The Aliens - Astronomy for Dogs
Buy this album! It might not be recognised on MyStrands yet so I can't give a link to it on here, grrrr. Three members from the The Beta Band decide to work together to form "The Aliens" and "Astronomy for Dogs" is their first album.
Anyway, don't worry about that, it's so good - the sound of the impending summer...
I'm no good at reviews so from The Guardian:
Gordon Anderson, Robin Jones and John McLean are hardly household names, but for a brief period at least the members of the Aliens could justifiably have claimed to be Britian's most influential musicians. In 1998, the Beta Band - the group the trio had formed with frontman Steve Mason - attained an almost hysterical pitch of critical acclaim and appeared to have the two biggest bands in the country under their spell. Noel Gallagher claimed to have been inspired to take Oasis in a more outré musical direction by the Beta Band's first three EPs, while Radiohead were reported to be indulging in Beta Band-influenced experimentation for their follow-up to OK Computer. You could see the attraction. By 1998, alt-rock had become constrained by Britpop's obsession with commercial success and limited frame of music reference. The Beta Band's esoteric melange of electronica, hip-hop, psychedelia and folk, on the other hand, suggested music could be a boundless world of possibilities.
rest the rest of the review
I've been listening to not much else this week and if that's not enough of a recommendation well... too bad, I think it's a great album!
I'm most annoyed because one of my friends' bands (Deco - see my last post) was playing support to one of their recent gigs and I didn't know about it. Damn!
