Fran - "A Private Picture" | Album Review
Every moving piece on this album serves to complement and elevate the lyrics. In that way, A Private Picture takes on the surprising life as a blues record – granted, it doesn’t have the same sound of a blues record, but it certainly feels like one, with its tasteful instrumentation and intimate portrait of its narrator.
Buildings - "Negative Sound" | Album Review
For a band with a name like Buildings, they sure sound like they relish destruction. Like a rusted wrecking ball, the Minneapolis trio comes crashing into the end of the year with gusto and force. Fourth album Negative Sound updates the iron-flecked noise-punk they’ve been honing over the past decade.
The Flaming Lips - "The Soft Bulletin: Live At Red Rocks (feat. The Colorado Symphony & André de Ridder)" | Album Review
Red Death - "Sickness Divine" | Album Review
Red Death’s third album is a high watermark for the band, and crossover thrash generally in 2019. They’re a band that continues to flirt with iconoclasm as they define their own identity amongst a growing number of phenomenally talented punk bands, who arm the angry approach of hardcore with the ferocious sonic implements of our metal forefathers.
Deliluh - "Beneath The Floors"
A swirling pot of crooked hooks, haunting textures, and looming melodies make up Deliluh’s latest, Beneath the Floors. “Conceived under the gun” of an expiring visa and recorded in an old veteran’s hall, the album demonstrates their accomplishment in creating ten sinuous songs, working with what they had in the time they were given.
Banana - "Post-Grunge Revival" | Album Review
The “Intro” to Banana’s Post-Grunge Revival is the wall of noise you walk through as you enter this EP. In a movie, it would be the opening flyover shot, setting the scene for the heaviness that is to come. With it is a piercing melody that gives depth to the heaviness and breaks through it, much like Ursin’s lyrics in the ensuing songs.
Omni - "Networker" | Album Review
Omni’s Sub Pop debut represents the group’s best work to date as the band flexes their compositional prowess and demonstrates their growth as songwriters. The post-punk edge of their earlier work is still found on Networker, but their songs have a newfound sense of direction and convey a distinct feeling of progress.
Peel Dream Magazine - "Up and Up" | Album Review
Inspired by and echoing the theories of 20th-century Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht, the themes on Peel Dream Magazine’s latest EP, Up & Up, play out like “a little Brechtian play,” according to the band’s founder, Joe Stevens. In their press materials, Stevens continued,“ ‘Up & Up’ is literally about feeling manipulated by the theatre of crap art.”
Ducks Unlimited - "Get Bleak" | Album Review
The Raincoats - "The Raincoats" [Reissue] | Album Review
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The Gerbils - "Are You Sleepy" [Reissue] | Album Review
![The Gerbils - "Are You Sleepy" [Reissue] | Album Review](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56066cf9e4b0ffbc0fe62db1/1575521369766-AAQUW26AG7584GZUFJQG/a0566707334_16.jpg)
Just like a good horror or sci-fi movie, outside-the-box albums can make us see the world in new ways. While The Gerbils clearly took influence from The Beatles, Beach Boys, and 60s psychedelia, Are You Sleepy is a ramshackle pop record that defies genre boundaries in favor of catchy, weird songwriting.
Knocked Loose - "A Different Shade of Blue" | Album Review
Knocked Loose has ripped punk rock a new one, and now the rest of us can feast on the bounty of brutality they have wrought upon the scene. The first minute of A Different Shade of Blue sets the tone for the entire album with squalling feedback and a thunderous death metal groove at full gate, picking up intensity by dipping into a thorny breakdown only to emerge into a stumbling crawl through a razor lined corridor of regret.
Sweet Baby Jesus - "Discount Magic" | Album Review
It begins off-kilter, somewhat unsettled and stays for a moment but lays in quick: anthemic guitar work, yowling sax, and the chords changing on the last eighth of the bar (that classic anticipation and lift). And, my god, the vocals… Who is singing and who teaches one to sing like that? Such strength and wildness,
Gabriel Birnbaum - "Not Alone" | Album Review
The solo debut album from Wilder Maker frontperson Gabriel Birnbaum works in a familiar solemn folky vein with some occasional flourishes to brighten up the atmosphere. Not Alone forsakes the instrumental strength and orchestration of his band for a back to basics approach showing the strength and skill of Birnbaum as a songwriter.
Mikal Cronin - "Seeker" | Album Review
Mister Goblin - "Is Path Warm?" | Album Review
Is Path Warm? is both an easy and interesting listen, an album of catchy earworms and Elliott Smith-esque intricacies. Acoustic ballads seamlessly wedge themselves between punky bangers with a softer edge. Regardless of the tonal feel of a track, the lyrical depth of each song provides food for thought beyond the intrigue of the music itself.
Water From Your Eyes - "Somebody Else's Song" | Album Review
An imperfectly perfect pop record (or perhaps it’s a perfectly imperfect one?), Somebody Else’s Song subverts your expectations by changing itself from song-to-song, while maintaining its own distinct cohesive identity. It’s this willingness to throw a curveball that makes the record wonderfully cohesive.
