New Music Monday!!

New Music Monday is back! (Look, I'm trying to be excited that it's Monday...just go with it)  Here are this week's victims picks:

"My Time Has Just Begun" by The Dead Trees
This song, from their album WHATWAVE is my favorite of these.  It's upbeat with heavy drums and a tambourine!  (I love a tambourine)  I like a song I can sing along with and this is definitely that.  I looked into some of their other offerings and sadly I didn't find anything that grabbed me like this one.  I suppose that's the big trick to songwriting, right? Either way, I know they have the potential, so I'll keep an ear out for them.

"No Surprise" The Blam
What the hell is the first line of this song??  "Poke me in my eagle eye"?  "Look me in my evil eye"?  "Hook me in my eagle eye"?  I just can't tell!!  This song is from their album Blow Wind Blow and my confusion over the first line (and their use of the term "squeeze box") are what keep me from really getting into this song.  It has a floaty, rhythmic sound that is not unpleasant, but it's just ok for me.  Spinner says they sound like Violent Femmes, but I don't get that at all. 

"Pineapple Girl" Mister Heavenly
This song from Out of Love is evidently about Manuel Noriega's correspondence with a young American girl.  The dictator is represented by a high, lilting voice while the little girl is portrayed by a deep, gruff voice.  The song is very clever and catchy, but I've listened to it about 20 times and it has almost worn out its welcome.  (To get some context here, I've listened to all of Modern Love at least 200 times according to iTunes and still love, love, love it - every minute.)  So when a song starts to get old after only 20 spins, that's not the sign of a great song to me.

"Public Dancer" Noah Wall
I really don't have any praise for this song.  It's almost six minutes long and for me, that's about five and half minutes too long.  The vocal is pushed so far in the back of the mix that I have no idea what the dude is even saying - which is not the way to win me over.  The song itself just doesn't go anywhere.  It doesn't build, it doesn't grow, it just stays a jumbled, unpleasant mess all the way through.