Albums Out This Week: W/C 8th February 2010

Peter Gibbons: "Let me ask you something. When you come in on Monday and you're not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, 'Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays?'"

Lawrence: "No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man."

Truer words are rarely spoken, also applies to 'Friday Feeling', but Mondays have rarely been a source for joy in the world. Happily though, even musicians and their support staff have to work on the first day of the week, and as such we have a whole raft of albums lining up on the shop shelves, vying for your attention.

Although we still can't decide how we feel about Owl City taking the U.K number one single. On one hand, those X-Factor rejects didn't get the spot, on the other hand, Owl City did. It's like OneRepublic beating out The Cheeky Girls.

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Sad Day for Puppets: Unknown Colors

Fronted by a striking tall, Swedish blonde: good way to get attention. Being an ace shoegaze outfit pulling from many influences back in the early 90s: better way to get attention. Sonic Cathedral Records will be handling the band's début album release in the U.K with HaHa Fonogram taking the task in Europe. Set your guitars to 'shimmer' and your vocals to 'ethereal'.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra: Kollaps Tradixionales

With more prior band names than Cher has had face-lifts, the band everyone calls 'Silver Mt. Zion' anyway are serving up their sixth full-length album. Before this one though, a small amount of tumult was endured after drummer Eric Craven decided to go his own way. Bookended by two tracks of fifteen minutes in length, don't expect anything in the way of restraint from this album from the post-rock colossus.

Retribution Gospel Choir: 2

With their first album hitting the streets way back in 2008, it might not take a genius to discern the reasoning behind this album title. Yet this is just how the band do things, why be overly-complex when the direct route works just as easily! Featuring members from the band Low, with the album being produced by Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, this is going to be one to get for psychedelia fans.

Massive Attack: Heligoland

Bristol's phenomenal electronic duo steady their aim for a fifth studio album. Heavy on the guest appearances, on this one you can expect to hear vocalists Horace Andy, Tunde Adebimpe, Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval, Guy Garvey and Martina Topley-Bird, and musical contributions from the likes of Adrian Utley of Portishead, Portishead collaborator John Baggott, Damon Albarn, Neil Davidge and Billy Fuller of Beak. Sadly it also is some of the last work recorded by deceased drummer Jerry Fuchs.

Dakota Suite: The Night Just Keeps Coming in

Dakota Suite is not so much a band, more the brainchild of Chris Hooson, a social worker from England. He manages to hold down a full-time job helping others while spending his free time making music to help himself. Figuring into the areas of dream-pop and folk, Hooson has been releasing albums since the late 90s with no sign of stopping now. This is going to be one social worker that you look forward to seeing!

Yeasayer: Odd Blood

"Presents are always spoiled for those who open them before they are supposed to," the band said in response to their album being leaked three months before its intended release date (funnily enough, just in time for Christmas). Regardless of how spoiled this album may be for you, the Brooklyn-based experimental/psychedelic band are liable to build upon their already stellar reputation with this one, released through Secretly Canadian records.

HIM: Screamworks: Love in Theory & Practice

Formed in 1991 by vocalist Ville Valo, guitarist Mikko Lindström and bassist Mikko Paananen. The "love metal" band have undergone a few name changes in their time. The name HIM was originally an abbreviation for “His Infernal Majesty” (like AFI for A Fire Inside), but was changed to the initials to avoid confusion with the occult. We're always confusing band names for the dark arts, this one time we turned up at an Ash concert with the charred remains of our father... awkward.

Seasick Steve: Songs For Elisabeth

21st Century blues man, who reaches back to the old traditions but also has a punk sensibility, and a gravelly, soulful voice. He has played with everyone from Lightnin’ Hopkins and John Lee Hooker to Modest Mouse and the Fat Possum dudes. The Elisabeth of the album's title refers to his second wife whom he married in 1982 and now has three grown-up sons with. One of these sons is now art director for all of Steve's work. How sweet.

Fear Factory: Mechanize

Formed in 1989, American-Metal stalwarts Fear Factory they have released seven full-length albums and a number of singles and remixes. Over the course of their career they have evolved from a succession of styles, as well as steadily pioneered a combination of the styles death metal, groove metal, thrash metal and industrial metal. The resultant sound proved to be enormously influential on the metal scene from the mid-90s and onwards.

Fionn Regan: The Shadow of An Empire

Fionn Regan is an Irish singer songwriter and artist from Bray, County Wicklow, Republic of Ireland. He cites such artists as Bob Dylan and Neil Young as influences. Shadow of an Empire marks his second full-length album and was advertised well when in October 2009, the track "Protection Racket" was released as a free download.

Album Leaf: A Chorus of Storytellers

"While a gulf apart in terms of actual sound, Jimmy Lavalle's project The Album Leaf has walked a very similar path to that of Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst. Both started their projects cooped up in dark and dusty basements and attic, whispering all their darkest yearnings into a humble home-recording device by themselves. Over time though, both grew as musicians and gradually let others in on their creation, leading to the full-band delights of Bright Eyes' album Lifted, and now The Albums Leaf's A Chorus of Storytellers."

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The Postmarks: Memoirs At The End Of The World

The Postmarks are a pop band from Pompano Beach, Florida. Their debut self-titled LP was released in February 2007 and has been met with critical acclaim from Rolling Stone and Spin, as well as Pitchfork and a host of other music blogs. The group was discovered by Andy Chase of Ivy and subsequently released on his Unfiltered Records label. Their lead singer also looks a little like Evangeline Lily from Lost (Kate), win for everybody we think.

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Creature With The Atom Brain: Transylvania

Creature with the Atom Brain is a Belgian alternative rock band comprising Millionaire keyboardist Aldo Struyf, Dave Schroyen, Jan Wygers and Michiel Van Cleuvenbergen. The band have been said to make “fuzzy stripped-back rock’n’roll noise with a generous helping of weird.” The band’s name is taken from the Rocky Erickson & The Aliens song (Which in turn was taken from the 1955 film of the same name).

Blueneck: The Fallen Host

Formed in 2000, Blueneck are a reclusive four-piece based in North Somerset. Beginning their career on the West Country’s thriving live circuit, the band steadily dropped conventional gigging in favour of a mostly studio environment. The effect of this seems to have been a wildly eccentric approach to song structure, which is to say that they don't actually seem to have any. Freeform is the watchword, not a bad thing unless it's followed by the word "jazz" and "odyssey".

Cave In: Planets of Old

Returning from hiatus to release this four-track E.P, the CD version will include a DVD featuring the live performance from Cave In's reunion show on July 19, 2009. The post-hardcore band have maintained a revered presence on the music scene since their inception in 1995, in Methuen, Massachusetts. If it wasn't for the letter "n", you could totally make up their city name from the letters in their state name. An opportunity wasted, long live Massanchusetts.

The Watson Twins: Talking to You, Talking to Me

The Watson Twins are an American musical group based in Los Angeles with alternative country and indie folk influences. They are identical twin sisters named Chandra and Leigh Watson. The band includes contributions from Aram Arslanian, Russ Pollard, Jason Soda, and Jenny Lewis. Now in their mid-thirties, the twins are not long on the scene, having first appeared in their collaboration project with Jenny Lewis on the album 'Rabbit Fur Coat'.

Gil Scott-Heron: I'm New Here

Gil Scott-Heron (born April 1, 1949 in Chicago) is an American poet and musician, known primarily for his late 1960s and early 1970s work as a spoken word performer, associated with African American militant activists. Heron is perhaps most well known for his poems/songs “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and “What’s the Word - Johannesburg” a movement hit during the 1980’s South Africa college and national divestment movement.