So it's 2am on a Saturday night and I'm working (why? it's a long boring story that nobody wants to hear) and digging deep into my music collection for background music (because I've listened to my regular rotation of songs about 50 billion times this week) and I just rediscovered one of my favorite bands ever (they're not the usual alternative rock so they're not in my regular rotation). Saloon (that's the name of the band, not the place one drank and got into gunfights in the wild west) put out two albums that I know of and a B-sides album before they went kaput. I can't really pin them into a genre but if I had to try, I'd say they're electronic/pop/lounge. Think Stereolab...

Anyway, actually they do have a myspace page (even though they've disbanded) where you can stream some of their songs. Sadly, I can't find anything about what the singer is up to now. There's a couple of videos on youtube and I got their CDs from half.com. Good stuff.

I could've gotten so much work done in the 10 minutes it took me to type this post.

Pretty generic rock video but I think this is the song that made me like Audioslave.

A blast from the past comes through with a great new song.

Cool song. Cool video.

I never liked this song until recently. I had my iPod repeat it most of today at work.

I remember very vividly being blown away by "Y-Control", the first song I had ever heard by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I was driving to a hockey game and made a mental note to find out who the hell it was that did that song. That album, Fever To Tell accompanied me on my trip to Spain and didn't leave my car's CD player for about 6 months. I liked every song on that CD. It was that freaking good.

A year and a half later, I heard "Gold Lion" on the radio and was a little disappointed. It just didn't have the knock-your-socks-off energy present throughout most of Fever To Tell. It was close but not quite there and I was fearing the YYY were hit by the sophmore jinx. But now that I've had their new album, Show Your Bones, for a few weeks, I can say that my fears were unfounded.

Their style has changed a bit but it's still distinctly the YYY. The raw energy has been refined and it works well for the most part although there are a couple of songs ("The Sweets" and "Warrior") that brings the album's pacing to a halt. Maybe they'll eventually grow on me but I'm skipping these tracks for now. The rest of the songs, however, rock pretty hard but rarely to the heights reached in Fever To Tell.

"Phenomena" sounds like it could have been from Fever To Tell and stands out as an obvious choice for a single. "Deja Vu" and "Mysteries" also feel like they've been lifted from their last album which, I suppose, is a good thing. There are a few songs that are good but ultimately forgettable (""Way Out", Fancy" and "Honeybear").

Now onto my favorite songs on the album... "Turn Into" almost has a country-like feel to it but I can't quite figure out what it is. "Cheated Hearts" is a ridiculously good ballad and they would be nuts if they don't release this as a single. However, "Dudley" is my favorite song by far. Yes, the melody is ripped off of a nursery rhyme, but I don't care. I can't get this song out of my head.

It bodes well for the band that my favorite songs on the album wouldn't fit very well in their previous album. They've tempted me with more of the same sound but their best tracks are the ones in which they've evolved. I wouldn't say they're necessarily better or worse than the best from Fever To Tell. It's just... different.