It’s another edition of Music OD, and this time instead of waiting a few months, I’m dropping this in just one. Let’s  see what I’ve blasting from my headphones this month:

Atmosphere – The Family Sign: I must say, the opening two tracks are suicide-level depressing. The piano and guitar work (the work of Erick Anderson and Nate Collins, respectively) is on point throughout though, especially on “Became” which connects to Slug’s wintry narrative. His flow on that song is on par with “Lovelife” from God Loves Ugly.  By the time acoustic guitar on “Who I’ll Never Be” comes up, it becomes apparent that the solo guitar on “Guarantees” from the previous album has stepped up quite a bit. Just keep to those types of songs on this one; the others sound like failed Ant beats or feckless indie rock.

Daft Punk – Tron Legacy Reconfigured: 2010 was definitely the year for electronic artists coming out of the woodwork to make really good film scores. I know I’m not alone in my opinion  that the French duo’s work on the Tron sequel is pretty amazing. I was excited to see what other electronic artists like Moby, The Crystal Method, and Paul Oakenfold would bring to the table. Of those three, only Moby really gets it right and produces an intense track that puts an emphasis on the strings in his remix of “Son of Flynn”. The Boyz Noize remix of “End of Line” is also a pretty solid song. Nothing beats the opening remix of “Derezzed” by The Glitch Mob; unlike most of the other artists on this album, they actually kept to the foundation of Daft Punk’s song, adding their signature heavy bass to give it that LA kick. The rest of the album either sounds like poorly constructed messes or bland trance anthems (sorry Kaskade).

The Kills – Blood Pressures: I’ve never really enjoyed Allison Mosshart when she plays with The Dead Weather, but I’ve always loved it when she teams up with  Jamie Hince, goes back to being VV,  and gets back on her mean side. This is a better album than Midnight Boom, although not by much. While the first single, “Satellite” didn’t really grab me,  “DNA” brings the guitar crunches on the chorus and  Mosshart killing it with her voice . The riffs on this album are just so damn good,  it points out the awfulness of songs like “The Last Goodbye” and “Wild Charms”  that don’t have any.

UNKLE – Where Did The Night Fall: It’s been a while since I heard some stuff from James Lavelle (War Stories was the last album I’d listened to) and I had apparently missed the news that an album had been release since that one (I’ll get back to listening to that one later). I’m pretty glad that I grabbed the Limited Edition with the instrumental album, because the singing on the actual album are pretty bad. Every single vocal track on this album ruins James Lavelle’s beats and riffs. For example, “Ablivion” sounds really good on its own until god-knows-who’s voice fucks it up. The only two that are marginally good are the guys from Autolux and Mark Lanegan, but that’s a stretch. Long story short: get the limited, toss the real album, and enjoy the good stuff.