Parallax View Albums Of The Year 2009

The usual disclaimers apply: we can't pretend to have heard every single new album released in the UK between January 1 and December 31 of 2009, but of those we did, these were the best, and in this precise order.

1. SILENCE IS WILD - FRIDA HYVONEN
2. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
3. Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors
4. I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose - Bombay Bicycle Club
5. Thunderheist - Thunderheist
6. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear
7. The xx - The xx
8. Union - The Boxer Rebellion
9. Bird-Brains - Tune-Yards
10. It's Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
11. Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do - Major Lazer
12. 'Em Are I - Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard
13. See Mystery Lights - YACHT
14. Logos - Atlas Sound
15. If You Were Fruit - The Lovely Eggs
16. Farm - Dinosaur Jr
17. Hospice - The Antlers
18. Post-Apocalyptic Love - The Very Sexuals
19. My Maudlin Career - Camera Obscura
20. Still Night Still Light - Au Revoir Simone
21. Blue Roses - Blue Roses
22. The Floodlight Collective - Lotus Plaza
23. Tear Ourselves Away - LoveLikeFire
24. Get Guilty - AC Newman
25. Face Control - Handsome Furs
26. Varshons - The Lemonheads
27. A Man, A Woman Walked By - PJ Harvey and John Parish
28. Survival Strategies In A Modern World - Liechtenstein
29. Me Oh My - Cate Le Bon
30. I'm Going Away - The Fiery Furnaces
31. Embryonic - The Flaming Lips
32. I Feel Cream - Peaches
33. Dance Mother - Telepathe
34. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
35. Julian Plenti is...Skyscraper - Julian Plenti
36. II - Desire
37. Fight Like Apes And The Mysteries Of The Golden Medallion - Fight Like Apes
38. Polly Scattergood - Polly Scattergood
39. Fine Fascination - Red Light Company
40. Fantasies - Metric

Use the comments box for any gripes, observations and linklove for your own year-end lists. Happy New Year to all our readers, hopefully this site will be slightly more active in 2010!

For Whom The Belle Tells

Ick. Should have been at an indiepop all-dayer but spent all day suspended upside down in a huge vat of Lemsip* instead. Talking of all things medicinal, in case you haven't noticed former PV blogroller Dr Brooke Magnanti has outed herself as Belle de Jour.

During the media storm in the early years of BDJ your bemused blogger was often emailed asking for an opinion on her true identity. In truth, I didn't know for sure, but I did once give a clue to check which blog first linked to BDJ and where they got their lead. The first blog to link to BDJ was in fact this humble blog, Parallax View. And the lead? An email from a fellow blogger casually asking whether I'd noticed on the UK Blogs aggregator a blog by a prostitute. The blogger? Oh, you're ahead of me...Dr Brooke Magnanti.

See? Sometimes Dead Kenny does know how to keep his gob shut (well, just about). Who knew?

*Other flu symptom medications are available.

What Makes Him Act So Bad

Half-Term Report

Here lies Parallax View's pick of the best albums released for the first time in the UK in the first six months of the year. While we can't pretend to have heard all of the qualifying records (in particular, we resisted The Horrors, because we can't bear to have to say anything nice about them), of those we did, these were the best, and in this precise order.

1. SILENCE IS WILD - FRIDA HYVONEN
2. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
3. Bitte Orca - The Dirty Projectors
4. Thunderheist - Thunderheist
5. Union - The Boxer Rebellion
6. Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do - Major Lazer
7. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear
8. The Floodlight Collective - Lotus Plaza
9. Em Are I - Jeffrey Lewis And The Junkyard
10. Get Guilty - AC Newman
11. Face Control - Handsome Furs
12. It's Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
13. Farm - Dinosaur Jr
14. Tear Ourselves Away - LoveLikeFire
15. My Maudlin Career - Camera Obscura
16. Post-Apocalyptic Love - The Very Sexuals
17. I Feel Cream - Peaches
18. A Man, A Woman Walked By - PJ Harvey & John Parish
19. Still Night, Still Light - Au Revoir Simone
20. Fantasies - Metric

Records by Experimental Dental School, The Lemonheads, Red Light Company, The Wind Whistles, Telepathe, Polly Scattergood and The Joy Formidable narrowly missed out but are all also worth exploring.

Poisoned Chalice

For anyone still concerned about the Mercury Music Prize the nominations have been announced and can be found on the official site. A pretty uninspiring list by any standards, the Best British Album during an era when the best music is coming predominantly from Scandinavia and North America seems like eternal damnation by faint praise to these ears.

No strong feelings on the outcome, either, but depending on the odds, Speech Debelle or The Horrors might give you a decent run for your money.

Legal disclaimer: Gamble Aware: Don't gamble unless you know the facts. Being responsible about gambling means knowing whether to gamble and how much money or time to spend.

Parallax View Albums Of The Year 2008

Further apologies for the recent gap in transmission, but to get things moving again here's our rundown of the best albums released in the UK for the first time in 2008. We can't pretend to have heard all of the albums released in the time period, but of those we did these were the best, and in this precise order.

1. VELOCIFERO - LADYTRON
2. Stainless Style - Neon Neon
3. Santogold -Santogold
4. Fed - Plush
5. Stay Positive - The Hold Steady
6. Youth Novels - Lykke Li
7. Alas I Cannot Swim - Laura Marling
8. Hold On Now Youngster - Los Campesinos!
9. Dear Science - TV On The Radio
10. You & Me - The Walkmen
11. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
12. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
13. Alpinisms - School Of Seven Bells
14. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
15. We Are Beautiful We Are Doomed - Los Campesinos!
16. Only By The Night - Kings Of Leon
17. Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires
18. In Our Spacehero Suits - Those Dancing Days
19. "Couples" - The Long Blondes
20. Kensington Heights - Constantines
21. Neptune - The Duke Spirit
22. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke
23. Fortress Around My Heart - Ida Maria
24. For Emma Forever Ago - Bon Iver
25. Box Of Secrets - Blood Red Shoes
26. El Rey - The Wedding Present
27. Knowle West Boy - Tricky
28. Blood Looms and Blooms - Leila
29. Thomas Tantrum - Thomas Tantrum
30. Oceans Will Rise - The Stills
31. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
32. Oracular Spectacular - MGMT
33. Reality Check - The Teenagers
34. Chemical Chords - Stereolab
35. Waited Up 'Til It Was Light - Johnny Foreigner
36. X Marks Destination - The Whip
37. Nouns - No Age
38. HLLLH - The Mae Shi
39. Rosie and the Goldbug - Rosie and the Goldbug
40. Falling Off The Lavender Bridge - Lightspeed Champion

Feel free to use the comments facility below to vent your spleen or link to your own list(s).

Half Term Report

The Parallax View pick of the best albums released in the UK for the first time between January 1 and June 30 of the year 2008. To clarify, Yeasayer's mighty 'All Hour Cymbals', which would have been a shoo-in for the Top 10, has not been included because it was released in November 2007, even though it didn't receive wider exposure until it's re-release in Spring. Similarly, new releases in July by the likes of The Hold Steady, Leila and Tricky will have to wait until December's year-end list (we're sure they're all cool about this in their own distinctive ways).

We can't pretend to have heard every single qualifying release, but of those we did, these were the best -

1. VELOCIFERO - LADYTRON
2. Santogold - Santogold
3. Stainless Style - Neon Neon
4. Youth Novels - Lykke Li
5. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
6. Alas I Cannot Swim - Laura Marling
7. Hold On Now, Youngster - Los Campesinos!
8. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
9. Neptune - The Duke Spirit
10. For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver
11. "Couples" - The Long Blondes
12. El Rey - The Wedding Present
13. Nouns - No Age
14. Waited Up 'Til Light - Johnny Foreigner
15. Falling Off The Lavender Bridge - Lightspeed Champion
16. Reality Check - The Teenagers
17. Box Of Secrets - Blood Red Shoes
18. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
19. X Marks Destination - The Whip
20. We Started Nothing - The Ting Tings

The usual disclaimers apply. Bad luck to some decent albums by the likes of MGMT, The Mae Shi and Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan for just missing the cut. Please use the comments box for feedback, vitriol, kudos, whatever.

Gruff Justice

Off out shortly to Brum for the rest of the day, but in the meantime let your eyes have a lunchtime feast over The Mercury Music Prize nominations, which contain few alarms or surprises, and include a couple of top contenders for album of the year to date in our upcoming Half Term Report (due by the weekend) in Neon Neon and Laura Marling. Radiohead and Burial are also worthy choices from 2007 for the MMP, with Burial and Laura Marling probably the best value bets, as genre contenders with broader appeal usually do well in these kind of competitions. A second successive win for a dance-orientated record may be risky, so my money's on Ms Marling for the folkin' good album 'Alas I Cannot Swim'.*

*Remember, pop punters, always gamble responsibly, and with money you can afford to lose.

Rattled By The Hush

Things will be quiet on here for the next week or so for a variety of reasons. Won't have access to my normal email address for a while either so please refer enquiries here until further notice. Normal service to be resumed shortly. Whatever normal is.

School's Clout

The School/Flicklisten/The Puncture Repair Kit, Swiss Concrete @ The Bullingdon Arms, Oxford, Thursday June 19 2008, 8.45pm.

The Bullingdon Arms is a short taxi ride away from Oxford's main rail station, a smallish pub with friendly, fetching bar staff and a big backroom area where the bands play. Ben and your long-distance lurker meet up with a couple of the SWSLer's charming co-workers, and get waylaid watching Germany beat Portugal in the Euro2008 Q-F so only catch the last few songs from The Puncture Repair Kit. Their boisterous, slightly ramshackle take on indie-pop reminds your comparison-crazed correspondent of The Strange Death Of Liberal England, but we hope the rest of the set was less impressive because a) we hate to have missed out on anything and b) we'd just lurve to be able to say The Puncture Repair Kit flat-tyred to deceive.

Flicklisten is a guy who comes from Ohio but has lived in Oxford for four years, a singer/guitarist occasionally accompanied by a young lady who plays a violin shaped like a pair of scissors (a cut above the usual instrument, natch). He has a good voice, knows how to get a meaningful, sombre strum from his guitar, and has a droll line in tinder-dry banter, but his songs, on first listen anyway, are more interesting than truly memorable.

This last charge is certainly something you could never level at our learned friends The School, who've happily mastered the knack of catchy tunes addressing bold sentiments, embellished with 60s girl-pop stylings yet undertowed by savvy indie knowingness. They seem to be a Rosie and at least one Ryan short of the line-up when we last saw them, but Liz is in good, giggly form, describing Oxford as very pretty once you've found it, a reference to the maybe-Multimap-induced mayhem of their journey into the city. Of tonight's set, the songs from last week's Single Of The Week 'Let It Slip' ep prominently feature, there's a mystery cover version that no one gets, and the small matter of a dedication to their 'longest-travelling fan - Ken!' for their closing number 'All I Wanna Do'.

Your marathon-man mitherer hides his blushes for just long enough to grab a few words with Liz at the end of the show, as the band pack away their equipment in readiness for a trip to Spain for a festival performance. She insists the recent departures were amicable and not the result of a Mark E Smith-like hire-em-fire-em ethos, and reveals a new band member is forthcoming who will cover both instruments. Talking of covered instruments, we don't have to get our twelve-inch ruler out as Liz very kindly autographs our copy of the 'Let It Slip' ep before we wave her off to Spain. But not before she reveals an addition to The School timetable: a debut album due early next year!

Gotta New Rose, Got It Good

No nearer to clearing the blogging backlog than before, but we interrupt this prevarication to advise that our very favourite Pipette, Rosay by any other name, has left the group to start her own solo career. She's now going by her full name of Rose Elinor Dougall and the first fruits from this venture can be found by having a Rosy Nosey over on her MySpace page which reveals an intriguing new direction of atmospheric, smoky moodpop a la Stereolab, Broadcast and Mazzy Star. Worth keeping an eye on this brand new Rose in town!

In other news, Good Music Is Better Than Crack.

Gig review ketchup (including the Bristol Dot-to-Dot overview) to follow over the course of the next week...

Nice But Dim?

Apologies for the sparsity of updates for the last week or so, although the good news is that this has principally been due to a lot of gigging activity, so you can expect some reviews over the next few days of some of today's hottest up 'n' comin' pop sensations, as well as an overview of last weekend's Dot To Dot Festival in Bristol.

To keep you going 'til then, one of the best bands at Dot to Dot were London's Red Light Company whose debut ep 'With Lights Out' is out on limited CD and 7" as of this week. The title track isn't as gloomy as it sounds, despite being about a childhood friend of the singer who committed suicide, and is in fact a stirring, soaring guitar-pop gem of the highest order, one of our very favourite songs of this increasingly good year, and easily qualifying as Parallax View Single Of The Week. They may be called Red Light Company, but there's no stopping 'em now...

Parallax View Poster Always Tings Twice

Yes, don't call us Stace-eeeeeeee, but you can call us Nostredamus, as The Ting Tings have claimed the Number One slot for 'That's Not My Name' just over one year on from being made Parallax View Single Of The Week! Your tipsy tipster will be on hand to help the Mancunian pop duo celebrate at their Birmingham Irish Centre gig tomorrow night, to be sure.

Estranged Time

StrangeTime/Girls Drink Free/Firebrand/Cellar Door, Little Civic, Wolverhampton, Friday May 9 2008, 8pm.

This has been announced as drummer and founding member John O'Neill's final gig with StRANGEtIME, news that sees some openly questioning the band's future while Kate and Chris seek a new sticksperson and an additional guitarist. With fine new ep 'Oneitis' showcasing a heavier sound and increasingly inscrutable lyrics, it all seems curious timing, but for sure these are strange times indeed for StRANGEtIME.

West Bromwich's Cellardoor open things up nicely with their atmospheric instrumentals, impressing with their powerful surges of sound, while Firebrand are a three-girl hard rock band from Leicester and Nottingham who deliver a handsome racket with slightly strange lyrics, an uncompromising attitude and last but by no means least, a really hot drummer. Last of the supports Girls Drink Free are a popular local outfit with an eye-catching name and crowd-pleasing brand of ska-flavoured rock sure to go down well with fans of big shorts.

By the time the headliners are on stage the audience has got bigger and lairier, and one of the guys from Girls Drink Free is waving a placard of the Guns 'n' Roses guitarist in bassist Chris Maher's face (trust us, dear reader, any comparison between the two is pure Slash fiction). StRANGEtIME do well in concentrating on the job in hand, in terms of promoting the ep through taut renditions of choice cuts like 'Profile' and 'Siren', their new hyper take on longstanding live favourite 'Ex' and a hard-hitting climax with the title track 'Oneitis' itself. If this is to be the last StRANGEtIME show (for a while at least, and with the current line-up) then it's one hell of a calling card to leave with.

Parallax Premiership Review

Have a bumper batch of gig reviews to catch up with, and some essential computer maintenance issues to contend with, so progress here at Parallax View will be steady and relentless but possibly not at the pell-mell pace you'd prefer. Just time tonight for a quick consideration of the Premiership season just gone, an exciting one for the neutral, and stuck in neutral was exactly how it felt to us West Ham fans, with the Irons forged to tenth spot for the last three months of the season. A term of stability was what was required after last season's legal turmoils and close-run relegation scrapes, but we'd forgotten just how tedious stability can be.

Still, we finished two places ahead of where Parallax View predicted at the beginning of the season, and finished above 'bigger' clubs like the Tottscum and the Toon Army. To see how well we fared in terms of predictions compare the final table with our pre-season punditry. We got the top two wrong way around, slightly underestimated Wigan and Villa and overestimated Spurs and Newcastle, but got two out of three relegated clubs right (Reading and Derby) and overall we were more right than wrong (particularly regarding the more things change the more they stay the same mantra regarding the likes of Spurs, Newcastle, Citeh and West Ham).

Which begs the question, is the Premiership getting all too predictable?

Dead Heath

Shock news in tonight that Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger has been found dead earlier today apparently surrounded by pills and awaiting a masseuse. Ledger, due to appear as The Joker in this summer's upcoming Batman film, and who played a suicidal man in Monster's Ball, split up from his girlfriend, actress Michelle Williams, in September.

RIP.

Update: Confused? What The Media Does And Does Not Know About Heath Ledger's Death.

The Keys To 2008

22 days into the New Year, Parallax View presents 21 bands to unlock sonic delights in 2008.

We start in an appropriately biblical sense with an Adam. Adam Kesher that is, a French band whose gallic drone-pop deserves some cross-channel contemplation.

If Beestung Lips can translate half the energy and spite they mustered live at Supersonic last year into their recorded output they'll be one of the bands of the year, for sure.

Emerging from Crouch End, Highgate and Tufnell Park, young Londoners Bombay Bicycle Club are similar enough to what's going around to ride the charts high, but have a lead singer with distinctive enough vocals to make us care.

Bugners Eye is urban slang for flapless female genitalia but you wouldn't go round calling this ferocious Birmingham blues band pussies as their pulsating pubrock takes no prisoners.

Gorgeous Emmy The Great seems to have been around for ages now, but her guest backing turns on the raved-about Lightspeed Champion record may sufficiently raise her profile for deserved success when her debut album finally surfaces later this year.

We saw Johnny Foreigner support Los Campesinos! last March, and will do so again this February, because we liked what we saw and their mini-LP 'Arcs Across The City' has whetted our appetites for more of their stroppy, sarky take on US alt.rock.

Another band to leave their calling card late last year were Montreal's Land Of Talk whose 'Applause Cheer Boo Hiss' channelled the sounds of Howling Bells and Metric into something sleeker, sexier but equally demanding of attention.

Leila isn't exactly a new name, but since it's been eight years since her last record, news of an imminent release in 2008 is worth flagging up for your attention.

Gothenbourg's Liechtenstein are an all-girl pop group who hail The Modettes as a primary influence, what's not to like?

Brooklyn's MGMT administer surprisingly thoughtful electropop that's smart enough to make you want to dress to impress. Album 'Oracular Spectacular' is due out in the UK this week.

Californians The Mae Shi have been around for a few years but a new poppier sound sees them sounding like The Go! Team trying on The Polyphonic Spree's tunics for size and having a lot of demented fun in the process.

Make Model seem to have been overlooked by the pundits for this year's predictions, but the anthemic punch of last autumn's single 'The Was' suggested the Glaswegians have what it takes to construct a viable future.

Cardiff's The School bring a DIY aesthetic to some zinging pop choons for adorable results. Recently signed to Elefant Records this is a group you'll never want to forget.

StrangeTime won't be new names to Parallax View readers either, but the spiky threesome who were too sexy/scary for Walsall look destined to rattle cages further afield with a new ep out soon and Sky TV starting to pay attention.

The Ting Tings won a coveted Parallax View Single Of The Week last May with 'That's Not My Name' and things are continuing to ring loudly for the Salford songsmiths as they've gotten themselves a slot on next month's NME tour supporting The Cribs, Joe Lean and The Jing Jang Jong and Does It Offend You, Yeah?.

Back in the West Midlands The Voluntary Butler Scheme looks set to put Stourbridge back on the map serving up his eccentric but decidely dreamy folk-pop ditties.

Manchester's The Whip should have a cracking start to 2008 unless their fun brand of danceable electro-pop suffers as a result of the inevitable nu-rave backlash, of course...

Thomas Tantrum are another band who emerged last Autumn with spiky pop splendour and a Parallax View Single Of The Week (for 'Shake It! Shake It!') and our expectations for further brilliant output has yet to be tempered.

Imagine TV On The Radio if they decided to just sit back and relax in the sun for a while and you get somewhere near the sound of Brooklyn's Yeasayer whose 'All Hour Cymbals' came out the back end of last year and looks set to be one of this year's sleeper breakouts.

If 2007's taste for genre fusions continues in the New Year then Telford's You And What Army? look set to profit with their rap/trance/prog/metal shenanigans regularly causing a live stir.

Finally, it's back up to Glasgow for Zoey Van Goey whose offbeat take on West Coast pop could charm the scarves and knives off an Old Firm derby crowd.

That should keep you going for a while, but remember you can use the comments to register your outrage, point out the glaring omissions and broken links, and hawk your band or blog.

Relative Success

When Glasgow's Sons And Daughters first came onto the scene, they jangled their Johnny Cash with an austere brundlefly amalgam of The B52s, Franz Ferdinand and some obscure skiffle combo from the 60s. So whatever we were expecting from the Domino Records' quartet's next phase it certainly wasn't the exhilirating glam stomp of 'Darling' which can perhaps best be described as sounding like The Pipettes trying on Mud's 'Tiger Feet' for size.

Parallax View can exclusively reveal that nice surprises are a good thing, and thus duly pronounce 'Darling' (out in stores now or available to stream via their MySpace page) the inaugural Parallax View Single Of The Week for 2008.

Blast Off

Happy New Year to all Parallax View readers everywhere. Yeah, even you.

Out with the old and all that, so let's get this party started with a crudely ripped linkdump.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Robyn's back for another Wilder reunion with the internetwhatnot.

Here's something to put a lightbulb in your milkglass: Hitchcock Blonde. Writer/actress, yeah we know.

Live recordings from Supersonic 07 includes our pick of Gig Of The Year, Beestung Lips!

Kevin Greening RIP.

Steve Gerrard Rock Photographer. He shoots bands for three score.

Simon has again lovingly compiled the UK Blogger Poll of Polls for Albums of 2007. 7 of our top 10 made the 50.

Still feeling listless? The Top 10 Celebrity Sex Moments of 2007 are unsurprisingly NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

On a similar UNSAFE FOR WORK tip here's the list you've really been waiting for: The Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2007 with pictures and movie clips attached to get your boss hot under the collar.

Another blog of note: Thomas Moronic.

And finally, the first of our music tips for 2008: Ida Maria a Swedish-based Norwegian with a distinctive rockchick rawr, who's playing a couple of gigs in London later this month.

Parallax View Gigs Of The Year 2007

What makes a great gig? The tunes, the chutzpah, the charisma, the company, or the ambience? Or maybe a combination of all those factors? But in 2007, many promoters hit upon a cunning ingredient: just let 'em eat cake...

1. BEESTUNG LIPS! @Supersonic, Custard Factory, Birmingham (July)
2. Rilo Kiley @Carling Academy 2, Birmingham (August)
3. Interpol @Carling Academy, Birmingham (August)
4. Los Campesinos!/Sky Larkin/Johnny Foreigner/Kate Goes @Barfly, Birmingham (March)
5. Mika Miko/No Age @Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham (June)
6. StrangeTime/Cellardoor/Sub Rosa @Actress & Bishop, Birmingham (October)
7. The Cribs @Carling Academy, Birmingham (October)
8. Monarch! @Supersonic, Custard Factory, Birmingham (July)
9. Emily Haines @Glee Club, Birmingham (June)
10. I'm From Barcelona @Carling Academy 2, Birmingham (September)
11. The School @Island Bar, Birmingham (November)
12. Kings Of Leon @Birmingham NIA (December)
13. Maps @Summer Sundae, Leicester (August)
14. The Fiery Furnaces @Barfly, Birmingham (November)
15. The Whip @Summer Sundae, Leicester (August)

Parallax View Films Of The Year 2007

Our pick of what we saw that was released in cinemas for the first time in UK in 2007.

1. CONTROL (directed by Anton Corbijn)
2. Black Book (Paul Verhoeven)
3. Zodiac (David Fincher)
4. Inland Empire (David Lynch)
5. Dans Paris (Christophe Honore)
6. Hallam Foe (David Mackenzie)
7. The Lives Of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmark)
8. The Walker (Paul Schrader)
9. Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick)
10. Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)

Parallax View Albums Of The Year 2007

Kings Of Leon become the first act to get the coveted nod of Parallax View Album Of The Year twice (following on from Aha Shake Heartbreak in 2004) in a year which, on reflection, was of pretty solid vintage.

1. Because Of The Times - Kings Of Leon
2. Under The Blacklight - Rilo Kiley
3. Mens Needs, Womens Needs, Whatever - The Cribs
4. In Rainbows - Radiohead
5. Our Love To Admire - Interpol
6. Let's Stay Friends - Les Savy Fav
7. We Can Create - Maps
8. Neon Bible - Arcade Fire
9. The Dreamer Evasive - Apartment
10. The Deep Blue - Charlotte Hatherley
11. The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse - The Besnard Lakes
12. Grinderman - Grinderman
13. Icky Thump - The White Stripes
14. Knives Will Have Your Back - Emily Haines And The Soft Skeleton
15. Without Feathers - The Stills
16. Widow City - The Fiery Furnaces
17. Citrus - Asobi Seksu
18. A Weekend In The City - Bloc Party
19. The Kissaway Trail - The Kissaway Trail
20. An End Has A Start - Editors
21. I'll Sleep When You're Dead - El-P
22. A Brighter Beat - Malcolm Middleton
23. Myths Of The Near Future - Klaxons
24. White Chalk - P J Harvey
25. The Fragile Army - The Polyphonic Spree
26. Love's Miracle - Qui
27. Watch The Fireworks - Emma Pollock
28. Person Pitch - Panda Bear
29. The Bird Of Music - Au Revoir Simone
30. Wincing The Night Away - The Shins
31. Magic - Bruce Springsteen
32. Hey Trouble - The Concretes
33. Cheap Demo Bad Science - Serafina Steer
34. No Shouts No Calls - Electrelane
35. The Body, The Blood, The Machine - The Thermals
36. Sermon From Exposition Boulevard - Rickie Lee Jones
37. Made Of Bricks - Kate Nash
38. Wait For Me - The Pigeon Detectives
39. Late December - Maria McKee
40. The Secret Sickliness - Piskie Sits

Best compilation: Weirdo Rippers by No Age.

Best re-issues: Dead Men Tell No Tales by Monarch! and Eat To The Beat CD/DVD by Blondie.

As ever, use the comments box to vent your spleen, point out the glaring omissions and/or hawk your blog. Then it starts all over again in 2008 with the release of the new British Sea Power record in the second week of the New Year.

Feeding Frenzy

In no way a method of prevaricating further before delivering our Summer Sundae Weekender review, and in no particular order, let the linkdumping commence -

Page2RSS.com will create an RSS feed for this site so Dead Kenny won't have to. It's not hard work, just put the URL in the box provided and they will let you know whenever PV is updated. (info kindly provided by Pete Ashton.)

LiveJournal Community for people to share photographs of Abandoned Places. Wonder if LiveJournal counts as an abandoned place itself these days?

Unedited transcript of interview between authors Toby Litt and JG Ballard.

Birmingham's Pub Toilet Halls Of Shame And Fame.

Cronenberg's Eastern Promises to open London Film Festival on October 17. (trailer can be viewed here.)

Former West Ham player Jeroen Boere dies aged 39.

Cold War Quiz. The world seems to fall around your ears if you anything wrong. Is that how it felt for JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Another quiz, this time asking How Manky Are You?.

Sheffield's Letters and Colours have seemingly been washed away in the rain.

And finally...Telford thieves think big. That's really a haul of shame (via Phill).

August Journal

When Michele decided to desert us to travel to the end of the earth known as New Zealand one thing we made absolutely clear was that we'd never ever forget her birth-D'OH! Erm, happy birthday Michele for Monday just gone. And to Dave and Nadean for earlier this month, too. Also, if we remember correctly it's also birthday week this week for Phill and Robyn. If there's anyone not mentioned, don't think of it that I've forgotten, just consider it an opportunity to be proactive and give yourself a good old shout-out in the comments box below.

Sheesh, I know too many Leos. Going to have to put a lion bar on future acquaintances, for sure.

Uncool List

First up, congratulations to my brother Mark and his wife Gabrielle on the birth of their daughter, making Dead Kenny an Uncle for the very first time, as Madonna might once have sung. In honour of this occasion, here are some other pressing deliveries...

Russ L on The Spotted Dog's spot of bother.

Ben fills his blogging boots with a Glastonbury 2007 diary.

The new Interpol record is a new Interpol record, and thus a mighty thing of wonder indeed.

Hitflip sent me a nice t-shirt.

Billy Bragg's doing his bit for jailhouse rock.

A new Peter Greenaway film is imminent.

Ambition novelist Nirpal Dhaliwal on Emily Parr's 'David Brent moonwalk'.

Robyn's still blogging. This makes us happy.

Simone Radway is a photography graduate based in Birmingham looking to assist fashion and portrait photographers.

This is where your correspondent will be at this weekend.

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The new Paul Schrader film, The Walker, opens in the UK on August 10. Looks like a modern riff on his American Gigolo with Harrelson getting Wood-y as a gentleman escort.

Fingerjig is an online typing game (via Graybo)

Still game? Pac-Man's skull found.

West Ham Till I Die is Iain Dale's West Ham diary, getting a reputation for reliable pre-press scoop. This close season has been a little too close for comfort, if you ask me.

Drawing things to a full circle...10 things to do before you die.