or a vinyl pressing, but those in the Chicago-land area should hit up the record release show at the Beat Kitchen.