'07 has been a pretty slow year for new albums... until now! Last Tuesday brought a ton of new stuff, including albums from Low, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, El-P, and the long-awaited Arcade Fire, which everyone on Earth except me managed to get ahold of in advance of the release date. But with RIR no longer a real station, I don't have any pull with the labels. So I had to wait in line like everyone else. But having finally loaded up on new albums, I've thrown a bunch of new stuff onto the Live365.

The Arcades' new one isn't as good as their first (isn't that everyone's story?), but then again, Funeral took some time to grow on me too. There's still some good songwriting, and the band has a great sound - they don't have quite the same momentous buildup some of the older songs do. But worth hearing nonetheless.

Ted Leo? More of the same, which is a good, good thing. Nothin' fancy, just another great postpunk album. And Low continue to mesmerize with hypnotic, driving slow stuff. Definitive Jux label head El-P is frontrunner for album title of the year with I'll Sleep When You're Dead; more of the complex, compelling hip-hop you've come to expect from Def Jux.

I somehow never heard that Talib Kweli was doing an album with Madlib (I thought we were MySpace friends, Kweli! We never talk anymore!). Maybe I need to give it time to sink in, but so far, it's disappointing. Madlib's production is all pretty straightforward (read: boring), where I was expecting the kind of complicated, sample-heavy stuff he did with Madlib. And Kweli's still a great lyricist, but he lost something after Quality (or maybe just after Kanye stopped producing his records), and hasn't quite gotten it back. Still, a few songs from the new on the playlist so you can judge for yourself.

P.S. - Why did I think S-K were on Merge? I have the album right here! Thanks for setting me straight.