Dirty Art Club – Hexes album review
The sky, stars, planets, constellations. Asian fusion. Dark crypts and cellars, creepy vibes, Halloween. The ‘70s, tan leather, sideburns, psychedelic culture. Bright colors, vivid block-lettered graffiti, hip hop swag. What do these images have in common? Why, they might be none other than a fraction of the images conjured up in one’s mind as they venture into Dirty Art Club’s second album, appropriately named “Hexes.” North Carolina-native Dirty Art Club producers Matt Cagle and John “Madwreck” McKiever have already recently [...]
Read more →
Dan Le Sac – Space Between the Words album review
I tend to lose interest in an album I’m not in love with after the fourth or fifth song. No matter how good the songs are, if they aren’t what I’m craving at that exact moment, I usually can’t make it past the 15 minute mark. When I first started listening to Dan Le Sac’s new album, “Space Between the Words,” it wasn’t what I was craving. The first track is Long Night of Life, a richly-produced song with handclaps and [...]
Read more →
Mazes – Mazes Blazes album review
Mazes are a band specially built for pop music. Featuring ex-members of local mainstay’s the 1900′s and Office, their alchemically-rich musical brew hath emerged as some sort of folk-hipster-Voltron. You know? Like when five separate but cool musicians join together and form an even cooler & taller thing, except instead of wielding a space sword, it just walks around, whistling in dusted jeans. The band first trickled onto the scene in 2009 with the release of Mazes, their sweetly lo-fi [...]
Read more →
Joe Jackson – The Duke album review
A veritable music icon in his own right, best known for his original singles “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” and “Steppin’ Out,” Joe Jackson looked to another legend for inspiration for his new album, “The Duke”: Duke Ellington. On the record, Jackson covers 15 Ellington classics over 10 tracks with the help of some superstar cameos, including jazz violinist Regina Carter and members of The Roots. With such celebrated inspiration and notable accompaniment, “The Duke” has all the [...]
Read more →
Linkin Park – Living Things album review??
The editors at MVRemix are messing with me, I know it. Do they truly expect me to review the new Linkin Park record? What on earth can I possibly say about such a product? Linkin Park is a band specializing in the deservedly maligned genre of rap-rock, of course, and their new album LIVING THINGS is another tired contribution to the same. The problem isn’t necessarily that records like this sound as though the entirety of Mitt Romney’s campaign war [...]
Read more →
Everest – Ownerless album review
I was actually not familiar with the L.A. rockers Everest when I started listening to their fourth studio album “Ownerless” for this assignment and after listening to the album I can’t understand why I haven’t heard of them before. Full of classic rock guitar crunch with indie/alternative hooks and melodies, Everest are a definite band to watch. The opening track “Rapture” starts off this rock ‘n’ roll journey through a mixture of 60’s to 90’s influenced rock, through peaks and [...]
Read more →
Linkin Park – Living Things album review
If you like heavy riffs, angsty lyrics, rap/rock combo all set in a completely safe and edge free environment, then Living Things by Linkin Park is the album for you. Living Things is the fifth studio release for Chester and the boys, and if anything, they have to be admired for their consistency. Linkin Park knows the sound that made them famous and they are content to keep to that path. To be honest, not much negative criticism can be [...]
Read more →
Beachwood Sparks – The Tarnished Gold album review
Beachwood Sparks reinvent the mellow 60′s and 70′s folky aura with their newest, The Tarnished Gold, boasting a 14-track ode to whimsical, carefree music. The quartet, based in LA, have been wiped off the map for a shade over a decade, only to emerge once again with their third album. The Tarnished Gold is southern California in a nutshell, with a sprinkling of electric guitars and wailing notes that shimmer on the ears and paint a vision of sunlit snoozes [...]
Read more →
Katrin the Thrill – Evil Eye Charm album review
Katerina Panopoulou has paid her dues to the music industry. After years of playing solo gigs and mixing and matching band members, she settled in nicely with the right musicians and became Katrin the Thrill. This five piece band from Athens, Greece is set to release their brand new album Evil Eye on September 10, 2012, and promises to stay true to the alternative rock sound that they wear so well. While Panopoulou’s music has been compared to PJ Harvey and Radiohead, her vocal stylings give off [...]
Read more →
Hacienda – Shakedown album review
The problem, if you could call it that, with having a distinctive melodic signature, is that it is immediately recognizable even when the music is supposed to be someone else’s. Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach has produced all three of Hacienda’s albums and his influence is very evident in the track selection, seeing as he cowrote many of them. Big bass drumkicks, profound guitar riffs and medium-fast tempos blur nine of the ten offerings on their third release. Radio-ready, Veronica, [...]
Read more →
