Listening pleasures

In my introductory blog, you may have noticed that I said that from time to time I will use this blog space as an opportunity to review new albums that I have listened to, as well as occasionally reviewing any books I read while I am doing my daily commute and any films that caught my eye at the cinema or on TV.

This is a feature of the blog that I hope to demonstrate over the coming weeks. And to get the ball rolling, I will review two albums that I have purchased this week. The first is the new Coldplay EP "Prospekts March", which features tracks that supposedly were not recorded in time to make the Viva La Vida album that Chris Martin and friends released in early summer. Or, call me a cynic, tracks which their record company cunningly kept back from the album to release just in time for the Christmas purchasing run. Nonetheless, as an ardent Coldplay fan I felt compelled to buy this EP and it doesn't disappoint, as I will reveal when I review the EP in full this weekend.

The other album I will be reviewing is the third studio album by Las Vegas's finest export since tennis legend Andre Agassi, namely The Killers. Their third album is entitled "Day and Age" and you may well have heard the band's first singles cut from the album, "Human", which keeps to the band's winning formula of dark lyrics and an edgy synth based sound, that pays homage to 1980s new wave alternative music, borrowing particularly from bands like Joy Division, New Order, Talking Heads and The Cure. The rest of the album by and large sticks to these parameters but with some other newer influences being apparent as well.

These albums are both worth a listen but I will provide an in-depth review of both during this coming weekend. In the coming weeks, I also hope to provide my critical delectation of Razorlight's new album and even more exciting than that, Guns N' Roses's first studio album in over fifteen years. Slash may have gone and now forms part of Velvet Revolver, but Axl Rose remains and G n R's long awaited new album "Chinese Democracy" was released on Monday. I hope to give both of these a listen in the next few weeks, or certainly download a few tracks from the respective albums. Otherwise, they will definitely being going on my list to Mr Claus this Christmas!

As well as album reviews, from time to time, I might well post up my current music playlists and maybe some top 10 lists. You know the sort of thing, top 10 Beatles songs, or Stones, or Queen, the kind of debate you might have in the pub after one too many Guinnesses/Stars/Stellas/insert your own poison here. All I can say is, watch this space and feel free to join the debate.