Rad Owl has released their debut EP, Alladin’s Castle. The bad news is there are only three songs but the good news is all are solid post-hardcore/ punk gems.
The Empire of Deception builds significantly on Westward’s debut album, and sets them up to be the latest torchbearers of the power trio tradition.
Needle Paw fulfills any Hiatus Kaiyote fan’s dream of hearing an MTV Unplugged set from the foursome’s mastermind, accompanied by an autobiographical music diary.
The tortured self-searching gloom Deradoorian applies to this collection of meditative pieces prove too unsettling to be filed under “easy listening.”
For eleven years, Michigan’s Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble has received deserved accolades for their interpretations of Steve Reich and Terry Riley.
Live at Lazybones captures something revelatory about Cullen, and it’s that as good as his studio albums may be, it’s very likely the best way to experience his music is live on stage.
The five guitar-laden pop-rockers on Gulfstream are emotionally potent while still connecting at the gut level, offering a promising start for a series of releases that extends into 2018.
“It isn’t exactly easy to pin a label on them, and maybe that’s the point. I suppose to start, it’s fair to say that they’re a psych influenced group. It’s the light and airy type, with dulcet harmonies and charming melodies winding around your ears. At other times, the group inhabits a similar art rock space to Radiohead.”
With the Amulet, Circa Survive offer fans a slightly softer [even] more atmospheric take on their unique mash up of alternative / post-hardcore/ emo/ prog rock hybrid. It is difficult to pick a favorite, as listening to this over the past month, each day brings a different top track, most likely tied to the listeners current mood or cycle of the moon.
New Orleans funk originators The Meters never saw mainstream success but are continually revered for their unique contributions to the genre.
In celebration of what would have been his sixty-seventh birthday, a third volume of Patrick Cowley’s unreleased electronic compositions pairs his famed gay porn soundtracks with demos for his seminal 1982 album Mind Warp (Megatone), plus a few archival recordings, into what is probably his most coherent posthumous collection to date.
It’s undeniable that Songs on Fire is more or less the artist’s debut album, and at times this naivety bleeds through, but it also remains a remarkably well-constructed product that is as catchy as it is dramatically produced.
After reissuing Nick Lowe’s first two solo albums in 2008 and 2011, respectively, Yep Roc have expanded their reissue campaign to include his entire ‘80s catalog.
Not About Nightingales has captured American folk music in a way that countless other musicians have failed to do, and with any luck, many of these songs will become standards in their own right.
Just in time for Samhain, Gundella’s classic obscure educational record about witchcraft sees its very first reissue for the millennium’s uninitiated.
San Francisco space cadets Turn Me On Dead Man return with their fifth offering of psychedelic interstellar metal.
Three years after their stellar eponymous debut, The Luxembourg Signal deliver a strong sophomore followup.
The Detroit post-punk quartet’s latest LP is largely indistinguishable from its predecessors for the best reasons.
The Clientele’s first record in seven years proves that they are still inarguably capable of elegance, but occasionally lapse into obscurity, or even worse, a retreading of old ground, playing into a law of diminishing returns.
“…savor their unique blend of trippy but dreamy sonic textures. They remind me in spots of Cocteau Twins and even Kate Bush, but in the end, they sound merely like themselves.”
If you’re sitting in a bar and the memories of a past love fill your head, Courtney Farren’s debut album Nothing Like It is a quiet voice that lets you know that you’re not alone. With straightforward lyrics, subtle arrangements, and gorgeous vocals she is the saint of the broken-hearted.
If Wizard rock, and the proliferation of Harry Potter bands in recent years is anything to go by, one can only hope the successive Shrek-themed musical acts are at least as half as talented as Shrek is Love.
German trio Mother Engine return with their third full-length of sprawling prog-inspired instrumentals.
Italy’s heaviest band delivers a sophomore monolith that makes them serious contenders in the global doom coliseum.
Save for a few moments of mastery, Electric Trim is a frustratingly uneven LP from modern guitar curator Lee Ranaldo.
Historically, music has been an extraordinarily potent form of rebellion.
Only time will tell whether The Stangs are a band born in the wrong time or if they’ll lead the charg of a new revivalist movement, but American Sessions will nevertheless stand on its own merits.
Paul Snowden, the brain behind London’s Time Attendant, returns with a new LP that successfully bridges the gap between glitch beats and Berlin school electronics.
“This is a sublime collection of post rock pieces, arranged meticulously and exquisitely rendered. Fans of post rock, ambient, and modern classical will greatly enjoy this release. “
Living Colour has released Shade and, sorry for the cliché, it rocks. There is nothing unexpected here and that is not a complaint as the thirteen tracks have the riffs, grooves, hooks, and beats found in their early days. The production is pristine mixing hard rock blues, funk, jazz, and hip-hop. Bottom line, if you need some rock and roll, don’t mind some tough talk lyrics, Shade is not to be missed.
Their second and latest album, Waltz to the World, is a strangely jazzy affair that combines various elements of both prog and left-of-center pop in a catchy yet artistic way slightly similar in vein to XTC.
If you’re willing – in a profoundly strange but fun way, Mountain Moves is the kind of album America needs now to begin the healing process, if that’s at all feasible.
With his sixth solo outing, VanGaalen mines his haunting production values to yield the same goofy brand of surreal yarns we know him for.
Roman power trio Fvzz Popvli celebrate fuzz their own way on a debut full-length that will likely leave many scratching their heads.
To anyone, it is immediately clear that Weezer is a large influence on Lochness Monster, but the band’s slightly more progressive and serious than the pseudo-heavy metal pop punk lyricism of Rivers Cuomo.
Alvvays have raised the stakes, brushing up on the handbook of pop and making the competent, forward-thinking, deceptively saccharine album they’ve been studying for.
Following several LP and song names that could double as entries in the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, they now fittingly bring us Orc.
Nearly two decades on, Brooklyn’s twelve-piece afrobeat ensemble Antibalas shows no signs of slowing down on its powerful sixth full-length.
Literature has been an inspiration for many musicians and bands. Susan Hwang and Charlie Nieland of Lusterlit have taken that to a honest and dreamlike place, on their new e.p., List of Equipment.
Before becoming a revered Oscar-nominated A-list actor, Will Smith was one half of a hip-hop duo who not only placed Philadelphia on the map, but also achieved wide mainstream success with the genre’s first double LP.
Tonight We’re Alive isn’t music one can analyze endlessly, which is exactly why this record sits firmly in the long tradition of corporeal rock and roll.
The record occasionally slips into territory that hints at a purely cursory glance at 1984, but Power remains a fascinating first glimpse at a trilogy that can only be fully appreciated at its eventual close.
There is a longtime specter haunting the Pacific NW; it is known in every garage and soul club.
Queens of the Stone Age return with their seventh studio album, Villains, and not surprisingly it swings, rocks, and grooves. If this is what happens when a well-paid producer combines with a band that helped define a sub-genre than who cares, let the beat go on.
Painted Ruins is such a reversal of Shields’ instant accessibility that although genius, its palette may appear alienating to some. To quote the lyrics of member Daniel Rossen, “It’s chaos but it works.”
Veseria is entirely comfortable combining elements of punk, rock, and folk, and they have never sounded more confident and relaxed in the studio, while showing an attention for detail that, thankfully, doesn’t entirely erase the band’s scrappier edges.
“It’s all about the emotion swirling through these compositions, and whether you call it post rock or dream gaze or even drop the term polymath in passing, there are multiple layers here on these long tone poems. For exquisite works of art they are, with stunningly gorgeous instrumental passages chock full of strings and horn sections.”
