The Bats, Free All the Monsters (side A)

All Bats albums will naturally be compared against 1987's Daddy's Highway, which is generally considered their best.  Like that album 2011's Free All the Monsters captures many of the band's best qualities.  It manages to focus on their simple, strummy songs without seeming too same-y.  Tempos and arrangements vary just enough to stay interesting, without relying on production tricks or complex arrangements that distract from the band.  The recording is simple in the style of Daddy's Highway, even when noting that I prefer that album's analog primitivism to the limitations of the cheap digital system used here.  The melodies here are generally a bit subtler than "North by North" or "Block of Wood", but the songwriting is impressively consistent and memorable.  There are even qualities of Free All the Monsters that display impressive, if still subtle, growth over 25 years — Kaye Woodward's backing vocals and Malcolm Grant's drumming feel impressively confident and self-assured, without having changed at all in style.  The cover photo immediately illustrates the comfortable confines of the Seacliff Asylum where the album was made, without feeling at all heavy-handed or distracting.