Quick preview of Boxer from The National
So the good ol’ guys over on NeoGAF had their monthly ‘What are you listening to’ thread and there were some bands that I thought I’d check out, and The National was one of those bands. The National is releasing their latest album Boxer on May 22, and from the tracks I have found on various websites it is a really great album. Very mellow and easy to listen too. The lead singer, Matt Berninger, has this rasp to him that reminds me of Nick Cave and Paul Bank from Interpol. The first song on the album is Fake Empire which is a piano driven song that you would listen to before bed or you would hear in that slow poinent moment during a movie. The second song on the album Mistaken for Strangers is where the I really get the Interpol feeling from. Perhaps it is just the drums on the track and the light driving guitar loop, not to mention the vocals. I’ll try to write more in the coming weeks when I am able to get the whole album, but if the tracks I have listened to give any indication, the album should be great. Now take a listen to the first song Fake Empire.
Recently saw Mew
So I saw Mew again and they were amazing as expected. They put on a great set again, with their backdrop of violin playing cats. I took lots of photos, but majority of them turned out like crap sadly. I really think I need to investigate getting a new camera for taking concert photos, the good ol’ Casio camera I have just doesn’t do motion in the dark that well.
Lots of Games…
So I have tried to actually spend some time playing games recently and have picked up some and rented some others. I recently rented Virtua Tennis 3 for the Xbox 360 which was pretty fun, but shallow like the previous versions on the Dreamcast. I also tried NBA Street Homecourt for the Xbox 360 and didn’t really like the gameplay that much. If I wanted to play NBA Jam, I would play NBA Jam. I also installed Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer 3 for the PC, which I need to spend time with. After Age of Empires 3 I have been looking for a RTS game that is actually fun. Hopefully one of these will fit the bill. I also have S.T.A.L.K.E.R. from a friend, but I was having problems with it running in Vista and just haven’t installed it on XP yet. Perhaps I’ll do that soon, after the first week of hype a lot of the flaws in the game are starting to come out and I’m not sure if I want to spend the time playing it. Back to some gaming.