Music I'm Listening to these days

I noticed I rarely post anything about music, so I thought I would simply post some bands I have been listening to lately. I am not quite as good at articulating my musical tastes as I am my film/video tastes but I will try to compare them to other bands. Although my taste is normally quite eclectic, I still think there is a lot of good music out there that I don't know and am open to anything, so please fill me in.

Muse - This band has a bad reputation, but I absolutely love them. Their new CD, The Resistance - has a few misses on it, but it starts with a power single that I'm sure most have heard on the radio. The next song is decent, but after that there are really solid rock and roll song after solid song. I really feel this song plays like a missing Queen CD (and I'm not just saying that because of the one note they hit about a minute into United States of Eurasia, although it definitely helps). It has that arena-rock sound along with some genuine musicality. The songs also seem to tell a story about America and how it is perceived. The CD ends with a 3 part symphony that is absolutely spectacular. I love when rock bands can play classical-type music and hardly miss a beat and Muse can do it. I really enjoy this CD, but then again, I've been a big fan of the band for the last 3 years or so.

The Airborne Toxic Event - I heard this band on the radio and was shocked at how good they were. They reminded me a bit of The Secret Machines and they were my favorite CD for 2004ish. Here is a link to some of their music on youtube. They really are a great band. They seem to have the ability to deconstruct a song which is something that I love. Many of their songs start with one instrument while the rest join in until a full song has been realized. I'm also proud of myself for realizing they took their name from a random book I read about 8 years ago, but that's just cleverness for cleverness sake.

Some other quick hits:
- The new Alice in Chains CD is surprisingly old-school. It sounds a lot like their CD Dirt from 1993ish, which is surprising considering they are doing this without their lead singer.
- Sigur Ros - Since coming back from Iceland I have been once again listening to this fantastic Icelandic band. It really doesn't matter that you don't know what they are singing about. Good music is universal. After all, I'm a huge Radiohead fan and I don't think I know any lyrics to their songs.
- I've been listening to the newest Shawn Smith CD called the Diamond Hand. For anyone that doesn't know him, he just has the world's most beautiful voice and I challenge anyone that has heard him to disagree. Listen to any of these songs. I can't vouch for their sound quality, but his CDs really feature his vocal talents.
- I also found Monsters of Folk on the radio and was impressed by their one song on the radio. I found out later they were a "Supergroup" consisting of M.Ward and some guys from My Morning Jacket. So far, they impress me, even if I've only heard 2 songs. The song I heard is Say please which you can listen to here
- I've also been listening to The Beatles. I'm addicted to the side B of Abbey Road. Ever since I played them back to back to back to back on Beatles Rock Band, I really can't listen to this enough. They really were the best and it's amazing that 4 men could create so much fantsatic music in such a short period of time.

As usual, that's not all I'm listening to, but this is some of the stuff I'm really enjoying. I hope my reader(s) do as well.