Emperor X's Western Transport

A very late addition to my year-end list, this more or less one man effort from hyper intelligent Chad Metheny. Emperor X reminds me a lot of Hallelujah the Hills in its overpacked, nervous upbeat-ness and the way it runs roughshod over a very dense mesh of references and associations. I called it, "an intricate, but convoluted kind of pop, in my review at Dusted, and noted that, "There’s a buzz of feedback at the back of many of these percolating melodies, a sense they could turn feral at any given moment, that they’re held in check only by the intense concentration of their multi-talented ringmaster."

The rest of the review is here.

Anyway, the album, which is called Western Teleport has been out for a month or two on Bar/None records. There are a couple of free downloads ("Erica Western Teleport" and "Canada Day") at the Western Teleport website.