I’m miffed that The Fall‘s new LP, Imperial Wax Solvent, has not actually arrived on these shores this week, though our British brethren (’cause none of the sistren like The Fall) are merrily snatching copies of it out of bins in England’s green and pleasant land, and then going home to wax poetic about their acquisitions via their internet pipes. Neither eMusic nor iTunes has it available yet, and Amazon appears to have sold the two copies they had, so I’ve had to order from the label in the UK and patiently await the disc’s arrival. I guess this a good thing. Reminds me of those days when music wasn’t an instant gratification product, and you had to hunt for your prey before bringing it home to devour it. Made it taste better that way.

That said, it’s fortunately been a very, very good month for other music, so I’ve got a good base of new stuff to listen to. First and foremost, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is a true masterpiece. I had written about Cave’s ferocious Grinderman project last year, and was vaguely nervous that when he returned to the fold of the larger, more baroque Bad Seeds that the energy would be sucked away again. Nothing doing, friends. This album is a beast, with instantly accessible melodies anchored atop some monstrous grooves and riffs. The lyrics are excellent, funny and wise at the same time. A great, great record by a band who I’d almost given up on.

On an emergent (i.e. not by people my age or older) music front, I’ve been enjoying listening to Colour Revolt‘s Plunder, Beg and Curse, Frightened Rabbit‘s The Midnight Organ Fight, and Plants and Animals‘ Parc Avenue. Colour Revolt are a pretty solid indie rock band, with a singer who occasionally evokes Bono, but not to his or anybody else’s detriment. Frightened Rabbit is odd and Scottish and noisy, with acoustic instruments making strange noises and a lot of quirky arrangements and vaguely creepy lyrics (witness the album’s title) sung in a strong Scottish accent, and I did I mention they are from Scotland? Plants and Animals are a little bit groovy, but they cover a lot of ground, and the opening cut on their album has the most spot-on perfect duplicate of Queen’s three-part vocal harmonies that I’ve ever heard, so that’s worth something.