Champagne Symphony

Rating: 8.2 As comebacks go, this is about as brilliant and joyous as they get.  It's not U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind , but it's not too far off.  At this point, over 40 years since Bowie hit the big time with "Space Oddity", all of his contemporaries have essentially become tribute bands to themselves. Yet here we have the Thin White Duke, at the age of 66, making music that is strikingly modern. Sure, it doesn't push any boundaries, but it slots comfortably alongside TV on the Radio and St. Vincent's recent releases. The sound is classic New York: elegant, cerebral, nervy, and reserved. It's well played and well recorded from beginning to end. The recording of the drums is nothing short of phenomenal.  The quality definitely drops off about halfway through, but, by then, there's already enough top notch material to make this the best Bowie album of all time. (I know, I know, that's sort of blasphemous, with Hunky Dory , Zi...

Rating: 8.9 The National have made a career writing knotty songs about the realities of leaving youth behind and settling down. On first listen, all of their albums sound similar, but further listens reveal that each one has a unique mood and personality. I see their albums as a progression through the stages of grief. Alligator is denial. Its songs have a drunken energy that the band has never recaptured. It is unique in having songs with conspicuous hope ("Lit Up", "Mr. November") and warm romance ("The Geese of Beverly Road", "Looking for Astronauts"). This is an album about knowing that you're not as young as you used to be, but going out and drowning that knowledge in alcohol and ephemeral love. Boxer is anger. There is a focused aggression here, thanks in large part to Bryan Devendorf's drumming, which is is absolutely brilliant throughout and a clear notch above his work anywhere else. It lashes out against the realities ad...

Rating: 9.5 A year and a half after Drake released the phenomenal Take Care , we finally get another brilliant album. If you don't already know, Vampire Weekend are a group of four Columbia grads who got famous making the follow-up to Graceland that Paul Simon never got around to. (In less obscure terms, they made joyous, literate, moderately complex music with a clear African influence.) Here, on their third album, they've continued to move away from those roots and expand their sonic palette to great results. The drums maintain the simple, joyous bounce they've always had, but the instrumentation layered on top is now much more varied and emotive. The band still has a tendency to shoot for the mind rather than the heart. A lot of times, they will create something interesting and pretty without zeroing in on a clear emotional goal (ex. the obnoxious background vocals on the chorus of "Ya Hey").  However, on songs like "Don't Lie" and "H...