Funeral - 5/5
The Suburbs - 4.5/5
Neon Bible 3.5/5

Still, it's a pretty good album. Well worth getting but it's not as good as Funeral or The Suburbs.

Neon Bible is my favourite Arcade Fire album, and No Cars Go is their best song.

I'm weary of Neon Bible myself, but for different reasons. When I first heard The Funeral, I liked it alright. Then I started this job about 4 years ago and started to hear the songs fairly often on our office radio. I got really tired of the singer's whiney voice, to the point I started to really hate the band and wanted to stab my eardrums. I haven't listened to the album since. When Neon Bible came out, I had less than zero interest in hearing it. When The Suburbs came out, same story but a friend told me it was based on life in the suburbs of Houston, specifically The Woodlands. That is where I spent the last two years of high school and first two of college. I thought I should give it a chance, and as it turns out, I enjoy the album quite a bit and don't find the vocals nearly as annoying as those on The Funeral. Not at all annoying, actually. The album will likely end up in my top 20, but maybe not top 10. So you see, I think I'm far from the average Arcade Fire fan, and I have no idea whether I'll enjoy Neon Bible or not. I think I will definitely check it out eventually though, it's worth a try. And I'm sure I'll even revisit The Funeral at some point too - making sure not to have knives or pencils sitting around when I do.

Foscil - Foscil (2005)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...CL._SS500_.jpg

A very nice jazzy instrumental hip-hop album that employs lots of live instrumentation. Probably more like nu-jazz with slow hip-hop beats I guess. They are a Seattle quartet consisting of 3/4th of the electronic group Truckasauras (who I've known about for some time but have never paid much attention to - aside from seeing the end of their set opening for Plaid a few years ago), plus horn/woodwind player Anthony Moore. Very mellow and downtempo at times, while more upbeat, glitchy and hip-hop at others. The overall vibe is pretty chill though, probably good for smoking herb. And it really doesn't feel all that hip-hop at all, it's more of an undertone, a current flowing underneath. Great mellow horns and other percussion. A shame this group is so under the radar - I added the album to RYM in 2006 and I'm still the only owner. The song "Glitter Gulch" is amazing. I would post up a few vids but the only 2 available that represent this album won't play for some reason. Fucking LameTube. Check it out though...very solid stuff. I'd been waiting for a follow-up for a few years and it seems it actually came out last December, but I had difficulty finding it. I see it's listed in Amazon's MP3 shop now though so I'll be grabbing it soon enough.

http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-...AAAeM7sTY:.jpg

Loney, Dear - Citadel Band (2004)

Found this when I was at my local record shop last week. I was just killing time and browsing through the LPs they had when this caught my eye. It seemed interesting since it has the band name in sign language alphabet and I'm studying sign language. I went home and listened to it and I really like it now :)

^you have piqued my interest. what kind of music?

Indie pop. It's a really nice album :)

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/albu...b92/157553.jpg

Scatter - Surprising Sing Stupendous Love

Free folk with beautiful rhythms and a very tasteful use of saxophone. The kind of thing you can easily yourself in if given the proper time and/or place. I sense a lot of promise in this one, and I've only heard it once.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._half_note.jpg

An amazing album, the opening number is worth it alone. Probably my favorite Wes Montgomery recording. I'm always a sucker for jazz albums recorded live in the clubs, I love the sound of the clinking silverware and glasses.

^

Nice, I just came in here to post about a jazz album I've been into recently. Wes Montgomery is the man...he was one of the first jazz musicians I got really into.

As for me, talking in the Madlib thread about Shades of Blue got me to pull out this bad boy:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e51XckQap7.../s320/byrd.jpg
Donald Byrd - Black Byrd

A Blue Note classic. Also one of the most truly 70's sounding albums I have.