Gaming Tuesday & Noah And The Whale

My life is slowly being consumed by Fifa 10 in gaming terms. In fact maybe not just in gaming terms. Its only a matter of time before I close my eyes and Andy Gray starts waxing lyrical about how Newcastle have had a tumultuous few years. I'd go as far as saying its my game of the year so far. So far being the case in point obviously, there's a great many games still to be released and Swapgame may actually send me Arkham Asylum soon you never know. In the mean time however I'll have to enjoy Guitar Hero 2 which is what I've received this month. Its not great. Admittedly I've only played through on Easy so far, I'll have a fairer idea when I tackle it on the harder difficulties. But having no licensed songs. Well two that I've played so far, one by Primus and one by My Chemical Romance. Wonderful, right up my street. In fact the track-listing is worse than that of Guitar Hero 3 let alone the more recent releases. It'll be returned in a week I'm sure. I gave the Brutal Legend demo a whirl today as well. For someone who chose to watch Conor Oberst over Tenacious D at a festival once a game with Jack Black probably wasn't for me. But I enjoyed it somewhat, that hack 'n slash genre being an under appreciated one for me. The humour was also a nice surprise, not laugh out loud but definitely endearing. Its on the Swapgame list. I'll probably get it before Batman.

One final point, I mentioned Noah and The Whale fleeting the other day as the lesser to new band Mumford & Sons. I managed to catch Noah & co in Falmouth after a friend got me in. I enjoyed it a lot to be honest. The new material sounds good live, very sweepingly epic in places. Its a shame the mostly freshers comprised crowd only wanted to hear the one hit of "Five Years Time" which they performed begrudgingly in an encore. It may sound rather harsh, but I hope this band lose some of their fame and end up in small rooms of pubs again, because with a good crowd and the same songs it could have been an amazing experience. One to look out for if they come near you, but remember to give the rest of their stuff a chance at least. They do deserve it.

Mumford & Sons, Volcano Choir & Deadmau5

I thought I'd have a think about what I've been listening to for the last week. I'm fairly sure all of the records are new(ish) releases but its hard to tell with Spotify. They tend to just appear with little to no fanfare. Anyway, Mumford & Sons are part of that nu-folk scene that's been cropping up from London for the past few years. Noah And The Whale, Laura Marling, Johnny Flynn; you know the score. They share a lot in common with the first in that list really, although the songs are a bit more of a bluegrass style than the straight folk pop of Noah and co. They're definitely made for big things, by that I mean of course mild indie cross-over success. The album certainly has the singles on it, "Little Lion Man", "The Cave", "Roll Away Your Stone" all have the hallmarks of quality on them. They'll be the darling of Radio 1 shortly enough.

Volcano Choir are a misleading entity. Anyone with broadband and ears should swoon with joy when anyone utters the perennial audible delight that is Bon Iver. So when hearing that Volcano Choir are a little side project of his you are not surprised when you find yourself frantically hammering the keyboard in search of "VOLCANO BON IVER" or whatever. The similarities between the two records however are few and far between. This has more in common with modern American oddity bands than the flannel-shirted musings of despair. Its an alright album, it certainly starts well and ends badly. On its own merit its enjoyable enough, but on the coat-tails of old Justin Vernon this will probably end up under-listened in most people's music library.

Something a little bit different is the Canadian knob-twiddling rodent Deadmau5. Probably the darling of the electronica scene right now or 6 months ago depending on the timing of my appearance to this party. I'm not sure if he's revolutionised dance music, but that's usually the only thing used to describe someone new in this genre. No matter what the tag line for his success is the album "For Lack Of A Better Name" is fantastic. Pretty much every track is a winner and the (possibly only on Spotify) inclusion of a mixed version of the record is a well-judged implementation. It'll get you dancing, or at least you should.

On a side note, the Tubelord album should be with me today. Its not, I'm not even sure how I'm receiving it (steady now). Oh well, tomorrow. There's always tomorrow.