Post Tagged with: "Reviews"
Iggy Pop – Apres album review
At 65 years old, Iggy Pop is up there with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan as one of the oldest people in rock n’roll. This is probably a weird position to assume in any industry (“Shouldn’t you have retired by now?”), but it’s especially so in one primarily concerned with youth. That awkwardness is multiplied when you‘re known primarily for two things: 1) being the frontman of one of the first punk bands ever and 2) extreme rock star [...]
Grouplove – Never Trust A Happy Song album review
Following in the footsteps of acts such as The Fratellis and Feist are Grouplove, the latest band to get a jumpstart courtesy of an iPod spot. With the success of tracks “Tongue Tied” and “Colours” already firmly cemented, the Los Angeles group emerged in late 2011 with their debut full-length offering, Never Trust A Happy Song. No matter how much the band claims to abhor happy songs, it’s apparent that they are by no means averse to upbeat tracks at [...]
Best Coast – The Only Place album review
First off, I love this kind of music: cohesive instrumentation, good production, ambient extras and most of all, sentient lyrics and harmony. New or old, it’s what speaks to my heart and mind and gets me to relate to what the artist is trying to say. Bethany Cosentino’s voice is mid-pitch comfortable on the ears, even in the longer-than-really-necessary refrains in songs like Why I Cry. The title track opens brightly, moving along and introducing Cosentino’s followup album to 2010’s [...]
mewithoutYou – Ten Stories album review
The stories of mewithoutYou’s new album add up to, in more ways than one, an incredible journey. On “Ten Stories,” lead singer Aaron Weiss’ lyrics tell the listener of a 19th-century traveling circus’s train crash. This type of pandemonious scenario plays perfectly to an experimental rock group, inviting an influx of screaming vocals and hard drum lines. But mewithoutYou embodies the story subtly, opting instead to begin the narrative, and the opening track “February, 1878,” with a spoken monologue over [...]
Hot Water Music – Exister album review
Exister, Hot Water Music’s first studio album release in eight years and first since the band’s hiatus and eventual breakup a year later, finds the group not too far from where they left off with 2004′s The New What Next. However, time away from the studio seems to weigh down the album heavily. In the opening riffs of “Mainline,” it is perhaps convincing that these punk rockers from Gainesville, Florida, haven’t lost a step; Hot Water Music’s trademark tumbling, spritzy [...]
Nick Waterhouse – Time’s All Gone album review
What year is it again? I thought I was living in 2012, but listening to Mr. Nick Waterhouse’s new LP Time’s All Gone makes me wonder if I’m off by a half-century and we’re really living in the hoary days of 1962, before anyone had ever heard of Lee Harvey Oswald or the Beatles or lysergic acid, like some PKD novel. Mr. Waterhouse is a musical retroactivist from sunny California who makes music evoking that innocent time, although evoke is [...]
Beach House – Bloom album review
Right from the start of the first song, Myth, sets the tone for the album Bloom from the musical duo Beach House. Haunting, low mixed vocals, hypnotic guitar riffs, and steady percussion move the listener through the songs of Bloom. Each song,each melody builds upon the growing atmosphere while remaining careful never to dimish or detract from the overll feeling. Thanks to the musicianship of both members of Beach House, Bloom is an amazingly consistent album. Victoria Legrand’s vocals remain [...]
Apollo Ghosts – Landmark album review
This album is fairly overwhelming in terms of sheer song-writing output; the irony lies in the fact of how short it is. In this, one finds and incredible strength. In this, one finds a certain weakness. The brevity of each track combined with the sheer amount of music presented causes the whole thing to blur together. That said, it’s completely enjoyable, and when time and attention are given to the task of engaging in passively focused reception, every track has [...]
Tenacious D – Rize of the Fenix album review
Tenacious D’s latest album, Rize of the Fenix, is exactly what you expect it to be: a sexual explosion of reckless clichés. It is hilarious, surprising but most importantly, fun. You play this album when you grill steaks with your friends this summer. Before the album was officially released, the music video for “Rize of the Fenix” was leaked onto Russian Youtube. The band’s response was to offer the music video for free to the US and Canada, then they [...]
Grouper – Violet Replacement album review
My introduction to ambient music came, predictably enough, from Bowie’s so-called Berlin Trilogy and Brian Eno. I decided pedantically one night while listening to “Moss Garden” that the essence of ambient music involves the suspension of time. For instance, ambient music subverts the listeners conditioned expectations concerning the future and present by creating a world that reflects the timelessness of the present as a clear pond reflects the blue sky. The repetition, minimalism, and length of ambient pieces are mirrors [...]
