Okay, so 2007 is approaching the halfway mark, so I was wondering, what new stuff have you been digging this year? So far my faveorite albums of 2007 are:

NIN- Year Zero
VNV Nation- Judgement
Arcade Fire- Neon Bible
The Horrors- Strange Hours

I was also pleasently surprised by Circa Survive's new album, because I absolutely hated them when I saw them live. The only one I'm kind of disappointed in so far is Bad Brains- Build a Nation. It's not bad by any means, but... it just doesn't do it for me like I Against I or Rock for Light.

Albums I'm looking foreward to in the second half of 2007 are Blaqk Audio, Saul Williams and the Cure...

Arcade Fire and Nine Inch Nails delivered knock-outs, I agree.

My mind is blank, but that's all I can think of too. I also liked the new Rufus Wainwright.

Modest Mouse's new one is pretty rad too. Johnny Marr still has it.

Ozzy Osbourne- Black Rain

Yeah, make fun if you'd like. But I've still got a soft spot for this old cooky metal head. And its better than Down To Earth

My buddy JP played me a few tracks of it and they all sounded really uninteresting.

Some of the stuff early on can be a bit boring. But from about song five or so on the whole thing starts to get better.

Ah. I don't think we made it that far.

I've been mostly out of the loop music-wise for the year, but I'm glad I did pick up Neon Bible. Been listening to it pretty solidly since it's release, and I'm starting to enjoy it more than Funeral...

I picked it up late, but "I'll Sleep When Your Dead" by El-P is also Stellar.

My absolute Most Favoritest Album this year has been Clutch's "From Beale Street to Oblivion". So that'd be my Best of the 3/4 Year.

Good stuff. It's a bit of throwback to late 60's heavy blues/rock/psychedelic music. Think of early Deep Purple, Blue Cheer or even Jimi Hendrix. They make great use of the ORGAN, evoking memories of DP's John Lord. They also feature the harmonica prominently.

They mention that blues is essentially the backbone of hard rock and this is their tribute to it. Lines like "if I had money...like Henry Ford" show that they're not living in this era. When was the last time you thought of HENRY FORD when thinking of "rich guy with lots of money"?

If we're counting albums that have come out in the last two or three months as well, Blaqk Audio's definately jumped into my top five. It was at number one for that first three weeks to a month after it came out, but now the fan-eyes are dying off and I'm starting to notice how I don't like some of it as much as I thought I did. Top three, for sure, but I think number one is still Year Zero.

Biggest disappointment is now Graduation. I expected something above "mediocre" from Kanye.

That Blaqk Audio disc is pretty awesome indeed, I had a friend turn me on to that. It's like Depeche Mode, with a sharper edge.

Umm.....Depeche Mode had an "edge"? If they did, it was about as sharp as the edge of a brownie :P

Violator was kind of dark and edgey. A lot of their early stuff was all fluffy synthpop, but Violator and Music For the Masses were both a bit darker. Not "Dark" per-se, but edgey for that kind of synth-pop band.

"Violator" was around 1989, with "Personal Jesus", right? I'll give 'em that as an "dark n' edgy for synth-pop" acknowledgment. That was a somewhat cool song.

I remember all the New Wavers talking about "Depeche", around 1987. They were sort of the Iron Maiden of New Wave: a band that all the kids liked and wrote on their notebooks, but was never played on the radio. And yeah, the stuff the music were doing around that time sucked.

Personal Jesus came out in 89, I believe, and the album propper dropped in 90.

Bone Palace Ballet by Chiodos is an absolutely stunningly good album.

The new As I Lay Dying CD is pretty amazing. It's a hugely different sound if you heard their Shadows Are Security album.

I always have fun with the Warped Tour Compilations too. Had a pretty good one this year.

"Reach out and touch faith........"

B)