Spencer Griffin's New Music Mondays

 here they are: "Better Man" by Slow Pulp:  There's almost a neo-shoegaze-ish vibe to this one! The wall of synths, the swirling, trembly yet jangly guitars, trilling harmonics, and the overall icy vibe of the song. Right from the start, Emily Massey makes it clear that she wants out of the relationship she's in with the lyrics, "Did I f**k it up again?/Maybe leave it to a better man/Who can tell himself this is how it's supposed to be/'Cause I can hurt myself again/As I fade away from everything/And hear a voice telling me to leave/Leave it to me." I just realized I covered the entire first verse and chorus here, and there's only two verses total! But I couldn't leave one line without the other since it tells the whole story of what's going on in the song. Clearly Emily has been hurt, but what's remarkable is how clear she makes it with both the music and the lyrics! This song is like hearing the angry yet still vulnerable granddaugh...

 here they are: "Dollar Bill" by Jack White:  The opening 30 seconds of this song sounds like someone trying to play psychedelic blues-rock out in the desert! From there, Jack White channels his inner Jimmy Page in a world where fuzz guitar meets slide guitar. In "Dollar Bill"'s brief span of 2 minutes and and 42 seconds, the song still manages to be a zonked out mindblower! The lyrics of the song seem like they're comparing being controlled in a relationship to being controlled by money. "Twizzler" by Cigarettes After Sex:  Our only other song of the week also has a time span of under 3 minutes, but it sounds vastly different! Instead of ear-splitting blues-rock, "Twizzler" is ear-calming atmospheric indie-pop. With Greg Gonzalez' seductive vocals repeatedly crooning "kiss so hot" in this song, this song is the perfect one to dive into a world of intimacy in just under 3 minutes!

 here they are "Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds" by The Mountain Goats:  Today on "Really Really Impossibly Long and Oddly Specific Song Titles," we're featuring The Mountain Goats! One of the more rockin' numbers from The Mountain Goats, "Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds" is told from the perspective of Charlie himself via John Darnielle's vocals. Lyrically, it's almost like a Randy Newman song, both for its "narrator" aspect and for its satirical lyrics! In only the second line of the song, the satirical lyrics, "Who among my brethren is more beautiful than I?" appear. The song is literally a hypothetical conversation between Charlie Sheen and law enforcement agents. Towards the end of the song, we get, "Gentlemen! The camera doesn't lie! How many more innocent women must die?" How did we get here again?! This song is a unique one that delivers both angst and humor over steady electric guitar p...

 here they are: "Angoon" by Portugal. The Man:  I don't know who or what "Angoon" is, but this piece is the angriest one I've heard yet from the normally calmer PTM!! Even reading the lyrics, I could tell it was a tense song. It uses a Pixies-ish method of swinging between calm verses and angry choruses, but the ire in this song is present throughout. With such dark lyrics as "when you dance with the devil, all I see I defend, no surrender in the shadow of drones," "No ICE no borders enforcer, no owners, no new world order," and "I'll be burning in water while we're drowning in fire," this is PTM at their most apocalyptic! Hard to believe these were the same guys who did "Feel it Still." The song's piercing guitar solo and eerie synth drone in the middle make it clear that John Gourley and co are not going to give up without a fight!! And the ending lyrics where John repeats the phrase, "Feeling that I...