Ball Pit by Paul and Storm

The internet’s favourite male duo Paul and Storm are close personal enemies acquaintances of mine. But you can trust me when I say that they put on great live shows and are funny, talented guys. Honest.

This year saw them have a very successful Kickstarter campaign for this album. I doubt any of it’s backers could complain about value for money because it’s a 25 track beast ranging from geeky subjects such as Game of Thrones to creepy subjects like stalking your favourite band.

“This Song” is my favourite of the bunch possibly because it un-ironically works as a great tune, despite the sardonic intention of it’s lyrics.

Ghost Stories by Coldplay

Colplay, somewhat foolishly, before the release of Ghost Stories compared its change of musical direction to Radiohead’s Kid A. Cue acres of derision from music journalists. But here’s the thing, they’re kind of right.

It doesn’t sound much like Kid A, but that wasn’t the point. This is a much subtler musical release from the generally crowd pleasing band. In a way, it’s a return to their quieter debut album Parachutes but with more electronic sounds and a penchant for key changes.

After the almost cartoon-like Mylo Xyloto, this is a welcomed breath of fresh air. I’m sure Martin’s divorce has influenced proceedings, the heartbreak is tinged in every song but I think the progress is more than that. They may be looking to claim back some of the indie cred they had when they started. It’s certainly a step in the right direction.

III by Take That

Eternal pop connoisseurs will remind any Take That nay-sayers that lead singer Gary Barlow has won an Ivor Novello Award for songwriting. Say what you will about boy-bands and their contribution to the music pantheon but Take That have always been a step above the average boy-band, with more hits standing the test of time than most rock bands can claim.

Down to three members, the remaining men have missed no beats. In fact, they’ve added a few with this significantly dance influenced album. There are still a couple ballads thrown in but on the whole this has an 80s electronica feel to it. In fact, I would dare say if Robyn released this collection of songs nobody would notice the difference.

“These Days” is the first release and is catchier than ebola. There are about two more tracks of this level on the album so expect the charts to have a few songs from III in 2015.

White Women by Chromeo

Funk purveyors Chromeo have returned to lift us from our dull lives into the higher echelons of dance-hip-hop ecstasy. With tongues planted firmly in their cheeks, the Canadian duo know how to get your feet tapping.

White Women took an age to release. They teased the album since 2013! With that sort of hype build-up you’d be worried that blue-balls might stop your enjoyment once it finally arrives but Chromeo do their thing consistently and do not disappoint.

“Jealous” is a perfect example of the Chromeo oeuvre. Funky, silly, and begging you to put on your best leather jacket and dancing shoes.

DOOM’s motley crew of music aficionados are back to give you the rundown of what they’re digging this past month. This month is contributed by Katie Delz, Michael Harris, and Aaron Poole.

Katie:

This month’s recommendation does not come guilt-free. I confess to throwing my will-power out the window when leaks are involved. Such is the case of Beach House’s new album Bloom.

The official release for this album is May 15th, but I’m sure some people can understand the heartbeat-skipping joy I felt when I discovered the leak.

Beach House is a consistently good band, and their last album ‘Teen Dream’ was released 2 years ago. So it’s an understatement to say that I was anxious to hear what they put out.

Result? Nothing short of amazing. It helps that they used the same producer that they had on Teen Dream.

If you aren’t a super evil, leak-downloading person and want to have a taste of their new album, they did release the first track, ‘Myth’, as a teaser.

Michael:

Good Old War – Come Back As Rain (Released March 6, 2012)

Indie Folk. An ever growing corner of the musical world where I’m going to build a nice summer home. In fact, some days I feel as though I might not ever leave. Good Old War makes me feel like hanging out by the crick and reading poetry books to my best gal, bringing to mind images of tire swings and other such quaint nonsense, but slightly more modern, so possibly images of an iPad with a picture of a tire swing. With Come Back As Rain, the band only continues a wonderful tradition of making great music and giving me something wonderfully happy to listen to.

Standout Track: “Loud Love” (which we couldn’t find so here is a different one -Ed.)

The Shins – Port of Morrow (Released March 19, 2012)

Chutes Too Narrow firmly established this band in the realm of “Shut up and take my money” territory for me, and while Wincing the Night Away had its imperfections and just things that I didn’t enjoy, I was throroughly excited for Port of Morrow. Morrow, though not the Shins lineup that I have come to love and a very different one at that, is a lovely mix of new ideas. Frontman James Mercer and his new crew refined their sound to near perfection. New voices, both instrumentally and vocally make for a very new sound and a fantastic little album.

Standout Track: “For A Fool”

Dr. Dog – Be The Void (Released February 7, 2012)

I know that this came out last month and technically shouldn’t count, but I’m the one who’s writing this review and you can technically shut your face. That being said, I love me some Dr. Dog. This effort by the band is more pop oriented, a bit more…fun, than previous records like Shame, Shame or even Fate which were more subdued with key exceptions. Be The Void is a wonderful bit of freedom from the band, with some great experiments and some great new sounds.

Standout Track: “Heavy Light”

Aaron:

I don’t know at what point everyone started hating Coldplay but they do. It’s strange to me as the first time I heard “Shiver” when it was released, just over 10 years ago now, I was instantly smitten. Their debut album Parachutes was a moody, indie bombshell of awesome and they went stratospheric not long after that. But at that time, they were the cool indie band your mates hadn’t heard of. It seems, Coldplay’s biggest problem is that they got popular.

Now sneered at by the same musical elite who used to champion them, it’s weird how that effects you as a fan. I’ve been to a few Coldplay gigs and they’re incredibly tight live, in fact almost eerily so. They’re so polished that I start to see what people are moaning about. They’re the tidiest band in rock. So when the new album came out… I started to side with the nay sayers.

Well, after a few singles got released I got over myself and realised that no matter what people say, they’re one of the biggest bands in the world for a reason. They make solid records. Mylo Xyloto is their most Pop album to date, it even has a guest appearance from Rihanna on one of the tracks. The album as a whole is coehesive and incredibly listenable with some real sonic moments to grab your attention along the way. It’s not their best, but it’s still worth having in the collection.

If Florence + The Machine released this, the hipsters would shit themselves over how good it is.

I’m a big fan of some of the more inventive Flickr groups. Yesterday the Flickr blog highlighted one particularly brilliant one called LEGO Album Covers and it does exactly what you think it does. There are some fantastically re-created covers done with our favourite brick toys and I can only applaud the dedication it takes to bring these pictures to plastic.

Here are ten of my favourites from the 221 pictures (and rising) in the group.