New Pretty Girls Make Graves! For my money, they're the best rock band going around at the moment, so new stuff is cause for excitement, especially given how brilliant their last, The New Romance, was. It's called "The Nocturnal House" and I just found out about it tonight and I've basically been listening to it over and over since, and it's different from their older stuff but probably equally kick-ass, because that's what always happens with this band.
It's hard to describe the song - it doesn't sound like anything much except Pretty Girls Make Graves. I guess that it's a fairly natural progression from The New Romance - it's that same urgent, resonant, thudding, spiralling, dense, intricately constructed, shouty (Zollo's in good voice and there's some of that fun background shouting, too), post-hardcore indie-rock stuff, except, like, more so (oh yeah, and it has whistles). Plus it works that same trick of having all kinds of weird tempo changes yet never for a second seeming to falter in its headlong stabbing forward rush; typical genius moment comes about 2:40 in, when all of the instrumentation suddenly slows and crashes in unison, refiguring the opening guitar kick, and you realise that you've been waiting the whole song for precisely that to happen. If the whole album (Elan Vital, due out in April) is as good as this, we're in for a treat.
Here (and see also here).
In other PGMG news, have got my ticket to Laneway Festival but am seriously thinking about also hitting the solo show the night before. Other gigs hopefully coming up in the next few weeks: M.I.A., Lisa Miller, Kathleen Edwards...
Anyway, I don't think that I can face the prospect of going out tonight (at least not yet), what with this heat and all; sitting at home and continuing to listen to "The Nocturnal House" at least for a while longer seems like a much better bet.
