Douglas
User

Reviews 82
Approval 97%

Soundoffs 142
News Articles 50
Band Edits + Tags 23
Album Edits 54

Album Ratings 481
Objectivity 76%

Last Active 12-16-16 2:05 am
Joined 05-05-09

Review Comments 9,303

 Lists
12.02.14 Douglas' Dug Albums: 201407.09.14 Hit Me With 2014 Indie
05.29.14 Doug's EP05.16.14 Friday Vinyl
01.05.14 5 - 0... Yeah Aus12.02.13 Doug's 2013
08.22.13 The Book Thief Trailer08.22.13 A Girls Guide
12.20.12 Home Alone Ranked12.14.12 Bane > Batman
12.02.12 Dougie 2012: A Vague Counterpoint Of Mu ♦12.18.11 Doug's 2011
12.06.10 Doug's 2010: Part 1 Of 108.25.10 Doug Does Lyrics
11.30.09 Dougies 2009: Albums Of The Year

Dougie 2012: A Vague Counterpoint Of Music Stylings

My year has been pretty life changing; I spent the majority of my time abroad in the US of A rrrand Mexico, studying and travelling. On my return 3 months ago, I completed my last rrrsemester in a Bachelor of Education degree, meaning I am now entering the real life rrworkforce r- a real job, teaching the youth (God help them). My year, unfortunately, has had rrlittle rimportance on music as I have had little time to find new music, except for the past rrmonth, rwhere I have caught up with what I believe to be the best LP's of the year. So here rris my rvery shallow 2012 best of list.
12Bon Iver
Bon Iver in the Studios

EP, 4/5: All that can be said about Bon Iver and the latest album, Bon Iver, Bon Iver has been said and in its manifest
acclimation, the endearing and bittersweet symphony of gorgeous noise, which twists and turns to places that you couldn?t
expected -- it is hard to think or even ponder that the music might be tweaked into something more stunning. Yet, earlier
this year, Justin Vernon teamed up with his number one band man, Sean Carey, to create simplistic yet hardly disjointed,
arrangements of current and past songs in a more touching and authentic way than you have heard any Bon Iver song ever
before. Bon Iver in the Studio is wholesome in its approach as the songs were all recorded in one sitting, giving off the
obvious feelings of fluency and melancholy between Vernon and Carey.
11Chet Faker
Thinking In Textures

EP, 4/5: Thinking In Textures is an EP that tells you exactly what it is upfront. Murphy has
literally produced an album that is floating through textural changes, faint guidelines
of direction and relaxed instrumentation. The opener, ?I?m Onto You? is a perfect
example of the subtlety that is placed throughout the remaining tracks, as the song
swims through layered vocals and basic synth lines with distant drum tracks. There
is nothing complicated in the sound, yet the grooves are felt to be the perfect
setting for the smooth and jarring vocals of Murphy. Electronica with soul is the
most apt description of the Faker sound, as Murphy dips and dives lyrically on love,
lust and loss which accompanies the soundtrack harmoniously as it oozes
subliminally to the mind.
10Silversun Pickups
Neck of the Woods

3.5/5: I was actually a little disappointed in the Silversun Pickups for Neck of the Woods. After my love affair
with Swoon, I guess being disappointed was always a likely factor. In saying this, Neck of the Woods
is not a bad album, it is actually quite great, but by the standards of Aubert and Co. it isn't a
Silversun record to write home about.
9Sharks
No Gods

3.5/5: Just listen to the guitar riff at the start of Able Moving Hearts, go on, do it.
8Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
The Heist

4/5: Hip-hop seems to becoming less and less connected to its origin. The more popular the mainstay of
the genre is, the less you are linked to the person?s identity, as ?the club? seems to be the place
that everything goes down, which is not the general happenings of everyone?s day to day life. I
myself, do not proclaim to be fully diverse in knowledge of the hip-hop scene, yet I do know that
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have created something out of the norm for the current atmosphere of
mainstream rap regression, with the release of their first official studio album, The Heist.
7The Rubens
The Rubens

4/5: There is something special about The Rubens but it?s not because of their ability to
rise to astronomical fame in Australia at a ridiculous rate of knots. Though it might
be because it is hard to distinguish how the heck they have created a matured and
polished sound for a band that seemingly list no accomplishments or achievements
on their resume up to this point. Maybe it is that The Rubens approach to soul
drenched rock and roll has been getting flurries of comparisons to Tennessee
giants, Kings of Leon? And it is not hard to see why, as The Rubens contain the
brothers Margin (Zaac, Elliott and Sam) and mate Scott Baldwin as well as creating
bluesy rock ?n? roll with catchy hooks and pub sing-a-long choruses. The only
difference between the two is that The Rubens will fill your ears with the nostalgic
muse and whimsical ramblings that make you want to grab the nearest person and
slow dance your way through the afternoon, something that the Kings of Leon
hardly pride themselves on.
6Cloud Nothings
Attack on Memory

4/5: I don't know, there is just something catchy about the way these guys go about it.
I mean, all the tracks on Attack On Memory just stick out.
5Japandroids
Celebration Rock

4/5: It's a lifeless life / With no fixed address to give / But you're not mine to die for anymore / So I must live...
Born of a bottle / From heaven's hand / And now you know / And here I am.
4Grizzly Bear
Shields

4.5/5: There is not much I can say about Grizzly Bear's Shields. Words really aren't enough for the stupidly
brilliant song structures that Grizzly Bear produce. Therefore, here are some words with no connotation to anything: all-
embracing, broad, catholic, dilettantish, diverse, diversified, eclectic,
heterogeneous, inclusive, liberal, mingled, minimalist, mixed, multifarious, multiform, selective,
universal, varied.
3The Gaslight Anthem
Handwritten

4.5/5: If there is one band I can connect with the best, it would be The Gaslight Anthem. Brian Fallon's words
are sentimental, honest and wholesome. Yet Handwritten is a different record to anything they have
produce before. There is that slight change in sound, shaper production and a more marketable vibe,
which generally gains the term 'sell outs' from fans, yet Gaslight have proven that Handwritten is as
organically them as The 59' Sound was. Basic instrumentation, strung with lyrics that almost any person
can find solace in, sums up the rock'n'roll band from Jersey that is going from strength to strength. They
may never write another 59' sound, but if they keep creating albums like this, not many will care.
2Something For Kate
Leave Your Soul To Science

4.5/5: I am going to be honest here. I'd do Paul Dempsey. Shit, he could possibly be the greatest musician
on the planet. After his extremely successful solo effort in 2010, people began to wonder if
Something For Kate would ever produce again. Thankfully, they did. Leave Your Soul To Science is
a record that breathes a breath of fresh in the Australian music culture that is stuck in the
monotony of mindless indie fickle. It articulates the importance of strong song writing and how a
group of old dogs can certainly pack a punch with some brand new tricks. The grit, the poignant
song writing, the endearing sentiments and the vibrancy of Leave Your Soul To Science make you
relinquish any doubt that in fact, Something for Kate are in essence the underpinning of the modern
day Australian music culture.
1 The Tallest Man on Earth
There's no Leaving Now

4.7/5: I was extremely lucky to be in New York the week that There's No Leaving Now dropped. And
guess what? The little swedish dude was playing a show down the road from my Hostel. For
two mesmerising hours with 2, 000 others, I was blown away by the raw power he can produce
from his tiny frame and stage presence that he holds. Listening back to There's No Leaving
Now, you can just imagine, and hear that sharp intake of breathe that a crowd gasps as he
begins to pound the strings and croon soothingly with words of wisdom. There's No Leaving
Now is an album that seems to encapsulate a different Matsson. There is less despair, less
woven darkness in his words. Not that he was never jubilant before, but Matsson seems to
have found an inner peace, and it sounds beautiful.
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