Almost three years after releasing the Mercury Prize-winning (and one of my 2008 favorites) The Seldom Seen Kid, Elbow will put out its fifth full-length album, build a rocket boys! on March 7 in the UK (which I hope means a March 8 release in the United States). No single was released when the announcement was made on Wednesday, but the band did offer this: “Stay tuned for a special surprise on Boxing Day.” (For us Yankees, that’s Dec. 26.)

In an interview with BBC 6 Music News (embedded below), singer Guy Garvey explains that the album’s title – lowercase with exclamation point – comes from the opening track, Lippy Kids – “something positive and encouraging that really sums up most of the themes of the record was what was necessary.”

Garvey goes on to explain that his writing was inspired by his moving back to an area where he lived in his late teens. “It’s about the years I’ve spent here growing up, the difficulties of it and the great things about it, too.”

Can’t wait.

Tracklisting for build a rocket boys!:
1. Lippy Kids
2. The Birds
3. With Love
4. Neat Little Rows
5. Jesus Is A Rochdale Girl
6. The Night Will Always Win
7. High Ideals
8. The River
9. Open Arms
10. The Birds (Reprise)
11. Dear Friends

I spent a good deal of time discussing Christmas songs with my next door neighbor Tim the other night, and we both agreed that no song better describes, as Liz Lemon put it on last week’s excellent 30 Rock, “the horror of Christmas,” better than the Pogues’ classic “Fairytale of New York.”

Gritty, desperate and offensive, the banter back and forth between the song’s narrators perfectly captures the image of two lovers fighting over broken dreams and shattered hopes, which, for all the joy this season brings, are pretty much unavoidable as trees go up and festive lights are lit. “I could have been someone,” Shane MacGowen bellows, to which Kristy MacColl answers, “Well, so could anyone.”

Listen to “Fairytale of New York,” and compare to No Use For a Name’s fantastic cover.

Earlier this month, Spoon released a compilation of demos and alternate versions of songs that the band previously made available as bonus tracks on its website, a monthly practice Britt Daniel and Co. has kept up since April 2008.

Though I think it’s unfair to properly review such a haphazard collection that’s essentially just a treat for fans and completists, Matthew Perpetua makes a good argument at Pitchfork (6.3) that the 10-song compilation is a little lean. Not only that, it’s already dated.

Spoon apparently isn’t going to stop the bonus cuts with the CD. A demo version of The Mystery Zone has been offered up for your December pleasure. It’s raw and acoustic and about half the length of the album version, but it’s easy to connect the dots to the finished product, even if the demo is tagged as “The Midnight Barber” for the artist.

• Spoon | The Mystery Zone (demo)

The official press material from Jagjaguwar promises that No Witch, due out Feb. 22, is the Cave Singers’ “rock record.” That might be true, but the first single at least, Swim Club, isn’t too far of a departure from the cozy campfire folk-rock of the trio’s first two albums, which were released on Matador.

If more robust sounds do indeed await us on the rest of No Witch, it could be the result of the Cave Singers collaborating with producer Randall Dunn, who helped guide the most recent Black Mountain album and has worked with heavier artists such as Sunn O))) and Boris.

No Witch tracklist:
1. Gifts and the Raft
2. Swim Club
3. Black Leaf
4. Falls
5. Outer Realms
6. Haller Lake
7. All Land Crabs and Divinity Ghosts
8. Clever Creatures
9. Haystacks
10. Distant Sures
11. Faze Wave
12. No Prosecution If We Bail

• The Cave Singers | Swim Club

Because it’s not enough to buy an album once these days, an expanded version of The National’s High Violet is coming out this week. As explained in the promotional video above, it contains new songs, B-sides, live tracks and that alternate version of Terrible Love.

In a strategic marketing move just in time for the holidays, Black Friday has been dubbed “Violet Friday” by the band, which will make High Violet 2.0 available for just $7.99 at participating stores for one day only.

Check out one of the new songs, Wake Up Your Saints (via Prefix), a rather upbeat (by The National’s standards) track that was left on the cutting-room floor.

When the Besnard Lakes side project the Soft Province was announced earlier this year, I quickly fell for the track I See Two Eyes, with Jace Lasek’s falsetto sprawling over the dreamy guitar tones of longtime friend (and former Besnard bandmate) Michael Gardiner.

Nine months later, Three Ring Records has released the song as a digital single in advance of the duo’s self-titled full-length, due for release on Feb. 22. The single features two non-album tracks: Bring Your Honour for Arabia and a remix of In a Some See No One Club by The New Slave.

The single for I See Two Eyes is available at iTunes, and the title track somehow manages to sound exactly how the cover art looks – shimmery, mysterious, perfect.

• The Soft Province | I See Two Eyes

Last year, I posted thoughts from a few locals about Modified as the downtown Phoenix space shifted its focus from music to a mostly arts venue. The first post, from David Jensen, drew a comment from a Scott T., who said the words were “dredging up a lot of memories for me.” Little did I know at the time that was Scott Tennent, a former Stinkweeds employee who also ran Modified for about two years, starting in early 2000 (he saw My Morning Jacket there!).

Scott, who also used to play in Phoenix band Half Visconte, keeps a fine blog – Pretty Goes with Pretty – and he’s now forever minted in music nerdom as the author of a new book in the highly regarded 33 1/3 series. His 160-page narrative on Slint’s Spiderland is hitting shelves this week and available at Amazon.

The book was nearly two years in the making, and it’s quite a distinction. Consider: Nearly 600 proposals were whittled down to 170 (the “shortlist“) and then to 27 before 33 1/3 decided on the “The Chosen Eleven,” including Scott.

I’m planning on a Q&A with Scott in the near future, but we did exchange a few e-mails this week, and his research sounded exhaustive: “For an album I thought I already knew inside and out, I learned a hell of a lot,” he said.

When his proposal was accepted in May 2009, Scott offered a few thoughts on Spiderland at his blog: “This is the album that, fifteen or sixteen years ago, completely impacted the way I listen to music. I’ve gone through my share of musical phases in my life, but Spiderland is one that has remained with me throughout.”

Very cool. I’m excited to talk to him about the process, from submitting the proposal to the research and interviews to the writing and re-writing. In the meantime, 33 1/3 posted an excerpt from the book last month and The Decibel Tolls has an interview with Scott.

• Slint | Nosferatu Man (via Pretty Goes with Pretty)