Album Round-up: November-December

It's common for album releases to slowly decline in quantity as the year nears its end.  December itself seems to be a month to recap, not release new albums...unless its novelty stuff, remixes, EPs, or Britney Spears....which all makes sense to be sure.  November saw some solid releases as it usually does.  Denison Witmer, Wilderness, Longwave and Lukestar released under-appreciated gems, while our Scandi-darlings Love is All returned with a worthy sophomore album and Asobi Seksu finally released a new song to tie us over to their full-length next year.  In December and under the novelty theme, Mark Kozelek's The Finally LP, an album of covers that were done for various compilations gathered together along with a couple original Kozelek tracks, is his best covers album yet(he's also done covers albums exclusively devoted to ACDC and Modest Mouse) and also proved to be one of the best albums of the past few months altogether. Hüsker Dü's "Celebrated Summer" is the highlight for me but I think any song on the album could qualify for that for anyone else as the album has no duds.  "New Partner," a Will Oldham tribute, is another favorite as is "Bedtime Lullaby," a Jarond Gibbs song done for the Children's show "Yo Gaba Gaba!" And it's interesting to hear Mark's take on "Send in the Clowns."