Yearly Target

I'm both surprised and impressed that this blog marks the fiftieth of the year - considering I hadn't started until mid-August, to already be almost on a par with my tallies from both 2008 and 2011 is worth cheering. I'm undoubtedly helped with my new approach to both backfilling - putting events in from previous days when I couldn't write them that day - and prepublishing, when I'm writing blogs in advance when they occur to me and storing them so I can publish from my reserve pile.

A couple of asides today about some CDs I've recently bought, and thought I'd share my comments and thoughts.

Firstly, Valtari by Sigur Ros which I've had for a little while now. There's not much more to say about the Icelandic soundscape-merchants - their sound is as unique as ever and this album takes them back towards the earlier albums, away from the more accessible sounds of both með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust and Jonsi's solo, poppier offering Go. It's hard to pick out any of the songs, but for the sheer majesty of the song I think Dauðalogn is a track you will hear in the background of both nature programmes and historical/fantasy dramas in the future. The fun trivia piece for this album is that the cover art was drawn by Jonsi's sister Inga Birgisdóttir who was also the baby on the cover art for Von.

Secondly, ¡Uno! by Green Day, the first of their three albums coming out over the next six months. Having almost all the Green Day back catalogue - stretching to eight albums, one B-side collection, one compilation and one live album - it's often hard to tell when their sound is moving in a traditional or new direction. It's definitely a move away from the more recent rock-opera approach of American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, and feels like a traditional, punkier album. A few of the songs wouldn't have sounded out of place on Nimrod or Insomniac, and you could tell a real insight into their influences as three of the twelve tracks have openings that you could easily mistake as having been written by The Clash. A bold, confident offering and a nice throwback to their earlier, punkier albums.