New Release Tuesday (9/23/08)

Cold War Kids - Loyalty to Loyalty

Thanks to us blogger folk, 2006 was the year for these California boys. When seeing them for the second time at Lollapalooza in 2007, I was excited to hear them play new songs, especially "Dreams Old Men Dream" which made it on to their latest, Loyalty to Loyalty. First single "Something Is Not Right With Me" is standard CWK fare, while "Welcome To The Occupation" is good, but no REM cover. Either way, I'm just glad their back to take over another fall of my music listening.
Stream: Loyalty to Loyalty [here]

Kings of Leon - Only By The Night

Only a mere 18 months after last year's dark Because of the Times, the Kings settled in to make a full on arena rock assault with this year's Only By The Night. Lead singer Caleb Followill finally uses his pipes to his advantage, bringing them up in the mix to complete the big guitars ("Sex On Fire"), super heavy fuzz bass ("Crawl") and to serenade us as well ("Revelry").
Read: Only By The Night review [here]

TV on the Radio - Dear Science

It took me awhile to come around to Return To Cookie Mountain a few years back, but this time I was hit and hooked in right away with the Brooklyn band's latest opus. Cleaning up the production and trading in the indsutrial Cookie sheen for Michael Jackson ("Golden Age"), fucking funk ("Red Dress") and songs about, well, fucking ("Lover's Day"), this album, like many others I have mentioned this year, is now in contention for my album of the year. And, maybe it's me, but does anyone else here Bloc Party in "Halfway Home"?
Read: Dear Science review [here]