Predicted by many to be a lackluster month in music, January is upon us. Often overlooked for its bad history of being a time-out period in the music industry, January is often the doldrums for listeners. Bad news for people obsessed with music and who have short attention spans like myself. However, there are a few promising new albums to come later this month to keep our ears in tune by way of bands The Evangelicals, Black Mountain, Drive By Truckers, and Blood On The Wall and having just listened to the forthcoming album by Times New Viking, I and can say with great certainty that it is the first good album of the year. And just like that January doesn't look so bad after all.
Rip It Off is hardcore lo-fidelity. Times New Viking wear the cracks, vinyl pops, tape hiss, and gain clipping that inundates this album like hard-earned battle scars. And they aren't new to the game either. They've been doing lo-fi for several albums now, yet it is on Rip It Off that they've really crafted that other thing that makes listening to albums fun: the music. Beneath the sonic smog that threatens to push the songs into obscurity are simple, fun melodies that suck you in. In past albums, the noise felt like a curiosity that was obscuring the perfectly glossy pop of the songs as much as it was concealing the mistakes, but here the faults feel natural and the static feels component. The songs are short and upbeat, but that doesn't mean they have a chance of making it onto the radio -- rather, compounded with the quality of broadcast, these songs would all but disappear.
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