Feel good hits of the 1st May

1. 'Skeletons' - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2. 'Saved By Old Times' - Deerhunter
3. 'There's No Home For You Here' - The White Stripes
4. 'Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans' - Smashing Pumpkins
5. 'Surfin' Bird' - The Ramones
6. 'What We Know' - Sonic Youth
7. 'OK With My Decay' - Grandaddy
8. 'Glass' - Bat For Lashes
9. 'Pig Will Not' - PJ Harvey & John Parish
10. 'The Greater Than Symbol And The Hash' - Dananananaykroyd

Notes:

1. It's Blitz! continues to baffle every time it gets played (and right now that's a LOT). That title, and the exclamation mark in particular, suggests it's party time and it certainly starts out clubby, but it actually turns out to be a grandiose comedown album for the most part ('Skeletons' being the outstanding example). Even then the beatier, meatier songs like singles 'Zero' and 'Heads Will Roll' are devoid of the exuberance and outright fun of their earlier releases, going to the disco but perversely finding shadows to skulk in. It reminds me a lot of the high points of LCD Soundsystem's Sound Of Silver, namely 'Someone Great' and 'All My Friends' - anyone else get that?

2. Can't wait to see Deerhunter at ATP in a couple of weeks - Microcastle gets better with every listen. (Incidentally, the running times have just been announced. Two sets for Shellac, one of which doesn't clash with Foals? Holy Fuck at half one on the Sunday morning? That sound you can hear is me rubbing my hands with glee.)

4. Pompous proggy nonsense from my youth, but oh boy those guitars! I love it, still.

5. Courtesy of a recent episode of Family Guy, a couple of friends were infected with The Trashmen's original version as an earworm. Despite them singing it pretty much non-stop all last weekend, I'd just about proved resistant - and then I foolishly opted to put a Ramones best of on the stereo...

6. As performed on Later Live... this week. If it's any indication of what The Eternal will be like, then expect messier, more aggressive and less poppy than Rather Ripped. Jen's comments on seeing them: "You'd have thought they'd retire and go and sit on a beach. How do they keep on writing songs? Surely they must be singing about the same things by now?" Bless.

8. I've not immersed myself fully in Two Suns yet, but 'Glass' is a great start. Part of the appeal of Fur And Gold was its tentative etheriality, but she clearly does confident well too.

9. No idea what 'Pig Will Out' is about, except that it sounds very angry indeed. Hard to believe that the vocalist yapping like a pissed-off puppy and screaming "I will not" with an assertiveness that brooks no argument (and who also growls "Stick it up your fucking arse" on the new album's title track, which, by all accounts, she seemed rather embarrassed about singing at the recent Oxford show) is the same person as the gothic waif of White Chalk...