In our Moving Units column, Mike Ramirez at Fort Lauderdale's Radio-Active Records
graciously keeps us up-to-date and comments on the current releases
flying out of his store each week.
Once you get past the Holden Caulfield lyrics ("I hate myself man, but who's to blame?") on Wavves' latest, King of the Beach, a bunch of pristine hooks await on the other side. Recording in a real studio with an actual backing band hasn't turned frontman Nathan Williams into any less of a brat, but his talent for filtering retro garage rock through his weed-clouded mind is front and center on standouts like "Post Acid" and "Idiot."
Radio-Active Records' Top 5 Releases for August 17-23:
1) Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (Merge) "The Fire has held its own for three weeks now at Radio-Active. It has sold more LPs than CDs, I might add."
2) Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier (EMI) "Godfathers of British metal Iron Maiden's 15th album continues the band's trend of concept metal."
3) Wavves - King Of The Beach (Fat Possum)
4) Matthew Dear - Black City (Ghostly International)
5) This Heart Electric - "Polar"/"Nowhere to Run" (Die Stasi) "Miami's own This Heart Electric recently released a new 45 that is destined to make some waves. Make sure to pick one up at your local record store."
Which albums will we be discussing next week?
"Be on the lookout for Dungen's Skit I Allt (Mexican Summer), Ducktails' Landscapes (Olde English Spelling Bee), Fennesz's Knoxville (Thrill Jockey), Dead Confederate's Sugar (TAO/Old Flame), the Eels' Tomorrow Morning (Vagrant), Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan's Hawk (Vanguard), the Sword's Warp Riders (Kemado), Ra Ra Riot's The Orchard (Barsuk), Mogwai's Special Moves (Rock Action), and more."
