Deerhunter is also releasing an album in May, and it should be...interesting

Deerhunter's next album, Monomania, will be released in less than a couple months, the band announced today.

Similarly to the National's new album (which I discussed yesterday), Deerhunter's will come out this May. But completely different from the National is what Deerhunter had to say about it. A band press release described it as:

"Mystery disc of NOCTURNAL GARAGE. rat tapes / NEW FORMAT
is avant garde(?) but only in context not form (original intent of avant garde (1912-59) / before logic: FOG MACHINE / LEATHER / NEON"

Um, this should be pretty interesting. I have pretty much the opposite reaction to this message, compared to the National's borderline-sellout-sounding statement from yesterday. Will Monomania be too weird?

Halcyon Digest, Deerhunter's previous album, was amazing. But it was also pretty accessible.

Like the National's previous album -- High Violet -- Halcyon Digest came out in 2010. If 2013 can live up to some of the releases we saw in 2010, this should be a really solid year for new music.

The National are releasing a new album, and I'm cautiously excited

The National announced today that their new album, Trouble Will Find Me, will be released May 20. It will follow two fantastic efforts: 2010's High Violet and 2007's Boxer. Anyone who knows me has probably heard me rave about these two albums a ton, so I don't need to go into that.

So you'd think I'd be pretty excited about a new National album, right? Yes, of course...but a statement released by the group's Matt Berninger has me pausing a bit for concern:

"For the past 10 years we'd been chasing something, wanting to prove something. And this chase was about trying to disprove our own insecurities. After touring High Violet, I think we felt like we'd finally gotten there. Now we could relax -- not in terms of our own expectations but we didn't have to prove our identity any longer."

It's the "felt like we'd finally gotten there" and "now we can relax" part that has me worried. I really hope I'm looking too much into it, but I'm going to be pretty disappointed if the National phones in this album. Did they feel like they reached their peak with High Violet? If so, will they keep aiming high to produce awesome music? Man, I hope so.