Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#747 in the Series) is The Temper Trap, The Temper Trap The Temper Trap, an Australian band with a hugely successful debut album. After the release of their summer single “Sweet Disposition,” it became one of the most popular albums of 2009. Everyone knows that the second album is always the hardest, and unfortunately, The Temper Trap’s latest self-titled release reinforces this reality. Reaching number 17 in the UK album charts after its release on the 21st May 2012, this 12-track certainly didn’t do badly in terms of popularity. But, we can’t judge music by numbers. With the opening track “Need Your Love” reminding me of some sort of sci-fi movie theme...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#746 in the Series) is Iggy Pop, Blah Blah Blah  I dusted this one off recently and fell back in love with it. Tons of sharp pop hooks and well written pieces, it was “Jim Osterberg’s” most successful commercial record when it came out in 1986 that apparently ended up causing some negative emotion that we can only imagine came from the fact it sounds a lot like a David Bowie record. The first song “Real Wild Child” was his first top 10 hit in the UK (don’t know why it wasn’t “Lust for Life”- I always loved that some cruise ship company used the music bed of “Lust” for their commercial. Do you...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#745 in the Series) is Bruce Springsteen, Born in the USA At the start of 1984, with a new album imminent, Bruce Springsteen’s longtime fans must have been curious, maybe even anxious, about which direction he was going to take. His last effort, 1982’s superb “Nebraska” had been a bit of a departure, consisting as it did of a fairly sombre, and stark, suite of mainly downbeat songs. Bruce had been given artistic freedom to do his own thing on that release and he delivered a majestic masterpiece which has stood the test of time and remains, for many (myself included), his best album to date. This time around though both fans...

  Today’s Cool album of the Day (#744 in the Series) is John Fullbright, From The Ground Up. (Blue Dirt Records) I would venture to say that most of you have never heard of John nor this album as of yet and  I think that’s a big yet. I happened to catch a review of the record on NPR’s website. When I see a record review that mentions the names Woody Guthrie, Townes Van Zandt and Randy Newman in one sentence – I kind of had to take notice. But I don’t want you to think that this is a record that doesn’t stand on its own merits. To say that Fullbright was just relying on those influences would...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#743 in the Series) is Farewell Fighter, The Way We Learn The sun was setting on Milwaukee’s ’11 Warped Tour, and crowds of pierced and tattooed youth were making their way out of the fairgrounds, exhausted from a long day of dancing, jumping, and moshing. I was among them, glad to have seen my top bands and was ready for the cold bottles of water I had stored in my car. But as I moved into the parking lot, I was a lone figure with a sign and a box of EP’s. It was a common sight – a lot of bands follow the Warped Tour without buying entry, trying to sell...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#742 in the Series) is Thin Lizzy, Jailbreak We’ve been leaning quite heavily on new releases along with obscure oldies lately here on Cool Album of the Day but I think we shouldn’t forget about some of our favorite oldies but goodies either. It’s time to get back to a classic. I was a very big fan of Thin Lizzy’s Fighting album of 1975.  I played it constantly be it on vinyl in the parents basement or on 8-track in my ’65 Pontiac Catalina. I knew it by heart from front to back.  To me, most of the allure was due to the fact that they were “our band.” Our referring to...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#740 in the Series) is Crucis, Los Delirios del Mariscal  It was, I remember, 1977 or 1978… And I was a very young teen, listening to radio in the wee hours. The sadly departed Juan Alberto Badía, a well known local radio deejay and journalist, launched to the air a piece of music of mesmerizing quality: dark, atmospheric… a very slow and subtle crescendo, full of drama, that ended up in a climax of supreme, powerful musical quality. It was Crucis.  And it was a piece called ¨Los Delirios del Mariscal¨ (¨Marshall´s Delirium¨, or something like that). One of the masterpieces of Argentinean prog rock and, in my humble opinion, on par...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#739 in the Series) is JT Coldfire, Always and Never  (Crazy Sun Publishing) The first thing that hits you between the ears when you play the first song from the new JT Coldfire album, Always and Never,  is the finely crafted Chuck Berry Inspired “Get it on (In the Back of the Bar)”, a song that grabs your ears and staples them to the speaker. The second thing you quickly realize in listening to the whiskey soaked vocals and the somewhat bawdry lyrics, is that in Coldfire, you are in the process of being introduced to a pure and genuine “diamond in the rough” musical find, who adds some much needed “hair...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#738 in the Series) is Roger Powell, Air Pocket One of my favourites Sunday morning pastimes is the ¨catch-an-obscure-and-great lp¨ from the sales bin… Buenos Aires is fascinating in this respect: a big city, music lovers everywhere, lots of people with a great insight in local and foreign artists… Sometimes, something beautiful emerges from those dusty used lp´s bins And this one is a real gem… From the sleeve´s art (some distorted and pixelated video image), to the assorted keyboard juggernaut, the album screams 1980. Not 1979, not 1983. 1980. Why?  Well… in my subconscious, the period 1980/1981-82 was the epitome of the purest eighties zeitgeist: modernity without mannerism… and a lot...

This was their debut album. I actually started this write up planning to do their second release, Faster and Llouder, but I couldn’t find many videos for that album. I really wanted you to be able to check out some of the album. I was able to find some for the first album so I made the switch. One of the things I’ve always liked about Foster and Lloyd was the little taste of The Everly Brothers that they’ve thrown in.  Make sure you listen to ‘What Do You Want From Me This Time.’ You’ll hear some heavy Everly Brothers influence in that track! ‘Crazy Over You’ did well for the band as well.  As did ‘Sure Thing’ and...