Quick, Before It Melts.

The new year is upon us, and it's started in fine musical style. The future is looking pretty rockin' thanks to In the Future, the second full-length from Vancouver's Black Mountain, hitting stores on the 22nd of January.

I was aware of their self-titled debut from 2005 but I was too immersed in my pop-snobbery to take much notice of the band. Their brand of psychedelic, prog-inspired rock has never been one of my favourite genres, but it's hard not to be drawn into the beauty behind the rock beast: case in point being the beautiful "Night Walks" with lead vocal by Amber Webber, coming on the heels of the epic, 16 min. 41 sec. "Bright Lights".

Lead single "Tyrants" has been making it's way through the blogosphere in the last month or so, landing at the top spot of elbo.ws song list and therefore being on of the tracks Ruby Isle covered for their elbo.ws #1 song covers project. You can hear the cover version here, and hear the real deal here:

Black Mountain "Tyrants" [In The Future, 2008, Jagjaguwar]

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Fans of Rogue Wave will be saddened to learn that former bass player Evan Farrell died December 23rd as a result of injuries he suffered in an apartment fire in Oakland, CA. Evan leaves behind a wife and two kids. A memorial fund has been set up through PayPal to help his family get through this time. Donations to the fund can be made here.

Pitchfork tour dates for Hot Chip's return to the US, plus the tracklisting for their upcoming album, Made In The Dark. It's all here for those who need to be in the know.

Q magazine readers had the good taste to include QBiM favourite Bloc Party in their year-end best of even though the magazine snubbed them. You can compare the readers' list here with the editorial list here. I still don't get the hype about Klaxons, you know.

And, finally, the end of the end-of-year lists is here: I Guess I'm Floating's Best of 2007. Damn, they're good.