Keiji Haino & Sumac - "Even for just the briefest moment / Keep charging this “expiation” / Plug in to making it slightly better" | Album Review
Returning not only to their incredibly long-winded album and track titles, but also to their improvisational, doom-steeped metal, Keiji Haino & SUMAC return with Even for just the briefest moment, an album split into four tracks, capturing the collaborators' behemothic live performance from Tokyo in 2017.
Haybaby - "They Get There" | Album Review
Summer Cannibals - "Can't Tell Me No" | Album Review
Can’t Tell Me No is the fourth full length from Summer Cannibals, now a quartet hailing from Oregon and although the roaring guitars and pummeling rhythms remain, this record shows a little bit more nuance in sound. Jessica Boudreaux’s songwriting maintains a certain toughness, but there is a bit more bounce and softening of edges.
Palehound - "Black Friday" | Album Review
Cave In - "Final Transmission" | Album Review
The first new album in eight years from beloved MA band Cave In should be a cause for celebration and in a way Final Transmission is still a chance to celebrate. Only, with the passing of Caleb Scofield who was tragically killed in an auto accident in 2018 the album has become the celebration of a life, an honoring and a goodbye instead of a return.
Ava Luna - "Pigments" | Album Review
Sebadoh - "Act Surprised" | Album Review
Act Surprised is the latest in the lengthy travails of beloved ‘indie’ punk trio Sebadoh, that has seen the band go through countless ups and downs in a myriad of ways. Sebadoh have had quite an eclectic career from the early ‘lo-fi’ albums of fractured folk and collages of noise, to a period of punk blasts and heart on the sleeve songcraft that garnered some acclaim
Dumb - "Club Nites" | Album Review
Gilliver - "Gilded Lily" | Album Review
For a debut album, it’s a doomy fist pump for those who wander and eat berries and work too damn hard just to get nowhere but the place you started. And already with two tours in their mullets, Gilliver is living their days out fixing up a school bus and farming up a dangerous cord of kindling for the next heart-shaker.
Sonic Youth - "Battery Park, NYC: July 4, 2008" | Album Review
Battery Park, NYC: July 4, 2008 is exactly what you can expect from a band that had recorded in 1987’s Sister and 1988’s Daydream Nation. In fact there are the characteristic evolutions of the noise that make Sonic Youth so lovable. Redundancies of melancholic feedback that tell of humanity in its highest poetic form of poverty and essentiality.
Jeanines - "Jeanines" | Album Review
New York City-based Jeanines are a duo comprised of Alicia Jeanine and Jed Smith who, together, make music that is equal parts wistfully nostalgic and strikingly present. Their self-titled, debut album for Slumberland - which follows the release of a few demo tracks, a standalone single and two covers - is a collection of razor sharp, 60s influenced indie pop.
The Glow - "Am I" | Album Review
Crumb - "Jinx" | Album Review
Katie Dey - "Solipsisters" | Album Review
Lungbutter - "Honey" | Album Review
Florida Man - "Tropical Depression" | Album Review
Cate Le Bon - "Reward" | Album Review
Pinch Points - "Moving Parts" | Album Review
In the midst of the melee of their opening number, “Ouch !,” Pinch Points announce, "Pinch Points are here." Maybe it's the Australian accent, or maybe their tone of voice, but you can't help but feel they're giving you the finger when they say it. That finger does not drop throughout all nine of the songs on their new album, Moving Parts, out on Roolette Records.
Choral Reef - "Gotta Get To Work" | Album Review
Jangly guitars, sharp hi-hats, and the sonic equivalent of that “Oh god, I shouldn’t have had that third cup of coffee” feeling come together flawlessly on Choral Reef’s debut EP. Appropriately titled gotta get to work, the tape energetically confronts the painful reality of what it means to be an artist in a world where your worth is often defined by what you do to make money.