Enough bitching. Here's an album I can genuinely recommend: the Malajube CD. It's far from perfect — the band lapses into M83/Muse-style ridiculousness on a fairly regular basis during the album's middle. But, as the Pitchfork review attests, it's a nice bookend to (or, more hopefully, just a recapitulation of) the recent era of Canadian indie rock dominance. This track (heavily influenced by my beloved Unicorns) is one of the best songs I've heard all year:

Malajube – Montreal -40°C

You can find the video here, if you're so inclined.

There is something about this band that we should discuss, though. They're French-Canadian, and so are their lyrics. I never took any French (those years of Latin should be paying off any day now), so it's all gibberish to me. That's fine — vocals are mostly a melodic and rhythmic element to me, not something to actually be parsed and comprehended. And it's fun to let your brain misinterpret the sounds as English.

Still, the consensus in America (and much of Canada) seems to be that French-Canadians are a major pain in the ass, and that this sort of behavior shouldn't be encouraged. But I say go ahead; let your hair down. We've got control of both chambers — it's time to live a little. Snort at organized religion! Re-join the ACLU! Attend a gay marriage or two! And, yes, listen to some indie rock in French. Morality is just a construct anyway, man.

ALSO: the new Shins seems to be pretty okay, as most of you already know. But does anyone really get worked up about a new Shins release? The band never sounds particularly excited, so I have a hard time feeling that way myself. Like Death Cab, it's music you can put on in the car while riding with strangers from our demographic and know that a) they won't object to it and b) it won't overwhelm the conversation. That sort of shared touchstone is a good and worthwhile thing to have, but the songs themselves rarely move or inspire me. Maybe this is just my embarrassing affection for musical melodrama talking, though.