Unfortunately, this aptly-titled fourth LP is their swan song, as the Chicago foursome has announced they’re breaking up after a decade together. Their finale is no going-through-the-motions phone-in, however.
When Portland, OR’s premiere experimental analog synth/clarinet duo, Golden Retriever, join forces with neighboring Pakistani-born folk singer, Ilyas Ahmed, true magic happens.
Guitars gnash, snares rattle, Bones sneers, and somewhere Rodney Bingenheimer’s ageless heart beams.
The production on this Copenhagen quintet’s debut full-length is not as crude or clamorous as on their self-titled 2013 EP, allowing you to fixate more attentively on the languid, interlocking guitars of Johannes Nidam and Jan Johansen.
Everyone Thinks I Dodged a Bullet is another strong exploration into heartache and scorn that proves once again why Greg Laswell is such a masterful, distinctive, and vital artist.
The protracted nature of this album perhaps weighs it down, melancholy is easier to receive in fits and starts, the ear and soul are easy to load down to the point of inertia. But, that too is something I’ve learned to respect in Odd Limbs. They are NOT inviting, they are simply dwelling within the somber and beautifully colored temple and it’s up to us to enter. Not being chased after by an aesthetic is refreshing, it’s brave and deliciously subjective.
London’s Witching Waves return with a second full-length of dark post-punk excellence sure to expand the trio’s fanbase beyond the confines of their home country.
For her 1980 sophomore effort, Parisian New Yorker Lizzy Mercier Descloux traveled to Nassau, Bahamas with the goal of bringing Island and African rhythms into her unique post-punk sound.
Chicago’s beloved Waco Brothers come roaring back on Going Down In History.
It makes sense for this Bucks County, PA indie-folk outfit to reinvigorate interest in their early 2015 album Shine by spotlighting the LP’s best song for this (ironically) winter-released EP.
On The Best Part, Nashville songstress Elliott backs her silky, sinuous singing with warm electropop, ambient and downtempo music. Meanwhile, “Black Heart” is by far her heftiest, meanest song yet.
“ Last of the Gentleman Adventurers won’t rock you like a hurricane, but its unhurried way of enchanting you with its cool, mellow vibes might just suck you in.”
For whatever reason, Modena, Italy indie-pop practitioner Marc Ed decided to record this newest album in his native tongue. Despite my not being able to understand a lick of the lyrics, I was hooked like a famished fish on one listen.
San Francisco-via-Memphis’ prolific Useless Eaters return with yet another genre bending burst of dark, synth-driven punk rock.
San Francisco, CA’s Scraper return with second full-length of pure punk rock negativity that’s sure to get your legs shaking and your beer drinking.
This Fort Worth, TX outfit’s third LP finds the band veering off into uncharted, yet stylistically kindred directions, notably in the evocative, unconventional, swampy country/blues-rock that dominates the LP’s first half.
Originally released thirty-six years ago, The Pop Group’s scathing sophomore effort receives its first proper reissue, unleashing their confrontational post-punk defiance on a new generation of budding revolutionaries.
The Heretic’s Bargain, is Rangda at its most eternal and precise.
Carpe Sonum does a valuable service by reissuing this mesmerizing 2005 second LP by this Colorado electronic/ambient trio, previously a vinyl-only release on the group’s Obliq label.
On this three-songer, the NJ foursome abandons the softer side displayed on their 2013 I Got You EP, sticking with the punk-fueled style of that EP’s hottest, most hard-hitting number, “Have You Been Saved?”
“Those of us in the know back in the 80s reveled in Miller’s slightly twisted sonics with shades of psychedelia, chamber pop, and power pop. Toss in new wave if it fits better, for none of these labels completely describes what Game Theory pulled off back in 1987.”
This Florida roots-rock foursome’s fifth full-length is a “concept” album that focuses on British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s fateful 1914-16 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition aboard the ship Endurance.
“Resident in those golden licks were traces of Bob Dylan, The Byrds, The Clash, Buffalo Springfield, The Everly Brothers, and The Beach Boys. They were also a mainstay in The Paisley Underground movement, along with Green on Red, The Dream Syndicate, and Rain Parade. By any measure, this was a band ahead of its time, and this retrospective is long overdue and welcome.”
Rise_ is Randell’s manifesto, lovingly presented and ostensibly recorded with blood, sweat, and tears.
Inspired to action by the tumultuous current events in their own back yard, some people in Greece assembled an epic transnational compilation, spanning the European continent and beyond, to benefit the Syrian refugees in the Dodecanese Islands.
Saddle of Southern Darkness is a surprisingly authentic folk recording that seems to have come out of nowhere, and it is certainly one not to be missed before it retreats back into the shadowy woods.
On this second full-length, Sheffield, UK singer/pianist Harker is more personal and soul-searching than on its more whimsical predecessor, 2012’s The Red Room. The result is an album that makes an impact almost immediately.
Ostensibly, the duo’s chemistry is well and clearly still in place, arguably more than ever before, because Between the Earth and Sky is one of their best releases yet.
“A familiar and relaxing trip through the softer side of psychedelic music, painted with warm washes of organ and charmingly accented English.”
Captain Beefheart/Jeff Buckley collaborator and prominent solo/session guitarist, Gary Lucas, rekindles his love of soundtracks with an enthusiastic tribute to the Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor cartoons that so shaped his upbringing.
An album of folk-inspired pop rock, the twelve songs imbue traditional troubadour’s tales with enough hooks to keep the listener humming along.
There’s a distinct *Lynch*ian feel to songs like “Loaded Gun,” proving that the whole EP would make the perfect soundtrack for a smokey, black and white film noir drama.
Swedish duo Animal Daydream offer more ’70s indebted psychedelic soft rock on their latest EP. It’s a candy coated 13 minutes chock full of buttercream thick production and a surprising lack of sticky hooks.
On Wabi-Sabi, Cross Record successfully generate something truly mystical.
The prog rock-rooted EP is predominately keyboard driven in a darkly whimsical manner akin to Peter Gabriel era Genesis.
The Dead C’s Michael Morley answers the criticisms aimed at 2010’s A Republic of Sadness (Ba Da Bing!) by pushing those perceived flaws even further into his new album.
Laraaji and producer Brain Eno expand the notion of “ambient” on Day of Radiance.
Just when you thought you were intimately familiar with every band to grace the CBGB and Max’s Kansas City stages in the late ’70s, another one emerges from the echoes to completely reorient everything you thought you knew.
This third LP places more emphasis on Phil Honey-Jones’s frenzied, feculent guitars, while featuring the six-year-old London band’s most fiery, forceful tunes to date.
“There is a strong attempt to differentiate and grow, instead of relying on the British-inflected folk rock that inhabits their early work. That style is here of course (“Lilac Man”, “The Defender”), along with the gorgeous harmonies this pair weave so effortlessly.”
When Brixton, England’s This Heat delivered their self-titled debut in 1979, few people heard it, but, thanks to radio DJ John Peel, they garnered enough attention to release two more studio recordings before eventually disbanding in 1982.
Cajoled out of self-imposed early retirement by a young Nancy Sinatra, Lee Hazlewood returned with his fourth solo album and first for MGM in 1966.
Deister adeptly mixes beautiful moments with the downright odd, turning the album into a captivating experiment in bipolarity.
Kinetic Tones is a glaring example of the talent of Justin Wright.
If this is what “emo” has become, praise the fucking music gods that these kids really know how to turn their emotions into living, breathing beauty in song. Beauty that can only come from pain and crushing struggle, you hear the tears, joy, depression and hope in every well placed line.
“It is unadorned but charming jangle pop with an obvious debt to the Velvet Underground, and really, what is wrong with that? Astor has a laid back voice with the same timbre as James Hoare, and the two blend together effortlessly.”
The lead single “Breaking Through The Walls” is a strutting, flashy blast of sleazy glam, influenced by bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Arctic Monkeys.
If there is a theme driving Wading The River, it can possibly be said to simply be a love of rock and roll, and a celebration of Stormy Mondays’ influences.
