Julian Assange Album Cover

The long-awaited Collateral Murder (2010) was released soon after and benefited from authentic, muscular riffs and a tortured atonality which highlighted its more aggressive sound. And yet the production's energy, while benefiting from Sugarcubes-esque rhythm work, offers a starkness often at odds with haunting melodies that remain fastidiously progressive in their length and (some contend) lack of clarity. The most exciting moments are, indeed, easy to miss, though the dark melancholy of the album as a whole is unavoidable. A tour de force, it vanquished memories of earnest but anemic efforts such as 2009's Trafigura and 2008's The Secret Bibles, which recalls Sting at his most superfluous. Nevertheless, few predicted Assange's stunning follow-up later in 2010, which would unite him with legendary proto-punk axeman Ellsberg and return him to the heights of 2006's seminal Julius Baer's Cayman Islands Banking Adventure. His status as this generation's Astley would be secured; but at what cost? Astley-Assange illo by @exiledsurfer via Artificial Eyes. Original Bonus Track by Ding.net.

• [FreeJulian]

  I can also recommend the Free Julian morphing mug: It is plain black, but if you pour hot liquid in it, the black vanishes, and the picture becomes visible…

  http://www.zazzle.com/free_julian_assange_mug-168006882299068748

• [exiledsurfer]

  OMFG, Rob, your “review” text is just over the top. brilliant. i am humbled :)

• [IronyElemental]

  Julian Assange, voted by his graduating high school class as “Least Likely Ever to Append an L to His Last Name.”

• [Anonymous]

  So fucking epic Rob. I’m a hard critic, but you just won. Can we be friends?

• [Anonymous]

  okay omfg you won me back from the awful Eurythmics post

• [DWittSF]

  If it’s real, the RIAA will go after Assange, claiming he is not really a musician.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  Absolutely, Anon. Never gonna say goodbye.

• [Anonymous]

  Genius!

• [The Jobo Show]

  is this for real? what genre?

  • [TechnoBach]

    haven’t you heard it already? someone leaked this a while back…

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  muscular riffs and a tortured atonality

  Dobby Putin is singing back-up?

  • [bmcraec]

    Yes! Now you say it, the resemblance, and discomfort, becomes obvious. Dobby. House-elf to the Russian Mafia families.

• [irksome]

  So the whole WikiLeaks thing is just one huge Rick-Rolled conspiracy?

• [Anonymous]

  Technobach wins thread.

• [vancouvergrrl]

  Now Photoshop his head onto Julian Cope’s Saint Julian: though you do have to be old to have a copy of that!

  Think someone did side-by-side Vlad and Dobby in one of those “separated at birth” things….

  • [exiledsurfer]

    your wish is my command, vancouvergirl: Saint Assange is ready and waiting for your approval here:

    http://www.artificialeyes.tv/node/780

  • [bmcraec]

    I missed that meme. I thought it originated on the Putin Sings! post comments. As in, today.

    There’s TOO MUCH to know! I can’t remember ALL the passwords!

  • [Anonymous]

    what a brilliant idea!

    but i only have my old vinyl copy and no scanner, dammit

• [Anonymous]

  I downloaded it from The Pirate Bay for free.

• [kaini]

  i’ll just leave this cable here: http://www.ding.net/wikileaks/234867.txt

  • [bmcraec]

    You. Are. A Sick, Sick person.

    That’s the first time I’ve howled out loud after perusing a link in someone’s comment on BoingBoing. That either makes me slow, or the world’s expert on Dentition in The Great Pacific Banana Slug, who sometimes hangs out at BoingBoing to see what the normal world is talking about.

    Kind of like a post-post-modern Nutty Professor. The good one, not that thing with Eddie Murphy.

  • [ultranaut]

    epic win

• [Andrew from Uganda]

  Is that album a real one who someone just wants to become famous like wikileaks?