What a way to spend time.

Aside from work and class, music and shows consume me. I enjoy nothing more than a song or a movie that can send a chill down your spine again and again. It's even better when I can't be sure why. Here are some of my most played albums, all of which consistently deliver the spine tingle:

• Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
• Bird was trained from a very young age in the Suzuki method (I'm going to train all my kids in it, methinks) with the violin. Additionally he plays piano, glockenspiel, guitar, and does some pretty incredible whistling. I can't get enough of the instrument layers, which never get too busy.
  
• Team Sleep - Team Sleep
• Chino Moreno of The Deftones goes crazy with the guitar effects on this album. This sideproject is best described as trippy, with reverberating and piling guitars. Again Moreno's voice really shines, the most stable and guiding element of a guitar-based landscape that feels like it has real depth. This group really lets it rock sometimes, yet in such a way it feels like dreaming. I dunno man - just trippy.
• Sigur Rós - Takk...
• This album really makes me want to go to Iceland. All of the bandmembers are multi-instrumentalists. Again, gajillions of layers and instruments. They have shared their studio with such artists as Björk and the amazing The Album Leaf (also featuring the drummer from Sigur Rós on multiple instruments on Into the Blue Again). I had just started getting interested in this group when Sam Walker showed me the music video for the song "Glósóli", which is basically the greatest music video of all time.
• Alexisonfire - Crisis
• I didn't like screaming in my music until I listened to this album. This post-hardcore band is named after The vocals are shared by George Pettit and Dallas Green. Petit runs around shouting and foaming at the mouth the entire performance (which is hella cool and hella metal), and Green (who I just discovered and downloaded while writing this has a bare and haunting acoustic side project called City and Colour) has the most melodic hard rock voice I've ever heard. Alexisonfire hails from Canada, where two of their albums have reached platinum. Their performance with Saosin was ridiculously cool. They are sweet as hell, with explosive drumming that will obliterate you.
  
• Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
• The men who brought you "Stacy's Mom", easily the least good song [because the whole damn thing is good] on their album Welcome Interstate Managers, returned this year with even more delicious power-pop. '80s keyboards have never sounded so appropriate, to include the '80s.
• Name Taken - Hold On
• Huge guitars with huge melody - Name Taken rocks hard, but it doesn't get old. I really like the singer's voice. I don't know why; it's just good. Though they split up for a time, the band is back together, and I'm anticipating their next release more than just about anything.
• Murder By Death - In Bocca al Lupo
• In Bocca al Lupo is an Italian "in the mouth of the wolf," an Italian colloquialism meaning good luck. As far as I understand it, the saying refers to the she-wolf who in legend raised Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. 'nyways... It's a concept album about sin and redemption. Transgressors range from cowboys, to pirates, to coal miners. In addition to having a cellist in the band, the lead singer changes his voice and singing style to better suit the content of the song, at times sounding a goddamn lot like Johnny Cash. Me likey.
  
• Family Force 5 - Business Up Front, Party in the Back
• I may not agree with some of their more conservative Christian beliefs, but these guys know how to party and do so full of genuine love for their fellow man. Their tour was sponsored by a pretty sweet clothing company that exists for no other purpose than to support charitable causes, Jedidiah. None of their lyrics are explicitly religious with the exception of single line in one song, so its definitely appeals to much broader audience. They played a show here in Madison that far surpassed their album, and I would recommend them to anyone. Just to give you an idea of how funky they are, the band members all have nicknames: Soul Glow Activator, Chap Stique, Phatty, Crouton, and Nadaddy. I love the keyboards, and the vast amount of purple on their persons is astounding. I cannot begin to describe their music, so I will allow it to speak for itself.