Stream John Vanderslice's Emerald City

Download: John Vanderslice - "White Dove"
Download: John Vanderslice - "Tablespoon of Codeine"
Download: JJohn Vanderslice - "The Tower"


Along with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Tegan and Sara, the other big indie release was Emerald City by John Vanderslice. As of last night, you can stream all nine of the tracks from Vanderslice's album at his MySpace Page. After a couple of casual listens, I will say that this is a reasonably solid album. It's not floating any boats of mine (which, at my income level basically boils down to either proverbial or toy), but it's a pleasantly executed piece of melodic indie-pop revolving around the emotions of 9/11.

I think that the record's strongest sequence of songs are square in the middle of Emerald City and I have posted them here for your listening pleasure. Check out "Tablespoon of Codeine," one of Emerald City's highlights. It's a highly addictive, electronically enhanced, song.

(Jonathan Graef)