(Adam's choices, probably not corresponding with your own)
Now this one has been a BIG grower over the year. I didn't even particularly like it when I first heard it, unfavourably (and unfairly) comparing it to the fantastic American Demo. After too many listens than is actually healthy, I realise that this is by far the superior work - if AD was the statement of breaking out on their own, SfSL is their call to arms. Just listen to it - you don't even have to pay for it. But you should.
I feel a bit sorry for Arcade Fire, as though it's no longer allowed to like them - like they're a safe choice, a hackneyed cliche - and really, they're one of the more innovative, game changers in indie rock. No, it's not Funeral, but thinking like that's how you can feel shortchanged by this stunning album. Probably the greatest testimony to it is that the tracks that do feel like filler would likely be standouts on any other album.
The talent that these two have scares me. Not only are Pip's rhymes intelligent, funny, thought-provoking and British - without having to resort to base crudity - Le Sac's beats that accompany his musings are so indelibly married, it is uncanny. A much more fleshed out, less angry, LP than Angles - perhaps without the anthems of that debut, but all the better for it.
Aside from the pant-troubling artwork, this is a magnificently retro-sounding album from an act that by all rights should have fallen by the wayside with the amount of lineup changes they've had. Please don't change it again - this foursome is the one that works, and each track within this amazingly manages to sound like it's from both the 60s and, yet, fresh.
I use Posterous for the things that are just too long (or rich a media) for Twitter, but without resorting to having a full blog, because I am too lazy to regularly maintain it.
