tickling the late night keyboard

the new death cab for cutie album leaked. it has some highlights and some low points. the highlights: "cath...", "long division" and "i will possess your heart" "grapevine fires" are all pretty solid songs. long division sounds like it could be off of the photo album, in a good way, and cath is just a solid song overall. i like i will possess your heart because it is an attempt at something different. 

the low points. up to this point there had never been a death cab song that i really hated,   there were some that i didn't love, but never one that i found completely unbearable. "no sunlight" changed this for me. it feels immature, thrown together, and is just bad. it sounds like an attempt at radio pop gone awry. "narrow stairs" doesn't cohere as an album. there is no common thread, no common sound, it is just a collection of tracks. it's disappointing because i really like death cab, but this time around they just didn't get it together. pitchfork is going to destroy this album. 

in other news, the cut copy live show is one of the coolest things that i have seen in a while. one member was playing a tiny korg drum machine and just rocking out as these huge beats roared out the speakers. hundreds of people crowded the dancefloor of the urban lounge and exploded at every crescendo and climax, the whole place was pretty much going wild. i'm going to blog about a great opening band on tunesday, but this was a great show, one of the best i have been to since arcade fire last year. the energy as well as the proficiency were awesome. 

i've become addicted to playing tiger woods golf again.