Ten February 2010 Albums Worth Checking Out

Welcome to February, everyone: a month that this year plays host to groundhogs and Super Bowls. Pretty diverse, if you ask us. Also diverse is February’s batch of new-release tunes. We’ve picked out 10 of the most noteworthy below, and offer an argument for each to boot. Enjoy:

The Soft Pack – The Soft Pack [Kemado – Feb. 2]
Review (7.8/10) excerpt: “Where many of its contemporaries settle for mere derivation, The Soft Pack uses its instantly catchy references as jumping-off points, taking songs to unexpected places replete with guitar-and-keyboard-led spazzouts and fist-pumping, shout-along choruses.” Austin L. Ray

Sade – Soldier of Love [Epic – Feb. 9]
Review (8.2/10) excerpt from Paste‘s March issue: "’Soldier of Love’ promised a new sound from Sade, and the album doesn’t disappoint. It’s the band’s most musically adventurous collection to date, and also its most expansive and rewarding." Stephen M. Deusner

Hot Chip – One Life Stand [EMI – Feb. 9]
Review (6.8/10) excerpt from Paste’s February issue: “One Life Stand is a worthwhile album peppered with lackluster songs, and not vice-versa. With Hot Chip, you tolerate inconsistency for occasional moments of bliss.” Michael Saba

Massive Attack – Heligoland [EMI/Virgin – Feb. 9]
Review (8.5/10) excerpt from Paste’s February issue: “Less a depiction of the surrounding apocalypse, Heligoland is more a reflection of the anxieties within.” Christina Lee

Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here [XL – Feb. 9]
Review (8.2/10) excerpt from Paste’s March issue: “The album sounds heavy and elusive, like a field recording, and it will surely be studied with the most powerful of cultural microscopes, but its author will just puff cigarettes and chuckle. He will hang in your iPod, humored by his own acceptance of your invitation, and he will bare his soul with the same fearless stridency that made his name—defiant with a cold, weird dignity.” Jeff Leven

Yeasayer – Odd Blood [Secretly Canadian – Feb. 9]
Review excerpt from Paste’s February issue: “Having delivered its 2007 debut right on the cusp of indie rock’s imminent turn toward world music and day-glo psychedelics, Yeasayer’s All Hour Cymbals was more experiment than proper pop album, a disorienting maze of harmonized yelps and frantic handclaps. More than two years later, the Brooklyn trio’s uneven edges are polished by layers of finely calibrated melodies on a backdrop of perky polyrhythms and analog abstractions.” Matt Fink

Fela Kuti Reissues [Knitting Factory – Feb. 16/23]
Review excerpt from Paste’s February issue: “Kuti died of AIDS in 1997, some time after he’d stopped recording, but his legacy is permanent. Listening again, it’s not going to budge anytime soon.” Michaelangelo Matos

Shearwater – The Golden Archipelago [Matador – Feb. 23]
Review (8.2/10) excerpt from Paste’s February issue: “Archipelago is an argument against verse-chorus-verse structure, and a good one—a rewarding, slow-melting album for patient listeners.” Justin Jacobs

Carolina Chocolate Drops – Genuine Negro Jig [Nonesuch – Feb. 23]
Review (7.8/10) excerpt from Paste’s February issue: “What they’ve also done is dust off a musical form seen today as either a novelty or the exclusive provenance of ethnomusicologists. To paraphrase Rakim’s immortal words, these Drops ain’t no joke.” Corey duBrowa

High on Fire – Snakes for the Divine [Koch – Feb. 23]
They blew us away at last year’s Scion Rock Fest, then went on tour with Mastodon and Dethklok in the fall. Stands to reason they’ve got to live up to all this awesomeness with a fantastic album, no? Austin L. Ray