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Every year is made up of twelve months. This, any modern Roman Calendar will tell you. What said flap of paper full of boxes and reminders to call mum and book a visit to the dentist will also tell you is that every month is made up of four or five Mondays. And some other days, too, but mainly Mondays. They’re all that matter, really, as it is on Mondays that our record stores are full to bursting with new releases.

YES.

There are many new releases released every month, every Monday. Some are awful. It’s up to the likes of DiS to keep up with what’s hot and what’s not, what’s thank-our-stars brilliant and what’s a pool of putrid wank. Articles like this serve as a reminder that – yes, every month – a good few new releases are well wicked. This is A Month In Records for the fine month of March 2007. Three down, nine to go – what albums will trump these fine examples of the long-playing art form?

‘Til any do, kiss my teeth.

The Bees
Octopus
(Virgin)
Says reviewer Alex Denney: “The Bees draw on a wider set of influences than most, from psychedelia to funk and folk through to reggae; consequently, they’re going to have to work harder at knocking them into some kind of convincing shape. After all, that sweet, sweet honey isn’t going to make itself. Specifically, The Bees belong to that patchy tradition of British eclectic-ists (Super Furries, The Coral, The Zutons, er, Space) whose recorded output is the aural equivalent of patiently working your way through a tube of Fruit Pastilles with the dawning realisation that most of them are orange.”
Read the full review here

Panda Bear
Person Pitch
(Paw Tracks)
Says reviewer Richard MacFarlane: “Person Pitch has an extreme amount of production; lots of layers and a lot of manipulation. It’s all masterful: the vocation that must have gone into making this is audible, but it all sounds so effortless. Animal Collective’s beats are tribal and infectious; they mine something instinctive. Here, Panda Bear builds upon those ideas in a new tangent, one very much his own. His is an incredible voice, booming and strident.”
Read the full review here

El-P
I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead
(Definitive Jux)
Says reviewer Mike Diver: “El-P is escaping the bonds that keep him bound to New York’s dark side; he’s finding that there’s a light to be found that’s far brighter than the squint-through-it glare of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel exit. He’s moving on up and out of whatever ghetto he chose to previously make his own – true, home is where the heart is, and El-P’s heart beats to the beep of gridlock horns facing uptown, but a change is as good as a rest, too. In this instance, such a change will almost certainly alleviate our man’s depression and confirm his status as one of contemporary rap’s finest exponents.”
Read the full review here

Andrew Bird
Armchair Apocrypha
(Fargo)
Says reviewer Shain Shapiro: “Song through song, Andrew Bird paints a flecked collage of politics, rhetoric and introspection, from revealing dirty little secrets about his youth in ‘Dark Matter’ to the instrumental, symphonic and deliberately cheery ‘Yawny at the Apocalypse’, the title and symbolism of which toy with the idea that the end of the world may not be such a bad thing after all. Assertions aside, Bird dips and dabbles within his psyche, and in doing so emits a stark blend of social commentary, from the aforementioned title calling for an end of cynical pacifism to lambasting the unheralded equivocation practiced nightly on CNN and its cohorts.”
Read the full review here

Kubichek!
Not Enough Night
(30:30 Recordings)
Says reviewer Dom Gourlay: “Not Enough Night is the perfect accompaniment to a big night out, a quiet evening in, splitting up and getting back together with your partner, telling your boss to stuff his job where the sun don't shine and more besides. It doesn't just live up to expectations, it goes far and beyond anything that the doubters who were writing this band off less than a year ago could ever have dreamt of. It’s as near to perfect as you can get without ever resorting to self-indulgence, and a return which will surely result in the long-overdue success Kubichek! deserve.”
Read the full review here

Marissa Nadler
Songs III: Bird On The Water
(Peacefrog)
Says reviewer Jane Oriel: “The lady might give the impression of being as consumptive and tragically frail as some of her heroines, but on the evidence of Songs III: Bird On The Water Marissa Nadler cracks a mean ringmaster's whip, as the resultant additions help transport her songs to great heights. A pan-potted phase of tinny whooshes and tinkling sounds encircle the head on 'Dying Breed' and complement Nadler's spacious delivery and delicate guitar picking without swamping her. All through the eleven songs, be it gently played rim-tapped drums or an occasional louche electric strum, the songs are paramount and all have subjugated themselves to the reverential tasks in hand.”
Read the full review here

Deerhoof
Friend Opportunity
(ATP Recordings)
Says reviewer Samuel Strang: “Deerhoof are the pampered toddler of alternative music. Roaming naked in a dribble-soaked bib, they affectionately pick up influences only to discard them moments later, as their attention switches focus: a nuisance for some, endearing to others. However, though still as good as incomprehensible, this fickle child, nine records in, is starting to grow up. Friend Opportunity serves as a timely reminder that they have not quite closed in on convention, and sanity, just yet.”
Read the full review here

LCD Soundsystem
Sound Of Silver
(DFA Records)
Says reviewer Gareth Dobson: “It’s only because LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy is nearer to 50 than zero (and also isn’t Bono) that he’s not residing on the cover of various rock monthly and weeklies. We assume. Sound of Silver is a better record than anything you will hear from these shores this year, at least in terms of making you shake your booty, rediscovering the Human League, remembering that Talking Heads are still amazing (sorry, I know they were oh-so 2005, you frivolous taste-monkeys) and realising that New York is still the best city in the world. Period.”
Read the full review here

!!!
Myth Takes
(Warp)
Says reviewer Mike Diver: “Here it is, then: the soundtrack to your summer house party par excellence, signed, sealed and delivered a good few months early just ‘cause it’s that good. Get your dancing practice in now – come the longest days of the year you’ll be wearing many a sole down to Myth Takes. !!!’s third long-play release is their best yet: it’s multi-faceted like no release before it (from the band’s catalogue), and each and every nuance is super funky. Yes, the word’s permitted here. Just don’t go dressing it up with ‘punk’ prefixes.”
Read the full review here

Grinderman
Grinderman
(Mute)
Says reviewer Mike Diver: “Sometimes it’s essential, for perspective purposes, to leave the New and Fresh and Exciting and insert PR’s adjective o’ choice ‘ere to one side and tip an ear the way of a few veterans. After all, all newcomers are but by-products of a rock and roll past that they’re too young to remember – the members of Grinderman are, beyond all probability, twice the age of a number of Number One acts of late. Grinderman is great, bewilderingly so, all tumultuous and titillating and, ultimately, satisfying like picking red wine stains from chapped lips. You play it again. And you forget the New and the Fresh and the Exciting. Let the kids have them, ‘cause the men are where the rock’s truly at.”
Read the full review here

Says reviewer Rob Webb: “Now here's something interesting, and in what promises to be another superb year for independent Scottish music, it's coming at you straight out of Glasgow. The city that gave the world Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura now has another miserabilist pop ensemble to (dis)content itself with, and Butcher Boy’s chief architect John Blain Hunt proves himself to be a songwriter of enviable skill on this, the band’s maiden long-player.”
Read the full review here