Midlake’s music, once made airy and open by piano and woodwinds, has tightened down to lattice works of song choked with tendrils of guitars, while the lyrics have turned broad with existentialist dread. Singer-songwriter Tim Smith chants of “days that turn to nothing” in a world grasped by rulers, ruling all things — and the songs, enervating even at their fastest tempos, don’t offer the balance of hope. It’s a far cry from the act that once sang, “It’s hard for me, but I’m trying.” There are brief moments of sunlight in the gentle “Fortune” and bits of the album’s ballad-oriented second half, but it’s too little, too late; the band that burst into high-flying harmonies and embraced guitar solos a few short years ago is absent from this album. To be clear, The Courage of Others is an effort no less strongly forged than its predecessor — but it’s an album so funereal, one is less struck by the songs and more by the wonder of what tragedy so badly shattered the hearts of its creators.

(The Courage of Others is out now on Bella Union)

More: New Music | 2009 Album Release Calendar

I am so goddamn proud. Plus, Tracy Morgan! And Stevie Wonder! I hope the Grizz can afford a pool for Yellow House now. Dudes deserve it.

(Also: in the sidebar at right, you’ll notice a Grooveshark playlist titled “Ongoing 2010 Jams.” I’ll be updating it throughout the year as said jams make themselves known. Click, stream, enjoy.)

News: Rose Melberg’s Go Sailor is reuniting for Los Angeles and San Francisco shows, my take on the 2010 Grammy Awards, Joanna Newsom’s Have One On Me cover art revealed, Broken Social Scene’s next album due in May and some answers to the rumors circling around about Radiohead’s next album.

Deeper Into Movies: Best Picture hopeful A Serious Man (pictured).

I’m trying to use the Grooveshark widgets as often as possible now — what do you guys think? Are you streaming away? Or is it a waste of time? (RSS readers — you’ll have to click through to see/use it.)

With former Beulah frontman Miles Kurosky’s extremely rad solo debut and an accompanying tour imminent, now’s the time to catch up on his old gig. A Good Band Is Easy To Kill is a good, if not quite I Am Trying To Break Your Heart-level look at Beulah’s final tour and eventual split. The performances, including one at L.A.’s Troubadour, are excellent, but #kidstoday may be surprised to see what life was like for a touring band 10 years into a career on the eve of the Great Indie Rock Paradigm Shift Of 2004. (Buy it on Amazon)

The most raucous song on the year’s best album-so-far gets a simple, black-and-white performance treatment. (Via Pitchfork)

The Vimeo migration continues. Here’s Grizzly Bear at UCLA’s Kerckhoff Grand Salon three years ago (time flies!) on February 2, 2007. There’s a photo somewhere of me and Ed Droste palling around after this gig, which was totally worth skipping that Romantic Lit class I ended up dropping for.

More: Rawkblog.tv | Videos

Is Radiohead’s eighth studio album done?! @diditleak? Is Thom hanging out in Malibu?! Everything you need to know after the jump.

>> Way back in June 2009, the band released photos of themselves on Dead Air Space working on new material in Los Angeles.

>> In August, Radiohead released charity single “Harry Patch (In Memory Of),” followed shortly by the mysterious leak (viral marketing?) and consequent official free download of new track “These Are My Twisted Words.”

>> Thom has been DJing at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel as far back as September 15, 2009.

>> He released a single, “Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses” b/w “The Hollow Earth” that month as well.

>> Thom played three shows (two at the Orpheum, one at the Echoplex, one I had the chance to shoot) at the beginning of October 2009, which included a number of new songs – one of which, “Lotus Flower,” he played again with Radiohead at their January 2010 charity gig for Haiti, an L.A. performance that seems to have fallen smack in the middle of…

>> “We head off into the studio in January to continue on from the work we started last summer,” Ed O’Brien wrote on Dead Air Space in December (Thom decamped to Copenhagen to spend time railing against global warming over the holidays). That studio by all accounts being in L.A. Thom also did a Haiti-benefiting DJ gig at the Roosevelt (natch) in January.

>> His band for the shows will rejoin him at Coachella in April, where they’ll probably run through a similar Eraser-centric (not a bad thing!) setlist given the short span of a non-headlining timeslot.

>> Thom’s also guesting on the new Flying Lotus album, which he presumably cut with the beatmaker in L.A.

>> However, according to a report today from Entertainment Weekly’s resident Radiohead expert and Rawkblog pal Simon Vozick-Levinson, the band’s next album is not yet finished.

>> In short: there’s obviously a lot of new material and the band is probably just taking its time planning their next bizarre/Lost-worthy viral campaign before dropping the record. The real question is if Thom – who appears to have spent the most time in L.A., recording, rehearsing and otherwise — plans to drop another solo record in the coming year, too, or if he’s just enjoying a well-deserved chill sesh wearing all-white outfits and chowing at Nobu. He’s written on Dead Air Space that the side-band is “for fun,” but given how awesome they sounded in October, let’s hope it gets serious.

>> And another thing: Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich has been playing frequently on Beck’s Record Club sessions, not to mention that Twitter rumor of the Radiohead/Beck charity concert. WHERE IS THE COLLAB?!