It's a Blue Monday...

Blue Monday...
Originally uploaded by espressoDOM.

...courtesy of this blue-tinged espresso shot from espressoDOM (hat tip to El Jeffe) and made even bluer (a very good hue of blue) thanks to downloading the brand-spanking new Bluetones album from the iTunes store. It's currently available in the UK only, but iTunes has been going pan-global by offering more and more albums that are available as import-only physical CDs. So far, the first couple of tracks are quite a nice (and more than slight) return to the form of their first two albums (though their last, Luxembourg, was a nifty nod to 80s new wave).

Here's their first hit song from back in the golden age of Brit Pop (circa 1996), "Slight Return":



[UPDATE] I've listened to the album two times through and it's pure poptastic bliss. The song "Thank You, Not Today" could certainly become a Cracks theme song (at least from time to time, when I get overwhelmed by the confluence of crushing events and I just just get discouraged from blogging):

You, with an empty page and a quiet rage
Feel the doubters creeping in

Reach for the savoir fare, but it isn't there
The whole facade is wearing thin

Are the cracks about to show? If the were how would you know?

[...]

There are rumours in the room, there are harbingers of doom
So you've done a Kerrouac, and you're never coming back

But we won't lose any sleep, cos talk is cheap

Words get thrown away
Thank you, not today

And the guitar-heavy "My Neighbour's House" -- a "punchy, political stab at the general apathy of the nation" sez CD Times -- is quite appropriate for the sometimes arch tone of politics around here.