Picking up right where Slot left off, the quartet pours gouts of psychedelic guitar over sturdy dream pop melodies.
My series on Middle Eastern black metal continues with a look at Oman.
Norwegian singer/songwriter RHYS MARSH follows up his lovely debut with a LP that is both more muscular and prettier than his first.
Some of the songs here seem like folk disguised with electric guitar, beautiful and personal in their expression.
Austin’s PEOPLEFOOD boasts a neat sound on its debut EP.
Another day, another band that sets the controls for the heart of the sun.
Despite its brevity, this disk is, to my ears, stronger than Finn’s debut.
Wasif’s work is marked by his deft melodies, tasteful six-string work and fragile, personable voice.
At once unique and familiar, Beat Circus take American music to exotic places that feel strangely like its roots.
The singer/guitarist’s latest solo record is a straightforward melodic rock & roll affair – nothing trendy or modern about it, thank goodness.
Manafon finds Sylvian continuing down the improvisational path, but backed by a gaggle of musicians from the jazz, pop and electronic worlds.
Tracks and Traces moves through evocative synthesizer washes and melodies that take the brain into a cosmos within and without.
Folk music, particularly the kind that evokes the dawn breaking over a clearing deep in the forest, is at the heart of the music here, but to call this a folk album would be misleading.
It’s kind of unusual for an album of covers to simultaneously be an artist’s most personal work.
Created and curated by producer/musician TOM DYER, Seattle’s Green Monkey Records operated in the 1980s and early 1990s, covering the city’s independent music scene.
The darker lyrical content may be typical for a sophomore album, but this is no sophomore slump.
From the ashes of retro-psych pop troop SILVER SUNSHINE rises the next logical step: the unabashedly prog rocking ASTRA.
Nile is at the top of his game right now, as good as he’s ever been.
At long last re-released with remastered sound and bonus tracks, 1980’s Crazy Rhythms and 1986’s The Good Earth get the chance to reacquaint their old audience with their glories and introduce a new audience to their charms.
My series on Middle Eastern black metal continues with a look at Jordan.
All Your Love is everything good about tuneful, ass-kicking rock & roll.
This is soul offering little uplift (some hypnotic grooves and the momentum built from insistent repetition) but plentiful painful catharsis.
Though Usher’s prior experience might lead you to believe this is a jangle pop record, it’s not.
Gloria is exactly the kind of record Younger’s been making for decades: an exciting punk & roll album with an arty edge.
Drums and Wires, released 30 years ago (August 17, 1979), initiated XTC Mark II.
Falling somewhere between the REMBRANDTS and the PETER HOLSAPPLE & CHRIS STAMEY records, Wonderwheel makes effortlessly enjoyable pop.
Washington D.C.‘s The Opposite Sex return with a dynamic EP, Live And Burn.
Swedish progressive rock quartet ANEKDOTEN has been around for almost two decades and released five albums, so it’s time to take stock with a two-disk compilation.
There are enough signifiers to remind you of a million other bands, but they fit together loosely enough to make direct comparison impossible.
Italian trio the JUNE trucks in unabashedly 60s-worshipping psych pop on its debut album Magic Circles.
My series on Middle Eastern black metal continues with a look at Syria.
The UNDERGROUND is essentially his fusion quartet, but don’t think that means it’s an ego-driven wank-a-thon.
That’s not to say there’s anything you’d call slick – tight professionalism is the antithesis of what made Sudden great.
Quick Fix Bandage is a warm bath of heartfelt, finely crafted folk rock.
The way the droning, slowly percolating textures are electronically treated is redolent of the fuzzy friendliness of laptop ambient, while the arc structures sound completely composed and their long, slow crescendos will sound familiar to post-rock fans, but with mirroring decrescendos instead of pounding climaxes.
The Seattle quintet’s punk-infused (but nowhere near dominated) sugar rush has more in common with, say, the REAL KIDS or the BOYS than JELLYFISH or the Big Deal roster.
The lure of two guitars, bass, drums and a batch of simple pop hooks remains irresistible to so many young men.
Man Overboard is a mature collection of tunes from a master craftsman.
It seems like a lazy way to put it, but if you dig “Our House,” the massive early 80s U.S. hit from U.K. darlings MADNESS, you’ll appreciate the band’s latest album.
New doesn’t have to be new, if that makes sense; or, familiar-sounding music is still new if you haven’t heard it before.
I continue my series on Middle Eastern black metal with a look at three Lebanese bands.
Bluesman BIG BILL MORGANFIELD is the son of the great MCKINLEY MORGANFIELD, better known as MUDDY WATERS.
Austin’s NEW ROMAN TIMES continues the American love affair with British guitar pop on its debut album.
Damron’s third record Father’s Day is full of characters on the losing end of life.
I continue my series on Middle Eastern black metal with three Isreali bands.
Following up their self-titled compilation of EPs, the New York/Australia quintet the MORNING AFTER GIRLS unleash Alone, as fully formed a debut statement as one could wish for.
They were basically a modern classical chamber group playing written music, but they played at rock clubs, and despite the unusual instrumentation Birdsongs rocked hard – in a looping, minimalist way.
It would be easy to fly the folk flag over singer/songwriter LINDA DRAPER‘s music. But that would belie her associations with outsider artists.
The New Zealand quartet’s seventh album isn’t as jangly as I remember them being; it’s a moody proposition with songs that require multiple listens to sink in.
Murdering Oscar shows Hood as having too many good songs to be confined to one project.
