A Month In Records: July 2008

Wait, wait… stop everything, some guy who isn’t President yet is coming for tea. Look, sharp, tidy that clutter away and stop with all that racket. You’ll give Barack – what the fuck _is_ a Barack? – a headache.

While newscasters the world over have gotten themselves into a dizzy spin over a certain somebody’s trip to Europe, DiS has been down in its bunker listening to the best music July had to offer. We’d like to shake hands but, y’know, it’s grubby down here. Dirty work, and someone’s got to do it.

To the tunes of the following picks from the month of July 2008.

The Hold Steady

Stay Positive

(Rough Trade)

Says Dom Passantino: “It’s just a Hold Steady album at the end of it. They’ve never let us down so far, and they’re not liable to do it any time soon. They turn critics into gibbering wrecks unable to write proper reviews and leave us forced to just string together our favourite lyrics like a damn teenage girl scribbles Tokio Hotel choruses onto her bed headboard. But, y’know. Hairier. It’s an album that, like The Hold Steady themselves, is some straight-up grown man shit…”

Read the full DiS review HERE

Harvey Milk

Life… The Best Game In Town

(Hydra Head)

Says Mike Diver: “Grin ‘til the shit falls through the gaps in your teeth, gaps you didn’t have before_ Life… _busted your face up so brilliantly. Bash the knuckles ‘til white goes red, goes loose and shredded. And then go around again. *Harvey Milk *are the acceptable sound of violence – you will not demand to batter your fellow man as this record reveals itself, but you just might want to witness something ugly unfold before your eyes ahead of its final notes fading…”

Read the full DiS review HERE

The Bug

London Zoo

(Ninja Tune)

Says Adam Anonymous: “Sleeping in his wrong-side-of-the-tracks studio, too poor to afford residential rent as well, The Bug’s Kevin Martin observed the urban cauldron of London at first hand. A methadone clinic down the road, human excrement littering the building, smackheads injecting each other in broad daylight: all that and a whole lot more bleeds into London Zoo’s confines…”

Read the full DiS review HERE / vote for London Zoo to win our Pluto Prize HERE

She & Him

Volume One

(Double Six)

Says Will Dean: “Volume One, the debut from Zooey Deschanel and M.Ward’s She & Him project, is deeply sentimental record, its closest modern relation being Feist’s The Reminder. It’s the sound of Chuck Schultz’s Peanuts, dusky ‘70s Californian sunsets and the sound of a talent above your average movie star turned singer transcending her artistic straitjacket. Here’s to volume two…”

Read the full DiS review HERE

Micah P Hinson

…And The Red Empire Orchestra

(Full Time Hobby)

Says Emily Moore: “Gravel-voiced Texan Micah P Hinson has seen his share of tragedy. Much has been made of the prescription-drugs addiction and jail stint that marked his teenage years, and the redeeming achievements of the two albums he released soon afterwards. Yet on his third LP, … And The Red Empire Orchestra, sorrow and apprehension seem to dog him still…”

Read the full DiS review HERE

**High Places

03/07-09/07**

(Thrill Jockey; read the full DiS review HERE)

**The Melvins

Nude With Boots**

(Ipecac; read the full DiS review HERE)

**Beck

Modern Guilt**

(XL; read the full DiS review HERE)

**Leila

Blood Looms And Blooms**

(Warp; read the full DiS review HERE)

**Secondsmile

Years**

(Big Scary Monsters; read the full DiS review HERE)

Feral Children

Second To The Last Frontier

(Sarathan Records)

Says Tom Milway: “Second To The Last Frontier is an eclectic and varied debut, amongst the cream of current sounds emanating from the Pacific-Northwest. Feral Children (think: Modest Mouse, Wolf Parade, Animal Collective) have succeeded in creating an accessibly melodic album that lacks none of the ambition many of their better-known peers have demonstrated to a commercially successful level…”

Read the full DiS review HERE

DiScuss: Again, a number of thoroughly decent albums have missed the cut (we can’t let everyone in!) – what’s your favourite record of July 2008?