On this weekend of our nations Independence, I spent the majority of my time listening to music, new and old. However, I found myself consistently wanting to listen to only one album: LP. We blogged about a couple of their songs earlier, but here’s my run down of the album after a good week of letting its musical juices soak into my temporal lobe.

The band consists of two members: Rostam Batmanglij and Wes Miles. Rostam comes from Vampire Weekend in which his main duties are keyboards and backing vocals. Wes is lead vocals in Ra Ra Riot. In my mind, these guys are already proven musicians. However, it’s quite the opposite. Each of their main projects are only one album deep. Vampire Weekend may only be one album in, but it was acclaimed as one of the top albums of 2008, and I would agree. On the other hand, Ra Ra Riot is one of those bands that is struggling a little in a popular sense, but has a dedicated following. Summing this all up, it seemed odd to me that two unproven musicians that seem to have very long careers ahead of them with their main acts would take a risk like this in releasing an electronic album riddled with the much criticized auto tune. I, for one, am very happy that they took the leap, but I honestly don’t see this album being a critical success.

Such was not the case with The Postal Service. They were a huge critical success and it is them that Discovery most reminds me of. I think a better way to say it is that Discovery is a Postal Service stuck in the 80′s (That is if the 80′s had auto tune addiction). On paper, this album sounds like it would be something I would hate. I don’t use hate softly here…I really dislike auto tune, and the last thing I want are a couple of indie hipsters trying to follow in the footsteps of the potentially defunct Postal Service…but this album is like crack (the freebased stuff). It’s crack laced with 80′s synth pop/dance beats. The vocal melodies are infectious and the tempo changes and quirky song structures are abnormal to say the least. Some may look at this album and say that it is just a messy mash of electronic beats laden with auto tuned shit caked vocals. Those people can fuck off. Apparently they aren’t easily wooed by a catchy melody like I am. If those catchy synth and vocal melodies didn’t have you at hello, then I suggest you listen a little closer and try to make out the lyrics. The lyrics might be taken as juvenile in the sense that most of them are relationship based, but I find them very mature and well thought out. I don’t really need to get into the nitty gritty details of the lyrics, but lets just say that most everyone who reads this blog can relate to them in some way…unless you prefer to reproduce asexually. Lyrics like this don’t please me: “My friend showed me pictures of his kids, and all I could show him was pictures of my cribs.” Who the fuck can relate to that except CEO’s of fortune 500 companies and celebrities with coke habits…and Kanye West? “You love talking fast, but every sound that I hear from your mouth is so deliberate.” Much better.

Overall this is a great album if you enjoy electronic music and don’t mind something that might remind you of the 80′s (If you were abused as a child/raped in the 80′s and/or are afraid of Prince, then I suggest you do yourself the favor and not download this album). It’s an album you can queue up when your bored of browsing the interwebs or, better yet, while driving. However, when I originally heard this album, it became an overnight favorite of mine. I easily classified it as one of my favorite albums of the past two years. However, after letting the eargasm subside for a few days and allowing for proper soakage, I still realize that this album is amazing but not quite 10/10 amazing as I had originally thought. It’s just one of those albums that will either click or will leave you asking why? I will leave you with my Brother’s thoughts on the album: “It’s a great album if you want to start a dance party.”

8.5/10