Get Down Stay Down

December is a bad month for music. For movies, it's awesome because Hollywood and its affiliate cram in their final Oscar films and advertising. But with music, not so much because of ranking reasons. Unless you're a small town indie band who does care about rankings, no good release happen during the year's end. To make up for this dearth, I flipped through Best Of lists to catch what I've missed or looked over. December 2009 is especially critical because it marks the end of the year and the decade, so double duty!

Based on a few music blogs, I've hunted down copies of David Bazan's Curse Your Branches, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down's We Brave Bee Stings And All, Song: Ohia's The Magnolia Electric Co and Belle and Sebastian's Fold Your Hand Child, You Walk Like a Peasant.

So let's start with Thao and the Get Down Stay Down: I was pleasantly surprised by her and her backing band. I expected cutsey, Emily Haines styled-vocals but I got Feist's beautiful baritone instead. Well, since she's a woman, it's mezzo soprano. But tomayto, tomahto. We Brave Bee Stings And All is a cohesive title for the album as Thao takes us through the whimsical journey of childhood segueing into adulthood. Nothing overwhelms on this album, from the trumpets to the guitars or the jaunty piano lines and even the handclaps on "Feet Asleep." All the instruments, including Thao's voice, merge into a warm blanket for the ears. The album is a bandaid for scraped knees and broken hearts. My only regret is not picking it up when it was released. My parting words will be taken from Thao Nguyen herself. "We brave bee stings and all/And we don't dive, we cannonball."

Words to live by.