'07's Music to Love More Than Music: Love More, pt. 4

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - In Glorious Times
Like Frog Eyes and Man Man and Sunset Rubdown and Ayreon and any other awkward but hella intelligent band of, really, any genre. It's like a heart attack and a stroke at the same time ... but if those things were good.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - The Companions
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Angle of Repose

Over the Rhine - The Trumpet Child
One of the most incredible swingy jazzy Sinatra-y albums I've ever heard. It's smoky and sexy and mmmmm smooth.
Over the Rhine - Trouble
Over the Rhine - I Don't Wanna Waste Your Time

Vashti Bunyan - Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind
Oh man. Oh man oh man. If you don't know of this chica, you need to. She's probably one of the most important folk artists to have ever picked up a guitar. She's one of the most influential folk artists baring Dylan ... and anything she touches is gold, which is evident by this release.
Vashti Bunyan - Train Song

The Number Twelve Looks Like You - Mongrel
WHOA! Like getting two CD players, putting a Dimmu Borgir CD in one CD player, and an Esteban/Santana duet album in another, and randomly pressing play and pause on each player ... well ... it only sounds like that sometimes. Yeah, sounds confusing, but good god these boys know how to play music ... some people may think that these boys don't understand that certain styles shouldn't even be in the same room as each other, and that may be the case, but that makes me happy.
The Number Twelve Looks Like You - Imagine Nation Express

French Quarter - French Quarter
Just a small time boy from Arizona warming the hearts of people from here to the heartland with his Ben Gibbardish style voice and his indie-pop singer/songwriter style. He's one of the most talented little guys I've ever come across. See him live, and he might just do his version of "Stayin Alive."
French Quarter - Build Fires
French Quarter - Bold With Fire

The Nightwatchman - One Man Revolution
Who would have thought that RATM's Rock n Roll guit-box player would be able to pull off Dylan-style activist-folk. Not I. But after hearing the SXSW live set, I was confident that it would be quite the awesomeness, and it was. His lyrics are probably the most political (who'd've guessed?) I've ever heard. His voice is a little hard to get past at first, but I quickly warmed up to it. Come on, how could Tom Morello do any wrong?
The Nightwatchman - House Gone Up In Flames

31Knots - The Days And Nights Of Everything Anywhere
Awkward smart rocking 70's style-ish indie rock straight from the heart. These boys know how to throw it down in more awkward ways than one, and each of those ways are new and inventive in new and inventive ways. Kind of a contrived way of describing it, but that's how it goes.
31Knots - Beauty
31Knots - The Days And Nights Of Lust And Presumption

Black Diamond Heavies - Every Damn Time
These guys sound like Tom Waits if Tom Waits was turned into two gorillas who then forced the keyboardist from the Doors to play swinging lounge punk. Seriously.
Black Diamond Heavies - Fever In My Blood