2008's Album Disappointments (Part One)

2008 has been a pretty good year thus far especially for debut albums when you consider the likes of Foals, Blood Red Shoes, Los Campesinos, Elle Milano, These New Puritans, MGMT, Born Ruffians, Vampire Weekend, Johnny Foreigner have all released cracking debut albums. However there have been some really poor albums this year released and albums that I expected to be a lot better.

First up The Young Knives released their follow up to ‘Voices of Animals and Men’ which was always going to be a hard task to better or even equal. Sadly the second album titled ‘Superabundance’ was not a patch on the first album which was one of my and many others highlight of 2006. However the second album did not really get anywhere close to being like the first album and it did prove to be that very tricky second album. Despite this the first two singles ‘Terra Firma’ and ‘Up All Night’ did rescue the album, slightly. I expect The Young Knives to return with a strong third album, at least I really hope so because I really love the first album and live they are very good.

The Long Blondes released their second album ‘Couples’ on April 7th and I was very excited the prospect of Erol Alkan and The Long Blondes working together. I was really expecting a great second album which I thought would better the debut album ‘Someone To Drive You Home’ which in itself was a little disappointing to me. Erol Alkan producing The Long Blondes, you’d think that was a perfect combination. However the album did not fulfil my high expectations and The Long Blondes still remain one of those bands I just cannot get into, both live and on record. A shame really.