This year, some of shoegaze and psychedelic music's biggest names are releasing new albums, and are embarking on lengthy tours.  Here are three tours and album releases that bring assurance that shoegaze rock is not dead:

BAND: Brian Jonestown Massacre
ALBUM: Aufheben
RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2012
TOUR: World Tour
SHOWS: 52

http://www.brianjonestownmassacre.com



BAND: Dandy Warhols
ALBUM: The Machine
RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2012
TOUR: Europe/North American Tour
SHOWS: 30

http://www.dandywarhols.com/



BAND: Spiritualized
ALBUM: Sweet Heart, Sweet Light
RELEASE DATE: April 17, 2012
TOUR: Europe/ North American Tour
SHOWS: 30

http://www.spiritualized.com/

Hello, VZ readers. I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately, and I can’t think of much for a full review at the moment. So, here is a Consumer Guide-esque column on some music that you should definitely check out (if you haven’t already). I hope you enjoy, and I’ll try to get a full review finished as soon as I can.

Great Albums:

Himanshu: Nehru Jackets

Das Racist is one of the best hip hop groups around today, with funny songs that are musical in a way that comedy music usually isn’t. Nehru Jackets is the first solo mix tape from member Heems, and damn is it good. Every song is memorable. My favorite: “It’s the Drug I’m Needing.” A- 

ScHoolboy Q: Habits & Contradictions

Picture Rick Ross, but with authenticity. That’s ScHoolboy Q, and he’s great. A-

The Men: Open Your Heart

Believe the hype. Open Your Heart is hardcore punk at its most listenable. Loud, pounding, at times arsty, and yet still tuneful, it’s the hardest album I’ve heard all year, and it never lets up... except on “Candy,” a strange change of pace that is more influenced by college rock than hardcore punk. With multiple listens, it reveals itself to be the album’s most memorable song. A-

The Menzingers: On the Impossible Past

If Open Your Heart represents the arty side of punk, On the Impossible Past is the punk side of punk. The Menzingers are basically Rise Against with better songs. I doubt Rise Against has released a song as good as the opening track here, anyway. Punk isn’t dead. A

Todd Snider: Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables

I’ve said plenty about this album already, but it deserves a few more words. Give it a listen. A

Great Singles:

Bruce Springsteen: “We Take Care of Our Own”

The Wall Street Movement was just asking for a Springsteen song to be its anthem, and they have a whole album of songs to choose. I hope it’s this one. A-

Delta Spirit: “California”

Delta Spirit’s whole album is wonderful, and “California” is the stand-out moment. A

Django Django: “Default”

My favorite song of the year, so far. Although the album it comes from is just alright, “Default” is an indie-pop masterpiece, pulling together everything great about the genre together into three minutes of ear-candy. A+

Jack White: “Love Interruption”

Blunderbuss is an album I cannot wait to be released, being the huge Jack White fan that I am. This single got me even more hyped, though. Releasing this under his own name was a perfect idea because, listening to this song, it doesn’t sound like The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, or The Dead Weather. It sounds like the man who made all of those bands great, stripped down. It’s jazzy and addictive. A 

The Magnetic Fields: “Andrew in Drag”

I reviewed the new Magnetic Fields album about a few weeks ago, and I kicked myself for not mentioning the album’s best track. So, here it is: “Andrew in Drag,” the funniest, catchiest, Merritt-est song on the album. A

Bonuses:

2:54: “Scarlett”

The EP this song is attached to isn’t special, but this song is very riot-grrrlish in the best way possible. Eerie, melodic, and very good. A

Dum Dum Girls: “Last Caress”

This Misfits cover is actually from 2010, but I just heard it for the first time …Wow. A+

Matthew Dear: Headcage EP

I like it more than Burial’s Kindred EP. A-

Every so often, politics become screwed up enough that military action becomes necessary. Not with guns, mind you, but with guitars. In the ‘60s, rock and roll revealed itself to be a sensible way for the youth of the time to vent their frustration at the political climate. Performers like Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, along with making some of the best music of the decade, allowed kids to make sense of what was going on. Looking back, however, it’s easy to see this as more of a selfish reaction to reality than anything. After all, the hippy culture was, more or less, the shocked response to the baby boomers, as they came to the stunning realization that there was a tremendous lack of sunshine and roses outside of the confines of the suburbs. Taking solace in their drugs and their music, they eventually woke up with the biggest hangover of their lives, got over their rebellion, and went on to start the yuppie culture.

Sad to say, my generation may be dealing with our own yuppie types soon. History’s repeating itself already, with a bad economy, war, and protests. Even the pepper-spray incident reminded me of Kent State. These kids, like the hippies of the ‘60s, are young people, raised in upper middle-class homes, who are just realizing the imperfections of the world. The Occupy Wall Street movement is very hard to swallow, since I agree with many things about it, and I disagree with just as many. Protest is necessary, but is one group really the cause of every problem? Is any group the cause of any problems? Or, are multiple groups the cause of multiple problems?

Like the hippy movement, quite a bit of this generation will be remembered for its music. Also like the hippy movement, not much of the music is about politics. In the ‘60s, how many great songs (note that I said great, not popular) were written about Vietnam? Not many, really. The Beatles didn’t release many political songs (Lennon’s solo career was very political, though). Likewise, if we see a compilation series called ‘Songs of the Wall Street Generation’ sometime in the future, there’s a good chance that very few of the songs will even mention the movement. However, this month, two albums were released that seem heavily focused on politics: Todd Snider’s Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables and Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball.

Springsteen, of course, is the old dog who critics continue to look to for evidence that their generation is alive and well (despite him not releasing a great album since Tunnel of Love). Snider is a funny folk singer-songwriter who, despite not being extremely popular, has one well-known song (at least where I live): “Beer Run,” a humorous folk song, commonly featured on the Bob & Tom Show, that is about exactly what its title claims. Beyond that, Snider’s humor is typically more subtle and, on his new record, it is more political than ever.

One thing that both of these albums have is a stellar opening track. Wrecking Ball opens with “We Take Care of Our Own,” a song about a lack of courteousness that is the best he’s written in years; Agnostic Hymns opens with “In the Beginning,” about wealth, religion, and mankind in general, which ends with a fantastic line: “Ain’t it a son of a bitch/To think that we still need religion to keep the poor from killing the rich.” These songs both give you a hint what the remainder of the albums are going to be like: Springsteen’s album is angrier, at times seeming like it’s all coming from the point-of-view of a protester, while Snider’s is more calm and reasonable. Because of this, Agnostic Hymns is the better record, lyrically and musically.

That’s not to say that Wrecking Ball is bad, because it’s not. Springsteen’s never really been bad, anyway; just overrated. His new record even got the five-star Rolling Stone rating, rarely granted to albums by new artists, and yet granted to almost every album that Springsteen releases. Typical. So, yes, there is a part of me that wants to think of Springsteen as burnt out but, despite his drop in quality, his music is still listenable and, a lot of the time, it’s pretty good. In fact, for most of its first half, Wrecking Ball is classic Springsteen. Then, it starts to go downhill.

Both albums seem like Woody Guthrie’s soul inhabited these men, and forced them to record albums explaining his position on our situation. Agnostic Hymns sounds like a modern day Woody Guthrie record, and Springsteen’s anger is reminiscent of Guthrie’s. But, in terms of lyrics, it’s hard to determine which album Woody would be happier with. Springsteen’s politics have always been a simpler version of Guthrie’s but, if there was one thing that Woody Guthrie never was, it’s simple (that’s why I’ve always preferred Bruce Springsteen the Pop Star to Bruce Springsteen the Philosopher). Snider may not have the same views as Springsteen or Guthrie but, in terms of getting his views across intelligently, he’s more on Guthrie’s side. The dry humor on the album, on the other hand, is a lot like Randy Newman. Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables actually kind of seems like a Good Old Boys for this generation, attacking bankers and Wall Street executives in place of racism.

The test of a great album is how long it can stay surprising and interesting. Wrecking Ball fails this test. It begins with a collage of great songs like “Easy Money,” “Shackled and Drawn,” and “Death to My Hometown” but, once the album passes its halfway point, there aren’t many great songs. Springsteen hardly sounds like Springsteen anymore near the end of Wrecking Ball; he sounds more like The Gaslight Anthem, or some other Springsteen-influenced artist.

Snider has no problem making it through his album. I kept thinking that the opening tracks were too good for the ending to live up to them, but it just kept surprising me all the way to the final track, “Big Finish.” Maybe the problem with Springsteen’s is that he’s too obsessed with making an anthem record for the Wall Street crowd. Snider’s seems accidental, because not every song on Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables is political. One of my favorite songs on the album is “The Very Last Time,” a break-up song that, if I’m gonna compare this record to Good Old Boys, is the “Marie” of the album. Snider is political but, musically, melodically, he’s a musician; a very good musician, and it’s musically that Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables triumphs.

So, Rolling Stone can keep Wrecking Ball. “In Between Jobs” will be my left-wing political anthem of the year, though.