Clash Of The Santas (2008)

Award-winning electro-pop duo from Australia, containing members of the Sleepy Jackson and Pnau.
Best known for their hit single "Walking on a Dream," Australia's larger-than-life electro-glam-pop duo Empire of the Sun feature the Sleepy Jackson's Luke Steele and Pnau's Nick Littlemore. Steele had previously worked with Pnau on "With You Forever," a track from the band's 2007 self-titled third album, and the pair enjoyed collaborating so much that they started their own project, drawing inspiration from the likes of Phoenix and Daft Punk. In fall 2008, Empire of the Sun released their debut album, Walking on a Dream, which the musicians described as "a spiritual road movie." Featuring songs co-written by Pnau's other half, Peter Mayes, the album went platinum in Australia and the title track became a hit single across the globe…

Anybody who has followed Jack White's online screeds and offstage brawls knows that the White Stripes' mastermind can tend to get a little, well, defensive when he's challenged (and sometimes even when he's not), but this trait hasn't always surfaced on record – at least not in the way he and his merry band of Raconteurs do on their second album, Consolers of the Lonely. At the very least, this bubbling blend of bizarro blues, rustic progressive rock, fractured pop, and bludgeoning guitars is a finger in the eye to anyone who dared call the band a mere power pop trifle, proof that the Raconteurs are a rock & roll band, but it's not just the sound of the record that's defiant. There's the very nature of the album's release: how it was announced to the world a week before its release when it then appeared in all formats in all retail outfits simultaneously; there's the obstinately olde-fashioned look of the art work, how the group is decked out like minstrels at a turn-of-the century carnival, or at least out of Dylan's Masked and Anonymous.

This 2008 instrumental CD is one of the best British progressive rock albums in recent memory, pure classic prog, close to Genesis (or Steve Hackett solo) and Camel. Yak are a keys/bass/drums trio, but their sound is bigger than that – after hearing this, you will swear that there is a guitarist in the band, one who has the expressive Hackett/Latimer lead style nailed! In fact, keyboardist Martin Morgan is playing the guitar parts from a keyboard, the best emulation of that sustained electric guitar style we’ve ever heard. Of course a guitarist or two will be required live, as the guitar and keyboard sounds are layered. Just when you’ve despaired of ever hearing a British prog band create the real thing again, you are rescued by a Yak. Sounds like Dave Greenslade jamming with Genesis.