Another fine delivery from the Grand Royal scuderia

Roughly once in a year, I fall for a punk/metal album, instead of my sensitive indie pop standard. Last year has seen the triumph of the System Of A Down eponymous LP, between the dEUS and the Guided by Voices eras. The current band that has conquered my CD(and mp3 !)-player(s) is the american outfit At The Drive-In, who just released their first LP on a major label, the one and only Grand Royal, yes, the one that brought us Luscious Jackson and Ben Lee, among others.

Relationship of Command begins by two songs a bit too ‘punchy’ for a first encounter, but at the middle of the third (the single ‘One Armed Scissor’) their melodic genius suddenly appears ; and raises the sound to an achievement it will never leave until the end of the CD. Think Rage Against the Machine meets Neutral Milk Hotel meets the Pixies. Think rough guitar riffs but subtle song harmonics. My piece of advice for the week (the month ?). Cheers to Mike D. and his fellow b-boys for another brilliant signature.

Links-a-gogo

• My new boss is fond of Lego (the new ones, with engines, processors, a programming language and movement sensors!). Geeks…
  
  Anyway, it seems some folks have designed a truly complicated-but-exhaustive wargame system to make Lego armies fight in your basement. Re-Geeks… [link thanks to Adam]
• For the Frenchies : You can now trace your family name’s history during the XXth century in the French « départements », as well as your first name’s popularity thourough the years.
• Again for French-speaking people, here’s Patoche website, with all the (mostly metal) concerts he ever attended, plus setlists and pictures. He’s a friend, and one of the most entertaining folks I’ve worked with.
• Did I mention that the Internet is full of geeks ? Here’s an almost comprehensible list of the notables properties of some numbers between 0.412454… and 10¹⁰¹⁰⁰. For people with a lot of spare time.