Back Off Man, I'm a Scientist

I broke my rule about buying CDs this past week -- I couldn't help it. The good news is that I used a Best Buy gift card that I won at a trade show a couple of weeks ago so I still haven't spent any money on new CDs in 2006. The album that I just had to have was With Love and Squalor by We Are Scientists. I first heard their single Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt on Sirius LOC a few months ago and absolutely loved it. It's an amazing single made even better by the fact that the video was directed by the Lonely Island guys who did the Lazy Sunday / Chronicles of Narnia Rap on SNL. The CD had been out in England for a while but it didn't come out here in the States until last week. Unfortunately, I think I was too eager to hear this album because it let me down on the first play. After spinning it a few more times, it's starting to grow on me. I don't think the rest of the album will ever live up to the fantastic lead off track / first single, but nonetheless I expect it will spend a lot of time on the MP3 player for sometime to come.

I became intrigued by Ryan Adams when I learned the former Whiskeytown frontman released 3 albums (one of which was a double-album no less!) in 2005. Could he sustain Whiskeytown-like quality over that quantity? I started with his final album of 2005, 29. I could have sworn the first track was a cover of the Grateful Dead's Truckin' (it's not, just evocative of their tune). I am more familiar with Adams from Whiskeytown in the alt.country vein but this album has a wide variety of musical styles and instrumentation on it -- very intriguing. As this was the material that made the third album, I'm very interested in hearing the other two Adams put out last year.

Gomez is a group of five scousers who I thought I'd check out after (again) hearing them on Sirius LOC (satellite radio has cost me way too much in album purchases!). Split the Difference has a suprising bluesy-pop feel to it and a few of the tunes, especially These 3 Sins, has an amazing Liverpool-Beatles feel to it. The thing I like about Gomez is that their sound is a bit different than most of the indie/alternative bands coming out of Britain at the moment. Although I like a lot of what I'm hearing from that side of the Pond these days, I appreciate that Gomez has a distinctive sound.