Album – Deep Cuts. I’m setting a terrible precedent here – this song came out in 2002. The Knife is a group of two siblings from Sweden. I’m posting this for people, like me, who have missed good music throughout their life. I’ll try not to make a habit of it, but for those of you who think this is old news: deal with it.

The band is from Kansas and the album came out in May 2008. I think this is their first full length album. Katie renewed my interested in this song and it is one of my favorites of 08.

Heard this band on All Songs Considered – Second Stage. Another point to Sweden here. This band may be a bit too lighthearted for my regular listening (I mean the sound, lyrics don’t make the song to me), but every now and then I’m in the mood for that. Some people like this sort of thing all the time, though.

Good song from last year in Oct. 8. Cool Sound.

This band is made up of the singer from Wolf Parade and his wife, with one other guy. It’s on the Sub Pop label which is how I discovered them. Wolf Parade’s good, but a little mellow for my taste. This song takes what I like from Wolf Parade and makes it upbeat. Can’t stop listening.

This band was co-founded by the drummer of The Strokes, Fabrizio Moretti and is located in LA. The album came out in November of 08. It’s not on the top of my list, but I like it enough.

Amazing song. I was crazy excited about this album and so far have liked a few songs, but overall it’s nothing to freak out over. This song, on the other hand, is totally worth a freak out because it is just plain badass. Currently the whole album is streamable on myspace.

This band reminds me a bit of a more electronic centric Of Montreal. Jordan found them (I think when he was abroad).

Luke: Album – Spectrum, 14th Century.
Not to be confused with the video game series that takes up hours upon hours of under-employed graduates’ time, Final Fantasy is the moniker of violinist Owen Pallett and is mostly a solo project. He’s done arrangement and orchestration work with Arcade Fire and Beirut, who back him up on this song. I really like the orchestration on this, though I think this may not appeal to everyone.

This album made it near the top of a lot of Best of 2008 lists. I’m not as big a fan as many, but that’s probably because I’m almost always more in the mood for emo music.