Not Recommended

Thank god for the internet. With a barrage of big tent (in indie world at least) releases tomorrow I'm happy to be able to warn you agains purchases that could funnel money away from very good albums. With that in mind I will post a simple entry telling you to not buy:

Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank: We all loved our Modest Mouse. Hey some of us still thought highly of them after Good News For People Who Like Bad News, but it's my theory that inspite of the tepid good will of Pitchforkmedia (which by the way I was fairly shocked about) the reception for Brock and friends is about to get a bit chilly. The album meanders and rarely rewards any sort of attentiveness. I did enjoy the song "Light Em Up," but found nothing else on the album to be any better than your average OC background music.

Ted Leo/Pharmascists Living With The Living: Not only is the title and album art abysmal but the album is barely a stop gap. No one was expecting some artistic revelation from Ted (he's been coasting since Hearts of Oak), but perhaps a song half as good as "Me and Mia" would have softened the blow of this rehash.