Fran - "Leaving" | Album Review
Leaving is the second full length release from Midwest indie folk band Fran (aka Maria Jacobson), continuing on the path of heartbreaking longing and beautiful melodies powered by her stunning vocals. Jacobson's ability to weave entrancing tales is jaw-dropping, reinforced by the very compelling material throughout the album.
Strange Attractor - "Good Boy Bad Boy" | Album Review
Nighttime - "Keeper Is The Heart" | Album Review
Disheveled Cuss - "Into The Couch" | Album Review
On Into the Couch, the second LP under the Disheveled Cuss moniker, Nick Reinhart continues to stay weird in all the right ways. The album as a whole is flush with moments that bait you into thinking a pop hook or familiar change is on the way, yet he manages to zag at every zig, keeping both his melodies and thematic elements surprising.
Frankie Cosmos - "Inner World Peace" | Album Review
For Frankie Cosmos’ fifth studio album, growing pains give way to the shaky legs on which the indie-pop quartet takes its first steps into real life. After over a decade at work, their primordial beginnings as a home-based solo project are gone but not forgotten. Inner World Peace totes the patient deliberateness that comes with maturity.
PJ Harvey - "B-Sides, Demos & Rarities" | Album Review
Despite her prolific output, the PJ Harvey archives still boast plenty of rare and previously unreleased material to spare, enough to fill the 6xLP box set. B-Sides, Demos & Rarities, released last year to the delight of hardcore PJ Harvey fans, is all the evidence one needs to crown Harvey one of the greatest songwriters of her generation.
Che Noir - "The Last Remnants" | Album Review
Che establishes her values around family, the music industry, and people in general; she sets boundaries when she says, "Feed your brothers/When you eat your supper, don't eat with suckers" and means it. The vivid stories of The Last Remnants revolve around stories about family, tragedy, and a talented community ever-growing.
Lee Fields - "Sentimental Fool" | Album Review
Lee Fields is nothing short of a living legend. Dubbed “Little JB” for his likeness to James Brown, the singer continues to carry the torch of soul and funk on his invigorating 19th studio album Sentimental Fool. Fields’ latest regroups The Dap-Kings, lead by Gabriel Roth aka Bosco Mann, for a pointedly classic occasion.
The Lentils - "Ixnay on the Entilslay" | Album Review
Some Lentils albums feel stuffed and a bit frantic. Budget Alchemy was packed with brash horns and violins. Comparatively, Ixnay on the Entilslay is sparse and gentle. The majority of its nine songs lull the listener into a peaceful haze with simple and repetitive acoustic guitar ideas with often as little as a shaker to back it up.
Julia, Julia - "Derealization" | Album Review
Squirrel Flower - "Planet EP" | Album Review
Like most years that join the rear-view mirror, 2022 develops its hazy complexion. As it does, brilliant highlights cut through the fog. One of those lights is Squirrel Flower's latest record Planet EP. The self-produced effort, released last January, earmarks a chapter in the artistic career of Ella Williams that is worth exploring for its clarity of emotion.
Galore - "Blush" | Album Review
San Francisco's Galore certainly fall into the category of artists who have picked up on the “New Zealand” sound. Their initial album and particularly their latest five song EP, Blush, are brim-full of both catchy melodies and uncluttered, seemingly simple, guitar-driven arrangements, airy and full of bright melodies that stick to your ears.
Mind Shrine - "Is It You?" | Album Review
Sporting just seven tracks, Is It You? is fashioned after the incessant way that the human life is led. Much like how consecutive days unconsciously turn into weeks, each song exists distinctly separate from one another and still somehow, the tracklist can also be blended together into one mind-melting thirty minute trip.
Neil Young - "Harvest" (50th Anniversary Edition) | Album Review
Debuting in 1972, a year after the infamous 1971 year in music, Harvest was this country’s number one selling album of that year, and has remained Neil Young’s signature and most referenced album. It came off the heels of the first hiatus of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, with the success of Harvest coming as a surprise to Neil himself
EIEIEIO - "Gentlemen Stop!" | Album Review
Over the past few years, and a couple of EPs, Western Mass based trio EIEIEIO have been wielding their warped and wild noise punk mayhem, careening around gang vocals aided by jazzy freak outs, aided by math-rock flourishes. They continue to gel and deliver tastes of their world in a progressively intriguing manner with "Gentlemen Stop!"
Fievel Is Glauque - "Flaming Swords" | Album Review
Fievel is Glauque is led by Ma Clément and Zach Phillips, backed by an expert crew of musicians. Flaming Swords transports you back in time to a bizarro Parisian nightclub, where jazzy guitar chords mix with prog-rock licks, smooth saxophones squeal with angular bursts, shuffling drums flirt with breakbeat rhythms, and sultry vocals hypnotize.
Vivi Milne - "Solstice" | Album Review
All you can learn about Vivi Milne online is that she’s from Sacramento and that she’s released six albums so far, of which Solstice is the latest. That can be a double-edged sword if the music isn’t up to a scratch. Luckily for Milne and her listeners, her concept works, and it shrouds her persona, as well as her art, in a bit of a veiled mystery.
Chat Pile - "Tenkiller Motion Picture Soundtrack" | Album Review
What is most exciting about this endeavor is what it might say about the band’s future, through the foreshadowed new directions. There are nods to industrial and ambient music on “Bleeding Out,” shades of emotive post-rock on “Kids,” straight up death metal on “Punishment Box” and even subtle hyper-pop influence on “TAH”.
June McDoom - "June McDoom" | Album Review
The mingling of June McDoom’s distinct voices, as they blend with and overtake each other, is enjoyably discombobulating. It sets the tone for a daring and lovely debut EP that doesn’t just bounce between polarities, but actually unfixes them. This isn’t an acoustic, stripped-down-and-turtlenecked kind of debut.