We attended Modest Mouse’s last show at the Santa Barbara Bowl for two reasons.  First, and foremost, was that Johnny Marr (of The Smiths–The Smiths!!) was lending his guitar magic to the band on its tour.  Second, was something about some bloke named Brock.  And that night Marr delivered in spades the je-ne-c’est-quoi that is his guitar mastery.  He has a sound all his own.  How does he do it?   No one knows how he wrangles the sounds he does from those six-string instruments and amps, and it’s just as well.

Comes now (all these post-Smiths years later) that Marr will soon release his first (what the heck took so long?) self-titled solo album.  To get a flavor, check out the first video for Messenger from the new album.  Wow.  Smiths/REM meets Nada Surf, and look out below.  We absolutely love it.

Brooklyn band The Antlers appeared recently on KEXP, and their leader Peter Silberman showed why is one of our most affecting songwriters, vocalists and guitar-players.  Check the full performance out below.  Particularly noteworthy are Drift Dive and Hounds (despite some obvious monitor issues in the latter).

Setlist:

Drift Dive
No Widows
Crest
Zelda
Hounds

Like many, we enjoyed Mumford & Sons first album Sigh No More, and particularly when that album’s songs were performed live. With the band speed-strumming and flailing around the the stage, audiences around the world were drawn to their shows like flocks to old-time tent revivals.  And miracles could ensue.  But at the same time, many wondered if that magic would be sustainable.

After a hiatus, the band has now put out their second album, Babel.  And somewhat surprisingly, Babel has been a “towering success” and  is the year’s best-selling rock album.  In less than two months, more copies (over one million) of Babel have been purchased in the US than Justin Bieber’s Believe and all others, and is second only to Taylor Swift’s Red album.  You have to give credit to the Mumfords and their non-stop touring, boundless energy and aspiration, and ultimately managing to infiltrate the hearts and minds of a broad range of youths and young-adults, and their parents.

Time will tell if the Mumfords will be able to maintain their momentum.  We at Lefort don’t see much progression musically in the new album, and fear the band may have shot all the arrows in its musical quiver.  Already critics are sounding the death-knell, and even for those that approve of Babel, there is the constant refrain:  “musically a virtual repeat of their first album.”  For some that’s great.  For others it’s the end (without more variety and invention, we will fall into this camp).

Some of the negative reviews are humorously vicious:  “With every crescendo of catgut and steel, their lack of nuance becomes wearing.” (The Observer); “For those who never liked That Guy Who Plays Acoustic Guitar At The Party, Babel’s gonna sound like the dentist’s drill. For others, this still may be the point at which you put down your makeshift tambourine, get up from the half-circle and find a better room in the party house.” (Prefix); and, our favorite, “Effectively, it is emo for blacksmiths.” (The Fly).

Regardless, we’ll defer our final judgment to another day.  In the interim, check out the band below last night on the Letterman Show performing the first single off the album, I Will Wait.  The best part of the song, the repentant lyrics, follow.  And at bottom is the band’s Red-Rock-ing of the same song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26maHIFoHRQ&feature=em-uploademail

“And I came home
Like a stone
And I fell heavy into your arms
These days of darkness
Which we’ve known
Will blow away with this new sun

And I’ll kneel down
Wait for now
And I’ll kneel down
Know my ground

And I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you

So break my step
And relent
You forgave and I won’t forget
Know what we’ve seen
And him with less
Now in some way
Shake the excess

But I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you

So I’ll be bold
As well as strong
And use my head alongside my heart
So tame my flesh
And fix my eyes
That tethered mind free from the lies

But I’ll kneel down
Wait for now
I’ll kneel down
Know my ground

Raise my hands
Paint my spirit gold
And bow my head
Keep my heart slow

Cause I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you
And I will wait, I will wait for you”

Check out the great Blur closing the 2012 Olympic Games with a stellar rendition of new song Under the Westway (written for the Olympics event, as we’ve written before).  The full show will be available on the Parklive Deluxe Set on December 3rd at blur.co.uk  http://smarturl.it/parklive

After all the recent heavenly hubris and hub-bub, Sufjan Stevens today released his new Christmas-song box set, Silver & Gold.  You can stream it in its entirety and buy it below.

You can’t say Sufjan Stevens has been playing things safe.  He’s recently released an unsettling clay-mation video featuring bloody scenes and has otherwise been going out on limbs.  And now, in his new video for I’ll Be Home For Christmas (from his impending Silver & Gold Christmas-songs box set) we see a less-than-Christmasy, David Lynch-esque montage of a child running past Santa sawing reindeer antlers, a creepy seance-esque scene, ballerinas menacingly popping balloons, and police hovering over what appears to be Stevens’ body (though credited as “Jordan Lake,” and finally ending with a child receiving a gift from what may or may not be her parents.  The only thing missing is Dennis Hopper and a gas mask.  Also reminds of Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander.  Yikes.  Don’t let your kids see this one.  The good news?  If you don’t watch, it’s a dreamy rendering of the song.

As Stevens’ label (we assume Stevens himself) has written about Christmas and the genesis for the new box set:  “This is the true horror-show catharsis of Christmas: the existential emptiness that perseveres in the heart of modern man as he recklessly pursues his search for happiness and comes up empty handed.”  But as also written, we trust that Stevens will do as they later say:  “His song is love; his song is hope; his song is peace. His song conjures the fruitcake world of his own imagination with steadfast pursuit of the inexplicable bliss of Christmas Promises—“Gloria in excelsis deo””.  Sounds like somebody we know.

Sufjan Stevens continued his heightened Christmas-related activity moments ago by releasing the video below for Christmas in The Room with the following announcement:

“Tomorrow is official release day [TLR–for new Christmas box set, Silver & Gold].  Until then, here’s “Christmas in the Room” from the Christmas Infinity Voyage EP.  I’m releasing all my original songs from the Christmas box set into public domain, including this one.”  For now you can download Christmas in The Room here:  Merry Christmas.

My Morning Jacket’s leader Jim James has announced that in February he will release his first full-length album, Regions Of Light And Sound Of God.  While the magnificent and magnanimous James has previously released a gorgeous EP of  George Harrison cover songs under the Yim Yames moniker, this will be his first solo album.

According to Pitchfork, James’ press release states that the album “chronicles an artist’s struggles with temptation and corruption, along with finding true love. Some of the things happening in the book were happening to me in real life, in a very strange and painful, then a very beautiful way.  I wanted the album to sound like it came from a different place in time. Perhaps sounding as if it were the past of the future, if that makes any sense—like a hazy dream that a fully-realized android or humanoid capable of thought might have when it reminisces about the good old days of just being a simple robot.”

Evidently James engineered and played all the instruments on the album.  You can pre-order and download new track Know Til Now HERE.  Or you can listen below as James evokes a soul-and-synth motif on the new song.   We can’t wait.  A track list follows below.

Regions of Light and Sound of God:

1 State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U)
2 Know Til Now
3 Dear One
4 A New Life
5 Exploding
6 Of the Mother Again
7 Actress
8 All Is Forgiven
9 God’s Love to Deliver

Allo Darlin’ can do no wrong in our book. As we’ve written, earlier this year they released one of the (if not THE) best albums of 2012, Europe. In honor of the success of Europe, Rough Trade Records will soon release the band’s Covers EP featuring songs by AC/DC, The Ramones, Bruce Springsteen, Eux Autres, The Go-Betweens (natch) and Darren Hayman. Check out below the band’s touching and incendiary cover of Hayman’s Wu-Tang Clan.  Check out the cover’s spot-on singing by Elizabeth Morris set against the incendiary guitar playing of Paul Rains and drumming of Michael Collins.  And go pre-order the EP HERE.  The song’s lyrics follow the song below.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the song’s lyrics of a lass from London seeking solace and escape through the music of the Staten Island hip-hop group, Wu Tang Clan, are given added charge (see the videos at bottom by Casey Neistat featuring Wu-Tan Clang’s song Can It Be All So Simple).  And please do donate to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts HERE or at your preferred non-profit.

“She dreams of Staten Island
She never ever dreams of Walthamstow
Her friends are getting married
Getting their hair cut like Jill Dando
She hopes that Terry Soams won’t ask her out tonight
For the fourth time
She wants to be alone

With the curtains drawn and the stereo on
She swings her hips and dances to the Wu-Tang Clan
And the sadness ebbs away now
She shuts her eyes and throws her head up high
It’s better when there’s no one around
And she’s feeling something real now

And on the train home everyone moves away
Because she stinks of work
And she does, and she knows so it doesn’t hurt
And in her mind she pictures ODB
In his prison cell alone
It’s not wrong to want to be alone
She would tell him so

With the curtains drawn and the stereo on
She swings her hips and dances to the Wu-Tang Clan
And the sadness ebbs away now
She shuts her eyes and throws her head up high
It’s better when there’s no one around
And she’s feeling something real now

And RZA, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck
Golden Arms will hold the time out of harm
In the council flat tonight
And the thought hits her at 105 BPM
That sometimes for a second
She believes that everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright
Everything will be alright”

Hurricane Sandy on Bikes in NYC from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Sufjan Stevens Saturday continues with he and his label Asthmatic Kitty‘s release today of Stevens’ cover of Prince’s Alphabet St.  Check it out below.