Greetings and welcome, if you’re here following the magical breadcrumb trail of video interviews with The Raveonettes wherein they discuss each track from their new album Lust Lust Lust. Already aired (aired?) have been segments at BrooklynVegan, My Old Kentucky Blog and Tripwire and still to come before the week winds down are installments at You Ain’t No Picasso and The Music Slut.

I’m still a relative newcomer to the Danish duo, my first exposure to them coming in the live context last October and as you could tell from that review, I wasn’t especially blown away. Though their aesthetic – equal parts girl group pop and Jesus And Mary Chain noise – is samey by design, being unfamiliar with their work made distinguishing one song from the next difficult, particularly with a two-guitar and drums configuration and volume in the red.

Happily, some time spent with Lust Lust Lust has yielded much more positive results. In a studio setting, their noisier inclinations are kept in check at the mixing board and the white noise – while absolutely still present – is applied more strategically and doesn’t obscure their pop craft and little musical embellishments which, underneath all the squall, is really quite pretty and even delicate. Some songs, like the lead-off “Aly, Walk With Me” flirt with a more sinister tone but it’s when the indulge their musical sweet tooth that they come across the best. Their sonic modus operendi is specific enough that it ensures you either get/like them or you don’t and while I’m not necessarily inclined to seek out their older records – they still don’t strike me as a band you need an encyclopedic catalog from – I’ve settled quite nicely on the “pro” side of the fence.

And so we come to the “exclusive interview” portion of the post – Sharin Foo and Sune Rose Wagner talking a bit about two more tracks from Lust Lust List – “Expelled From Love” and “You Want The Candy”.

The Ravonettes are touring in support of Lust Lust Lust and stop in at the Opera House in Toronto on March 21. Exclaim! also has a brief interview with the band and Wagner talks Valentine’s Day to San Diego City Beat.

MP3: The Raveonettes – “Dead Sound”
MP3: The Raveonettes – “Aly, Walk With Me”
Video: The Raveonettes – “Dead Sound”
Video: The Raveonettes – “You Want The Candy”
Video: The Raveonettes – “Aly, Walk With Me”

If you actually read through those numerous “who’s going to break out in 2008” lists from the UK press I linked at the start of the year, one name that kept coming up was Foals, out of Oxford. I’m not sure I’m convinced, but they’ve sold enough people to land themselves a North American deal with SubPop ((and unlike many of said label’s recent signings, despite their equine name they sound nothing like Band Of Horses) and a North American tour to support their debut Antidotes when it’s released March 24. The Toronto stop is May 2 at Lee’s Palace.

MP3: Foals – “Balloons”
Video: Foals – “Cassius”
Video: Foals – “Balloons”
Video: Foals – “Hummer”
Video: Foals – “Mathletics”
MySpace: Foals

Drowned In Sound and Gigwise talk to The Long Blondes about Couples, out April 8. They play Lee’s Palace on May 22.

There were some rumours yesterday that the reason Radiohead’s August 15 date in Toronto at the Molson Amphitheatre was released outside the context of a full tour announcement was that it was going to be part of the announcement for this year’s edition of Edgefest, the CFNY-sponsored festival that was responsible for inflicting the likes of Our Lady Peace and The Tea Party on us for far too many years in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Well as Billboard reports, such is not the case – instead, Edgefest will feature a reconstituted Stone Temple Pilots, those elegant bachelors who hope they’re still foxy to you, alongside a puzzling bill that includes Linkin Park, Sam Roberts and The Coast. That to-do goes down July 12 at Downsview Park.

And speaking of The Coast, Exclaim! has the first sample of their new album Expatriate, due out April 1. Sounds great, and almost nothing like The Coast you might remember from their EP.

That Verve show at Ricoh Coliseum I was talking about last week? It’s on. Are there still 10,000 Verve fans willing to shell out $60-$70 a ticket ten years after their heyday? Tickets go on sale March 8 at noon right now ($70 floors, anyway – not seats) – let’s find out. Oh, and I told you so. If you’re tour tracking, after playing Coachella on April 25, Music Snobbery has them in Las Vegas on the 26th and New York City on April 28 and 29.

Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan are releasing Sunday At Devil Dirt on May 5, a follow-up to 2005’s Ballad Of The Broken Seas. Presumably this is Lanegan’s way of cleansing himself after getting dirty in The Gutter with Greg Dulli.

British Sea Power’s Yan and Noble keep a tour diary for Drowned In Sound. BSP play Lee’s Palace on May 16 and headline The Hot Freaks’ Friday sched at the Mohawk during SxSW.

Minnesota Public Radio invites Nicole Atkins into their studio for a session. She opens Hot Freaks at the Mohawk at noon on Friday, March 14.

Slate ponders, “whither Jeff Mangum?”

Will Johnson finally appears to be getting his multiple band disorder under control… or at least consolidating them. The next Centro-Matic album will also be the next South San Gabriel record and both will be a double album called Dual Hawks, due out April 8. The set will contain one album credited to Centro-Matic and one to South San Gabriel and both will have the same name. Got that? Thanks, Will, for clearing that all up for us.

And, as inexplicable as it is, call this the third straight day with Manic Street Preachers content. In this case, a feature in the new Exclaim! about the martyrdom of musicians who die young. Yeah, yeah, Richey Edwards isn’t dead. Move on.

Oh yeah, I’m trying out this media player widget thing which you can see beside most MP3 links. Try it out. What do you think?