Sometimes, when I'm bimbling about in town of a lunchtime, I feel like getting something new to listen to. Seeing as I usually forget my "to buy" list, it's not unheard of me to buy something completely random from the HMV or Zavvi sale sections. That means that these albums rarely cost more than a fiver, and can be easily ebayed if they turn out to be rubbish.

I thought I'd take stock of what I've bought and see if the not-entirely-random selection process I employ works. Here are a few that I've bought over the last year with tiny, little baby reviews just to say if they're pap or not.

Circa Survive - On Letting Go

For some reason, this CD was in the metal section of Zavvi. I don't know why, because it's clearly alternative rock, but there you go. It's not a terrible album, but isn't at all catchy. If you just want decent indie rock you can throw on and ignore, it's great. Hasn't grabbed me enough to listen to it as a favourite.

Bizarrely, I thought the lead vocalist was female until I read the band's Wikipedia page. This could be because of the similarity of vocals (I think, anyway) with Cerys Matthews of Catatonia. I still sometimes forget it's a bloke. That disturbs me enough to negatively impact my opinion. Unfortunate.

Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News

Can we hear a "meh"? Of course we can. Modest Mouse. Heard good things, and the album completely failed to live up to them. Ah well, can't all be winners. I guess that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the album, but there's nothing fundamentally right with it either. It merely exists.

Editors - An End Has A Start

Sometimes you buy an album and it's alright. Sometimes it's rubbish. Sometimes, it's actually good. And then you get the ones where you know the all the lyrics after a single day. This is one of the latter type. Good, bass heavy indie rock as it should be. And there's a picture of a gasometer on the album art, for good measure. All for the win.

Killers - Sawdust

This is actually a sort of compilation album of B-sides and rarities that The Killers have released between the last and upcoming studio albums. It has such delights as Tranquilize, performed with Lou Reed, and a cover of Dire Straits' Romeo and Juliet. It's generally a good mix of stuff. I think this one'll be good for surviving the boredom of work quite nicely. And at 18 tracks long, it's worth the fiver I paid for it.

Kasabian - Empire

Well, what to say? Good, solid rock album with a nice mix of tracks, strong beats, good lyrics and listenable enough to have a listen on a whim. I didn't really know what Kasabian were before buying this, but I'm glad I did. In fact, I've since bought their self-titled debut album too.

Sanctorum - The Heavens Shall Burn

During the Zavvi jumble sale, I found many copies of this album. I figured that if they had that many left over, it couldn't be very good, but bought it anyway for comedy value. How wrong was. How very, very wrong. This members of this death/thrash metal band were only 18 when they released this album, and it sometimes shows, but the overall effect is spectacular. The guitar solos alone are worth the album price. The production quality is occassionally a bit crunchy, and the young lead singer's death growls are sometimes a bit strained, but none of it takes away from the whole. Top stuff.

Lostprophets - The Fake Sound Of Progress

I'd never even heard of Lostprophets before picking this one up, and I have to admit it was because of the almost flourescent blue shiny CD case. It was yet another HMV two-for-ten album and I didn't really expect much. The sound is sort of like 65DaysOfStatic with vocals, or at least, that's the best way I can think of describing it. I like it. So much so, in fact, that I have since bought the next album, Start Something. It is even better than this one.

Trivium - The Crusade

Not every random buy can be a good one, unfortunately. Randomness has a habit of throwing in a bad apple every so often, and after hearing such good things about Trivium from reviews and such I have to say I was disappointed. It seems to be the "wall of noise" type of metal, in which any sort of rhythm, melody, words or even variation are hard to pick out. Rubbish.

Summary

So what have I learned? Well, it seems that, with few exceptions, I like what I buy on these random little outings. One rubbish, one meh, four good and two excellent is alright for a random sample. I think I might just pop out and get another Editors album next ...