I couldn't really find an album that I really liked this week so I decided to go with one of Pitchfork.com's choices for Best New Music. Personally, I find The Pains of Being Pure at Heart to be techinically proficient but emotionally empty. They kind of remind me of a suburban garage version of The Cure. Learned but emotionless, the songs sound like they should be catchy but they just kind of lay there.

My brother and I always called these kind of songs "floaters". The poster child for these songs was "This Used to be My Playground" by Madonna. That song almost immediately jumps into the background. There's nothing wrong with that song but if it's playing my ear will jump to any noise rather than focus in on the song.

In other news, Phoenix put up a pretty neat looking website for their new single 1901. I was thinking about putting their last album as this week's Tryout but that album is more hit-or-miss than the Pure of Heart's.