Noah and The Whale - Last Night On Earth

01. Life Is Life
02. Tonight Is The Kind Of Night
03. L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.
04. Wild Thing
05. Give It All Back
06. Just Before We Met
07. Paradise Stars
08. Waiting For My Chance To Come
09. The Line
10. Old Joy

Charlie Fink's refusal to rest on his laurels is admirable. Over the course of three albums, he has steered Noah and the Whale from winsome folk-pop through confessional misery and now to smooth and shiny drivetime rock. One might have feared the results of this latest iteration, but Last Night on Earth is a sparkling piece of work. There's a misstep in Give It All Back, which hails "the kids who believed in rock'n'roll" only to mawkishly locate them in a school assembly, but even that song is saved by a fabulous arrangement, which – like many of the songs here – blooms in its final bars. In fact, the arrangements are delicious throughout: Just Before We Met opens with a pizzicato violin hook set against a synthesised bassline, before a harpsichord and electric guitar come in, the latter taking on the violin line. It's just one example of how Fink seems to have worked these songs until they are just so, without ever overdoing them...www.guardian.co.uk

The Ukrainians - Hungarian Dance EP

1. Hungarian Dance (2.00) (from the forthcoming album Diaspora)

2. Diaspora ( third wave mix )

3. Children of the Revolution (strange orchestras mix )

4. Refugees (live)

The Ukrainians have forged a unique path by creating a mixture of Eastern traditional music with Western pop that “blows your trousers off” (NME). And now, after a long absence, they return at full power with this new album.
On Diaspora The Ukrainians have excelled. Their own new songs are amongst the best they have written. Surrender to the beautiful melodies, the poetry of the language and the pure energy, excitement and emotive power!
Diaspora (Greek: dissipation) is about migration: the heartbreak of leaving family and homeland forever coupled with the excitement of starting a new life. The songs have a strong resonance at a time when tens of thousands of young Ukrainians, Poles and other eastern Europeans have been flocking to the West in the hope of finding something better. Will they “disperse successfully like seeds”, or will they be “scattered like leaves in a field”?
Some of the band members have Ukrainian parents or eastern European ancestry and continue to feel a connection to the lands of their ancestors. The themes of the songs have travelled down the generations, hitching a ride on the DNA to the present day. Yet, the band transcends geographical and political boundaries. As well as being specifically Ukrainian, their music is universal.
To prove the point, The Ukrainians have taken a glam-rock single from 1972, T Rex’s Children of the Revolution, and completely re-interpreted it. Sure, part of the time you can hear the original melody, but the mood is intense and the message is political as they highlight the courage and defiance of the Ukrainian people at the time of the Orange Revolution. The band has also taken a classical piece, Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 and made it into a great single in the vein of B Bumble and The Stingers’ Tchaikovsky-inspired Nut Rocker. The genius of The Ukrainians, of course lies in the fact that all of these strands come together to make a surprisingly coherent and genuinely stunning album..www.avaxhome.ws

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

01 In the Flowers
02 My Girls
03 Also Frightened
04 Summertime Clothes
05 Daily Routine
06 Bluish
07 Guys Eyes
08 Taste
09 Lion in a Coma
10 No More Runnin’
11 Brothersport

The Yellow Moon Band - Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World

01 Polaris
02 Chimney
03 Entangled
04 Maybach
05 Focussed
06 Domini
07 Window
08 Lunadelica