Track of the Week: Up All Night by Alex Clare

This week’s track is Up All Night by Alex Clare, off of The Lateness of the Hour. Alex Clare’s Too Close is the music behind all those very hip Bing commercials and been on the rock stations recently, so it was to find that song that I brought The Lateness of the Hour. Musically all over the place, it’s a strange mix of dubstep and rock (dubrock anyone? or perhaps rockstep?) all the while being very dance-y. The real unifying force in the album is his voice, sometimes quite raw, sometimes super processed. Some songs lean heavily in the rock genre, such as the pick for this week. I choose it since it’s so different than the one that gets radio play.

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Track of the Week: Come Back Down by Greg Laswell

This week’s track is Come Back Down by Greg Laswell. Until last week I’d heard nothing of Laswell and this song randomly came showed up when shuffling around a couple of music blogs. Apparently he’s a relatively prolific singer/songwriter but this song is less “folk-y” and much more pop-rock. Sara Bareilles adds in a very dark verse against a pulsing guitar-drum-and-piano line and it totally works. It’s a beautiful song and the lyrics also feel out of place (“you gotta take it on your own from here / it’s getting pathetic and i’m almost done / here”) with how upbeat the song sounds — and again, it totally works.

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