Daily News Channel
CHANGE BECOMES US Wire (Southbound) Three and a half decades of arthouse punk is tough to sustain so the Londoners dipped into their past for the basis of their 13th studio offering. But the small nuggets mined from their late 70s seam of peculiarity get the type of reworking that reminds you that Wire are both the band of Heartbeat and Eardrum Buzz – and aren’t afraid to warp a track with poppy enthusiasm or Eno melancholy
COMEDOWN MACHINE The Strokes (Sony) Considering Julian Casablancas and friends pretty much invited the world into their too-cool-for-school indie house party a decade and a half ago, for the past three albums they’ve been giving a damned good impression of a band who didn’t really want to enjoy the resulting glorious chaos. And even here in their fifth outing, there’s a feeling of a band happy to be on the guest-list (as they would have it in the incredibly catchy Partners in Crime) rather than hosting the VIP suite
UN: Afghan opium production down Opium production has dropped significantly in Afghanistan, in large part because of a plant infection in the country’s war-torn south, a U.N. report said on Thursday. “This is good news but there is no room for false optimism; the market may again become lucrative for poppy-crop growers so we have […]