Chart Rundown

R.E.M. sadly missed the top spot this week with their latest album Accelerate debuting at #2 behind crossover country star George Strait. Other notable new releases making their first appearance include The Rolling Stones' Shine A Light soundtrack at #18, Moby’s Last Night at #27 and Muse’s latest live album H.A.A.R.P. at #46. Stoner rockers The Sword also had an impressive debut with their sophomore release Gods Of The Earth, charting at #1 on the New Artist Albums chart and #102 on the Billboard 200.

Billboard 200:

• #2 R.E.M. - Accelerate [116,138]
• #11 Rolling Stones - Shine A Light [37,117]
• #18 Raconteurs - Consolers Of The Lonely [25,120 this week, down 39.9%, 67,339 to date]
• #22 Gnarls Barkley - Odd Couple [23,140 this week, down 20.0%, 83,061 to date]
• #27 Moby - Last Night [21,266]
• #46 Muse - H.A.A.R.P. [14,309]
• #48 B-52's - Funplex [13,758 this week, down 53.5%, 43,582 to date]
• #52 Various Artists - Juno OST [13,237 this week, down 14.4%, 599,576 to date]
• #60 Radiohead - In Rainbows [11,443 this week, up 2.5%, 458,242 to date]
• #61 Various Artists Once OST [11,345 this week, down 12.1%, 516,693 to date]
• #73 Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend [10,157 this week, down 21.2%, 166,079 to date]
• #102 Sword - Gods Of The Earth [7,572]
• #111 She & Him - Volume One [7,012 this week, down 23.0%, 26,375 to date]
• #127 Sun Kil Moon - April [6,527]
• #161 MGMT - Oracular Spectacular [4,790 this week, up 8.4%, 48,903 to date]

New Artist Albums (artists who've never had a release in the top 100 of the Billboard 200):

• #1 Sword - Gods Of The Earth [7,572]
• #2 Sun Kil Moon - April [6,527]
• #3 MGMT - Oracular Spectacular [4,790 this week, up 8.4%, 48,903 to date]
• #17 Kills - Midnight Boom [2,340 this week, down 16.9%, 11,677 to date]
• #18 Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles [2,285 this week, down 4.8%, 7,940 to date]
• #20 Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust [2,212 this week, down 23.5%, 27,159 to date]
• #22 Bon Iver - For Emma Forever Ago [2,055 this week, down 15.5%, 20,257 to date]
• #28 Devotchka - Mad & Faithful Telling [1,897 this week, down 23.4%, 8,315 to date]
• #41 Del The Funky Homosapien - Eleventh Hour [1,517 this week, down 20.2%, 12,238 to date]
• #45 Los Campesinos - Hold On Now Youngster [3,930]
• #51 Gutter Twins - Saturnalia [1,339 this week, down 8.0%, 13,907 to date]
• #65 Apples In Stereo - Electronic Projects For Musicians [1,152]

Interpreting Islands' Album Art

Islands have just released the art for their upcoming album, Arm's Way, out May 20th.  We can't quite put our finger on it...so give us your best interpretation.  What the hell is it, and do you like it?

Session Round Up

On the Session Round Up this week are Lightspeed Champion, appearing on NPR's World Cafe, Mark "E" Everett from The Eels will be on The Current and Throw Me The Statue are one of WOXY's Lounge Acts.

@ Daytrotter

• Tapes 'n Tapes
• Port O'Brien
• Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears

@ NPR's World Cafe

• Lightspeed Champion
• The Dodos

@ MPR's The Current

• Mark Everett
• Tapes 'n Tapes

@ WOXY

• These United States
• Throw Me The Statue

Undiscovered Band Of The Month: The Lemurs

It’s that time of the month again when Filter is proud to announce our Undiscovered Band of the Month for April. Meet The Lemurs from Austin, TX!

The five-piece formed in late 2004 at the TX State School of Music and soon entered the teeming Austin music scene. Coming up at a time when the dance-rock wave was reaching its crest, The Lemurs initially drew comparisons to Bloc Party, The Faint, Franz Ferdinand, and The Killers. But for every synth melody or dance beat employed, the Lemurs find a counterbalance of raw, driving guitar and frenetic rhythm that imbues their music with a crackling atmospheric sheen and anxious intensity. The result is a fast paced, layered sound-scape that owes as much to the pop lushness of My Morning Jacket as to the broader explorations of Television. With an interest in sustained instrumental sections, the Lemurs experiment with traditional pop arrangements, often using the chorus and dominant melodic section as a rejoinder to the larger thematic implications of their music. Bassist Justin Mosley and drummer Danny Reisch keep the rhythm section in order while lead guitarist/keyboardist Davy Click crafts a live sound that falls somewhere between howling feedback and ethereal arpeggiation (lots of knob twiddling, button poking, and pedals – lots of pedals). Keyboardist Josh King sustains the sonic energy with two keyboards and a theremin-inspired sampler, and singer Mitch Billeaud leads the band with a dynamic and emotive voice occasionally channeled through a vocoder.

To sample music from The Lemurs, check out their myspace page here: www.myspace.com/thelemurs

Who are your main influences?
(That’s a hard one…see favorite bands below)

How did you meet?
Generally, we met in music school at Texas State. Danny played tuba right next to Mitch in marching band, and everyone else was in the flag corp…
Seriously though, Danny, Davy, and Mitch met at Music school. Sean (our last keyboard player) was getting his Masters in Literary Criticism at the same school. Mosley and Sean were childhood friends who were still close. When Sean left us, we met Josh on a blind date.

What is your biggest achievement as a band to date?
2007 was a really good year for us. We did a bunch of touring across the country and licensed a few songs to NBC, Toyota, and some film projects in the US and Australia. We’ve made a lot of friends and got to play some shows with a lot of great bands; the most memorable one was probably supporting the Stars show on the Stubb's outdoor stage.

Where did the band name originate?
Two serendipitous events got us thinking about The Lemurs. Due to lack of material for our first couple shows, we played The Pixies song, Velouria, which mentions Lemur skin (and we still have no idea why it “reflects the sea”). And during that time, we saw a bumper sticker that simply said “I heart Lemurs”. It was written in the stars. Mind you, if we had known that every other band would soon name themselves after animals we would have called ourselves 411.

Favorite Bands?
Right now…
Mitch is listening to – Bon Iver and The Dodos
Danny is listening to – Loxsly and Blonde Redhead
Josh is listening to – Elliot Smith and My Morning Jacket
Mosley is listening to – The Winter Sounds and Cut Copy
Davy is listening to – Radiohead and Midlake

Plans to Tour?
We’re planning a short two-week stint to support a new 7 inch vinyl in the Summer. Then we’ll go on a longer tour in September, and maybe Europe sometime next winter.

Plans for next release?
A bunch of stuff is recorded, but we want to write a little more then figure everything out. Voodoo Cowboy (a Austin entertainment company) is helping us release a 7 inch single in May, but we will most likely have an EP out sometime this summer.

Radio On The TV

Hot Chip will appear on Conan tonight performing from their latest album Made In The Dark, The Mars Volta will be on Tuesday's Letterman and Del The Funky Homosapien will play for Craig Ferguson's The Late Late Show on Thursday.

Monday, April 7
David Letterman: Kenna with Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo
Jay Leno: Jimmy Eat World
Late Late Show: Bell X1
Conan O'Brien: Hot Chip

Tuesday, April 8
David Letterman: the Mars Volta,
Jimmy Kimmel: Phantom Planet

Wednesday, April 9
Conan O'Brien: Tapes 'N Tapes
Jimmy Kimmel: Human Giant

Thursday, April 10
Jay Leno: the Redwalls
Late Late Show: Del the Funky Homosapien
Conan O'Brien: They Might Be Giants
Jimmy Kimmel: Switches

Out This Week

The Duke Spirit - Neptune

The Wombats - The Wombats EP

Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin - Pershing

Colin Meloy - Colin Meloy Sings Live!

The Breeders - Mountain Battles



Tapes 'N Tapes - Walk It Off

Gran Ronde - Secret Room