Sonic Parthenon's The Year In Music 2008: Part 3

Fair Game
The show was canceled in the middle of the year and it will be missed for two things: 1. The host, Faith Salie and 2. the music. Fair Game served as a live library of a lot of the great bands of our time, from Camera Obscura and the National to Clare & the Reasons and Magnetic Fields. How the Black Lips got on there I will never know, but I do know I miss Faith a whole hell of a lot :(

Flogging Molly
"Requiem for a Dying Song" and a reinvigorating live show at Pier 54 brought one of the marquee bands of the first half of this decade back from the bog and it felt very good.

Frightened Rabbit
"The Greys" and reports of solid live work were more than enough for this budding band from across the pond to make a mark in 2008.

The Gaslight Anthem
At the end of this year in review, you'll see a list of honorable mentions, pretty much all of which are about one songs with no real backstory. One of a few exceptions to this list, a band that gets a special extra bit of attention is the Gaslight Anthem for the title track from The '59 Sound. Take everything you like about anthem-heavy rock 'n roll, throw away all the excess and dead-eyes suburban inanity, and you have one of the great songs of the decade.

Laura Gibson
Sweet, wonderful Laura Gibson stole the show and pretty much all of the winter in early 2008 with her folk guitar, touching voice, and melancholic lyrics. She could have done near stole my heart too if wasn't for all the competition.

Sebastien Grainger
Right up there with the Gaslight Anthem and Maps of Norway, the one time one-half of DFA 1979 offered up one song that was enough to leave a lasting mark on the year and the decade. "American Names" is going to be one of those songs you give to your kids right off, to show 'em what it's like to make rock n' roll. And the best part of this very American song, is how Canadian the author is. Whatever "how Canadian" means. But oh yeah, he puts on a hell of a live show with some other songs to back it all up.

The Immigrant Dirges of Sebastien Grainger at Union Hall

Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains; Josh Reichmann
@ Union Hall
Brooklyn, NY - December 2, 2008

Way back when, for a very brief time, Death from Above 1979 was one of THE bands of this decade in the eyes of many critics, trendsetters, etc. (except me, though maybe I need to re-evaluate). Fast forward to 2008, and while one half of the Canadian duo has stuck to the DFA aesthetic with MSTKRFT, Sebastien Grainger (that's pronounced "Grain-ger" not "Grahn-yea" for you assumptive French types) has taken it back to the 70's and 80's in yet another (and in this case successful) spin on retro sounds. Drawing from an array of arena and punk inspirations, Grainger's basic goal is to make everything sound like an anthem. The flagship song is, without question, "American Names", described by Grainger at Union Hall as an "immigrant dirge" and it certainly does carry a lot of weight. Not that could you make out what he was singing (due to Union Hall's excessively loud speakers from hell), but Grainger does write some pretty deep stuff - his music may be simple and fun, but he's not singing "I wanna hold your hand".

Fellow Canadian Josh Reichmann (an impressively-haired young man) leads five guys in a heavy soul rock revival, with a slight edge of punk and pop in the background. Incredibly catchy but not sugary by any stretch, Reichmann's music is exactly the kind of party music we need going into 2009. All it takes is a horn and a sax and a few extra lads.