Why I'm not listening to People in Planes

-Part 1

It's the 9th of September, getting towards the end of the day. I had one thing to do: buy Beyond the Horizon, People in Planes' new album. I hurried to Fopp where a friendly guy told me they hadn't ordered any in, but they could if I wanted. I shuffled over to HMV, but it was the same story. I've also now noticed that Amazon UK have none in stock either.

Seriously England, what the hell? This is the kind of lack-lustre effort that makes bands head for distant shores and foreign record labels. If you don't care two bags of chips what's happening in your own music scene, how are innovative bands supposed to survive? This is why you're dancing to the Kooks while Oceansize are brokering deals with German publishers. This is why you don't deserve an advance iTunes release of Mayday (M'aidez). I hope you're happy with yourselves.

Continued...

Cold War Kids are working hard

Cold War Kids' first album, Robbers and Cowards, quickly found a comfortable niche in my collection. Their disregard for tempo and key, while producing such a passionate and professional sound, intrigued me.

So after a long break, the Californian quartet have released a downloadable single called Something is Not Right With Me, from their new album Loyalty to Loyalty. You can listen on their MySpace player. I'm still feeling the sound, but I'm hoping there are some much stranger tracks waiting for us on September 23rd.

The band are also playing an impressive number of gigs over the coming months of winter, from Los Angeles to Paris. I'll see you in Manchester.

It's nice that they remember their roots

People in Planes (formerly Tetra Splendour (formerly Robots in the Sky)) recently re-entered the musical world, announcing the new album Beyond the Horizon, coming out on the 9th September. They're a Welsh band now signed to Wind-Up records, the same label as Finger Eleven and apparently Evanescence... In the run up to the CD, the band have released two tracks as singles on iTunes.

Want to see what happens when I try to buy them?

Wind-Up seem to be pretty geared towards online networking and promotion, so why are they making this fatal flaw? I can live without Mayday for a couple of weeks, but they're losing a large amount of potential revenue here on the home continent.

Bitching aside, the album sounds amazing so far. Pretty Buildings and Mayday (M'aidez) are both solid tracks, and you can listen to them both on the band's official site. For a limited time you can download Pretty Buildings for free by signing up to the mailing list here, and you can also download a live, acoustic version of Mayday from BFN.

Continued...