this candy store of ours

Last year was a great year in music and not much else. I thought so, anyway. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a lot of good stuff, but I think the new album by ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead might be better than all of them.

It's like symphonic hardcore--like a heavy guitar opera--and while that may sound pretentious, and it really is, it's got pretty much every right to be from what I hear so far. Thanks to my job, I got my hands on it early and today I got the full art copy and had it blaring on my headphones most of the day. The lyrics are rich and moving and a bleak and bitter reaction to the state of the world (talk about sounding pretentious). But better than all that, it's worthy of fist-pumping and head-bobbing to, and if an album or a song can induce a positive physical reaction from me, some kind of fleeting or lasting impression, then I'm grateful. In my opinion, the year in rock will have to work pretty hard to top this one, and it's only January.